EMERGENT, REFORMED, ORTHODOX, CATHOLIC [part 1]
(1240) 2nd KINGS 1- The king of Israel is on his roof in Samaria and falls thru. He sends his men to inquire from a pagan god whether or not he will get healed. On the way Elijah meets them and tells them because he sought information from a forbidden source, he will die. They go back and the king realizes it was Elijah. So he sends 50 men to tell Elijah to come and see the king; Elijah calls down fire from heaven and they get ‘sacrificed’. This happens with the second group of 50 as well. The third group comes and says ‘please, we don’t want to die like the rest, just come and see the king for heavens sake’. Elijah goes. He tells the king that he will die because he sought foreign gods and rejected the true God. In Luke 9 the disciples ask Jesus ‘do you want us to call down fire from heaven and burn them up, like Elijah did’? They treated the story as literal. Why did the disciples ask this? Jesus was going to Jerusalem and he sent two men to Samaria, the same city where the king of Israel was associating himself with. The people did not welcome him because he had his mind already set on Jerusalem. The whole history of Israel and Judah [northern and southern tribes] involved a debate over where true worship occurred. Samaria was considered a low class place; the people had little respect in the eyes of the pure Jew. Jesus disciples saw nothing wrong with the death of these Samaritans. Jesus told them that his kingdom was not about getting rid of the ‘heretics’ but redeeming them. It seems strange that the disciples would even contemplate the death of these ‘illegals’, after all Jesus is going around healing and helping people who are considered low class. He is trying to instill this mindset into his men, but yet somehow on the road to the Kingdom they see no contradiction in thinking that part of the process would include the destruction of a whole society of people. Many sincere Christians/preachers seem to make this same mistake in their treatment of Muslims/Arabs. No matter how theologically wrong a certain class of people are, yet their destruction is not part of the plan. Let me also mention the error that many well meaning Catholics have fallen into in my part of the world. Over the years I have had the privilege of working with lots of brothers who have come from strong Mexican/Catholic backgrounds. Often times they would see nothing wrong with going to a ‘Catholic fortune teller’ or hiring someone to place a curse on an enemy. The Catholic Church expressly teaches against this. There are many differences between Catholics and Protestants; one of them is the teaching of asking the saints who have died to intercede for us. The Catholic Church does not teach ‘praying to the saints’ in the sense of praying to God for prayer to be answered. Many Catholics and Protestants are confused about this, many do think that praying to the saints is like asking God to answer a prayer. The official Catholic doctrine is you can ‘pray’ in the sense that you are asking a believer who has died to ‘pray for you’. In essence the doctrine teaches you can ask a believer who has died to pray for you, because in reality they are still alive. Okay, I personally don’t go for this, but I get the difference. Here close to Mexico there is a superstitious mixing of saints with actual occult practices [Santeria]. Many Catholics have a misguided understanding of seeking these practices and thinking they are Catholic in nature. They are not. So in this chapter we see that seeking wisdom from a pagan/occult source brought death upon the king. I want to warn all of our readers [both Catholic and Protestant] that the official teaching of both churches condemns doing this, don’t do it!
(1239) CATHEDRAL OF THE MIND- I came across this phrase the other day while reading some church history, I liked the idea that it expressed. These last few years I have ‘weaned’ myself off of the standard preaching shows. But I have watched/listened/read from theologians, both Catholic and Protestant [primarily from the Reformed tradition]. I include Eastern Orthodoxy under the subtitle of Catholic [though they would see it the other way around]. Now, the Christian church has had a voice of justice to the nations for many centuries. The Catholic Church gets credit for having a system in place that can speak cohesively and with authority to the nations. The Protestant church has yet to achieve this type of unity. But there are many noble scholars and teachers from the Protestant tradition that the average Protestant is unfamiliar with. Most of the preacher friends I know and have fellowshipped with over the years have spent lots of time listening and learning from the popular media channels, the books read and programs watched are for the most part modern success teachings. Much of it is void of the gospel as seen in the New Testament. During the Reformation you had a transition from the ‘church meeting’ that went from sacrament/Eucharist as being the central theme of the meeting, to preaching/pulpit as becoming the center. While this was a noble attempt to get the average church goer back to Gods word, it also produced a passivity in the life of the average believer. He became accustomed to thinking worship primarily consisted of going to a building and hearing a lecture. So even though the ancient Mass had some problems, the New Protestant church service had some of their own. Now, the ‘cathedral of the mind’- the manifold wisdom that exists in the intellectual mind of the church is tremendous. But you really can’t access it unless you read and learn from the classics. There is a verse that says ‘son, cease to listen to the teaching that leads you astray’ the Christian needs to make a conscious effort to ‘cease to listen’ to some stuff. Now I am not advocating the boycotting of any contemporary preachers, but to truly become educated we need to choose wisely. Many of the Catholic voices have tremendous wisdom, but to listen to them you need to acquire a different type of ear. Father Groeschel says listening to the Protestant sermon is often like trying to get a drink from a fire hydrant. He doesn’t mean to offend, but I understand where he is coming from. To listen to certain scholars you need to develop a new intellectual capacity that contrasts the average way Protestants learn [the preaching of the word]. I do believe there are important doctrinal differences between Catholics and Protestants, that’s why I am still a Protestant. But many times Protestants are misinformed on some of these things. Bishop Fulton Sheen used to say ‘there are 10 thousand people who hate what they think is the Catholic Church, only a few actually hate the church’ while he might be overstating his case, I get his point. For the believer to truly understand why he associates with either the Catholic [Orthodox] or Protestant wing of Christianity, he first needs to develop an appetite for true learning, there are many areas of knowledge and wisdom that the average believer needs to become familiar with. God does not require all believers to become intellectuals, but he does want us to love him with all of our hearts, souls, minds and might. Do you love God with your mind?
(1238) PSLAMS 37- I have been meditating on this Psalm for the past few days, it speaks to our day ‘fret not thyself because of evildoers, for those who seem to prosper in what they are doing’. Recently we have had the political storm over ACORN, the community group who has it’s hands in all types of things. They actually have done some good in helping the poor, but the conservatives finally got them! What do you expect when your people offer help to a fake pimp and prostitute when they are looking for ‘housing’? Oh my, how have we fretted over the wicked. Or ‘a little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many wicked’ last night I was reading the bio’s of John Wycliffe and John Hus, the two great ‘pre-reformers’. Wycliffe preached/taught out of Oxford England and would contrast the riches and wealth of the Pope with the poverty of Jesus and his men. He taught the ‘true church’ were those who knew God and were part of the spiritual community of believers, not limited to any earthly institution. He would send his poor preachers out 2 by 2 and they would infiltrate England [they were called Lollards]. Hus would read the writings of Wycliffe and lead Bohemia down the same road. Hus preached at the influential Bethlehem church in Prague and also had influence at the university. These men believed that ‘the poverty of the righteous would go further than the riches of many wicked’. They truly turned their world upside down while rejecting the idea that we all need to become rich in order to have real influence. This Psalm says the meek will inherit the earth and delight themselves in the abundance of peace. The wicked might seem like he’s spreading out like a huge tree, but his efforts are temporary. Jesus said the kingdom of God was like planting a small seed and it becoming a huge tree, are you looking to plant ‘a huge tree’? We often view the kingdom thru God using us to gather great wealth and resources, organizing some corporation, and then this ‘huge tree’ will get the job done. Jesus approach was to gather these outcasts of society, invest his life into them, and his life, death, resurrection and example would become the ‘seed bed’ that would start a worldwide revolution. Don’t fret over what it seems like the ‘wicked’ are getting away with, just simply follow Jesus, your little bit can accomplish much more than the riches of many wicked [geez, ACORN was getting millions, but the church of Jesus has been helping the poor for 2 thousand years. I don’t know why we fret over this stuff!]
(1237) WHAT DOES ‘SOLA SCRIPTURA’ MEAN? During the 16th century Protestant Reformation you had the Reformers [Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc.] come down on the side of ‘sola scriptura’ which meant ‘the bible alone’. That is they felt the scriptures should have the final say in deciding the doctrinal matters of the church. Many modern Protestant groups have taken a wrong view of sola scriptura; they seem to think it means ‘solo scriptura’- me and my bible. What’s the difference? The historic Protestants felt the bible had the final say, but they also taught that the scriptures should be understood and read thru the historic framework of the church. That is the ‘sense’ that most believers have had when reading Gods word. Calvin would appeal to the past writings of Augustine and other church fathers when making his case. During the time of the Reformation you also had what came to be called ‘the Radical Reformation’ or the Ana-Baptists [which meant re-baptizers]. They rejected infant baptism and wanted to make a clean break from all traditional Christianity. The Magisterial Reformers thought they went too far, I stood at the spot in Zurich where Zwingli ‘baptized’ them in the river [he drowned them]. So as you can see there are various degrees of ‘sola/solo scriptura’. Is it possible to come to a right conclusion from reading the bible alone? Sure, most of my ideas have come this way. The problem seems to be when preachers/believers read things out of context. When reading any book, if you took a verse/sentence from one chapter and added it to another chapter. And then memorized all these sentences and put together your own meaning, then no matter how ‘well meaning’ the person is, he is going to get the story wrong. The Reformers believed it was important to read and understand the bible in the context of the wider church. Pope Benedict agrees, he said it was important to know how the whole church has viewed a particular truth thru out all time. These insights are important for our day. Is it possible for ‘all the church’ to have missed it on a certain subject? You bet, the point is when ‘the whole church’ begins to rise up and say ‘yeah, we missed it’ then you have true reform. Too often you find separated groups of believers who have grasped onto some truth, maybe it’s a real insight that others don’t see yet, but then they become isolated and their truth becomes a stumbling block. They often use their truth as the criteria to judge all other Christians. They will discount everything the other Christian groups have to say, because they ‘know for sure’ that they are wrong on that one particular doctrine. I think it’s time for the Protestant/Evangelical church to get back to ‘sola scriptura’; that is to read and believe in the bible as the final authority on doctrinal decisions, but to also have a working knowledge on how all other Christian groups see, or have seen these same truths.
(1236) 2ND CORINTHIANS 13- Okay, it took 13 days to do this brief study. Paul finished up his letter by telling them that God gave him authority to build them up, not tear them down. The message bible says ‘to not tear them apart’. Why say this? Because after 13 chapters [yes, I know the chapters are not in the original!] it sure felt like he wrung them thru a wringer. In Jeremiah 1:10 God gives him power to root out, tear down, uproot and also build up. If you read the exact wording Jeremiah does 4 ‘deconstructing acts’ and 2 constructing ones. It is part of leadership to spend more time dealing with the problems than doing the good stuff. Dealing with the problems is actually part of ‘the good stuff’. We spent a few weeks simply trying to look at the context of Paul and his relating to the Corinthians. How many good men and churches spend whole lifetimes quoting a verse or two from this letter, maybe during an offering time. Then applying it in a way that has people focused on money and wealth building [a verse like ‘he became poor so we might be rich’] and yet the verse is totally taken out of context. You might hear it a million times thru out your whole church going experience, and yet never really come to a sober understanding of the text. These types of problems [proof texting] are a major problem in the Protestant/Evangelical churches, good men simply losing their way. Paul was tough on the believers, but when he was thru with them they were much better off for it. The level of correction and reproof in the modern church is very low, we simply do not receive or listen to reproof. Those who wish to excel in their callings and purposes in God are those who listen and make the proper adjustments. Proverbs says reproofs and correction are the path to life. As I finish up another one of our many blog studies, I am not sure what we will do next, but as you read these brief New Testament studies, see them in context. Look at them as whole letters that have meaning, don’t just see individual verses. When you read these letters as a ‘whole’ you will stay on course and avoid the snares and weeds that may prominent preachers and teachers have fallen into, you will avoid the pitfalls of creating a story from a few chopped up sections of a letter. Seeing these wonderful New Testament letters in context will ground you in grace and keep you on course, in the end you will be built up on a good foundation. Like Paul said in his first letter to them ‘if any man build wood, hay, stubble- or precious stones’; the day of judgment will show what you valued the most. Those who take these letters and turn them into moneymaking schemes, or techniques for worldly success, they have built things that will burn up. Those who take these epistles and build their lives on Gods grace and the reality of the Cross, their lives will show good fruit that will not be burned up on the Day of Judgment.
(1235) 2ND CORINTHIANS 12- Before I get into a long history discussion with you guys, let’s hit a few verses. Paul says ‘when I was with you, did I gain a profit from you, take advantage of you?’ or ‘when I sent Titus, did he gain a profit from you?’ He then goes on and says the fathers lay up money for the kids, not the other way around. He says he has spent out of his own pocket for them, and he will continue to do so. He says he does all this so people won’t have the excuse ‘he’s just in it for the money’. Notice, Paul himself did not have the common mindset we see in ministry today. Often times financial appeals are made from Paul’s writings in Corinthians, these appeals often say ‘we are not asking for ourselves, but for you’ it is put in a way that says it would be wrong to not take money from people. That in some way not taking an offering would violate scripture. Paul flatly said he did not take money from them for personal use, nor would he. When the modern church uses Paul’s other sayings in this letter to appeal to giving, we need to share ‘the whole counsel of God’ not just a few verses that fit in with what we practice. Now, Paul speaks about being caught up into ‘heaven’ [Gods realm-Paradise] and hearing truths from God that were not lawful for men to speak. He states that God gave him truth that came from Divine revelation. If you skip a few pages over in your bible, you will hit Galatians. In the first chapter he says how after he was converted he did not confer with the other leaders at Jerusalem, but received teaching straight from God. Let’s discuss what revelation is, how we come to know things. The last few centuries of the first millennium of Christian history you had the ‘Holy Roman Empire’ which was a political/religious union of church and state. Under the emperor Charlemagne the territories of the empire were vast. Those who came after him did not have the same control over the regions that were vast. Eventually you had a form of rule arise that was called Feudalism; the sections of the empire that were too far to benefit directly from Rome would simply come under the authority of the local strongman [much like the present dilemma in Afghanistan, I think it’s time to get our boys out of that mess]. People would come under the authority of a ruler and he would lease out land to the citizens and they would benefit from his protection. The citizens were called Vassals and the land was called a Fief. At one point king John of England would do public penance in a disagreement he had with the Pope and all of England would become a Fief under the rule of the Pope. Now, this would eventually lead up to the development of the strong nation states, an independent identifying with your state/region as opposed to being under Rome and the papacy. This type of independence would allow for the 16th century reformation to happen under Luther. If it were not for Frederick the Wise, the regional authority in Germany where Luther lived, he would have never had the protection or freedom to launch his reformation. Luther also had the influence of being a scholar at Wittenberg. Around the 12th-13th centuries you had the first university pop up at the great cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. The word university simply meant a co-operative effort from two or more people. It applied to many things besides learning. It was also during this time that the church began to develop a system of harmonizing Christian doctrine; she began to do systematic theology. The writings of the Greek philosophers [Aristotle] were rediscovered after centuries of them being hidden, and the great intellectual Saint Thomas Aquinas would wed Aristotle’s ideas with Christian truth. This became known as Scholasticism. Aquinas believed that men could arrive at a true knowledge of God from pure reason and logic. But man could not know all the truths about God and his nature without ‘special revelation’ [the bible and church tradition]. All Christians did not agree with Aquinas new approach to Christian truth, the very influential bishop Bernard would initially condemn Aquinas over this. Bernard said ‘the faith that believes unto righteousness, believes! It does not doubt’. The Scholastic school taught that the way you arrive at knowledge was thru the continuous questioning and doubting of things until you come to some basic conclusions. These issues would be debated for centuries, and even in the present hour many argue over the issue of Divine revelation versus natural logical reasoning. Tertullian, an early North Afrcian church father, said ‘I believe because it is preposterous, illogical’ he became famous for his saying ‘what does Jerusalem have to do with Athens’ meaning he did not believe that Greek philosophy should have any part with Christian truth. Origen, his contemporary, believed the other way. So the debate rages on. Why talk about this here? Some believers ‘believe’ in a type of knowledge called ‘revelation knowledge’ they mean something different than the historic use of the term. Historically ‘revelation’ meant that which God revealed to us THRU THE BIBLE, not something outside of the bible. For instance, the first canon of scripture put together was by a man called Marcion. His ‘bible’ contained the letters of Paul and parts of :Luke. He believed the revelation God gave Paul was for us today, not the Old Testament or the historical gospels. He was condemned by the church as a heretic. The point being some took Paul’s writings about receiving knowledge from God as an indicator that what God showed Paul was different than what the church got thru the other apostles. In point of fact the things that God revealed to Paul, or to you or me; all truth is consistent, it will not contradict any other part of Gods truth. Paul’s letters are consistent with the gospels, not in contradiction. When believers cling to an idea that their teachers are sharing ‘special revelation’ or a Rhema word that is somehow above the scrutiny of scripture, then they are in dangerous territory. Paul did appeal to his experience with God as a defense of his gospel, but he backed up everything he said with Old Testament scripture. God wasn’t ‘revealing’ things to Paul that were outside of the realm of true knowable ‘truth’. You could examine and test the things Paul was saying, he wasn’t saying ‘because God showed it to me, that’s why I’m correct’. So in today’s church world, we want all the things we learn and believe to be consistent with what the church has believed thru out the centuries. Sure there are always things that are going to be questioned and true reform entails this, but beware of teachers who come to you with ‘revelation knowledge’ or a ‘Rhema word’ that goes against the already revealed word of truth.
(1228) 2ND CORINTHIANS 6- Paul tells them to not receive Gods grace ‘in vain’. He quotes a very popular verse among Evangelicals ‘now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation’. He says the Lord heard their prayer and ‘accepted/saved them’. Paul is referring to salvation in the sense that after his first letter, they repented, asked God for forgiveness and responded in the right way. Now in this letter he’s saying ‘look, God heard your heart. He has received you. Don’t keep repenting over the thing’. Paul also gives another list of his trials. He gave one in chapter 4, will give another one in chapter 11. I like the part where he says ‘we are unknown, yet well known’. In today’s Protestant/Evangelical churches, we are often ‘well know, yet unknown’. Let me explain. In Paul’s day he raised up quite a stir. In the book of Acts we see how when he was at the temple in Jerusalem someone finally recognized him and accused him. He wasn’t’ well recognized/known like we are today. Yet his writings and the communities of believers he was establishing were well known. People knew his message and gospel. Yet today, we have so many Christians who follow a cult of personality. They associate ‘the church they attend’ with the main leader. Often these men are well meaning, in some cases their public persona is known world wide. Yet the average viewing audience has no grasp on what they are teaching. They see our famous images [well known] yet what we are speaking is often irrelevant [unknown]. And last but not least Paul teaches what I like to call ‘an incarnational ecclesiology’- in simple terms, God lives in his people in a real way. The real presence of God in society is manifest thru his actual people. Often times the historic churches will emphasize the Eucharist as the way Gods presence is in the world. Some argue for ‘an incarnational sacramental’ view of Christianity. They teach that because God manifested himself in a material way thru Christ [the incarnation] that this principle continues today thru the sacraments that the churches practice. I respond this way; while this is true that God has/does manifest himself in real ways in the world, the primary method of him dwelling in the world in a real way is thru the people of God. Paul refers to us as Gods temple in the world. While the history of Israel in the Old Testament is somewhat liturgical, I feel to carry sacramental theology too far into the New Covenant misses the point. Jesus did give us the communion meal, and we do ‘show his death’ while celebrating it. But Gods primary means of ‘showing’ himself to the world is thru the charitable deeds of his saints. They will ‘know we are Christians by our love, by our love’. This theme is woven thru out the entire New Testament. Its’ fine for believers to have ‘sacred space’ [church buildings] to celebrate liturgy and traditional forms of Christian worship, but to keep in mind that we are the actual dwelling place of God in the world, we are his temple. During the first millennia of Christian history the church developed an idea that said because Jesus did come in the flesh, therefore it is now permitted to have Icons [special religious paintings that have special meaning in the Greek/Eastern Orthodox churches] and physical ways for Gods presence to manifest. The western church [Catholic] would struggle over this issue. One of the Popes would condemn iconography and some would destroy these religious paintings from the church buildings. Eventually an Orthodox theologian [I think John of Damascus?] would develop the theology that I explained above and the church would accept the practice of God manifesting himself in a special way thru religious objects. I personally enjoy the Catholic/Orthodox and traditional expressions of Christianity, but I think they over did it in this area.
(1227) 2ND CORITNHIANS 5- Paul speaks of the Christian hope- resurrection! This chapter can be confusing if not taken in context. You could think that Paul is saying when we die we have a house/room in heaven ‘waiting for us’ and this seems true enough. But he is really saying something more along the lines of ‘in heaven [Gods realm] we have a promise of a new body. The Spirit in us is the down payment, but full redemption will be complete when we are raised from the dead’ the hope is a new body, not our souls living some type of disembodied existence in a heavenly mansion. Now, Paul teaches us that this new covenant [last chapter] is one of reconciliation, not condemnation. That because of the work of the Cross, all men have been reconciled to God! It is therefore our job to tell them. In the field of Christian thought there have been thinkers [Origen, Carlton Pearson, etc.] who have dabbled with the doctrine of universalism. They believe that ultimately all people will be saved. I do not believe in this doctrine myself [though I wished it were true- I mean wouldn’t you want everyone forgiven and with God?] but those who embrace it find there reasoning in these types of verses. The New Testament teaches a theme of redemption that says ‘all men have been reconciled to God; Jesus has died for all men. God wills for all to be saved’ and it is because of this theme that some have held to universalism. The point I do want to make to all my orthodox friends is the New Testament message is one of total acceptance based on Christ’s death for us. Sometimes Christians ‘make it hard’ for people to ‘get saved’. The bible doesn’t make it hard, it says it’s a free gift that anyone can have [I know my Calvinist friends are upset right now, but heck I cant please all the people all of the time]. We want the world to know that ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself’. These major themes need to be engrained into the mind of the church and the world. I am not talking ‘easy believism’ in the sense that God requires no repentance, but I am talking the reality of the free gift based upon what Jesus has done. There are so many people struggling with so many things, many have prayed and pleaded with God for change. Many have given up; they see God as a demanding judge whom they could never please. The message of the Cross is ‘you can’t please God, make up for your own sins. God placed those sins on Jesus, that’s why you can be accepted’. He was made sin for us, who knew no sin. That we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Once you see this truth, God will set you free. You will change, you will become ‘righteous’ but it’s a result of the Cross, not your own efforts.
(1226) 2ND CORINTHIANS 4- In chapter 3 Paul said we are beholding/seeing God in an open way as compared to the old covenant. In this chapter he shows us how we ‘see God’. We see him in his Son. God has chosen to reveal himself to us thru his Son. One of the first Christian councils [after the one at Jerusalem in Acts 15!] was held in the 4th century under the Roman emperor Constantine. The reason was to bring unity to the church on the issue of Christ’s divinity. These councils played political roles as well as theological. After Constantine became emperor he established the great city in the eastern empire called Constantinople. This city [named after him] became both the theological and political seat in the eastern half of the empire. So you had both a religious and political competition going on in the empire. Rome, situated in the west, was feeling like she would loose her position if the eastern half started gaining too much influence. So you had differing reasons for these councils. But you also had sincere men who held to various beliefs at the time. The bishop Arius came to teach that Jesus was the Son of God, but not God himself. This created a stir in the empire and Constantine called a council to settle the question. The debates went forth, both views were discussed and classic Orthodoxy came down on the side of Jesus being God. Now, there would be more councils dealing with Gods nature and Christ’s role, but this was a defining moment in Christian history. The church [and the scriptures] teach that God became man [incarnation] and thru Jesus we ‘see God’. Paul also relates the many sufferings and trials he was going thru. He says he tastes death and bears in his body the death of Jesus. He simply does not give a picture of the Christian life that is common in today’s world. Many believers are taught that these types of difficulties and sufferings are a result of their lack of faith, or their inability to rightfully ‘access their covenant rights’. Paul refutes this doctrine strongly. Paul has already mentioned those who ‘peddle Gods word’ or who twist the scriptures for their own benefit. It always amazes me to see well meaning believers/teachers go thru the entire corpus of the New Testament and never see these things. It’s so easy for preachers/teachers to read the scriptures with blinders on. Here Paul taught that the many sufferings [both physical and spiritual] were an honorable thing, they were his way of sharing in the sufferings and death of Christ. They were ‘death in him, but life in you’ he saw his difficulties thru a redemptive lens. He says the present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us. The first verse of this chapter says seeing we have received this great ministry, we don’t faint. I like Eugene Petersons Message version, he says ‘just because times get hard, we don’t throw up our hands and walk off the job’ I like that.
(1225) 2ND CORINTHIANS 3- Paul defends his apostleship, he states he needs no letters of approval for them or from them. They are his ‘letter of proof’ written on their hearts. Paul puts more weight on the work of the Spirit in them as a church, than on written letters. I find this interesting; the historic church has been divided over the issue of how much weight should be placed on tradition versus scripture. There is some confusion on the matter; lets clear it up. First, the Catholic Church does not teach that there are 2 words from God, sort of like tradition is one word and the bible is the other. They believe Gods word comes to us in two forms/ways- both scripture and tradition. The Protestant reformers did not totally reject tradition, they are creedal churches! They simply taught that Gods word was the final arbiter in issues of faith and morals. I do find it interesting that Paul put more weight on the ‘fleshly letters’ [the church] than written ones. He also contrasts the Law of Moses [10 commandments] with the New Covenant in Jesus Blood. He says if the glory of the old law, which was fading away, was so strong that Moses had to put a veil on his face. Then how much more glorious is the New Law in Christ! Some feel that Paul was saying that Moses veil was covering up the glory on his face that was fading away. When Moses went to get the law, on his return from the mountain his face shown, some feel this glory/shining was beginning to fade and Moses put the veil on so the people wouldn’t see it fading. In context I don’t think this is what Paul was saying. The thing that was fading [passing away] was the law itself [see Hebrews]. Moses was not a vain man; I don’t think he was hiding the fact that the glory was leaving his face. All in all Paul says this New Covenant of Gods grace is much greater than the Old Covenant of condemnation. That in this New Covenant we behold Gods face openly, by the ministry of the Spirit. No more veil, we are changed by the Spirit of God and the work of Jesus. Paul says these two covenants are like comparing apples and oranges; they are in a whole different class.
(1223) INTRO, CHAPTER 1- Out of all of Paul’s letters, this one is the most autobiographical. This is Paul’s 3rd letter [some think 4th] to the Church at Corinth. There is a missing letter that we don’t have. Some scholars feel parts of the missing letter are in this letter [chapters 6, 10-13] either way, we know the letter is inspired and part of the canon of scripture. In chapter one Paul recounts the difficulties he went thru [and continues to go thru] for the sake of the gospel. Paul sees both his sufferings AND his deliverance as beneficial for the communities [churches] he is relating to. He says ‘God establishes/strengthens us and anoints us together with you’. Paul’s view of the church [his ecclesiology] is that God works with corporate groups of believers. His view on discipline is seen from this angle. In 1st Corinthians he says because we do not live to ourselves, therefore if one is in open, unrepentant sin, then commit him to judgment. Why? Because everything that one member does affects the others. I would not go so far and say that Paul taught ‘no salvation outside of the church’ but he sees salvation and Gods working with humans as a corporate experience. The Catholic Church for the first time in her history accepted other Protestant churches who confess Christ and his deity as ‘separated brethren’. This happened at Vatican 2 [1962-65]. The council explicitly taught the other churches were actually ‘churches’. They specifically used the word ‘subsists’ when describing their view of the church. They said the church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church in it’s fullness. They still believe that the fullest expression of Christ’s church on earth is contained within her, but they rejected the hard line doctrine that the church exclusively resides within her. They realized that God was working with all Christian groups/churches, not just one. I recently saw an ad in my local paper from one of the traditional Latin churches, these are the old ‘tridentine’ churches who observe the mass in Latin. The ad said that salvation is only in the Catholic expression of the church. I hate to correct my Catholic brothers [being I am a Protestant] but this language is not in keeping with the spirit of Vatican 2. Paul understood that God was working with him along with the corporate groups of people that he was relating to as an apostle. He will even teach that this dynamic can take place when they are physically separated, i.e.; he did not have to be in the same room/city for God to be working with them as a community. This is very important to see, it comes against certain expressions of local church. It also opens the door for other expressions of church, like ‘on-line’ communities. There are passages of scripture where Paul does say that whether he is with them in body or not, yet he is present in spirit joying and beholding their growth in Christ. Or he says word got back to him about their growth and he rejoiced in it. While believers should physically meet together as a testimony of their faith, yet the fact that there are occasions where this might not be possible does not mean that they can’t be joined together in spirit and truth. Peter says ‘you who were not a people are now the people of God. You who did not obtain mercy have now obtained it’. God ‘birthed’ churches [communities of believers] thru the apostolic ministry of Paul, these groups were both birthed and received mercy as a corporate event, they understood that they were brothers and sisters in Christ.
(1221) Lets finish up some thoughts on the book ‘surprised by hope’ [N.T. Wright] all in all I liked the book and brother Wright, but to be honest I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would. Wright is the very popular Bishop of Durham [Church of England] and has sort of a ‘cult’ following. Let me state a few things that I disagreed with [I have already written some posts on the agreement stuff]. Wright believes third world debt/economic imbalance is the number 1 moral problem of our time. He equates it to slavery and the holocaust, I would not go that far myself. He makes a strange case for a new type of epistemology [way of knowing things- it’s a philosophical thing!]. He calls it an epistemology of love; he challenges the ‘modern’ [as opposed to post modern] epistemology of Objective truth. He believes post modernism has shown us that you can’t separate objectivity and subjectivity, they go hand in hand. Grant it this is somewhat of a difficult discussion for a brief review, but this is an area where emergents would line up with Wright. He uses the example of Thomas and his insistence on Objective truth before he would believe in Jesus [Thomas says I will not believe unless I see it myself]. The next week Jesus appears to Thomas and tells him ‘see, go ahead and touch me. Here's the proof’! Thomas then says ‘my Lord and my God’. Wright uses this example to refute a purely objective epistemology. I think he’s contradicting himself on this one. All in all, he’s okay- but not as good as I thought [hoped?] One more thing, Wright does say that it’s obvious that the gospels have contradictions, I know where he’s coming from [Barth Erhman types jump on this stuff] but I personally don’t use this language. I prefer ‘discrepancies’ or ‘biographical literature standards’ to explain this stuff. Some pastors/believers are not familiar with the varying accounts of certain events in the gospels. There are some; one gospel says there was one angel at the tomb, another says two. One gospel says Peter will deny Jesus 3 times before the rooster crows once- another says before the rooster crows twice. There are a few other things like this that caused some to develop differing views on inspiration. Karl Barth [the great and influential Swiss theologian of the 20th century] developed an idea that said the early church practiced a form of ‘Docetism’ when teaching the infallible inspiration of the scriptures. Docetism is an early Gnostic cult that embraced Greek Dualism. The Greek philosophers taught that matter itself was evil, and that salvation/freedom comes to man when he separates himself from the material world. This view is not the Christian view. But early cults [Manichaeism] formed these systems where salvation comes thru God freeing man from all these levels of materialism. Docetism had a too exalted view of the Divinity of Jesus, in which it taught that Jesus was never really a true man, this view denied both the incarnation and resurrected body of Jesus. So, Barth said those who unduly exalted [in his view] the ‘divinity’ of scripture were making the same mistake. The liberal scholars tried to form views that said the scriptures do have mistakes in them, and this doesn’t mean the faith itself should be doubted. Barth made this defense in a well meaning way; it’s just not the historic orthodox view. So anyway I got the feel that Wright [as many noble and good scholars] might hold to something like this. Good book overall, just thought I should give both sides. NOTE- Most of the discrepancies in the gospel accounts can be resolved. For instance to say ‘there was one angel at Jesus tomb’ and for another gospel to say ‘there were two’ in itself is not a lie/contradiction. If I told you there was ‘only one angel’ then that would be a logical contradiction. So the reason I mentioned this is not to cause believers to doubt the scripture, but for them to be aware of both the problems and solutions to these types of things. Some believers go off to college and depending on how liberal the college is, they get attacked with stuff like this and many of them abandon the faith.
(1218) REMEMBER ALL THY OFFERINGS, AND ACCEPT THY BURNT SACRIFICE Psalms 20:3- A few years ago the Lord began showing me the concept of ‘accumulated prayers/alms’ [good deeds]. The medieval church developed a distorted view of this idea; they began to teach that the good works of the saints who have died are like a bank of good deeds [treasury of merits] and that when Christians die without being fully purged [made holy] that they go to Purgatory. In Purgatory they ‘do time’ in order to be made fully ready for Gods presence. Right before the Reformation the doctrine of indulgences became a hot issue among many Catholic scholars. These Catholic teachers disagreed with the churches position on buying the good works of the dead saints in order to lesson the time of their loved ones in purgatory. The famous priest named Tetzel was selling these indulgences and that was what sparked Luther’s Reformation. Now, is the doctrine of purgatory/indulgences scriptural? No. Is the doctrine of ‘stored up good deeds/prayers’ scriptural? Yes. In Acts 10 the angel tells Cornelius ‘your prayers and alms [good deeds] have come up as a memorial before God’ in Revelation the stored up prayers of the martyrs ascends up to God like incense. Our good deeds and prayers do not earn us salvation, but they most definitely affect things. James says the fervent effectual prayer of a righteous man avails much. John says that when we walk in holiness then we have confidence that God hears and will answer our prayers. Doing good is very important, not ‘religious’ ceremonial goodness, but religion as defined by James ‘visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction and keeping yourself unspotted from the world’. These are what ‘alms-deeds’ mean, works of charity. I find it interesting that 2 conservative Catholic scholars of the 20th century disagreed on the doctrine of purgatory as a waiting place after death. One was named Rahner, the other one was Ratzinger [Pope Benedict]. During the Reformation you had a Catholic group called the Jansenists [the leader was a priest named Jansen]. They held to the doctrine of Predestination [like Luther and Calvin]. They rejected certain forms of Catholic teaching; when the practice of devotion to the ‘Scared Heart’ of Jesus was introduced, they called it ‘cardi-olatry’ [idolatry and cardiology combined]. The point being you have many intelligent Catholic scholars who disagree with the official stand of the church. Even though the doctrine of purgatory is unbiblical, yet the concept of our accumulated prayers and good deeds going up to God as ‘a memorial’ [sort of like when Nehemiah prayed- ‘Lord look upon my sacrifice that I have made for your people and reward me’. Or Hebrews ‘God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love which you have showed toward the saints’] is biblical. We certainly don’t earn salvation or merit grace, but to say to God ‘remember all your offerings and accept thy burnt sacrifices’ is okay.
(1217) THE VOICE OF THE LORD IS UPON THE WATERS: THE GOD OF GLORY THUNDERETH: THE LORD IS UPON MANY WATERS Psalms 29:3 Last night I was watching the news, I was doing something at the time [reading?] but for whatever reason I was listening and not looking at the screen. I heard a reporter asking one of the ‘tea party’ protesters about his views. As I listened to him speak against the socializing of the country, his disgust over the free hand outs and all, I thought I recognized the voice. As I looked up, it was Larry! One of the first homeless buddies I met in Corpus. He went West quite a few years ago, haven’t heard from him in a while. Larry was really smart, he had a couple of old boats, an old ice cream truck and an old school bus scattered all over the Bluff [where I live]. One of the boats was a small 10 footer, he had it at some boat dock, the thing was probably worth around 20 dollars. Every day he went and pumped the water out, it was funny. I had this old Datsun 280 zx that I bought during an early mid life crisis; I blew the darn motor in it. I was gonna junk it. Larry saw that I had an extra junk car sitting in my yard, I bought it for the wheels for around 100 bucks. He said lets put the engine from the junker into the good car. Sure enough we did it in a couple of days; pushing the cars under my garage doorway, using a bumper jack and chain as a lift. Pulling engines out and dropping the good one in, I could have never accomplished it by myself, he was a talented brother. He looked a little like Ted Kaczynski [unibomber] scruffy hair and beard. He looked exactly the same on the news show, I think Larry worked about five days the whole time I knew him, yet he was protesting Obama’s socializing of the country and the free handouts, stuff like this is too funny to not write on. Okay I read more from Wrights book [surprised by hope] he brings out the biblical basis of the believer’s hope, which is the resurrection, not heaven. He is correct on this. He traces the roots of Western thinking all the way back to the ancient philosophers [Plato]and shows how the Greek belief in the ‘immortal soul’ did effect the thinking of Western Christianity and eventually made it’s way into the church thru the medieval influence of men like Dante [his inferno] and other beliefs on purgatory and so forth, Wright is an excellent scholar and historian. He does quote the verse I used when first defending against the concept of ‘soul sleep’, the famous verse from Paul ‘to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord’ he rejects soul sleep and teaches the correct doctrine of a believer being in Gods presence at death. Wright, like myself, does not see the future hope of the believer as ‘going to heaven when you die’ but correctly teaches the hope of a resurrected body and a new heavens and earth. He also correctly shows how immortality of ‘the soul’ is really not a biblical doctrine. For as long as I can remember, I have always believed that immortality referred to the resurrected body of believers and not to the soul/spirit. I have heard/read many good men speak of it as pertaining to the soul, Wright correctly shows us the biblical view. When I first read his defense a while ago, I was a little confused when he used an argument from scripture that immortality belongs ‘only to God’ and his argument that the ‘immortal soul’ was a Greek doctrine not founded in scripture. The reason I was a little hesitant when I first heard him make this argument [reading on line a few years back] was because I heard the same exact argument made by the 7th day Adventist church in their defense of soul sleep [the view that the soul is unconscious at death until the resurrection] but Wright has clarified that he does not accept this view. He also rightfully shows us that in scripture the divisions of ‘soul/spirit/body’ are not as clear cut as many modern Protestants teach. Over the years I have often heard the famous verses on the soul ‘receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls’ ‘he that corrects a sinner from the error of his way saves a soul from death’ [James] and in Hebrews ‘the word of God dividing asunder soul and spirit’ there is a very popular teaching that relates the three ‘parts’ of man with the Triune nature of God [Father, Son and Spirit] and tries to say that when the New Testament speaks of ‘soul’ it is speaking of mans emotions/will, and that the spirit and body are two other things. This really is not biblical, the two verses I quoted from James are speaking of the whole man, not his emotions/will only. This is a wrong teaching that many have embraced because of a low level of education in the pulpit [to be frank about it]. Which gets me to my final point, to all my Pastor/leader readers, try and read/listen to university level scholarship as much as possible. Avoid leaving the radio-TV on and hearing hours and hours of teaching that is really not high quality, it will affect you in a bad way. I called a ministry a few weeks back to order a special offer from the scholar/theologian who is the teacher. The cd’s were lectures given in a university classroom from a real theologian [not the guys running around with honorary doctorates!] I did have the chance to do something I have been wanting to do for a while. The offer was whatever gift you want to give to the ministry [money] you can give and get the cd’s. The poor sister asks me ‘and how much will you be donating today for the cd’s’ I of course tell her ‘I will be donating one penny’ she is silent for a few seconds until I tell her I’m just kidding. The point is try and read/listen to scholarly stuff as much as possible ‘the Lords voice is upon many waters, it thunders’ when God speaks to you thru the collective voice of the church triumphant [in heaven- I mean read the works of the saints who have died!] and the church militant [on earth] then you are hearing his voice over the ‘many waters’ the various communions that make up the corporate people of God, Gods wisdom resides in her.
(1216) lets try and do a few things; first, I read a few more chapters in Wrights book [N.T. Wright] and as much as I really like his writing, I do have a few problems with some of the ways he states stuff. He kinda tries to walk the middle road in the area of the second coming and the physical nature of it. He does say he believes in the real second coming and that it did not happen yet. He does teach that Jesus is ‘in heaven’ [Gods realm] physically- good. But he also says stuff like ‘when Jesus ascended you don’t believe he lifted off vertically from the planet’ [actually I do!] or when Jesus comes back it wont be like some spaceman descending out of space [well I know he’s not a ‘spaceman’ but I do believe he will come from ‘out there’]. It was statements like this that caused me a little concern in the past. He also states that he is not a full Preterist, and distances himself from those who tried to claim him as one. But you can hardly blame them, he really does at times sound like he is one [Preterists believe the second coming happened in a.d. 70- it’s a long story] Wright empathically says he does not believe that. Yet he says all the statements from Jesus on ‘his coming’ do not refer to an actual second coming in the future. But he believes Paul and other New Testament passages do teach a real, literal second coming, but that Jesus never spoke of it. To be frank, I think brother Wright opens up the door to all the accusations and confusion that some people have about his position. I still like Wright, he is an excellent N.T. scholar and 1st century historian, but I think there are some problems with his views on the second coming. He definitely states he believes in a real, physical second coming. But instead of it being ‘Jesus coming down from somewhere’ it will be more like ‘Gods realm [heaven] joining our realm’ and at that time he will physically be with us. Well I do believe that at the second coming ‘both realms unite’ that at that moment we will have a ‘new heavens and earth’ I just don’t see the point in Wright’s language when he seems to make light of the physical aspects of Christ’s return. I also agree with him 100% about the New Testament not teaching a ‘rapture’ he rightfully shows us that the ‘rapture chapter’ [1st Thessalonians 4] is the same as 1st Corinthians 15. There simply is no ‘secret coming’ taught in the New Testament [some will be caught by surprise, but it will be no secret!] All in all I like Wright, will continue to read him, just thought I needed to mention these points. Okay, let’s turn to politics. The climate in the country continues to be really bad at this time [9-09] I watched MSNBC show over and over again a picture of a man toting a sub machine gun on his back at some Obama town hall. Of course this is dangerous and nuts! The problem is Chris Matthews portrayed it along with the mindset of ‘see these white skinhead radicals, these racists who are against change’ his whole rant against the people opposing Obama is done in this vain. Sure enough, another news organization showed you the full picture of the man with the gun on his back; he was a black man. Why mention this? Stuff like this, purposefully not telling the whole story, or taking an incident and being dishonest about it to prove your point, this stuff creates racial tensions all on its own. There is no need to try and fabricate a scenario in order to make it fit your story. There are enough real nuts in the country for the news media to not have to fabricate stuff like this, to make the audience think that the ‘gun man’ was an anti Obama ‘right winger’, he obviously was not. Those who oppose the president should do so on purely political grounds, those who support him should take the same view. To be against or for a person because of their race is wrong, very wrong. But people should not feel intimidated if they want to oppose him for the right reasons. When the country sees this type of race card being played, this breeds a type of racism all on its own. Did the bill being floated on Capitol Hill fund abortions- you bet it did! I know the denials have gone forth vehemently, Obama himself publicly said that his position in national health care would include provisions for women’s reproductive rights; he was point blank asked this question. In no uncertain terms he said it would. But after the heat hit the fan they of course would not say it like this. In essence the proposed bill would have included language for ‘women’s reproductive rights’ but because the term ‘abortion’ was not specifically stated, the politicians said ‘oh no, those who think abortion is in there are misleading you’ they lied to you. So let’s try and pass what both sides agree on; pass laws on making it illegal for an insurance company to drop you if you get sick. Provide funding for those who can’t buy insurance and try and get everyone insured. Do tort reform. Get the stuff done that can get done, don’t create all types of problems by bringing up ‘reproductive rights’ there are too many people [Democrats and Republicans] who are truly opposed to abortion in a fundamental way, leave that language out. And for heavens sake, if the media has a picture of a man with a gun strapped to his back, don’t portray him as some white skinhead, especially if the guys black!
(1215) BE WISE NOW THEREFORE O YE KINGS, BE INSTRUCTED YE JUDGES OF THE EARTH- Psalms 2:10 This is the psalm that speaks about the rulers of the earth trying to cast off the restraints of God and ‘his anointed’. Scripture says God will have them in derision; he will laugh at their stupidity. This reminds me of the atheistic enlightenment philosophers, men who embraced ‘rational thought’ and supposedly would not believe anything unless it was ‘scientific’, men like Nietzsche and Freud who felt like the problems with man were the restraints that the church put on people. Freud taught that the reason mankind suffered from so many ailments was because the church and religion put these Victorian restraints on man and that these false restraints [like not sleeping around] were the root cause of mans problems. So Freud tried to ‘cast off the restraints of God and his anointed’ he taught that man should fully embrace sexual freedom and do whatever he wanted, the result- total devastation of mans psyche [and body]. God had them in derision. Getting back to N.T. Wrights book that I’m reading [surprised by hope] Wright brings out a great point, he shows how the materialist [those who say they will only believe things that can be proven scientifically] are contradicting themselves when they reject the resurrection and historical claims of Christianity on these grounds. Wright shows that every one of them accepts all types of historical facts that can not be proven ‘by science’. Let’s see, do you believe in Lincoln? Or say the civil war? There are tons of non scientific historical events that people believe all the time, one time events that are nor repeatable and can’t be proven by the scientific method. He makes a good point. The rationalists said ‘we will only believe in reason, not in faith’ this is a false view of faith. Pope John Paul the 2nd said ‘faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth’ [Fides Et Ratio]. To believe in God, and to be reasonable/rational go hand in hand. The atheist claims to only believe in things that can be proven, yet the claims of Christianity [the death and resurrection of Christ] have more historical/rational proofs then any other historic event in history, the historical method used to examine things shows us that these things did happen, for real! Just because an event is a one time supernatural event, this does not automatically make it ‘irrational’ or untrustworthy. If the event passes the smell test of historical inquiry [which it does] then it is as ‘believable’ as any other historic event in history. You see, God said those who try to cast off the restraint of God and church would make fools of themselves, that they would think they were wise when they were fools. I think this is a good example.
(1214) YOU WILL NOT LEAVE MY SOUL IN HELL, OR ALLOW ME TO DECAY- Psalm 16:10 [my quick version of it!] This verse is quoted in Acts 2 and 13; it speaks of the Fathers promise of resurrection to the Son. Being I am reading Wright’s book on the resurrection at this time, I thought it good to talk a little. Wright lays out a good historical argument for the resurrection of Jesus. He shows how the liberal belief that the disciples ‘felt a real spiritual change after Jesus died’ wouldn’t cut it in a society that had other messianic figures rise and later be killed. The fact that these others stayed dead was a sure sign of their failure. Wright goes and gives a little parable on how the followers of past dead messiahs would have never gotten away with ‘let’s claim victory for our movement, even though our leaders died’. Good point, but the skeptics could point to Muhammad in the 7th century to refute this. But I get the point. Also, when I say ‘liberal theologians’ on this blog, I am speaking of historical liberalism, not the truncated view that certain fundamentalists hold to; you know, those who view liberalism thru the lens of what bible version a person uses, or whether or not you hold to certain end time scenarios. These views are not what I mean when speaking of liberals. Classic historical liberalism is a tag that gets put on those who begin denying the physical resurrection of Jesus and other fundamental truths of Christianity. So both Catholic and Protestant groups are not considered liberal, unless they deny the basic fundamentals [i.e.; you are not liberal, in the classic sense, just because you embrace the sacraments or other disagreements between Protestants and Catholics]. Now some liberals have done some good. The 19th century liberal scholars- Van Harnack and Albert Reitschal [I know these names are spelled wrong, but no spell check can fix stuff like this] challenged the development of historic theology by promoting the view that because the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the New Testament in Greek, that the early councils and systematic theologians lost the feel for story/narrative because they allowed Greek philosophy to influence their creeds and councils. They would point to the fact that much of the language used to ‘dissect’ the three persons of the Trinity was borrowed from the Greek philosophers and stuff like that. They argued that the church should return to her Jewish roots as seen in the Hebrew culture and begin ‘telling the story’ once again, as opposed to getting into the technical aspects of Greek language and thought. Now, were they right? Partially, in my view. But the problem with their view is it did not fully appreciate the fact that the New Testament did come to us thru the medium of the Greek language. So just because the Hebrew language is short on detail and long on story, this does not mean that the church also needs to be ‘short on detail’, because our New Testaments are in Greek. But they did make some good points. So anyway God promised Jesus [and us] that he would not leave us ‘in hell’ or allow us to corrupt/decay. The early church most certainly believed in the physical resurrection of Jesus from the grave, though the liberals have some good things to add to the conversation, some of their ideas are down right lethal.
(1213) MY EYES ARE EVER TOWARD THE LORD, HE SHALL PLUCK MY FEET OUT OF THE NET- Psalms 25:15 There’s a verse that says ‘our souls have escaped like a bird out of the snare of a fowler’. I hate snares, here where I live we have these lawn stickers, you know the type that when you walk in the house they stick all over you. You usually don’t know they are there until you take your shoes off and step on them. Proverbs says that when you walk by the house of the sluggard the weeds and stuff have overtaken it, the wall is broken down. God delivers us from these snares, he ‘plucks’ our feet out of the net. When you’re in a net you can’t pull yourself out. It’s not a matter of strength or effort, its gravity! You basically need an outside source to act on your behalf. That’s what we call original sin and substitutionary atonement. I just started N.T. Wright’s book ‘surprised by hope’ I think I am going to like it. He lives in England and is sharing from a ‘beyond the pond’ perspective. He already has laid out the case that the hope of the believer is resurrection, not evacuation! He will challenge the traditional belief of heaven as the goal, and speak about resurrection and how it relates to the here and now. That is when the church embraces a view that sees the departed soul in heaven as its goal, then we have a tendency to neglect the kingdom here and now. I get the point, and also see how Wright would appeal to the emergent brothers, but I have read Wright on line in the past and felt like he might go a little overboard in the ‘soul sleep’ category. These are the groups that believe the soul is in a state of ‘sleep’ or unconsciousness at death, and at the resurrection it reunites with the body again [true enough] and ‘wakes’ up back into a conscious state. This is not the classic/orthodox view, though some ‘Christian’ groups embrace it. The New Testament most certainly teaches that ‘to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord’ [Paul] and ‘he had a desire to depart [die] and be with Christ which is far better’ [Paul again]. So let’s see what happens in the book, I do like his approach and style, as long as Wright doesn’t totally abandon the present, as well as future hope of the church. We have the assurance that no matter how difficult things get, no matter how many ‘nets/snares’ we have to deal with, that the lord will ‘pluck us from the net’ our hope truly is in the Lord, are your eyes ever towards him?
(1211) LIFT UP YOUR HEADS, O YE GATES; AND BE YE LIFT UP YE EVERLASTING DOORS; AND THE KING OF GLORY SHALL COME IN. Psalms 24:7 God sees us as his temple, his city, his vineyard. We all have ‘gates’- doors, areas where we have been ordained to function; people groups who make up our parameters. God put Adam in a specific setting, he placed him in the garden and told him to take care of it, watch over it. Many animals would come and go and dwell within its borders, there was even a 4 lane river that flowed out of it. There was much activity in the garden; Adams job was to maintain the garden. The other aspects would basically take care of themselves. Over the course of Christian history there have been times when Gods garden has lost her focus, become haphazard and full of weeds. At these times he raises up people/movements to help bring her back into shape. Around the 7th century you had a man named Benedict start the first monastic order, the Benedictines. He would establish the famous abbey at Monte Casino; these monasteries would eventually become centers of learning and wisdom for the people of the time. In the 13th century you had the Dominicans and the Franciscans. Around the time of the Reformation you had the Jesuits, a brother named Ignatius left his wealth and former life as a soldier to found these ‘soldiers for God’. The Jesuits would play a major role in the scientific revolution, the percentage of leading scientists who were Jesuits was very high compared to their numbers. They would send missionaries into Japan and make the first inroads for the gospel. They would be persecuted and martyred in a famous city, they were crucified on the sides of the road as a witness for their faith. The name of the city where this happened was Nagasaki, sometimes the previous acts of violence that a society permits opens up the door for all types of future bloodshed. These movements arose out of a sense of the people of God losing her way, the church becoming rich in goods, but not in spirit. So God raises up people/movements to tell his people ‘lift up your heads o ye gates- look to me again and I will come in’ there are times when the garden lost her luster, the Lord didn’t simply plow it under, he allowed those who were tilling her time to get her back in shape. I think it’s time for all of us to ‘lift up our heads/gates’ so the king of glory can come in, he is a strong king, mighty in battle. When he comes in [thru our praise] then a banner of war is lifted up against the enemy, victory will not be far behind.
(1210) SAVE THY PEOPLE AND BLESS THINE INHERITANCE. FEED THEM ALSO AND LIFT THEM UP FOREVER- Psalms 28:9 I guess I will hit a few scattered Psalms, these last few weeks I have been reading the Psalms and trying to add a verse to memory every day or so. Sort of praying/meditating on them like the famous ‘Jesus prayer’. The Jesus prayer is an ancient simple prayer that says ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner’ but you actually say it all day long until it becomes part of your psyche. So these single Psalms can be used in this way. Okay, God wants to feed his people and bless them, Jesus told Peter ‘if you love me, feed my sheep’. In the 20th century you had the famous existentialist/atheist philosophers like John Paul Sartre and Albert Camou, these guys sought for purpose and meaning thru philosophy but wound up as nihilists [no hope] because of their rejection of God. Sartre would say ‘man is a useless passion’, Camou would say the only question left for philosophy to answer was the viability of suicide. The famous atheist Antony [Anthony] Flew, who has now become a believer in God [Theist], used to use a parable about a garden to challenge belief in God. He said man and his religious quest is like men who are journeying thru a forest and all of a sudden they come upon a garden; it is manicured and detailed in every way, it ‘appears’ to be a product of a designer. But then flew said as the men look around for the gardener they can’t see him, they then espouse all types of ideas about the master gardener. They come to various conclusions; he must be all knowing, very talented, transcendent- they develop views about this gardener/God that in Flews mind were just as silly as saying you might as well have no gardener at all! Flew thought if believers came to all these ideas about God, what’s the difference whether you believe in a God or not? The obvious answer is ‘then where in the world did the garden come from’. The challenges to Christianity, Theism, Deism try and convince people that there really is no purpose to your existence, you are a ‘useless passion’ you came from nowhere and are heading nowhere. Initially, this philosophy sounded liberating to those who embraced it. Sort of like telling the kids that schools out and you have no more teachers to listen to. But when you embrace this form of meaninglessness, you can not then try and instill purpose and meaning into people. Sartre and Camou rejected the foundational basis for man to have meaning in life, they tried to tell man ‘look, here is the purposeful garden, but it came from nowhere’. After many years of Anthony Flews insistence that there was no gardener, the evidence that caused him to change his mind was the evidence of design. He kept telling himself ‘there is no gardener’ and realized he was trying to convince himself of a lie, he knew he was logically wrong. He has since joined the ranks of those who now seek to know more about the master gardener.
(1209) Okay, in the last post I was kinda hard on Deyoung. I said I wouldn’t write any more posts on it unless there were some real surprises in the last chapter of the book. Well, lo and behold, in the last chapter Deyoung gets saved and admits the error of his way! [Not] Well actually I want to end my critique in a nice way. I did go to ‘church’ yesterday and on my way out heard someone call my name. As I turned I saw it was a former church member of my original church that I planted in the 80’s. She was married to one of our main guys, was the daughter in law to one of the original drug addicts that we worked with [who died a while ago] and was the daughter of one of our faithful women preachers [ordained by Joel Osteen’s church when Joel’s father was pastoring] all in all we have quite a history together. We had a good talk; I asked her how long she’s been attending, around 4 months. She introduced me to her young family [she has a few young kids, the ones I knew from the early days are all older [20’s] but these she described as a new crop]. I was real glad to see her, glad to see she had her kids in church and all. I wanted to mention this because the last chapter of Deyoung's book [why we love the church] was pastoral and came from a concerned heart. Deyoung is writing from the view of a pastor who has been reading all these emergent books, with titles like ‘velvet Elvis’ ‘blue like jazz’ ‘blue steel’ [oh wait, that’s a Ben Stiller character!] names that make me want to say ‘what the hell does this mean’ [sorry] when browsing thru the book store. Many of these types of books have espoused real heresy, denying central truths of the gospel and stuff like that. Deyoung, as a good pastor, also sees the danger of many believers thinking its fine to just drop out of church all together and simply meet at Starbucks. I understand his concerns and they are sincere. To be honest I have never read any of the emergent books with all the strange titles, my first emergent book will be Mclaren's ‘everything must change’ that is here sitting on my shelf [just remembered, I read Tony Jones sacred way] the point being I have come to rethink the usual model of ‘local church’ thru years of personal experience, reading scripture, and reading the works of those who teach on the organic expressions of community/body life. I don’t come to the table having overdosed on a bunch of theologically questionable authors [which is the feel I get when reading Deyoung, he has researched and read all these books in a short period of time, and it’s natural to blast the whole bunch of them in one shot]. So I too was glad that a past friend of mine was ‘back in church’ and had all her kids in the cool looking youth groups [boardwalk stuff, Noah’s ark theme, cool things that mega churches do] so as an ‘ex-pastor’ I understand Deyoung’s concerns. There is always the danger of Christians just dropping out of community all together and leaving all expressions of meeting as believers and praying and sharing the common meal and continuing in the apostle’s doctrine; all important things that Christians should be doing. My main disagreement was the limited concept of the traditional Sunday meeting as being the actual ‘local church’. This theme is engrained into the minds of many well meaning believers/pastors and is quite unbiblical. So any way this really will be my last post on the issue, unless something really big happens [like say Deyoung flips out and makes the headlines by cursing out Obama at a town hall meeting, then yes I will write one more post!] I am not sure what we will do next, I’m finishing up Luke and going thru Psalms, kinda hitting some high spots. Tune in tomorrow and let’s see what happens.
{1208} yesterday I went to my daughter’s ranch house to work on her A.C., it was over 100 degrees in the direct sun. I thought I threw my tee shirt in the car, but couldn’t find it. I worked in a long sleeve black shirt, wound up taking the whole darn thing apart [in direct sun at noon!] and felt like I got some heat exhaustion. So, it was in this environment that I finished [almost finished] the book ‘why we love the church’, boy do I have some major disagreements with Deyoung’s fundamental view of church. I think his view is very limited, I think it’s unbiblical and I almost don’t want to recommend the book at this stage [contrary to my earlier endorsement]. I was not sure if I should try and go thru some quotes and refute them, this mode often turns into a ‘he said, you say’ type of argument and usually does not convince either side. Let me simply hit a few things; page 110 ‘I do appreciate church as staged drama’ [quoting someone else] page 164 ‘the Body of Christ becomes visible to the world in the congregation gathered around word and sacrament’ [quoting the great martyr Bonhoeffer] 166 ‘you and your buddies who never ‘go to worship services’ are under no ecclesiastical authority’ 168 ‘the office itself [pastor] is not to blame’ then quotes Ephesians 4:11 to justify the modern office of ‘the pastor’, and on pages 132-135 his overall view of the crusades, well I simply wrote ‘unbelievable!’ on the margins. I always found it untenable when someone quotes the actual interaction between Paul and his first century ‘organic, communal, mystical, house churches’ in order to justify the institutional church against the ‘out of church’ church. Many learned scholars have looked at the term ‘pastor’ in Ephesians 4 and none of them [learned!] believe that this term defines the later development of pastor as the head of a local congregation who ‘administers the sacraments to the people in the building on Sunday, the Lords day’. Which reminds me of Deyoung's use of John ‘on the Lords day’ in the book of Revelation. He believes John was speaking of Sunday ‘the Lords day’, this term more than likely is speaking of the great dramatic view of revelation and of course Jesus future coming as well as the whole period of conflicting kingdoms and Jesus final great victory. ‘His day’ simply speaking of Jesus victorious time period. Some see a set period of wrath as ‘the Lords day,’ to see an early ‘Lords day’ as Sunday as church day from this verse is ridiculous. And the overall argument that Deyoung makes about Christians ‘leaving church’ and trying to be Christians ‘without church’ is simply a huge blind spot of Deyoung. He tries to say [or says] that because the word ‘church’ [ecclesia] means assembly [true enough] that those groups who practice community without ‘church building, liturgy, offices, etc..’ are trying to ‘be the church without the church’. Yet every single New Testament church in the bible, according to Deyoung’s view, would be ‘the church without the church’. Needless to say I disagree almost 100 percent with his view of what the Ecclesia is. This will probably be my last entry on the book [unless the last chapter has some major things that need to be addressed] Deyoung’s view of church is important for all to see [emergents, out of church believers, etc.] it is probably the basic view that most well meaning men would use to defend the traditional view. I believe this view to be very limited and fundamentally disconnected from scripture and the first century churches described in the bible. For the record, in a few hours I will be ‘attending church’ at the mega church I attend here in Corpus. I also appreciate the historic church tremendously, I agree with Deyoung [and Kluck] on the bad attitude that many in the ‘out of church’ movement have towards the historic church. I just think Deyoung went way over board in trying to say that ‘the Sunday church meeting, in the church building, with the liturgical sacraments being administered by the ecclesiastical authorities’ is what church really is. I see this view to be extremely limited and disconnected from the Ecclesia’s spoken about in scripture. I simply believe Deyoung has got it wrong. [If you think this review was too tough, just imagine if I wrote it yesterday with the heat exhaustion!] Note- To be fair Deyoung does say that you can ‘have church’ without the building, as long as you have the offices, liturgy, etc. Sort of like saying if you move the entire Sunday liturgical drama into the basement, then yes you can ‘have church’ without the building. I simply disagree with his entire view of ‘having church’.
(1206) CASH FOR KLUNKERS AND KLUCK- Okay, I mentioned a few weeks back about the cash for klunkers program, I thought it was a bad idea. A day ago the govt. officially scrapped the plan. Dealers all over the country were decrying the red tape and bureaucratic hoops that they needed to jump thru to get their money, they started dropping out. I also read a story in the paper how many used car dealers were losing their normal used vehicle flow; some actually went out of business. One guy said ‘what about all my customers that needed the $3,ooo dollar cars? Where can they go for the cars, the govt. is crushing them at their expense’ in essence the people who were smart enough to trade in their $1,ooo dollar cars for $4,500 were not the ones who were really struggling financially, these folks had enough to finance new cars at the publics expense, the public tax payers were footing the bill, and losing the used cars that they needed to meet their needs. Wow, and you want the govt. to run your healthcare. Okay, I read a few more chapters of ‘why we love the church’ Deyoung [Pastor] and Kluck [sheep- he attends Deyoung's church] take turns writing their own chapters, just like their first book. Kluck shares a story about being at a Pastors convention, all the good preaching and a few top notch evangelicals. He shares from a sincere perspective how all these men are sincere, how they were encouraged to get back to expository preaching in ‘their churches’ and he gives a few examples how ‘at his church’ they have a time when everyone gets a chance to talk every few months, you know a service of testimonies. And how it usually is not the most edifying thing in the world, but he appreciates it when his Pastor [Deyoung] is prepared and teaches a good old expository message. Okay, I think I too would appreciate attending a theologically reformed church [I don’t] and probably would like hearing good in depth stuff, but these examples show me that Kluck and Deyoung are dealing with a different type of thing than the organic church movement is trying to address. They are basically saying the ‘churches’ on every corner are a good thing, the stable preaching from the heritage of fine pastors over the years has served a noble purpose, but they don’t seem to realize that the New Testament concept of church [Ecclesia] is much different than this. Now, I too think lots of good men have pastored noble ‘churches’ and have served the Lord well. I too think many emergents have stepped over the line and have fallen into the category of heresy, questions on the Atonement and stuff like that. I just get the feel that these brothers [Kluck and Deyoung] are addressing certain issues, while probably not fully seeing the other side. The whole idea of ‘churches on every corner’ [a critique that the authors made of another author] and defending that mindset is really not biblical. While the example used, that the ‘churches on every corner have done a good job’ was understood, yet this idea of buildings on every corner, as separate ‘local churches’ where the main form of community is sitting in a room every Sunday and listening to a sermon, as noble and well meaning these expressions are and have been, yet this very concept is being challenged by the organic church movement. It simply is not biblical to see all these fine church buildings, with fine Pastors and parishioners as ‘local churches’ in the biblical sense. So, without re-teaching everything I have already taught over the years, I appreciate these authors’ skill and honesty in their writings, but I think they are not fully seeing the other side.
(1205) THE LAMBS TABLE- Jesus has the meal with his men, he tells them because they have stuck it out with him thru the temptations he is appointing to them a kingdom just like his Father did with him. They will rule [exercise authority] over the 12 tribes and ‘sit with him at his table’. A few verses earlier Jesus said ‘the hand of him who will betray me is at the table’. I want you to see that ‘the table’ is a reference to the communion of the saints that Jesus brings into existence by the breaking of his Body and shedding of his Blood. Jesus was more than likely telling the disciples ‘because you guys have stuck it out, you will be the first tier of leaders in my new kingdom [the church] and will sit at my table in this kingdom [a type of the communion table]’. Now, he just gave them a lesson on what it means to exercise authority in his kingdom. He told them the world exercises authority over people by being in charge of them, ruling over them. But Jesus says he is among them as one who serves, that authority in the kingdom means you will serve others and give of your life for others. Truly the apostles will go on to found the great church of Jesus Christ thru much difficulty and suffering, none of them held the honor of a 4th century bishop in Constantine’s Rome. So the picture of them having authority at the table in his kingdom can very well mean the church. Now, I do not discount a real [literal] future application to stuff like this. I know I have riled up all my dispensationalist friends over these last few years, and I fret every day because of this! [Not] But I do realize that many good Christians read these verses and do not apply them in this way, that’s fine. My job is to show the other points of view and allow believers to come to their own conclusions. I like the Catholic scholar Scott Hahn, I don’t agree with everything he says, but I like his teaching on the book of Revelation and the ‘Lambs Supper’. Scott sees the prophetic significance of the kingdom and the church meeting around the communion table thru these images. It’s a glorifying of the Lamb type of a view, as opposed to seeing the anti- christ on every page. I disagree with Scott’s application of these truths when he applies them only to the Catholic faith. I like the idea of seeing ‘the lambs Supper’ as a glorious view of the communion of the saints of all ages, I would just give it the broader application of applying to all the saints, not only Catholic ones. Jesus told his men that they continued with him in his time of trial, because of this they would have authority in his church. I think this is a lesson for us all.
(1204) There was this man stuck on a deserted island, he was there for 30 years. Finally one day he saw a ship pass by and he started a fire to signal it. When they came to his rescue they saw that he had made 3 huts. They asked him what they were for; the first one was his house, the second was his church. What about the third one? Oh, that’s the church I used to go to [you have to be a Pastor/ex-Pastor to get his one]. I am about 1/3rd thru with the book ‘why we love the church’ [Deyoung, Kluck]. While it’s too soon to review it, let me make a few comments. First, I really like these guys a lot, I read their first book [why we’re not emergent] and will stick with their journey for now. They write from an informed historical perspective. Unashamedly Calvinist [like myself] but yet cool enough to challenge the other cool guys [emergent cool]. I don’t know if they did a chapter on ‘ecclesiology’ [their view of local church] but it would be helpful if they did/do one. They do a great job defending the historic gospel, they defend the ‘church’ and all of the great things the old traditional ‘churches’ have done over the years. They rightfully take the emergent crowd to the woodshed on their willingness to reject certain historic claims of Christianity. But I think they do not really see the legitimate challenge to the church as community versus the people who ‘go to the church on Sunday’. I think their voices are important to hear, and everyone who is reading the organic church stuff should read these guys, but I am not sure they fully see the biblical idea/concept of church as community in the New Testament. In their noble efforts to refute those who have gone too far in other areas, they might be missing the truth of the Ecclesia as defined in scripture. Okay, enough said. Jesus is eating the Passover with the disciples, he tells them he will not eat/drink with them again until the Kingdom of God comes. Was he speaking of a future restoration of nationalistic Israel and his eating the restored Passover/Communion meal at that time? I don’t think so. After Jesus rose from the dead it was important for the ‘witnesses’ [disciples] to have seen testimony that Jesus rose bodily from the grave. He tells Thomas ‘thrust your hand into my side’ he eats with them on a few occasions. He was showing them he was really alive. John’s gospel is the only one [I think] that mentions the blood and water coming from Jesus side after being pierced on the Cross. In John’s letters he speaks of the blood and water as a testimony. John also says that they were testifying of the Son, who they saw and whose hands have handled. John was combating the soon to rise Gnostic/Docetist heresies that would doubt the physical resurrection of Christ. They would say he was ‘a phantom’ [spirit]. So, why did Jesus emphasize his eating with them ‘when the Kingdom came’ [after his death and resurrection]? I think he was giving them a sign/truth that he was physically coming back. They still did not fully grasp what he was going to do, there would be some who would doubt that he really died and rose [see 1st Corinthians 15]. He was telling them that he was really going to die and really come back from the dead. The whole Christian faith stands or falls on this single reality, Paul said ‘if Christ be not risen then we are of all men most miserable’. Jesus said ‘don’t worry guys, when I come back we will eat again’.
(1202) I hit Barnes and Noble yesterday, picked up; 1- everything must change, Mclaren [couldn’t find generous orthodoxy] 2- surprised by hope, N.T. Wright [the one on justification was there, but felt this one would be better] 3- why we love the church, Deyoung and Kluck [I liked their first one, ‘why we’re not emergent’ they seem to be filling in the role of countering Viola, Barna] and last but not least 4- will Catholics be left behind, Olson. I have heard him before, he is an ex fundamentalist/evangelical and defends against the dispensational model of eschatology. The reason I wanted to mention these books is not to show off, but I want to encourage our readers to get a broad depth of what’s going on [and has gone on] in the Church worldwide, the current trends if you will. I of course realize that these few books don’t cover everything, but they challenge us to think and read from a broad based perspective, hearing what the Lord ‘might’ be saying thru other groups of Christians. Okay, lets hit one verse, in Luke 21 Jesus says as the times of judgment draw near, be careful to not fall into three traps; 1- Overeating 2- Drunkenness 3- excessive worrying. I find it interesting that Jesus mentions excess and worry as traps that believers need to avoid. How do these fit together? I finally started a subscription to the San Antonio paper, I’ve been running our blog ad in there for a while and got tired of picking the paper up every other Saturday to make sure the ad was running. I also get the Corpus paper delivered. Sure enough they did an article on one of the major prosperity ministries in the Fort Worth area, they were holding some meetings in the area. They were critical of course, quoted the main speaker ‘God has ways to get the money to you’ spoke on reassuring the audience to give, don’t let fear keep you from giving. One trucker who was in debt said he came to test God because he really needed to get out of debt. The whole environment was money focused, the article mentioned how many millions the ministry brings in annually. Jesus said fear and worry lead to excess, wanting ‘excess food, drink’ or creating an overabundance to kind of be your safety net if things go bad. Paul said we live in the world, but we use the things in it [money, material stuff] without abusing them, we don’t center our lives around wealth and investing like the unbelievers do. Sure we can be responsible and knowledgeable in these areas, but don’t make it your God. After reading the article in the paper you got the feel that the Christian group who was holding the meetings were joined by a common bond of wealth, that is the desire to make it, talk about it, focus on all the scriptures and techniques to get it. And of course at the end of each sermon they would be challenged to ‘give it’ these types of environments are focused on the wrong thing. Jesus said beware of excess, beware of letting the cares and worries of life lead you down a road where you are trying to find security in your portfolio. God will meet your needs, don’t get me wrong, but the focus should be on God, not on getting our needs met.
(1201) In Luke 21 Jesus tells his men that there will come a time when they will be persecuted and brought before the authorities as a testimony. He tells them not to pre meditate what to say, but that the Spirit will speak thru them. God will supernaturally give them ‘a mouth [ability to communicate] and wisdom’ [something worth communicating!]. In Isaiah 8 the word says ‘take a great scroll and write in it with the pen of a man’ in Jeremiah 36 the Lord says ‘take another scroll and write in it all the words of the first scroll’. God historically has communicated truth to his people. Our bibles are like ‘2 scrolls’ if you will, all the words that were in the first part [Old Testament] were brought forth and revealed in the 2nd part-scroll [New Testament]. God has communicated much to his church; Isaiah was to write on a ‘great scroll’ lots of good stuff. Now, we [American church] have a tendency to master one part of the verse that says ‘mouth AND wisdom’. We have all the techniques down to get our message out, we know how to teach the verses that talk about ‘sowing into this ministry for a harvest’ and we communicate this type of limited message to the nations. I recently wrote an entry on how the Latin American countries have been inundated with this type of TV message, and many preachers proclaim this limited message over and over again to the masses, we have mastered ‘the mouth’ part. There are many African churches who have read the Gospels and New Testament and have come to reject the American success gospel. They came to this conclusion by their own reading of scripture, yet the American gospel mastered the techniques of broadcasting a limited message into the country. The natural indigenous church has come to rebuke us. We had the ability/finances to communicate, but lacked wisdom. In the 5th century [452 to be exact] Attila the Hun and his hordes marched up the Danube and struck fear into the hearts of the people, he seemed to be this unstoppable force that would make it all the way to Rome and topple the seat of the Western Empire. The emperor sent a party to try and reason with him, Pope Leo would personally speak to the raider and turn him back from sacking the city [though it would fall a few years later under Geaseric]. How could a simple Pope, without military might, stop a man that no human army could stop? God gave him ‘a mouth and wisdom’ he obviously spoke something that touched the mans heart. I think the American church needs to trust the Lord for more wisdom to go along with ‘our mouth’. We simply speak/communicate much too much, we have too much to say and not enough depth in what we say. We have churches in other countries who have been hurt by the tremendous immaturity of the things we are teaching them. These fellow believers have rebuked us and told us to please stop teaching this materialistic gospel to their nations. We desperately need both a mouth and wisdom to go along with it.
(1198) GET OFF THE TRACKS! Jesus said the stone that the builders rejected became the head of the corner, the chief cornerstone. Whoever falls on the stone will break, but whoever the stone falls on, watch out, you will be ground into dust! Jesus said this in the context of Israel rejecting him as the Messiah. Christians are notorious for making the main thing a side issue, and then making side issues the main thing. In the history of Christianity there have been numerous times when the Lord used people to encourage radical change in the church. Right before the 16th century Reformation you had a sort of pre reform movement. The English scholar/clergyman John Wycliffe headed up a strong teaching ministry out of England [14-15th centuries]. He had such a strong influence on the population that during the Catholic repression of his movement many people died all over the country. Wycliffe taught the basic New Testament doctrine of the mystical church, he had said that the true church consists of all the spiritual children of God, whether they are part of the institutional church or not. He did not claim that there were no believers in the Catholic Church, but he resisted the idea that God had placed the sole authority on the earth within her. He rejected the Petrine doctrine of the Pope. His books were eventually condemned and he died for his position. Then you had John Huss, the Bohemian reformer [modern day Czech Republic] who also headed up a strong movement in his land, he was a student of the writings of Wycliffe and many local Bohemians supported him. He too would eventually be killed for his position. A few years ago the Catholic Church officially did an investigation into their treatment of Huss, they apologized for the mistakes made and recognized that Huss accepted the Pauline idea of the mystical church versus the Papal system. I found it interesting that the church acknowledged that there was a difference between the two. These men were fire starters who’s ‘fires’ would burn right up until the present day. Jesus said when you live in a time of significance, a time when God is doing real reform. You can respond in a few different ways; you can resist the thing the Lord is doing and hurt your purpose and destiny, in effect you can ‘fall on the rock and be broken’. You can fight the thing God is doing [the main stone] and suffer for it. Or you can find yourself sitting on the tracks, not realizing that the thing ‘the stone’ [prophetic voices] is targeting are the actual things you are doing! When that happens the best option is to get off the tracks, these reformers have a tendency to not slow down.
(1195) Was reading Psalms 19 and it speaks of Gods law being perfect; it converts [restores] the soul, makes us wise. By them we are warned and in keeping of them there is great reward. It reminds me of James ‘be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves’. Some day I will teach the letter of James in it’s entirety, it is important and generally misunderstood. Many Reformers [I lean towards reformed theology personally] tend to say that James was saying ‘the faith that saves is active/working faith’ and that’s what James was talking about. While this certainly is true, James does say ‘see how Abraham/Rahab were saved/justified by their works’. This statement is saying something different than just ‘the faith that saves is active’ this is saying these folks ‘were saved’ by their works. I believe in the classic Pauline doctrine of justification by faith, don’t get me wrong. I think we miss it when we don’t leave room for something like ‘see how God also declared them righteous/acceptable when they did good works’. I think the statement ‘saved by works’ can actually mean something different than ‘accepted the Lord and got saved’. The solution is in seeing the fluent language of the New Testament when it deals with salvation/justification [soteriology]. It’s perfectly biblical to say ‘these people were saved [declared pleasing and acceptable in Gods eyes] by their works’ without having to apply it to the initial act of legal justification that Paul emphasizes in Romans/Galatians. Well I cant do it all right now, but will get to it someday. Today’s point was ‘keeping Gods commands, doing what he says’ brings great reward. It is easy to fall into the trap of becoming a professional learner/hearer of Gods word. Basically seeing our role as someone who learns a lot about the bible, preaches it, talks about it, but has little time to actually apply the things that it says. I was listening to a preacher who excelled high up the ranks of scholarly things; he became very smart in many things. He earned his masters and other degrees and was an accomplished writer and theologian. He then shared how the Lord began leading him to actually obey the things he learned in the Gospels. To take literally the words of Jesus on serving others and giving all your material goods away to serve the poor. He did it. He left his influential position as a teaching scholar, he moved to a foreign country and started a mission to the poor. I heard him speak on TV. I find it interesting that it can be so easy to make Gods word and Christian doctrine a priority, that is we can master knowledge of the things in them, but yet we might not actually be doing what it says. This is a danger for all of us. A big part of the present challenge to ‘institutional church’ deals with this. Many organic/community based movements are trying to get back to functioning and acting like the early churches acted. I of course think this is a good thing. One of the dangers can be falling into the trap of seeing ‘how we meet’ as the main criteria of what’s really ‘true church’ versus ‘institutional’. The New Testament does not teach that the way we as believers meet is the way to identify who are ‘true or not’. The New Testament says those who do the works are the ones who are of God. Works in an active/charitable sense, you know ‘pure religion before God is visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction and keeping yourself unspotted from the world’ type thing. So anyway today we learned that actually doing what God says brings great reward. It’s good to pray and read the bible and attend church, but if we are not doing the stuff, we are missing out.
(1193) The rich ruler asks Jesus ‘what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life’? Jesus responds ‘you know the commandments, do these and you will live’. The man says I have kept them since I was a kid, Jesus says there is still one thing lacking ‘go, sell all that you have, give it to the poor. And come and follow me, you will have treasure in heaven’. As you continue thru the chapter [Luke 18] you see that Jesus then gives the famous ‘it is easier for a camel to pass thru the eye of a needle than for a rich man to make it to heaven’. The disciples wonder ‘who then can be saved’ and they also tell Jesus they forsook all in this life to follow him, Jesus says they will be rewarded both now and in the future for their sacrifice. Now, I explained this section of scripture many times over the years, the camel quote and what Jesus was telling Peter about ‘getting more in this life and later as well’ either read the short book ‘house of prayer or den of thieves’ [on this site] or go thru the ‘prosperity gospel/word of faith’ section on this blog for an explanation. I just want to hit on one angle today, over the years it has become popular to make a charge against the historic church that when they made vows of poverty and did stuff like that, that they were simply being deceived out of the truth of wealth and the devil tricked them into ‘forsaking all to follow him’. Many preachers who have made this charge are well meaning men who have been wrongly influenced by the prosperity/materialistic gospel without realizing it. In this story Jesus clearly challenges the rich person to sell his goods, give to the poor and follow him. If this type of teaching was limited to this one story, then I could see where people might be taking it out of context, but this theme of choosing Christ over the material pursuits of life is woven all throughout the New Testament. You find it in the writing of the epistles, the book of Acts, the Revelation of John. I mean this is a central theme of scripture. To charge that the people in church history who have actually felt that Jesus wanted them to ‘sell all and follow him’ to say that they were being tricked into doing this by ‘church tradition’ simply is not true. Many believers have made these choices because of what they read in the bible, many of them went on to found great worldwide movements [some of the famous Monastic movements were started this way] and their lives truly were a fulfilling of this type of teaching. In essence they left the pursuit of material wealth and founded movements that continue today for the cause of Christ. I do realize why many well meaning Pastors have overlooked this, but this still does not excuse the fact that a majority of the New Testament speaks against the pursuit of wealth versus the Kingdom of God. It wasn’t a Bishop, or Pope, or Reformer or Orthodox priest who told the man ‘sell all you have and give it to the poor’ it was Jesus himself! I think it’s time we stop accusing the saints of old who have made this same decision because of the words of Christ, they were not acting out of ignorance or tradition. It is our modern day ignorance that often is the problem.
(1192) ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BE DUMMIES? Still in Luke 18, the disciples forbid the young children from coming to Jesus; Jesus rebukes the disciples and tells them that the Kingdom of God is made up of little children. There is a theme in the New Testament that goes like this ‘become childlike in your faith and trust in me, but be mature in your thinking and understanding’. Often times these two things are confused. Why? In the letter to the Corinthians Paul will rebuke the wisdom of the world, he states that when he was among them he did not use men’s wisdom to convince them of the message of the Cross. Paul also encourages believers to be ‘child like’ as well. Many confuse Paul’s teaching with an idea that says Christians should not be engaged in the development of the mind. Paul was not rebuking all wisdom and forms of knowledge, but a specific kind of wisdom. In Acts 17 we read of Paul at Athens, the Greek intellectual city of his day [Alexandria was the philosophical center in Egypt]. As Paul disputes with the philosophers of his day he actually quotes their own poets/philosophers in his sermon, he does not quote from the Old Testament, but uses the sources that they are familiar with. Right after Athens Paul goes to Corinth, the cites are very close geographically. There was a form of philosophy at Corinth that was very popular, you had the Sophists and the professional speakers [Rhetoric] operating out of Corinth. The Sophists were the philosophers that came right before Socrates in the Greek cultural world, around 6 centuries or so before Christ. Their form of philosophy was what you would describe as the first Relativists [or post modern thinkers who appeal to subjective knowledge as opposed to objective] they taught that philosophy and arguing were simply things you do ‘just for the heck of it’. Sort of like a hobby of simply disputing things while never being able to arrive at truth, something Paul will rebuke in the New Testament by saying some people were ‘always learning and never being able to come to the knowledge of the truth’ Paul himself tells the Corinthians ‘where is the disputer of this world’. So the Sophists were famous for this type of thing. Now the great philosopher Socrates disagreed with the Sophists, Socrates taught that thru the practice of thorough debate and the art of constantly asking questions, that you could arrive at truth [seek and ye shall find type of a system]. He believed real knowledge could be found thru seeking after it. Socrates stirred the waters too much, he was put to death by being made to drink the famous hemlock, the city where this happened was Athens. So Paul more than likely is disputing the system of thought that said you could not arrive at objective truth. It’s no secret that his letter to the Corinthians has one of the strongest statements of factual [objective] belief found in the New Testament. The great chapter 15 reads like an early creed to the church ‘Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures…’ It’s very probable that this chapter was used as a sort of creed in the early Pauline churches. So, what exactly was Paul saying [and Jesus] when they taught us to be like children, to reject the wisdom of the world for the wisdom of Christ? Simply that our approach to God and the things of God should be done in a humble manner, being childlike and open to God all throughout our lives. Paul was not teaching us that the following ages of great Christian thinkers was wrong; men like Anselm, Aquinas, C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton. It is perfectly acceptable for the believer to become well versed in the field of philosophy, to argue the Christian worldview from a biblical perspective. While it is true that no church was founded by Paul after his Athens visit, and some feel he abandoned his use of ‘worldly wisdom’ at Corinth because of this failure, but I think Paul continued to appeal to the intellectual world thru his great wisdom [God given] thru out his life [read Galatians and Romans!]. Ultimately it is the wisdom of the Cross that saves people, a wisdom that Paul said he communicated not in the words of mans intellect, but in the direct ability of the Spirit to speak. Sometimes that ability came thru a sermon that quoted the philosophers of old [Athens] sometimes thru the simple sharing of the message of Christ. Jesus grew in wisdom and stature with God and man, he knew the ideas of his day, so did Paul. Do you?
(1189) In Luke 17 the Pharisees ask Jesus when the Kingdom of God is going to come, Jesus tells them that the kingdom does not come by observing things; it’s not about geopolitical events if you will, but it is ‘within you’. He then says some will come and say ‘see here’ or ‘look there’ and Jesus says ‘go not after them, don’t follow them’. What were the Pharisees asking Jesus? To the first century Jewish mind, their expectation of the kingdom entailed the setting up of the messianic rule thru the messiah. They were looking for an outward, physical kingdom that would be set up at the capital city of Jerusalem and throw off the dominion of Roman rule. They in essence were looking for the same exact thing that the modern prophecy teachers have popularized over the last 50 years or so, they wanted Jesus on the throne and openly fighting off Israel’s physical enemies. Jesus clearly told them this was not the way the kingdom would come, or be expressed. He also warned of those who would be obsessed with ‘looking there’ or ‘seeing here’ those who would be scanning the geopolitical landscape with the goal of finding specific signs that would ‘hasten the kingdom’. Over the years I have observed various strains of belief that exist within the Christian church, I have always been uneasy about the proliferation of end time books that espouse a very limited view of end time events. Many of these scenarios are a compilation of prophetic portions of scripture from all over the bible, but they seem to ‘paste’ them together as one divine master plan that will all culminate in our day. They take Daniel, Ezekiel, Thessalonians, the Gospels and Revelation and seem to find a pattern that has all these various references speaking of one specific period of time, namely the late 20th [or early 21st] century. These passages speak of ‘the beast’ ‘the anti christ’ ‘the prince that will come’ and other descriptions of wicked men and rulers, but they apply all these verses to one man who is yet to appear on the scene. This is not the proper way to do ‘bible study’. Some of these passages might refer to the same person, but some have had their fulfillment centuries [or millennia] ago. Let’s just hit one scenario for today. In Daniel we read of a prince that will come and in the middle of the last week [7 year period] will cause the sacrifice to cease. Most commentators teach this in a way that has a future ruler who is yet to establish a peace treaty with Israel and in the middle of a 7 year period he breaks the covenant and stops the sacrifices that are taking place in a restored Jewish temple based out of Jerusalem. Now, the prophecies of the Old Testament do have remarkable accuracy. You find the appearing of Jesus prophesied to the tee from the 490 year prophecy of the ‘70 weeks’ of years. You can actually trace the years of the prophecy and they do bring you right up until the time of Christ’s appearing to Israel in the first century. But what about the last 7 [or 3.5] years? Does the prophecy about ‘the prince causing the sacrifice to cease’ mean that we have to postpone the last 7 year period for at least 2 thousand years? Right after Jesus appeared to Israel he entered into a 3 and a half year period of ministry, he in essence was with them for the first part of the last week. What happened in the middle of the week? He dies on a Cross and becomes the final sacrifice that God will ever accept for the sins of man. He in effect was the prince that caused the sacrifice to cease in the middle of the last week. But what about the other 3 and a half years? And the abomination that makes desolate that Jesus himself talked about? Let’s see, you have the nation of Israel rejecting the messiah for a 40 year testing period. They continue to practice animal sacrifices and this practice itself is called an abomination in the book of Hebrews. God was telling the 1st century Jewish community that they had so much time to accept or reject their messiah. 40 years has always been a time of probation for Israel. But they continued to reject the final sacrifice of Jesus right up until the destruction of their city and temple in A.D. 70. When Rome sacked the city under the military leader Titus, they actually besieged it for 3 and a half years. This time period was considered one of the most terrible times of trials for the nation. It was reported that women actually reverted to eating their own babies! There were also a few candidates for the ‘abomination that makes desolate, standing in the holy place’ you had the zealots [radical group] who actually desecrated the holy of holies on purpose to bring a quick uprising, you had various periods of time where certain Roman emperors attempted to set up an image of themselves in the sacred court [Caligula]. You had times where swine were purposefully sacrificed on the altar of God [Antiochus Epiphanies in the days of the Maccabees] and of course you had the actual sacrificing of animals, which the New Testament describes as an ‘abomination’ taking place in the city of Jerusalem. The point is we have a whole bunch of historic events that we can look at and see if they play any role in the various scattered prophecies in scripture. I am not saying that this view is the only valid view, but we have a type of ‘prophecy teaching’ that takes place in the U.S. that seems to discount all these other options. It is a view that is obsessed with outward signs and telling the average Christian ‘look over here, see this sign’ it is a view that Jesus rebuked when he was confronting the Pharisees. They, of all people, had every right to believe that Gods kingdom was about an actual setting up of a military type rule that would throw off Israel’s enemies, Jesus flatly told them that this was not what the kingdom was about. If the Jews of the first century were told not to look at the kingdom thru this lens, how much more should the American church re evaluate her view on end time things?
(1181) Well we had a good day at the river yesterday, we went to San Antonio [New Braunfels] and rode the river in the inner tubes. I actually pray regularly for this area, stuff like ‘your people will rise up and overflow the river banks and flow into Judah’ ‘you will be like fountains dispersed abroad, like rivers of waters in the streets’ [bible verses] so it was cool floating down a river with hundreds of people who you regularly pray for. On the ride back I also noticed some famous churches along the highway, basically good people, charismatic type personalities who I used to catch on TV [I haven’t watched shows like that in a few years now, not because their bad or wicked, but too disconnected from the historic context of Christianity- a simple success gospel with no real attachment to the historic church]. So it was fun. Okay in Luke Jesus says when you have a dinner [B.B.Q.] invite the poor and down and out, don’t invite the rich and well to do [man, he is so hard on the affluent!] because if you invite people with the mindset of ‘reaping a harvest’ now, you forfeit a true reward. Jesus says the reward you get will be at the resurrection [no material mindset here, no money thing in the here and now] this is Luke 14 by the way. It’s a mystery to me how so many well meaning streams of Christianity can completely by pass this central mode of Jesus teaching. James, Jesus’ brother, wrote in his epistle ‘when you favor the rich in your assembly and treat them better than the poor you are doing wrong’ [James 2- by the way this is the only reference in the New Testament that speaks of an assembly that can be translated as a place to meet. The context of James is Jewish believers, he obviously is referring to meeting at the synagogue. That probably would have been a better translation. The term for church, Ecclesia, never refers to a building]. So James obviously picked up this mantra from Jesus, you know, the whole negativity on the rich type preaching! Well today we see how Jesus wants us to approach our service to him, when we love our neighbor we are to act and show kindness and spend money [hey, brisket isn’t cheap!] and do it all with a mindset that says ‘no, I am not doing all this so I can get some type of financial reward in the here and now, Jesus will reward me at the resurrection’ I like this stuff, you might not like it, but I love it.
(1175) Lets talk a little; here in my office I have a couple of tool boxes that are around 70 years old. They are machinist tools that belonged to my father’s dad. He died before I was born, but as a boy growing up I used to regularly go thru the interesting tools, micrometers and stuff. The reason they are in my office is funny, a few years ago I was in New Jersey visiting family. My mom would kid with me about stuff, and sure enough I found out that my sisters ‘boyfriend’ was gradually depleting the inventory of the tool boxes for drug purposes! My sister has had a long, sad history of drug addiction, and her friends too. I actually have made some headway in helping her present boyfriend of a few years, he is almost like one of the buddies I help here in Texas, the same type of friendship and all. So I would kid my mom ‘gee, I always looked forward to getting these tools as an inheritance someday, I thought at least I will get something. And now I find out that they have been making their way out the back door for the last year or so’. Now, my mom laughed and all, I know it sounds strange, but it was kinda funny. But she does ask me if I feel bad about it, I told her I would get over it. But I said if I’m on my way back to Texas on the plane, and we have some bad turbulence. And per chance the pilot informs us ‘folks, we regret to inform you that we have encountered mechanical problems. They are so serious that we believe we might suffer loss of life before the flight is over. If you have loved ones you need to call, go ahead and do it now. One more thing, we might have a slim chance of repairing the engine, but we don’t have the proper tools. Does anybody on board happen to have a micrometer’? I told her then I will be mad! One other thing, my mom asked my advice about borrowing money from a reverse mortgage, I told her if the charge and interest are in a reasonable range, then do it. I feel my parents at times have felt guilty over the years because I left Jersey when I was 18 years old, and they thought I would eventually move back. You know, it’s common for kids to launch out when their young, to face the brave new world. And after a few years wind up back home. But in my case I never went back. So there has always been a sense like ‘gee, we never really helped John, he’s had to fend for himself all these years’ and I felt my mom was asking me about the reverse mortgage sort of like getting permission to ‘sell’ part of any future inheritance. I of course have advised her to sell her house and do whatever she needed to do to get herself in a better situation. My parents are divorced and my mom lives in an expensive home that is taxed at a very high N.J. rate. So my advice has been to sell it years ago. But anyway I told my mom to do the reverse mortgage if the price was right. So she borrowed around 25 thousand from the equity at around 6 %, an okay deal. Then I find out that they charged her 25 thousand as a one time fee, along with the 6%! I told her ‘mom, that means they charged you 106%, not a good deal’. Oh well at least I still have a few micrometers. The point is my poor mom does not know financial stuff, I felt bad for her, not me. They basically ripped her off. In Luke 12 Jesus said some servants that knew their lords will and did not do it would suffer many stripes [punishment] and those that were ignorant and did wrong stuff would suffer few stripes. The fact that my poor mom was ignorant of the deal didn’t protect her from taking a loss. In the world of reformation, God changing things in the church, new ways of seeing and doing things, I have Pastor friends who really are like my mom, they are good people who have a basic grasp on stuff, but they are out of their league in other areas. Then there are those who do see and recognize the real problems that the church is facing, they see the limited paradigms that the people of God have functioned under for all these years. Jesus said both groups would give an account for their response to truth. Those who really knew what was wrong, and let it slip by will suffer much. But those that didn’t really know what was going on in the current church world, they served faithfully to the best of their ability in the limited mindset of church and ministry, they too will suffer, not as much as those who had more understanding, but yet they will suffer. I believe God wants all of us to serve him and do our best to live up to the things he requires of us. I also believe that too many of us [Pastors/Leaders] struggle for too long in places and ideas that are outmoded and calling for change. If we simply take the attitude ‘well, people have been doing it this way for years’ without truly educating ourselves as much as possible, then we too will suffer. Hey, don’t get stuck on the plane with out a micrometer, it good prove hazardous to your health! [get it? The right tool for the journey- hey it’s the best I can do]
(1174) Almost finished with Noll’s book [scandal of the evangelical mind] and thought it time to comment. The book was published in 1994 and I realize a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. Noll brings out great points; he shows a fundamental weakness in American evangelicalism because of the way the movement shaped a sort of anit intellectual way/thought pattern of viewing the world and society. He really takes the dispensational wing of the church to task, frankly, I was surprised how willingly he dismantled many of their belief systems. I agree with him on this issue, but was surprised that a very popular book would go this far [and still be nominated book of the year by Christianity today- back in 1994!]. I think an area of weakness in the book is Noll’s ‘over association’ of young earth creationism with the Seventh Day Adventist church, and his repeating of the charge that creationists [and fundamentalists in general] are practicing a form of ‘modern Manichaeism’. He basically links an ‘anti material spirit’ that was seen in the early Christian heretics [Gnosticism, Docetism and Manichaeism] and applies this to the views of creationists and their so called unwillingness to allow the facts from nature speak for themselves. I wrote the note ‘way too much’ a few times when reading the book. I think he’s basically mistaken on this, many early Christian thinkers did hold to a young earth view, and they were the same thinkers who rebuked these cults who rejected the natural world as evil. Overall the book is a worthwhile read, it exposes the weakness of the fundamental/evangelical movement to ‘think Christianly’ about the world and society around them. Too often believers think ‘thinking Christianly’ means introducing bible verses into the conversation, this is not what Noll is speaking about. He shows the fundamental error that arose during the modernist/fundamentalist debates of the 19th/20th centuries, and how this caused the church to accept modes of thinking and learning that were disconnected from the fathers of these movements. For instance, Jonathan Edwards, who is considered to be the greatest homegrown thinker of the American experience, he embraced an acceptance of the natural sciences as a way to learn more about the ways of God. True studies of the earth and universe and things in the world were accepted as a means of God communicating truth to his people thru the ‘book of nature’. Noll shows how the fundamentalist movement came to reject this willingness to look at the natural world and learn from it. Thus his overstated charge of Manichaeism, a group that saw the natural world as evil. A blind spot of Noll is his seeming belief that the majority of all Christians/scientists accepted as fact the old earth views of the Geologic table and the other sciences that arose at the time [like evolutionary theory]. He paints a picture that says ‘see, most believers were open to learning from science back then, but the fundamentalist movement and the rise of creationism side tracked the church’. This is simply not true. Many scientists and Christians did not accept the science of an old earth and the interpretation of the geologic table. Many fathers of the church accepted a young earth view [Noll's creationism] since the beginning of church history. Though Noll quotes saint Augustine in his defense of thinking critically, yet Augustine himself believed in a young earth. He actually believed God made everything in an instant and the 6 days of Genesis 1 were symbolic, that God used the ‘6 day framework’ to show us his creative acts. The point being, Augustine’s spiritualizing of the days of creation did not make him an old earth believer! So there were a few things like this that I take issue with, overall I think every evangelical/protestant believer would benefit from reading the book. Noll’s challenge to the evangelical church to ‘think Christianly in all areas of life’ is a needed rebuke to many in the church. Noll is correct in showing the weakness of the American protestant church and her basic disdain of intellectual learning, thinking that higher learning in and of itself is a bad thing. This has fostered a community of believers that has cut itself off from the basic institutions that effect society as a whole [the research universities being one example]. If Christians shy away from the natural sciences and the reality that even unbelievers have at times revealed to us true things thru these studies, then we are going down a road that will eventually cut our influence off from the broader society at large.
(1170) yesterday I was reading the paper and saw an article on a local guy who attacked a cop with a meat cleaver, as I looked at the brothers face he looked familiar. It took me a few seconds to recognize it was Martin, a friend of mine. He stopped by a few months ago, just to say hi and all. I have had Martin over a few times, been to his apartment a few times. We fished together; he had lots of good questions. Martin is a good friend who I would get together with again if the chance arose. The picture and story in the paper would have you thinking he was an ax murderer, in reality the cop was off duty when he approached him. He is paranoid, and he probably thought they were going to jump him. Meat clever does sound bad, but it was probably a kitchen knife! We see people from different perspectives than God, people need the Lord. Well I know I said we were done with Luke 11 yesterday, but let’s get in one more. Jesus rebukes the lawyers for taking away ‘the key of knowledge’ and hindering others to find the truth. A few years back when Texas passed tort reform, I would be at the fire house and see the new commercials the lawyers came up with. Instead of advertising for accident victims, they ran commercials on other lawyers who were ambulance chasers. They were wanting the public to contact their law firm, so they could sue the other law firm who got to them first. Lawyers suing lawyers, now that’s what I call poetic justice! Here Jesus rebukes these ‘lawyers’ [religious leaders] because they did a specific thing, they rejected the gifts that God sent to them in the past. Jesus says ‘God sent you prophets and apostles and you rejected them’. In essence they wouldn’t hear the corporate wisdom/correction of God. I have heard this verse used in various ways over the years; some said this was speaking of the Christian church who reject these gifts today [apostle/prophet] some say it’s speaking of their own religious view of things. I think an overall understanding is God sends us messengers thru out the history of the church, we become acquainted with them thru their writings and the histories that tell about their stories. Often times the modern church is too quick to associate all past ‘churches’ as traditional, dead churches. This is a serious mistake in my view. When Jesus rebuked those who held to the traditions of men over God’s word, he was not saying that we should reject all tradition! He was primarily speaking of ‘the tradition of the elders’ a specific body of tradition that rose up around rabbinic Judaism, not tradition in general. Paul will instruct timothy to hold to the traditions that he was giving him [grounded in the word!] So Jesus rebuked the lawyers for their rejecting of the messengers of God, in essence they wanted to re invent the wheel all over again for each new generation, this in itself is a rejection of the communion of the saints that understands that we are all part of a 2 thousand year tradition of Christian believers. While wisdom allows us to discern between what traditions are good, and which are bad. Yet we don’t want to reject the entire body of Christian tradition that has come down to us from our forefathers. Jesus said he who receives those he sends, receive him. Jesus has been sending us prophets and wise men for centuries, are you hearing them?
(1166) yesterday I was finishing up Last Days Madness, by Gary Demar, and the book by Mark Noll showed up at my door [the scandal of the evangelical mind] I got thru the first 50 pages and really like it a lot. I do realize these books are dated, they’ve been around for a while, but I have been trying to catch up on the classics that I have never read before. Lots of my library has scholarly stuff, but most of the books were purchased at half price books, or ordered from Amazon, so I tend to miss some of the classics. I just read Luke 11, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray. I like Luke’s version of it ‘give us bread day by day’ the daily bread request. Then Jesus goes right into the story of the guy whose friend shows up at his door, he realizes that he doesn’t have enough bread for his friend so he goes to another friend at midnight and asks for help. The other friend is in bed, but because of his friend’s boldness and persistence he gives him bread. James says we have not because we ask not, then he says sometimes we have not because we are asking out of selfishness, to simply get stuff to feed our lusts. Did James contradict Jesus? Did Jesus teach that we get whatever we want? I do find it interesting that Jesus gave us the story about the friend right after the Lords Prayer. In the Lords Prayer we ask ‘give us enough bread for today’ and then Jesus shows us what type of ‘bread asking’ this is. Asking for another! Basically when we recognize that we don’t have the wherewithal to meet the needs of others, we go to God and say ‘lord, I know these friends of mine are looking to me for answers, I really don’t have what it takes to be honest about it, but if you can give me some bread/life for them I will do my best to share it with them’. I like that, Jesus gives the bread to those who recognize that they are insufficient, they know they don’t have the ‘intellectual gravitas’ to cut it! When I was reading yesterday, I also grabbed one of my church histories off the shelf and started thru it. I like re-reading the good stuff, there are too many facts in these books to read them only once and think that’s enough. So as I’m reading thru I realize that it’s a very good read, you know, one of those books that reads easily. I was reading Karl Barth's history on 19th century Protestant Theology and it was a tough read. He was teaching on Immanuel Kant and it was rough, maybe because it’s an English translation of the Swiss theologian? Kant is tough enough on his own, but reading him thru a translation of Barth might be a little too much. So anyway I felt good about myself when reading Bruce Shelley’s church history, I mean it was easy, I thought ‘yeah, maybe I can hack these intellectuals, look, this read is child’s play’ I then flipped to the title to see the exact wording, it’s ‘church history in plain language’ which in layman’s terms means ‘history for dummies’ oh well a good dose of humility does the soul some good. Jesus said those who recognize that they don’t have ‘the bread’ for their friends on the journey are in good shape, they know to go to ‘other friends’ and ask for help, they’re not too proud to realize they don’t have all the answers. I think we need more of this in today’s church world. We all need to receive from one another. I like Nolls book, he shows the need for the intellectual wing of the church to receive from the ‘non intellectual’ wing. But he also takes the evangelical church to task for its neglect of the Life of the Mind. Hopefully I’ll share more in the coming posts. But for today this is all ‘the bread’ I have, thank God we all know where to go for some more! [I also ordered Brian Mclaren’s Generous Orthodoxy, but the order messed up. I will try and review it in the next month or so, it’s important for the emergent critique]
(1163) Just read the story where the disciples tell Jesus that they found some people casting out demons in Jesus name and the disciples told them to stop because ‘they followeth not us’. It reminded me of one of the first official ‘church sermons’ I preached. It was during the early days of ministry, I was a youth pastor at a Fundamental Baptist Church, the pastor was a good man, he would ask me to preach every now and then. I remember speaking on this verse and sharing how we as Christians shouldn’t cut others off because they are not part of our group, it was a courageous message at the time, being young and all. This type of sectarian mindset was strong in this group. Jesus told his men to not forbid others who claim the name of Jesus. I realize that there are many different groups of Christians in the world today, it would be ignorant to believe that some of the doctrinal differences do not matter any more. But it would also be childish to view these brothers and sisters from a view point that sees them as all wrong, or even lost! The real fundamentals of the faith are held by the majority of these groups. Yes, it sounds liberal, but we all meet at the Cross. I noticed recently in the Corpus paper, that a church that advertises in the section where I run this blog ad, changed the name of the ad [and church?] they are a good Baptist church that would emphasize the ‘come as you are’ type of thing, the last time I saw the ad, it had a new name for the church called ‘acceptance’. I believe sometimes we might go overboard in the unity thing, we don’t want people to think there are absolutely no ground rules to this thing, there are some basic rules. But we want them to know that they do not have to be just like us [whoever ‘us’ is!] in order to be accepted, Jesus says if you name the name of Jesus, you’re in, can’t get much better than that.
(1157) I have been stuck in Luke 6 for a few days, let’s hit it briefly. Jesus is walking with the disciples thru the grain fields; they pick the grain on the Sabbath and eat some. The religious watchdogs got him now! ‘Why do you and your followers break the commands’ the religious leaders of his day are 3rd-4th generation Pharisees, their office began a few centuries earlier during a time of captivity from foreign powers. Though they know a lot about ‘the bible’ they have developed this entire tradition around their religious lives [the tradition of the elders- rabbinic Judaism] and it was this interpretation of the law that they used to judge people. Jesus responds by reaching back into the history of David and says ‘don’t you remember when David was on the run from Saul and he entered the house of God and ate the special bread and gave some to his men’. Notice, Jesus will also tell them ‘which was unlawful to do’. He doesn’t seem to challenge their accusation by saying ‘no, I am not violating the Sabbath, just your view of it’ instead he says ‘yes, I am greater than the Sabbath’ in so many words. I find it interesting that Jesus saw himself as the David who shared the holy bread with his men, a type of the future communion meal that Jesus will inaugurate. He associates his movement and followers with a time in David’s life where the world was against him. David was on the run, he was attracting disgruntled men around him, a time of difficulty and going up against the authorities of the day. Sure, David will also go thru a stage of life where he will become the legitimate king, but this is not the David that Jesus is identifying with at the time. As you read thru the chapter they will accuse him again of healing the mans hand on the Sabbath, and Jesus will give the famous ‘if the blind are leading the blind they will both fall into the ditch together’. It really took guts for Jesus to say stuff like this, he had more problems with the religious folk than any other group! In today’s ‘church world’ you have well meaning people who believe the main job of the church is to defend orthodoxy, to fight for the truth at all costs. Others see a re-thinking of everything, they will say things like ‘Jesus was not a Christian’! Simply meaning that Christianity developed a culture and system that became more important than the person himself. I see validity to both views at times. When you read Jesus and his following, try and look past the technical examining of Jesus thru a microscope, and see him thru a magnifying glass [the big picture] the psalmist said ‘magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt his name together’ the religious crowd were always looking thru a microscope.
(1154) Something else I wanted to mention about the book ‘Why we’re not Emergent’ was they bring out the penchant of some bible teachers to over do the comparisons between pagan myths and Jesus as Gods Son. When I was reading the book by John Crossan [ultra liberal scholar who denies the resurrection] I found the book to be full of examples that Crossan would quote, then after the quote he would say ‘see, the Romans believed in a divine incarnation who would come and save the world from sin’ but if you read the actual quote he used, it said nothing of the sort! Likewise the Emergent movement has some associated with it that do this same thing. It’s become a common internet ‘truth’ that there was a saying running around about Caesar in Jesus day; it said ‘there is no other name under heaven given among men where by we must be saved’. Wow! Doesn’t that sure seem to cast doubt on the Christian religion? The brother who popularized it seems to honestly want to challenge the traditional church and her views, sort of like saying ‘look how much we have been affected by the culture’. The problem is there is no evidence that this saying is true. As far as I can tell, this story about Caesar is not true. So in general we need to be careful when reading certain sources, some are over associating the early pagan myths with Jesus. Now, there are no doubt certain myths that shared common traits to the early church, but to over do these associations is not right. Also when I was reading the book from Crossan [in search of Paul] it had lots of heavy historical information, stuff that I personally like to read. But for some reason I could not get into the book. I got around half way through and quit. I very rarely do this. Then I was reading in another source how at one time Crossan posited the possibility that dogs came and ate the remains of Jesus Body, that’s why you had the empty tomb. Needless to say this is blasphemous. So when studying any subject, be open and willing to hear both sides. Don’t jump to early judgments about people or movements, but if there are enough warnings along the way, then feel free to come to a final conclusion. One of the more popular quotes from an emergent leader has him answering a question about homosexuality, he basically says no matter what way he answers some one will get offended, so he gives no answer. This response has been quoted a few times as a type of wise answer. I think this sums up one of the problems with the church, we at times want everybody to like us, there are times where we need to say what is true, sure we might not be 100% sure of our belief, but there are many beliefs we can be sure on. I am sure the dogs didn’t eat the remains of Jesus!
(1153) Almost finished with the book ‘Why we’re not Emergent’ [by Kluck and DeYoung]. It’s an excellent book, I recommend all of you guys to read it. I agree with much of the book, but it comes short when defending the historic reality of public preaching. It does show the biblical basis for declaring truth [public preaching] and shows the connection between a movement that questions whether or not truth can be known [Emergent subjectivism] and it’s de-emphasis on pulpit ministry [the two go hand in hand] but fails to see that the organic church reform movement does not really challenge the need for ‘preaching’ in so much that it challenges the style of church being a lecture hall environment where people simply sit and listen week after week, month after month and practice a form of ‘church’ that was absent in the new testament story. But all in all I liked the book. Now in Luke 4 Jesus says ‘you guys will want me to do the same miracles in my home town as in other places’ he prophesies their future questioning of him about the legitimacy of his calling. Jesus was ministering in an environment that was performance minded. The Pharisees and religious leaders loved to put on a public display. The people saw ministry as ‘we will pipe and you will dance!’ Yet Jesus will correct this mindset, he tells them the story of both Elijah and Elisha. He says there were many people who lived in ‘the days of Elijah’ who did not see him function. There were many lepers in Elisha’s day and only Namman got healed. He is telling them ‘your measurement of prophetic ministry is not based on Gods truth, you are basing it on public exposure instead’. They even tell him at another time ‘if you are for real, show yourself to the world!’ they simply associated ministry with public performance, and Jesus would have no part of it. Just because someone is sent by God, does not mean they will come and preach/publicly perform at the drop of a hat! Jesus actually offended people by not stopping and mingling with the crowd. In John’s gospel Phillip says ‘the Greeks want to see you’ they were at the big public gathering, the great feast. Word had gotten out about the success of Jesus ministry, now is the time to gain some exposure! Phillip tells Jesus ‘hey, these intellectuals are willing to hear you speak’ Wow, what an open door to the Greek thinkers, now's the chance to show them my talent. Not! He tells Phillip ‘unless a grain/seed falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone. But if it dies it will bear much fruit’ in essence he was saying ‘these Greeks can find/see me if they want to die to themselves and take up the Cross and follow me. They can find me in true discipleship, but I am not going to go and put on a public show for them’. Leaders, have you fallen into this trap? We all have at times, don’t feel too bad, just repent!
(1151) Just finished reading ‘Coming to Grips With Genesis’ by Terry Mortenson and Thane Ury, probably the best argument for a young earth view put out in the last few years. Though I am still an ‘old earther’ it’s a good read. I am in the middle of ‘Last days Madness’ by Gary Demar [Preterism] and yesterday the book I ordered last ‘Why we’re not Emergent’, by Kevin Deyoung and Ted Kluck, showed up at my door. I am about 1/3 rd thru it. I recently read a quote from one of the famous philosophers that said ‘it is the mark of a mature intellect to be able to read and grasp another persons view, to understand what they are saying and where they are coming from, without fully embracing their view’ [paraphrase] I am applying this wisdom to all three of the above books. Not because they are not good, or because I disagree with everything in them, but because all people share from a limited view of the things they are seeing from their perspective [yes, me too!] that’s why God tells us there is safety in a multitude of counselors [not all counselors from your limited group either!] Okay, in Luke 3 John the Baptist is baptizing and calling people to repent [obviously not an emergent brother, or post modern or neo orthodox- yes, this can go on for ever- he told them what was right and wrong!] Look at the three groups coming to him; he tells the regular people ‘sell what you have, give it to the poor, share your stuff with those who are in need’. He tells the tax collectors ‘stop taking more money than you’re supposed too! It’s okay to collect a normal amount, but don’t go overboard’ and he tells the military ‘don’t use your power in an unjust way, when things go wrong, don’t bear false witness. Don’t cover it up’. I think all of these areas can apply to our lives today. There is somewhat of a resurgence of liberal social justice issues emerging in the church. It’s not out of the mainstream to talk about ecology, or ‘the military industrial complex’ and things of that sort. But we also must realize that in order to have these types of discussions there are times where we say to people ‘yes, we are not perfect, we have our faults. But it is still wrong to kill babies, or to discriminate against minorities, and to neglect our neighbor’. Would you tell a backslidden Christian who was hiding Jews in Nazi Germany ‘who do you think you are hiding these Jews, you are just as bad as Hitler’! Though the church has made mistakes, and Christians have been hypocrites, yet the reality of the ‘wrongness’ of killing Jews is not effected in any way by the perceived hypocrisy of the religious right. It’s still wrong to kill Jews whether or not Jimmy Swaggart messed up! The point being as the church tries to cast off the image of moral superiority that offends the world, we at the same time need to tell the world ‘yes, these things are still wrong, and these other things are still right’. When society came to John in the wilderness, he told them ‘what they must do’ he did not engage them in a long discussion on whether or not we can even determine what they need to do! He simply called them to repentance and back to the original intent of the law, he was preparing the way for Messiah.
(1143) THE FALL- God puts man in the garden, he gives him only one restriction ‘don’t eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil’ sure enough, he does! The serpent [satan] tempts Eve in 3 areas, the tree is good for food [lust of the flesh] good to look at [eyes] and can make you wise [pride]. In 1st John 2 we see these three areas mentioned as the common categories of all other temptation. These were the same areas the devil used on Jesus in Matthew 4. The temptation to Eve essentially said ‘look at this God of yours! He wont give you the freedom to do anything you want, he is withholding such a good tree from you’ sounds like the philosopher Freud, he taught that the problem with man was Gods restrictions. That if man would cast off the limits that religion imposed upon them, then all would be well. But what man did not know was that these basic limits were for his own good. When man would choose to walk out from under Gods limits, he would suffer for it. In this chapter [Gen. 3] we also see the great prophecy of the child of the woman eventually crushing the serpents head [called the Protoevangelium- Latin] a prophecy about Christ’s future victory at the Cross. God also covers man with animal’s skins, a type of the future sacrifice of Christ on behalf of man. Man tried to cover up with leaves, God said it wont do, so he sacrificed the life of an animal and used the skins as a covering. The wages of sin is death, the price was paid. In Romans chapter 5 Paul will show us that death and sin passed upon all mankind from Adams sinful act, but thru the obedience of one man [Jesus dying on the Cross] righteousness comes to those who believe. This is the basic Christian doctrine of original sin. Some refer to this as the federal head theory of redemption. I believe it’s vital for Christians to have a grasp of this doctrine. In the 19th/20th centuries you had liberal theologians deny the doctrine of Jesus dying on behalf of man. Along with this they also denied that original sin existed. Most believers realized that this denial was heresy and avoided it, but some are playing with the idea again. The bible clearly teaches the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ on the behalf of man [Isaiah 53] and it is a foundational doctrine for all true believers. To some it seemed unfair to charge God with the doctrine of original sin, and along with it the doctrine of Penal substitution [Christ being punished for us] these are core Christian truths, if people want to deny them, that’s their choice. But to be a Christian in the biblical sense of the word, these truths are necessary, they are part of the foundation of all true Christian churches.
(1131) Nehemiah 8- This is really a key chapter. After the walls are built the process of reviving the community can move ahead. Nehemiah already gave the ‘charge’ of the city to two men who he could trust [last chapter] sort of like a Timothy, Titus deal with Paul. Now he lets Ezra do the pulpit preaching! Ezra begins reading straight from the law and gives the understanding, read this chapter and see how many times it says ‘they gave the understanding, the people were very attentive’ it reminds you of the description of the people who heard Jesus! I want to emphasize that Ezra and the teachers [Levites] were simply giving the people Gods word in context! There is a trend going on right now where some of the ‘flashy, young’ pastors are returning to the historic gospel and preaching the word IN CONTEXT! These past few years many of the mega churches focused on a ‘be all you can be’ type message, but there is a new focus going back to the ‘old word’ and simply teaching it in context. You don’t need Paul’s ‘new perspective’ on justification to make it interesting, while some of these viewpoints have stuff to add to our learning [I like N.T. Wright personally] yet the classic Pauline doctrine of justification by faith is more than enough to satisfy the hungry heart! Ezra gave the ‘sense’ and meaning of the law, and the people soaked it in. They are all gathered together at the ‘water gate’ [too much typology to do it all] and the people as ‘one man’ receive the word. Let me quickly quote a bunch of scattered verses ‘the people will come up like a river who overflows her banks and pour out into Judah’ ‘the people will be like fountains dispersed abroad’ ‘out of our bellies shall flow rivers of living water’ ‘pour out your Spirit on our seed’ ‘let your doctrine drop down like rain, your speech distill like dew’. God pours and flows his Spirit thru his people to the nations. The fact that Ezra is pouring Gods word into the people, before the temple [building] is even rebuilt is important. In this picture Gods people are the temple! A few points; Nehemiah willingly functioned as the governor [a type of an apostle] when it came time to hand over the leadership to others, he did it! Often times in modern church scenarios we don’t practice this part well, we feel like ‘geez, I spent my time building this thing, I deserve to be the main person’! In the New Testament churches there were no ‘main persons’, that is the communities that Paul was building were not ‘local churches’ that were providing him with long term income. These communities were the people of God who had the ability to function on their own after Paul left. The local leaders [elders/pastors] were simply men who had a stable grasp of doctrine that the local believers knew they could look to for support. Elders were more like facilitators of the corporate/communal experience, they were not professional speakers that the people listened to week after week! So this distinction is important to see. To all you ‘church planters’ out there [we have a lot of contacts from Kenya, some from Pakistan] understand that the apostles/governors played an important role in setting doctrine, letting the elders and people know what was true and what was false, but the apostle/church planter doesn’t have to be ‘the weekly’ speaker to any specific group of people. It’s okay to have a routine forum in which you can communicate on a regular basis to the communities that your are planting [I use this blog and radio] but don’t think you personally have to ‘be there’ every week! Nehemiah had the self security to hand the daily functions over to trusted men and allow them to ‘get the glory’. I find it interesting that after many years of church planting the apostle Paul wound up living in a rented room in Rome and preaching to those who would listen. Was poor Paul ‘devaluing himself’ by not setting a high salary! [silly things that preachers fall into by using the standards of modern business as opposed to the New Testament] Paul purposefully told us time and again why he did not set up for himself a steady ‘cash flow’ from the communities he was establishing [read Acts 20]. Leaders today need to re evaluate what their doing and why their doing it. Leaders need the self confidence to be able to ‘walk away’ from the communities they are building and to allow the saints themselves to learn how to become dependant/interdependent. Governors [apostles] need to have the self assurance to let the Ezra’s [scribes/teachers] come in and ‘get the glory’ leaders need a basic overhaul in why they do the things they do.
(1127) let’s see, I wanted to do Nehemiah, talk a little about the recent abortion debate, and also discuss modern philosophy! Let’s see what we can do. In Nehemiah the workers are scattered all along the wall, they are responsible for their section. Nehemiah tells them that because they are so far apart, they need the ability to be able to hear the warning from the main overseer of the work [namely him!] so he has this trumpet guy next to him, if danger shows up he will blow the trumpet and they will be forewarned, hey in a day without electronic communication, this is a good idea! Recently [5-09] there have been some debates over the abortion issue and some high profile cases as well. Just 2 days ago one of the most notorious abortion doctors in our country was shot down in cold blood, his name was George Tiller. His abortion clinic was only one out of three places in the U.S. that performed late term abortions. This is the procedure where you insert a forceps into the womb, pull apart the legs and arms of the baby. Then you position the forceps over the head and squeeze till the brains come out [I know this is graphic, if you want to learn more about it, go to the Priests for life icon on my blog roll]. While we in no way shape or form condone the murder of doctor Tiller, it should be noted that he took part in the most wicked act that can ever take place, the murder of unborn children. Now in this debate some Christians [Catholics] have brought up the recent speech by president Obama at Notre Dame, some boycotted the speech. The problem was that Notre Dame actually honored the president with an honorary law degree. It is one thing to allow both voices to be heard, quite another to honor the most anti life president in the history of the untied states! He has made more pro death decisions than any other president in history. The U.S. Catholic Bishops had passed a resolution a few years back that stated no Catholic institution should give honorary degrees to those who are in violation of the churches teaching on major issues, obviously Notre Dame violated this rule. Now, some Catholic media persons were defending Obama, they even criticized their own church for hypocrisy! They were saying that honoring Obama was no different than honoring any other leader who might be pro capital punishment. These Catholic media persons were equating the churches stand on abortion with her stand on capital punishment; these two are not in the same league! The Catholic church teaches a sort of hierarchy of offenses [as a boy I still remember being taught mortal and venial sins] the church sees abortion as an intrinsically evil act, the outright murder of innocent defenseless persons. The church also teaches against the death penalty, but the execution of a criminal is not to be equated with the murder of unborn innocent children [some 4 thousand per day!] so these Catholic believers were wrong on the stance of their own church. Today’s ‘post-modern’ philosophy will argue that truth and morals are relative [subjective] they see truth thru the lens of ‘that might be wrong for you, but not for me’ or ‘I personally am against abortion, but I don’t want to push my views on others’. In the world of postmodern thinking, this is considered acceptable. This view of right and wrong is based on the view that there really is no objective truth, that is truth does not correspond to any outside reality. Truth, in their view, is simply the way various cultures perceive and understand things at different times in human history, but it’s possible for other societies to interpret the data coming into their senses and arrive at another view of truth, and who am I to say that ‘my truth is real and yours is false’. Obviously in the field of theology this would be [and is!] disastrous. Paul himself would say ‘if Christ be not risen [a real fact!] then we are of all men the most miserable’. The biblical worldview of truth is objective; truth is something that corresponds to something else that is real. This does not always mean material, but real never the less. For instance mathematical equations are real truth, or feelings of love are real, but not material. This would be the foundation for saying ‘the murder of babies is wrong, always has been, always will be’ whether my view is contrary to your view is meaningless, the act itself is wrong! Your view of that oak tree might be different than mine, but if you run into it with your car, the only view that counts is what reality is. It really was a tree that was there, it was not simply my perception of ‘a tree’ my perception corresponded with reality and the truth was that the tree really was a tree, whether you like it or not! The modern philosophers would say ‘the only real question left for philosophy to answer is the viability of suicide’ [either Sartre or Camou said this] When philosophy severs itself from true moral reason and foundational ethics, it has no leg to stand on. When society can accept that murder might be wrong for you, but not for me, then the basic fabric of civilization is no more. Well I think I covered all three of the things I set out to do at the start, hope it helped.
(1125) if you have been paying attention, you’ll notice that I have been reading thru Matthew these last few weeks. Let’s finish this sporatic thing with Jesus final command ‘go into all the world and preach the gospel to every one, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Teach them to observe all the things I taught you, I will always be with you, all power is now given to me, I authorize you to go’ [my paraphrase] I wanted to hit on the command of Jesus for us to teach the nations the things he taught us. Over the years you will notice that one of my pet peeves has been the emphasis the modern church puts on the command to tithe found in Malachi, yet the many commands of Jesus about giving to the poor, helping out the down and out; these commands of Jesus seem to take second place in the tier of importance for the average church goer. In a sense we [leaders] have failed to actually teach the nations the things Jesus taught us! We have taught the nations good stuff from Malachi, boy do they have a grasp on Paul! And oh yes, John writes with such love and compassion, doesn’t he? I don’t want to be crude, I understand that as Evangelicals we believe all of Gods word [Malachi, Paul, etc.] the point I am making is all of these writings have to be seen thru the primary ‘constitution’ of Jesus and his gospel. The Old Testament says we should execute homosexuals, kids who curse their parents and women caught cheating! Now, most of us realize that these commands are no longer valid in a literal way [I hope you understand!] So as believers we need to view all of the words of scripture thru the ethos [values] of Jesus. How did he respond when the Pharisees brought the woman taken in adultery to him? They even said ‘Moses in the law said she should be stoned, what do you say’? He forgives the woman, does not condone her sin, and lets the religious leaders know that they were in no position to judge this woman. As the church embarks on the next millennium, we need to re focus our efforts and instructions on the life and purpose of Jesus. I am not advocating rejecting Paul’s teachings [as some advocate!] or doing away with the Old Testament [as others also advocate] but I am saying we need to take seriously the great commission that Jesus gave us. Are we really teaching people the actual things that Jesus made the priority? I know he told the religious leaders ‘you tithe and stuff, but have overlooked the heavier matters of the law; yes, you should have tithed [telling this to Jews under the law sitting in ‘Moses seat’ not to Gentile believers!] and also have shown mercy and love and compassion’ even the law put the emphasis on these things! Lets try and re balance some things these next few years, lets look seriously at the things that Jesus actually taught [the red letters!] and see if these are the same things we are focusing on. He doesn’t say a whole lot about the ‘just war’ doctrine, he seems like he’s always rebuking the wealthy folk! Let’s see the things he actually taught, and then teach those things! Got it?
(1121) ‘Dinosaurs with wings and Darwin’s winged rats’ Let’s do a short thing here; recently I have seen a few silly things and thought I should expound. First, the common argument on the road of evolution is that dinosaurs turned into birds [or as G.K. Chesterton expounded, evolutionists would have you believe that running rats turned into flying ones!]. I know that the average consumer of public school evolution does not fully realize the total lunacy of many of evolutions claims. What would be the most obvious problem with dinosaurs turning into flying reptiles/birds? If you had a very slow period where many thousands of species SLOWLY evolved wings where their front legs used to be, this species would be the first to die off! For Darwin’s theory to work, only the fittest survive! So according to Darwin’s own theory, the so called ‘in between’ species would have never been able to have made it! This is the exact observation that G.K. Chesterton used [famous Catholic writer] about the rats, he said it was quite obvious to any rationally thinking person, that if the walking rats slowly developed wings and turned into the flying ones, how in the world would the sad little rats have survived during the many thousands of years where they couldn’t walk or fly? You say ‘Now John, surely there must be a reasonable explanation to this dilemma, true thinking evolutionists aren’t that dumb’ the majority of evolutionists believe that all things came from no thing, a scientific impossibility. If they could swallow that, then surely they could swallow anything.
(1116) This past week Pope Benedict made his first visit to the Middle East. I caught a few of the appearances on E.W.T.N. I really liked his spirit and Christ centered approach, of course there will always be some disagreements [a little too much ecumenism when it came to Christian/Muslim stuff, but that’s to be expected, the Pope not only represents a large portion of Christians, but also is seen as a head of state to some degree]. Overall his words were measured and clear, human rights were at the top of the list. I then watched an apologists T.V. show, it’s a good show I catch every now and then. But sometimes they ‘stray’ into the old prejudices that have been around for many years. They were discussing Tony Blair [former P.M. of Britain] and mentioned how he took this new position where he is going to work for world cooperation amongst various groups, they then showed a picture of him with the Pope and mentioned Blair’s recent conversion to Catholicism, they were nice enough to say ‘we are not saying for sure that Blair is the anti christ [gee, thanks!] but we see in him all the signs of the anti christ’. I don’t want to do the whole anti christ thing again, I’ve hit on it in the past, but I want to mention the mindset that sees any ‘world cooperation’ amongst Christian groups as ‘the one world religious system of the anti christ’. Most of this mindset comes from the book of Revelation; John speaks about Babylon [Rome] and the religious ‘whore’ and stuff like that. Of course Rome was known as a great persecutor of the saints, and part of it had to do with the cult of emperor worship ‘Caesar is Lord’ type of a thing. So the apostle John is writing his Revelation while in exile under Nero’s rule. What type of connection would John be making when speaking of a one world religious system that uses the power of human govt. to kill and persecute the saints? Obviously the religious/governmental system of Rome, not the Pope for heavens sake! And any ‘anti christ’ figure is not going to be part of a Christian church that confesses Christ! During the Reformation of the 16th century, it was common for the Protestant reformers to view Rome and papal authority as ‘the anti christ’ they were battling centuries of religious tradition and dogma that they felt contradicted Gods word, so it was natural for both sides to brand the other as ‘the anti christ’ [both Luther and the Pope tagged each other with the title] and it was also common to read the commentaries and histories of this time thru the lens of ‘Babylon/Rome is persecuting the saints, Rome is even mentioned in the book of Revelation [city on 7 hills] as the oppressor, so there you have it, how much clearer can it be?’ The problem with this thinking is it overlooks what I just told you, the primary religious/governmental persecutor during the time of John, and well into the 3rd century was the Roman empire, not the Catholic church. So we need to read these books [Revelation, prophets- Daniel, Ezekiel, etc.] thru an historical lens. Of course this doesn’t mean there are no future applications to these writings, but to miss the historical aspect can cause real trouble. When reading the Old testament prophets there are stunning prophecies about Alexander the great, Antiochus Epiphanies and other world shaking events. Most of these prophecies have been fulfilled already. But some ‘prophecy teachers’ teach these things in such a way as to cause real problems for any true ecumenical spirit amongst believers. Jesus wants unity for his church, not at the expense of truth, but unity never the less. I have stated in the past that the system of belief that I most align myself with is Reformed theology, but I simply see myself as a Christian who is part of a 2 thousand year tradition [Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox] there are serious doctrinal differences that do need to be understood and not ‘white washed’ but at the same time we need to advance from some 500 year old ideas that were birthed at the time of the reformation, viewing other Christian traditions as ‘the anti Christ’. Jesus told the religious leaders ‘you do err not knowing the scriptures or the power of God’ when we make the mistake of reading scripture thru a limited perspective, we err.
(1115) I have been driving around the past few days with a package of materials that I needed to send off to my buddy in prison. I kept putting it off, then I got a message on my cell from his brother in Kingsville, he wants to know if I can send his bother a bible too. So I will stick a bible in the package in a little while, it saved me the extra mailing. Just read the parable of the vineyard owner who leases out his land to caretakers. When the owner sends his servants for the produce, they beat the brothers up! The owner sends his son [Jesus] and they say ‘here’s the son, if we kill him we can have the inheritance [worldly wealth] to ourselves’. I have seen ‘an evil done under the sun’ it’s virtually impossible to preach a materialistic gospel with the Jesus of the New Testament in it. I mean he rails time and again against wealth ‘what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and loses his soul’ I can go on forever quoting him. But some have ‘killed the son’ [eliminated his true image] from the vineyard, and now they can cease upon the inheritance! OUCH! [By ‘eliminate’ I mean they have refashioned his image and message and have presented him in a different light than what the scripture portrays]. I have been reading a little on the church fathers, these are the brothers during the post apostolic period up until around the 4th century. Many Anglicans/Protestants have converted back to Catholicism because of the reading of these men. These church leaders shared a sort of general view of conversion and Christian living. Evangelicals often have difficulty reading them, they don’t teach a strong ‘one time’ ask Jesus into your heart type conversion, more along the lines of ‘believe the gospel, obey Gods commands, get baptized in water and become a member of the church universal’. I love studying the brothers! Cyprian, the 3rd century bishop from Carthage, North Africa was embroiled in the ‘lapsed’ controversy. During one of persecutions many of the believers forsook Christ and burned incense to the cult of the emperor. After the persecution ceased, some wanted back in to the church. Those who did not reject Christ said ‘no way, you guys walked away, it’s all over’. But Cyprian would say that Jesus told Peter that even if your brother sins seventy times seven, you are to forgive. Cyprian erred on the side of mercy [a good way to err!] he would ultimately be killed in the year 259 for the faith. Though these church fathers were not doctrinally perfect, and they also weren’t the only expression of the Christian church in the first few centuries, yet they supply a wealth of knowledge and experience that we can all learn from, these are ‘part of the vineyard’ if you will. When you have a broad range of reading and study from all the various Christian communions, then it’s easy to spot the false, these might try to ‘kill the son’ but wisdom won’t allow it.
(1111) was reading where the disciples ask Jesus ‘who is the greatest among us’? And Jesus takes a little child and says ‘unless you become like this, you wont even see the things that I am doing’ [Gods kingdom]. Yesterday I was reading up on the Orthodox church, how in the 9th century the two great missionaries Cyril and Methodius evangelized the Slavic peoples of Moravia, the Latin rite churches were already there [Catholic/western] but these brothers knew Greek and had the ability to hold the Mass in the common language, the Catholic brothers were doing it in Latin. Eventually this drew more Slavs to the Greek Church than the Latin one. Well this caused some friction with the Bishop of the area and they sent them packing to the Pope, at this time the eastern rite churches [Orthodox] were still submitting to Papal authority to a degree. After making their case the Pope sent them back to continue their work [well one of them passed away while at Rome, but the other made it back]. True servants of God who gave their lives for the gospel, as opposed to living the comfortable life. In the 10th century, the story goes, the Russian prince Vladimir sent his men out to examine the various religions. They said the Muslims were okay, but they lacked joy. The Catholics seemed dedicated, but you can’t understand the Mass! It’s Latin. But when they visited the great Orthodox Church at Constantinople, they said you couldn’t tell if you were in heaven or on earth! The Divine Liturgy floored them. How true these stories are [this one comes from a 12th century telling] we don’t really know, but we do know that in their own way these churches have impacted entire regions of the earth with the gospel, long before we Evangelicals even existed! What am I saying here? In today’s world we measure ourselves ‘amongst ourselves’ to see who is the greatest in the kingdom, half the times we are not even aware of the history of the kingdom! There have been, and will continue to be many people whom the Lord will use to bring his truth to various people groups, these ‘little children’ will spend no time trying to gain a name for themselves, or to make it into the history books. Little children have no time for that sort of stuff, all they want to do is go outside and play with their friends. They don't really get all uptight about their little Jewish buddies, the Protestant kid down the block. The little black kid who might be Baptist, they simply see them all as friends. Do you want to be great in Gods kingdom? Then start playing like a kid.
(1109) Last night my wife plugged in the vacuum and we lost power to part of the house! I have had this problem before, it was a loose outlet. So I started pulling out the outlets that were not working and began tightening the loose connections, of course I’m the type that over reacts so it’s getting late and I’m moving furniture, outlets hanging out all over the place [with the power on] and my wife is saying ‘are you sure your not going to electrocute yourself?’ ‘What, what do you think I am, some novice’! [To be honest I am the type that would electrocute myself]. So anyway I think I found the outlet that’s bad [they run in series, so if one goes out you loose the rest down the line] and hopefully will get to it soon [it’s 4:30am, too early to be waking everybody up- you know ‘where’s the screwdriver! Quick, go turn this breaker on and off!’ Somewhat of taskmaster!] It actually reminds me of a funny story, one year at the fire dept. me and one of the guys took the fire truck to some pre school church thing; you know, shoot some water, do a little safety class. So as we are doing our thing, I see out of the corner of my eye that one of the kids is grabbing on to what he thinks is a power line. It’s simply a cable going to the power line, but it’s still a bad thing to do! I hear the kid telling his buddy ‘see, it wont shock you to DEATH’! Geez, I’m like ‘hey, cut that out’! I could just see the story in the paper ‘Fire dept. electrocutes two church pre schoolers while giving a safety class’ that would have been an early retirement for sure. Okay, I was reading Matthew 16 and the famous confession of Peter; Jesus asks ‘who do men say that I am’ and Peter responds ‘thou art the Christ, the Son of God’ Jesus says ‘blessed are you Peter, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my father in heaven. And upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it’. Our Catholic friends focus on Peter, they see Jesus giving special authority to Peter [by the way, he does!] and have developed the Papacy from this. Our Protestant brothers see little about Peter, they say Jesus was saying ‘you Peter, your just a pebble [a play on the Greek wording] and I Jesus, am the rock’ true enough. Our Word of Faith friends have said Jesus was speaking about ‘revelation knowledge’ [a type of prophetic thing] that Jesus was saying he would establish his church on the gift of being able to receive spiritual knowledge directly from God. To be honest about it, I think there is some truth to each one of these views. I primarily think Jesus was saying ‘Peter, this confession of me as Gods Son is the foundation of the spiritual temple that my father is building’ Peter referred to us a ‘living stones’ in his letter. We are called a spiritual temple that God is building out of spiritual stones, so we qualify as building stones in this temple, as ‘stones’ we are ‘chips off of the rock’ so to speak, so we are the corporate expression of Jesus in the earth ‘the Body of Christ’ and therefore Jesus is the rock, and as he ‘grows thru us’ we show forth his glory to the nations. But I also sensed the lord telling me ‘John, the things you build out of a response of hearing and ‘seeing’ me are the things that will last, the gates of hell will not prevail against these things’ [communities, reached people groups]. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would ‘take of mine and show it unto you’ God reveals his Son to us, Jesus told Peter that’s how he knew who Jesus was, when we live out our lives as a response of the revelation of God to us thru Christ, then these are the things that will last, the eternal riches if you will. When we live our lives based on our own priorities and desires, these are the things that fade away. I want Jesus to see me as one who is blessed because the father has revealed his Son to me, someone who is living and teaching and acting out of divine revelation, not out of human desires.
(1108) got up early today, did one of those 2-5am prayer things, happens every now and then. Here in my office I can see my old sea bag from the Navy, I still have it! I remember getting it around 30 years ago in Great Lakes IL. My boot camp city, I actually live right next to the base in Corpus Christi, the spot where they kicked me out 20 something years ago! Though I was stationed in Kingsville, I attended my ‘captains mast’ [court thing] in Corpus. It reminds me of a funny story, one of the guys went to his hearing and the judge says ‘salute’ so he puts his hand up and salutes, then the judge says ‘to’ which means put your hand down. Instead, he saluted with the second hand! [two- get it?] and we are the guys protecting you! Okay, I was thinking of sharing the verse where Jesus says ‘every scribe taught about the kingdom brings forth both new and old things from his treasure [teaching]’. Over the years I have noticed the different dynamics at work amongst various strains of Christianity. The danger with the strong independent churches is you can go thru stages where you are never taught ‘things new and old’. I used to read the prophetic type sites [Elijah list] but haven’t been there in quite a while. There is a tendency for various groups to overdose on one particular slant and to never ‘bring forth the old’ [sound, stable teaching on the scripture and foundational truths of Christianity]. You can spend years feeding at the trough of well meaning ‘prophets’ but the message never seems to move on, how many thousand of words about ‘rebuke the spirit of poverty’ ‘this is the year of increase’ ‘now is a season of suddenlies’ I mean all well meaning people, but the poor saints are overdosing on stuff that might be simple repetition of what people feel like saying! We need both new and old [sound doctrine]. The same can be said of the prosperity groups, or any other Christian group that has no real connection to historic Christianity. A good Pastor may get a hold of the truth of prosperity, then you might spend a few years simply talking about finances, every thing will be seen thru that lens. New Christians entering that environment may never learn the reality of justification by faith, or other foundational truths [things old!] that are vital for a strong walk with the Lord. So anyway I felt the Lord simply wanted to challenge us to bring forth both new and old. It’s okay if people focus on different areas for a short season, but avoid spending all your time and energy in one doctrinal ‘room’ we all need both new and old stuff to stay healthy.
(1107) let’s teach a little today. Recently I have been listening to lectures on Philosophy; they got into the modernist/liberal movement that took place in the 19th/20th centuries, the higher criticism that was taught mainly in the Christian universities in Germany. This view tired to ‘modernize’ the bible and make it more compatible to modern man, though these brothers meant well, they for the most part would come to reject the historic truths of the faith, including the bodily resurrection of Christ. But you had others who were not quite that extreme. The famous theologians Karl Barth and Emil Brunner taught that it was possible for Jesus, in his human nature, to make mistakes! Why? Jewish tradition attributes the first five books of the bible [Pentateuch- Greek word meaning ‘5 scrolls’, Torah in Hebrew, meaning Law] as being written by Moses. Later on certain scholars would challenge that assumption [after all Moses didn’t sign the books!] and reject the Jewish tradition. Is that a problem? Somewhat. Jesus himself speaks of the books as being from Moses, he often says ‘Moses said to you this’ and he is quoting the Torah. So now we have a problem. Barth and Brunner reconciled this by saying Jesus was simply speaking out of the tradition of the time, most Jews believed the books were written by Moses, Jesus in his humanity would have no way of knowing who wrote them, so he attributed them to Moses as well. Now this is a problem, theologically speaking. Barth and Brunner used a classic belief of historic Christianity to back up their idea; the early church councils had said that the human and divine natures of Jesus were separate and that they did not share each others attributes. The example would be when Jesus was asked abut his coming and he said ‘no man knows, not even the Son, only God’ so Barth was on some good grounding for his idea. The Catholic Church would come to reject the division between the human and divine natures of Jesus. Why? For theological reasons, the Mass teaches that the physical body of Jesus is actually present in all Catholic churches at the same time. The only way this could happen is if the Divine attribute of omni-presence was shared with Jesus’ physical nature. St. Thomas Aquinas would call this ‘the communication of attributes’. So anyway the liberal scholars tried to reconcile so called ‘modern historical truth’ with scripture. I personally do not accept the theory that Jesus might have made a mistake in his teaching, this would verge on the questioning of his sinless perfection and challenge his requirement to die for mans sins! During the time of the higher critics an interesting thing happened, you had the industrial revolution take place. Men began laying rail road tracks, digging up the earth for commercial purposes. And what did they ‘accidentally’ find? A ton of evidence baking up the historical claims of scripture! The very things the critics were doubting! This was the era of Archaeology; the historians would find evidence backing up the historical accuracy of scripture. Many critics doubted the New Testament [and Old] documents, they said the names of political rulers of certain districts were false. When Luke records things in Acts they said there was no proof of Luke's accuracy. All this changed thru the science of archeology. As a matter of fact the historical accuracy of Luke [Acts] is now said to have been at the highest of levels! In the Popes recent book ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ he critiques the historical method [not the true historical findings, but the liberal trends coming from the universities] and warns that if your view of Jesus devolves into this forensic examining of him thru an historical lens only, then you run the risk of missing out on a true devotional experience with Jesus as Lord and savior. I agree. One time the religious leaders said to Jesus ‘tell these people to stop praising you’ and he said if they stopped testifying to who he was, that the ‘rocks’ would cry out. I think they have. [Rocks- archaeology, get it?]
(1097) Okay, lets do one on apologetics, the last few posts drained me too much! During the time of the Reformation, Enlightenment and scientific revolution [15-1700’s] you had people dealing with the reality that many of the former institutions that they trusted in [Catholic Church] were being challenged at the core. Though the scientific method was introduced by the church, yet as time advanced many would use science as an excuse to challenge the existence of God. As certain philosophers grappled with the effect that this would have on society [Immanuel Kant] they developed belief systems to explain the necessity of some type of belief in a moral higher power, versus the other extreme which is defined as Nihilism. That is the basic belief that nothing really has meaning at all, as the rock group Kansas put it ‘all we are is dust in the wind’ [p.s. try not to listen to this song if your feeling depressed!] Those who advocated Nihilism [Niestche] still had to explain away the reality of this almost universal belief in God. Where does it come from? Why do people gravitate towards this belief? For the most part the atheistic philosophers said it was born out of this innate desire of man to want more than Nihilism, basically man could not accept the reality that he came from nothing and was heading nowhere, so that’s why he came up with God and religion. Now it was important for the atheistic philosopher to come up with some answer to the dilemma, and this was basically it. What's the problem with this answer? The majority view of God [Christian, Jew, Muslim] is a view that God is this all-powerful being who knows all things. He also has this moral code that if broken demands strict punishment, and man in his humanity has a really difficult time living up to this code [of course Christians solve this problem thru the Cross!] and any man who lives his life as a lawbreaker will not be able to escape this all knowing judge who has all power to carry out all justice for all men. In short, if man developed a god for psychological reasons, as some type of cosmic crutch to help him thru his meaningless existence, for heavens sake it wouldn’t be this one! Thus the explanation that the atheistic philosopher gave didn’t really solve the problem. Now Immanuel Kant rejected natural theology, he did not believe the arguments used to prove the existence of God from natural means were valid [Anselm, Augustine, Aquinas] but he was accused of driving God out of the front door and letting him in thru the back. Kant said in order for man to have rule and order, civil society, that you would need some basic things. Man would have to have some type of moral code to live by, he would also have to be assured that those who broke it would have to pay some type of penalty [in the after life as well as now]. In order for a just future judgment you would need an all knowing judge who you couldn’t slip something by, he had to be just, not one you could bribe! He would also have to be all powerful, if by chance he couldn’t execute the judgment then crime would still prevail. Kant called this basic moral requirement ‘ought ness’ that is the things that all people ‘ought to do’ the moral code implanted in man. Kant recognized the danger of Nihilism, if man had no outside moral agent to whom he was accountable to, then civil society would eventually be lost. So you now see the problem with the period of human history where men went thru a revolutionary stage. As they tried to cast off the church and God, they also realized that these things provided the very foundation of civil society. If Nihilism won out, society would eventually collapse.
(1096) THE FINAL DAY these past few weeks we have looked at the circumstances surrounding Jesus and his friends, their struggles and weaknesses. Thought it fitting to do one from the perspective of Jesus himself. Theologians have questioned how much Jesus himself knew of his own purpose and destiny. When he was 5 years old did he fully comprehend the things that awaited him? Of course not, but at the age of 12 he most certainly was seeing the ‘writing on the wall’. His own mother Mary was told early on ‘this child will effect many, nations and people groups will stand or fall based on his life’ oh, and one more thing Mary ‘a sword will pierce thru your own heart also’. Did she reveal this to her son? Did she embrace the fact that she too would experience terrible loss over her involvement in the life of Jesus? The bible says she ‘pondered these things in her heart’ she basically realized that a little more was going on than meets the eye, this strange experience, prophets and religious experiences that are intruding into her average life. Seeming to see future things about her son, things that he wasn’t fully aware of at the time. Oh well, file it away until another day. As Jesus grows in wisdom and stature he begins to grasp more fully the day that awaits him, he sees the prophetic things that surround him, things that were unexplainable, except for the fact that God was showing him what must happen next. Is he wondering somewhat? He goes out to his cousin John at the age of 30, John says ‘behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ he tells Jesus ‘I am not worthy to fulfill this task, I am not worthy to even untie your shoes!’ Now steady John, I know this seems to be going too far, you being the one prophesied by Malachi, the ‘Elijah to come’ but I have to deal with a much heavier matter, you said it right when you just called me ‘Gods Lamb’ I will fulfill my destiny in a way that my closest friends don’t understand yet. Some of them are very close to me, ‘swords’ will pierce thru their hearts. They do not fully see the bigger purpose, their attachment to me was meant for a higher purpose, my father knew that to get their attention they would need to be involved with me in some way, then when my destiny is complete, they will forever have been effected. John baptizes his cousin and from the sky a voice says ‘this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased’. Jesus knew the course by now, too many signs for all of this to be some type of coincidence. But what about my friends father? My disciples, people who have become emotionally attached in some way? The recent discussions over the DaVinci code and stuff like that have caused many to wonder about Jesus’ ‘love life’. Was Mary [the female follower] possibly more than a friend? [By the way, the answer is NO!] But people have asked. The Catholic Church has changed it’s stance on the traditional belief that Mary Magdalene was the same woman that Jesus cast 7 unclean spirits out of, the prostitute. But whether she was that Mary or not, we don’t know. But surely she must have been affected by this whole scenario. This person who accepted her fully, he truly did love her, but not in the way normal people would define it, but yet in a greater way! It’s hard to explain, he knew her brief attachment to him would end with a sword piercing thru her soul as well. But what could he do? This was part of the destiny he now fully understood, his friends can’t really see it all yet, they are being drawn into this drama by events that seemed to be an accident, Jesus knew better. As the tragic day draws near, though it will end great in the victory of mans redemption, yet tragic in the sense that he could not really live a normal life with his good friends ‘attending the school reunion’ are you kidding! I am about to fulfill a destiny that will impact the world! No time for that sort of stuff. Now we have already covered the emotions of Judas, Peter and others. Is Mary [the disciple] thinking ‘who knows, maybe Jesus will marry me? After all it is a custom for many of the religious leaders of the day’ was she hoping for more than his destiny would allow? He realizes that he has brought these friends along for a ride that they didn’t fully see yet, but when it’s all over it will have turned out all right, but for now they will sacrifice the normal pleasures of life. Jesus has now spent 33 years contemplating the big day, he now fully grasps what it’s all about, no more possibility of persuading him to not go thru with it. Sure, his friends will try ‘God forbid that you even have the thought of going to Jerusalem to die! Why are you even having these thoughts’? Peter felt responsible in some way to help his friend out, to intervene in any way he could. Jesus was determined; there was no stopping him now. Oh well, let the chips fall, we did all we could do. He begins to agonize over the actual event itself, wondering if there might be some other way. Mary [his mother and the disciple] was surely praying for it, they hoped with all of their hearts for another end, they have prayed and asked God ‘please help him, we love him so much, please let him live!’ Jesus is very tired now, it’s been quite a long road to this point, he now fully grasps what’s going to happen, he hoped he could have handled it a little better. He doesn’t want to show weakness right now, but he is fully man and fully God. The man says ‘Father, I know we have come to this predetermined place. My mother heard about it from the prophet at my birth, I realize that I have come for a much greater purpose, but PLEASE, PLEASE listen to me, if it’s possible, let me not go thru with this. If there is another way, please lets do it that way’. He knows deep down inside that he shouldn’t be asking this, he prepared himself mentally for this day for quite some time now, but a big part of ‘this day’ would be his struggle, his inner turmoil. His friends will one day read what went on behind the scenes, they will get a glimpse of the intensity of the struggle; they will see why he seemed so intense at times, things that they didn’t really know about, but the agony was part of the whole story. He will sweat drops of blood; the turmoil seems too much to bear. Sure, those around him would taste part of it, but they would have no idea how much it was effecting him, he was the target. He comes back to his disciples, they are sleeping! ‘Didn’t I ask you to pray? I really need you guys right now, please don’t give up on me now!’ they were dumbfounded ‘why is he so upset?’ they weren’t seeing it from his perspective. ‘It is enough, I am now going to be given to sinful men, they will do to me as they will’. Jesus once said ‘when the salt looses it’s flavor, it is good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under men's feet’. The three year ministry of Jesus had lots of flavor, many who followed his calling were really blessed, I mean no one could teach like him! Plus he really did do a of lot good, lives were touched for ever, but things are now wrapping up with him, his friends didn’t turn out as good as he had hoped, they are denying him left and right! The flavor is being lost, he is about to be cast out and trodden under men’s feet! His long awaited for day has arrived, the day he looked forward to ‘for this purpose was I born!’ he would say, but yet he was in agony, you could almost taste it! So here we go Jesus, the time has come, any last words ‘You will see me coming in the power and glory of my fathers kingdom, do what you have to do’. Wow, we never had a final statement like that! They scourge him, a brutal act of whipping a person until his flesh falls off of his bones, ‘some king’ quick lets cover his face with this bag ‘Whack’ they beat the hell out of him ‘prophesy now Jesus, who hit you’. Well let’s nail the prophet to the tree. He is suspended between heaven and earth, he looks down. His mother is there, his poor mom. She somehow knew this day was coming, she hoped it could have been avoided, but it’s here. She remembers the prophecy from years ago ‘a sword will go thru your soul Mary’ the sword has penetrated. The other Mary now knows ‘it will never be! I had hoped that maybe this person who loved me more than anyone would be mine alone’ but he was given to the world, Mary will never be the same. Jesus is determined, it’s gone too far now, his friends are tasting death themselves. He mentally knew what the Cross would entail, being forsaken by God for the sins of men. A feeling of ‘forsaken-ness’ that no other person would ever be able to comprehend, though he intellectually knew it, yet he still had never really tasted it. No man ever has. What’s it feel like Jesus, if your who you said you were, come down and we will believe. They put a sponge on a stick with ‘vinegar and gall’ actually an act of mercy from his executioners, they had experience with others who have died this way, right at around this point they all drink the gall, it was a painkiller of sorts, helps you thru the pain- Mick Jaggers ‘mothers little helper’. He refuses ‘no, I'll drink in the pain’ seems a little self destructive? He cries something that is misunderstood, they think he’s calling for Elijah, but his words are garbled, he is unrecognizable for heavens sake, a truly tortured man! He was once again calling to his God. It all seems too much, weigh too much intensity for such a short life. He had his struggles, don’t get me wrong, HE NEVER SINNED, but did go thru stuff. We heard lots of rumors about him, but now this day, this tragic day has arrived. Of course we know it was really a great victory, but tell that to the pitiful figure on the Cross as he screams ‘Oh my God, why have you forsaken me like this’ and dies.
(1094) I know I shouldn’t write posts when mad, but I can’t help it! I am on the verge of just deleting the Emergent Village icon from my blog roll. Just listened to an interview by Tony Jones, he’s talking to a Christian minister who wrote a book from the view point of Evolution as fact; now, I know there are many theistic evolutionists [Christians who embrace evolution] and I do understand their arguments, but the tone of this interview just irked me! ‘what’s the psychological reason/problem with believers not accepting it as fact’ [paraphrase]. I don’t want to get into all the scientific reasons that Christians [and many non Christians!] do not accept the theory, but it just seems like Tony Jones has responded to his many critics by taking on a casual persona that allows him to make statements that turn many sincere believers away. Any thinking Christian can easily find evidence against Darwin’s theory; the problem is certainly not a psychological one!
(1087) People like stories, there is actually an age old [few centuries] debate on whether or not the historic church got their theology messed up because of missing ‘the story’. In the 18, 1900’s liberal strains of Christian teaching showed how the Hebrew culture was one of narrative, stories. And that as the Gentile church grew and lost part of her Jewish heritage, that they messed up by taking ‘the story’ about God and his people and turned it into systematic theology. That basically the church allowed herself to be influenced by philosophy and intellectualism and they produced creeds and councils and stuff, but lost the romantic nature of Christ and his bride [the church!]. The early church father, Tertullian, said ‘what does Jerusalem have to do with Athens’? Meaning what does philosophy have to do with Christianity. So either way some think we have lost the story. I was watching King of Queens the other day, it’s the episode where Doug [Kevin James] is supposed o attend this overeaters class. So as he goes to the building where all these 12 step programs are being held, he sees that in his room the snacks are all fruits and carrots and stuff, but he catches a glimpse of a room across the hall and he sees these luscious donuts! So he wanders into the room and begins stacking up for the trip, and as he is about to leave the room the main counselor sees him and introduces himself and all. Doug tries to explain that he’s really not supposed to be in this class [it’s a program for men being beat up by their wives] but the counselor thinks he’s in denial. Sort of like ‘does your wife make you feel unworthy, is that why you eat too much?’ so as he thinks about it for a few minutes, the next shot is him walking back and forth during the meetings, eating the doughnuts and blaming all his problems on his wife ‘she calls me fatty’ and stuff like that. So what was supposed to help him [the 12 step program across the hall] turned out enabling him to eat! So as the weeks pass Carrie [his wife] is so happy about his enthusiastic attitude when that day of the week rolls around, he seems to be enjoying this program more than she thought he would, she gets a little suspicious as he is standing in the doorway getting ready to leave, as she looks at him she notices something; a real tangible difference in him since he’s been attending. She asks ‘Doug, are you getting fatter?’ Of course he’s put on a few pounds as he’s been consuming all the doughnuts. He tries to wiggle out of it, he responds ‘that’s the motto, you will get fatter before you get skinnier’ and he bolts out the door. Well now she has to see what’s been really going on with him, she goes to the building and finds the overeaters class, she asks one of the guys ‘is Doug here?’ and he tells her there is no Doug in this class. So as he is piling up his snack plate with carrots and stuff, she says ‘isn’t this the overeaters class’ and the poor guy gets offended and says ‘no, this is Jenny Craig’ and tells her ‘why do you have to hurt’. So she realizes something’s going on, sure enough she spots her husband at the doughnut bar with the guys who are getting beat up by their wives. The poor guys are dejected, living their lives with the stigma of, well getting beat up by their wives! So she confronts Doug, they get into it. The counselor and all the guys in the class who have been hearing all the stories of how terrible she is, come to his defense. Things get out of hand, she spills the beans on how he always was overweight, it’s not her fault; he leaves and as she is leaving the room she stops at the door for a moment; looks back at the room of dejected men, they look like they have lost all sense of self respect, such timid creatures, and she kind of makes a quick move at them, you know like if you were gonna hit someone, and they all flinch at the same time. She walks away smiling. Well, quite a long story/narrative. What did we learn? That if you are going to an over eaters class, don’t eat the doughnuts for heavens sake! Well, not really. We learned that stories are interesting, they catch peoples attention, and you want to hear ‘the rest of the story’ so to speak. Our lives are stories for people to read, God wants us to be open books as much as possible. This can be a very difficult thing, I mean really, do you want me to know about your personal history? The things you have struggled with in life. God wants us to be more than ‘doctrinal dispensers of truth’ [systematic theologians] now don’t get me wrong, that’s a part of it, but it has to proceed from the story of our lives. Twelve step programs help people because the basic concept is based on Christian principles. One of my main teachings is on what the church is, part of it includes a community of people who are open and honest with each other, who share their struggles with each other, so that’s the basis of the programs. As Christians I think we need to let people into our story, they need to not only hear proofs for Gods existence, or the quoting of bible verses. We need to let people into our stories, live openly and vulnerably before the world. Naked on a Cross, if that’s what it takes.
(1077) let’s talk a little about conversion and ‘being born again’. This past week was Easter week; I made it a point to watch the Catholic Mass from Rome. The Pope presides over this service. The English translator shared how the Popes usually do not give a message write after the reading, they always give an address to the world, but not an actual sermon. But Pope Benedict made it clear that he wanted to take the opportunity to actually preach. Hey, all good preachers couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this! Sure enough he gave the clearest Easter message of the week, out of the few other sermons I caught during the week, his was the clearest. He explained the Passover Lamb and how Jesus was the fulfillment. He gave a very ‘Christocentric’ message [centered on Christ]. I thought it was a great opportunity for the world to clearly hear the message of the Cross. Now, being ‘born again’ is a very real thing that ALL people must experience in order to have a relationship with God. The term comes from Jesus own lips as recorded in Johns gospel. John mentions it in his epistles [as well as Peter]. And Paul most certainly taught regeneration. If you read the chapter where Jesus speaks about it [John 3] you will see how he is challenging the religious mindset of his day, he is talking to a religious leader and telling him ‘you must be born again in order to see Gods kingdom, to understand the truths I am showing you’. In Johns letters [1st,2nd and 3rd John] he clearly defines being born again as believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. So the reality of all men needing this new birth is true, the problem arises when different Christian groups put their ‘slant’ on it. Some groups emphasize water baptism, others ‘the sinners prayer’, the more sacramental churches [Catholic, Orthodox, etc.] have a mix of the sacraments along with faith. My own view is the strong Justification by faith belief. Now, some believers who were raised in the more traditional expressions of the church, after they experience a definite conversion to Christ, will often view all of their former brethren as lost. They will associate their real conversion experience as being truly born again. The problem with this approach is some will view their experience as the plumb line for all other faiths. They sincerely see the other Christian groups as lost, they want them to experience what they experienced. Now, even though I do not personally believe in infant baptism, or adult baptismal regeneration [read my statement of faith section] yet I do see the reality of other church traditions grounding their people on the foundation of Christ. That is they might not have been ‘born again’ when their church officially claimed that over them, but if their denomination still teaches the gospel, and they believe it, then they are in fact ‘born again’ according to the New Testament criteria of ‘being born again’. I believe it is important for all traditions to emphasize the reality of Jesus and his death for us. For people to understand that God accepts us on the basis of the death and resurrection of his Son, this is the foundation of our relationship with God. Too many people are struggling with self worth, trying to live up to others expectations, to impress others. They then struggle with their inability to overcome sin, feelings of unworthiness, and they hear a message from the ‘church world’ that sounds condemning. They have no real hope in God. We need to reorient the message around the Cross, to let people know that God accepts them based on the redemption that Christ accomplished on the Cross. Christian churches might [and do!] disagree on the technical aspects of ‘being born again’ but we all agree on Jesus being the Messiah, the Son of the Most High.
(1076) Being we are in between studies I thought I might talk a little on the books I recently read. One was an older scholarly work on revivals and ‘revivalism’. It covered the history of the great awakenings [18th-19th century America], while I am familiar with this period and have read on it before, the interesting thing I learned was the intense disagreement between the Arminians [those who reject the classic doctrines of Predestination] and the Calvinists. The degree of anti-Calvinism was surprising. Many average readers of church history do not realize the role that Calvinism played in the beliefs of many of the famous reformers [Spurgeon, Edwards, Whitefield]. Also the intense disagreement between the ‘new measures’ [altar call] and the more reserved churches. I must admit I personally came to distrust the amount of weight that is put on the evangelical ‘altar call’. I remember as a new believer, being excited about the things of the Lord, I was working for a construction crew and worked with a bunch of good old boys. They were around my age [19-20] and were local Texans. I was this Yankee from New Jersey, but I liked the brothers. I remember how after witnessing to them non stop for a period of around a year, one of them sincerely tells me ‘Oh, we are all saved, we all got saved as kids in our churches’. I realized the popular terminology of ‘getting saved’ and associating that with the evangelical altar call, was just as legalistic as some of our Catholic brother’s trust in infant baptism and the sacraments. That is the Protestants would criticize the Catholics for ‘trusting in tradition’ while they were just as bad! So in the recent book they showed the intense disagreements over this, many reformed brothers felt that telling people to raise their hands ‘in church’ and come to the altar to ‘get saved’ was simply giving false hope to many people who clearly had no real understanding of the gospel. But the other extreme was the strong Calvinists who seemed to indicate that total passivity was the way to go. Some got the impression that you could not make ‘a choice’ to follow the Lord, so they didn’t. For the most part I recognize that it is possible to have gone thru all the motions [whether Protestant or Catholic] and to lack a real trust and faith in Christ, but some carry this too far and judge others as ‘not being saved’ because they did not say ‘the sinners prayer’ or ‘accept Jesus into their heart’. The scriptures clearly teach that those who believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that they are children of God. Now, I realize this is not speaking of simple American ‘I believe in God’ type faith, where people have no real walk with the Lord. But we also don’t want to reduce salvation to an evangelical [or Catholic] technique that you blindly follow in order to ‘get saved’. My well meaning friend who told me ‘we are all saved’ was simply viewing ‘being saved’ from a religious lens, just like a cradle Catholic might view the sacraments. I believe we should encourage people to have a strong commitment to the faith, trusting and relying on Christ’s work for our redemption, but we need to be careful that we are not viewing ‘being saved’ only thru our own religious paradigm.
(1075) Last night I caught a good interview on ‘the Colbert report’. They had Bart Ehrman on, the author of ‘Jesus interrupted’. I had just read a critique of his book on Ben Witherington's site [go check it out, he did a great job. His site is on my blog roll]. Colbert actually used some basic Christian arguments to refute Ehrman. Basically Ehrman is somewhat of an intellectual critic of Christianity, his background is one of ‘fundamentalist’ and as he learned of various criticisms of Christianity he became a vocal opponent. When young kids are brought up in church, taught the basics of bible faith, they then go off to college [Christian ones] and depending on how ‘liberal’ the university is, they get challenged on many of their core assumptions. Now, some of these challenges are good, believers should be familiar with the basic challenges to the authenticity of the faith. We often fail to prepare younger believers for this world. What Ehrman seems to be doing is taking many of these basic challenges and saying ‘see, all true university professors know that there are many contradictions/falsehoods in the bible, it’s a secret that the average bible toting Archie Bunkers don’t know about’. Well, he does overstate his claim. What are some of the basic challenges to the faith? Some teach that the scriptures [gospels] teach contradictions, last night Ehrman said that the crucifixion accounts were contradictory. He quoted from various accounts and said ‘see, one writer has Jesus depressed, the other upbeat’ to be honest, NO gospel shows Jesus ‘upbeat’ on his way to the Cross! But he was basically saying the gospel writers told conflicting stories. Geez, I could have come up with better challenges myself! Or the accusation of plagiarism, I am presently reading a book written by John Crossan, an ultra liberal ‘Jesus Seminar’ brother. They challenge everything about the faith. He chops up the scripture in a way that would make it next to impossible to comprehend. He has the list of the letters that most accept as legitimate [Paul’s] then the list of ‘maybe Paul’s, maybe not’ then those he says were not written by Paul, though the letters themselves claim to be written by him. Is it possible that a letter in the New Testament could have been written by someone else? Sort of like a ghostwriter? To be honest about it, it’s possible. Now wait, I know some of you will write me off for this. It’s possible because 1st century writers did do stuff like this, the official name for doing this is [I know I can’t spell it] called ‘pseudepigraphal’ or something like that. The point is it would not be wrong or deceptive for a first century Christian writer to have done this, it would not be considered lying. Do we have any examples in scripture where stuff like this happened? There are references [not symbolic] that have writers in scripture saying ‘greet those at Babylon’ or ‘to those at Babylon’ and the writer means Rome [I think Peter and John do this?] In these few cases it is understood that they used Babylon because they were writing to areas that they did not want to be exposed, they did not want Rome to know who or what they were writing about. So this is considered acceptable, not a deception. Likewise in the gospels you read one account of Peters denials where it says ‘before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times’ and another gospel says ‘before the cock crows’ well, which one is right? They both are, one is just giving more detail than the other. Is this lying, of course not. It was perfectly acceptable in 1st century biographical writing to do stuff like this. Biographies are held to different standards then intense historical accounts. That is not to say the gospels are not historical, it’s just to say the writers were writing biographies and it should be understood that way. Even Colbert [a Roman Catholic believer] brought this out in his mock challenge to Ehrman, he used the classic elephant example. Four blind guys all give different descriptions of the part of the elephant they feel. I think believers should be familiar with the historical arguments against the faith, they should not simply respond ‘that’s God's word and that settles it’ while this might suffice for ones personal faith, it does nothing to refute Ehrman, or his disciples! NOTE- I believe all the letters, writings in the New Testament that say who wrote the actual letter, were written by that writer. The problem is some writings do not say who wrote them. But we can still figure out some of them by other means. Luke tells the person he addressed Acts to, that he wrote his gospel account on an earlier occasion. John’s gospel says it was written by the ‘disciple who Jesus loved’. So even writings that do not specifically say ‘written by Matthew’ or Mark or whoever, you still can find hints to who wrote them.
(1059) 1ST KINGS 11- THE SIN OF SOLOMON- Now we get to the part where Solomon blows it. As I read these stories of the great men who failed, I continually fall into the trap of rooting for them, even though I know the end of the story! The trap being that failure in a sense was built into the story. How could God fulfill his purpose thru the coming Messiah if one of the sons of David actually lived up to the standard? Solomon, in a sense, was destined to fail. So what happened? This chapter says Solomon loved many women [1,000 to be exact!] and IN HIS OLD AGE began worshipping their gods. He set up altars for sacrifice and allowed the pagan gods to affect Gods people. I find this interesting, it wasn’t the actual act of having all those other women, but the sin of being too accommodating to the other ‘world religions’. I’m presently reading a book written by what you would call a liberal scholar, you know, the brothers who challenge the authenticity of just about everything. But I also have some good scholars that I read from. To be honest, at times you still might read something that makes you a little uneasy; they too at times have been affected by higher learning. But the difference between the ‘good and the bad’ ones is the fact that the good ones remain true to the historic gospel. N.T. Wright is a great scholar, he sits in the middle category, between the conservatives and the liberals [in my view]. The prolific Bishop of Durham [Church of England] has written excellent stuff on the resurrection and the kingdom of God. The liberal scholars view him as ‘behind the times’ why? Because he actually defends the historic resurrection of Christ! Yet you can read some higher criticism in Wrights stuff, not real bad stuff, just things that the average fundamentalist might be uncomfortable with. So getting back to Solomon, he became way too accommodating to the religions of his day. Sort of like calling Islam, Christianity and Judaism the ‘great Abrahamic faiths’. Now, I love Muslims/Arabs, I have written in their defense! I also think some Muslim apologetic arguments for the existence of God are good, but I would not describe Islam as one of the great Abrahamic faiths. Just like I would not call Mormonism one of the great ‘restorationist faiths’. A while back a bunch of believers had an ecumenical meeting with Muslims and Jews. Noble efforts to tone down world violence in an attempt to all get along, I think stuff like this is good. But some Christians defended Allah as being the same God as the Christians, just a different name. In my view they went too far. So Solomon became too pluralistic in his old age. Beware of the trend to abandon central elements of the faith as you mature in your thinking. There is a real temptation to want to look ‘enlightened’ to try and put distance between your intellectual faith and those ‘silly fundamentalists’, because if your not careful you might just end up with a bunch of pagan altars at your doorstep. [Ben Witherington and R.C. Sproul are other favorite scholars of mine; one is Arminian and the other Calvinistic, it’s good to read scholars from various points of view].
(1056) 1ST KINGS 8- This chapter shows the coming together of the Ark and Temple at Jerusalem. Solomon makes a great dedication to the Lord. He acknowledges the reality that God does not ‘dwell in temples made with hands’ but he asks the Lord to show preference to the temple and the prayers of the people. We really have a tremendous picture of Gods kingdom and rule thru these images. The temple centers the people on the reality of God dwelling in their midst. They worship him from Jerusalem and their king honors the father and leads the people in community wide intercession. There are even provisions made for ‘strangers’ who will become influenced by God’s reality, they will hear about Gods great story with his people [narrative!]. They will then come and also make intercession to him. I find it interesting that in the book of Acts [and 1st century church history] we read about the pagan converts to Judaism, the ‘God fearers’. Israel always maintained this aspect of their culture with God, they left the door open for converts. I also find it interesting that converts came! After all, the Jews did not practice a type of ‘soul winning’ that actively sought proselytes. It was simply the reality of God working with his people that drew others in. These last few years much has been said/written on the church and her mission. Is the gospel too small or too big? Sometimes in our efforts to ‘go deep’ we make it difficult for new converts to come into the church. In all of our efforts to present a gospel that affects society as a whole, the social aspects of our calling. The greater kingdom vision of Jesus as seen in ‘the gospels’ we also want to make sure that the simple initiation of new converts is made plain and easy to understand [in essence we need the Gospels AND the epistles both. A kingdom message is not complete without the reality of Atonement!] Solomon makes a great speech/prayer in this chapter, he worships God for standing true to his promise that he made to David his father. The people hold a seven day city wide celebration and go back to their homes. Even though the temple and it’s structure were not in Gods original plan [go read about David and Nathan] yet God will honor and use this limited system for a season. In the present day reformation of the church and her structures, we always need to keep in mind that we are still dealing with the people of God. Many of them worship God in ‘limited structures’ but yet they still worship God! So as we reform and grow in the coming decades, we also want to leave room for the prayer of Solomon ‘I know you cant be limited to a structure like a temple, but please honor the prayers and simple sacrifices of your people. They are doing it out of dedication to you’ [my paraphrase].
(1055) 1ST KINGS 7- We have more details of what went into the building of the temple. The ‘foundation stones’ were large and costly. Remember, Solomon was said to have ‘largeness of heart’. In the New Testament the Apostles are called the foundation stones of Gods spiritual temple. Peter calls us living stones. Let’s do a little house cleaning; in all areas of church renewal/reformation, we need to be careful when handling the foundation stones. In some efforts to reform [Emergent] there is an attempt to return to the teachings of Jesus, as opposed to Paul. The problem with this effort is the historic church [and scripture!] teach us that Jesus appeared to Paul [Acts 9] and told him he would be a witness of the things that Jesus would reveal to him. So if the revelation/teaching from Paul on the atonement and the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ, if these teachings are things that were shown to Paul from Jesus himself [which I believe they were] then to ignore them would be like removing the ‘foundation stones’ of the temple. These are ‘large stones’ [doctrines accepted across the broad stream of Christian churches; Catholic, Orthodox, Reformed, Radical Reformers, etc...] large stones that form the foundation of all Christian truth, C.S. Lewis’s ‘common hall’ if you will [though Lewis himself said some shaky stuff on the atonement]. I want to restate that we sometimes confuse the foundational doctrines of Christianity with the limited practices of Christianity that have developed over the centuries. We need to understand/embrace the ‘faith once delivered to the saints’ while at the same time being flexible in the various structures that Christians have developed over the centuries to express their faith. As we challenge ‘high church’ [liturgical] structures, we need to be careful that we are not also challenging the heart of the gospel as well. I have heard/read too many statements from certain reformers that are way too pluralistic in their expression of the gospel. Denials of the Cross being the key mechanism that God chose to use to redeem man [foundation stones!] Or the mistake of thinking that the Cross was simply a display of the injustices of man, a challenge to unjust governments oppressing men. While the apostle Peter does teach us that the Cross was a display/example left to us on how we should react to suffering and oppression, yet it wasn’t ONLY that. It was also a redemptive sacrifice made on the behalf of sinful men; ‘Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures’ [Corinthians]. Well, lets just keep in mind that as God’s ‘living temple’ we are being built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets [Ephesians] Jesus himself being the ‘chief corner stone’, be careful when messing with the stones!
(1054) 1st KINGS 6 ‘CONCERNING THIS HOUSE WHICH THOU ART IN BUILDING, IF THOU WILT WALK IN MY STATUTES, AND EXECUTE MY JUDGMENTS, AND KEEP ALL MY COMMANDMENTS TO WALK IN THEM; THEN WILL I PERORM MY WORD WITH THEE, WHICH I SPAKE UNTO DAVID THY FATHER’ [verse 12] Part of the promise of God to David was he would set up a son, from his natural heritage, that would take an everlasting throne. God would be faithful to his part of the bargain as long as his son walked in obedience, ultimately these promises would be fulfilled thru Christ. We can also apply them to our lives as well, we are all ‘building a house’ in a sense. Jesus said those who heard his words and did them were like those building on a sure foundation, those who ‘heard only’ were building on sand. I find it interesting that many of us seem to think that gathering one day a week to ‘hear words’ is what God requires, in a sense we have become professional hearers! [and speakers] As you relate to the house you are building, seek the Lord for wisdom and insight into how you should build. God gave Moses specific directions in the building of the tabernacle; these are the same blueprints Solomon used, only on a larger scale. Solomon did not have to get ‘another blueprint’ he simply needed to be faithful to what the Lord already revealed. Recently in the ‘church world’ we had the passing of two good men; Avery Dulles and John Neuhouse [spelling?] If I remember right, Avery Dulles said that he was no innovator, he would not be known for his new ideas, but he was just a faithful servant in Christ’s church. I liked that, we too often want to find ‘new blueprints’ sometimes the Lord is simply looking for those who will hear and obey. [Both Avery and John were Catholic’s involved in the evangelical/catholic alliance]
(1052) 1st KINGS 4- ‘And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness [generous] of heart…and his wisdom was greater than all the children of the east and Egypt…and all the people and the kings of the earth [gentiles shall come to thy light and kings to the brightness of thy rising] came to hear the wisdom of Solomon’- In this chapter we read of the tremendous storehouse of goods and resources that God gave to Solomon. His wisdom was in many areas, not just ‘theology’! He was a true Renaissance man. Before the reformation and the ‘enlightenment’ you had the Renaissance period. For many years the wisdom and knowledge that prevailed in early Greco-Roman society was lost/hidden from the public. Through process of time and events [like the crusades] some of these hidden resources of knowledge were re-discovered and the world went thru a renewal period in wisdom and philosophy. It was thanks to the catholic churches preserving of these early works [Monks and monasteries] that would later lead to them being recovered. Now, even though these works were recovered, they weren’t readily available to the general public on a wide scale. You simply did not have the tools [internet/public libraries in abundance] to disseminate the information at large, but you did have men who became educated in these areas and they were the ‘renaissance men’. Sort of like walking libraries of wisdom, ‘Solomon’s’ if you will. Solomon wrote and studied on all sorts of subjects, he did not limit himself to one field only. Often times in the area of ‘full time preaching’ we send kids off to college [okay] and they get an education that only applies to one field [full time ministry]. I think it would be better if all the ‘preachers’ became well rounded in many practical areas of learning, getting skills in various areas [Paul-tent making] that would enable them to transition when reformation happens [like the current challenge on church practices and the full time pastoral office. Many sincere men are too dependant on their jobs as full time ministers to seriously reconsider the scriptural grounds for their office]. So Solomon was the type of brother who could converse with you in all types of fields. Many of the world’s greatest scientists/mathematicians were Christians, a common mistake is to think the scientific revolution was launched by anti religious men, this is simply not true. A careful study of history would show you that the majority of the great scientific minds were products of the church. It was common to major in theology and use that field of study as the foundation for all the other fields of learning. Jesus said of Solomon that kings and queens went out of their way to hear the wisdom of Solomon [the Warren Buffet of his day] but yet a greater than Solomon was here! [speaking of himself]
(1045) Okay, I am up early and just finished prayer time. I kind of heard [spiritually speaking!] the lord speaking to me about a few various subjects, things I haven’t recently studied. I also ‘heard’ the verse ‘there are 12 hours in the day, if a man walks when it is light out, he does not stumble. Walk while you have the light, for a dark time is coming when no one will be able to walk’[Jesus- John’s gospel]. These last few weeks have been pretty bad for me, my work injury has been bad. I really am not sleeping at night because of the severe back pain. I only missed one early prayer time because of it. Not because I am some super hero, but if I don’t ‘walk when it’s light’ [or dark! 3-5 am] then I miss the daily opportunity of real prayer. I realized that to miss a daily prayer/study/teaching time is detrimental to my own health. To get up early and start is difficult, I make a few attempts at standing before I make it to the yard for prayer. I always walk while praying, but after the hour or so prayer walk, I can function okay for a while. I realized that my day starts at around 3:30 am, and it usually ends around 3-4 pm- 12 hours! Jesus gave us a 12 hour work day, we complain about 8! Actually the Jewish day was a 12 hour day, that’s why he said it. Now, let’s talk a little on apologetics. I recently read a few statements from various church traditions that seemed ‘apologetic’ and defensive. The historic church still ‘smarts’ over the whole Galileo affair. Let me defend the historic church a little. A few hundred years before Christ the great philosopher Aristotle developed a cosmology [stars and stuff] that wasn’t that bad. It is a common error to believe that we all believed the world was flat before the 16th century, only a few people believed the flat earth theory, most accepted Aristotle’s [and later Ptolemy] view. Aristotle’s concept was improved a few centuries later by Ptolemy. Ptolemy developed a system that had the sun and planets and stars all orbiting around the earth on a system of ‘Crystalline spheres’ sort of like the earth was the center of an onion and the stars/planets were stuck on these outer layers and they appeared in certain places at certain times. Now, Ptolemy did not differentiate between stars and planets. He simply saw the planets as stars that were ‘irregular’ in their patterns. These ‘irregular stars’ were called ‘wanderers’. Well anyway this system was obviously flawed, but it worked well for almost 2 thousand years. So during the 15-16th century when Copernicus came up with a more accurate system [our present understanding of the solar system- one where we orbit the sun and not vica versa] he was initially rejected on good grounds. What! Do you mean to tell me you believe in the old idea? Of course not, but the first system Copernicus floated was actually wrong! Many people don’t know this. When the church and science looked at the initial theory they found it to be lacking in certain areas. Copernicus had the planets orbiting the sun in a circular orbit, they orbit more on an Ellipsis like pattern. Also Kepler had to make other adjustments to the system to get it to work [complicated stuff like the retrograde motion of mars]. So the church had some ground to stand on when they rejected Copernicus/Galileo. Of course we later accepted the truths of science and do not see science and reason as ‘anti’ Christian. But it is this embarrassing history that puts us on the defense at times, that’s why some notable Christians have embraced evolution as a tool that God used to create man. These Christians are over compensating [in my view] for the bad history on stuff like this. I reject evolution based on scientific grounds, not biblical. If God wanted to use evolution as a tool to create man, he most certainly had that option. But science does not show that ‘tool’ to be true. Those who reject all the evidence of Intelligent Design are standing with the Bishops of Galileo’s day, who when invited to just look into the telescope and ‘see for yourself’ rejected the invitation.
(1039)Ecclesiastes 10:7-9 ‘there is an evil I have seen under the sun, AS AN ERROR WHICH PROCEEDETH FROM THE RULER: folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place. I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth’. In the last few weeks [3-2009] we have had an interesting dynamic at work. Our new president [ruler] has engaged in a type of class warfare; it goes like this ‘the rich and successful have been riding high on the hog for too long, the poor can not afford the same privileges as the rich. So we are going to tax the rich more and provide for the rest of the people who can’t provide it for themselves’. Now, I am not a staunch republican free market capitalist who believes that the free market solves all things. I have said in the past that the mandate for fair wages is actually found in scripture! That’s why many of the historic churches [Catholic] have sided on the side of labor. But in the current scenario we have dragged the corporate ‘big wigs’ before congress [which is always a joke, these guys are like the kettle calling the pot black!] and we have fostered a sort of attitude that says ‘lets make the rulers walk, while the servants ride the horses’. Even though I have been hard on the rich and famous in many of my writings, yet the reason many of them are successful is because they worked hard at it. I have been retired for over a year now, I retired with 25 years in as a firefighter. The main reason was because over the years my back started killing me. You get various injuries that come with my type of job, that’s just the way the ball bounces. Now, my retirement is solely the money that went into my account over the years, I get no type of injury pay at all! I always found it sad that there were many days when I would be at the homeless mission and many of these guys are in much better shape than me, yet many of them have been receiving govt. aid for years. I mean young guys who spend their whole check on crack! When the ‘ruler’ decides to put in place policies that simply say ‘even though you didn’t earn it, we will give it to you’ this undermines society as a whole. At the same time when the rulers call the business heads together and berate them, this is a game the servants love. It’s sort of like a dignified execution type thing. Third world countries kill the authorities they don’t like, we mock them. ‘Folly is set in great dignity, the rich sit in a low place’. I believe there is a time and place for our country to seriously look at corporate abuse, I myself have been a defender of the poor. But when you treat the poor in a way that says ‘nothing is your fault, we will solve your problems by taking from the rich and giving it to you’ you dignify folly. Many of my friends are poor because of very bad decisions they have made. Many of the ‘well to do’ have made wise decisions, when you simply transfer wealth from one group to another, without dealing with the underlying issues, you really haven’t addressed the issue at all.
(1031)ECCLESIASTES 7:19 ‘WISDOM STRENGTHENS A WISE MAN MORE THAN TEN MIGHTY MEN IN A CITY’- this chapter has a few good verses in it. It says it’s better to go thru some stuff than to live in continual ‘abundance’. Wise men have increased in the ‘house of mourning’. I watched some stuff on Lincoln the other day, it’s obvious that he grew in wisdom and stature as he battled depression and difficulty. His life’s motto was not ‘discover the champion in you’! When I went to Kingsville the other day I noticed our blog ad was not only running in the Kingsville Record, but also the Kingsville Journal. I am not sure how it got in there. I also have a bunch of papers lying around my office, papers from New Jersey and Houston and stuff. I have been getting some contacts from ‘former’ church members of years ago, they are on fire for the Lord. I kinda think they have friends who learned about us on their own and then they realized that they were talking about us. These old buddies see themselves as part of us, but many of them are not on-line geeks. So they run into other locals who follow us on-line and then they realize they are following our story. The point being ‘wisdom strengthens wise men more than ten mighty men in a city’. A few years ago I felt the lord said to start the blog and put the ad in regional papers. The ‘effort’ to do this was not as much as the various outreach projects I have been involved in over the years, but the results have gone much further. If you gave me ‘ten mighty men’ [employees/staff] and I sent them all over to effect the region, I don’t think they could equal the simple effect of me hearing and responding to the Lord in these simple ways. Now, we most certainly have ‘ten mighty men’ a group of both leaders and ‘regular saints’ [ouch!] who follow the journey, but they are a result of hearing and responding. The wisdom [ideas] from God have a greater effect than the efforts of men. Remember, the battle is not to the strong or swift, the victory comes from the Spirit of God. When we learn to listen and respond, the things we do will go far. When we put a lot of money and effort into stuff, without really listening, we get stuck with Ishmaels [something our govt. should learn!] Also, it is often in the ‘house of mourning’ [seasons of extreme difficulty] that God deposits the wisdom into you. Padre Pio [Catholic Priest] said ‘souls come with a cost, somebody has to pay the price’ are you willing to pay the price?
(1025)GREAT AWAKENING- In between studies I have been reading the ‘shelf of books’ I bought a few months ago. I bought about 70 dollars worth of books at the half price book store, they are worth a few hundred at least. The last three I just went thru were published by universities; Oxford, Princeton, etc. I have learned over the years that your time is well spent in the ‘higher education’ category. You can spend a lifetime reading the popular Christian culture stuff and never really get educated. The book I just started is called ‘Revival and Revivalism’ it was put out by Princeton and covers the history of the first great awakenings. I want to give you a long quote from Samuel Davies, the son in law of Jonathan Edwards. The Lord used him in Hanover, Va. ‘In all the sermons I have preached in Virginia, I have not wasted one minute in reasoning against the peculiarities of the established church; nor so much as assigned my own reasons of non-conformity. I have not exhausted my zeal in railing against the established clergy, in exposing their imperfections, or in deprecating their characters. I have matters of infinite importance to spend my time and strength upon, to preach repentance towards God and faith towards Jesus Christ.’ ‘What an endless variety of denominations, taken from some men of character, or from some little peculiarities, has prevailed in the Christian world and crumbled it to pieces…what party names have been adopted by the Protestant churches, whose religion is substantially the same common Christianity, and who agree on much more important truths than in those they differ. To be a Christian is not enough now-a-days, but a man must be something more or better, that is he must be a strenuous bigot to this or that particular church…but to glory in the denomination of any particular church, as my highest character, to lay more stress on my denomination than on my being a Christian…to make it my zeal to win people to my peculiar denomination than to Christ, to overlook the faults of those in my own party and to be blind to the good in others, or to diminish them; these are the things that deserve condemnation from God and man. These proceed from a spirit of bigotry and faction, directly opposite to the generous catholic spirit of Christianity, and subversive of it. This spirit turns men from the important matters of Christianity, to vain jangling and competitions about circumstantials and trifles. Thus the Christian is swallowed up in the partisan, and the fundamentals are lost in extra essentials’ [I paraphrased a little] I find it interesting that Davies and the other leaders in the awakening were anti sectarian, though most of them were Presbyterian/Reformed, yet they saw their task above denominationalism. In Davies case the main denomination he came up against was the Anglican church, many in Virginia contrasted the traditional church with the ‘new light’ brothers. Many associated with the revivals were seen this way. You can still find prejudicial comments made against Catholics during this period, but I find it interesting that many of the revival leaders were aware of the sectarian spirit and saw it as a danger to the work of God. They warned against what many of their ‘offspring’ would become. I find it hard to understand how many of the offshoots of the awakenings can read and study their history and not see the error that their own fore-fathers warned them about. But for the most part God was working in their day and they were wise enough to rise above religious bigotry.
(1022)ECCLESIASTES Solomon said there was nothing new under the sun. During the 16th century reformation you had a number of ‘offshoot’ movements that sprouted. Some define these as the radical reformers. Groups like the Anabaptists [re-baptizers] and others. As you read the writings of many of these groups you find that they were definitely seeing truth for their day. George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, was hitting the nail on the head when it came to ‘church as the building’ he exposed the limited mindset that many believers embraced. He would refer to the churches as ‘steeple houses’. Many of these groups were deemed heretical for a myriad of reasons. The Quakers would embrace a belief that emphasizes the truth from the Spirit versus the letter of the law. Some would carry this to an extreme and associate all ‘head knowledge’ faith as wrong. Any doctrinal correction from the more reformed brothers was seen as ‘dead knowledge’ coming against Spirit truth. So they would get branded with the heretic title by some. The same goes for the Anabaptists and many others. The sad thing is many of these movements were partial ‘reformers’ in their own right. They had good things to add to the debate. If you read some of their writings you would think they were a few hundred years before their time. I have read scholarly works from Catholic theologians on the Ecclesia [church] and what she is. These works were right on! Even though the average Catholic might not be aware of them. So you find real treasure in many of these groups. There really is ‘nothing new under the sun’. You should avoid a mindset that begins seeing ‘my group’ or ‘my way of seeing things’ as the true group, and the majority of other Christian groups as false. While it is easy to see whole mindsets of limited understanding that exist in the church at large, I feel it’s dangerous to grasp hold of an idea that says ‘90% of all Christianity is dead wrong, they have all been duped until now’. This is sort of like the teenager saying to dad ‘you’re so behind the times, my new way of seeing things is better than yours’. Most times the teenager later realizes that this was an overreaction. I think we all need to read the great writers of days gone by, Bonhoeffer wrote excellently on the communion of the saints. Our Church of Christ brothers had real truth on the church as the people. The Catholic mystics knew that there was more to the Christian way than simple knowledge, they sought a real experience with God. As you enter into this glorious communion of the saints, there will be obvious blind spots that you can find in many of these writers, but maturity allows us to by pass the faults of others [love covers a multitude of sin] while receiving the valuable stuff. Avoid the strong ‘they are all wrong’ spirit, remember ‘there is nothing new under the sun’.
(1019)CORINTHIANS 16:1-4 ‘When you come together on the first day of the week, let every one of you put some money aside as God has provided for you. So when I come we won’t have to waste any time taking offerings. And we will use this money for the purpose of meeting the needs of the poor saints at Jerusalem. Whoever you approve to take the money to Jerusalem can do it, I might also go with them if the Lord permits. I gave this same order to all the churches in the Galatian province’ [my own paraphrase]. These verses are usually used to justify the Sunday morning offering. They are also used to teach ‘Sunday as the Lords special day’. Let’s talk a little. Paul gave these instructions to at least this church and all the churches of Galatia. We have no idea if all the first century churches actually did this. But let’s say they did. What exactly are they doing? They are taking a Sunday offering and using it 100 percent for charitable purposes. Remember how I have taught in the past that the main teaching from Jesus on giving dealt with the poor? So if we want to use this text to command believers to give on Sunday, then we need to use ALL THE MONEY for helping poor people. Paul also says ‘do it before I arrive, I don’t want to have to spend time messing around with collections’. I find it interesting that it is common today to spend a good portion of the Sunday service [any church U.S.A.] to kind of do a celebratory offering thing. Lots of time to stop and emphasize the importance of worshiping God with our money. The point I would make is Paul did none of this. He actually said he did not want to have to set aside time for the collecting of money when he arrived, and for this very reason he said take up the offering on Sunday! One more thing; it is obvious that the early believers began a tradition of meeting on Sunday. Jesus appeared to the disciples after his resurrection on 2 consecutive Sundays. Acts 20 has believers meeting on Sunday. Jesus of course rose from the dead on Sunday. But there is no indication from scripture that believers are under some type of New Testament Sabbath law. Sort of like Sunday is now the ‘special day’ just like Saturday for Judaism. Various groups argue over this issue, I have taught on it before. In the New Covenant we have tremendous freedom to meet or not meet on Sunday. Or to meet or not meet on Saturday for that matter! But doctrinally we are free from the law and all of its observances. I appreciate the work that has been done by various scholars [Especially some catholic ones] on showing how Sunday became the special day of observance for believers. But we need to be careful when we read what the believers did in the New Testament and then proclaim it as law. I believe its fine to meet on Sunday, to take offerings and to do all of these types of things. But when we grasp hold of limited ideas, and then exalt them to a place of law, we err. Paul was simply telling this church to collect some money on the first day of the week for the sole purpose of charity. If modern day believers want to apply these scriptures literally, then we should use all of the Sunday offering for charity. If we apply them literally, then there is absolutely no sense of a tithe system to pay for salaries, building upkeep, insurance, on and on. For modern day believers to engage in such things is fine. If these expenses seem needed for the overall purpose of Gods work, then fine. But to use these verses and actually tell believers they are robbing God if they don’t tithe on Sunday is absolutely not true. I have written a lot about these things over the years [you can find stuff on my ‘statement of faith’ section and ‘what in the world is the church’ section] I do not condemn all the churches who practice these things, it’s just we need to be careful when we take examples from scripture, lift them out of context, add a few verses from Malachi and then teach some air tight system that if not obeyed brings the curse of God on someone. Do all things in grace, remember THE POOR, and you will do well.
(1013)CORINTHIANS 15:29-49 the resurrection body is a real ‘spiritual’ body. Paul describes the natural body [us now] as fleshly and like Adams body. He then describes the promised resurrection body as being like Jesus in his raised state. These verses can be a little confusing. When Paul says the resurrection body is ‘spiritual’ as compared to earthy, is he saying it is not real? No. But you can see how some early sects could use these verses and teach a ‘phantom’ type resurrection [Gnostic, Docetist type groups]. I was once asked by a Catholic believer if the church taught the physical resurrection. I assured the person that both Catholic and Protestant [and Orthodox] expressions of Christianity embrace the real future resurrection of the body. Now, is it the same body? Well, the way Paul describes it is by comparing the planting of seeds. When you plant a seed you don’t simply get a bigger seed! But you get various types of growth, whether it’s a tree or plant or whatever. So Paul says our future bodies will be new and glorious in this way, but if it weren’t really you, then it wouldn’t be a resurrection! So you will come back, but it will be a ‘new you’. Over the years I have studied various theologians [Christian ones] and I have seen the penchant for various groups to focus in on a certain doctrine and to stray somewhat from the faith. Now, they aren’t always cults, some of them are highly knowledgeable Christians who seem to be testing the boundaries of orthodoxy. I like N.T. Wright, the famous Bishop of Durham [Church of England] but you need to be grounded in what you believe before you can really read him. I feel at times he is helpful in bringing new perspectives to things, I have seen some of the things he teaches myself. But there is also a danger of ‘re-thinking’ stuff a little too much. By the way Wright has written on the resurrection and has done a great job at defending the historic churches position. He’s in somewhat of a theological controversy at the moment, some of the strong reformed brothers have come out and challenged his view on Justification. Wright teaches that the historic reformers kind of missed what Paul was saying. Wright ‘extends’ the doctrine to mean ‘a sign/badge of those who are already in Gods covenant community’. The historic reformers taught a more forensic meaning of the doctrine. That justification is primarily saying that God imputes the righteousness of Jesus to the believer. That Jesus took our sins, and we get his righteousness. Now, I feel there is some truth to Wrights view. But I would be careful to throw out the reformed view all together. There certainly is much truth to the reformed view. John Piper [a reformed Baptist] just released a book on the reformed view, Wright has one coming out pretty soon [Wrights is already published overseas, but the states wont get it for a few months]. So, the point is I believe the historic church and the ancient creeds ‘got it right’ on the resurrection. It is real, it will happen to all people some day. Those who have ‘done good’ [wow- these are Jesus actual words when describing the final judgment!] will be ‘raised to life’. Those who have done evil will be raised to face judgment. We can all escape the coming judgment, Jesus died for us. If we believe and accept his death, burial and resurrection, then we will be raised to a new life some day. 378- (I stuck this entry in here because it deals with the ‘baptism for the dead’, I didn’t want you to think that I just skipped over the verse) Let me give a little example of the ‘overriding act of redemption’ trumping any little verse or experience. Paul actually tells the Corinthians ‘if the dead are not raised, then why are you baptizing people in ‘proxy’ for the dead?’ This is tough stuff. Let me give you one way to see this. The ‘baptism for the dead’ seems to have been a real cultural thing that took place in a specific time and setting [like the slavery verses I mentioned earlier]. There seems to have been a concern specifically to the 1st century church that said ‘this new doctrine of Jesus is great, but being its only been around a few years, and you are telling us [Paul] that you must embrace it to be saved. Then we have a problem. A lot of our loved ones never got a chance to hear. How do you expect us to quell these concerns?’ And it’s possible that the ‘baptism’ by proxy [like a father or son getting baptized in the place of the loved one who died] was a 1st century cultural thing that grew out of this. The fact that they were doing this does not mean that Paul the Apostle was condoning it. Paul was simply saying ‘if you guys really don’t believe in life after death, then why are you bothering with this rite?’ Its like Paul was using their own cultural thing to show them the inconsistency of their thinking. He wasn’t really teaching the baptism for the dead. [This is my view, Mormons believe different. They do practice this today and they use this verse as justification].
(1010)CORINTHIANS 15:1-19 Paul will deal with the greatest threat yet to the Corinthian church, their doubt over the physical resurrection of the body. Various ‘Christian’ groups over the years have doubted the physical resurrection. Now, some have done this out of a sincere attempt at trying to defend the faith! [their view of it] In the 1900’s you had one of the most popular theologians by the name of Rudolf Bultman [most of his career was spent at the University of Marburg, Germany. Much of the higher criticism of the day originated from Germany] He wrote a book called ‘Kerygma and Myth’. What he tried to say was that any modern man living in the 20th century, with all the breakthroughs in science and knowledge, could not ‘literally’ believe the miraculous stories in scripture. Or even the way scripture spoke of heaven and hell and used limited terms to describe spiritual truths. He used the bibles terminology on Cosmology as an example. How could man believe in a Cosmos where ‘heaven is up there, with the stars and all’ and he felt that enlightened man needed to ‘re-tool’ the bible and cleanse it from all these mythical images, but yet keep the spiritual aspects of it. The moral teachings of Christ and stuff like that. So you have had sincere men doubt the truth claims of scripture. The problem with this attempt [higher criticism] is it throws out the baby with the bathwater. The resurrection of Jesus is presented by the apostles as a real event. The fact of this resurrection can also be attested to by examining the historical events of the day. Simply put, there is a ton of proof for the real resurrection of Christ. Bultman and others meant well, but some of the ‘facts’ that they were using were later proven to be false. Bultman used a model of cosmology that would later be rejected by science. Yet the testimony from scripture would remain sure. Paul told the Corinthian's that they needed to reject any attempts at spiritualizing the resurrection of Christ. Sometimes believers grasp hold of limited proof’s for certain doctrines. For instance, the New Testament does speak of a spiritual resurrection. In Ephesians Paul says we are presently raised with Christ. In Romans chapter 6 we have all ready been raised with Jesus. This reality does not mean there will be no future resurrection of the saints. In Johns gospel Jesus speaks of the resurrection as being a future real event, as well as a present reality. Those in the graves will hear his voice and be raised from the dead. And those who were presently ‘dead in sins’ would ‘come alive’ [spiritually] when they heard and believed the testimony of Jesus. It is important for the believer to be familiar with the various theories and ideas that theologians and believers have grasped over the years. It is a mistake to simply see all higher learning as ‘liberalism’. There are some very important things that we have learned thru the great intellectuals of the church. But we also need to stick with the ancient traditions as seen in the creeds, as well as the plain testimony of scripture. If Christ ‘be not raised from the dead, then we are of all men most miserable’.
(1003)CORINTHIANS 13:4-10 Okay, what exactly is this love that we need? Paul has told us that all religious activity apart from it is vain. Paul here simply gives us a picture of the way it acts. You can read this section and substitute your name for the word love ‘love puts up with stuff and is kind’ ‘John puts up with stuff and is kind’ [ouch] ‘It does not boast or show off’. ‘It does not seek its own benefit’ a ‘what’s in it for me’ type mentality. Love is being just like Jesus. James tells us ‘if you fulfill the royal law of scripture, you do well’. The law is to love thy neighbor as yourself. Paul also shows us why love outshines the other gifts of tongues and prophesy and knowledge. He says ‘we know in part, prophesy in part. But when we are made perfect and mature at the appearing of Christ the partial gifts will no longer be distinguishable. Only love will rule’ [my paraphrase] I find it interesting that Paul says knowledge itself will cease. Will actual knowledge cease? What exactly is ‘knowledge’? When we use this term in society what we usually mean is the degree of ones learning/education compared to someone else. If you have a masters and I have a high school diploma, we see a difference. We measure knowledge by the amount we have as compared to others. Now, at Christ’s appearing when we all ‘shall know, even as we are known’ this fine distinction will ‘pass away’. We still will have knowledge, but as a tool that we use to measure one another, it will cease. It wont make a difference how much of the ‘knowledge pie’ [know in part] you possess, at that time everyone one will have ‘all pie’. Knowledge is a funny thing, our understanding of it has developed thru the centuries. During the enlightenment era the concept of ‘what does it even mean to know’ was tackled. One of the famous sayings was ‘I know/think, therefore I am’ [Descartes? Hey, I forget sometimes] the study of ‘how we learn/know things’ is called epistemology. The enlightenment produced a way to approach knowledge that can be called ‘modernism’ mans modern way of knowing stuff. In essence, there exists real truth that a person can know and learn. There is/was a challenge to this mode of thought. Many in the Emergent church movement would grasp on to another theory of ‘knowing’ loosely defined as being in the category of ‘post modernism’. Some challenged the actual ability to know a thing. The emphasis is on who is actually viewing/learning the thing. The terms ‘metta- narrative’ are sometimes used to describe this dynamic. There is some truth to the fact that our context, who we are and where we are coming from, can shape the actual stuff learned. But the question is ‘does our perspective actually change the thing, make it real or not’. Some in the field of Cosmology have grasped on to this post modern theory and have surmised that the very act of human beings studying and examining a thing can in and of itself cause the thing ‘to be’. You can see how this theory would be helpful to the atheist. ‘Where did every thing come from?’ ‘it is a result of human kind’s thoughts and inquiry’ [Ouch]. This sounds a lot like the metaphysical cults that espouse that reality is a product of what you think, confess. That man has the power to create reality simply by the act of studying a thing. Well this is of course a challenge to the truth of God. Jesus and the Cross aren’t ‘real’ because men ‘put their mind to them’. They are real whether or not man ever thought about them. ‘Let God be true, but every man a liar’ Romans. Paul tells us that all these varying degrees of knowledge will some day ‘pass away’. We will all stand before a self existent God and give an account of our lives. This day is coming whether you ‘think about it or not’.
(1002)1ST CORINTHIANS 13: 2-3 ‘and though I have the gift of prophecy [Pentecostal, prophetic expressions] and understand all mysteries and all knowledge [Orthodox, Reformed, intellectual creedal churches] and though I have all faith that I could remove mountains [the Faith camp] and have not charity [Agape- love] I am nothing’. Whew! Thank God us mission/outreach type guys are not in there. ‘And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor [ouch] and have not love it profits nothing’. I love the various expressions of the church, I feed from the Reformed brothers teaching, Love reading and studying Orthodoxy and Catholicism. I of course favor the outreach/hands on type ministries, but according to this text we can have all these things and still be missing the mark. Our intellectual type brothers are engaging the culture and defending the faith, but without love we don’t even put a dent in the culture. The apologists are great at refuting the new atheists, to be honest about it the Christian intellectuals are head and shoulders above the atheists [Craig Lane and men like him] but I have noticed that we don’t really change that many minds even when all the proof is on our side. And I cant tell you how many well meaning missions and soup kitchens I have been too, but often times there is a disconnect between the people being served and the ‘servers’. You get the feeling sometimes that the well meaning helpers are simply punching a time card. We all need to reevaluate our motives. People can tell when we are in ‘ministry’ for the love of the business. Or for the self glory and adulation that comes with our service. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees because they truly were in it for the recognition of men. They wanted others to see that they were ‘successful in the ministry’ so they could receive recognition in public. Paul tells the Romans ‘he that shows mercy, let him do it with love [cheerfully]’. It’s easy to fall into a rut and simply be functioning out of a sense of duty. Now duty can be a good thing, there are times where we just need people to report for duty! [The harvest is plenteous, but the workers are few] but we need to examine ourselves and make sure we are functioning out of the Love of God. Often times the various ministries and expressions of the church are simply God ordained ‘places’ where we can connect with people. As we interact with the lost world, lets do our best to win the arguments, give proof for the legitimacy of Christianity. Combat false ideas and mindsets that are imbedded in our culture, but lets leave room for the other side to get in with us. Understand that they have a ‘missing piece’ [Augustine’s hole in the heart] and we are the only ones that can show them how to fill it.
(994)1ST CORINTHIANS 12: 12-26 Paul uses the analogy of a body to describe the church. Keep in mind that the ‘church’ in Paul’s writings mean ‘all Gods people in the region/city’. Not just the gathered assembly! It’s important to make this distinction because much of the talk on the restoration of the organic church versus the institutional church focuses too much on the way believers meet. Here Paul is saying ‘you are all individual distinct members in the local community, you express Christ in various ways, though you have unique gifts you also are part of one corporate expression of Christ in your city’. The distinct gifts function in your community, not just in the meeting! [Whether it be the Sunday building type thing or the living room!] Paul also tells them to be on the guard for the ‘one member dominating the group’ expression of church. If everyone is centered on one particular gift then the corporate expression of the Body of Christ is diminished. Or if everyone saw ‘full time ministry’ as being a modern Pastor then you would have too many sincere believers all seeking to serve God in a limited way ‘if all were an eye, ear, mouth [speaking gift]’ then where would the Body be? I find this chapter to be a key chapter in the current reformation of modern church practices. As Gods people strive for a more scriptural expression of ‘being the church’ we need to keep this chapter in mind. Now, a word for the strong organic church brothers. The fact that Paul encourages a corporate expression in the church does not mean the gatherings of Gods people must be leaderless. Paul includes the concept of Elders in his writings. To be sure these men were not to dominate the meetings, or be the weekly speaker on an ongoing basis. But some hold to a type of idea that the way the church is supposed to testify of the ‘headship of Christ’ is by demonstrating a human leaderless church. That is God ordained the local bodies of believers to have no functioning human leaders in order to show forth Christ’s headship. To be honest I don’t see this in scripture. I see leaders in plurality [never a one man show] and Paul was not afraid to tell Titus and Timothy to ‘ordain’ [recognize!] Elders in the church. But the overall instruction in this chapter is God wants all of his people to function on a regular basis in the Body of Christ. This of course includes the gatherings, but it is not limited to them. The primary way we ‘show’ the world the Lordship of Jesus is by the selfless love we have one for another. When we daily live charitable, sacrificial lives, this demonstrates the ‘headship of Jesus’ over the church. The way believers meet has some effect on this, but most of Jesus instructions to the disciples was on how they would go out into the world and bring the great message of the kingdom to society. The primary ‘battlefield’ of the church militant is the world, not the meeting place!
(990)PROVERBS 31: 8-9 ‘Open thy mouth for the dumb [voiceless] in the cause of ALL such as are appointed to destruction [abortion, poor, unjust death sentences]. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy’. This chapter is famous for the second half, the virtuous woman. I have been praying parts of this chapter 3-5 times a week for around 20 years now. I pray the part ‘your wife we be like the merchant ships that bring their goods from afar’ over my wife. I also pray ‘your wife will be like a fruitful vine by the sides of your house, your children like olive plants round about your table’. For some reason the ‘plant’ imagery stuck in my head as a good prayer reminder. The other day, before Shelby passed away [my homeless friend] I was going thru the pictures on my cell phone. I happened to come across a picture I took of Shelby. I have a few pictures from the fellowships and stuff. This one was taken with Shelby and a few other homeless brothers at a park in Kingsville. Sure enough I put the picture as the ‘wallpaper’ [the first picture that shows up as you turn on the phone] on Sunday. He passed away on Wednesday. My daughter says ‘don’t put my picture on your phone’! Actually I kind of see it as a prophetic thing. In some way the Lord was telling me my friend was going to become a ‘memory’ real soon. Also a reminder for prayer. The day I found out about Shelby’s death I took a few homeless people around town to run errands and stuff. We stopped for coffee and one of the brothers insisted on paying this time. He had around 10 bucks and really wanted to. I paid, he left a 2 dollar tip. During the day they were trying to accomplish small tasks that can become real obstacles in their lives. I took one of the guys to the driver’s license place, he got his I.D. but could not get his license. They have a very old charge against him about not appearing for court on some minor thing. He never got the notice, they sent it to his last known address, he hasn’t lived there for years! He simply can’t fix this problem, he has no resources and ability to fix it! I of course helped him with the ride and some money and stuff. But when these guys get into these seemingly small obstacles, when you’re homeless and without a phone and regular transportation, they seem hopeless at times. Now, what do you think happens when the entity they are dealing with decides to mess with them? I canceled a credit card a few years back. I paid the balance and specifically said ‘make sure you cancel the card, I don’t want to keep getting notices that I owe an annual fee and stuff’! Sure enough, a few months go by and they send me a notice that I am delinquent for around 70.00 dollars [not an old balance, but a new annual charge!] and if I don’t pay it the fine will go up. What happened? Someone decided to simply ‘screw me’ [sorry]. The point being, when you are homeless you have very little ability to correct any wrongs done against you, the entity that is messing with you always wins. Society seems to think ‘they got what was coming to them’. The reason God wants us to speak up for all those who are ‘voiceless’ is because this is part of the purpose of Gods anointing. Jesus clearly was anointed for this purpose [Isaiah 11, 61. Luke 4]. There are times when the voiceless are ALWAYS innocent [abortion] and times where they did ‘get what was coming to them’. But Jesus requires us to treat the poor and hopeless with respect and concern. Every now and then I catch a show on E.W.T.N. [the catholic channel] the name of the show is ‘the church and the poor’. It’s the ministry of some priest [Wen Ho Lee? Something like that] who was a Jesuit priest living in the states and having a comfortable life. Then the Lord challenged him to give it all up and move to some foreign land and give his life away for the poor. His message is soul stirring. He often tells the people during the Mass ‘do you think coming to church and going to confession and doing religious things are the main requirements for a Christian’? He then goes on and shares the judgment scenarios that Jesus gave in the gospels. He shows how Jesus couches the judgment of man based on his treatment of the poor and down and out. He sounds like me! God requires us to speak up for those who cannot, he requires us to give our lives away. As you read thru this chapter [Proverbs 31] you will see that kings [leaders] are not supposed to get drunk [like Paul's admonition to elders]. Why? So they don’t forget to do justice and look out for those who are under their care, specifically the down trodden. God wants us clear and sober minded for a divine purpose, to be social activists on the behalf of those who ‘have no voice’.
(986)CORINTHIANS 12: 8-10 this section deals with the various gifts of the Spirit. The list is not exhaustive, Paul speaks in Romans and Ephesians about other ones as well. Instead of diving into a definition for each gift, lets look a little at the various ‘modes’ and characteristics of the Spirit of God. In revelation we have a scripture that many seem to stumble over, it says ‘the 7 spirits of God that are before his throne’. Some associate Isaiah 11 with this. In Isaiah 11 you can find 6 distinct characteristics of the Spirit of God, some see 7. Or you could say ‘God has 7 actual Spirits’. Does God have 7 spirits? Or 25 or 10,000? God is the creator of all spirits. He is the Father of lights! In revelation you have Jesus holding the ‘7 stars’ in his hand, which are said to be angels. Then you have the ‘7 angels of the 7 churches’. I showed you before why these angels are not ‘Pastors’ they are angels! [You can find the post somewhere under END TIMES STUFF]. Revelation has 7 seals, bowls, candlesticks. The book is a prophetic book that has angels revealing and operating and functioning. The 7 spirits before God’s throne are probably the 7 angels spoken about in the book. Hebrews says the angels are ‘ministering spirits’. Well let’s get off the rabbit trail. In Isaiah 61 we have the famous verses that Jesus read and applied to himself in the New Testament [Luke 4]. Jesus opens the scroll and reads about the Spirit of God upon him, the eyes of everyone in that place were fixated on him. Notice how both in Isaiah 11 and 61, one of the main purposes of the anointing was to administer justice to the poor and oppressed. Much of Evangelicalism has opted out of this responsibility. There was an overreaction to the social gospel of the late 19th, early 20th century. The social gospel had a tendency to overemphasize good deeds, without focusing on conversion. But the Fundamentalist movement of the 20th century neglected the social justice aspect of the kingdom, thank God for the Catholics who picked up the torch. The point today is the purpose of the gifts, which we will get into tomorrow, is not simply for self glory and edification. Or should I say the purpose of the anointing. Jesus made it very clear that his mission involved justice for the poor and oppressed, he did not limit his ministry to ‘the church’.
(983)1ST CORINTHIANS 11:16-34 ‘When you come together IN THE CHURCH’ [king James version] ‘when you come together AS THE CHURCH’ [new king James version]. In this section of scripture we see a real good definition of ‘church’ and also a bad one. The word for church is found over 100 times in the New Testament [114? - if I remember right] in every occasion, bar none, it refers to the people of God. Sometimes it refers to them as ‘coming together’ or simply as ‘the called out people of God’ [that is they are all spiritually gathered as a community in Christ]. The word never refers to a ‘church building’ [there is one reference in James that can seem to indicate a place to meet. James is speaking to Jews, the synagogue [or Jerusalem temple] as a building is different from the term for church in Paul’s letters!]. In the example I just gave you from the king James versions, it shows you how Gods people viewed this term for church [Ecclesia/Ekklesia] as time rolled along. The original translators of the King James saw it as ‘a place you meet in’ the new version saw it ‘as when Gods people come together’. You say ‘what’s the big difference’? Well I am sure the original translators meant well, but in actuality there is a big difference between ‘being an organic family’ or ‘being a building’! As Paul addresses the Corinthians he says ‘your coming together is not for the better, but for the worse’. They were using the gathering as a means of self gratification. ‘What can I get out of this’ type thing. I do see a parallel in much of today’s ‘church meeting’. Do we see Christianity thru the lens of ‘what am I going to hear this Sunday that I can implement in my own personal life for self improvement’? This mindset prevails in today’s church environment. The ethos of Jesus was contrary to this. He challenged his followers to lay down their rights and desires and seek another kingdom, one that was not measured by the standards of this world. Paul rebuked the Corinthians for seeking ‘their own wealth [benefit] and not the other’s’. He also told them to examine their hearts before coming together so they would not be judged. I have heard the new generation of church thinkers [which I am one myself!] kind of mock the old time churches by saying ‘Oh they tell you communion is some dangerous thing that you must approach with a holier than thou attitude’. Most mean well when they level this charge, but the ‘old time churches’ are not without scriptural support for this approach. Paul did say ‘you guys are too flippant in your attitude towards the Lords table, you need to straighten up and take more seriously your corporate call to those around you’. Understand, the celebration of this ‘love feast’ was to ‘show the Lords death till he come’. Who were they ‘showing it to’? The entire ‘unchurched’ community around them! Their selfless lives of being the community of God, loving and sharing of themselves as a spiritual family, was for the intent of having an effective community wide witness. They reminded not only themselves, but those around them ‘of the Lords death’. It was truly a corporate witness! Our Catholic brothers might not be as wrong as most Protestants seem to think. The Catholic Church sees the Eucharist as the central witness and part of their meetings. The Protestants see the preaching of the word from the pulpit. Though the Protestants are sincere in their efforts to teach the word of God, there is a tendency to become ‘pastor/pulpit’ centered, as opposed to being ‘Christ centered’. All in all Paul rebukes and corrects them based on their self centered actions when meeting together. He also sees ‘the gathering’ as ‘the church’. Not the place their meeting at! It’s easy to confuse this when reading ‘when you come together in the church- in one place’ it sure seems like he can be referring to a church building. Take my word for it, he’s not.
(982)WILL JESUS RULE FROM A REAL ‘ALTAR’ SOME DAY? Watched an interesting show last night. The brother was sharing on the ‘Davidic kingdom’ and all the scriptures associated with it. I am familiar with the man, I used to get a Christian paper from him years ago. It’s obvious that he has a tremendous storehouse of ‘knowledge’ he can take you all over the bible and quote all types of stuff. He comes at you from the fundamentalist/dispensationalist viewpoint. He laid out the case that all the promises of God to David have to be literally fulfilled thru David. He even espoused that David himself might actually be the one reigning from the Millennial throne! [most see Jesus in this role- but to be fair, those who see Jesus do spiritualize the promises to David [Solomon] and apply them to Christ, which is what they despise doing!] Any way the brother espouses the idea that Jesus might actually be sitting on the Mercy Seat during his millennial reign. I have taught you guys what this seat is in the past. It was the actual lid to the box [Ark] that held the tablets of the Ten Commandments. It was a place [altar] where the blood of the yearly sacrifice [Day of Atonement] was placed. If you will it was the ultimate picture of sacrifice and altar that could be found in the Old Testament economy. This example will show you the danger of not being able to rightly understand and interpret scripture. Right now, as I write, there is another all out war going on between Israel and Palestine [Hammas]. Truly bad stuff. Of course I condemn all terrorism, make no mistake about it, Hammas are terrorists! I also see the right of a nation to defend itself against terrorism. But the overall viewpoint of the believer should be ‘we are not of this world, we represent Jesus, the prince of peace. He offers salvation to all mankind [Jew, Arab] and we do not advocate a view of Jesus that has him coming in a militaristic way, in a way that says ‘he will return and lead the Israeli military to victory and actually kill your women and kids’! [a view that does more harm to true evangelism than any other thing! How would you feel if I was trying to convert you to be a follower of some king who was going to come back and kill your natural family?]. Now, first of all we need to know the underlying intent of all the sacrifices and ‘altars’ in scripture. They all point to Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice for man on The Cross. They are SYMBOLIC! That is Hebrews teaches that they have all been fulfilled thru Jesus and any future idea of a restoration of animal sacrifices or altars would be considered blasphemous! This is one of the reasons protestantism does not celebrate the catholic mass, they feel the catholic teaching is a ‘re-doing’ of the sacrifice [the catholic theologians deny this]. Either way any idea that there would be a restoration of the altar system is anathema! Now, for you to see Jesus actually sitting on the ‘mercy seat’ while literally ruling from a restored Temple with renewed animal sacrifices, this has to be one of the most heretical ideas you could ever espouse. The New Testament teaches that any return to a sacrificial system, after the Cross, is doing ‘despite unto the Spirit of grace, treading the Blood of the Covenant [Jesus blood] under foot’. The language used to warn against a return to the animal sacrifice system is very strong. The dispensationalists belief says ‘God will put a ‘hold’ on the church age and return to a ‘kingdom age’ in which he deals with Israel again as a natural nation’ they see Jesus violating his own teaching that ‘my kingdom is not from this world’. This view places Christ back into a law system, in which Jesus will oversee a restoration of a literal temple [another violation of the symbols in scripture] and from this literal system, he physically wars against, and kills Arabs and Muslims as he directs their military. Now, can you see how destructive this view can be? Can you see what a violation it is to the spiritual kingdom of Christ who is the final sacrifice for man? When revelation says ‘a Lamb is sitting on the throne’ don’t you see it as a symbol of Jesus in a position of authority? Hebrews says Jesus entered into the true Holy Place [heaven- Gods presence] and presented his Blood to the Father on our behalf. Any view of him returning and reinstituting a literal reign from an earthly ‘holy of holies’ while actually sitting on a physical altar is blasphemous! I believe in a literal second coming. The church historically has had differing views on the millennial rule. But wherever you come down on these issues, you must not present Jesus future reign in a way that violates the fundamental truths of reconciliation and salvation [i.e.; him sitting on an altar from a physical holy of holies!] the types and pictures in scripture that have been fulfilled are not to ‘make a comeback’. The New Covenant and Kingdom of God thru Christ are one of where all men are offered forgiveness and peace thru Christ. Whether or not there ever will be a restored temple and sacrificial system in Jerusalem is questionable. But no matter what your view on this is, be assured that Jesus is not going to come back and rule while being seated on some sacrificial altar! This would violate one of the most fundamental teachings of the New Testament. [Note- it is possible that natural Israel will rebuild and reinstitute a sacrificial system, but this would only be a sign of condemnation. A result of their denial of the one sacrifice of Christ. Any return of Jesus would not be to vindicate their restored system, but a judgment on them for rejecting the one and only sacrifice and returning to the law!]
(980)1ST CORINTHIANS 11: 1-16 at first I was just going to skip this section and say ‘I know you didn’t get your moneys worth, but wait, you guys didn’t give me any money!’ But this would be a cheap shot. So what do we do with portions of scripture that are difficult? I have heard this taught in a way that says ‘Christ is the head of the church [both men and women- true] and any distinction between a man being ‘the head’ of the woman only applies to natural families’. The problem is Paul mixes the analogies ‘Christ is the head of a man, a man [husband] is the head of the woman [wife], and God is the head of Christ’. To dissect these verses into a ‘secular/religious’ division is next to impossible! So what do they mean? I believe the New Testament does teach a type of functional difference between men and woman. Now, Paul teaches that women ‘can prophesy’ in ‘the church’. He says so in these verses! In Romans 16 Paul refers to Junia as an apostle and Phoebe as a deaconess. In the Old Testament Deborah was a mighty judge. Peter says that both sons and daughters will prophesy [Acts 2, quoting Joel]. I could go on. Then why make a distinction? Paul gives his rationale in this section. Believers show the order and submission of the Godhead when they willingly take their God ordained positions in society. When husbands love their wives as Christ loves the church, God is glorified. When wives submit [oh no, I can’t believe I said it!] to their ‘loving’ husbands they show the role of Christ’s willful submission to the Father. And yes, Paul also teaches we all submit to each other in love as well. Those who see all of Paul’s teaching on women as a cultural thing will have a problem with the inspiration of scripture. But on the other hand the strong fundamentalist/literalist also has a problem here. Should we mandate the wearing of ‘coverings’ [hats] when women prophesy? I don't think so [some do think so!]. But most fundamentalists have no problem chalking up the ‘hat wearing’ portion to culture. Also in this debate, one of the obvious questions is ‘can a woman be a Pastor over a church’? Or Bishop or whatever. Remember, no one was a ‘Pastor over a church’ like we think until around the 4th century. So before we judge whether or not it is fair to restrict women from certain roles ‘in the church’ we need to understand what roles there are ‘in the church’. Did you ever wonder who was marrying and burying the people for the first few hundred years of Christian history? It is quite obvious that Paul and the first century Apostles/Elders were not doing it. So when did the ‘clergy’ pick the practice up? During Constantine’s legalization of Christianity in the 4th century, the church took over the rites and ceremonies from Rome. The Roman ‘philosopher/speakers’ could be hired to speak a eulogy when someone died, they could conduct wedding ceremonies. They for the most part were ‘the Pastors’ of the day! Now we simply took the job from them. Does this mean all Pastors are pagan funeral directors? No. It simply shows us that when we ask the question ‘why can’t women be pastors like men’. Maybe the question should be ‘were men ever supposed to be pastors either?’ [in the contemporary use of the term] So in this little excursion into history I think we all have some lessons to learn. The people of God are made up of men and women and Jew and Gentile, scripture says in Christ there are no more distinctions like this. We are all considered the Body of Christ equally. Yet this does not mean [in my view] that everyone does the same job as everyone else. The New Testament clearly says ‘are all Apostles, all Prophets’. God has distinctions in this Body. Do these distinctions carry over to the woman/man issue in functionality? It seems so to me to a degree. Those who are striving for more equality in function for women, I think the best way to approach it is not to by- pass all these difficult portions of scripture. But to take the approach that as the church grows she allows the greater overriding truths of scripture to over shadow any personal advice given by Paul to a specific church in the first century. Now I don’t fully take this approach myself, but to a degree many of us do accept this approach when dealing with the ‘hat/covering issue’. So instead of just showing you my view, I wanted to paint a little broader picture. Ultimately how you come down on this is between you and God. Women most certainly can and do function in Christ’s church today, they always have and always will.
(977)1ST CORINTHIANS 10:15-17 ‘The cup that we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of Christ's Body? We are all one bread, we all partake equally of Christ’s Body and Blood. We exist as a community because of him’ [my paraphrase]. Here in my study I have various volumes on church history. I own catholic volumes, protestant ones, and even some from ‘the out of the institutional church’ perspective. Over the years I have learned that most believers tell their story from their perspective. This is not a wrong thing, nor is it a purposeful act to distort history. It’s just natural to see ‘your world’ thru your lens of past experiences. Around the 17th century the Jesuit priests were some of the first Christians to write systematic church histories. Though you had many scholars who were informed on the subject, the Jesuits were the first to try and bring all the previous centuries together and present them in an orderly way that could be understood and read by the average student. There is some debate on how accurate some of these first ‘tellings’ of history were. For instance, some classic church histories [both catholic and protestant] show an early 2nd century development of belief in the Eucharist as being the literal Body and Blood of Jesus. Also most volumes focus on church figures such as Iraneus , Tertullian, Augustine [4th-5th centuries] and many other good men [I know I spelled these names wrong!]. There seems to have been a basic belief that this history is the only ‘history’ of the first few centuries. The problem with this approach is we now have archealogical evidence from the first few centuries that would support the idea that the early church might not have been as ‘institutional’ as previously thought. For instance, most histories say the development of the monarchial episcopacy [single bishop over ‘a church/region’] was early. But the evidence discovered shows that as late as the 2nd, possibly early 3rd centuries you had bishops who were simply elders/overseers in the early church. Burial places were uncovered that showed multiple ‘bishops’ all buried in one spot. The evidence seems to indicate that these were all men who served at the same time. Not one bishop dieing off while others took his place. This would mean that some practicing Christians never fully accepted the institutional idea of the single bishop. But you really couldn’t find this out from a wide reading of all the different church histories. Why? Were the Jesuits who put together the first cohesive history trying to deceive people? Of course not! They were seeing church history thru ‘their lens’. Now, what in the world does this have to do with the verse on communion? The word for communion here is a translation from the Greek word ‘koinonia’, which simply means ‘fellowship’. The church at Corinth practiced ‘communion’ as a love feast. The early believers had their ‘communion service’ as a type of buffet type fellowship where they all shared and came together in real friendship. Now in the next chapter we will deal with some of the problems that arose out of this practice, but the point today is I want you to see that when Paul says ‘we are all one bread who are partaking from one loaf’ he is simply saying ‘just like when we all get together and share in the communal meal, this is the same way we all spiritually live off of the Body and Blood of Christ. We are ‘one bread’ [people/communion] because we all derive our life from Jesus, the true bread that came down from heaven’ [John 6]. I simply want to give you the flavor of what Paul is saying. It’s easy to read these verse’s from the sacramental perspective. To see the focus being on the actual bread and wine of the meal. I think it’s better understood from the broader communal idea that I just espoused. Our entire New Testament is the most verifiable collection of first century documents ever to be found. Though we as believers take them as Gods word, they also show us the most accurate historical picture of what the early church believed and practiced. I think the reformers of the 16th century were right in stating that the final authority should be the word of God. They did not reject church tradition, but they said the final arbiter in controversial issues was Gods word. Even the great Catholic humanist, Erasmus, was known for his desire to ‘get back to the original sources’. He was helpful in urging the Catholic Church towards reform by going back to the Greek New Testament [most scholars were using the vulgate version, which was the Latin translation. The Latin did not do justice to the Greek!] Well today’s point is our New Testaments are accurate first century documents on early church belief and practice. I think Erasmus cry to ‘get back to the sources’ would do us all some good.
(974)1ST CORINTHIANS 10: 5 ‘But with many of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness’. As I just sat down and was debating on how much to cover, I felt the Lord wanted me to stop with this one verse. Let’s review a little. Does this experience of being ‘scattered in the wilderness’ define past experiences for you? [Or present!] Historically the church has always had to deal with wilderness times. St. John of the Cross called this ‘the dark night of the soul’. After Mother Theresa’s death we found out that she struggled with doubt many times thru out her life. The historic church has been ‘scattered in the wilderness’ over truly insignificant stuff. I find it ridiculous that one of the main reasons the western [Catholic] and eastern [Orthodox] churches split in 1054 a.d. was over the silly distinction of whether the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father [the historic creed] or the ‘father and the Son’. This is considered the official cause of the split, though there were many other factors as well. In a day or so we will cover a verse that says ‘God is the head of Christ’. I had a friend that used to point out the fact that many Baptists would refer to ‘God and Jesus and the Spirit’ he would think this was in error because they would leave out ‘the Father’. To be honest he was consistent with Trinitarian thinking [I am one by the way!] If the ‘sole’ definition of God in the New testament were ‘3 separate persons who equally posses the Divine attributes’. Then the phrase ‘God is the head of Jesus’ would not make sense. It would be like saying ‘God [Father, Jesus and Holy spirit] are all the head of Jesus’. What am I saying here? Basically the historic church came to certain ways of framing the argument that were limited in their application. Does the New testament teach the Trinity? Yes. Does the word ‘God’ primarily refer to ‘the father’ in its language? To be honest, it does. Though the reality of the Trinity is there, yet the normative language of ‘God’ is referring to ‘the Father’. So my Baptist buddy was right in seeing a contradiction when Baptists said ‘God, Jesus and the Spirit’. If they were true to all the historic language, then they should have said ‘the father’ not ‘God’. Because ‘God’ would be the all encompassing language of ‘3 distinct persons who all posses the divine attributes’. But in fact, my friend was wrong. Why? Because the language of scripture mostly means ‘God the Father’ when simply saying ‘God’. Now why go into all this? Because the historic church has been divided over the language used. Arian, the Catholic Bishop/Priest, said that Jesus is ‘not God’. That ‘God the Father is God’. He was rightfully condemned, and the Trinitarian language would prevail. The problem is some of the language of the creeds and councils that would follow were not totally accurate. Some of the Creeds would say ‘Jesus was eternally begotten [always begotten]’ this statement was for the purpose of refuting those who said ‘Jesus had a beginning’ [Arianism]. Now, did Jesus ‘have a beginning’? John’s gospel says Jesus was with the father from the beginning, and that ‘the Word was with God, and was God’. Jesus had no beginning! But, does this mean he was ‘eternally begotten’? No. He was begotten by Mary 2 thousand years ago. Begotten refers to the incarnation, not the preexisting Son who was with the father from all eternity. So the well intended phrase ‘eternally begotten’ was wrong. Why even discuss this? Because most of Christian Orthodoxy would still condemn certain aspects of the Syrian and Ethiopian churches over this. We at times are ‘scattered in the wilderness’ and our ‘bodies’ [denominations, divisions in Christendom] are a sad representation to the world. [NOTE- I want to restate what I have said in the past. I believe in the Trinity. But I also want you to see how other Christian perspectives have viewed these things in the past. There are large groups of ‘historic churches’ [not Gnostics and stuff like that, the so called ‘lost Christianities’] who lean towards Arianism. Most of the invading barbarians who sacked the Western Roman empire were converted to this ‘brand’ of Christianity. So while I hold to the historic orthodox view, I wanted you to see that we too have been inconsistent at times].
(963)1ST CORINTHIANS 7: 25-40 let’s be a little unconventional today. This passage deals with Paul’s counsel on celibacy and marriage. The historic church has had a bad rap on this issue. It is common today to say the church devalued marriage [and sex] and therefore we should exalt it. Sometimes this attempt at trying to correct the perceived imbalance puts a stumbling block in the way of those who are truly called to live the single life. Though marriage is an honorable thing, a true gift from God, yet living the celibate life can also be considered a very noble thing. It is rare in contemporary evangelicalism to leave this option open. Paul does say this option is not only available, but a noteworthy calling! He also makes it clear that only those who are called to this single lifestyle should attempt it. The church should not force celibacy on people. Now, do our catholic brothers force it upon the Priests? In a way, yes. But don’t forget that no one is ‘forced’ into the priesthood. Some feel like the scandals of catholic priests who abused children can be blamed on forced celibacy. The problem with this idea is many protestant ministers have also fallen sexually, and they were not celibate! The point being we need to be careful when we brand any Christian denomination with an accusation. Now, Paul also makes an interesting statement that we need to look at. He says ‘for the present distress I give these guidelines’. Is it possible that Paul's seeming harshness on marriage was due to the fact of some type of distress that he saw coming? Possibly the Neronic persecutions? If so, Paul could be saying ‘because of the upcoming severe persecution I recommend everyone just laying low for the time, if married, seek not to be single and vice a versa’. This is possible, we need to keep this in mind when reading this section of scripture. But most of all I think the modern evangelical church needs to retool her message in this area. Marriage and sex are good, God ordained these things in their proper place. But living single and celibate is also considered a very noble calling, we do not normally reflect this balance in the present atmosphere. Also as an aside, a few years back it was common to teach ‘the world/public schools have taken sex and taught it to our kids. They have usurped the job of the family/church’ while there is some truth to this, the problem was some well known TV evangelists began to discuss sex in the sunday morning setting that was improper in a way [If you local Pastors who read this have done this, be assured I am not talking about you!]. I remember watching a national minister speak openly, with grandma’s and children in the service, and say ‘now speaking about sexual climax’ Yikes!! Just because the family/church dropped the ball on these issues, this doesn’t mean there are no barriers at all while dealing with these issues. Those who do this type of stuff seem to be saying ‘sex is not a dirty thing, therefore we need to bring it out into the open’ while this is true to a degree, there are also age appropriate subjects that should be taught in a private setting. If the church feels the need to delve into these subjects, we need to be careful that we are not crossing boundaries when doing it.
(960)MATT 24:36-39 what in the world does ‘as it were in the days of Noah’ mean? Let’s go on a rabbit trail today. The other day I took my daughter to the Laundromat [our dryer broke!] and had some ‘down time’ to kill. So I grabbed a few news papers and sat in the truck while listening to Christian radio. I heard an old time brother who has broadcast on the station I am on for years. They are good Christians, from the ‘tribe’ of dispensationalism. The fundamentalist ‘King James only’ type. They taught a little on the verse above. I also recently saw a TV evangelist [may there tribe decrease] deal with the verse. The TV brother, who by the way also had the same type of fundamentalist background, taught his own spin on the verse. He said ‘just like in Noah’s day, you had aliens/fallen angels visit the earth and cohabitate with women, so Jesus taught that near the end time there would be an increase in u.f.o. sightings’ [ouch!] The radio brothers have taught that just like Noah entered into the ark, so the church would be raptured before Christ comes, because Jesus said ‘just like the days of Noah’. If you read the passage [Matt. 24:36-39] Jesus plainly tells you what he means. He is not talking about aliens or ‘raptures’ he is simply warning the people about the suddenness of the coming judgment day. Jesus is saying ‘just like in Noah’s day, the people were marrying and partying and living it up, right until the day when Noah entered the ark, and then the flood came and caught them off guard. So shall it be in the day when the son of man returns’. Basically Jesus is saying the people of Noah’s day didn’t give heed to the warnings of Noah, they probably looked at him as some nut! But their lethargy and sinful state put them in a position that caught them off guard. Sure enough the judgment that Noah warned about did come. So Jesus is warning people not to be caught off guard like the people of Noah’s day. Now, why would preachers take these types of verses and teach aliens and raptures? For the most part this branch of Christianity means well, there are times where I have learned interesting facts and stuff from them. But there is an approach to scripture that says ‘because Gods word [King James] is perfect [true] therefore we can find all these hidden meanings that are not in the original context’. Is this what the historical doctrine of verbal inspiration teaches? Not in a million years. The reformers taught that scripture still needed to be seen thru the historic churches understanding. They did teach that all believers had the right to expect God to speak to them thru his word, but they did not teach the type of private interpretation as seen above. To the contrary you had other radicals who were reading the book of Revelation [or more commonly known as ‘the Revelations’J] and began seeing themselves as the end time witnesses who were to establish the New Jerusalem on the earth. They would mount a violent rebellion and get killed! These groups were straying outside of the magisterial reformers ideas on scripture. Though it seemed silly to hear some of the recent preaching on Noah’s day, these types of ideas can become dangerous if they lead us away from the actual meaning of Gods word. Even though these brothers highly value the doctrine of verbal inspiration [their view of it] they do a disservice to Christian learning when thy do stuff like this.
(958)1ST CORINTHIANS 6: 1-7 Paul rebukes them for taking each other to court. He tells them ‘don’t you have any wise people among you who could handle this? Why go before unbelievers!’ he also tells them ‘plus, why even fight for your rights, if you think you have been wronged in some way by your brother, then simply see it as part of the cost of carrying your cross’. Paul contradicts the prevalent mindset in much of Christianity today. He doesn’t teach ‘get what’s yours, know your rights!’ he teaches the ethos of self denial, of living with the expectation of giving up your rights and dreams. Of taking loss, if it glorifies the Father. Now we get into some ‘stuff’. Paul appeals to them by saying ‘don’t you realize that we shall judge angels some day, we shall judge the world’. A few years back there was a debate going on in theological circles. Some theologians popularized a new way to look at God’s sovereignty. This new system was called ‘Open Theism’. Scholars like Clark Pinnock and others held out the possibility that God doesn’t foreordain all future events, they actually went further and said ‘he doesn’t know all future events’. Well of course this sparked off a firestorm among the Calvinists. Does scripture teach that God is sovereign and does know all that will happen? To be honest about it, yes. But the idea of open theism was saying ‘because God has chosen to give man free will, he, by his own design, has chosen to limit his knowledge in the area of knowing all of mans future choices’. In essence that God purposely ‘does not know’ the future outcomes of decisions that have not been made by humans. If free will is real [of course the Calvinists say no] then God must limit himself to knowledge in these areas. I personally do not believe this, but I think I needed to share it to explain this section of scripture. Paul does tell them they will judge the world and angels. In second Peter 2, the apostle says the fallen angels are being held for a future day of judgment. In Matthew [19-?] Jesus says those who follow him will play a part in a future ruling over human government. These scriptures do indicate that believers will play a role in future judgment scenarios. So if we ‘judge angels and the world’ we should be able to arbitrate between ourselves! Now, in the world of theology you have sincere questions on ‘is it fair for God to judge people who have never heard the gospel’ or ‘if God is truly sovereign in all things, even in predestinating certain people to salvation, then this is unfair’. Many have turned to universalism, or a belief in ‘no hell’ in order to quell these questions. I want to simply float a scenario to you. Jesus says ‘whosoever sins you remit [forgive] they are forgiven. Those you retain [not forgive] will be retained’ while there are differing views on these verses, I want you to see how these scriptures, in keeping with all that I just showed you, might leave us room for another possible way out of all the so called questions on Gods ‘fairness’. Say if at the judgment, we are all gathered [Calvinists, Arminians, Catholics,…] and say if we are all waiting to see who’s right ‘I’ll show that Arminian…I’ll show that Catholic…’ and we are at the day where the future destinies of millions are at stake. What will God do? It’s possible that much of the final decision will rest in the hands of the church. I know it sounds heretical, but keep in mind all the verses I just quoted to you. Say if all of our pompous pontificating [wow!] amongst varying theories of the atonement and universalism and all the other stuff. Say if Jesus turns to us and says ‘You are now going to make the most important judgment of your lives, you shall judge the world and angels’ and all of a sudden all of our scrutiny of God’s fairness turns on us. We see in the crowd of masses, faces of people who we hate. People who have been demonized by history [Darwin, Hitler]. Those we always wondered about [eastern religions] and now much of their final destiny rides on us. Even the possibility of fallen angels being forgiven! [Hey, maybe Origin was right?] The whole point of this scenario is to simply say we might have been asking the wrong questions all along. Now for sure, no one gets in without Jesus and his blood! But there are also a few other verses [Peter] that seem to indicate a second hearing [or first!] of the gospel before the final day. The point being how willing are you to really carry out something like this? Are you really ready for the great responsibility of having someone’s destiny depend on how forgiving you are? I really don’t believe 100 % in this scenario I just floated. But Jesus does put us in positions of responsibility all thru out our lives. He does say ‘whoever’s sins we don’t forgive, these sins will be held against them by your own choice’ we keep people in ‘chains of bondage’ today! Never mind the future. God has committed to us great responsibility as believers, if we are still fighting each other over insignificant things [taking our brothers to court, if you will] then we are truly not ready to ‘Judge the world’.
(956)EMERGENT STUFF- yesterday I spent most of the day reading up on the Emergent movement and its trends. I am not one of those critics who never actually reads the books that these brothers put out. Nor am I one of the guys who simply reads to find fault. A few years back I read ‘The sacred way’ by Tony Jones. I enjoyed the book. I incorporated some of the ideas [Jesus prayer] into my prayer time. And I even begin my intercession time with the historic crossing of myself [in the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit] this was nothing new to me, I did grow up Catholic and was confirmed and made my communion in the church. Now, what do I see as a little dangerous [others see a whole lot that’s wrong]. Some of the teachings say ‘Jesus really didn’t come to start a new movement, he was a Jew who was simply incorporating others into Judaism’. Also lots of talk on the Sabbath and the religious rhythm of the ancient church. Fixed time prayers and stuff like that. Okay things that many believers practice. But all of this type of talk needs to include why so many Evangelicals do not practice these rituals. One big reason is because the New Testament has a theme of grace that teaches us that Jesus did institute a ‘new religion’ [new covenant] that fulfilled all the types and symbols of the old. Paul would rebuke the early believers for wanting to return back to these things [Galatians, Colossians]. He would say ‘you are observing days and seasons and old covenant rites, I fear for you’. Paul did not teach the Sabbath as an ongoing practice for the Gentile churches. There were SOME symbols left to us [Lords Supper, baptism- I wouldn’t argue with other Christians who have a few more] but the overall Ethos of this New kingdom was not one of liturgy and symbol, it was one of fulfillment. I liked Tony’s book, but some of the ideas could easily lead a new believer down the road of legalism. If we put [or offer] too many ritualistic practices back into the New Covenant community of grace, then we are in danger of going back under a legalistic mindset. Now, what about the issues of slavery and women in the church and homosexuality [gee, you think I might be biting off a little too much?] This conversation says ‘just like preachers used scripture to defend slavery, but later the church needed to shape her overall view by the broad themes of scripture, as opposed to any single verse. So likewise we need to approach the issue of women in the pulpit and the ordaining of homosexuals thru the same lens’. Okay, I see some merit to this argument with the ordaining of women [some!] but the issue of sexual morality is different. The scripture never said ‘slavery is good, freedom is bad’. To the contrary scripture teaches the opposite. Now I have mentioned how you could justify slavery from certain passages, but freedom itself is never explicitly condemned. The scripture specifically condemns the sin of homosexuality, no bones about it [not just the Old Testament either]. Does this mean we should be mean and discriminate against the gay community, no. But we need to be open and honest about the way scripture deals with this issue. Some challenge the idea of scripture being authoritative in this way for our day. Well that’s an argument some make, but the Orthodox view of scripture doesn’t see it like that. So basically I think we need to be careful when telling new believers that Jesus never intended for the old rituals to pass away, he was starting a new revolutionary kingdom movement that would be free from the former restraints of the law. This is basic to the whole teaching of the NEW covenant.
(955)1st CORINTHIANS 5:6-8 Okay, lets get back to Corinthians. ‘Your glorying is not good, get rid of the old leaven. Don’t you know that a little yeast can affect the whole lump? Get rid of it, you are all unleavened, Christ is our new Passover Lamb who has been sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth’ [my own paraphrasing]. A few things. I want you to see something here, over the years I have read and studied lots of great theologians. It is common for these brothers to go back to the reality of the early church fathers belief in the ‘Real Presence’ of Christ in the Eucharist [Lords supper]. It is also becoming less common [in theological circles!] to defend the symbolic view of the Lords Supper. I believe Paul is presenting the idea of all believers spiritually sitting at the ‘table of life’ on a daily basis and receiving from Christ’s new life in a spiritual/symbolic way. He clearly says ‘let us keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth’ [clearly symbolic!] Peter writes of the new sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. Jesus speaks in an interesting way about this in John chapter 6. The Jews ask him ‘show us a sign, Moses gave us bread to eat from heaven. If you’re from God then prove it like Moses’. I find it interesting that in the key chapter of Jesus being the bread that comes down from heaven, the conversation turns to Moses. The beginning of the chapter does say the Passover feast was getting close, but the imagery is Moses and Manna. Moses represented the Old system of law and works, John’s gospel tells us that ‘the law came from Moses, but grace and truth from Jesus’. Jesus contrasts himself with Moses. He says ‘I am the real bread that has come down from heaven, if men eat my flesh and drink my blood they will live’. Now we must understand the tremendous offence this statement caused. The Jewish people had Levitical laws [commands in their law] that forbid the drinking of any type of blood, never mind the blood of a person! But yet Jesus would speak this way to them. In the conversation the hearers acknowledge the difficulty of the saying, Jesus will say ‘the flesh profits nothing, it is the Spirit that gives you life. The words I am speaking to you are Spirit and life’. At the last supper [which was the symbolic end of the Passover and the beginning of a new celebratory meal centered on the final scarf ice of Jesus, the Lamb of God] Jesus seems to be saying ‘from now on, as long as you do this, you are showing my death until I come again’ [we get this from Paul later on in Corinthians]. As you put all of this imagery together, you get the sense of the New Covenant being one of an ongoing continual New Covenant meal from which all believers daily eat from and ‘keep the feast with the new leaven of truth and sincerity, not the old leaven of sin and wickedness’. You clearly see a symbolic element in this language. Now, I do not discount the importance of the actual ordinance of the Lords Table. I recently defended the Catholic idea to an ex Catholic who is now Protestant. They said ‘how can people believe something so silly’ I had to say that many serious intellectual believers accept the Real Presence doctrine by faith in the literal reading of Jesus words. Luther himself believed it, he made no bones about it when he slammed his fist on the table in his dispute with Zwingli and said ‘this IS MY BODY!’ Standing for the literal interpretation of the sacrament. John Wesley, the founder of the great Methodist movement, wrote many hymns speaking of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. So make no mistake about it, many good believers hold to the literal belief. I just wanted you to see that it is also in keeping with the scripture to see the entire Christian walk as one huge ongoing ‘feast’ that is kept with spiritual sacrifices and symbolic language. Jesus is the bead that came down from heaven, those who would stay with ‘Moses bread’ [law] would die, those who would eat from this new table would live forever.
(953)Yesterday I managed to catch a few TV shows that were good. National geographic did a special called ‘the first Christians’. It was excellent. They covered more historic truth in one hour than you would get from years of sermons. They basically taught the New Testament word for ‘church’ [Ecclesia] and showed how because the early Christians did not believe the ‘church’ was a building, that therefore they spread rapidly without lots of money. They then covered the historic development of the ‘church building’ and the effect this had on them. They also got into the ‘end times’ scenarios that are played out over and over again by today’s prophecy teachers. They interviewed true theologians who put Johns Revelation in historical context. Just an excellent job overall. I also caught the show ‘Journey Home’ on E.W.T.N. [the Catholic channel]. I do like the show, it often gives good historical stuff. Last night they were a little ‘too Catholic’ [I know, what should I expect]. They had a good brother on who left ‘non-denominational Christianity’ and became Catholic. Now, most of these brothers are very intelligent believers who make this choice out of sincerity. They usually study the early church fathers and realize the ‘Catholic tone’ of these early believers. I simply felt the brother who spoke last night was a little too critical of his former church experience [Willow Creek]. I then caught Scott Hahn [an excellent Catholic scholar and apologist], he always has stuff that interests me. He brought up an argument I have heard before on how the early church saw the ‘real presence of Christ’ as being in the Eucharist. Others have made this argument before from the Catholic perspective of Jesus being with us, as opposed to the detractors arguments that he misled the early followers to think that he would soon return and set up a literal earthly kingdom. I have heard and do understand this reasoning. In essence it defends Jesus and his followers by saying ‘Jesus didn’t let down the early church by not returning and ‘being with them’ he was with them all along thru the Eucharist’ good intentions. I would prefer to argue the same point thru the fulfilling of the Fathers promise and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. Jesus says in John’s gospel ‘I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you’ it is understood by most theologians [Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant] that Jesus is speaking of the Holy Spirit. Jesus actually refers to the Spirit as ‘One just like unto myself’. The new testament very Cleary speaks of the Holy Spirit as Gods presence tabernacling among us in a real way. So in my thinking I would prefer to argue the real presence of Christ as being among the early believers as fulfilled thru the Comforter. Overall it was a good night of viewing some good teachers. I also couldn't help but notice how I have been skipping over the ‘more popular’ preaching shows of the day. I did click on one of the prophecy guys, he was defending ‘the rapture’ and I couldn’t help but notice the difference between the good theological discussions from the earlier shows, and the ‘silliness’ of what this brother was teaching. I don’t want to demean you if you hold to the rapture theory, it was just such an obvious ‘step down’ from the level of theologian to the level of popular prophecy preaching. In our current study of Corinthians we just went thru the verse ‘though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you have only one father’ [Paul referring to himself]. I couldn’t help but get this sense of the modern seen. You could flip thru all the religious broadcasting of our day and get every possible conceivable viewpoint on some subject, ten thousand of them! But there is a consistent voice of truth and wisdom that comes to us from both scripture and church history/tradition. I think we would be better off sticking with ‘the father[s]’.
(952)1ST CORINTHIANS 5:1-7 Okay, now we get into some tough stuff. Paul tells them that he has heard about a situation where one of the brothers is sleeping with his step-mom [fathers wife, though probably not his mother]. And the rebuke is they are not repenting over it, but instead are kind of proud of the whole thing! Paul says to ‘deliver him to satan for the destruction of the flesh so the spirit may be saved’. Now I already showed you the way I view this verse. I tried to follow the other times where Paul speaks this way in this letter and when using this type of language I see him speaking of physical death [chapter 11- sleep-death as judgment to a believer who sins]. I often ‘day dream’ how bout you? I’m not sure if it’s the lord at times trying to tell me stuff. One of my noble fantasies is I can picture myself as the sole Christian preacher who has survived some nuclear holocaust and I am responsible to train the survivors. In this scenario [I am kinda ad libbing here, I don’t day dream this much!] I have both Catholic and Protestant believers. Although I am tempted to raise this new generation of people as Protestants, I instead teach the Catholics true Catholic doctrine [though I don't fully agree with it all] and I teach the Protestants their stuff. Now, I think this little day dream in some way speaks to what I need to do at times on this blog. I need to honestly tell both sides! In this verse ‘commit to satan for the destruction of the flesh’ some do see it a little differently. You can read ‘flesh’ as meaning ‘fleshly nature’. Paul does use the word this way at times. You can’t really make the distinction by going to the Greek. Instead you have to simply look at the context. So this view would be saying ‘deliver this believer to the enemy, don’t allow him to remain ‘in the camp’ and continue to receive the benefits of the believing community. As you ostracize him he will feel the effect of not being with you, he will come to his senses and leave his sin’ [which in this scenario is ‘his fleshly nature’] so the ‘destruction of the flesh’ in this interpretation would fit in well with Arminians. Now, do I believe it this way? No, but I sure feel noble, sort of like the Protestant preacher in my ‘day dream’. [p.s. if you tell anybody about this day dream, I will deny it!]
(947) 1ST CORINTHIANS 3:11-23 Paul teaches that once the foundation of Jesus is laid, that no other foundation can come in and replace it. Remember, Paul is speaking about a spiritual foundation. He is not building ‘a literal building’! I know we know this, but for some reason modern church planters can’t seem to break the mindset of having a building ‘to do church’. Now we begin to get into some doctrine. I believe Paul begins a New Testament doctrine here that could be called ‘the sin unto natural death’ or the judgment of a believer when he falls into open sin and rebellion and refuses to repent. Now, I have looked at this doctrine from different views over the years. I try not to allow my own leaning towards reformed theology to effect me. But I have come down on the side of ‘eternal security’ in viewing these verses. Paul teaches that even though the foundation of Jesus is laid, it’s still possible to build a life of worthless things upon it. He says ‘if any man defiles Gods temple, him will God destroy’. This same language will be used in chapter 5 ‘deliver the sinning brother to satan for the destruction of the flesh so the spirit may be saved’. Paul also uses the term again here in chapter 3 ‘yet he will be saved as by fire’. Also in chapter 11 ‘for this cause many sleep [physical death] and are sick among you’ he uses this as a judgment that came upon them for their abuse of the Lords table. So reading this in context it sure seems that Paul is saying ‘if you, as a believer, allow yourself to fall into sin in such a way that you are doing permanent harm to the temple [which he describes as their bodies, both individually and corporately] then God will destroy you’. This seems to fit all these other verses. The apostle John also speaks on the ‘sin unto death’ [which I see as physical death] in his letter. He says ‘if any one sees his brother sin a sin unto death, I do not say you should pray for them’. Now, the Arminian brothers [those who do not believe in eternal security] obviously see these a different way. They would apply some of these verses as meaning the loss of salvation. Though I personally do not see it this way, yet they have some of their own scriptures to back up their belief. They are certainly not out of line with historic Christian belief to hold to this view. So Paul introduces [in my mind] the concept of the possibility of the rebellious believer falling into such a sin that he can ‘be destroyed’ [lose his life] while at the same time saying ‘yet his spirit will be saved’. This ‘in house’ instruction [in house meaning Paul’s dealing with them as believers who fall into sin] should not taint the overriding view of Paul in his entire corpus of teaching. His main teaching on ‘those who live in constant sin’ is they will not inherit the kingdom of God. John also teaches this doctrine in his epistle. So we begin to see the ‘minefield’ we can get into as we tread thru the New Testament. It will be important to make these distinctions with much grace as we continue our journey thru the New Testament. Many well meaning believers view the ‘other camps’ as heretics over these issues. I see it more as a matter of believers being influenced to see these verses from a sincere standpoint of their upbringing. If you were raised Baptist, you more than likely view them from a Calvinistic lens. If you were raised Pentecostal [or Methodist], from an Arminian lens. Both good camps, with their own ‘slant’ affecting their view. I don’t think we should call each other heretics over stuff like this.
(943)1ST CORINTHIANS 1:1-17 Paul greets them as an apostle called by God, he affirms his authority and ‘fathering ability’ as coming from God. He tells them he thanks God all the time for the fruit that he sees in their lives, the thing that made Paul rejoice was the work God was doing in the communities he was establishing as an apostle. Today ministers have a tendency to ‘rejoice’ over the Christian enterprise that we oversee. Whether its’ how well the budget went this year and stuff like that. Paul’s joy wasn’t in the fact that God called him to some great personal ministry where he would find self fulfillment. His joy was in the actual growth and freedom that ‘his churches’ [communities of people] were experiencing. He also defines them as ‘those that call upon the name of the Lord like all the others’. Remember what we said when studying Romans chapter 10? One of the signs of the believer is ‘they call upon Jesus name’. They are believing communities of ‘Christ callers’. Not so much a one time evangelical altar call, but a lifestyle. Jesus said we are ‘a house of prayer’. A spiritual community/house who intercedes for all nations. It’s in our very DNA! Paul also commends them as being enriched by God in all ‘knowledge and utterance’ [speech]. It seems funny that he would say they were blessed and enriched in speech. Paul will give some of his strongest rebukes over speaking gifts [tongues, prophesy] to this community. Yet he does not approach it from the strong anti charismatic view. He doesn’t say ‘your speech is demonic’ he says it is enriched by God! We will deal with the gifts later on. Now for the first real rebuke. Paul says he has heard reports that there are divisions and strivings among them. They are already dividing up into various sects. Some follow Paul, others follow Cephas, some say ‘we are the true Christ followers’. Paul rebukes them sharply over these divisions, he does not want the early church to identify with individual personalities and gifts at the expense of true unity. Was this the early development of denominationalism? To a degree yes. But I also don’t think we should view the various Christian denominations as deceived or ‘lost’. The modern church has become what we are thru many struggles and difficulties over a 2 thousand year history. My personal view is we should strive for unity, not by trying to dissolve all the various ‘tribes’ that exist in Christ’s church, but by growing into a more mature view of all who name the name of Christ as being fellow believers who partake of a common grace. I applaud all the efforts being made by various Christian churches today to come to a greater outward unity [for example the Catholic and Orthodox dialogue] but I also believe as we see each other as fellow believers and learn to appreciate our different emphasis, that this approach can also lead to greater unity among believers today. Paul saw the beginnings of division in the early Corinthian community, he did his best to quell the coming storm.
(932)2ND SAMUEL 16- As David flees Jerusalem, Ziba, the servant that was under Mephibosheth joins with him. David asks ‘what are you doing here? You should be home with your master’. Ziba says ‘as soon as Mephibosheth heard about the take over, he said “I will stay in Israel and become the new king, God will restore to me Saul’s throne”’. Now David believes it and says ‘I now put you in charge of all the household of your former master, it belongs to you’. Later on Mephibosheth will deny all of this. Its possible Ziba made this up for his own benefit. Leaders, be careful of advice from people with a personal agenda. They often make themselves look better than others. Now as David flees another enemy comes out and curses and throws stones at him along the way. This guy says ‘look at you now, you rebelled against the old king [Saul] and now you are receiving the just reward’. Now David responds with a Christ like attitude and says ‘let the guy curse me, I will not retaliate. Maybe God will look on this persecution and reward me’. One of David’s men wanted to ‘take his head off’. Gee, David has all types in his leadership circle! Did this guy who was cursing David misread the whole situation? Yes, but don’t forget we are reading this story from the real perspective, some people living at the time of David and Saul saw this new king [David] as a threat to the old ways. It’s only a few days after the 2008 presidential election. Barack Obama won. Though there were many reasons for and against him, now that he won we ALL need to pray for him. But some of the supporters of McCain sincerely saw this ‘new kind of person’ as a rebellious threat to the ‘old order’. Sincere people who saw things from a different angle. So David’s accuser sees the story from a wrong lens. David was being judged by God, but not because he toppled the old order of King Saul. Back at Jerusalem Absalom listens to the advice of Ahithophel and sleeps with his fathers concubines. The advice was that when all Israel heard about it, they would realize that this rebellion was a real rebellion and the people would unite under his illegal rule. Scripture says Ahithophels counsel was like ‘hearing from God’ in those days. Leaders, be open to the counsel that is coming forth from particular streams at certain times. It is not only important for believers to ‘learn the bible’, but also to be able to discern the signs of the times. Specific things God is saying and doing in our day. If you were living in the 16th century the issue of the reformation was vital for every one who was a believer. Whether you were Catholic or Protestant, you needed to be up on the issues. Erasmus, the great Catholic scholar and humanist [not ‘secular humanist’] wrote insightful criticisms against his own church, yet remained within her fold. So matter what Christian tradition you align yourself with, you need to be aware of the seasons and purposes of God for your generation. In Absalom’s day, Ahithophel was the go to man.
(922)2ND SAMUEL 6- David attempts to retrieve the Ark and bring it to the new capital city of Jerusalem. On the way back one of the brothers tries to steady the ark as it was about to fall. They were carrying it on a ‘new cart’ with oxen pulling it. This was not the way the law prescribed carrying it! This was the formula that the Philistines used earlier. So David’s man touches the Ark and is killed. They leave it at another brother’s house for three months and the brother is blessed, David goes and retrieves it. This chapter doesn’t say what changed, but obviously David went back to the law and used the prescribed manner this time around. As he enters Jerusalem with it there is this joyous picture of everyone leaping and dancing and praising the Lord. Sort of like the triumphal entry of Jesus [Gods ‘fleshly’ ark, who had all the fullness of God dwelling in his physical body!] to Jerusalem when the people shouted ‘Hosanna’. David places the ark in a tent/tabernacle that he personally made for it. I wrote earlier how this was an open tent that had no barriers between the ark and Gods people, a contrast between Moses tabernacle where God and the people were separated [law versus grace type thing]. David’s wife mocks him because he took off his royal robes and wore an ephod [priestly garment] and danced and humbled himself before the Lord. David says ‘I will even be more lowly than this’. His wife is barren for the rest of her life as a judgment for mocking David. What ever happened to the ark? Well let me give you some history. The ‘story’ [tradition] says that when the queen of Ethiopia visits Solomon to see his wealth, that eventually he ‘marries’ her and they have kids. The queen goes back to Ethiopia and supposedly takes the ark from Solomon as a gift. The Ethiopian orthodox church claims to have it in the main ‘church’ in Ethiopia. Because of this history all the Ethiopian churches have replicas of the ark in their buildings as well. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is one of rich tradition. They are technically not considered ‘Catholic’ [western] or ‘Orthodox’ [eastern]. They are part of the church who are sometimes referred to as Oriental. This referring to the historic churches [not necessarily Oriental in geography] who never accepted the traditional churches belief in certain expressions of the Trinity and the relationship between Jesus and God. They stuck with the Arian view of Jesus deity and are not considered ‘orthodox’ in this area. As the centuries developed and various barbarians who were raiding the empire were converted, they also believed in a Christianity that would be more aligned with this type of belief. Now, I know Christians do not consider this to be correct doctrine, but I am simply sharing the history with you. I am not siding with their belief! We really have no idea where the ark is today, to be honest it doesn’t matter. We ‘see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the purpose of dying, and he was raised again for us’! [Hebrews]. We have the real McCoy!
(917)2nd SAMUEL 2- David inquires of the Lord if he should go up into the cities of Judah. The Lord tells him to go to Hebron. David becomes the king of Judah and rules from Hebron for 7.5 years. From this point on the southern portion of Israel will be referred to as ‘Judah’ and the northern tribes are called ‘Israel’. Abner, king Saul’s commander, anoints another son of Saul as the king of the other tribes. So you have Joab, David’s commander and Abner, the military leader of the opposing king. Joab and Abner meet up on the field. Abner suggests a sort of competition between the men. A fight ensues and good men die needlessly. Joab pursues Abner and his men and Abner winds up killing a brother of Joab. He did not want things to escalate to this degree! He tried to spare the brother, but in self defense he killed him. Abner tells Joab 'stop chasing us, why should there be more bloodshed between us, we are all brothers’? I see here the ‘innocent’ spirit of competition that got out of hand. When God’s leaders begin comparing the skills of their people against the skills of others, then people become pawns on a ministry chess board. Competition is a deadly thing that exists in the church, the lines between successful corporate ideas and Gods communal church have been blurred for a long time, this causes us to be vulnerable to this type of thing. Joab and Abner retreat and go home. David becomes king of Judah in Hebron. He will eventually consolidate the kingdom under his rule [he will reign for 33 years out of Jerusalem. A type of Jesus, who walked the holy land for 33 years until the Cross] and the kingdom will split again under Solomon’s sons rule. The divided history of the northern [Israel] and southern [Judah] tribes are seen as a judgment from God for various reasons thru out Israel’s history. For the most part the kings of Judah are better than the kings of Israel, but they will both have good and bad kings over time. I see a picture of the historic divisions of Christianity thru this history. Eventually you will have some who feel they have a ‘more pure religion and priesthood’ under the Orthodox and Protestant expressions of Christianity [I too hold to this to some degree] but yet God will eventually rebuke Judah as being worse than her northern ‘sister’! As we teach the Old Testament in the years to come I will try and trace these developments as we get to them.
(896)SAMUEL 13- DON’T RETREAT TOO MUCH! In this chapter we see the famous story of Saul offering a burnt offering at Gilgal. He was supposed to wait for Samuel and he got impatient and offered it himself. Samuel tells him that the Lord will judge him severely for this and raise up a man after his own heart [David]. In the beginning of the chapter we see Saul and Jonathan separate into 2 camps, Saul keeps 2 thousand men and Jonathan a thousand. Jonathan is a capable warrior and has some good victories. The Philistines say ‘enough is enough!’ and mount a counter attack. They muster so many resources that Israel fears. They retreat into the rocks and hills, some go back over the Jordan! I read a recent Christianity today article that had one of the leaders of the Emergent Movement speaking with one of the more Reformed defenders of the faith. It was a sincere meeting between two seemingly opposing camps. The Emergent brother questioned the Reformed guy ‘what did you tell the people about what was taught in the first thousand years of Christianity before Anselm’? Anselm is the great Christian theologian who is often credited for ‘coming up’ with the ‘theory of Penal substitution’. Now, I love church history and do understand that this is an idea that many good men have espoused, that Anselm came up with the doctrine of Penal substitution. The point I want to make is this fundamental doctrine was taught by the first century Apostles. Our scripture is filled with the doctrine of Penal substitution! So in these cases I think the Emergent brothers have ‘retreated too much’. In their honest and good efforts of changing the way the church interacts with society, they have damaged their movement by doing stuff like this. Challenging too many core beliefs of the faith. In essence they went ‘all the way back over the Jordan’. The Philistines learn a trick from Israel and divide up into three groups and send out ‘raiders’ my King James says ‘spoilers’. They begin chipping away at the confidence of Israel. Saul has 600 men left with him and they are all trembling. Saul himself must be in tremendous doubt about his own life. He just received a strong rebuke from Samuel. He might have been preparing for the worst. But we will find out that there are still more battles to be won, Jonathan will make his dad proud of him.
(893)SAMUEL 10- Samuel anoints Saul with oil. He gives him very specific prophetic direction ‘you will meet 2 men, then 3. They will be carrying 3 loaves of bread and give you 2’. Very particular information. Saul will meet a company of prophets and prophesy with them. The scripture says the Lord changed Saul into another man thru this prophetic experience. Once again we see not only the significance of Israel being under the divine direction of the prophetic [thru Samuel]. But his prophetic office also opened the door for a ‘whole company of prophets’ having freedom to function in their gifts. Over the years I have found it interesting to see how easy it is to live your entire Christian experience in different camps. Some of the more refined brothers [Reformed, Orthodox] have a great advantage in the field of intellectual pursuit [which is a good thing!] but might not be aware of the sector in the church that deals with the prophetic. The prophetic ministry has grown and even produced some fine intellectual material [some bad stuff too!] The point is we need to try and be aware [at least have a working knowledge] of the many streams that operate in the Body of Christ. You might not agree with a lot of the doctrinal positions that these various groups hold to, but as members of Christ’s church they do represent a certain sector of the church. Saul will follow thru and see all the prophetic signs come to pass in one day. Samuel instructs him to wait for him to come and publicly recognize him as king. After 7 days Samuel comes to town and Saul is hiding. He feared all the things that were coming upon him. Samuel finds him and publicly recognizes him. Also Samuel told the people that their choice of a human king was rejection of God. Some of the people are glad about Saul, others despise him from the start. There is a strange dynamic that I have seen at work over the years. When individual personalities and goals pit themselves against other people’s visions, there seems to be a division that is not healthy. I have had good friends who wanted to publicly join and be identified with ‘my ministry’. I would simply tell them ‘there really is nothing to join, we are simply believers trying to live out the Kingdom of God’. Then other pastors would see that some of the homeless people that they are working with have become ‘joined’ to us in a strong relational way. Then I would sense a kind of mindset that would say to the homeless person ‘well, if brother John has such good influence with you, maybe you should be with him instead of us’. They would not say this in a bad way, just in a way that is prevalent in the present mindset of ‘doing church’. I see all these divisions as silly, they come from an idea of local church that has many various ‘local churches’ [Christian ministries] as seeing themselves as independent entities who are trying to instill loyalty in people. ‘Are you with us or against us’ type attitudes. In Saul’s case he had friends and enemies right from the start. When individual personalities and agendas [which God warned them about!] become preeminent in the minds of the people [contrary to the corporate comminutes as seen in the local churches in scripture] then there is a natural tendency to take sides.
(887)SAMUEL 4 CONTINUED- Okay, let’s finish it up. In this chapter we see an important historical event, the capture of the Ark of the Covenant [the box that held the 10 commandments, not Noah’s Ark!] The children of Israel fight with the Philistines and take a loss of 4 thousand men. They go back to camp and regroup. They decide to take the Ark of God and involve it with human warfare. A big mistake! This speaks of the sad history of the crusades and other mistaken ideas of ‘holy war’. God does not involve himself in mans efforts of domination thru power. So the Philistines hear that the Ark is in the battle and they fear. ‘Oh my God, this is the God of Israel who defeated the Egyptians’. They knew the history of Israel and how the God of Israel was great. The battle rages and Israel takes a greater loss of 30 thousand men. Plus the Ark is captured and the two sons of Eli are killed. The runner runs back to Shiloh [the headquarters of the Ark, where the tabernacle of Moses still stood] and brings the terrible news to Eli [the high priest]. Eli hears about the Arks capture and falls back and breaks his neck and dies. One of the daughters in law to Eli goes into labor and delivers a boy. She names him Ichabod, which means God's glory has departed. She did this because the Ark was taken. The Ark represented Gods glory and presence among the people. It seems as if Israel began to treat it in an idolatrous way. Sort of like what happened with the brass serpent that Moses made in the wilderness. God has to step and rebuke his people when they mistake the true worship of God with religious objects. The history of the Christian church has been divided over this for centuries. You can have religious art, it should not become a thing of worship. The iconoclast controversy of the Catholic and Orthodox churches have gone to extremes on both sides. At times believers would go into the ‘churches’ and destroy all the religious art they found. Others would hold to a view of icons [religious paintings] and statues that would seem to cross the line in areas of worship. I remember hearing a story about a prophet who stood up in a church meeting and said ‘thus saith the Lord, I have judged this church and people. My glory is no longer here. I have written ‘Michelob’ on your door posts’. Well, after he sat down he realized he mistook the word ‘Michelob [beer]’ for 'Ichabod’. He then stood up again and said ‘Thus saith the Lord, I meant to say Ichabod’.
(876)ROMANS 16- CONCLUSION Okay, lets try and finish up Romans. We do see some good stuff in this last chapter. We see Paul addressing women as functional ministers in the church. Phoebe is a deaconess, Junia an apostle! I still believe that Elders were only men, but women did function in the first century Ecclesia’s. Paul also says ‘mark those which cause divisions contrary to the doctrine you have learned and avoid them’. Now, I have heard the strict Baptists use this against the Pentecostals, and it did put the fear of God in you! But then I heard the Pentecostals use it against the strict Baptists, and it also put the fear of God in you! [maybe another fear?] The point being you could use this to defend any doctrine you ‘have been taught’ by well meaning men. Here Paul is warning against those who were early on departing from the faith [the basic elements of the gospel and Gods grace]. The apostle John addresses those who ‘went out from us, but were not of us’ ‘whoever rejects Christ as come in the flesh is anti christ’ [1st John]. You did have those who rejected the basic elements of the gospel and the incarnation of Jesus. Paul warned the Corinthians not to depart from the reality of Christ's resurrection [1st Corinthians 15]. And of course Paul openly rebuked the Judiazers for trying to put the gentile believers under the restrictions of the Mosaic law. So even though these types of verses seem to fit in to our present day controversies and differences among various denominational groups, yet in context they refer to those who were rejecting the basic tenets of the faith. Paul also encourages ‘God will crush satan under our feet shortly’ ‘God is able to establish us thru the gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ’. Let me defend the concept of ‘old fashioned preaching’ a little. While I and many others have publicly taught a type of new testament ecclesiology that is absent the ‘weekly pulpit Pastoral office’. Yet there is biblical precedent for the preaching of the Word. Paul taught in chapter 10 ‘how can they hear without a preacher, and how can they preach unless they are sent’? God strengthens believers thru the preaching of Gods Word. While it is wrong for the average believer to depend solely on this preaching to become educated in the things of God, yet there is a strengthening that God gives to the believer when he comes under the pure preaching of Christ. As we end Romans, I want to re emphasize the major doctrine of justification by faith. The reformation of the 16th century did not happen in a vacuum. God restored a very vital truth back to the people of God. All Christians should be grounded and well versed in the reality of God freely accepting us based on simple faith in Jesus Christ. Now, I realize that many are returning to a more 'sermon on the mount’ orientation of the Christian lifestyle. As I have taught before I think this is a good thing. A ‘re-focusing’ on the teachings and instruction of Jesus. But I think we also need to emphasize the many statements from Jesus himself on those who believe having everlasting life [John’s gospel]. Romans is a masterpiece letter from Paul, one of his main points was justification by faith. God wants believers to be grounded in this truth.
(869)ROMANS 14:1-9 Paul discusses Christian convictions. Things that are personal habits of discipline where the scripture is silent on. Some believers abstain from certain types of food. Others see certain days as ‘more special’ than the others. It’s important to see that in this discussion Paul is not concerned with ‘who is right’. Though he will describe the legalistic believers as ‘weak in the faith’. And he himself will say he is convinced that ‘nothing is unclean in and of itself’. He is speaking about the convictions mentioned above. When I first became a believer I attended a good church. It was a Fundamental Baptist church that was a little legalistic in these areas. I remember a funny story, some of the brothers went on a canoe trip. We had a blast. One of the guys was wearing these old cut off shorts that looked like ‘blue jean hot pants’ [who wears short shorts, we wear short shorts!] the pants were old and the ‘fly’ kept unzipping. We told the brother ‘hey James, your gonna get us arrested or something if you can’t keep your shorts on!’. He got mad and called us a bunch of legalists! As you can see there are times where this accusation can simply be an excuse. But seriously the church was old fashioned [though well meaning]. I had another friend of mine that I led to the Lord and he asked ‘what’s wrong with the Christian rock, I like it’? He had heard some songs from the group Petra and he thought they were great. He also questioned why it was wrong for his boys to play mixed sports in public school. He was taught that the boys and girls wearing shorts in mixed company was wrong. So things like this are personal convictions that believers should not use to judge others. I want to stress that Paul does not condemn the more legalistic brothers, but he does make it clear that this is a sign of ‘weaker faith’. A faith that looks at the insignificant things and makes them significant. Many ‘Emergent’ church folk [of which I am one to a degree] seem to have had this type of background. Or at least are familiar with the classic evangelical message and preaching. Some have found a revolution in their thinking by re-organizing their lives around the actual lifestyle and teachings of Christ [which is a very good thing!]. But some seem to despise the older type churches and expressions of Christianity that they experienced while growing up. Some even cast away the good with the bad! Though many of the more legalistic churches practiced this type of Christianity, yet I commend them on spreading the gospel of Gods grace. Taking seriously their faith in the Lord. And being historic defenders of the faith at a time when the more liberal universities were throwing out the baby with the bathwater [the 20th century fundamentalist movement].
(862)ROMANS 11- let me make a note on the previous entry. Over the last few years, as well as many years of experience with ‘ministry/church’, I have seen how easy it is to fall into the well meaning mindset of ‘I am going into the ministry, this is my career choice. My responsibility is to do ‘Christian stuff’ and the people’s role is to support me’[ I am not taking a shot at well meaning Pastors, I am basically speaking of the many friends I have met over the years who seemed to think ministry was a way to get financial support]. In the previous entry I mentioned how Paul seemed to have a mode of operation that said ‘when I am residing with a community of believers, I refuse to allow them to support me. I will work with my own hands to give them an example, not only to the general saints, but also to the elders. I am showing you that leadership is not a means to get gain’. It does seem ‘strange’ for us to see this. Of course we know Paul also taught the churches that it was proper and right to support those who ‘labor among you’. I have taught all this in the past and I don’t want to ‘re-teach’ it all again. The point I want to make is we ‘in ministry’ really need to rethink what we do. How many web-sites have I gone to that actually have icons that say ‘pay me here’. The average person going to these sites must think ‘pay you for what’? Paul did not teach the mindset of ‘pay me here, now’. Also in this letter to the Romans we are reading Paul’s correspondence to the believers at Rome. He often used this mode of ‘authority’ [writing letters] to exercise his apostolic office. Of course he also traveled to these areas [Acts] and spent time with them. And as I just showed you he supported himself on purpose when he was with the saints. Basically Paul is carrying out the single most effective apostolic ministry of all time [except for Jesus] and he is doing it without all the modern techniques of getting paid. He actually is doing all this writing and laboring at his own expense. He told the Corinthians ‘the fathers [apostles] spend for the children, not the children for the fathers’. So in todays talk on ‘apostles’ being restored. God ‘bringing back into alignment apostolic government’ we need to tone down all the quoting of verses [even the things Paul said!] that seem to say to the average saint ‘how do you expect us to reach the world if you do not ‘bring all the tithes into the storehouse’! When we put this guilt trip on the people of God we are violating very fundamental principles of scripture. Now, let’s try and finish up chapter 11. Paul is basically telling Israel and the Gentiles that God’s dealings are beyond our understanding [last few verses]. God is using the ‘unbelief’ of Israel as an open door to the Gentiles. He is also using the mercy that he is showing to the Gentiles as an ‘open door’ to Israel! He will ‘provoke them to jealousy’. There are a few difficult verses that would be unfair for me to skip over. ‘All Israel shall be saved’. Paul uses this to show that God’s dealings with natural Israel as a nation are not finished. Who are ‘all Israel’? Some say ‘the Israel of God’ [the church]. I don’t think this fits the text. Some say ‘all Israel that will be alive at the second coming’ I think this is closer. To be honest I think this can simply mean ‘all Israel’ all those who are alive and also raised at the return of the Lord. Now, this would be a form of universalism [all people eventually being saved]. I am not a Universalist, but I don’t want any ‘preconceived’ mindset [even my own!] to taint the text. I think God has the ability to reveal himself to the whole nation of Israel in such a way that ‘they all will be saved’. If I were a Jewish person I wouldn’t wait for this to happen! Just like the Calvinists argument of ‘why witness’? Because God commands it. So even though you can make an argument here for a type of universal redemption at Christ’s revealing of himself to Israel at the second coming [which is in keeping with this chapter, as well as other areas in scripture; ‘they will look upon him whom they have pierced’ ‘God will pour out the spirit of mourning and supplication on Israel at his appearing’. Which by the way would fit in with ‘whoever calls on the Lord will be saved’ which I taught in chapter 10. This is a futurist text implying a time of future judgment and wrath’]. So God’s dealings with Israel are not finished. Paul also warns the Gentiles ‘don’t boast, if God cut out the true branches [Israel] to graft you in. He can just as quickly cut you out too’! It would be dishonest for me [a Calvinist] to simply not comment on this. You certainly can take this verse in an Arminian way. Or you can see Paul speaking in a ‘nationalistic sense’. Sort of like saying ‘if Germany walks away from the faith, they will be ‘cut out’. [France would have been a better example! Speaking of the so called ‘enlightenment’ and the French Revolution]. In essence ‘you Gentiles, don’t think “wow, look at us. God left Israel and we are now special!”’ Paul is saying ‘you Gentiles [as a whole group] stand by faith. God could just as quickly ‘cut you out’ and replace you with another group’. I also think the Arminians could use this type of argument for the previous predestination chapter [9]. But to be honest I needed to give you my view. One more thing, Paul quotes Elijah ‘lord, I am the only one left’. He uses this in context of God having a remnant from Israel who remained faithful to the true God. God told Elijah ‘there are 7 thousand that have not bowed the knee to baal’. Paul uses this to show that even in his day there were a remnant Of Jews [himself included] who received the Messiah. An interesting side note. The prophetic ministry [Elijah] seems to function at a ‘popular level’. Now, I don’t mean ‘fame’, but Elijah was giving voice to a large undercurrent that was running thru the nation. If you read the story of Elijah you would have never known that there were ‘7 thousand’ who never bowed the knee! Often times God will use prophetic people to ‘give voice’ or popularize a general truth that is presently existing in the ‘underground church’ at large. Sort of like if Elijah had a web site, the 7 thousand would have been secretly reading it and saying ‘right on brother, that’s exactly what we believe too’!
(857)ROMANS- Let me overview a little. This entry goes along with the last one [#856- those of you reading this straight from the Romans study will need to find it under one of the ‘teaching’ sections]. Paul deals with the issue of ‘being provoked by/to jealousy’. Many times believers remain divided because of pride and jealousy. We often do not want to accept the fact that God actually is working thru other camps, groups of Christians who are ‘not like us’. It challenges our very identity at times! We feel like ‘well, my whole experience with God has been one of coming out of [name the group- for many it’s Catholicism] and I KNOW that I have found and experienced God by leaving mistaken concepts about God. Therefore any other ‘defender’ of Catholics is challenging my core experience’. I myself attribute my conversion to ‘leaving religious ideas’ and reading the bible for the first time. Though I had various believers witnessing to me, it was the actual reading of Johns gospel [and the whole New Testament] that clinched it for me. The reality of ‘whoever believes’ as opposed to religion. But my own experience should not limit [in my mind] the reality of others who also embraced the Cross without ‘leaving’ their former church. It is quite possible that other ‘Catholics’ arrived at a serious level of commitment to the Cross, while remaining faithful to their church. Now I realize this in itself can become an issue of contention, all I want to show you is we should not limit the power of the gospel to our own personal experience. During the recent controversy [2008] over certain Pentecostal expressions of ‘revival’ some old time churches simply made a case against all the Charisms [gifts] of the Spirit. The fact is most theologians accept the gifts of the Spirit as being for all ages of the church. Sure, there have been problems with them, even early on [the Montanists] but the fact is there has always been some type of Charismatic expression of Christianity thru out the church age. But the more Reformed brother’s sound [and are often!] more ‘biblical’ than some of the crazy stuff that happens under the banner of ‘Pentecostal/Charismatic’. So the divisions exist. In this chapter [Romans 11] Paul is dealing with a very real dynamic that says ‘I find my whole identity in the way God has worked with me for centuries [Judaism]. The fact that he began a new thing with other groups who I detest [Gentiles] has offended me to the point where I can’t even experience God any more’. Israel could not see past her own experience with God. The fact that God was ‘being experienced’ by other groups in ways that seemed highly ‘unorthodox’ did not mean that their former experience was illegitimate. It simply meant that Gods experience with them was always intended to ‘break out’ into the broader community of mankind. They lost this original intent and used their ‘orthodoxy’ as a means of self identification. An ‘elite’ religious class, if you will. I find many of these same dynamics being present in the modern church. We should stand strong for orthodoxy, we also need to expose and correct error when it gets to a point where many believers are being led astray. But we also need to be able to see God at work in other groups, we should not use our own experience with God [no matter how legitimate it is!] as the criterion of what’s right or wrong.
(856)PARABLE FROM A PLANE [or any other mode of transport!] this parable is in response to all the various ‘Calvinistic’ sites I have read from in the last few years. I believe in the doctrine of classic predestination [Calvin, Augustine, Paul] but I feel there are some problems with the way believers approach this issue. Say if you were taking a flight from New York to Texas. You have been on this flight hundreds of times. In fact your father is the pilot! Now, when you were growing up you were reassured that the plane was safe, the pilot is well trained and for all practical purposes you know nothing can go wrong [I realize this analogy isn’t perfect, but just pretend that this flight is guaranteed not to have any problems]. Over the years you have enjoyed the journey. Then one day you meet a fellow passenger [an Arminian- Someone who does not believe in the doctrine of predestination, at least not in the way you do]. You begin having some good discussions, he espouses his belief that it is quite possible for something to go wrong. He agrees that the plane itself is safe and the pilot is qualified. But he states ‘if you want to jump out you can’. This idea never entered into the original passenger. He always believed that the security of the flight was so ‘secure’ that even if he tried to jump, he couldn’t open the exit. Now, the Arminian says ‘I think you could’ the Calvinist says ‘no way’. During their discussion they disagree, but no one attempts to actually ‘jump’. Now a few weeks later the Calvinist is afraid to get on the plane. He has taken the flight many times, but now he wonders ‘What if the Arminian was right? Say if the pilot [his dad] actually has the ability and power to open the hatch and throw me out? The possibility of this actual thing has now frozen me with such fear that I will not get on the plane’. The father [pilot] would seem offended. How many times have children fallen asleep in the car when their father was at the wheel? Even though it’s in the realm of possibility that dad will ‘throw you out’ [I don’t embrace this, but follow me] it would still seem dysfunctional for the child to say ‘I refuse to drive with dad until I have some guarantees that he will never open the door and dump me’. As a matter of fact, I feel so insecure of the possibility that dad can throw me out, that I even hate the other kids [or passengers!] that even brought it up! As I have read from some ‘Reformed sites’ I have seen this type of dynamic more than one time. Some of the brothers see the Arminian camp as heretics. I think we need to step back and take a breath. Even in the Arminian camp, they have faith that ‘dad isn’t going to stop short and open the exit’ [for the most part]. Most simply believe that ‘dad’ leaves this option open for the ‘jumper’. I know this silly parable doesn’t do justice to the whole issue of Gods sovereignty. I just find it disturbing how some of my fellow Calvinists seem to view the other side as ‘the enemy’.
(850)PROPHETIC UPDATE! As of today [8-08] enough has happened in the last few years to kind of encapsulate the state of the church [Gods people] and where we are heading. Whenever you have ‘prophetic people’ and movements make some real obvious mistakes, I always feel tempted to go thru this site and delete everything that deals with ‘prophecies, dreams and visions’. This has happened to me on more than a few occasions. But the Lord kind of stops me. Now, why do I mention this? Because these last few years the charismatic/prosperity churches have gone thru some turmoil. The ‘Emergent’ movement has also struck a nerve with the Reformed defenders of the faith, and they have also had some battles. In the midst of it all you also had a resurgence of Catholic apologists [Scott Hahn] and ‘the defend the fullness of truth’ conferences. First, I felt the Lord was going to deal with the more obvious abuses of the prosperity movement a few years back. I even ‘prophesied’ that this would happen [on this site!]. So this is a legitimate ‘correction’ that is taking place as of this year. Some of the main leaders of the movement have come under some serious ‘judging’. Also, the more theological/mature Emergent movement has come under fire by the Reformed preachers because of some real problems. Some in the Emergent church have espoused ultra liberal ideas on the Atonement, Hell and other basic Christian doctrines. The problem is the older reform minded ‘correctors’ are for the most part absolutely ignorant of their own ‘blind spot’ in the area of Ecclesiology. They seem to think ‘defending the historic faith’ includes defending a ‘limited’ Ecclesiology. It’s too easy to just believe that Edwards, Luther, Calvin and all the other great minds of their eras must have been right on Church government and structure. For the most part they were not. So this part of the ‘emergent church’ have it right [those who challenge limited ideas of ‘church’]. Now, the recent ‘fiasco’ of the Lakeland revival. I believe the whole ‘group’ of Apostles and Prophets [?] that initially gave their approval are very questionable. Some of the men I do like [Rick Joyner], but the whole ‘apostolic network’ that some of these brothers belong to is very questionable [when I say ‘questionable’, I do not mean they are frauds or fakes. I mean the whole idea of having an ‘apostolic network’ seems to be missing the target]. I believe most of Gods true Apostles and Prophets today are men of great humility, they suffer persecution [like Watchmen Nee] and for the most part are serious students of the Word and ‘followers of the way’ [Christ’s example of a servant]. So today [2008] we need to be open to correction in the areas that are off base. We also need to be careful not to reject all ‘prophetic things’ out of a feeling of being embarrassed to even use the same terminology as some of these guys. And we need to recognize that some of the old time defenders of the faith [Sproul, Macarthur, Colson] do have very good points they are making when the emergent brothers reject the very basis of ‘knowable truth’, but they also have a huge blind spot in their ecclesiology [thinking defending the truth includes ‘Sunday Church’]. Also, the Catholic resurgence is important not to discount, some Evangelicals are becoming so frustrated with the Protestant ‘craziness’ and divisions, that they seem to find refuge in joining this ancient expression of Christianity. Let’s have a good vigorous debate, let’s strive for unity. The prophetic movement needs to receive correction. The prosperity movements more extreme elements need to be rejected outright. At the end of the day God is still going to do a great work in the earth. His people will show forth his glory and truly be the glorious temple that he desires.
(849)ROMANS 9:9-23 now we get into predestination. Paul uses the example of Jacob and Esau [I spoke on this in the Genesis study, see chapter 18], he says God chose Jacob over Esau before they were born. He also uses the story of Pharaoh and says God was the one who hardened his heart. Paul says these things show us that God’s mercy and choice are a sovereign act. He specifically says ‘God chose Jacob, not on the basis of any thing he did [or would do!] but because of his own sovereign choice’. Now, this is another one of those arguments where Paul says ‘you will then say to me, how can God find fault? If everyone is simply doing the things he preordained, fulfilling destiny, then how can God justly hold people accountable’? First, I want you to see that this statement, that Paul is putting into the mouths of his opponents, only makes sense from the classic position of predestination. Second, if predestination only spoke of Gods foreknowledge of the choices that people were going to make [like asking Jesus into their heart!] then the obvious response to the argument would be ‘Oh, God chose Jacob because he knew what a good boy he was going to be’. Not only would this be wrong, Jacob [the supplanter] was not a ‘good boy’, but Paul does not use this defense in arguing his case. He simply says ‘who are we to question God? Can the thing formed say to him that formed it “why have you made me like this”? It seems as if Paul’s understanding of predestination was in the Augustinian/Calvinistic Tradition. A few years back a popular author on the west coast, Dave Hunt, wrote a book called ‘what kind of love is this’? He took on the Reformed Faiths understanding of predestination. Dave was a little out of his league in the book. He seemed to not fully grasp the historic understanding of the doctrine. He quoted some stuff from Charles Spurgeon that made it sound like he was not a believer in predestination. Spurgeon did make strong statements against certain ideas that were [are] prevalent in classic Calvinism. Some taught that Christ’s Blood was shed only for the elect. This is called ‘particular redemption’ or from the famous ‘Tulip’ example ‘limited atonement’. Spurgeon did not embrace the idea that Christ’s Blood was not sufficient to cover the sins of the whole world. The problem with Hunt using this true example from Spurgeon, is that he overlooked the other obvious statements from Spurgeon that place him squarely in the Calvinistic camp. Some refer to this as ‘4 point Calvinism’. I myself agree with Spurgeon on this point. The reason I mention this whole thing is to show you that major Christian figures have dealt with these texts and have struggled with the obvious difficulties involved. I think Paul does a little ‘speculative theology’ himself in this chapter. He says ‘what if God willing to show his mercy and wrath permitted certain things’. He gives possible reasons for the seeming ‘unfairness’ of this doctrine. The point I want to stress is Paul never tries to defend it from the classic Arminian understanding, that says ‘God knew the way people were going to choose, and he simply ‘foreordained’ those who would choose right’. To be honest, this argument does answer the question in the minds of many believers, I simply don’t see it to be accurate.
(846)ROMANS 8:29-30 ‘for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed into the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: whom he justified, them he also glorified’. Let’s talk a little. When I first became a Christian I began a lifelong study of scripture, where I continually read a certain amount of scripture every day for many years. Over the years I have varied on how fast I should read [that is how many chapters per day and so forth]. But during the early stages I always took these verses to teach predestination in the classical sense. Simply put, that God ‘pre chose’ me [and all whom come to him] before we ‘chose him’. The Fundamental Baptist church I began to attend [a great church with great people!] taught that ‘classic Calvinism’ [predestination] was false doctrine, and they labeled it ‘Hyper Calvinism’. I simply accepted this as fact. But I never forgot the early understanding that I first gleaned thru my own study. I also was very limited in my other readings outside of the scripture. I did study the Great awakenings and Charles Finney. I read some biographies on John Wesley and other great men of God. These men were not Calvinistic in their doctrine [which is fine], as a matter of fact Wesley would eventually disassociate from George Whitefield over this issue. Whitefield was a staunch Calvinist! Over time I came to believe the doctrine again, simply as I focused on the scriptures that teach it. Eventually I picked up some books on church history and realized that Calvinism was [and is] a mainstream belief among many great believers. I personally believe that most of the great theologians in history have accepted this doctrine. Now, for those who reject it, they honestly struggle with these portions of scripture. Just like there are portions of scripture that Calvinists struggle with. To deny this is to be less than honest. The Arminians [Those who deny classic predestination- the term comes from Jacob Arminias, a Calvinist who was writing and studying on the ‘errors’ of ‘arminianism’ and came to embrace the doctrine of free will/choice] usually approach the verses that say ‘he predestined us’ by teaching that Gods predestination speaks only of his foreknowledge of those who would choose him. This is an honest effort to come to terms with the doctrine. To be ‘more honest’ I think this doesn’t adequately deal with the issue. In the above text, as well as many other places in scripture, the idea of ‘Gods foreknowledge and pre choosing’ speak specifically about Gods choice to save us, as opposed to him simply knowing that we would ‘choose right’. The texts that teach predestination teach it in this context. Now the passage above does say ‘those whom he foreknew, he also did predestinate to be conformed into the image of Christ’ here this passage actually does say ‘God predestinated us to be like his Son’. If you left the ‘foreknowledge’ part out, you could read this passage in an Arminian way. But we do have the ‘foreknowledge’ part. So I believe Paul is saying ‘God chose us before we were born, he ‘knew’ ahead of time that he would bring us into his Kingdom. Those whom he foreknew he also predestinated to become like his Son.’ Why? So his Son would be the firstborn among many. God wanted a whole new race of ‘children of God’. Those he predestinated he ‘called’. He drew them to himself. Jesus said ‘all that the Father give to me will come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no way cast out’. Those who ‘come’ are justified, those who are justified are [present tense] glorified. Gods design and sovereignty speak of it as a ‘finished task’ like it already happened. God lives outside of the dimension of time. I believe in the doctrine of predestination. Many others do as well. You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to, but I believe scripture teaches it.
(840)ROMANS 8:5-13 Paul will teach the impossibility of the ‘carnal minds’ ability to submit to Gods law. Those who are ‘in the flesh’ [the unregenerate nature- not simply ‘in the body’. We will get into these distinctions in a minute] can’t submit to God. Society spends so much time and effort trying to get the ‘lost man’ to do what's right. The prohibition movement [outlawing liquor], the increase in the severity of punishment for crimes dealing with drugs. Making the child kidnappers crime punishable by death. While all these laws are necessary and good [though some debate the wisdom of the kidnapper one, they think the kidnapper might just go ahead and kill the victim if the same punishment applies to both crimes] they have little effect on getting ‘the carnal man to submit’. Paul also says ‘if the Spirit of him who raised up Christ from the dead dwells in you, then he that raised up Christ from the dead shall quicken [make alive] your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you’. Let’s do a little teaching here. Most commentators see this as speaking of the promise of the resurrection ‘your mortal bodies’. I see this more in line with the context of chapter 7. The discussion of ‘mortal bodies’ [your actual body, the flesh- which is different than ‘the fleshly nature’ which refers to the sinful nature] speaks of your actual life now ‘let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies’. Also in verse 13 of this chapter the same theme is seen ‘if ye thru the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live’. I believe Paul is primarily saying ‘if you are in the Spirit [born of God] the Spirit of life will make alive your physical life in such a way that you will glorify God in your body and spirit, which are Gods’ [Corinthians]. Chapter 12 says your bodies are living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. Now later on in this chapter [8] we do see the resurrection, which is called ‘the redemption of the body’ [verse 23] so these two concepts work together. The fact that the believer is ‘training his mortal body’ for God [thru obedience] is sort of a precursor to the resurrection! Now, some believers confuse the resurrection of the body and the work of regeneration in ‘making you alive’ [Ephesians 2]. The work of regeneration brings your dead spirit back to life [born again] when you believe [which is a Divine imputation of faith at the moment of conversion, a sovereign act]. This ‘coming alive’ is purely spiritual. This qualifies you for the future physical resurrection of the body [Ephesians calls this the ‘down payment’, the ‘earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession’. The word ‘earnest’ here is used in the same way as ‘earnest money’ in a real estate transaction. The fact that we have been ‘sealed’ with the Holy Spirit is our ‘guarantee of future bodily resurrection’]. Bishop N.T. Wright, the bishop of Durham [the church of England- Durham is the 3rd most influential post in the Church of England. Canterbury is at the top] has recently written on the truths of the resurrection of the body. He is an excellent scholar, way way above my league. He has been instrumental in ‘re introducing’ the reality of Christ’s resurrection as well as our future resurrection as a very real Christian belief [and historic truth as well]. I have read some of Wrights stuff and am a little surprised at some of the ideas on ‘soul sleep’ and the immortality of the soul. Bishop Wright seems to side with some of the ideas that certain restorationist groups [7th day Adventists] espouse, that the Catholic Church kind of corrupted the ideas of heaven and the soul by being overly influenced by Greek thought. While it is possible for Bishop Wright to have come to his understanding entirely thru scripture and history, yet I felt it a little strange to see him make these arguments. For the most part I like brother Wright and totally agree with his stance on the future ‘new heavens and new earth’ as the final place of rest [as opposed to dying and going to heaven now, which is a temporary place] but there is the biblical reality of a present ‘heaven’ and this doesn’t only come from Greek thought. I have often used the Christian doctrine of the new heavens and new earth while speaking with the Jehovah’s witnesses, I always agree on the reality of a future kingdom on earth. I simply steer the conversation back to ‘who qualifies for it’ and get straight to the gospel. Well anyway we have a promise of a future resurrection, and also a ‘quickening of the body now’ [God actually using our physical life to glorify him]. These are both great truths!
(839)ROMAN 8:1-4 ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh [sinful nature] but after the Spirit [new nature]’. Now, having proved the reality of sin and guilt [chapter 7] Paul teaches that those who ‘are in Christ’ are free from condemnation. Why? Because they ‘walk according to the Spirit’ the ‘righteousness of the law is being fulfilled in them’. Having no condemnation isn’t simply a ‘legal function’ of declared righteousness, and Paul didn’t teach it that way! Paul is saying ‘all those who have believed in Jesus and have been legally justified [earlier arguments in chapters 3-4] are now walking [actually acting out] this new nature. Therefore [because you no longer walk according to the flesh] there is no condemnation’! This argument helps bridge the gap between Catholic and Protestant theology, part of the reason for the ongoing schism is over this understanding. After the Reformation the Catholic Church had a Counter Reformation council, the council of Trent. They dealt with a lot of the abuses of the Catholic Church, things that many Catholic leaders were complaining about before the Reformation. They did deal will some issues and reformed somewhat. To the dismay of the more ‘reform minded’ Catholics [with Protestant leanings] they still came down strong on most pre reform doctrines. This made it next to impossible for the schism to be healed. But one area of disagreement was over ‘legal’ versus ‘actual/experiential’ justification. The Catholic position was ‘God can’t declare/say a person is justified until they actually are’ [experientially]. The Protestant side [Luther] said ‘God does justify [legal declaration] a person by faith alone’. Like I taught before, both of these are true. The Catholic view of ‘justification’ is looking ahead towards a future reality [The same way James speaks of justification in a future sense- He uses the example from Genesis 22, when Abraham does a righteous act] while the Protestant view is focusing on the initial legal act of justification [Genesis 15]. Here Paul agrees with both views, he says ‘those who walk after the Spirit [actually living the changed life] have no condemnation’.
(835)ROMANS 7:1-4 Paul uses the analogy of a married woman ‘don’t you know that the law has dominion over a person as long as he is alive’? If a married woman leaves her husband and marries another man she is guilty of breaking the law of adultery. Now, if her husband dies, she is free to marry another man. The act that freed her from sin and guilt was death! Every thing else in the scenario stayed the same. She still married another, she still consummated the new marriage. But because her first husband died, she has no guilt. I always loved this analogy. For years I wondered why these themes in scripture are for the most part not ‘imbedded’ in the collective psyche of the people of God. We have spent so much time ‘proof texting’ the verses on success and wealth, that we have overlooked the really good stuff! Now Paul teaches that we have been made free from the law by the ‘death of our husband’ [Jesus] so we can ‘re-marry’. Who do we marry? Christ! He has not only died to free us from the law, he also rose from the dead to become our ‘husband’ [we are called the bride of Christ]. Paul connects the death and resurrection of Jesus in this analogy. Both are needed for the true gospel to be preached [1st Corinthians 15]. Notice how in this passage Paul emphasizes ‘the death of Christ’s body’. The New Testament doesn’t always make this distinction, but here it does. In the early centuries of Christianity you had various debates over the nature and ‘substance’ of God and Christ. The church hammered out various decrees and creeds that would become the Orthodoxy of the day. Many of these are what you would call the ‘Ecumenical councils’. These are the early councils [many centuries!] that both the eastern [Orthodox church] and western [Catholic] churches would all accept. Some feel that the early church fathers and Latin theologians [Tertullian, Augustine and others] had too much prior influence from philosophy and the ‘forensic’ thinking of their time. They had a tendency to describe things in highly technical ways. Ways that were prominent in the legal and philosophical thinking of the West. Some of the eastern thinkers [Origen] had more of a Greek ‘flavor’ to their theologizing [Alexandria, named after Alexander the great, was a city of philosophy many years prior to Christ. This city was at one time the center of thinking in the East. That’s why Paul would face the thinkers at Athens, they had a history in the east of Greek philosophy]. Well any way the result was highly technical debates over the nature of God and Christ. The historic church would finally decree that Christ had 2 natures, Human and Divine. And that at the Cross the ‘humanity of Jesus’ died, but his ‘Deity’ did not. I think Paul agreed by saying ‘we are free from the law by the death of Christ’s Body’ here Paul distinguishes between the physical death of Jesus and his Deity. Note- actually, Augustine would be in the same school as Origen. Alexandrian.
(831)ROMANS 6- Lets talk about baptism. To start off I believe that the baptism spoken about in this chapter is primarily referring to ‘the baptism of the Spirit’, that is the work of the Holy Sprit placing a believer in the Body of Christ. The Catholic and Orthodox [and Reformed!] brothers believe that Paul is speaking about water baptism. The MAJORITY VIEW of Christians today believe this chapter is referring to water baptism. Why? First, the text itself does not indicate either way. You could takes this baptism and see it either way! You are not a heretic if you believe in it referring to Spirit or water. You are not a heretic if you believe in Paedo baptism [infant baptism]. ‘What are you saying? Now you lost me.’ Infant baptism developed as a Christian rite over the course of church history. The church struggled with how to ‘dedicate’ new babies to Christ. Though the scriptures give no examples of infant baptism, some felt that the reason was because the scriptures primarily show us the conversion of the first century believers. There really aren’t a whole lot of stories of ‘generations’ of believers passing on the faith to other generations. So some felt that the idea of dedicating babies to the Lord through infant baptism was all right. The examples they used were the circumcision of babies in the Old Testament. Infants were circumcised [a rite that placed you under the terms of the Old Covenant] though they weren’t old enough to really understand what they were doing! This example was carried over into the Christian church and applied to infant baptism. Now, I do not believe in infant baptism. But I can certainly understand this line of reasoning. As Christian theology developed thru the early centuries, particularly thru the patristic period, you had very intellectual scholars grapple with many different themes and ideas. Some that we just studied in chapter 5. Some theologians came to see infant baptism as dealing with original sin. They applied the concept of infant baptism as a rite that washes away original sin. The church did not teach that this meant you did not have to later believe and follow Christ. They simply developed a way of seeing baptism as ‘sanctifying’ the new members of Christian households. This basic belief made it all the way to the Reformation. The Reformers themselves still practiced infant baptism. It was the Anabaptists [re-baptizers] who saw the truth of adult baptism and suffered for it, at the hands of the reformers! Ulrich Zwingli, the Swiss reformer, would have them drowned for their belief. Some Protestants stuck with the infant rite, while others [the Restorationists] would reject it. Today most Evangelicals do not practice infant baptism, the majority of Christians world wide do. Now, the reason I did a little history is because Evangelicals [of which I am one] have a tendency to simply look at other believers who practice this rite as ‘deceived’. Many are unaware of the history I just showed you. The reasons the historic church developed this doctrine are not heretical! They used scripture and tradition to pass it down to future generations. I do not believe or practice infant baptism, many good believers do.
(823)ROMANS 2:1-13 ‘Therefore thou art inexcusable, o man, whosoever thou art that judgest’. Now, this chapter will run with the theme ‘who do you think you are to judge, you do the things that you say are wrong’. Yikes, this type of preaching convicts us all. But we need to understand that Paul is saying a little more [well, a lot more!] than this. Here’s where we need to do some history. This letter is addressed to believers in Rome, those ‘called to be saints’. Paul is also giving one of his strongest defenses of his theology, he realizes that a large Jewish population are also at Rome [Acts 28]. By the time of this letter the lines are being drawn between ‘Paul’s gospel’ [the true gospel] and the ‘Jewish law gospel’ coming from the Judaizers out of Jerusalem. The main fight is over whether or not Gentile believers need to be circumcised and come under the law in order to ‘be saved’ [Acts 15]. Now the mentality of the Jewish mind was ‘we have been given Gods precepts [true] and because we are the inheritors of the law and moral standards of God, this puts us in a better class than the Gentiles’ [false]. In essence the law was supposed to reveal mans sin to himself, it was to show us our need for a Savior. But in the legalistic mind it created enmity between Jew and Gentile. This is what it means when Paul writes the Ephesian letter and says ‘the middle wall of partition has been removed in Christ’ this ‘middle wall’ is referring to the law and how it divided Jew and Gentile. So here Paul is saying ‘you Jews who are trusting in the fact that you were the recipients of the law, who use the law as a measuring rod to justify yourselves. This measuring rod was actually given to show you your sin. Did it never occur to you that the very fact that the ‘rod’ says “don’t commit adultery, don’t steal” that these things are actually sins that you yourselves do [the legalistic Jews]. And yet the very rule [law] of God that you are using to justify yourselves, this law you actually break!’ Now you are beginning to see the context. And not only were they breaking the law, but at the same time they were saying to Paul's Gentile churches ‘unless you get circumcised, you are not accepted with God’. The Gentile believers were actually born of God and stopped doing the things that the law commanded them not to do. They were ‘fulfilling the law by nature’. So Paul is really rebuking this hypocritical mindset that said to the Gentile believers that they weren’t saved. And at the same time the ‘judgers of the law’ were actually breaking the law, while the Gentle converts were keeping it by nature! In this context verse one means a lot. Now to an important verse ‘for not the hearers of the law are just before God, BUT THE DOERS OF THE LAW SHALL BE JUSTIFIED’. Just the fact that this statement is made by Paul in this letter is amazing. Paul will spend lots of time in this letter saying ‘those who try and become justified by keeping the law are missing it’. He will go over and over again stating that trying to become righteous by works and law keeping are futile. Yet here he says ‘the doers of the law SHALL BE JUSTIFIED, not the hearers’. Keep in context what I just showed in the beginning of the chapter. The New Testament has a theme that I have hit on before [read the Hebrews 11 commentary on this site]. The theme is ‘men are justified [declared legally righteous] by faith. This faith also ‘sanctifies’ [which can also be called ‘justified’ a sort of progressive justification. James uses this in his letter. Paul says in Galatians ‘having begun in the Spirit [legal justification] are you now made perfect by the flesh’ [law keeping]. Now the New Testament teaches that God wants people to actually ‘be righteous’. Johns 1st epistle uses this as the marker of whether or not you are a child of God ‘by this we know… those that do what is righteous are born of God, those that do evil are not’. In Jesus judgment scenarios ‘those that have DONE good are raised to life, those that have done evil to damnation’. So Paul in essence is saying ‘God ‘justifies’ [using the term in a ongoing- futuristic sense] the righteous, not the ones who only hear the law [the Jewish legalists] but those who by nature do it’ [Paul’s gentile converts]. Got it? This distinction is very important. One of the historic reasons why the Protestant and Catholic churches are divided is over this issue. The Catholic Pope [Leo] who initially condemned Luther did so on grounds like this. The Pope who succeeded Leo re-read all of Luther’s documents, in an honest effort to bridge the schism, and came to the same conclusion. Now I like Luther and side with him more so than the Pope, but one of the problems was some of Luther’s writings seemed to say ‘Justification is solely by faith [true] therefore sin hardily’ [false]. Now Luther didn’t intend to come off this way, but that’s the way it sounded. So the Catholic doctrine fell more on the side of ‘Gods grace makes you righteous, God cant declare people actually righteous until they actually are righteous’ this is called the ‘Legal fiction’ argument. They said Luther’s idea was a ‘legal fiction’. In essence some of what the Catholic scholars were saying was correct. Now God does declare us righteous at the moment of belief, before we actually ‘become totally righteous in practice’. But the error of the Catholic argument saying ‘God cant declare you righteous until you are’ was missing the point. When God says ‘you are righteous’ then you are! God doesn’t lie. But I understand the Catholic point. I think Paul understood it too. In this chapter Paul says ‘not the hearers of the law, but the doers shall be justified’.
(813)I was going to do the parable [some say story! - I explain it later] of the rich man and Lazarus, but felt we should go another way. Yesterday I was reading some stuff on line and learned of the book Frank Viola wrote ‘Pagan Christianity’. I have not read it, but I have read other books from Frank and I think he is an excellent teacher. As I was ‘perusing’ the comments from Pastors and others who read the book, I realized that it stirred up a controversy in many circles. I thought it interesting that a big part of our teaching has been debated recently and I wasn’t even aware of it. Let me make some comments about ‘the comments’. The title might be a little strong, I understand the actual fact of many modern Christian practices arising form ‘pagan’ sources. But this in itself was no secret to the believers who willingly did this at the time! I remember reading one of my ‘history of Christianity’ books and hearing a Catholic author explain why the 4th century church did embrace, to a degree, certain pagan things. Some Protestants seem to think that the fact that Christmas and Easter have obviously pagan histories is a secret known only to them [them being protestants]. But the Catholic author explained that ‘changing’ pagan holidays into ‘Christian ones’ was done on purpose. The intent was to allow the pagans to keep their special days, though the institutional purpose of those days was changed, as the Emperor Constantine was legitimizing Christianity [his brand of it]. Now was this ‘compromising’? Sure. But was this a secret pagan take over of Christianity? Probably not. So when we see ‘pagan’ things [cultural changes] being mixed in with Christianity, sometimes it doesn’t mean what we think. Paul teaches in Timothy to give honor to Elders and respect those in authority. Paul says ‘I am writing these things so believers will know how to behave in the House of God’. In context, the elders and the ‘House of God’ are simply speaking about the mature saints who were living and dedicating their lives for the propagation of the gospel and spending extra time ‘building Gods House’ [the actual community of believers in their midst]. But later on as Christianity developed the ‘House of God’ would be seen as the ‘church building’. The hired positions of clergy were seen as ‘Bishops, Pastors, and Priests’. So when you would have a reformer rise up [Luther] it was easy to initially brand him as a heretic who was ‘going against Gods House’. Who was ‘not honoring’ the Elders [Pope and Bishop]. The mistake was reading the New Testament and simply applying the names [House of God- church building. Bishop [of Rome] - Catholic apostolic succession from Peter] of things to the present understanding. So the Protestants would have their Reformation and only go so far. For all practical purposes the ‘House of God’ was still seen as ‘the church building’. And the Protestant Pastor was still seen as the office of someone who ‘oversees the church’. There really was no reformation of ‘church practices’ or the way ‘we do church’. Now, are all of these practices inherently wicked? No. Do they hinder growth and maturity among believers? To a degree, yes. Paul's words to Timothy on honoring Elders, giving them ‘double honor’. This speaks about actually sharing your material goods with those in the community who were dedicating themselves to learning and teaching this ‘new way’. All believers did not have access to scripture like we have today. The scrolls of the Old Testament and the letters of Paul were circulating, but some of the new believers couldn’t even read! So in these communities of people, which Paul describes as ‘The House of God’ you had ‘spiritual parents’. More mature Elders who had a stable grasp of doctrine. They would help keep the believers on course in a day where there was no internet, libraries [available to the general public at large] no radio or T.V. [this one could be a blessing!]. In essence these Elders, Bishops [overseers] were simple believers who were worthy of ‘double honor’ [feed them, help them out materially, they are meeting a real need and for all practical purposes they are needed!]. But as Constantine would ‘marry’ the Empire and institutionalize the church, the ‘double honor’ portions of scripture were used to justify a ‘tithe system’ that would support ‘the church’. Priests and Bishops took on a different meaning than the way Paul would use the term. The development of hired clergy and the overall institutionalizing of the church used common New Testament terms, but for the most part these terms were taken out of context. The Protestant Reformation dealt with important doctrinal issues, but this basic ‘way of seeing church’ did not change. While I haven’t read Franks book yet, I plan on reading it in the future. Understand I am not commenting on what frank Viola means when he says ‘Pagan Christianity’. I am simply sharing my thoughts on the development of Christianity.
(797) [I stuck this here because it shows a little on the communion of the saints] INTRODUCTION TO THE PARABLES- I was going to finish our study in Judges today, but I felt like sharing something else. Recently I have been reading the parables of Jesus out of my first King James Bible. Even though I give away lots of my books and stuff, yet I managed to hold on to this keepsake. Actually I did give it away and eventually got it back! That’s why I am writing this entry. If you read the first 50 or so entries [1-50!] from the section ‘Prophecies, Dreams, Visions part 1’ you will read the story of my journey to Texas as a young rebel and how after I became a believer I led one of my old buddies from Jersey to the Lord. This friend became a believer and we learned and grew as Christians. Eventually he would die of Aids. I had given him my first bible and years later got it back. As I read thru it I realized he made notes and stuff in it. Things like ‘ask John about this?’ and other interesting stuff. Of course this bible is special to me because it contains personal insights from my first convert to the Lord. So let me share a few things I recently read. He wrote ‘God will take care of you if you have faith’ and ‘the presence of contrary winds does not mean you are out of Gods will’. Hebrews says ‘though he is dead he yet speaketh’. I consider this a privilege of being part of a Christian communion that all believers belong to. We have brothers who are looking at us from heaven right now. We truly belong to a ‘communion of saints’. After all these years, for you to get something from this simple sharing of my brothers thoughts is part of the process of being in this communion. Look at the simplicity of these words ‘God will take care of you if you have faith’ ‘the presence of contrary winds does not mean you are not in Gods will’. As I finish our study in Judges I think I am going to share a few of Jesus parables. In these parables we see Jesus ethos of the Kingdom, the things he puts value on. These things are contrary to what we value, especially as we look at ‘modern ministry’. Jesus will teach the value of not being famous or recognized! The value of becoming ‘the least of all’. Things like the mustard seed being the least of all seeds, but when it is sown it becomes the greatest. We often see faith from this. While this does apply, we also see Jesus ‘the grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying’ [John’s gospel] Jesus, who Isaiah prophesied ‘I am a WORM AND NO MAN’. The Son of God who would become the least of all ‘seeds’. Who actually experienced the accumulated ‘feelings of unworthiness and absolute condemnation’ that all the sins of the world could bring upon a person. He personally experienced the actual act of being forsaken and told by God ‘you are now a worm and no man’. You think ‘how could this be’ this was an aspect of bearing the sins of humanity on himself. Jesus will teach us the importance of being last, how it is of great value if in the eyes of man you look like a failure, but in the eyes of God you lived humbly. Jesus even values the words of people who lived sinful lives and failed often. He never condones sin, but he still values these ‘little ones’ [in the eyes of men] he will even use the words of one who died of aids.
(791)JUDGES 18- The tribe of Dan sends 5 spies to check out the land of Laish, it was supposed to be part of their inheritance. On the way they pass Mount Ephraim, where Micah and the ‘hired priest’ live. They enquire in the house of Micah about their journey. They are assured God is with them. They see Laish and return with the good report. Laish is a land where the people are ‘isolated’ they do no business with any other tribes. Too sectarian in their little community [ouch!]. So the tribe of Dan hears the report and arms 600 men for battle. As they go to get their land, they once again stop at the idolatrous house of Micah. They make a ‘job offer’ to the ‘hired priest’ and appeal to success and status among clergy ‘do you want to come and be our hired priest? Wouldn’t you rather be priest of a whole tribe instead of one household’? He takes the job promotion and on their way out Micah tries to stop them from taking his priest but doesn’t have the manpower to do it. Dan introduces this false priesthood on a large scale to the people of God. Scripture says while they were involving themselves in this false worship, the House of God was still in Shiloh. Now we have covered a lot of ground here. I want to be careful but truthful about wrong worship in the church. First, I do find it amazing that the Lord did not cut Micah off originally when he got into his stuff! The history of Israel includes a time period where they thought the high places in their land were a sign of true religion. When some of the kings institute a return to the Lord, they leave the high places alone. Although these high places were idolatrous, yet in their ignorance they really thought they were honoring God. I see a degree of this here. Now the hired priest continues to represent the mentality of the hired offices of the clergy. All good people, but often operating in systems that lend themselves to the co dependency of Gods people. It is easy to see the idea of false worship and simply use this to bash Catholics. I prefer to see the false worship of Dan as a mark of all wrong tradition and teaching that come to us from the mind of man. Jesus rebuked the traditions that made void the Word of God, but Paul will tell his spiritual sons ‘hold to the traditions you have been taught by me’. Some traditions are needful. Things that our spiritual fathers have passed down to us. Don’t despise all tradition! Don’t see ‘the ministry’ as a way to gain status and climb the ladder in the corporate world. This priest of Micah took a position based on gentile authority. Something Jesus forbid for the leaders of his church. This priest saw self advancement in moving ‘his ministry’ to oversee the tribe of Dan. This root of pride will cause the limited idolatry at Micah’s house to leaven an entire tribe. Often times well meaning people become part of ‘extending wrong ideas’ thru out the church as they seek fame and recognition. Jesus taught us that true servants will not make decisions based on ‘how will this move promote me, how will I gain a name for myself’ these motivations blind us to the idolatry that exists in the church in our day. The New Testament equivalent of idolatry is covetousness. Leadership often overlooks the blatant abuse in this area as they pursue a name and advancement for ‘their ministries’. It’s easy to not want to hear Paul’s strong words in 1st Timothy 6 concerning leaders. We want to be able to ‘seek fame and fortune’ because it does feel good to be famous! Hebrews says ‘sin does have pleasure for a season’. So I see the whole scenario of Micah’s hired priest in all of us. I see the idolatry of Dan and false worship as leaven that affects all of Gods people [Protestants and Catholics alike]. I see the fact that God still used Micah to be a voice and instrument to the people of God even though he thru ignorance allowed idolatry to be entrenched in Israel. God is merciful and he will put up with our ignorance for a season, but I think that season has already passed. [Though his mercy endures forever!]
(790)JUDGES 17- This is quite an interesting chapter. Micah steals money from his ‘mother’. He tells her ‘I took it’ [managed to gain precious riches from you] and she commends him. He then says he took it from her to give it back to her. Let’s spiritualize a little. The ‘sons of the church’ [the New Jerusalem is the corporate church, the ‘mother of us all’] some times take by violence the hidden riches that were contained ‘in the church’ [which possesses the mind of Christ!] so they can ‘give the riches back to the mother’ [feed my sheep!] and receive commendation from her. Now, all analogies eventually break down. Micah’s mom says she was going to build an idol [institution?] with the money. Micah becomes the overseer of this ‘false system of worship’. He actually ‘hires’ [hireling mentality- seeing ministry as a profession] a legitimate priest from the tribe of Levi to call ‘father- priest’ [ouch!] Micah pays him a salary [double ouch!] and says ‘now I know the Lord [God of the Christians] will bless me seeing I have a priest under my authority’. [Rome and her emperors?] Lots of imagery here. First, Micah felt like he would gain Gods blessing if he ‘hired’ and institutionalized the real priesthood. We must see that what happened during the first 4 centuries of Christianity was a type of ‘hiring’ and legitimizing the ‘priests of God’ for the purpose of favor and unity within the Roman Empire. It is no secret that the emperor Constantine looked for unity in his empire by embracing and professionalizing the ‘priest hood’. They will actually be called ‘fathers, priests’. Also, this priest that Micah hired was a real representative of God! He did come from a true tribe. It is difficult for Protestants to see that although the institutional church ‘married’ Rome, yet she still contained part of the real people of God. This is not to say all that happened in the first millennium [thousand years of Christianity] was of God, but it also means we need to understand that there are some ‘precious riches’ [1100 pieces of silver!] that are hidden within her for the purpose of ‘true sons’ to go and take these riches and re distribute them back to her for her own benefit. You would be surprised by the amount of spiritual truths contained in the writings of the Catholic [Orthodox] fathers. Many of these truths are being ‘re found’ by protestants! And some of these Protestants have given them back to the church and shown her ‘look, even your own church fathers saw such and such’. I see the whole concept of Micah hiring the Priest as a type of ‘hired clergy’ mentality that all the people of God wrongfully took hold of. We need to recognize that just because this Levite went down this road, this does not mean he was not a true Levite [person of God]. It just meant he allowed his gift/office to be used in a wrong way to bring legitimacy to a form of worship that had vestiges of idolatry contained within.
(769)ACTS CONCLUSION- As we finish our study in Acts, I want to review a few things. The ‘church’ [ecclesia] as seen in Acts are without a doubt ‘organic’ this term describes the community of people in the various locations who believed the message of the Messiah. These people were not establishing ‘church meetings at the church on Sunday’ to compete with the Jewish meetings at the synagogues on Saturday. The transition from the old law into the new covenant was not only one of a change in message [law versus grace] but also a transition from shadows to reality. All the ways of worship and ‘liturgical’ form were part of the old law. The temple and priest and altar were important types and symbols of what was to come. But in the New Testament communities these ideas of physical worship changed. The actual praise of Gods people and doing good deeds will become the sacrifices that God is well pleased with [New Testament]. The Lords meal was actually a meal! The gathering on the first day of the week became a good tradition in memory of Christ’s resurrection. But as time went on many well meaning believers would return to the symbols and incorporate them into their worship. The church would be seen as the ‘church house’ the altar would be seen as a real place upon which the ‘bloodless sacrifice’ [Eucharist] would be re offered again for the sins of the world. The priest would be seen as having special powers given to him by Jesus, that during the mass the host becomes Jesus flesh and blood and as the people ‘eat’ him they are partaking, literally, of Jesus flesh and blood. Now, are all these believers wrong? Should we see the development of sacramental theology as pagan? I personally don’t think so. I prefer to view the changes that took place in the church as part of a process of Gods people grappling with doctrines and beliefs while at the same time struggling to maintain unity as the centuries progressed [I am not making excuses for wrong doctrine, I think well meaning church fathers grasped wrong ideas out of a fear of loosing their identity. The idea of a strong magesterium [teaching authority] gave room for wrong doctrines to become firmly entrenched in the collective mind of the early church]. For the first 1000 years of Christianity the people of God were primarily seen as Catholic. In 1054 the official split between eastern and western Christianity will take place. Another 500 years until the Catholic Church split again [1517]. The host of churches that came out of the Protestant Reformation are too innumerable to mention. Should we view all of these groups as deceived religionists? Of course not. Do we find a pattern in Acts that would allow us to trace ‘the true group’ and lay claim to being the most authentic? I don’t believe so. But as all the people of God strive for the unity that we actually posses in Christ, we have the great resource of the church fathers, the wisdom and insights of the reformers. The heritage of the outgrowth of the restorationist movements. The excitement of the Puritans as they launched out to found a new world free from religious persecution. If it weren’t for the strong institutional church we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to have even had a Luther [Wittenberg] Calvin [first Paris then Geneva] or Zwingli [Zurich]! Or the ‘pre reformers’ Wycliffe, Huss and Knox. These men were products of Catholic higher learning! It was the reality of Catholic institutional Christianity that allowed for these men to be trumpets of truth in their day! The university cities that they taught in as Catholic priests allowed for their influence to spread far and wide. In each generation of believers you have had Gods people progress so far and leave us with great treasures that were intended to be passed on to future generations If we severe ourselves from historic Christianity, then we lose the great gains that have been made in the centuries gone by! The book of Acts shows us the freedom of the people of God. ‘Where 2 or more are together in my name, I am in the midst’ isn’t some description of ‘local church’. As in if we copy the formulas of what happened in Acts [break bread, prayer, etc.] then you ‘have a church’. Jesus promise to be with us when we are together is the act of brotherhood. Surely we saw Jesus going along with the people of God all thru out Acts. The Spirit of God that indwelt them in chapter 2 was the promise that he would be with them. He legitimized them! Not some institution [‘local church’] that they were to start! So today all the people of God are striving to find a closer identity with each other as fellow believers in the Lord. I believe the book of Acts gives us a beautiful picture of the church in her infancy stage. I also believe the growth seen as we read Paul’s letters to these churches indicates the heart of God for his people to remain in grace. Paul warns the churches to not fall into the legalism of observing days and regulations and legalistic requirements. He wants them to live simply, free from sin and to be the people of God in society. Some branches of Christianity took hold of the strong ‘we are pilgrims’ view [which is true to a degree] and would separate from society. Not realizing we are pilgrims and strangers to the worlds system, but our Father is God of heaven and earth! We are here to impact this planet! So let’s run with the exciting message and revolutionary mindset that the early church possessed. They weren’t in this thing for what they could get out of it, they were really laying their lives down for the gospel. They were sharing their stuff with each other. They were loving God and their fellow man in ways that were uncommon for their time. It wasn’t only what they said that allowed them to ‘turn their world upside down’ it was who they were, the People of God.
(765)ACT 25- Festus hears the Jews at Jerusalem, they want him to bring Paul to Jerusalem. Festus goes back to Caesarea and asks Paul ‘why don’t you go back with me’? Paul appeals to Caesar! Of course going to Rome was part of the plan. Now King Agrippa [another one of the many ruling authorities that Rome had over the people!] comes to Caesarea and Festus tells him about Paul. Agrippa will get a strong word in the next chapter. Also the Jews come down from Jerusalem and accuse Paul of many things. I want to make a note here. In the area of apologetics, which we do a lot of, you need to be careful that you don’t jump on the bandwagon of unfounded accusations. There are and have been real doctrinal heresies that needed to be dealt with, but some of the apologists really get personal. Even calling family members degrading names! In Paul’s case he had accusations that were not true. He does defend himself against the false ones, but also admitted that he believes in Christ’s resurrection and that this is considered heresy among certain Jews. Paul’s main message was Christ and the resurrection! As we get ready to close our study in a few more days, I want to recap the importance of seeing Jesus and his fulfillment of the Old Testament prophets as the main message of the Apostles. This early teaching by the Apostles needs to be the ‘tradition’ if you will, once again. We [believers] have a tendency to delve deeply into all sorts of stuff. Paul will warn his spiritual sons ‘don’t get lost in endless genealogies and debates about the law’ and Hebrews says ‘it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace, not with meats [legalistic doctrines] which have been unprofitable to those who have gone that route’. Now, you guys know I believe in correct doctrine, and Paul wasn’t advocating ‘no doctrine’. But it is easy to get lost in endless debates that lead to nowhere. Ultimately our goal is to present every man perfect in Christ. Paul will stick with this message all the way to Rome!
(759) ACTS 22- Paul makes his case before the Jews at Jerusalem. As he speaks in Hebrew, they give him special attention. We learned earlier [Acts 6] that Hebrew speaking Jews were looked upon as better than non Hebrew speakers. Paul tells the Jewish people that he too used to be zealous of the law and also hated the new movement of Messiah. He informs them that he was raised under Gamaliel’s school of Phariseeism! You had different schools of learning, even within the class of the Pharisees, Paul was what you would call a Harvard man. He explains that on his previous trip to Damascus he encountered Jesus. He gives his conversion testimony, which by the way contains most of the elements of all the various conversion accounts in Acts ‘arise, be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord’. Paul was such an anti Christian that the Lord made sure he would cover all the angles![and also be received amongst all the different groups of believers thru out the church who will claim strong baptism verses, or calling on the Lord verses. In essence you can find in him the varied experiences of believers thru out the centuries]. Now Paul recounts how after his conversion he had a vision in the Temple at Jerusalem. He has his audience captivated until he says how Jesus appeared to him and told him to go to the gentiles. This was too much for the elite Jewish mind to grasp. The people chant ‘away with him’ they want him killed! As the soldiers are getting ready to beat him some more, he says ‘is it lawful for you to be a Roman citizen like this?’ Paul was quite a guy, he used any advantage he had to win the argument. The soldier's enquire how he obtained Roman citizenship, he tells them he was ‘free born’. All people under the rule of Rome were not Roman citizens. The region of Judea and the area of Jesus and his men were considered the ‘wrong side of the tracks’ Galileans were a low class. Most scholars believe Jesus spoke Aramaic, the language from his area. Paul was the first out this bunch of radical followers who had an upper class image. His pedigree was good. He surprised his opponents by having a good education and being a Roman citizen. Paul also wrote [Corinthians] how not many noble and educated people were chosen by the Lord. It wasn’t because the lord didn’t want the upper class folk! It was the fact that education and ‘class’ can be such obstacles in the minds of those who posses it. It’s the sin of pride. Also in this chapter Paul describes his vision at the temple as ‘being in a trance’ the same language used of Peter in chapter 10. A trance is a different type of experience. St. Thomas Aquinas, considered by many to be the most intellectual apologist of the latter middle ages [scholastic period] shared experiences he had right before his death. He would call them ‘being in a state of ecstasy’. These were sort of ‘trances’ where he would experience the presence of God so mightily that he would describe it as almost unbearable. He would say that the Lord revealed so much to him during these times that all he had ever written or taught in the past seemed trivial compared to what he was ‘seeing’ during these events. Paul himself will write about being caught up into the 3rd heaven and not knowing whether he was in the body or out of it. He would say he saw things that were impossible to explain in human words. In this chapter Paul says Jesus appeared to him at the beginning of his journey, it seems as if this wasn’t the only time he saw the Lord.
(757) ACTS 20- Paul travels with some brothers on the journey. This mode of visiting different regions and bringing brothers with him is exciting! They are truly seeing the Kingdom of God becoming established in the earth. Scripture says ‘they broke bread on the first day of the week’ we read later in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians that when they met on the ‘first day of the week’ he asked them to take up a collection before he arrived [so he could take the money and meet the needs of the poor saints at Jerusalem]. Do we see here some type of Sunday Sabbath, that is the ‘church day to pay tithes’ so you don’t get cursed? Of course not. You are seeing the simple practical outworking of a people who are becoming the people of God. It’s fine to meet on a Sunday and to ‘break bread’. Hey, the group needs to know when to meet for the meal! But don't develop liturgical/sacramental ideas out of this. You say ‘hooray for John [me], he is really giving it to those Catholics’ well, don’t say hooray yet. Now he calls for the Elders at Ephesus to come to Miletus so he can give them some instructions and a farewell. This address from Paul is one of the best in the New Testament. He covers the basics for leadership and church growth. Now, he tells them ‘all the time I was with you guys I was upright. I taught you publicly and from house to house. I showed you repentance toward God and faith towards Jesus Christ. I worked and did not covet your money. I did this to prove I was not there to gain financially from you. To give you an example as Elders yourselves, so you would not see the responsibility of oversight thru a covetous mindset. Beware! After I leave you there will be an attempt by the enemy to undo the work of the Cross. Some men, even from your own group will rise up and speak twisted doctrines. They will try to become eminent in the group, drawing away disciples after themselves. Don’t become sidetracked and become followers of men! Guard the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Feed them Gods good word’. Paul lays down strong guidelines here. He actually teaches the elders that he worked when he was among them to leave this example of leaders not seeing ministry as a means to get gain. In one of his future letters [Timothy or Thessalonians?] he actually says this ‘working’ that he did was a tradition for them to keep. He said this in context of those who refused to work. Very strong indeed. Peter also will teach the Elders to take oversight of Gods flock ‘not for money, but out of a pure motive’. In the wars that rage over ‘simple church’ versus the modern 501c3 model, both sides have shot at each other wrongfully at times. There are very intelligent brothers who will take this chapter and teach that the modern Pastor has fallen into the trap of ‘making disciples after themselves’. They see the development of the role of Pastor as becoming the fulfillment of this. Now, I do see some merit to this, but I see most pastors [all the ones I know and have known personally over the years] as Elders who are striving to help Gods People. I see a real need for all leadership to see that ministry is not a fulltime clergy type office that has developed over the centuries! Paul is simply addressing the Elders [more mature ones- in the gospel, not necessarily old!] and showing them that their purpose is to help the people of God grow in grace and make it to a place of self sufficiency in Christ. Paul is pretty much laying down the gauntlet that leadership is not some ticket of ‘now that I am in ministry, my income comes from the God ordained tithe’. This is never taught as a means of support for New testament ministers. These ideas have developed out of the Old Testament idea of the tithe supporting the Levitical Priests. In the New Covenant all our Priests and we don’t practice this type of thing. But Paul does teach that it’s good to support materially [financially] those who are feeding you spiritual food. He does teach ‘don’t muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn’ [he called us ox's!] seriously, he lays down the biblical guideline of supporting those who minister the word. But it is important to see he was not establishing some type of clergy system, the fact that he was working while with these Ephesians and actually used this as an example for OTHER ELDERS as well as the believers shows you this. All in all the main point Paul is getting across is he wants the basic truth of the gospel to prevail and he does not want top heavy leadership to come in and draw away disciples after them. That is for strong gifted leaders to become the main focus of these Ephesian believers. So this chapter is important because we see Paul address these elders that he has been ‘ordaining’ in the churches [groups of believers]. We see the basic character and function of these men. We see the warning that cults will arise. In Paul’s day groups did come forth from the basic Christian communities [Gnostics and Docetists] that had a basic understanding of certain Christian things, but would deny the reality of Jesus. Paul bids them Farwell as they all embrace on the shoreline. The Elders were heartbroken over Paul’s words that he will probably see them no more. He wanted to keep the upcoming feast at Jerusalem and eventually preach at Rome. He was on this obsession to carry this gospel to the seat of the empire, even if it means his life.
(756) ACTS 19- Paul runs into some of Apollo’s disciples at Ephesus, he asks them if they received the Spirit ‘since they believed’ [Notice what they were believing!] And they said they have never heard about the Holy Spirit. He questions them on what they are believing in. They answer John’s baptism. They only knew the message of John the Baptist on repentance. The basic preaching from Apollos before he was ‘instructed in the way of the Lord more perfectly’. Paul does not say ‘now, believe in the Holy Spirit and you will have the baptism in the Spirit’. He says ‘John [the Baptist] preached that you should believe on him, that is JESUS, who would come after him’ after hearing THIS [the basic message of Jesus!] they were baptized in Jesus name and Paul laid his hands on them and they received the Spirit. There are lots of things here that different groups use to justify there beliefs. I fully believe in all the gifts and workings of the Spirit, but once again many well meaning pastors [from Pentecostal backgrounds] teach this chapter as saying these disciples were believers in Jesus and did not have the Spirit. This is not true! They were not yet believers in Jesus and the actual person they believed in to get the Spirit was Jesus, not the Spirit! But all in all we see the laying on of hands, prophecy and tongues happen. So these guys are charismatic! But also Calvinist [in my mind- I believe Paul was strong in predestination, but also operated in the gifts]. Now Paul goes and ruins his reputation! Can you believe he is actually sending handkerchiefs to sick people and they are getting healed and delivered from evil Spirits! Old Jonathan Edwards would never do that! [Or Calvin or Luther…or would they?] Paul casts out some demons in Jesus name [that’s it, he is cancelled from speaking at our reformation conference!] and 7 sons from a Jewish family try to cast out a demon from some guy using Jesus name. The demon says ‘Jesus I know, and Paul too! But who in the heck do you think you are’ and the guy who’s possessed beats the hell out of them! Ouch! I find it funny that the demons knew Paul by name. They must have heard how Paul was one of the deadliest enemies to satans agenda. The demons who were showing up for orders were scared they would be assigned to Paul, they knew he had some strong handkerchiefs! Demetrius, a guy who made his living building idols to Dianna, a false goddess, realizes that if Paul keeps preaching about Jesus that his living will be threatened. So he stirs up trouble. He says ‘if we don’t stop these guys, our shrine making business will be in jeopardy, oh, and the great goddess Dianna will also lose her honor’ He couldn’t give a rip about the fake god, he was worried about the bottom line! I find it funny how people will choose which image of ‘God-Jesus’ they believe in based on the bottom line. Some choose to grasp an image of Jesus contrary to the New Testament, if you challenge this belief, they will simply ignore you based on the bottom line. The Jesus of scripture challenges the materialistic gospel that permeates many in today’s church. Some grasp this modern image of Jesus because they can’t let go of the possibility that there ‘trade’ [belief system of profit] is going away!
(754) ACTS 17- Paul heads to Thessalonica and preaches 3 Sabbath days in the synagogue. Once again the unbelieving Jews follow him and stir up trouble. Paul heads to Berea and speaks the word. The Bereans are said to be more noble because they heard Paul out and then searched the scriptures to see if he were telling the truth. The message he preached is that Jesus is the Messiah that the Old Testament prophets spoke of. In 1st John, John says ‘whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God’ Paul was showing them that Jesus was the Christ. Again trouble arises and Paul sails off to Athens and sends for Timothy and Silas later on. Now, Paul spent 3 weeks at Thessalonica. No huge budget, no message on ‘how can we reach Thessalonica without lots of money’ [I have heard it taught that you cant even begin to think about planting a church unless you have $250,000 dollars!] Paul believed in the power of the gospel. It took 3 weeks of simply sharing the gospel to plant this church! He will write them a few letters and give them some instruction, but the simple truth is every believer has the ability to ‘plant churches’ [speaking the gospel to people groups and those people believing and becoming ‘the church’]. At Athens Paul is troubled by all the ‘superstition’ [religion]. He runs into the philosophers. It said the people there spent all their time in either telling or hearing some new thing. An ancient form of ‘the view’ [the television show where the ladies talk about nothing all day long!] So Paul disputes with them and uses their own altar to ‘the unknown God’ and declares Christ unto them. Recently a Catholic priest made headlines because he advocated for Christians to use the name Allah instead of God. He felt the name was referring to the same God. Does Paul’s use of the ‘unknown God altar’ fall into this category? No. When any religion names their god and defines him, then this god is a false god [unless your speaking of the true God]. So in this case Paul was simply saying ‘this altar to the God you don’t know, I will show you how to come to know him’. Now, why were these philosophers in Athens? A few centuries before Christ you had the rule of Alexander the great. The Old Testament prophet Daniel speaks in detail of his rule. Alexander ruled one of the greatest empires known to man. He established the greatest library of the ancient world. He made Greek the common language. This is why the New Testament was written in Greek. Though Rome was the ruling empire of Jesus day, the culture was still Greek to a degree. This is called ‘Hellenization’. The Greeks even translated the Old Testament into Greek before the days of Christ. This translation is called the Septuagint, which means 70. This comes from the supposed number of scholars who worked on the translation. This period just prior to Christ was the time of the great philosophers. Plato, Aristotle and others. These Philosophers laid down a foundation of sorts for morality and the cultures that would develop down the road. The church fathers disagreed somewhat to the degree of mixing Christian faith with the thought of the pre Christian philosophers. Origen thought these men were Christian to the degree that God used them to instill types of thought and belief in the immortality of the soul and other concepts as a precursor to Christ. Others thought they were competing worldviews for the religion of Christianity and should be rejected. Paul himself will write the Colossians and warn them of the philosophies of men. Many thinkers were affected by the ‘new age’ concepts that came from these groups. Augustine, the great 4th-5th century Bishop from North Africa was into Manichaeism prior to his conversion to Christianity. He eventually would sit under the sound teaching of Ambrose and leave his former ideas. These groups had strange beliefs and concepts that would sound like the scientology adherents of our day. Others were not as drastic but would still be seen as on the verge of Christian truth. Marcion was sort of in this class. The point is Paul will take advantage of the philosopher’s willingness to delve into all types of ideas, and use this as an open door to preach Christ. Some breakaway groups from the more Orthodox churches will claim that the Catholic churches belief in the immortality of the soul is not scriptural. These groups teach that the ancient church picked these beliefs up from the philosophers of the day [some of the seventh day brothers say this]. You also find some Protestant brothers challenge the authenticity of various bible translations based on the Septuagint translation from ancient Greece. The church father Jerome will use the Septuagint in his popular translation of the Latin Vulgate. Some Protestants see Jerome’s version as less than pure. This is also why the Catholic bibles have the Apocrypha in them [The books between Malachi and Matthew that the Protestant bibles don’t have]. When Jerome translated his vulgate, he brought these books over from the Septuagint version. Jerome did put an asterisk next to the apocryphal books, he noted they were included from the Septuagint, but were not seen as authoritative. Simply added for historical content]. So we see the tremendous influence that Greek culture and philosophy played in the early stages of the church. Paul knew their thought, but his gospel was founded on more than some new belief system. Paul claimed that Jesus had been raised from the dead!
(753) ACTS 16- Paul and Silas hit the road. They are being led by the Spirit and are evangelizing large regions without a lot of money, organization or ‘corporate help’. Now, these things are permitted, but we need to make sure we are seeing this story right! Jesus imbedded a mindset into the Apostles, he told them ‘don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment! No special appeals for funds [ouch!], keep it simple’ [Message bible- Jesus instructions when he sent them out by two’s]. So here we actually see the Apostles living the vision. Paul by the way has a vision! He sees a vision of a man in Macedonia saying ‘come and help us’. Luke writes ‘we took this as a sure sign of God sending us’. Wow, what childlike simplicity. The great theologian Paul, the man who could argue orthodoxy all day [and win]. He has a vision and says ‘we took it as Gods will’. Don’t develop doctrines that cut you off from God’s supernatural guidance. Sure, people have gotten into trouble with visions. Cults have ‘prophets and apostles’. But the church also had these things and it helped on the journey. Now at Philippi they convert a woman down by the river. They cast out a demon from a fortune teller. The ‘masters’ see they lost their ‘money maker’ and stir up trouble in the city. Paul and Silas get thrown in jail. They praise God and sing, an earthquake happens. The doors swing open. The jailer thinks they all escaped and is going to kill himself. Paul and Silas preach the gospel and he asks ‘what must I do to be saved’ they say ‘believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, your family too!’ The whole house gets baptized and the city leaders send word ‘tell them to leave’. Now, Paul is a lot like me. He doesn’t let stuff slide. He says ‘they beat us unlawfully, we are Roman citizens! Now they want us to leave secretly. Let them come and tell us publicly’ the leaders hear they are Romans and are worried. Paul made them squirm! Let’s do a little overview. We are halfway thru the book of Acts and we see the ‘churches’ as these free flowing believers carrying out the gospel. Baptisms and healings and visions. We also see doctrinal growth. We challenge the mindset of many evangelicals, baptismal regeneration is not taught [at least I don’t see it] but baptism in water is the immediate outward identification of the believer. In essence it was the New Testament ‘altar call’. Our Catholic friends will eventually develop an idea of baptism as washing away original sin. But sometimes we miss the other idea of putting off adult baptism because of fear of future sins. Saint Augustine, the emperor Constantine and others delayed their baptism thinking they would use it to ‘clean them up’ after any future faults. The doctrine of baptism in Acts is seen as an immediate rite that does affect the believer [as do all outward acts of obedience! Even the Lords Supper strengthens the faith of the believer]. But justification and believing are prior to baptism. But not two weeks or two years prior! But a few minutes. I also forgot to mention that Paul has Timothy circumcised in this chapter. The great Apostle Paul, who will eventually pen the words ‘circumcision means nothing, but a circumcised heart is what matters’ here he gave in. Paul and Silas are fresh off the recent Jerusalem council. They have been accused of teaching Jews ‘abandon the law and circumcision’. The decree from Jerusalem said the gentiles don’t need to worry about these things. But they were still teaching Jewish converts to maintain Jewish law and custom. Timothy was not circumcised, and everyone knew it! His mother was Jewish but his father was Greek. So Paul realized that the judiazers would eventually say ‘see, Paul is even teaching Jews to break Moses law’ so Paul gives in and compromises here. Do the restrictions at the Jerusalem council still hold sway over Jewish believers today? No. Paul will eventually abandon all Jewish law and custom from his doctrine of justification by faith. But at this stage they are still learning and growing. The mindset of ‘God’ in this book is one of ‘less restrictions’ and more acceptance as time rolls on. We see enough stuff on baptism to not call the churches who emphasize baptism ‘Cambellites/heretics’ [the term Cambellite comes from the founder of the Church of Christ/ Disciples of Christ groups. There founder was Alexander Campbell. He falls into the restorationist camp. He saw the emphasis on adult baptism in scripture and many of his followers see the act of water baptism as the moment of conversion]. But we also see the basic ‘ingredient’ for acceptance as faith. So God is not excluding those who focus on baptism [Peters initial converts] but showing us greater acceptance among ‘those who believe’ [Acts 10]. This is what I tried to say in our introduction to this study. As we read we shouldn’t be looking for formulas or hard and fast verses to simply justify our churches beliefs against the church down the block. But we need to see the heart and mind of God. We also shouldn’t trace our peculiar belief to this historic church and say ‘see, our group is the most accurate one’. Why? Don’t I believe my idea of simple church is closer to the historic church? Yes. But the ‘church’ will develop in good and bad ways as the centuries roll on. The fact that many Catholics and Orthodox and future Protestants will grow and fight and reform, means the church herself has within her the inherent ability to ‘get back to the Cross’ or the reality of all of these groups believing in Jesus causes there to be a fundamental unity that exists because we all possess Christ’s Spirit. So even though I personally see the organic church in Acts, this doesn’t mean that I see the other expressions of church as totally illegitimate or lost! So let’s end this chapter rejoicing with the jailer who heard the gospel and ‘believed with all his house’.
(751) ACTS 14- Paul and Barnabas continue going thru different cities [Iconium, Lystra] Paul heals a man who was lame from birth and the whole city says ‘these men are gods who have come down in human form’. Paul barely stops them from offering sacrifices to them! In each city they travel to, they have a routine. They go into the synagogue and speak to the gathered. Both Jews and ‘God fearers’ [gentile followers] the pattern of some believing and others resisting becomes routine. Paul also has to deal with the Jews who were following him from past cities. They were sort of 1st century ‘apologists’ who made it their purpose to simply stop Paul. I want you to see that the ‘churches’ were the various groups of people who believed. They did gather together [Ecclesia] but they did not see ‘church’ as a place they went to for religious instruction. They did not start ‘gentile synagogues’ in competition with Judaism. Now Paul goes back thru the cities and at that point ‘ordains Elders in every church’. This is important to see. The ordaining of Elders was the simple process of seeing who had the maturity of understanding in the gospel and could be looked up to as a spiritual guide. Any questions or new converts in the towns would know ‘so and so’ is a responsible believer who Paul put his stamp of approval on. Why even do this? Remember, the enemies of Paul [Jewish law keepers] are going behind Paul’s back and trying to undo all the work that Paul was doing. Elders were gifted men who had the ability to push back against those whose ‘mouths must be stopped’ [Paul’s future language against false teachers]. These Elders were not full time Pastors in the modern sense. They were not singular authorities who ‘cover the flock’. They were not hired clergy! The reason why it is important to see this is because we want to stay as close as possible to the historic picture of the church as we read thru Act’s. These ‘local churches’ were caring communities of Christ followers who did have spiritual oversight that were to be respected and held in high esteem. Paul and Peter will teach the concept of giving honor to those who have spiritual accountability for you. But we can’t apply this to unbiblical forms of ecclesiology/hierarchy that will develop over the centuries. In Luther’s day many well meaning men felt Luther [the 16th century reformer] was rebelling against God ordained authority by going against the Pope. We need to understand that John the Apostle rebuked the rise of singular authorities who would seek to have the preeminence amongst Gods flock [Diotrephes- 3rd Jn]. Paul will warn the Ephesian church [later in Acts] that after his departure men would rise up seeking to make disciples after themselves. The point is any future use of the teaching of Elders/Pastors and the true responsibility to honor and submit to godly authority has to be seen in context with the complete story. While Luther’s [and Paul’s] critics could make the case that they were rebelling against God ordained authority, yet at the same time true revolution always carries an element of casting off old systems and restraint. Paul will confront Peter openly over his hypocrisy between treating Jewish believers different than Gentile believers. Peter was an Apostle before Paul and the argument could have been made ‘who does Paul think he is, going over the head of Peter’. So we need to see the biblical truth of God ordained leadership. The fact that many good Pastors and men of God have faithfully served Christ’s church. But we do not want to develop mindsets contrary to the freedom that we have in Christ while teaching the truth of godly leadership. Paul ordained ‘Elders’ on his way back thru Lystra and Iconium. He sails back to Antioch and recounts all the wonderful success that they had with the gentile believers. Antioch has this free flowing spirit amongst the church. They are gentiles and are not keeping the Jewish law. Paul and Barnabas were getting a reputation amongst the Jewish leadership in the cities and towns. Word gets back to Jerusalem and we will see whether Paul’s gospel will prevail before the ‘church authorities’? I believe we could describe Luther’s response before the Catholic church as fitting Paul’s spirit ‘unless I am persuaded by scripture I can not go against my conscience. Here I stand, I can do nothing else’.
(749) ACTS 12- Herod kills James [not the brother of Jesus who is one of the lead Apostles at Jerusalem] and puts Peter in jail. The church has a prayer meeting for Peter and an angel goes into the cell and wakes Peter up. He leads him outside the city and frees him. Peter thinks it’s a vision and realizes it really is happening! Note how real their visions and dreams must have been, Peter at times can not determine fact from vision! He shows up at the prayer meeting and a girl named Rhoda hears a knock at the door. She asks ‘who is it’? He says ‘It’s me, Peter!’ She can’t believe it and leaves him standing at thee door! She tells the prayer group ‘it’s Peter’ they tell her ‘no way, maybe his angel?’ Funny, you can believe his angel showed up, but no way could the Lord deliver him from jail. At the end of this chapter we see the return of Paul and Barnabas after they brought the relief money to the saints at Jerusalem. It calls it ‘their ministry’. This early church did not see ‘the ministry’ as the actual business and the need to raise funds for the ‘church’. Now, it’s fine to pool your money for good cause’s with other believers. When I teach we are not ‘under the tithe’ this does not mean we shouldn’t support good ministries with 10 percent or more of our money. The point is, here we see Peter going back out to the field, Paul and Barnabas returning back from ‘the field’. Spontaneous prayer meetings. No set time or way to give offerings, just a true freedom of giving themselves away for the cause of Christ. Leadership does exist, but the normal function and flow of this church is not centered around ‘the Sunday Sabbath’ [EEK!] There is a real sense of this community of believers being led by the Spirit. It would be wrong to say ‘hey, Phillip went out on his own! He is not under the local church covering’! Or ‘now that we are back from Jerusalem, lets ask Pastor so and so [the supposed Pastor of the ‘church at Antioch’] what's next’. There were no ‘Pastors’ in the sense of the fulltime Christian minister who oversees the ordinances on Sunday. Now, these developments will arise as the centuries progress. Many good Pastors and Priests will function this way for centuries. They will see the church ‘building’ as ‘the church’. Our Catholic brothers will begin to see ‘the altar’ as the actual place ‘in the church’ that Jesus Body is ‘re offered’ [presented] as a ‘bloodless sacrifice’ for the salvation of the world. All developments that are not seen in Acts. The point is, we limit the flow of Gods Spirit thru his people when we regress from ‘the true has now come’ [the whole reality of Jesus and the church being the real image of things. The law and it’s shadows were only an incomplete picture]. When we as believers go back to ‘the shadows’ thinking that form and ‘pictures of things’ [symbols] are the way we will touch the world, then we lose the reality of us being the actual people of God showing the world Christ thru our unselfish lives. Jesus said when the people of God love each other and lay their own desires and goals down for his Kingdom, then the world will see our actions and believe. Jesus did leave us memorials ‘do this in remembrance of me’ ‘as often as you do this you SHOW the Lords death till he come’. I do realize that the church does have an element of ‘presenting thru picture [art] the Lords death and resurrection’ [passion plays and so forth] but when we lose the real fellowship mentality of this first century church, we then lose the greatest picture of all. Being the actual functioning Body of Christ on earth. John writes ‘how can you say you love God, who you don’t see. When you can’t love your brother, who you do see?’ [1st John] the New Testament clearly shows us that the love we have in word and deed is the greatest ‘sacramental’ picture we can declare to the world. Our Catholic friends have a song ‘they will know we are Christians by our love, by our love. Yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love’. I agree.
(747) ACTS 10- This is another key chapter in Acts. Peter is still in Joppa and while praying on the roof he has a vision. God shows him all the non kosher animals that Jews were forbidden to eat and says ‘rise Peter, kill and eat’. Peter refuses and tells the Lord he has never allowed himself to eat unclean stuff. The Lord reveals to him the principle of not making judgments of what is ‘clean or unclean’ according to the old standards of the law. It is important to fully see this. God wasn’t simply saying ‘now all things are clean’ he was saying ‘the old prism of law and moral standards are no longer to be used as the measuring rule of clean or unclean’. Now, was God throwing out all ‘measuring rules’? No! He will flatly show Peter that ‘all who believe in Jesus are justified from all things that you could never be justified from BY THE LAW’. In essence God is saying to Peter ‘Jesus is the new measuring rule!’ [Actually he was the original one the law always pointed to]. Well at the same time Peter has this vision, a man named Cornelius has an angel appear to him and tells him to send men to Joppa and get Peter. So as Peter is wondering about his vision of the unclean animals, the brothers knock on the door and relate the angels message to him. Peter goes to Cornelius house and preaches the gospel and the Gentiles become believers. Is this the first time we see Gentile converts in Acts? No. Phillip converted the Ethiopian eunuch in chapter 8. But this is seen as the Lord giving Peter the ‘keys’ of the kingdom to the Gentiles. In the gospels we read how Peter was given the keys to the kingdom. Our Catholic brothers see the office of Pope as ‘the keys’. I think a better view is to see how the Lord used Peter in Acts 2 and here to be the one to ‘introduce’ the gospel to both Jew and Gentile. Keys open things. They open doors. Jesus is the open door that Peter walked them thru by faith. Now we also see Peter preaching justification by faith for the first time in Acts. His other invitations were legitimate, but they focused on repentance and baptism. Here Peter says ‘and to him give all the prophets witness that whoever believes in him shall receive remission of sins’. Now I have taught this before on this blog. I try not to make excuses for the teaching by Peter on baptism. He even says in his epistle ‘the like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us, not the washing away of the filth of the flesh but the answer of a pure heart towards God’ [quick quote, go find it for an exact wording!]. Now, if you do a word check on this blog, probably in the section ‘prophecies, dreams, visions part 2’ and you find the teaching on baptism from Acts 2:38, I do give an explanation on this. I believe we are seeing the natural progression of greater understanding that Peter and the brothers were attaining as they progressed on the journey. I showed you how Stephens sermon in acts 7 hit on Pauline theology for the first time in Acts. A few chapters later we see Peter quoting a scripture on ‘all who believe’ are justified. The first connection from Peter on ‘believe and be justified’. Now that Peter has opened this ‘door’ we will see Paul preach this thru out the rest of the book. We see the famous verse in acts 16 ‘believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, and your house’. The point is we are seeing not only the development of the Body of Christ in this book, but also the development of Christian theology. Many believers fight over these various verses and even trace the authenticity of their movements to these verses. Others try to brand you as a heretic over which scriptures you see as the ‘conversion text’. While I fully agree with the doctrine of Justification by faith as one of the foundational doctrines of scripture, I avoid calling the churches who trace their ‘altar call’ experience to water baptism as ‘Cambellites/heretics’. I also disagree with those who are strong water baptism advocates when they say those who do not believe in full submersion are not Christian. In this chapter these Gentiles were justified by passive believe! No evangelical altar call at all ‘the Spirit fell on all who heard the word’. Peter says ‘can we forbid water to those who received the Spirit like we did’? There was no altar call because Peter would have never given one! Even though God gave him the whole vision and all, yet they were shocked when God actually ‘saved them’. So we see the will of God in accepting all who believe in Jesus. The justifying of these Gentiles was passive, they had no ‘sinners prayer’ they were justified before they got in the water. So to all those Church of Christ [or even Catholic and Orthodox brothers] it is not totally wrong to trace your outward experience of becoming a Christian to the time of baptism [I will not get into infant baptism here!]. But it also is not wrong to trace it to the time of simple belief. Gods purpose is to save people. Acts is revealing to us the progressive journey of man with God. God does put down the requirement to ‘believe in Christ’. The entrance into communion with God is limited to all who believe in him! But don’t make it harder than this. NOTE- I didn’t get into all the particulars of repentance and baptism and exactly how many ‘steps’ you need to ‘get saved’. Seeing Acts this way misses the main thrust of the book. But let me add, why don’t we see Peter mention repentance here? Cornelius is called ‘one who feared God’. This description didn’t just mean ‘he prayed and fasted’ it actually described Gentile converts to Judaism. These were called ‘God Fearers’. They practiced Judaism already, except for the rite of circumcision. So this fact meant they ‘already repented’ to a degree. The law did teach repentance well. It had a system that engrained the moral concept of sin and repentance into man. Hebrews chapter 6 teaches this. So you can say Cornelius and his relatives were already aware of sin and the need to turn from it [also the basic elements of Johns baptism] so here Peter bypasses the repentance part and simply shows them the missing ingredient, which was faith in Christ.
(744) ACTS 7- At the end of chapter 6 we saw the accusation against Stephen ‘he teaches the temple will be torn down and that Jesus will change the laws and customs of Moses’. There are a few key chapters In Acts, this is one of them! Up until this point we have seen Peters message of the Messiah thru the lens of repentance and baptism. You will notice Peter is very strong on ‘you guys need to repent and show it’. Strong word indeed! Peter also introduced the scripture ‘the Lord your God will raise up a prophet like unto me [Moses speaking of Christ] whoever doesn’t listen to him will be destroyed’. But Stephen is the first one to teach publicly the passing away of the law and the temple and the new ‘house of God’ to be the people. It’s the beginnings of Pauline theology. Now I have read how this chapter was questioned and doubted as to why Stephen was teaching this. Some theologians thought the chapter was questionable as canon because of it’s seeming to be so out of context. These are the times where I do agree with the ‘seminary as being a cemetery’! This chapter is absolutely brilliant! I don’t want you to miss the main point. Stephen traces the history of Israel and uses the verse from Moses ‘the Lord will raise up a PROPHET LIKE ME’. Stephen explains that when Moses first showed up on the scene to deliver his people, that the people said ‘man, who do you think you are! Who made you the boss’? Then Stephen says ‘yet this Moses, who the people refused. He was actually the ruler and deliverer that they refused’. Stephen is showing them that the prophets actually prophesied of the first century reality of Israel rejecting Jesus because Moses said they would! Don’t miss this point. This is the main point of Stephens message. He is telling the religious leaders ‘you simply fulfilled prophecy by rejecting the Messiah’. He even compares the miracles and great works that were done by Moses to the great miracles Jesus did. Stephen ends the chapter by also tracing Jewish history to David’s son Solomon and how the future temple that he would build was simply a shadow of the New Testament house of God. He quotes David in Psalms ‘God will not dwell in temples made with hands’. Now, this has nothing to do with ‘church buildings’. This has everything to do with Stephen’s insight into the theological truths contained in Jesus teachings about the destruction of the temple. In today’s ‘church world’ we have a very unbalanced view of temple rebuilding and the significance of the passages in Matthew that prophesy of its destruction. In Stephen’s mind the future destruction [that is future from his time. A.D. 70!] showed the passing away of the old law and its entire system of worship. The first century Apostles and teachers saw the eschatological portions of scripture from a redemptive lens. Peter earlier said ‘repent and be baptized… so your sins will be blotted out at the return of the Lord’ ‘whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things’. He couched individual salvation in with Gods ‘full world’ purpose of redemption [Romans]. They saw it from a wider angle than just ‘me and Jesus’. Now Stephen is doing the same. The whole Apostolic tradition concerning the destruction of the temple showed the purpose of God in ending the old concept of law and ‘limited kingship’ [from Jerusalem’s throne] and how God raised up his Son and placed him at his right hand and made him Lord and Christ. The passing away of the temple and Stephens preaching on ‘the customs being changed’ was right on! When I taught Hebrews I tried to bring this out. I realize that some teachers say Paul didn’t write Hebrews. I attribute it to him simply because no one else had the revelation he had in these areas. But I wouldn’t argue with saying Stephen might have penned it [depending on the dates!] Now we end the chapter with Stephens’s famous martyrdom and him saying ‘lay not this sin to their charge’. Saul [Paul] is a witness to this killing, he will become the greatest advocate for grace versus law that the church will ever know. NOTE- I forgot to mention that Stephen even compares the mass killing of babies at the time of Moses with the mass killing done under Herod during Jesus time. He shows how Moses and Jesus were alike in many ways.
(741) ACTS 4- The religious leadership at Jerusalem bring the Apostles in for questioning. The reality of the lame man being healed and the fact that Peter was doing it in the name of Jesus was an offence to them. Part of the group were called Sadducees. We often think of them as simple Pharisees who disbelieved in the resurrection of the body. While this is true, we must not overlook the demonic strategy behind the rise of a religious group, just prior to the resurrection of Jesus, who would imbed doubt in the minds of people concerning resurrection. Peter and John are questioned concerning the healing of the lame man. The leaders really had no problem with the healing, they did not want them doing this stuff in Jesus name! Why? Once again we see the fact of mighty works being done in Jesus name as proof of his resurrection. If the resurrection is true then Jesus must be the Messiah. If Jesus is the Messiah then this first century group of religious leaders killed the only Messiah that they will ever have! Peter actually tells them this in the chapter ‘you rejected the chief cornerstone’. Jesus was not simply one religious figure in a religion of many religious figures. Let’s see, we have Mary the mother of Jesus, a great woman to be sure. What about old John the Baptist, man was he a firebrand! And don’t forget Moses and the prophets. But Jesus stands out because he is the cornerstone. He alone is the mediator. Peter says ‘neither is there salvation in any other, there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved’. These religious leaders killed the main person! Once again we see the church practice ‘communal giving’. They sell their lands and houses and bring the money and lay it at the apostle’s feet. The money is used 100 percent for distribution to the communities needs. Why is this so important to see? As you read all my writings you will see me teach over and again this basic Christian principle, that giving in the New Testament churches was primarily focused on meeting the needs of people. There was no sense of tithing to the storehouse as being a practice of ‘giving to the church meeting on Sunday or you are under a curse’. Now, it’s fine to give 10 percent on Sunday, it’s just we shouldn’t by pass the actual documented practice of giving as seen in the New Testament. Now, we do have the advantage of hind sight. Paul will continue to write the epistles of the New Testament and never once stray from this principle. In every single case, bar none, is New Testament giving taught as a voluntary free will offering. It is radical, taught in proportionality [as God has blessed you lay by you in store- Paul] but never once is it taught as a compulsory tithe that if not obeyed will bring the curse of the law upon the believer. Now, in the very next chapter we will see 2 people die because of lying in the area of giving. But it’s not because they didn’t tithe. Nor is it because they didn’t give all the price of the land. It was because they were lying to the Holy Spirit, they were introducing a deadly poison into the fledgling church. Jesus warned them in the gospels to avoid this cancer. He told them ‘beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy’. He wasn’t saying ‘beware of their doctrine’ in the sense of don’t listen to what they teach. He was saying ‘beware of actual hypocrisy’! The leaven of trying to present an image of yourself contrary to truth. Faking it so you look good. Now the leadership will warn the Apostles not to speak or teach in Jesus name. Peter says ‘we ought to obey God more than you’. Was he being rebellious against God ordained authority? Jesus did teach in the gospels ‘they sit in Moses seat, do what they say, not what they do’. Paul will respond later ‘I didn’t know I was speaking against the high Priest, I know he should be treated with respect’ as he defends himself before this same group. Some believe Luther and the reformers and even people like me are rebelling against authority when we question the system. To be sure Peter was ‘rebelling’ against an authority system that actually served God to a degree. This religious system [Judaism] did preserve the writings of the prophets. Peter was quoting the Psalms and prophets and utilizing the actual writings the scribes passed on to him. But there comes a point in time where ‘we ought to move on with God, rather than man’ a radical break from past well meaning systems, and a moving forward with God and the working of his Spirit. We end the chapter with the Apostles and believers rejoicing over the fact that Jesus movement is winning and Gods word is being fulfilled ‘of a truth the kings of the earth and its rulers are coming against God and his holy Son Jesus’. They knew they were in some rough waters but heck, Jesus has been raised from the dead! What can they really do to us? We will soon see.
(740) ACTS 3- Peter and John go up to the temple and heal the lame man. This stirs up a commotion and gives opportunity for Peter to preach Christ. I want you to see something here. The miracles of healing thru out this book testify of something specific. They do not simply prove the existence of God. These first century people were not ‘post moderns’ they had no pre enlightenment era that affected their minds. For the most part they were highly religious! Paul will tell them this later in Acts ‘you are too superstitious’ [religious]. The miracles are testifying to the fact that Jesus is alive, he really rose from the grave! Peter’s sermons are centered around the reality of Christ being the fulfillment of all that the prophets have spoken about! The church must not be ashamed of the gospel. Recently the ‘church world’ was up in arms over the Popes recent reinstating of the Tridentine Mass [the Latin Mass]. After Vatican 2 the Mass was done solely in the language of the hearers. Many old time Catholics were wanting the Latin too. So Pope Benedict said fine, you have the option to practice it either way. Now, this ancient Mass had a prayer that simply prayed for the Jewish people to come to know Jesus. Well, this upset the Jewish groups and they demanded a change in the prayer. At first the Pope re wrote it but it still asked for prayer for the Jews to come to Jesus. This still offended them. So finally the church produced some prayer less offensive. We should not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ and his resurrection! Peter was preaching the reality of the resurrection and was in their face about it! Jesus has proven himself to be alive, we are not just witnesses of the existence of God, we are witnesses that Jesus is the way to him. The only way! Now Peter ends this chapter in a unique way. He invokes the ‘blessing of Abraham’ and says it means ‘the blessing of Jesus in turning you away from sin’. We just finished a study in Genesis. I emphasized how the New testament apostles viewed the Abrahamic blessing thru the lens of redemption. They did not teach it in a materialistic way. Peter also quotes Moses [as well as David] and says ‘Moses said the Lord would raise up a prophet like myself, whoever doesn’t hear him will be destroyed’. Peter sees the fulfillment of ‘the Moses type prophet’ in Christ. Peter has a great gift of taking the old testament prophets and proving Christ from them. There is a young hearer in this early church. He will eventually become one of the first Deacons. His name is Stephen, boy he must be drinking everything in. He is seeing and hearing the testimony of Jesus straight from those who walked with him. He hears Peter’s teachings on Christ. He becomes familiar with the way Peter associates the ‘Moses prophet’ with Jesus. This young man will testify in Acts 7 of the reality of Jesus being the fulfillment of the Moses prophecy. He will give the longest recorded sermon in scripture. He will brilliantly trace the roots of Israel and show how Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophets. He will be accused of going against the law and the temple. He has the first grasp of ‘Pauline theology’ [actually Paul got it from him!] and does such a convincing job of proving Jesus to be Messiah that they stone him to death. He becomes the first martyr in the book of Acts. At his death he says ‘forgive them; don’t hold this sin against them’. A witness named Saul is sitting by. God answers Stephens’s prayer and Saul will become one of the greatest fire starters known to man.
(739) ACTS 2- The Apostles are gathered together in the upper room. As they continue in unity and prayer the Spirit of God comes upon them like a rushing wind. There appear ‘cloven tongues’ like fire above each of them. Why this image? Why not ‘ears’ or some other sanctified body part? God is going to give supernatural power to the words that they will speak. In a few chapters we will read how an angel will supernaturally deliver Peter from prison and say ‘go, speak the words of this life’. These tongues are a precursor to the tremendous fire that will be loosed from their lips. James says the tongue is a little member but boasteth great things, it has the ability to start fires. Jesus said he came to earth to ‘start a fire’ and how he wished it were already burning. Here he gets his wish! Now the Apostles and early believers experience the gift of tongues. They begin speaking and prophesying in the unknown languages of all those who are gathered together to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. God ordained this event to be strategically done at this time. All the surrounding regions heard the believers speak the ‘wondrous works of God’ in their native tongue. Peter stands up and delivers a scathing message! He basically tells Israel ‘this is that which the prophet Joel spoke about’ he goes on and says this outpouring is part of Gods predetermined plan to pour out his Spirit on all flesh in the last days. He speaks of divine manifestations [dreams, visions] and carries the prophecy right to the end of the age. He then speaks the gospel of Christ and tells Israel ‘this is the Jesus you killed’. Wow, these guys are bold. Peter leads them to faith in Christ, their public baptism is the immediate sign of their willingness to be identified with Jesus and 3 thousand Jews become believers this day. Now, what is the church? This corporate group of first time followers do 4 basic things. They ‘continue in the Apostles doctrine and breaking of bread and prayers and share their goods with all in need’[true fellowship]. This early community was a brotherhood who actually gave priority to the teachings of Jesus passed on to them from the Apostles. Don’t miss this! Many will develop all sorts of practices and beliefs that ‘make up church’. Some will justify extra biblical beliefs under the guise of ‘the Apostles doctrine’ as in if it were something totally contrary or not known thru the gospels or the writing of scripture. Paul will tell Timothy to stay true to the traditions he passed on to him. But I want to focus on the fact that the Apostles doctrine was not something different then the basic instructions Jesus left us in the gospels. Paul will add to this basic body of Christian doctrine thru his letters to the churches, as well as the whole New Testament. But we do not see a bunch of strange or unknown doctrines that come from this time period. The basics are mentioned above. I do want to stress the fact that this early expression of church life had no ‘Pastor’ in the sense of their gatherings being a time where a singular authority figure had oversight of the entire community. They had strong leaders to be sure, but would avoid the Protestant idea of Pastor. They had no church building or belief in a strong liturgy. The ‘breaking of bread’ was a common meal where they all shared together in a real life setting. And of course their giving was radical, it was not ‘a tithe’ and it was done to meet the real needs of the community around them. All these elements are basic to what the New Testament church is. A functioning society of people in whom Christ Spirit dwells and who see themselves as a real spiritual community of people. As we progress thru out the history of the church as seen in Acts we will never lose this basic mindset. It will be carried into the epistles of the New Testament and remain the best idea of ‘local church’ as found in the first century. There is a trend going on right now in Evangelicalism that says ‘lets return to the ancient practices of the church and see what we can find’. As an avid reader of church history I am not totally against this movement, but I do see a danger in thinking ‘the ancient practices’ are the 2nd or 3rd century development of liturgy and Eucharist and other early ideas, and by passing the ‘real ancient’ story in the book of Acts. To put it simply, some of the Protestant and Evangelical ‘practices and beliefs’ that have developed since the reformation are ‘ancient’. I believe we all have a long way to go, but the ‘low view’ of the Lords Table [low as opposed to ‘high church view’. Though I personally believe in the Lords table as a memorial, not as the actual Body and Blood of Jesus. Yet I personally don’t like referring to such an important practice as low!] seems to be the true ancient practice as seen in Acts. The absence of the Priest officiating over the altar is no where to be seen in the actual ‘church’ setting. This ancient church is really a simple brotherhood of believers having all things common and having the resurrection of the Son of God as the central organizing principle of their lives.
ACTS study
Introduction; Yesterday I took my kids to the mall after church, I usually get lost in the book store. Even though I bought an entire shelf of books a few months back, I still can’t help from buying more books! So I picked up a few more and found a comfortable bench and started reading the History of Christianity. At the house I am almost thru with another ‘history of Christianity’ that covers the story of the church from Pentecost to the present day. I own a few complete volumes and have checked out many from the libraries over the years. I read from both the Protestant and Catholic [Orthodox] perspectives. I also read from the ‘out of the institutional church’ perspective. These are the histories of various groups of believers who never became Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant. I consider all these groups Christian and appreciate the tremendous wealth of knowledge that these communities provide.
Now, as we go thru Acts, I want to stay as close as possible to both the doctrine and practices of the early church as seen in scripture. We are not the first [or last!] study that has attempted to do this. That is attempted to ‘get back to the original design’ as much as possible. Historically you have whole categories of believers who fit into this mindset. They are referred to as ‘Restorationist’ as opposed to Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox. The Church of Christ, The Disciples of Christ, the Anabaptists and others fall into this class. I believe you find true believers in all of these groups.
As you read the history of Christianity as told by the other perspectives, you will find it interesting as to the way the institutional church describes these ‘out of church’ groups. Some are called heretics [Waldensians] others are simply seen as fringe groups. The strong institutional church has branded those who would reject her authority as schismatics and heretics on the grounds of their refusal to submit to the hierarchy of the institutional church.
As we go thru Acts, I want us to read carefully and see the story as told by Luke. We will not find ‘another more true group’ in the sense that I want to start some new denomination. I also don’t want to simply find proof texts to justify doctrine. Many well meaning believers can find the verses they like the most and use them to combat the other points of view. We will see verses emphasizing the importance of water baptism, or various truths on the outworkings of the Spirit. We will see prophets functioning and read texts that clearly teach Gods sovereignty [as many as were ordained unto eternal life believed]. Instead of getting lost on these side trails, I want us to read with an open mind and allow our beliefs to be shaped by ‘the story’.
I will spend time defending my own view of Local church. Not because I believe ‘my view’ is the only thing worth arguing about, but because I believe we see the intent of God for his people to be a living community of believers in this book. Right off the bat we will see giving taught in a radical way. The early church at Jerusalem will ‘continue in the Apostles doctrine and breaking of bread and prayers’. They then sell their goods and distribute to all who had need. Where in the world did they get this idea from? The Apostles doctrine obviously taught the plain teachings from Jesus on sharing what you have with others. So instead of seeing an early tithe concept, you see an early ‘give to those in need idea’ straight from the teachings of Jesus. We will see this early Jerusalem group meet daily, as opposed to seeing ‘Sunday worship’ as some sort of New Testament Sabbath. Of course this group will meet at the Temple [actually an out door courtyard called Solomon’s Porch] and from ‘house to house’. But the simple realty of Christ’s Spirit being poured out on them as a community of people will be the basic understanding of what ‘church’ is.
You will find citizens of many surrounding areas going back to the their home towns after Pentecost. These believers shared the gospel with those in their regions and this is how the early church would spread. Some commentaries will show you how when Paul will eventually show up in Rome there already was an established church there. They obviously heard the gospel from these early Roman Jews who were at Jerusalem during Pentecost. So we will see ‘church planting’ from the paradigm of simple believers going to areas with the message of Christ. Those who would believe in these locations would be described as ‘the church at Corinth’ or ‘the church at Ephesus’ and so on. So we see ‘local church’ as communities of believers living in different localities.
We will see the development of leadership along the lines of ‘appoint elders in every city’. Not a top heavy idea of ‘Bishop’ in the later sense of Catholic belief, but a simple ordaining [recognizing!] of those in the various cities who were stable enough in the basic truths of the gospel, that in Paul’s absence these elders were to be trusted as spiritual guides. Now, many of our brothers can trace the historic office of Bishop as a fairly early development in church history. Polycarp and others were considered direct disciples of the Apostles who would be seen as Bishops and even write of the importance of Bishops for the church ‘Where there is no Bishop there is no church’.
This will cause many well meaning believers to eventually become Catholic/Orthodox as they read the church fathers and see the very early development of Catholic Christianity. In many of the church fathers writings you will also see an early belief in the Eucharist as being the actual Body and Blood of Jesus.
To the consternation of many Protestants you even find Luther condemning fellow Protestants for not taking literally the words of Jesus ‘this IS my Body’. Now, I will not defend transubstantiation, but try to follow the trend lines in Acts as to the lack of this doctrine being a part of the early church. We will find Paul’s letter to the Corinthians addressing the Lords Supper, but for the most part we do not see a strong belief in the transmitting of divine grace to the soul thru the eating of Christ’s literal Body and Blood as they ‘broke bread’. We do see the sharing of the common meal and the ‘Eucharist’ as one meal called the ‘love feast’. Only later on in church history is there a division made between the full fellowship meal and the Eucharist.
So to be frank about it, I will challenge both our Catholic and Orthodox brothers on some very fundamental beliefs. Well I hope this brief introduction sets the proper tone for the rest of this study, God bless you guys and I hope you get something out of it. John.
(711) GENESIS 25- Isaac and Rebecca are married for around 20 years and still have no children. Isaac prays for kids and Rebecca is pregnant with twins! The first one out is Esau and then comes Jacob. Scripture says ‘the older will serve the younger’. Paul will quote this in Romans 9 to explain Predestination. The doctrine of God saving you based on total grace. He chose you before you were born! Now, I have said before that Christians have fought wars over this stuff. After all the studying I have done over the years, I fall down on the side of Calvinism [or Augustine or Paul!]. The critics of this doctrine have good reasons to be critical, there are some difficult questions that come with this teaching. For the most part you see Paul defending it in Romans 9 by using this story. He says God chose Jacob before the boys were even born, they had done nothing to earn Gods choosing. Now those who reject Predestination will say ‘God saw ahead of time the future decisions that the boys were to make’. Fine. But Paul still defends the doctrine from the point of view that ‘before the boys did right or wrong God chose Jacob’. Paul then says ‘you will then say to me, how can God find fault? People are just doing what they were predestined to do’. If God was just choosing Jacob based on his foreknowledge of their future choices, then Paul would have said ‘easy, God is being fair because he based this decision on his future knowledge of what the boys would do’. But Paul doesn’t say this. He answers the critics of predestination by saying ‘who are you to question God? Can the thing that God created question the creator’? Paul will go on in the rest of the chapter and defend classic Calvinism using this defense. I believe there are some real answers to be found thru out Romans that might be a little too ‘heavy’ for us to get into. Most believers who have argued over these 2 Christian views [Calvinism versus Arminianism] have argued over the seeming unfairness of the doctrine. There are things that we don’t fully understand or grasp as humans. When we try to ‘adjust’ scripture to make it fit our rational minds we err. I believe we should rejoice over the mercy of God, teach all people that Jesus loves them and Christ died for them. And thank God that you and I are in this thing because of Gods sovereign choice, it had nothing to do with what we did [or would do!].
We also see Esau sell his birthright to Jacob. Paul uses this in Hebrews 12 to warn Jewish people not to despise the privileged position of ‘being first’. The gospel came first to the Jews. Jesus is the Jewish Messiah! The fact that they rejected Jesus has caused there to be a ‘despising’ of that which was originally theirs! Many Jewish people have fallen into the error of Esau. They have rejected something that was designed for their benefit. And while others have benefited from this rejection, they actually despise hearing about their rightful place in Messiah! Many Jewish families see it as heresy for a family member to convert to Christianity. Esau sold what was really his, and he hated Jacob because of it.
(706) GENESIS 20- Abraham does it again! He travels to Gerar and tells the king ‘Sarah is my sister, not my wife’. This time the king takes her but before he sleeps with her God appears to him in a dream and tells him not to do it. In this chapter we see dreams, prophets and healing mentioned. All before Pentecost! In the following days we will cover Joseph and his dreams. I want you to see the reality of God communicating and interjecting himself into the human story as he wills. The fact that all thru out scripture AND CHURCH HISTORY we see an ongoing work of God in supernatural things shows us that God is still sovereign and can do all the things he has ever done. One of the big divisions in Christianity today has to do with the Charismatic movement and the more Orthodox/Reformed brothers. While I realize the Reformed brothers do accept the supernatural workings of God, some of them hold to cessationist views of the gifts of the Spirit. The Charismatics will accept the gifts, but often fall short in the simple teaching of scripture. I have been frustrated over the years in trying to tell Charismatic brothers that you can’t teach that Jesus was a very wealthy person who taught a money message. No matter how much proof from scripture or history you give them, they dismiss it as ‘that old tradition’. I can see why the more Reformed guys just avoid the whole deal. But to be honest to scripture we need to see and have a basic belief in a supernatural God who can communicate thru dreams and can use Prophets and does heal miraculously! Now after God appears to Abimilech and tells him ‘don’t do it, she is the mans wife’. The king is also told ‘restore her back to the man and he will pray for you and I will heal you, he is a Prophet’. So Abraham makes it right. Now, the king also gives restitution to Abraham. Lots of stuff. Does this contradict what I taught earlier about Abraham? We showed how he didn’t take free handouts. In this case this is really not a free handout, it is the biblical doctrine of restitution. Jesus taught this in the New Testament. When someone is wronged by you, do what you can to make up for it. So we leave this chapter with Abraham once again coming out on top, even though he messed up! This shows you that it is only by the mercy and favor of God that you are where you are today. You might think ‘you know, I really am a pretty talented guy. If I weren’t with the lord I probably would have succeeded in some other endeavor’ NOT! It is his grace alone that has exalted you to success. If it weren’t for the Lord you would be a big mess!
(695) CONCLUDE SERMON ON THE MOUNT - Well, we have come a long way. Look at this interesting ending ‘When Jesus finished all these sayings, the people were astonished at his teaching. For he taught as someone who had authority [he knew what he was saying!] not like the regular preachers’. OUCH! Old brother Matthew couldn’t help it, he had to stick it to them! Why was Jesus teaching more powerful than the hired clergy? He was on a mission. His goal was to start a Kingdom revolution that would end in him facing Pilate and winning! Rome will look straight into the face of this radical and say ‘don’t you realize we have been pushing your buttons all along. You had the gall to call us ‘foxes’ [Herod] we have had you in our sights for a while. Now don’t you realize I have the authority to kill you like we did John!’ [The Baptist]. Jesus says ‘you have no authority except what my Father gave you. You are still a bunch of lying foxes! And oh yeah, I am the Son of God!’ WOW. He had authority. As you sum up the sermons message, you see the Jesus style. He embodies the stuff! I think the church needs to see the teachings of Jesus as the ‘constitution’ of the family. I have heard extreme teachings on both the Catholic [Orthodox] and Protestant [dispensational] sides of Christianity. Some Protestants teach the Sermon in a way that says ‘all this was before the Cross, and has no relevance today’ [bad stuff!] and the more liberal believers kind of say ‘Jesus wants us to be nice, and the Sermon should regulate us as opposed to harsh Paul’s epistles’ [too soft!] We should see the attitudes of the sermon as the goal of our faith. We should do the stuff Jesus told us to do! We do overlook the obvious at times. Now the ‘doing of it’ won’t save us. But if God has imputed his righteousness to you [if your are justified by faith] the ‘justification’ will eventually ‘slip out’. And you will look righteous! According to Jesus, ‘looking righteous’ is measured by these things. The religious leaders thought looking righteous was being religious and moral crusaders. Jesus set the proper criteria. God wants us to be like his Son. Don’t build up a record of ‘I went to 10 million church meetings, tithed for 50 years’ but never once did the things Jesus taught in this Sermon. This is the danger of strong Orthodoxy, you can have all the right answers and still be ‘hearers only’. Jesus warned against being ‘good hearers’. The doers are the ones building right! So I would encourage all of us to regularly read and give priority to the words of Jesus. Not at the expense of ‘all scripture’ [the emergent brothers kind of fudge on this at times!] but as the filter thru which all scripture should be seen from. Too many of us do not believe in the actual lifestyle that Jesus called us to. He was a fantastic preacher, because preaching was not his goal! He was leading a revolutionary movement! And like I said before, letters from a revolution have great authority.
(693) SERMON ON THE MOUNT- ‘Many will SAY UNTO ME in that day “Lord, we prophesied in your name and cast out devils and have done many good works” and I will say “depart from me, ye that work iniquity, for I never knew you”. I remember how we used this verse as fundamental Baptists to teach how all the Charismatics were going to hell! First, if this is what Jesus meant, then even those who ‘do good works’ [the whole context of the sermon on the Mount!] don’t make it! The point is there are those who see Christianity thru the lens of being familiar with Christian tradition and activity. Hey ‘I have been around the culture my whole life, surely I’m in’? Not necessarily. Also Jesus didn’t say they actually cast out the demons and prophesied, he said ‘they said they did it’. Who knows, maybe this group was fudging? I believe in all the gifts of the Spirit. I don’t believe that all the Charismatics have the definitions right! I was taught a whole view of ‘word of Knowledge, word of Wisdom’, gifts Paul defines in Corinthians. As being ‘knowing the past, or knowing the future’. It was a very limited perspective taught by Brother Hagin that seemed to miss the real intent of the gifts. So you can believe in the gifts, and really be seeing your own idea of what they mean. I also reject the cessationism of certain dispensational groups. The whole idea that the gifts passed away. The broad view of scripture [and church history!] show the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost to be an ongoing ‘life of the Spirit’ to be expressed thru the Church thru the Spirits Charisms. God never intended for this major event to be a temporary thing that would pass away. The majority of Christians believe in the gifts of the Spirit. Catholics [this only reaffirmed the anti gifts mindset in the fundamental circles. They would see the catholic churches embracing of the Charismatic movement as proof of the one world churches end time deception] Orthodox and Protestant churches for the most part accept the gifts of the Spirit. Some strains of Protestantism reject them. Well anyway Jesus is telling us don’t rely on ‘religious function- performance’ as a means of ‘getting into heaven’. We don’t want to fall into the error of ‘I was born and raised in ‘the church’ therefore I am Christian’. You might be Christian, but it’s because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and your faith in his Blood that saves you, not religion! Even Father Groeschel [a favorite Priest of mine on EWTN] will emphasize ‘we are saved thru Jesus Christ’ when asked by sincere Catholic callers to his show ‘how do I overcome guilt and sin’. The point is, we need to re focus people on the meaning and reality of Jesus death and resurrection as being the actual payment for mans sin. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking ‘I am surrounded by a Christian environment, so I must be one’. If you truly have trust in what Christ has done, then your are one. Even if you have ‘prophesied in his name, cast out devils and done many wonderful works’.
(692) SERMON ON THE MOUNT- ‘Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. But he that doeth the will of my Father’. In John’s gospel Jesus says “this is the will of him that sent me, that you would believe on him who God has sent”. So Jesus isn’t saying ‘you get saved by your works’. But he is showing us that the Evangelical altar call is no guarantee! To be fair, the rise of the ‘altar call/sinners prayer’ was a well intended tool for evangelism. But carried to the extreme it seemed to teach whoever says this prayer [Lord, Lord?] will enter into the Kingdom of heaven. It created a strange type of soteriology that said ‘you might have believed in the gospel. You might have been baptized and joined the church. You might have a vibrant faith life and ascended the ranks of church leadership [Pastor, Priest or Pope!] You might have led a changed life thru your Christian faith. But if you don’t remember when you said the sinner’s prayer, and if when you did say it. If all the preceding ‘stages’ were not ideal [first you fully realized your lost state, then you went to the meeting, then the altar!] Then you are lost! This strange idea taught a type of salvation that was dependant on what you prayed and how you prayed it. The problem with this is Jesus does make it very plain that you very well might know the exact day you prayed the thing, and still be lost! The point is the New testament [1st John] as well as Jesus himself always point to ‘those who have actually done righteous deeds’ as being the outward sign of having been made righteous! John says ‘by this we know we are born of God. He that doeth righteousness is of God, he that doeth evil is not’. Jesus says ‘those that have done good will be raised to the resurrection of life, evil to the resurrection of judgment’. Now, I do not believe these statements are saying ‘you are saved by works’ but they most certainly show you what the life of the believer will look like compared to the life of the unbeliever! So for whole groups of Christians to teach a type of ‘salvation’ that is reassured by the saying of ‘Lord, Lord’. For these brothers to then almost teach a theology that says ‘and after you prayed this formula, if you lived the next 50 years as an old bubba who cheated on his wife. Had a few drinks with the boys, never really had any true faith. But you go to heaven any way because you were just backslidden’ Yikes! I think these brothers need to re read this verse! So The New Testament shows us the end result. The goal of justification by faith is the outcome of actually being made just! Or actually doing right things. Now, there can be some controversy here. One of the main issues surrounding the Reformation had to do with the Catholic belief that ‘we are saved by grace. But this grace infuses us with righteousness and then the righteous works that we do ACTUALLY MERIT a degree of salvation’! [Believe me, it is much deeper than this, and both sides [Protestant/Catholic] have miss represented each others ideas at times]. I do not believe this type of ‘good works’ theology. I know there are many Christians who believe it [Orthodox, certain Pentecostal groups, etc] I hold to the Pauline formula in Ephesians ‘by grace are you saved, not by works’ now, in context Paul is saying ‘the faith God gives you is not of works’. Paul isn’t saying there are no works included in what God is calling you to. He goes on to say ‘created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them’. So the simple fact that Jesus and the writers of the New Testament actually make statements saying ‘those who have done good go to heaven, those who have done evil don’t’. This should steer us away from a doctrine of salvation that is heavily dependant on ‘what you said’.
(678) SERMON ON THE MOUNT- I believe this section may be the most ‘theologically’ important part. ‘Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets, I have not come to destroy but TO FULFIL’ . I have heard this explained ‘see Jesus himself stressed the importance of the law, therefore we should exalt the law as believers’ [Reformed brothers sometimes hold this view]. Or ‘Jesus only did away with the ceremonial law, all the traditions and stuff that rose up along with the law. He never did away with the moral law, the 10 commandments’. Those who hold this view will teach that all the references by Paul about ‘the law being nailed to the Cross’ [Colossians] or ‘if there had been a law given that could have given life than righteousness would have been by the law. I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness had been by the law, then Christ died in vain!’ [Galatians, Romans]. Or better yet ‘The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. But now that the fullness has come, there is no longer a need for a schoolmaster’ [Galatians]. Those who see this as ‘ceremonial law’ say these references are not about the 10 commandments, the ‘moral law’. Hebrew says ‘the law was a shadow of the things, not the real image. Now that the real thing is here [Christ] the shadows are getting old and fading away’. Now, all these references are without a doubt speaking of the ‘whole law’, not just ‘the ceremonial law’. The New testament flatly teaches that believers are not under the law. And when it says ‘the law’ it really means ‘the law’! Yet Paul will teach ‘does this mean we go out and kill, steal, commit adultery’? NO! he says now that we are new creatures we have the law of love working in us and we don’t do these things. But there is no doubt he teaches the law having no ‘control’ in the sense that we wake up every day and think ‘now, today my life must be regulated by the rules’. This was a type of legalism that Paul would spend most of his time fighting against in the New Testament. So lets get back to Jesus words ‘for truly I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no way pass, TILL ALL BE FULFILLED’. This verse is not saying ‘the law will never pass away’. It is saying ‘it will remain in force, it will continue to stand as the ‘standard’ of righteousness that will forever be a reminder of mans total inability to live up to God standards. It will even be the ‘the strength of sin’ in a sense [Paul-Romans] that as man looks to the perfect law and character of God, as seen in the law, he will forever be reminded of his utter inability to be righteous in and of himself’. But then, WHEN ALL IS FULFILLED [thru the perfect life of Jesus and his death and resurrection!] then it will ‘pass away’. It will cease to be a means of condemnation by which sinful man can never live up to it. Now Paul will teach ‘is the law sin, God forbid’. In no way am I saying [or Jesus!] that the passing away of the law means man no longer has to live right! Jesus is saying that when he finishes his work on earth, all ‘new creatures in Christ’ will be fulfilling the law by the new Christ nature that is within them. Sinful man will still be under the condemnation of the law, the only way it ‘passes away’ for them is to ‘get in Christ’. You are either under the law [condemnation] or in grace, there is no middle ground! Be assured Jesus said ‘except your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you will not enter heaven’. His wasn’t telling the people ‘try harder’. He was saying the standard is so high, no man can do it thru his own works. It will take the divine work of redemption to pull it off. A righteousness equal to the very nature of God. An ‘imputed righteousness’. So in a nutshell Jesus hits on the whole underlying theme of the New Testament, justification by Faith. He in no way is saying ‘see, the law exists along side redemption in the life of the believer’. That my friends would be pure legalism!
(673) JOHN 21 (radio # 604) wow, I have been putting this off for a while! If you go back a few months you will see that I never finished this study. Jesus finds the disciples went back to fishing. As they near the shore he yells ‘did you guys catch anything’? No! They reply. ‘Cast your net on the other side’. Sure enough they fill the net! Notice something, there is another account where Jesus says ‘cast the nets’ and in that story they only cast ‘one net’. Why? Fishing was a tough business. After pulling in and cleaning all the commercial nets it is not easy to ‘cast them all back out for one last try’. So in that story Peter sort of says ‘Oh fine Jesus, will humor you’ and he cast ONE net. What happened? The net broke! [I think I am remembering right? If not this story will still have some meaning]. Here Jesus says ‘cast it’ they do and he fills it. The point is prepare for the capacity that he wants to give you! If he says ‘nets’ [multiple] do ‘nets’. Don’t think ‘fill the building’ here. Think in terms of harvest. The ‘fill the building’ could be part of it, but I think there’s more. Let the Lord direct your ‘casting’. Don’t focus on ‘my church in my city’ only. You often see these appeals on church web sites. It is not uncommon to find a web site on the other side of the world saying ‘come visit our Sunday meeting’. For heavens sake, if you have a web site [interNET] use it to cast to a broad region. Actually teach and interact with the thing! All the ‘virtual community’ are a real community of people. Don’t take a possible few million potential readers and say ‘come visit my building’. Geez! Get the word out! As the disciples get to shore they realize its Jesus and Peter jumps out and leaves the brothers to bring in the nets. Thanks a lot! But oh wait, then Jesus says ‘bring the fish’ and Peter runs down and grabs the net right at the end! Sort of like what Saturday night live used to say about Bill Clinton. He was a nice guy, the type who would offer to help you move the furniture, but when you let your side down you realize he wasn’t really lifting! Peter was a little ‘showboat’ here. Leaders, be careful about arranging your ‘ministries’ around your personas. Are the majority of the funds being spent on broadcasting your gift and image to people? This is not primarily New Testament ministry! Peter tells Jesus 3 time ‘you know I love you’. Most of you are familiar with this story. Jesus says ‘do you love me’ 3 times to Peter. In the Greek Jesus used the 3 different words for love. But don’t lose the context. Scripture does say Peter was grieved that Jesus asked him this 3 TIMES. Peter understood that Jesus wasn’t asking him 3 different things one time each! Maybe Jesus was allowing Peter to work in his own mind for the 3 times he publicly denied him? Maybe we need to say out loud ‘I LOVE JESUS’ to reaffirm to ourselves that if we really weren’t sincere why in the world would we even be doing these things! It’s easy to question all your motives, especially after reading this site! For the most part all you Pastors and leaders I relate to, you guys are real ‘players’. If you didn’t really love the Lord most of you wouldn’t be doing the stuff you are doing, I commend you! In verse 18 Jesus basically tells Peter ‘I am going to give you one more chance. You feel terrible about not dieing for the cause. Your denials of me were done out of fear of loosing your life. The church is going to enter a period of great persecution, many will die for the faith. When you get old Peter you will stretch forth your hands and be martyred’. It’s almost like Jesus said to him ‘don’t worry, I am giving you another chance at it’. I think this scenario is very possible, he doesn’t tell the others they will die like this. As we conclude John’s gospel, let’s recap some stuff. I said earlier that Johns gospel could be called the ‘gospel of sovereignty’. I believe Jesus taught Predestination in this gospel. At least he hits on this doctrine more in this gospel than the others. I think you could also call it ‘the gospel of belief’. There are more statements on those who believe having eternal life than in any other gospel. I think we should not take this lightly. It is common in Christian circles to add a bunch of stuff to the gospel. Many evangelicals preach a type of altar call that says ‘if you think simple belief in Jesus is going to save you, well you got another thing coming’. But simple belief in Jesus does ‘save you’ [Actually Jesus saves you!]. There is a recent resurgence in Reformed theology going on in the Evangelical church. Good stuff on Orthodoxy and Eastern roots also. Studying Patristics. We need to be careful that we don’t stray from the simple offer of eternal life to those who believe! It is all too easy to ‘fall in love’ with a sort of romanticism with all things Orthodox and mix sacerdotalism in with justification by faith! This gospel falls down heavily on the justification by faith side! [I know my Catholic friends will say ‘hey, chapter 6 says this is my Body!’ I don’t want to re teach it here. Go back and read chapter 6 on this study]. So thank God that he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him would not perish but have Everlasting life!
[The next 2 entries speak on ‘not moving the ancient landmarks that your fathers have set down’. One of the problems with strong ‘back to the bible’ Protestantism is the light regard for the church fathers of the Patristic Period [1st 7 centuries]. So I thought these entries would fit in here!]
(658) OVERVIEW OF AMERICAN CHURCH HISTORY- Let’s do a little overview of my story. When first coming to Texas I had a catholic upbringing but was pretty well ‘lost’. After truly coming to know the Lord I had the privilege of meeting believers from various backgrounds. I knew good Baptists, Assembly of God, Church of Christ and other good Christians. It didn’t take long to see how the more legalistic believers from all the above groups [some more than others] would view the ‘church down the block’ as either a cult or heretical. They would develop these views from sincere differences they saw from scripture over water Baptism, Gifts of the Spirit, Eternal Security and other important doctrines[I had a friend who would point to the statue of Mary in front of a catholic church. It showed other statues of kids kneeling and praying around Mary. He would say ‘Look, Idols worshipping Idols’!] The infighting from some of these brothers was really detrimental to unity in the Church. Many, like myself, would eventually move on in the Christian experience and continue to hold to the historic doctrines of Christianity while rejecting the strong sectarian mindset that can exist in many of these groups. I still see all of the above groups as Christian. I still actually hold to some of the basic tenets of the Baptist church, as well as the assemblies of God. You would even find me agreeing with my Church of Christ brothers on stuff. But for the most part I see many of these differences as divisive. Some ideas are important to discuss, some basic historic truths are worth dieing for! But not necessarily the ones these brothers have argued over. Other believers who have left the more independent churches will eventually become ‘anti Christian faith’ some will view all Christianity from a negative standpoint because of being burned by one of the above expressions of Christianity. As you study Church history along with the Bible you will begin to see the great revolution of the people of God and the reality of Christianity as the major hinge factor in world events for the past 2 thousand years. You can not trivialize the impact that Christianity has had on world affairs. Some recent books written by Atheists have tried to blame Christianity for all the ills of society, while at the same time others atheists will try to say that Jesus and his movement are a farce and have had little impact historically. Hey, you really cant espouse both of these views at once. The simple fact is Christianity has had a major impact on the world. To refute Christopher Hitchens recent book ‘God is not Great’ he tries to prove that Christianity and religion have done no good whatsoever and the world would be a better place without it. He is not honest about the facts. The truth [historically] is that Christianity has been the major force behind the most noble institutions in our country. The hospital system in the United States as well as the University system was founded by the Church. The major scientific thinkers of history have been Christian [or deist]. The majority of the founding fathers of our country were without a doubt Christian. It is common today for our Public schools to focus on Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson or George Washington when teaching on the founding Fathers. And because you will find certain non Christian statements from Franklin, yet he himself still embraced religion. But more from a Deist standpoint [belief in God while not being a Christian]. This small focus on a few of the fathers [there were at least 50 historic figures who would fall under the category of founding Fathers. Some actually started bible societies. Wrote their own version of the Bible and stuff like that] seems to leave the impression that the founding of our country was by men who were ‘fleeing Christianity’. To start a new world free from religious expression. This is in no way true. Most of the early settlers of our country were called ‘Puritans/Pilgrims’. ‘Pure’ from what? From religious expression? They got the name from being ‘Non Conformists’ under Queen Elisabeth’s rule in England. During the reign of Elisabeth England was dealing with the problem of the ‘Non Conformists’. These were the Christians in her realm who were Protestant, and they didn’t feel the ‘Protestantism of England’ went far enough in her reform. The Church of England was ‘too catholic’ for these brothers. So Elisabeth actually persecuted Protestant brothers under her reign, though she herself was considered to be the ‘Protestant Queen’ after her sister Mary, the infamous ‘bloody Mary’ martyred Protestants. You would think the Protestants under Elisabeth were happy, but they weren’t. Eventually Elisabeth would pass a law that told all the Protestant Pastors to keep wearing the catholic Collar on their vestments during ‘church services’. Eventually these ‘non conformists’ would get their name for not wanting to conform to these regulations. So these eventually would flee England. Some to Holland and other areas. Eventually to the Americas. This is the basic moral underpinning of the religious Puritans [pure form of Christianity as they saw it] who founded our country. In this background you will find the idea of ‘Separation of Church and state’ seen. Though our founding documents reference Christ and God many times, yet this phrase comes from a letter during this time. The phrase itself has been used in the hands of strict separatists as meaning something different from the original ideas of the fathers. Our constitution does have what is called ‘the establishment clause’ ‘Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise’ but if you read this in the context of all I just showed you, it is quite easy to see that they didn’t mean society should be free from all religious/Christian expression. But they used this language to protect the church from the intrusion of government interference. These fathers were fleeing England and a Queen who kept telling them to ‘conform to the states standards’. They wanted to make sure no state, not even the new one being founded, would ever tell the church how to run her affairs again. I know the other side [the strict separatists] have a different belief about the founding of the country. But this is simple history, you don’t have the option of changing the facts! This is also why Congress still opens in Prayer. Why the Ten Commandments are still found on the walls of government buildings. Why they still ‘have the gall to have our Senators sworn in on the Bible’! It is quite obvious that the majority of the founding Fathers were not atheists who were founding some new world that would be free from religion! Now, this new religious freedom allowed for the ‘starting of many churches/religions’. You would have the rise of many types of religious movements. The breakaway groups from both the catholic church as well as the protestant church would find new freedom in America. Many of these expressions are the churches that I mentioned at the beginning of this entry! But you would also see the rise of ‘cults’. The first major wave of ‘anti cultism’ seen in this country was the strong resistance in the early 20th century against the metaphysical cults. These are the groups known as ‘unity’ ‘Christian science’ or ‘theosophy’. These groups were seen as THE major threat to Christianity in the first part of the 20th century. You would have scholars from the universities, that were founded by Christians, writing against these movements. Princeton, the university from my home state, was one of the Universities that had these scholars. You would also have a strong anti catholic spirit among some of the writings of these Reformed scholars. These were good men who held faithful to what they still saw [and see!] as the major errors of Catholicism. This backlash and anti catholic spirit was seen in the real fear that Many had when John Kennedy ran for President. Kennedy would have to make it clear that his religion would not interfere with his allegiance to our country. The Pope would have no control over him in matters pertaining to state and government. Some feel this is what was behind his assassination, a strong anti catholic spirit. Of course we know this not to be true, Oliver stone [movie maker] has shown us the truth behind his assassination! [of course I had to put this in!] So this leaves us with a good country, with much religious freedom. This also has lead to the freedom for one type of Christian church to bash another type. Even to view them as heretics! So the Christian church of our country is not forced to ‘love our brother in Christ’ by human law, but I think we could find another law in scripture that supersedes human law! Note- There is a ‘curse’ or judgment that believers bring upon themselves when they view other Christian faiths as in total error or apostasy simply because they are catholic, or traditional. I know and believe there are important differences that still need to be dealt with in love. I believe heresy should be dealt with. But I have seen on too many occasions how Christians ‘use’ their judgment on the traditional church in a way that blinds them to truth. How many times have I tried to show someone that Jesus was not about materialistic living. Though he told his followers he would meet their needs, yet he walked above the pursuits of this life. I would get responses like ‘Oh that’s that old tradition/religious teaching the Catholics teach. Vows of poverty and stuff like that.’ These believers sincerely cant see the major body of truth in scripture dealing with the warnings of money because they grasped an idea that all the Catholics or traditional churches are simply wrong. Proverbs says ‘don’t move the ancient landmarks that your fathers put down’ we need to be careful that our view of ‘those deceived Catholics’ is not a blind spot [or should I say log!] in our own eye! NOTE- If you think about it, the effect of the founding fathers writings, our constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Who would have thought these ‘documents from a revolution’ would have had such a major impact? Even today it is considered ‘heresy’ to question the Constitution. Is it a ‘living document’ that changes and grows with the times? Some conservatives will burn you at the stake for saying this! I believe a reason for the influence of these writings can be attributed to the same ‘idea’ as Paul’s letters. Paul wrote most of the New testament. These letters were not ‘university papers’ that Paul spent hours pouring over in some library. These were ‘documents from a Revolution’. Things written during a time of major world upheaval. The instituting of Gods rule thru this new King called Jesus! Writings produced from a Revolutionary mindset. I think we need to get back to laying everything down for this cause once again. We are living and writing from a ‘safe’ harbor. This explains the tremendous lack of authority in the things we are communicating!
[this is a section from entry 584- very long entry!] This diabolical social experiment that Berg thought would surely justify his sexual indiscretions did not work the way the family thought. While there are obvious problems with ‘organized religion’ we have to make sure we are not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Many of the old churches have carried the true gospel of Christ for centuries before us. Scripture says we ‘shouldn’t remove the ancient landmarks that out fathers have set down’. This speaks of being very careful when we critique older religious churches that have been serving God for centuries. There were many ‘Jesus Freaks’ that left the old time churches of their fathers and have done well, they are still serving God and have never went back to the old church model. Others have gone back and even become ‘part of the old church’. But regardless of where you find yourself today, you must be careful that the things you think are ‘just religion making me feel guilty’ aren’t really things that the bible says are wrong. Many people ‘feel guilty’ because they are guilty! The way to get over the guilt is to receive Gods forgiveness and ask him to help you ‘sin no more’.
(649) Let me pick up a little on the history/purpose of the church and kingdom. As the fledgling movement of Jesus followers were launched out after Pentecost, they went everywhere ‘preaching the word with signs following’. Gods ‘plan of salvation’ if you will included more than simple evangelism. Now, simple evangelism is very important! Some liberal trends of the social gospel of the early 20th century saw the importance of social action and would neglect the need for redemption on an individual basis. As the early church ‘preached the Word’ people in these areas of hearing would believe and thru baptism become outwardly marked as Christ followers. They were literally called followers of ‘the way’. Early believers were not setting up separate Christian social clubs that they called ‘local church’. They were the actual tabernacle that God would dwell in! As Paul will address the letters to ‘the churches’ he was addressing ‘the actual believers’ in these communities, not some separate ‘group’ that were defined by having a Pastor/Priest who was functioning as the ‘under shepherd’ in a way that each city had ‘the church I belong to’. You ‘belonged to’ the believers and the lord Jesus that were present in the community in which you lived. They were all ‘local church’. The Kingdom would be an outward reality of Jesus manifesting his works thru them as his body. The work of evangelism [making new citizens of this Kingdom] and the sending out of these new citizens [ambassadors] would go hand in hand. The church was present in society to impact and affect it for change. Social justice was a major part of the ‘prophetic voice’ of these ‘new people’ who were inhabiting the planet! They weren’t ‘starting churches’ in the sense of setting up ‘lecture halls’ so people could come and ‘do church on Sunday’. As time progressed [lots of time!] Christians in our country would begin seeing the need to ‘preach the gospel of the Kingdom’ and emphasize the importance of the church having a voice in society. You would find a funny dynamic taking place. Many of the strong independent church movements would get a hold of a ‘Kingdom message’ and without realizing it begin imitating both the ecclesiastical structures and programs of the ancient church! In essence many of these Protestants were rejecting the historic expressions of Christianity as seen in the Catholic Church, and then adopting the name ‘Bishop’ and building cathedrals [Atlanta] and begin impacting society in a way that Catholics have been doing for centuries. In essence they were seeing the need for a kingdom message and then mixing it in with their ‘501 c 3 Christian organization’. This would lead to the appeal for money from all the ‘rebellious Christians who are not tithing’ so the ‘church’ could fulfill her mandate to impact society thru ‘the church’. The better perspective [in my view] is to see the great reality of all of Gods people, under the headship of our high priest Jesus, to go forth and be the actual vessels whom God is using to touch the world. The simple strategy of Jesus to empower and entrust the Kingdom message with all who believe. To a degree the Catholic Church had the most influential ‘Kingdom church’ ever! In the sense of ‘institutional church’. After the fall of the Roman Empire [loss of power and influence] the Catholic Church would at one point in history become the sole arbiter in all things pertaining to religion and human govt. The ‘Kings of the earth’ would appeal to her to speak into the ongoing conflicts in the history of man. So in a strange way the 20th century ‘reconstructionists’ [Protestant ideas on the church being very involved in human govt.] were just babies in the sense that our catholic brothers ‘have been there and done that’.
(635) Yesterday morning I got up early and prayed a weekly prayer that includes the nations. Part of this time goes like this ‘Lord I pray for all religions outside of the covenant of your Son. All Jewish people, that they would see Jesus their messiah. All Muslim people, that you would give them signs and prophetic visions and dreams to show them Jesus is the way’. Then this morning I had a dream that family members were converting to Islam. That they were being ‘attacked’ or influenced by the ‘spirit of Islam’. In the dream I felt helpless against this force. We went to sleep [in the dream!] and I awoke [still dreaming this] with a radical spirit of intercession. I began praying and breaking the power of Islam off of the family members that just a few hours earlier seemed to be fully lost to Islam. I felt this dream spoke to the effectiveness we have been having recently with Muslims. These last few weeks have given opportunity to share with a homeless Muslim Iraq war veteran. Good friend. Then a Muslim friend from England started conversing with me and asking how to become Christian. He is reading this site! It never dawned on me that these were fruits from the prayer time! Like I said before, I can be dense at times. Let me cover some church history. I have had someone argue with me about the history of Islam. Not a Muslim, but a Christian who was saying ‘why do you say Islam started in the 7th century, it started around the 11th’. My answer was ‘Muhammad lived in the 7th century’. Not to hard to see this. So I thought I should cover some history. During the time of the rise of Islam, the Christian church was already dividing from east and west. After Constantine [4th century Roman emperor] consolidated the Roman Empire in the 4th century he set up the capital city of the eastern empire, Constantinople [named after him]. As time progressed the western church would take on the form of Roman Catholicism, the eastern [Constantinople area. Modern day Turkey-Istanbul] would be known as ‘Orthodox’. Though the official split of eastern and western [Catholic-Rome!] churches occurred in 1054 AD, yet the division started years before. The official split is called ‘the great schism’ of the 11th century; it would not be until 500 years later that the church would have her ‘reformation’. The official reason for this split was over a rather silly thing. For centuries the Catholic church had an expression that said ‘the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father’ than they included ‘he proceeds from the father and the Son’. Well the eastern brothers didn’t like Rome telling them what to believe and used this as the official reason to ‘have the schism’. To be honest the divisions were coming for years. After the Roman Empire consolidated under Constantine, he tried to strengthen the eastern territories of his empire and for centuries you had the struggle for which region would be the most influential. At first you had 5 major areas that were divided under 5 main Bishops. As time went on the argument would be ‘which bishop has the most say so’ and it was really a power struggle. Finally Rome said ‘the bishop of Rome is the FIRST AMONG EQUALS [a term that many in the Protestant strain of the discipling movement would later embrace] he holds Peters seat’ and this is really where the divisions started. Eventually Muhammad would rise and Islam would take control of the eastern capital. This later became the reason for the crusades. The Catholic church wanted to regain the territories that she lost in the east. The eastern churches are very much Catholic in many ways. They also hold to a view of Christianity that sees man being ‘joined’ with God and becoming pleasing to God thru Christ’s grace uniting with us and making us like him. A perfectly scriptural view, but a different emphasis from the strong intellectual power that you read about from the western fathers of the church. The Catholic church is noted for her social action in ways that the eastern church is not. So both of these communions have good things to bring to the table. The Orthodox [eastern] churches would not be affected by the major social and political upheavals that took place in the west. The Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment had major impacts on western Christianity, while not affecting the eastern church in the same way. During the 13th century you would have ‘pre reformers’ rise up in the western church. John Wycliffe, the great Catholic Priest who was at the center of learning in France would become known for his translating the scriptures into the common language. Then you have John Huss and John Knox [3 Johns, scripture says 3 fold cords are not easily broken!] who would have their own influence in western Christianity. At this time you had whole movements of believers who would be seen as neither ‘western or eastern’ but restorationist [the restoring of the early practices and beliefs of the church] Peter Waldo would be the Father of the Waldensians and in the 12th century you would have the Albigenses in the south of France. These groups would be looked upon as ‘cults’ [though the term was not used yet] by the traditional church. So you can see how the church has been growing and reforming ever since the first century. Even though we see many divisions that exist till this day, there are strides being made for unity. The eastern and western church are very close to‘re uniting’ once again. While I do not personally hold to the doctrine of the Pope being the occupier of Peter’s seat, I also see him as a Christian man who is striving for unity in Christ’s church. Some believe the whole attempt for outward unity is futile. The more ardent Protestants see it as ‘the one world church of the anti christ’ I reject that language out of hand. Well I hope you got something out of this short overview of world history [real short!].
(645) Many years ago I would teach and preach many of the concepts that you read on this blog. At the time I had Pastors who were friends and co laborers in ministry. At times as I would learn and grow in my understanding of church, I would sense a feeling of ‘is John saying I am wrong’! Sort of more of a defensive thing. Older believers would feel like ‘John doesn’t really see the modern office of Pastor as a New testament office’. Today there are many movements and expressions actually operating in many of the ideas that I spoke about. This is not to simply say ‘I told you so’ but to show how we often [we meaning preachers] judge truth from a defensive posture. The same with tithing. Most good men think ‘tithing can’t be wrong, I have done it for years. All the Pastors I know, the great men of the faith teach it, how can it be wrong’! Most men view it from ‘how will this affect the income of the organization [what they see as church]’. All defensive postures. These same men will never question all the well meaning Catholic Priests of the 16th century who were totally uprooted by the truth of the Reformation. The modern Pastor will simply say ‘well, truth is more important than the security of all those Priests and Catholic churches. If the truth of Luther disrupted the whole function and flow of the well meaning churches, then so be it’. Now, I do agree with this to a degree, but then these same brothers will judge the ‘modern reformation of the practices of local church’ from the standpoint of ‘it is disrupting things too much’. They don’t use the same standard that they apply to the Catholic brothers of the 16th century!
(630) JOHN 19 (radio # 602) The reality of redemption! I want to stress the fact that Jesus actually dieing on the Cross and really shedding his Blood for us is what saves us. No spiritualizing here! Over the years I have seen and read how believers in an attempt to ‘see’ the deep truths of God will sometimes fudge on the real Blood of Christ redeeming us. Let’s make it clear, the New Testament teaches that it was the real Blood of Jesus and his death on the Cross that saves man. Now, were there spiritual aspects to it? Sure. But don’t ‘spiritualize’ the death and real shedding of Blood. Like the recent reproof we did on some who taught that Jesus was not the Messiah, so here we warn that his Blood really saves. I remember reading one of the founders of the Word of faith movement, E.W. Kenyon. He would eventually teach that the ‘death of Jesus [physically] didn’t touch the sin issue’ he would then teach that it was the ‘spiritual death’ that saved us. Then teach that Jesus was the ‘first born again man’ who was separated from God and ‘born again’. The New Testament teaches Jesus was ‘the first begotten from the dead’ meaning the first to rise from the dead to never die again. Not the first person to ‘be born again’! Later on you would have another famous Word of Faith brother teach the same thing. I don't know why we have to always ‘see deeper’ than the plain truth? I guess it offends the natural mind to believe that Jesus physical death and separation from the father actually redeems man. I do believe Jesus ‘went to hell’ I don't teach the ‘hell’ being a separate place called ‘paradise’ that was really like heaven. It would seem strange for David in Psalms to say ‘thou wilt not leave my soul in hell [paradise] nor suffer thy Holy one to see corruption’. It just seems to fit as being ‘hell’, not ‘paradise. But I also believe it was the real death of Jesus on the cross that saves us. He really died and really shed his Blood and it was really finished when he said ‘it is finished’. Jesus will also say to John ‘behold your mother’ and tell Mary to go home and live with John after his death. Catholic apologists use this to defend their belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary. They say ‘if Mary had other natural kids, then it would have been offensive in Jewish culture for Mary to not have gone and lived with them’ good point. But heck, I defend our Catholic brothers an awful lot. Let me defend the Protestants a little. It is also possible that Jesus strong teaching on putting the spiritual family before the natural one might have played a role here. This could be the beginnings of the strong family mindset that you will see playing out later in the book of Acts. True believers living and sharing as strong [or even stronger!] than natural families. Also we already taught how Jesus knew that John would outlive the others. Even Jesus brother James, one of the lead apostles at Jerusalem will be martyred. Maybe Jesus knew [maybe!] that committing Mary over to Johns care was a more long term thing than handing her over to his brothers? We also see Nicodemus openly follow Jesus in this chapter. He is the first of the Pharisees to confess Christ openly. Later in the book of Acts we will see ‘Pharisees who believe’ but most times leaders are the last to repent and change positions. Why? Well some of it has to do with the whole persona of leadership. With this calling comes a type of character that says ‘I preached it, any one who disagrees is simply persecution’. While there are times when this is true, there are also times where God calls leadership to new levels. Some get it on it early [Nicodemus] others later! [some never!] Be part of the early group. I forgot to mention we also see the Jews appeal to ‘King Caesar’ as opposed to King Jesus. They will tell Pilate ‘we have no King but Caesar’. They hated Caesar. The whole Jewish nation were treated like 2nd class citizens under Roman rule, sure they benefited from ‘Pax Romana’ [the peace of Rome] but they hated to be living under an occupying govt. Jesus told them earlier in this gospel ‘you refuse my testimony of who I am, yet you will accept the testimony of another’s name’ some feel this is a reference to anti Christ. I think it fits in good right here!
(626) -EMERGENT STUFF. Let me explain ‘Emergent’ a little. Some of you guys have no idea what this is, in a nutshell that’s one of the ‘problems’. Not so much that all Christians need to know about this movement, but the movement has a tendency to be a little ‘ivory tower’ isolationist. A lot of theologizing among intellectuals while by passing the ‘nuts and bolts’ stuff. Grant it, they intend to do this on purpose to some degree, but I think they are getting a little too experimental for me. Now, when I first read on this movement I liked the trend towards simple church, the challenging of the ‘way we do church’. There are a whole bunch of radicals like me who see church as a real lived out thing as opposed to ‘going to the church house’ [UGHH!]. It was this part of ‘being Emergent’ that I liked. As I have read a bunch of stuff these last few months I have come to see the war raging in the blogasphere between the ‘Anti Emergent’ and Pro Emergent groups. As you read all the comments I have made you will see there are obvious times where I had to openly disagree with some of the trends. While I believe homosexuality is a lifestyle that scripture sees as sinful, I also do not believe we should discriminate against gays. I also see the point of being open and discussing the ‘pro gay’ side of whether or not gays should be ordained. I think if you are open and honest about it, you would see that they frankly shouldn’t be serving in positions of leadership in the church. We should recognize and not stigmatize people who struggle with this lifestyle. We should help those who struggle with this lifestyle. Those who have a radical agenda to promote it, well I think Christians should disagree and have the freedom to disagree! But when it comes down to it, there is enough scripture and church tradition [AND!] that should lead us into a view of what’s right or wrong. Some in the emergent debate seem to have all the characteristics of being open and willing to hear both sides, but then seem to never come to any firm conclusions. Hey, ultimately we do need some answers! That's where the other problem comes in. Some feel we really can’t know the answers! This is where you have the Chuck Colsons and others come out openly and fight the movement. I like Chuck, I have disagreed with him in the past. I kinda see Chuck as embracing the ‘pre evangelism’ philosophy that says ‘until you change society’s worldview, you can’t really present the gospel effectively’. Sort of like because we live in a postmodern culture, so we need to do battle on the field of ideas and establish the fact that there is ‘true truth’ [some have flipped over this statement] before we can present truth. I actually disagree with this. I think Paul nailed it down in Galatians [chapter 4?] when he said ‘after the fullness of times was come [what fullness?] God sent forth his Son’ if you read it carefully, you see the ‘fullness of time’ as describing the whole period of Old Testament law. God gave man an ‘age’ where he instituted, in humanity, a basic philosophical underpinning of right and wrong. This was law. Since Jesus [fullness of times] all mankind [postmodern, pre modern and every other group!] have been ‘victims’ to the power of the presentation of the gospel. It truly is the power of God unto salvation. You might think you need to go to great lengths to convince people of right and wrong and ‘true truth’ but according to Paul, the ‘pre evangelism’ stage is over! Now, there is some merit to Apologetics and dealing with stuff like this, but the point is God went out of his way to redeem man, the early church had a simple way to present the gospel in ‘a nutshell’ and we need to see it as the answer to peoples needs. We can’t get lost in thinking we have tons of ‘pre evangelizing’ to do before we present the truth [the real true truth- I hope you guys know I’m kidding a little here!]. So Colson fights the Emergents over knowable truth and to be honest the Emergents seem to be saying at times that you really can’t have the final answer. I commend their willingness to be open and invite everyone to the table of ideas, but ultimately we have to eventually come to conclusions. Like the guy in the movie ‘Office Space’ and his ‘jump to conclusions mat’. The debate on ‘penal substitution’ [whether or not God was punishing his Son in anger and wrath when Jesus died on the Cross]. Over the years while reading church history and theology, I have come to see how smart scholars have proposed different ‘ideas’ on Redemption. If I remember right C.S. Lewis, in his famous ‘Mere Christianity’ mentions the different ideas on this. I thought he said we know that Jesus death redeems us, but how it happens we don’t know. Hitting on this idea of differing views of Redemption. Some scholars say we really have multiple choices on the ‘theory’. I think scripture makes it plain. I think Penal Substitution is the plain answer. Isaiah 53 says ‘it pleased the Lord to bruise him’. Some say ‘this is an outrageous idea, how can God punish an innocent man for others crimes!’ some very influential scholars say this! Well, the answer is in the great mystery of the incarnation. God became man so he as man [Jesus] could bear the sins of man. In a mystery that is impossible to explain ‘God was just, and the justifier of those who believe’ [Romans]. At least Paul saw the ‘philosophical’ answer to how a just God could punish his own Son. I realize some great scholars have espoused different ideas like ‘God ransomed man back, as opposed to being the kidnapper’ and they show the ransom idea as opposed to the penalty idea. I see these as both true, not conflicting theories. God ransomed man back to himself, not from satan who now ‘owned them’ but Jesus death ‘saved man from God!’ [his own just wrath- as R.C. Sproul puts it]. So ransom and penal substitution go hand in hand. I don’t want to go on here, I just wanted to show you how we can be open to hearing all sides, but there are final truths that we need to know. We should help all people, we should not discriminate against gays any more than the good old bubba who cheats on his wife every now and than. They are both sinful! We need to be merciful to all sinners [after all we are very familiar with this camp!] but also tell them the truth in love. Contrary to Colsons ‘pre evangelism’ they are dieing to hear the gospel right now! Note; Let me explain my theory on why we do not need to do ‘pre evangelism’ to the extent that Colon sees it. When people reject truth, even as a whole society. That ‘rejecting’ in and of itself is actually sin. Thomas Aquinas [the great 13th century Doctor Angelicas of the Catholic church] said it was possible for man to come to the truth of God thru the study of the natural sciences, but it would take a very long time and only a few could attain it. Therefore God gave us revealed truth so we can quickly see the truth of God without going to great lengths to find it. If we live in a post modern society that rejects the basic premise of ‘knowable truth’ than we live in a willfully ignorant world, much like the world that Paul wrote about in Romans chapter 2. Willful ignorance of the truth of God is not some modern plight, it was around in 1st century Rome. Most adherents to the Colson doctrine seem to see post moderns willful ignorance as a different kind of willful ignorance. The kind that the simple preaching of the gospel can’t really undo! A sort of special class of rebels! My belief is the power of the gospel [Romans 1!] has the power to ‘undo’ this willful ignorance in a millisecond! Hey, you would be surprised at how powerful the gospel really is. It, my friend, is what I call TRUE TRUTH!
(623)In the last entry we showed how it can be dangerous for independent churches, no matter how big or influential they are, to really get off track doctrinally. In Hagee’s view, he grasps the doctrine that Jesus was not the Messiah to Israel. Others also embrace a dual covenant idea [see note at bottom] they see the scriptures in Romans about a remnant of Jews who are still with God, and see that as saying there are Jewish people who are still in covenant with God outside of the New Covenant [a view by the way that Charles Taze Russell embraced, the founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses]. Most theologians view the remnant as those who have embraced Jesus as Messiah. Like the writer of Romans and all the original Apostles. Even John who would later say ‘he that denies Jesus as Messiah is anti christ’. So the fundamental flaw is this view sees the remnant as being outside of Messiah, while scripture shows them to be in Messiah. Over the years I have seen believers who would start their walk with the Lord and then after a while be introduced to the broader Christian community. Like myself I see all the traditions of Christianity as a real part of this mystical Body of Christ that we call ‘the church’. Some are so excited to find the hidden treasures contained in the study of church history that they eventually become Orthodox or Catholic. They see all the great stuff of the past and join the great traditions. I personally don’t go that far. While I do see merit to this argument, I feel the 1st century church as seen in scripture was a much more organic form than the later development of traditional church. I don’t see the later development as ‘devil worshippers’ as many Protestants do, I see them as true Fathers of the faith with many good things to contribute to the community. I want to espouse the idea that from the development of the Lords supper we can see in microcosm the trend that the Orthodox/Catholic church took as she moved away from Organic church. When Jesus instituted the ordinance of the Eucharist, he told the disciples that from now on when you do this [do what?] that you show his death till he comes. You can almost take it like he was saying ‘as often as you get together [organic community] and eat the fellowship meal, you will be a symbol of the spiritual reality of the truth of all believers feeding and living off of the actual life that is in me’. Not so much a liturgical thing, but more of a spiritual thing. Sort of like saying ‘no more Passover meal, but instead a true sharing of my life as seen in community’. Now, if you read 1st Corinthians 11 you will see this play out. Paul tells the church at Corinth that when they were getting together for these meals [which are actually called ‘love feasts’] that some were eating and getting full and drunk while others were not even getting any food. A far cry from the liturgical thing! This section of scripture also is important to understand the mistaken idea of church at ‘the church building’. Our English bibles say ‘when you come together in the church [ouch!]’ it is easy to read ‘in the church’ as ‘in the building’! Actually ‘in the church’ means in the corporate get together. When believers meet corporately they ‘are the church’. So right off the bat you can go down the later road as seeing the ‘church’ and the ‘Eucharist’ as liturgical, while it is not! As you read the chapter you see Paul saying ‘as you come together [church!] you are disrespecting the great reality of Jesus being the bread and us being the ‘eaters’ or receivers of his life’. He is the bread of life! [John’s gospel]. Now, the reproof is ‘you are disrespecting Christ’s Body [the other believers in the assembly!] by doing what you are doing!’ He reproves them in the context of community. He is not speaking into the later development of liturgical Eucharist! So, as you read the New Testament you see this truth all thru out its pages. Paul referring to all the believers as ‘church’. Never once addressing the ‘Pastor of the church’, but instead all the brothers in the city! He actually tells the church at Corinth ‘you have a brother in open sin, when you all come together [as a communal group] deliver him over to satan for the destruction of the flesh’ he isn’t addressing a Priest or Pastor or Bishop. He is telling ‘the church’ to do this. So as time goes by you have the early development of church and offices and liturgy as a sincere reaction to the fear that the church would apostasize if she didn’t have a strong ‘magisterium’, a teaching authority that could say ‘this is true, this is false’. The well meaning development of strong liturgy was a natural out growth of seeing church this way. At the reformation the Protestant church dealt with important issues, but really didn’t change the way we ‘do church’. The Protestants just replaced ‘the Priest’ with ‘the Pastor’. All good people on both sides, just not what God originally intended. So today you are seeing the idea of church as the strong liturgical communion being challenged by many ‘communal/organic’ ideas of church. A return to the original model [some think ‘model’ is too strong of a word]. But in this whole debate, you also find good men, who have ‘discovered’ the church fathers and all the great wisdom of the Mystics [Christian spirituality] and they cling to liturgy as a welcomed communion as opposed to the truncated independent rebels! These ‘ex Protestants’ are doing a service by re introducing the themes and practices of the early church. But the ‘real early church’ as seen in the New Testament was not liturgical! The above example from the Lords table shows you this. So as we continue to either ‘reform’ or ‘restore’ [those who see a return to the early practices of organic church can be seen as restorationist as opposed to ‘reformists’] we want to embrace and understand the ancient practices of the church, like popular writer Tony Jones speaks about [One of the key leaders in the Emergent church movement] but we also want to use the actual New testament as the most pure form of ‘early church’ [John has clarified his belief on the dual covenant, he has stated that he does not believe in dual covenant. But he seems to have not rejected the idea that Jesus is not the Messiah to Israel- as of 5-08].
This fits in a little with the last one. As I read and study on ‘emergent church’ stuff, I see some good stuff [ortho-praxy; the living out of Orthodoxy] and some bad stuff. I must disagree loudly on some ‘bad stuff’. Classic liberal theology had strains in it that denied the doctrine of ‘Penal Substitution’. The teaching that Jesus was being punished for the sins of the world [or for the really reformed, the ‘world’ of the Elect!]. Some have actually described Penal Substitution as an evil doctrine that a just God would never be a part of. I of course see the doctrine of Penal Substitution as the only hope for mankind! A Christian can’t have a different view on the substitutionary death of Christ [at least in my way of seeing it!]. I know some challenge the way we see things. They feel Evangelicals need to be more open in the discussion. The point is, if you become a ‘flat earther’[ someone who believes the earth is flat] you then don’t say ‘we have different flat earthers, some believe the earth is round’. There are certain basic things that all Christians believe. If you want to have a differing view on Jesus paying for the sins of man on the Cross, you can have that view. But if I really believed the earth was round, why in the world would I want to be accepted by the ‘flat earthers’?
(610) As you can tell by now, I like to jump around a lot! Recently I have been studying various movements in Christianity. To some degree people would define me as ‘Emergent’ that is I challenge the way we practice church. I have been doing this for years. I have also seen some in this movement who challenge the ‘myth of the Cross’ [ouch!] and historic Christianities content. Just thought I would let you know I do not align my self with this part of being ‘Emergent’.
(597) Just outside praying, nice and cold! A few days after Thanksgiving and its nice. Had a thought. We have a tendency to excel in the paradigm that we are given. We have so many talented young men [Pastors] who we graduate from college and put them ‘into the ministry’. They often excel beyond their ‘fore fathers’ in advancing the ministry. Usually they do it in the current ‘framework’ of building centered church. The idea that ‘to excel’ means better ways to do ‘Sunday church’. More innovation, new technology, a ‘jet set’ ideology that goes further and faster than the ‘old time’ guys. All of this is okay to a degree. I think it would be better if we instill the idea of ‘church’ into the next group of leaders as being various communities of people whom you will implant the gospel into and the people themselves become ‘church’. A highly mobile community of people on the move for God. You can have ‘on line campuses’ [which, by the way, I feel are really on the cutting edge of ‘new paradigm’. We often speak in terms of ‘new paradigm/ new wine’ but are really just speaking of doing church in different ways in the same old auditorium mindset!] free flowing ‘open air’ [parks] groups. Meeting in clubs [bars!] on a weekday. Making ‘church’ available in all new types of ways. We can still have the old cathedrals, our eastern orthodox friends, and yes, even a good Old Catholic church! Hey, I like getting in on a Mass every now and then. You would be surprised how ‘prophetic’ the traditional scripture reading can be! My point is we need to ‘re think’ our approach on ‘how to do church’ in this next century [millennia!] Jesus spoke of ‘new wineskins’, as believers we need to ‘divorce’ ourselves from the marriage relationship that we have with ‘going to church on Sunday’. It’s time to expand the paradigm! NOTE; Let me say this. Recently I have had some good conversation [interaction] with a very popular orthodox writer. Most theologians would know his name. I realize that when they first come to our site, we LOOK STRANGE! Many of these guys are very uncomfortable with ‘dreams, visions,…’ and stuff like that. At the risk of offending all my charismatic friends, I confess that out of all the ‘theological communities’ out there, I like Reformed theology the most. I consider myself ‘non denominational’ for the most part, but have found reformed theology the ‘most likeable’ if you will. NOTE; in the ‘Emergent conversation’ I think the danger is in ‘the conversation’. We have a tendency to ‘talk things to death’. I too am guilty of this. The hardest thing for believers is to transition into ‘the doing’ aspect. There is a ton of good teaching out there right now on the church transitioning into this new paradigm, but I feel there really aren’t enough ‘doers’. Jesus said ‘look on the fields, they are ready to harvest. But there aren’t enough doers’. I don’t want to sound self righteous, I too am guilty! I just thought I would throw this in.
(598) I am going a little ‘theological’ today! In the ‘Emergent conversation’, as well as just ‘the conversation’ there are questions about the Kingdom versus the ‘Church’. When Jesus sent the disciples out he told them to cast out devils [demons] heal the sick and proclaim ‘the Kingdom of God has been here’. I see the Kingdom being expressed and manifested wherever Christ’s ambassadors are journeying at the time. In these areas where the gospel would spread certain groups of people would ‘submit’ to the message of the King. The outward sign of this submission was baptism. Those in the surrounding areas knew who these subjects of the Kingdom were, they were ‘branded’ if you will, with the ‘mark of the Kingdom’. Now, these cities [Ephesus, Corinth, Galatia { a group of cities}] would become ‘out posts’ of the Kingdom on earth. The ‘church’ [Ecclesia] in these areas were actual territories of people in whom the King would dwell and have expression thru. From these ‘local churches’ [groups of believers residing locally! Get the idea of a 501 c 3 organization out of your head!] Others would eventually go out and establish ‘new outposts’ thru the proclaiming of this good news [of the Kings reign!]. This organic thing we call ‘Ecclesia’ was the natural outgrowth of the Kingdom in the earth. The scholar N.T. Wright says the Kingdom message was really a proclamation of the Kings reign thru the lips of the Apostles. In essence they weren’t just preaching ‘get saved and join a ‘local church’ but were saying ‘the Kingdom has been inaugurated, submit to the King while you still have time!’ I like this! So today you have ‘regions/groups’ of people on planet earth who are ‘citizens’ of this heavenly Kingdom. The fact that the Spirit of God has taken up residence permanently in these groups of believers shows the ‘long term’ thinking of the Father when he started this thing! There most certainly will be a future aspect of this Kings great entry back into the planet, at that time all will see the outward reality of the fact that the King has been alive and well for a few thousand years [or more, depending on when he returns]. But make no mistake about it, the Kingdom of God has been invading this planet ever since the King took his seat of authority and vested the church with this authority by the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost. Be assured that ‘the Kingdom of God has come among you’.
(599) Let me talk some on why I align myself with reformed thinking. After I first ‘got saved’ I became a student of scripture. Within a short time I read the New Testament. I simply saw the passages dealing with Predestination as meaning ‘Predestination’ in the classical sense [Augustine, Luther, Calvin, etc...] .I was then taught that this belief was heresy! So I rejected it. The Baptist Pastor who said that this was ‘hyper Calvinism’ meant well. I would eventually see that believing in Predestination was not heresy. Many of the churches greatest theologians have believed in it. Many groups of Christians have embraced it thru out the ages. I most certainly am one! Now, I am very familiar with the arguments for and against this doctrine. Paul knew about the arguments against it. He actually takes the ‘Augustinian’ view in his defense of this doctrine in Romans [I know Augustine got it from Paul!] the simple fact that Paul, in his defense of this teaching, would actually not defend it from an Arminian view, but from a Calvinistic one, show’s you that he believed it! This really doesn’t take a genius to see [though it takes some basic level of thinking!] So any way I thought I would throw this out there being I have already come out of the closet as being Reformed. To be honest the passages that lead me to this belief, before I was even aware of any historical anything, were the verses in Ephesians from my old King James bible. They make it very clear that Predestination not only speaks of being Predestined to conformity into Christ’s image [which Arminians bring out] but that Predestination most definitely speaks of a chosen group of people [the elect] as being predestined before birth unto the adoption of Sons. I always found it strange why Arminians, who are most certainly good brothers, would use the argument that Predestination refers only to those who accept Jesus and are ‘predestined’ to become like him. It takes only a surface, one time reading to see that Predestination speaks of this as well as what I just showed you. Many modern defenses of Arminianism [or semi Pelagianism- wow I really let the cat out of the bag now!] seem to overlook this simple fact. I can’t explain all the ramifications of this, neither could Paul! And the fact that he even said he couldn’t, proves it to be a biblical doctrine! [I blame any recent correspondence with Scot McKnight for this entry!]
(600) I do not feel like writing today. I want to be very honest with you guys. To have a history like I have had, struggling with things thru out my life. It might sound like a good testimony, but make no mistake about it, to have made bad decisions thru out my life has played a toll on me. Don’t think you can dabble in rebellion with out it affecting you! Now, why am I here right now? This last week I took a break from getting with my homeless friends, it was thanksgiving week and I spent time updating this blog. I wound up interacting with a very famous Orthodox scholar. I ‘accidentally’ went to his sight ‘Jesus Creed blog’ [great site, go check it out!] and meant to give my blog to him, I sent it on a comment section and realized it posted to all his readers. I didn’t mean to do this! After an hour or so they took it off the blog. I don’t blame them! We are a little radical for a bunch of orthodox brothers! But I guess the Lord wanted it. Let’s talk a little about the communion of the saints. I feel that protestant/independent Christians make a grave mistake when they view the older church traditions as ‘those deceived traditionalists’. Our brothers and sisters who are either Orthodox or Catholic are truly believers. They have come to the table with things to contribute. We often view them in a wrong light. It is common to hear ‘they practice infant baptism’ or ‘iconography’ [inclusion of art in worship] and to think ‘wow, what a bunch of idol worshippers’. Not realizing that they have come to these beliefs with much thought. Now do I agree? No. But I see how they have come to this belief. Infant baptism [pedo baptism] for the most part was seen as the New Covenant sign of dedicating children to Christ. Sort of like the rite of circumcision in the Old covenant. Those who were circumcised as infants were certainly not aware of what was going on, but God initiated it as a rite to introduce infants into his covenant. So certain new covenant believers saw infant baptism in this same way. Does the New Testament teach this? Probably not, but the Jailer in acts 16 got baptized ‘with his whole house’. Were there younger family members in this? Possibly. Did they all know the doctrines of Christian faith before their baptism? I doubt it. So the possibility of younger family members being baptized can be argued from scripture. Do I believe in infant baptism? No. But I can see how other Christians can believe it. So we shouldn’t just assume that our Orthodox/Catholic brothers are all deceived! It works like this with a lot of stuff. The historic church is really the ‘Father’ [or mother] to a lot of us today. Where did we get our bible from? Whether you like it or not, the Canon developed out of the ancient church. The reformed brothers say ‘we have a fallible collection of infallible books’ the Catholics say ‘we have an infallible collection of infallible books’ hate to say it, but the Catholics are right! Do I believe in the Apocrypha? No. But the truth is God most certainly used the historic church to give us the bible. Protestants who say ‘the bible was simply in existence and the church recognized it’ don’t understand history! God most definitely used the church, thru divine guidance, to give us his word. You can’t get around it. To think that ‘a bible’ was circulating in the first few centuries, like we have today, is simply historically inaccurate. God used his people to get the Canon together and deliver it to the rest of the church, no bones about it! The church is the pillar and ground of the truth, Paul did say this in the New Testament. So today, we have a beautiful people of God, made up of all types [denominations] of believers. We should strive for the unity of the church as Jesus taught us in John 17. We should avoid the mindset that simply looks at all of our brothers and sisters as being lost or deceived. Do we have differences? Yes. Are there important differences that have meaning. Yes. The Protestant reformation didn’t happen in a vacuum, God had real truth that he wanted to bring forth at that time. He brought it forth. As the church progresses in to this next millennia we need to honestly evaluate where we are at, and also see where our brothers and sisters stand. I am not one of those who think returning to orthodoxy [Frankie Schaffer] or Catholicism [Newman – or more recently Frances Beckwith] is a viable alternative, but we need to at least see them as viable Christian communions. Let’s not approach it like George from the Seinfeld episode. He was going to convert to Greek Orthodoxy so he could date some girl. So he goes down to the Greek Orthodox Church and meets with these 2 Priests. As they are testing him for his conversion, they ask him ‘why do you want to be Orthodox’? He answers ‘I like the hats’ to the dismay of these 2 Fathers who are wearing these pontifical looking hats! NOTE; The justification for the use of Art in worship comes from the fact that God himself allowed the use of actual images in worship right after he gave the restrictions on graven images in the 10 commandments. He gave Moses instruction on making images of Angels that would be over the Mercy seat in the Holiest place in the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle was the central piece of furniture for worship in the Old Testament story. Also God will instruct Moses to make a Brass serpent and put it on a pole and have the people ‘look at it as an image of Christ’! Jesus of course uses this story In John 3 with Nicodemus. So in both of these cases images were used with Gods permission [Explicit permission!]
(598)I am going a little ‘theological’ today! In the ‘Emergent conversation’, as well as just ‘the conversation’ there are questions about the Kingdom versus the ‘Church’. When Jesus sent the disciples out he told them to cast out devils [demons] heal the sick and proclaim ‘the Kingdom of God has been here’. I see the Kingdom being expressed and manifested wherever Christ’s ambassadors are journeying at the time. In these areas where the gospel would spread certain groups of people would ‘submit’ to the message of the King. The outward sign of this submission was baptism. Those in the surrounding areas knew who these subjects of the Kingdom were, they were ‘branded’ if you will, with the ‘mark of the Kingdom’. Now, these cities [Ephesus, Corinth, Galatia { a group of cities}] would become ‘out posts’ of the Kingdom on earth. The ‘church’ [Ecclesia] in these areas were actual territories of people in whom the King would dwell and have expression thru. From these ‘local churches’ [groups of believers residing locally! Get the idea of a 501 c 3 organization out of your head!] Others would eventually go out and establish ‘new outposts’ thru the proclaiming of this good news [of the Kings reign!]. This organic thing we call ‘Ecclesia’ was the natural outgrowth of the Kingdom in the earth. The scholar N.T. Wright says the Kingdom message was really a proclamation of the Kings reign thru the lips of the Apostles. In essence they weren’t just preaching ‘get saved and join a ‘local church’ but were saying ‘the Kingdom has been inaugurated, submit to the King while you still have time!’ I like this! So today you have ‘regions/groups’ of people on planet earth who are ‘citizens’ of this heavenly Kingdom. The fact that the Spirit of God has taken up residence permanently in these groups of believers shows the ‘long term’ thinking of the Father when he started this thing! There most certainly will be a future aspect of this Kings great entry back into the planet, at that time all will see the outward reality of the fact that the King has been alive and well for a few thousand years [or more, depending on when he returns]. But make no mistake about it, the Kingdom of God has been invading this planet ever since the King took his seat of authority and vested the church with this authority by the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost. Be assured that ‘the Kingdom of God has come among you’.
(601) These last few years reformed theology has made a strong resurgence back into the Church. A few years back, the President of the Southern Baptist convention, Al Mohler, was a noted Calvinist. Mike Piper, a very popular Baptist preacher is also having great influence with many up and coming Evangelicals. I feel some of this is due to the fact that younger believers are really hungry for good theology. They are getting tired of all the motivational stuff. Also, like in my own case, if you see these things in scripture you tend to be drawn towards those who see it like you. It is all too common in the American Church to outright reject the true godly heritage of many of our Calvinistic brothers. Men like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield and others who were plainly Calvinistic in doctrine. When a younger believer is taught that they weren’t [like I was taught] it is a great revelation to find out that other great thinkers saw the same as you. I remember when I first read in one of the ancient councils of the church [council of Orange?] I read how many of my own conclusions were the same as brothers who lived centuries before. Or when I first studied the Puritans and realized how many of them were Calvinists. To underestimate the influential people who have held to this doctrine thru out the centuries is really miss guided. Now for sure there are some problems when man tries to logically explain the issues involving Predestination. And I feel that many of these explanations have done harm to the truth of this doctrine. I can’t see how telling people that Jesus didn’t die for them [limited atonement] squares with scripture. Some call this ‘4 point Calvinism’ as opposed to ‘5 Point’. My POINT is we do get into trouble when we try to figure out all the logical conclusions. Some times logic doesn’t work! [Sproul would be mad at me for this one]. So in all our teaching, especially when bringing young believers along, don’t hide the historical fact that Calvinism played a big role in our heritage. It does a disservice to Christian education to tell people ‘Edwards wasn’t a Calvinist’ or for that matter ‘that Finney was’. We need to simply tell the truth about the historic record. Some great men were, some weren’t, no big deal. When you lay out the facts people can come to their own views. When you hide the facts you do a disservice to the work of the Spirit in education.
(389) Let me jump back to a small group of our readers who are from the ‘fundamentalist’ background. A lot of the issues on the Rapture and end times and ‘getting saved for real’ that I deal with is helpful to this part of our ‘on line’ community. One of the other areas that I saw when I was attending a fundamental Baptist Church was the inability to see or accept the fact that some of the ‘heroes’ of the faith were not like them. Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield and other great revival leaders who were part of the historical great awakenings of this country were presented in ways that were intellectually dishonest. The Pastors didn’t mean to be ‘dishonest’ it was simply a result of the sectarian mindset that works within this group. The church I attended described classic Calvinism as ‘hyper Calvinism’. The above preachers all believed in classic Calvinism. They honestly held to the historic doctrine of predestination as taught by the Apostle Paul. Now the groups who do not hold to ‘predestination’ in the classic way are called ‘Arminians’. Most of the Evangelical church in America fall into this group. The point is when the ‘fundamental Baptists’ spoke on these historical preachers they taught that they were all like them. They would say ‘some are trying to teach that Edwards was a hyper Calvinist, we no better than to believe this’. The fact is Edwards was actually a ‘hyper Calvinist’. The point I am making isn’t to debate the different positions of the fathers of the faith. Whatever side you fall on is up to you. But no matter how you believe, this doesn’t give you the right to distort or misrepresent history. To some of the brothers the simple reality that there were great heroes of the faith who actually believed in ‘hyper Calvinism’ was too much for them to handle. This grows out of being insecure and sectarian in your faith. In order for believers to be able to embrace the other parts of the church that they are unfamiliar with, there needs to be a basic security of accepting the fact that others are not like you. You can still teach about them and the historic movements that they were a part of, but to deny the reality of what they taught and believed does a disservice to true Christian learning.
(602) Let’s delve into some stuff. In the discussion with my Orthodox friends, there are real differences. But in order to dialogue, Evangelicals need to see beyond their own mindset. While many Evangelicals today would reject ‘Sacerdotalism’ [sacramental salvation, a view of Sotereiology that incorporates the sacraments into salvation] many are also unaware that this belief existed in the minds of the great reformers. Especially Luther’s view on the Eucharist, as well as infant baptism and the remission of original sin! I found it funny how the Baptists, in an effort to be strong on Justification by faith, would kind of find ways to explain away the verses that seem to teach that water baptism has some role in salvation. Acts2:38 ‘repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins’ [I think it’s there, I am too busy to even check it out!] The Baptists would do cartwheels trying to get around this. I have a way to explain it, if I have time I will! The point is there wasn’t a totally honest approach to some of these verses. Peter again will say ‘the like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a pure heart towards God’ [somewhere in Peter. I like the way the writer of Hebrews does this ‘somewhere it is said’. He also didn’t look up the verses!] The Baptists would also explain these texts in ways that seemed to get around the text. ‘Well, we know water cant wash away sins’ Peter knew it too! He actually states it in this verse. This fact doesn’t answer the seeming ‘sacerdotal’ meaning of the verse. I even found it funny that the Baptists would quote Paul during water baptisms ‘buried with him in baptism, raised to walk in newness of life’ and not even see that applying this ‘baptism’ verse to water baptism is in itself sacerdotal! I believe the baptism spoken of by Paul in Romans is primarily the baptism of the Spirit placing us into the Body of Christ. Paul’s primary revelation was deeper than Peters. Peter will even say in his epistle that some things from Paul were hard to understand. There seemed to be a growing reality amongst the apostolic leadership of the first century that Paul was ‘seeing’ at a higher level. Some have developed this a little too much. Marcion would eventually develop a cannon based solely on Paul’s writings. The Protestant church has leaned heavily on Paul, while the Catholics on Peter. I see a prophetic significance to this. Now, I believe most of the baptism verses from Peter are dealing with water baptism, most of Paul’s with Spirit. I do not explain away, or spiritualize the water verses and say ‘it’s talking Spirit’. The main verse from Peter [acts 2:38] can be said to be speaking of an aspect of ‘salvation’ that deals more with ‘remission’ than ‘forgiveness’. The Greek word can mean both, but it is a little more than just basic forgiveness. My King James, which I quoted, says ‘remission’, newer ‘models’ say ‘forgiveness’. Don’t mean to split hairs, but there’s a reason for my madness! I feel it is perfectly in keeping with Paul’s theology to see Peter as saying ‘all who have just heard this gospel, if you get baptized, you will ‘sin less’. In essence ‘sins [actually doing them] will be removed. You will live better’. Now, I don’t want to be guilty of ‘explaining it away’ either. I believe it’s possible for Peter to be looking at a different timeline, a more surface understanding of ‘remission’ than Paul. Paul seems to see things from a longer trajectory both past and future. Paul is seeing the work of the Spirit baptizing before the actual ‘work of the water’ baptizing. How can Peter say ‘those who get baptized in water will have sins remitted’? Well he is seeing things a little later on the timeline. Possibly a few seconds later, but later. Peter didn’t know all the ramifications of legal justification like Paul. He did know that Jesus told him to go and baptize. He knew that those who believed and got baptized would ‘sin less’ [remission]. No need to twist all of Peter’s baptism verses into Paul’s way of seeing it. Paul was focused more on deeper stuff in salvation. Another difficulty with believers seeing this is a limited view of soteriology [doctrine of salvation]. Salvation in the New Testament is a much more fluid concept than we grasp today. Evangelicals have a tendency to see it solely on terms of the initial act of conversion, while the New Testament is much broader. The Catholic Church sees the communal aspect of Gods grace being present in society to ‘infuse’ grace, thru the sacraments, into society at large, and thru this making salvation a reality to all people. They see the church herself as a divine sacrament in the earth. Now, I don’t think Protestant’s are as far away from Catholic/Orthodox Christians if we can see some of this stuff. For a Baptist minister to tell a new convert ‘you are now justified, but you need to be baptized so you don’t ‘backslide’ [sin less] and for Peter to say ‘get baptized so you can get sins remitted [sin less]’ might not be as much of an obstacle as we have made it! NOTE; Some of the explanations of Acts 2:38 [wow, as much as I am quoting this, you would think I would go make sure I am quoting it right!] said Peter was saying ‘be baptized for [because of] the remission of sins’ that Peter was saying ‘because you have just accepted the Lord [at some hidden altar call!] now get baptized’. Or later in Acts ‘rise up and be baptized, washing away your sins’ speaking of Paul’s conversion. I think the best way to see it is like the way I just showed you. It seems obvious that early Christians saw a connection with water baptism and ‘washing away, remitting of sins’ but many believers try to interpret everything from the current context and damage scripture while doing it. These verses can all actually be saying ‘wash away, remit sin’ without referring to the act of legal justification that is the foundation of Paul’s teaching. Paul says ‘I thank God I baptized only a few of you guys [Corinthians] Christ sent me not to baptize, but preach the gospel.’ Paul has a deeper thing going on. Some dispensationalists try to ‘explain away’ the Peter verse by saying ‘Jews need it, Gentiles don’t’ and then go into the dispensation of works and explain that the ‘work’ of water baptism saves under the law dispensation that was existing for Israel and will ‘pick up again’ at the beginning of the tribulation. I see this also as silly. The first century church [and Judaism] connected ‘ceremonial/sacred’ cleansing in some way with their faith. In the gospel it says some disciples had a question over cleansing, speaking of baptism. John the Baptist ‘baptized for the remission of sins’ now, I can show you the whole thing on ‘Johns baptism’ versus ‘Christian baptism’ but that would be doing too much! Later on in church history you will see how many restorationist movements [church of Christ, Christian church] also saw water baptism as a restoration of truth and incorporated it into their understanding of salvation. The Baptist brothers would at times view them as a cult over this! Besides the Pentecostals down the road who were going to hell because they spoke in tongues [or didn’t believe in eternal security!]. I believe all of these brothers are Christians, hey they believe in Christ! I guess that would make me a liberal ecumenical heretic that believes in the one world church? [I felt like saying ‘if that’s true than I will at least be with all these brothers in hell’! But Christians get too uptight when you kid like this]. I believe the answer is in coming to the table with grace and humility. Don’t look for reasons to exclude people, but to include them. God’s revelation of himself tends to lean towards inclusion, not exclusion! Peter learned this lesson in Acts 10. NOTE; just to make sure you understand me, I believe a person is born again at the moment of belief. Prior to anything else. Even the ‘sinners prayer’. If I had the time I would show you how Romans 10 is not saying a person is saved [justified] when he asks Jesus into his heart. To see the word ‘saved’ as justification by faith would contradict the verse. The verse says ‘with the heart man believes unto righteousness [justification by faith] and with the mouth confesses unto salvation’ once again Paul’s point is if scripture says ‘whoever calls on the lord will be saved’ shows God is not partial. He ‘saves/delivers’ all who call, not just some. But in this argument he says ‘how can they call [pray] unless they already believe’? He just said all who believed were already ‘saved’ in the justification ‘sense’. So once again the fluid concept of Salvation is not seen because every time we see ‘saved’ we think of the initial act! So any way I guess I just explained it. So to me, the moment you believe you are born of God. God himself divinely deposits the ‘gift of faith’ into you, you don’t ‘choose to get saved’. He births you into his family and you are raised from the dead spiritually at that instant. Baptism in water is the outward sign, that also ‘remits’ sin in the same way you would tell any convert ‘obey God and you will grow in sanctification’. I know it’s a little stronger than this, but hey, that’s the best I can do. NOTE; by the way, seeing the word ‘saved’ in this more fluid context helps with all the other difficult passages. James ‘see how a man is saved by his works and not faith only’. I wont explain it now, I will try and just ‘cut and paste’ that entry [the one where I explained this] along with this entry, and put them under the section ‘REFORMED STUFF’ on this blog!
(257) Lets go back to an original thought. I want to throw this out to our intellectual readers. The whole idea that Paul wrote Hebrews, and specifically chapter 11 as a way to bring the truth of Justification by faith to the Jewish church is what I want to propose. If you read Romans and Galatians you see Paul’s entire argument for justification by faith as seen in the Genesis 12, 15 story of Abraham. When James teaches Abraham in the book of James, he is primarily seeing the view from the story of Abraham offering Isaac on the altar [Gen 22?] James is seeing ‘actual, experiential justification’ Paul is seeing ‘judicial, declarative justification’. Paul says ‘God declares you righteous at the moment of faith, before you ever see it actually working out in the life of the person.’ James doesn’t contradict this, but James says ‘look at Abraham, when God declared him righteous [Gen 15] he eventually became what God declared! [Gen 22. Actually doing right things, offering up his son]. Now where most Christians [including theologians] miss it is when they try to bring these 2 truths together. They usually say ‘what James is saying is active faith saves you, not works’. If you read James carefully he is not saying that! He actually says ‘see how a man is saved by works, not only faith’. I believe the truth is James is seeing God declaring a person righteous when he actually does a righteous thing. Now this can get hard, but in Paul’s view Abraham became justified in Gen 15, true. And in James view when Abraham actually did the work of obedience, God also said ‘well done, you did good!’ In essence God has the sovereignty to declare you ‘right’ whenever he wants. Now we know the only reason a person can ever get to the point of ‘doing right’ is because he already passed the point of ‘being declared right’ [Gen:15 versus Gen:22]. It’s just that the Jewish church was emphasizing the ‘actually righteous’ part, where as the gentile churches were focusing on the ‘believing and being justified’ part. No contradiction, just seeing at a different timeline. This is also one of the main areas of division between the Protestants and Catholics. Luther was seeing the Gentile view [Romans/Galatians] the Catholics were seeing the ‘actual’ view [James]. The Catholics actually called Luther’s [and Paul’s!] view ‘a legal fiction’ they said Luther taught a man can be legally Justified without ever showing it. Luther really didn’t teach that, but he did say once God justifies you, it’s not up to your works to save you. Many don’t realize that Luther also strongly believed in predestination. All the major reformers did as well! Now you read Hebrews 11 with this in mind. All thru the chapter Paul is saying ‘look, all these heroes of faith acted by faith. They actually did works of righteousness by faith. They ALL obtained a GOOD REPORT [declared right!] by faith’. Read this chapter with this in mind and you will now see the whole point of the chapter. It’s Paul’s treatise of ‘justification by faith’ written anonymously to the Jewish nation. Here my friends is the solution to the problem. This view bridges for the first time [I believe] the whole problem of the book of James and the epistles of Paul. It also helps bridge one of the major divisions in the church today. Take this and run with it! NOTE; Luther called the book of James ‘a straw letter’ and at one point thought it should not have been added to the canon, though later he did include it in his bible versions! Also Paul includes Rahab the harlot as someone that was justified by faith, showing it didn’t matter how many sins you have committed in the past, if you believe you too will be justified.
CHAPTER 11: [took this chapter from the Hebrews commentary, thought it would help]
‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, FOR BY IT THE ELDERS OBATINED A GOOD REPORT [JUSTIFIED]’ This is the key verse to the chapter. Paul will go on to prove that all the Old Testament figures that ‘pleased God’ did it by faith, and not by works! ‘Through faith WE UNDERSTAND that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear’ Faith is not ‘blind’. It informs and gives understanding. This understanding is real! Let me show you what I mean. All of the universe and creation had a beginning point. Science did not always know or believe this. Today science teaches this. It is called ‘the point of singularity/density’. Science has traced back the origins of all things and has found scientific evidence to prove that all things had a ‘beginning point’. Now if you were to ask science ‘what did you have right before the beginning point’? They are stumped. Some of course believe in God and will boldly proclaim him at this point. To the others they can not answer this question. Why? Because they realize, thru science, that matter is not infinite.
Some have theorized that either all things always existed [which science has now disproved] or that at one point nothing existed [which science also teaches that if this were true then you would have nothing today. You can not get something from nothing!] So all true science has gone back to this ‘point of singularity’ and can not see what is right before ‘the point’. The Christian ‘sees’ God at this point! He ‘understands’ that by necessity there has to have been something that existed before creation, science teaches this. This something can not have been created also, because then where did the ‘being’ who created ‘it’ come from? So science teaches us that whoever got the ball rolling [Saint Thomas Aquinas calls this the ‘prime mover’] had to have been preexistent/ self existent in order to have done it. And we know that creation couldn’t have done it by itself, so therefore all reasoning and understanding leave us at the philosophical point of ‘there had to have been something/someone who existed forever in order for anything to be today’. So now you see how ‘by faith we understand that all things that now exist were brought into existence by someone who we can not see’. FAITH UNDERSTANDS!
As we go thru the rest of this chapter I want you to focus in on all the references of justification by faith. You will be surprised [I think?] on how many examples Paul gives to Israel from their own history [his too!] on God justifying people by faith. I will also try and show you [if I remember] how this chapter links the division between Paul’s epistles to the gentiles [Romans, Galatians] with James letter to the Jews. James was one of the lead Apostles at Jerusalem [Acts 15] and the Judiasers who were always accusing Paul of preaching grace in a way that justified sin, they came out of Jerusalem. James and Paul were rivals in a sense. James had the difficult job of overseeing the Church at Jerusalem, who had all the Pharisees who believed, while Paul was preaching this radical message of grace. This is why James’s letter [book of James] focused so much on faith and works. James was seeing the Genesis 22 account of Abraham’s justification when he offered Isaac on the altar. James will say ‘see how Abraham was justified by his works’. While in Paul’s letters he focuses on the Genesis 15 account of Abraham believing God and being made righteous. James was not contradicting Paul; he was showing the actual outcome of the life of a person who was previously justified by faith. James was saying ‘When God made Abraham righteous [Gen 15] he later actually became what God made him!’ [Gen. 22].
Now when Abraham would later do righteous things, he only did them because he previously had faith in Gods promise. But the fact still remains that when Abraham did a righteous act, God still justified him [in a sense, God has the prerogative to say ‘good job son, I am pleased with you’ so this can be described as an act/function of justification]. Well, now that I already showed you all this, I guess I wont have to remember telling it to you later. The point is in this chapter Paul will go down and show all these examples of Jewish leaders acting by faith and doing righteous deeds. This sort of bridges the gap between the strong emphasis on faith in Paul’s letters, with the strong emphasis on works in James letter. Paul is telling Israel ‘yes, all the old saints did do good works that pleased God, but they did them by faith!’ ‘Faith without works is dead’ [James]. So in a sense this single chapter bridges one of the key divisions in the early church between Jerusalem and Antioch [Acts 13 and 15]. Note; I believe all the chapter references above are correct, I write all this from memory so you might want to go back and double check the references. I know all the stories are right.
‘By FAITH Able offered …by which he obtained witness that he was RIGHTEOUS…by FAITH Enoch was translated…he had this testimony that he PLEASED GOD…without FAITH it is impossible to PLEASE HIM [all these ‘please him’ references are like saying ‘being justified’ when a person is justified by God, God sees him as acceptable, pleasing. ‘Thou art my beloved son in whom I am well PLEASED’ God to Jesus!] By faith Noah… prepared an ark to the SAVING of his house…and became heir to the RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH IS BY FAITH [wow, he makes this one real plain] By faith Abraham…went out into a strange land…and sojourned’ interesting, both the aspect of ‘going out to a new land’ and ‘staying in it when you get there’ are both functions of faith. Let me throw in some practical stuff here. Over the years of ‘doing ministry’ I have seen and been a partaker of both of these experiences. Sometimes it takes an act of faith to uproot us from familiar territory and move on to the next level. And do you know what can happen next? The enemy will try to intimidate you once you get in the land of promise, and tell you ‘you cant stay here, look at all the people who hate you. Look at all the mistakes you made’ and it often takes an act of faith to STAY IN THE LAND. Don’t leave the land of your destiny; all true leaders will go thru both of these dealings.
‘For he looked for a city which hath foundations [Jesus is the foundation of this city!] whose builder and maker is God’ All of these great heroes of the faith were looking forward towards a future promise of being in Gods true church, the ‘City of God’ the Bride, the Lambs wife. Paul shows Israel that this 1st century appearing of Messiah was for the purpose of Israel coming into the ‘new land’ the Body of Christ. It is important to see this. There are many preachers today who are treating natural Israel as in if everything is just fine. It isn’t! They need Christ as much as the Muslim does. God was telling Israel ‘come into this new city’ [New Jerusalem versus Old Jerusalem] he wasn’t appealing for them to stay in ‘old Jerusalem’ and be a ‘completed Jew’. [I know this sounds harsh, but I want to emphasize to all my evangelical friends that Jews need Jesus, they play a special role in Gods plan, but ultimately they need Christ!]
‘Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed’ it takes faith to produce spiritual offspring! It might look impossible, but with God all things are possible. ‘Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky and the sand by the shore’ sometimes God will allow you to bring forth one ‘seed’ [person or act of ministry] and you will be surprised how much fruit can come forth from this singular effort. This is why it’s so important to simply hear and obey God. Often times in ministry we do tons of ‘leg work’ which is OK. But when God gives you an idea or mode of function that you weren’t even thinking of, go with it. These are usually the ‘little seeds’ that produce the great harvest! ‘THESE ALL DIED IN FAITH, NOT HAVING RECEIVED THE PROMISES’ I want to emphasize here that it is possible to live your whole life in faith without actually seeing the fulfillment of all that God has told you.
Now faith does obtain promises [verse 33] but sometimes we also see things many years down the road and we must realize that the measurement of faith is not whether or not you are currently getting the actual promise. In the above [and below] verse’s we see Abraham and Sara being told that their offspring would number in the millions. They believed these promises, but it is obvious that they didn’t live to see it fulfilled, but they sure knew that after they were gone it would come to pass. So I want to exhort you to believe to see certain things fulfilled in your life time, but have some greater goals that you initiate while here on earth, knowing that after you depart they will be fulfilled. ‘And truly if they had been MINDFUL of the country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned’ what is Paul saying here? The greatest threat to the gospel taking root in the Hebrew community was the desire to go back to old law and culture. How many believers ‘revert’ back to an older form of church simply because they missed the old culture and ‘feelings’ that they had when they were younger? Many of the Jews would not go all the way with the gospel because they were ‘mindful’ of the good old days of law and sacrifice.
I just watched a show the other day that told how even some gentile believers began celebrating certain feasts of Israel with their Jewish neighbors. While it is good to understand and see the significance of the feasts, yet we know Paul wrote the early believers and said ‘you observe days and times and feasts, and I am concerned about it’. So when we [or 1st century Israel] are ‘mindful’ of the ‘good old days’ then there is always a danger of going back! ‘By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac…of whom it was said in Isaac shall thy seed be called. Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure’ Abraham exhibited characteristics of the Father [God] as well as Isaac being a type of the Son [Jesus]. It’s interesting that these verses show that Abraham knew for a fact that God was going to give Isaac millions of children, Abraham also knew the voice of God so well that when he ‘thought’ he heard God say ‘offer up this boy’ that in the mind of Abraham, the only way these 2 things could be reconciled, is he came to the conclusion ‘I guess God will have to raise him up, being he has told me this boy will have millions of children, plus he is telling me to kill him’. Most of us would not have come to this conclusion! We would have doubted either the original promise, or said ‘surely this can’t be God telling me to offer Isaac’ [most likely we would have doubted the latter!].
There is a real important reason for Abraham to have been a real man of faith. God wanted this ‘picture’ of the offering up of Isaac for a type of the Cross and Resurrection. The only way he could have shown this example was to have had someone so radically filled with faith, that he would have come to this conclusion of ‘well, I guess God will just raise him’. It was necessary for the figure to have been truly fulfilled. It took Abraham many years of hearing and believing God before he would get to this stage. The part of Abraham’s mind that said ‘God will just have to raise him up’ was important for the figure to truly work. God knew he could only bring someone to this conclusion by arranging the whole scenario around a person of faith. It truly took a real person of faith to have come to the conclusion of resurrection as being inevitable! [For Abraham to fulfill the type of God, he had to have been convinced beyond all doubt that after he offered up his son, that he would be raised again. This is exactly what the Father [God] believed and knew about his own Sons death. So not only did Isaac fulfill the type of Jesus in this story, but Abraham also fulfilled a type of God!] [NOTE; Today is September 22, 2007. Israel’s Day of Atonement. I just heard a brother preach on the feasts of the Lord [I have done this also] but he preached it in a way that said ‘because God said you were to observe these feasts perpetually, therefore all gentile believers need to start observing these days’ he added ‘I know Paul taught the law passed and all, but these feasts are supposed to be forever because God said so’.
How are the feasts ‘perpetual’? Thru the fulfilling of them in Christ! Paul makes this plain all thru the New Testament [as well as this letter!] I was surprised to hear the brother preach that the first 2 feasts [out of the 3 main ones] were fulfilled and memorialized, but the 3rd one [Atonement/tabernacles] has yet to be fulfilled! What? Jesus fulfilled Passover and Pentecost for sure, and they are still being ‘fulfilled’ God is still bringing people in thru the blood of Christ and the Spirit is continually being poured out on people, and of course the ultimate reality of our atonement thru our high priest is a daily reality [he ever lives to make intercession] that is ‘fulfilled’ all the time[ I understand what the brother meant, that both Passover and Pentecost were fulfilled at the Cross and the day of Pentecost, and Tabernacles still has a future fulfillment. That Jesus will ‘ingather’ all peoples to himself at the end. The way he said it was in a way that he said Atonement, the beginning of Tabernacles/booths, still has to be fulfilled. It really came out badly!] I just thought it worth noting that today is natural Israel’s feast day, and we hold this feast in reality 24/7!]
‘By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of pharaohs daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward…by faith the harlot Rahab perished not…’ I want you to see that faith in Moses situation caused him to forsake great riches and leave a successful future. This is in keeping with all the times Jesus called people in the Gospels ‘forsake all and follow me’ mentality. We too often equate the ‘treasures of Egypt’ with following Jesus; the scripture puts a different spin on it! Also Rahab ‘perished not’ because she ‘believed’. Paul teaches in Corinthians that those who believe are ‘being saved’ and those who don’t believe are ‘perishing’. I want you to see that Paul is really making a theological argument for ‘being saved by faith’ in this chapter. Even a harlot can be saved! Wow. The law seemed to have no mercy on someone like that!
‘Who thru faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, stopped the mouths of lions…women received their dead raised to life…others were TORTURED not accepting deliverance…others had mocking and scourging and bonds and imprisonment, they were stoned, cut in half, were slain with the sword… being destitute, afflicted, tormented…they wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth, ALL THESE [both the ones who shut the mouths of lions as well as the one’s who were tortured without deliverance] OBTAINED A GOOD REPORT THRU FAITH, AND RECEIVED NOT THE PROMISE’ Faith does not always cause you to be better off in this life. I am very familiar with all the verses of God blessing us and providing for us ‘the blessing of the Lord it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow to it’. I believe and claim these verses just like the next guy. I also don’t want to tell people ‘give your life to Christ and all will go well’ did it go well for the ones who were tortured not getting delivered? Sure did. It went well the moment they saw the face of God. The same for those who were cut in half. It also went well for the women who received their dead raised to life. The point is ‘going well’ is not always defined by your outward circumstance.
We must see the overall biblical worldview of all things here being temporary, while all true spiritual riches are eternal. Moses actually was ‘less rich’ by the choice to follow Christ. But he was ‘more rich’ in that he fulfilled Gods purpose. It is important to see that many of these great heroes of the faith died without fully seeing the promise in this life. Now the last verse does say ‘that they without us should not be made perfect’ and this does show that the promise is now fulfilled thru Christ. We have all become recipients of eternal salvation thru Christ. The Old Testament patriarchs have ‘found that city’ in that we are all now members of the great ‘City that comes down from God out of heaven’ we are all in Christ today, even our Old Testament brothers who had faith. The point is don’t always measure a persons faith by their outward wealth and condition. James rebuked this idea in his epistle, he taught us not to show partiality to people who were rich while despising the poor.
When believers see faith only from the standpoint of outward things, they are missing the true riches. Jesus taught that all these outward things were not the true riches; I am surprised how many believers spend so much time hoarding and storing things that will all pass away some day. Let’s close this chapter on a good note. Paul has offered Israel all of their Old Testament heroes as an example of being justified by faith. He is saying ‘look, all the great fathers of the faith pleased God, just like you have said and taught for ages. I am declaring unto you they were all ‘justified/pleasing to God’ by faith, not law’. Therefore if you want to follow the example of Abraham and Moses and all the other wonderful fathers, then you too MUST BELIEVE!
(473) Yesterday I watched a few Catholic services as well as a few Protestant guys. The Lord did speak to me thru the Catholic Church more so than the others. I share this to let you know I am not too proud to receive from any Christian church. Now the other day Pope Benedict ‘clarified’ some things from Vatican 2 [the council from 1962-65]. In this council the Catholic church made a big step towards Christian unity. It for the first time acknowledged other Protestants as ‘separated brethren’ in this statement the church was not teaching that all Protestant churches are viable ‘churches’ it was simply saying they recognized these Christians in these churches as ‘separated Christians’. That is separated from ‘the one true church’. Now Benedict simply clarified this, and many are saying he is going back from the changes that were made in Vatican 2. So I just thought I would ‘clarify’ this as well. Why do Catholics, as well as other Protestants, do this? In the world of theology it is common to try and trace the natural roots of your communion to the original church. Many do this. To be as honest as I can, if this is the rule for ‘orthodoxy’ then I think the Catholics would win this argument. Why? Because the church in her early stages [1st few centuries] did digress into a ‘Catholic form’ early on. This is not to say that all believers took on this form. Nor is it to say that there wasn’t a ‘remnant’ of faithful believers who stood closer to the original intent of the church. This is saying that much of the historical evidence points to the church as being ‘Catholic’ in its expression early on. This is why you find thru out history famous brothers ‘returning back home’ to the Catholic church. I see all these communions as Christian though I certainly find disagreements in certain areas. Paul tells us in the New Testament to ‘know no man after the flesh’ I see the whole exercise of tracing your churches ‘roots’ back to the original Apostles [Apostolic succession] as fruitless. Scripture tells us that even the early Apostles made drastic mistakes that would be rebuked by Jesus saying to Peter ‘get thee behind me satan’ or later Paul rebuking Peter to his face and calling him a hypocrite. So if the ‘rock’ could have made such historic mistakes, you might simply be tracing your roots back to ‘the mistakes’ which I believe some of us have done. I see the true church as every one who names the name of Christ [Catholic, Protestant, etc.] but I do put the limit on having to ‘name his name’ that is I am not so ‘ecumenical’ that I believe all religions lead to God, this is not true! You must embrace the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the only way to the Father to get in. Well if you are trying to trace your roots, go ahead and trace them to the man whose name is the branch. John calls him the Vine in his gospel. If your ‘roots’ go back to him you will ‘abide for ever’.
(493) It’s Sunday morning. I am watching a few local churches on TV. I caught one of the non denominational guys. Good message [I guess?] a little too much of ‘I am your Pastor. You need to be submitted to me and be under my authority’ he meant well, just doesn’t see the overall view. Basically everything I have taught [and others!] about the office of Pastor and it not being a singular authority position over ANY OF THE CHURHCES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT! I switched to the Catholic mass. They were much more humble. They had a deacon sharing on forgiveness; they then cited the Apostles creed. It got me to thinking about the brother who I wrote on a few weeks ago who said ‘leave behind you the creeds and doctrines’. The contrast between these 2 ways of ‘doing church’ are tremendous. While I do not embrace all Catholic teaching, it is obvious to see that the Protestant brothers meetings were saturated with them. You see their gifts, their abilities. The whole service is really about them. They don’t mean for this to be so, its just the result of ‘doing church’ thru the lens of ‘I am the Pastor, my job is to speak to you every Sunday for the rest of your life. Your job is to come and listen and put the tithe in. Anyone who disagrees is in the camp of those who challenged Moses authority. The earth might just open up and swallow you’. Now, I am being a little sarcastic. The point is ‘church’ is supposed to be the healthy gathering and communing of all believers around the reality of Christ. It was never intended to be a ‘place’ where people are spectators in an audience who are watching others perform. It is very obvious to see how the Protestant church has allowed herself to become ‘personality oriented’ as opposed to Christ being the real center of attention.
(499) The benefit of blogging like this is it allows you to hear God and just write what you hear. When writing a book you really cant jump like that. For some strange reason I just saw a whole scenario of legitimacy that comes from being a child of God and how that relates to family/community. We often see believers as a ‘part of the church’. God does deal with us as a community, as well as individuals. You will find the strong Orthodox/ Catholic brothers emphasize the community aspect of Christianity. You will also see the more individualistic style of Christianity emphasize the ‘individualistic’ aspect. ‘Me and Jesus’ both of these are true. What I want you to see right now is how we often try to ‘de legitimize’ Christians by saying ‘who’s local church are you under? What family do you belong to, you cant function/operate outside of the family. You derive your authority from the family’. Now look at this for a moment. When you are born, you are born into some type of family. It might not be fully functional, but there at least had to have been a mom and a dad at the beginning. Now as you develop you are part of a family. You are part of this family by virtue of your birth. You actually do not derive your life from the family. God created you. But family is vital to your growth and health. As you grow older you learn to depend less and less on the authority figures that God has placed over you. Some times the parents want the children to stay ‘under their authority’ for insecure reasons. The empty nest syndrome. But if the family is healthy the children will eventually launch out. There may be times where the waters get rough and they return for a season, but ultimately they launch. If you were to tell little Johnny ‘who do you think you are leaving us? Don’t you realize that you really don’t have a life apart from us? You were born here, we raised you, everything God has done thru you up until this moment has been in the family context. You leaving us is rebelling against our parenthood over you. Don’t forget what happens when you rebel against us. O well you’ll find out the hard way’ Johnny’s parents are sincerely seeing his role as it relates to them, they don’t fully see or function in the reality that their roles are meant to change over the course of Johnnies life. They sincerely think his step of independence is rebellion. After all they have been ‘over’ Johnnie his whole life. Who does he think he is anyway? Sure enough Johnnie will launch out [to the dismay of his other siblings who tried to launch before and had failures. They later returned back home and thought their failures were a sign from God that they should have never launched] When Johnnie does eventually succeed there is an initial reaction of ‘who needs families anyway, they were just holding me back’ this is a natural result from the way the family tried to hold him past the ‘launch date’. As Johnnie matures he will lose this harshness that he is experiencing at this time. Ultimately Johnnie and a whole new generation of ‘Johnnies’ will grow and leave and become all that God originally intended. The insecure parents will warn all the older children who are still relating to them in co dependant ways ‘don’t do like all these rebels, you know what can happen’ and this reinforces the mindset of never fully growing up. And yet the parents will at times say ‘when are you ever going to grow up?’ not realizing that they have had a big part in creating this unhealthy long-term environment. I feel today we are seeing this play out on a large scale in the Body of Christ. There are so many ‘Johnnies’ who have been told ‘your identity to our family is Gods purpose [true] therefore you really have no authority on your own’ [false]. The authority for both family and Johnnie launching are both from God. They all receive their right to do what God is telling them because they were all born of God. It is easy to only view legitimacy from the standpoint of ‘family’. Not seeing that God originally told the man ‘When you launch out on your own someday [a God given thing] then you will leave your parents and cleave to your wife’ [the wife can be the Ecclesia/oikos that God wants you to relate to as an ‘elder’ as well. While all believers are not ‘5-fold’ ministers, they all are to grow and mature. Becoming an ‘elder’ more mature one who gives oversight to others, is a natural function of your growth] God always intended the oversight role of parents [Pastors/Elders] to be temporary. This launching will eventually create a whole new family, with a whole new home of Johnnies. And the process repeats. I find a lot of believers at the ‘launching dock’ who are fearful to launch. They have seen some launch, and sad to say they drowned. A natural risk inherent in all journeys. These have made ‘shipwreck of the faith’. Others launched and never returned for reunions because they were so mad at the original parents calling them ‘lost children’ when they first left. Ultimately when enough Johnnies do it right then the whole family will see and realize that they were at an immature stage and are now seeing this ‘launching’ as in Gods original plan. Have you launched yet? NOTE: Often times the ‘parents’ [Pastors/elders] find their identity in ‘being parents’ they feel good functioning in this oversight role. They preach, organize, strategize and do many good things. Sometimes out of insecurity they add to their preaching, themes that warn the children ‘don’t ever leave us, it would be a big mistake’ and if they see someone leave, they will often say ‘well, now that you left, who is your new father [Pastor] and which family did you join in order to pay your dues?’ [Tithe]. The former Pastor is trying to say to Johnnie ‘well, you left this nest, you cannot function outside of it’ unless you yourself become one of us [a Pastor] then you have the right to not be under one of us. ‘This is Gods order’. The whole thing can be a big mess. Truly God does have order in his family, but we need to be careful that we are not superimposing a modern way of church, and then calling that ‘Gods Order’. NOTE: It is common amongst ‘apostolic people’[people who feel they hold the office of Apostle] to struggle with ‘who’s local church will I be under’. They often start a 501c3 ministry, relate to other ‘local churches’ and preach a very strong ‘You must be under a Pastor’ type message. They then will struggle with ‘which Local church will be my covering, as I also ‘cover’ many other Local churches/Pastors’ all of this language and covering and everything associated with it is really not seen in the New Testament function of Apostles. Apostles were not people going around ‘covering’ all ready established groups of Christians. The true fruit of an Apostle is someone who has the gift to ‘birth’ communities of believers thru the preaching of the gospel. You never find Paul, ever, telling the new believers to be ‘under the covering of a Pastor’ you do find admonitions to submit to Godly leadership that God has placed in ‘your church’ meaning ‘your community of believers that are around you’. You actually will find references in the New Testament to the ‘Elders of your Church/ Elders of your city’ [i.e.; ordain Elders in every city as I ordained you] so the submission to Elders was the simple ‘growing up stage’ in your life as a believer, until you are mature enough to ‘launch’.
(500) I was watching ‘journey home’ on E.W.T.N. last night. I do like the catholic station. They had a panel of ‘ex-Pastors’ from Pentecostal churches who are now Catholic. It was a good discussion and I do see them as Gods people. One area that I often hear on this show is ‘When I was Protestant/Pentecostal we all had our own ideas of what scripture meant. Without the teaching authority [magesterium] of the Catholic Church there is no true order to what scripture means’. Let me address this a little. I too see the danger of everyone coming up with their own interpretation of scripture. Believe it or not I also believe in the ‘teaching authority of the church’ but I see ‘the church’ as all the corporate people of God from century one until today. Therefore all that the Spirit has communicated in unity to the people of God thru out the last 2 thousand years is ‘the teaching authority of the church’. It is obvious to me, and many other voices [even Catholics!] that the ‘Catholic church’ has things that most believers understand to not be true. If most believers [Even many Catholics] as well as many great reformers of the church, who also were Catholic, if they with one voice disagree with the hierarchal interpretation of the ancient church, then this in itself is a function of the ‘teaching authority of the church [Holy Spirit] revealing truth to and thru the Church [corporate people of God]’. Now I don’t want to get too technical here, and I love my Catholic brothers. But the argument that because there are so many wrong interpretations of scripture, for that to lead a person, as humble and sincere as he is. For that person to say ‘therefore, because of the inconsistencies of my former Pentecostal Pastor friends, I have now come to accept a certain strain of hiearchacal truth. Now I am in truth’ without being offensive, this part of the church [Catholic] have erred in the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception as well as other things. It is not me saying this, but the ‘Spirits witness’ thru the church down thru the ages, as expressed thru her own people [i.e.; the many Catholic reformers who have spoken out from inside her walls]. So to be clear, I love the Catholic people, our only safety to guide us into all truth is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He has surely operated inside of the Catholic Church, as well as all the others ‘churches’ who have spoken in line with the Spirits testimony thru the centuries. The ‘magesterium’ if you will, is the Spirits corporate witness of unity as he has spoken thru the people of God down thru the centuries. The ‘teaching authority’ of the church is not limited to that which comes down from any one ‘part’ of the Body of Christ. God does not ask us to lay down our own moral conscience to accept teachings that in our heart we know are wrong. In many of these testimonies when the Protestant Pastor who has converted to Catholicism is asked ‘how did you overcome your ‘inner rejection’ to finally accept Mary’s role in the Church, and to accept that she was born sinless?’ Many of the brothers simply say ‘I got to a point where I had to overcome my own beliefs [conscience!] and to accept the witness of the ancient church’. This to me is not what God asks of his people. To ‘overcome your inner witness’. Scripture speaks of truth being revealed to us by Gods Spirit as an inner witness. ‘Well brother, then where is the safety mechanism from keeping everyone from going off track’? Well, ultimately it is a function of the Spirit of God working in the people of God [the true magesterium] thru out the centuries. Why does over 90 % of all the church believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ? Who has ‘engrained’ this truth into the minds of so many various denominations? Was it a function of the Catholic churches ‘teaching authority’? It was a function of the Spirit guiding the people of God thru out the centuries into all truth. If someone out of fear or confusion relinquishes his own conscience to the interpretation of any ‘institution’ no matter how early their institution began, then you are overlooking the ability of the Spirit, to reveal all truth to all men. I realize that the Catholic argument is ‘the Spirit does this thru the church’ to which I say ‘Amen’, but once again I see the church as all who have seen the father thru the Son. If no man can come to the Father, but by him. Then all who are now in him [all believers regardless of background] are ‘in him’. Therefore all who are ‘in him’ [including Luther, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, etc.] are part of the corporate voice of the Spirit as he ‘speaks thru the church’ down thru the ages. The ‘safety mechanism’ to keep every one from his own interpretation is the ability of the Spirit to speak with one voice thru all of his people. Thus we wind up with over 90 % of all believers embracing the true gospel. Well, what about the other 10%? Well, some who don’t embrace this gospel are in all of the other camps. Catholic, Protestant, etc. Liberalism that denies Christ’s bodily resurrection can be found in all ‘churches’. Therefore the ‘magesterium’ did not prevent their own catholic people from ‘departing from the faith’. All Christians are dependant on the Spirit, as well as the guidance from the majority of Christian voices that have come to us down from the centuries. I include Catholics as well as Protestants in this ‘corporate voice’. It’s humility to be able to embrace this.
(512) 500 years ago the bible was written in Latin. A man named William Tyndale secretly published thousands of New Testaments in English. The ‘church’ saw this as absolute rebellion. It wasn’t just the ‘wicked Catholics’ it was a mindset that began to see as ‘sacred’ something that was once truly used of God. But the church couldn’t distinguish between that which they saw as ‘untouchable’ and the true intent of God. I see the same thing among Protestants today. Many of them see it sacrilegious to challenge the whole idea of ‘Sunday Church’. They see this structure that worked well for hundreds of years, and they cant see that God can operate ‘outside’ of this limited perspective. Many believers were killed if they were found with Tyndales bibles. The ‘institutional church’ came against the organic one in a big way. Today we see our mistakes, and we understand that God is merciful. Those who are fighting against the purpose of God for his Ecclesia really think they are ‘doing God service’. In a few centuries we will see different. NOTE; why do I harp on this issue so much? Some theologians actually understand all the things I have written on the ‘Local Church’ and agree that she was a ‘community of people’ as opposed to what we think today. They believe that maybe it was Gods plan for the church to ‘grow into’ a hierarchal institution as seen in the Catholic/Orthodox church. Some think ‘what the church has become is what God wanted, even though it is not what she was like in the first century’. The reason this is bad/wrong is because one of the most basic truths of Christianity is the believers ‘full access and acceptance with God by faith’ Luther’s doctrine of ‘the Priesthood of all believers’. To then develop an idea about ‘church’ that seems to say to believers ‘you are not legitimate unless you do such and such’ this takes away the heart of the believers right to function and spread the Kingdom by virtue of the fact that ‘they believe’. God chose ‘justification by faith’ I know we usually see ‘justification’ in terms of ‘being saved’ but it carries with it someone who at one time was ‘illegitimate’ and has now become ‘legitimate’. So any so called ‘development’ of an institutional church, that lends itself to the de legitimizing of the average believer, in my view is not what God intended. In essence these ‘structures’ can be a real hindrance to the freedom of all believers, if we use them to declare to Christians ‘you are not under the authority of a local church’.
(525) Isaiah 60 ‘Arise, shine; for thy light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Darkness shall cover thee earth and gross darkness the people, but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee’ Like we said when we spoke on the kingdom of God, though the world is getting darker, the church gets brighter! We are ‘the light of the world’ the world needs us! They don’t want to admit it, but at the end of all atheism, humanism and every other ‘ism’ there is a void. They will be drawn to the light! ‘Gentiles SHALL come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising’ ‘thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side’ though these verses are Messianic in nature [they speak prophetically of Christ] yet they are also fulfilled thru us, because we are ‘extensions of Christ’ in the earth. We ARE his Body! ‘Then thou shalt see, and FLOW TOGETHER, and thy heart shall fear and be enlarged’ When the Lord is magnified, when his will and purpose take precedence, we FEAR him and are enlarged. We also flow together as Gods people. There is a real sense of your success being found in your brothers and sister’s success. We flow together. ‘In my wrath I smote thee, but in my favor I have had mercy on thee. Therefore thy gates shall be open continually’ in the ‘New Jerusalem’ [the Church] our gates are ‘open always’ people find access to come in and rest in God. But open gates also allow for there to be exit. Not ‘damnation’ here, but a going into all the world to preach the gospel. The people of God are made to find rest in him and be by still waters. Then there comes this churning, this ‘inner pull’ to go out ‘is it from God’ yes! God allows you to have seasons of rest and refuge, and then he calls you to the example of Christ. He compels you to look at the harvest and say ‘here am I, send me’. ‘The glory of Lebanon shall come to thee, the Fir tree, the Pine tree and the Box tree together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary, AND I WILL MAKE THE PLACE OF MY FEET GLORIOUS’ God will bring great diversity [Pine, Box, Fir tree’s] into one corporate function and purpose. We will no more say ‘I am Charismatic’ I am Baptist, I am Catholic, I am this or that. We will truly bring our diversity together and lay them at Christ’s feet. He makes the place of his feet glorious. Jesus washed the disciple’s feet; he was showing that this place of humility and service will be honored in Gods economy. It is the place of value and exaltation. He offers it to all, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of takers. ‘Whereas thou hast been afflicted and hated, I will make thee an eternal excellency; a joy of many generations’ God allows affliction and hatred for a season. Both natural Israel and her Messiah went thru this. We all will partake of it at one time or another; REJOICE when it happens, because God is preparing you for eternal excellency! ‘For brass I will bring gold, for iron silver, for wood brass and for stones iron, I will make thy officers peace’ we often preach and teach ‘for stones you will get gold’ we ‘skip’ the steps! God’s prosperity comes to those who patiently and consistently give and love and work and invest and do many things in stages. These people are not trying to turn stones into gold. They realize you go from stones to iron to silver and to gold. They have realistic expectations on living a consistent life. God will make our ‘officials’ peace. The verse that says let all your requests be known to God and Gods peace will keep your hearts and minds, this speaks of Gods peace being the ‘officiator’ Christians make good decisions when they cast all their care over to God. Gods peace comes in to officiate for us, we don’t have to worry about the next step, we simply need to rest and walk in it as it is revealed. ‘Violence shall be no more in the land, nor destruction in our borders, your walls shall be Salvation and your gates Praise’ this is speaking of a spiritual/heavenly city. God is already showing that his future place of rest, the ‘eternal city’ that needs no light, because the Lamb is the light, God is showing that it is a place where walls and gates are praise and salvation. Not brick and mortar! He will make this place glorious. ‘The Lord shall be the everlasting light, the days of mourning shall be ended Thy people shall all be righteous, they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will do it in my time’ God will extend you and cause all the people you work with to be right. A day is coming where the smallest one [least significant] shall have great influence. He will ‘grow you and your people like a branch thru the earth’ thru the people you bring into the Kingdom, God will allow great influence to go forth. God told Abraham ‘thru your seed shall all nations be blessed’ you are simply the ‘instigator/initiator’ of the thing, it will get carried out thru your spiritual children!
(527) I was reading on a movement of Christians out of Austin who left the concept of ‘church’ as being the ‘place we go to on Sunday’ and have relocated their families to the lower class areas of town. These are Chinese believers who are seeing ‘church’ as community. I also remember reading an article a few years ago on ‘out of church Christians’. The article spoke on why so many people are ‘leaving church’ and addressed a lot of good things. Later in the article the writer then talked about ‘coming back from the wilderness journey into the church’. He still ‘saw’ church as the Sunday meeting. He misread what God was doing. Those who have left the ‘Sunday church model’ are not ‘in the wilderness’ so to speak. They are seeing ‘church’ as the entire community action that they are involved with. This is much different than simply ‘seeing’ the people who are ‘leaving Sunday church’ as disgruntled or dissatisfied believers. The new paradigm [really not new, it was around for the first few centuries] sees the actual community of people as ‘the church’. So for these to then see ‘going back to the Sunday model’ as coming out from the wilderness is not seeing the heart of the movement. I also read the critics who are against the ‘emergent model’. Some feel that they are giving in to liberal trends in theology [I am sure some are] and are fighting against the community model thinking they are ‘defending the faith’. You don’t have to embrace theological liberalism to see this new way of doing church. The first century Apostles were certainly not theological liberals, but they viewed church as community. I just thought I would share these few thoughts today, hope it helped. NOTE; Another interesting fact about the ‘out of the church building’ movement is that the Lord allowed for there to be a whole new way to communicate this truth thru the internet. During the time of the reformation you recently had the printing press invented by Guttenberg. It’s like the Lord opened up a door of mass communication right at the time of him raising up prophetic voices who would speak into the church at large. There were new groups of believers for the first time publishing all these small articles [Tractarians] and these writings were having a tremendous impact on the church. So today you have the availability of the net to allow the ‘common voices’ to speak into the church at large. This is actually part of the concept of the corporate voice versus the singular one [Pastor]. Many home church movements see the teaching of Paul in Corinthians as telling the church to all have an input, not just one main speaker. This is what is happening thru the net. Many voices are being heard. You then of course have the danger that our Catholic brothers raised during the reformation. The Catholics [some] believed if the bible was translated from Latin into the common language there would be all sorts of interpretations and stuff. Some of this came true! You had certain radical people who started ‘Waco’ [Muenster Prophets? If I remember well] type cults during this time. And it was a result of individuals coming up with their own ‘private’ interpretation of scripture. But the answer wasn’t to stifle the church, but to allow all believers to freely read and see the truth of God, despite the danger of a few going off track. So in the world of ‘being on line’ you can see a real revolution take place, are there possible areas of danger? Sure. But overall the internet has become a ‘printing press’ for the modern reformation! NOTE; another result of the reformation was the fact that many new believers would no longer ‘pay tithes’ into the old system. The instigating factor of the reformation was the abuse of indulgences, a money issue! So likewise today you are also seeing the strong ‘tithe or you are under the curse’ versus ‘give to your brothers in need’ mentality. It is only normal for those dependant on the tithe to fight against this. They see all the good things they want to accomplish, and they realize it can’t be done unless so many people tithe. The new churches are getting away from this. They see the actual concept of all Gods people living every day as ‘the church’ to be the real ‘change factor’ in the world. They don’t view the need for lots of money to come into the institution, they see all the people as the ‘institution’ and therefore the act of releasing them into the harvest will have a greater effect than all the money in the world.
(564) DREAM- I just woke up, I dreamt that I was in this room with a Catholic Bishop. We were friends and helping each other out. He was going to go to some nation or place, before he left I laid hands on him and he was being filled with the Spirit. I feel like this spoke to us ministering to a large Catholic community of people. I have both given and received ministry from Catholics. I felt the Lord was saying we would have influence with our Catholic brothers. Sometimes I ‘spiritualize’ these dreams, it might be that a Catholic Bishop was filled with the Spirit while listening to us?
(568) John 6- We see the first miracle of the feeding of the multitudes. It has been commonly taught that this was a miracle of ‘location’, that is they were far from the market and couldn’t get food to feed everyone. This is not the heart of the story. It is actually a question of finance. Jesus in essence asks ‘how can we buy enough food for everyone to eat, where’s the money gonna come from?’ His disciples say ‘200 pennyworth is not enough to feed them’. They tell Jesus we don’t have the cash to cover it. This is important to see, many have taught a doctrine that says Jesus and the disciples had a large treasury with lots of money. This refutes that. This story is one of God being our supply, we don’t need to trust him for the millions of dollars we think we need to reach the world. We need to believe that he can use our limited finances to reach the world! He did it with Paul, why not you? We also see the doctrine of sovereignty again. Jesus says all who the Father gave to him will come to him, and he will raise them up at the last day. No man can come unless the Father draws him. The Father will draw all who are called. Jesus will lose none of the ones the father gives to him. These doctrines are without a doubt taught in this Gospel. I believe them. Some try to make them ‘fit’ the reasoning of men. They eventually taught that Jesus died only for the elect. That the ‘world’ in John 3:16 speaks of the ‘world of the elect’. Others taught that Jesus blood was only shed for the elect [limited atonement]. Christians have fought for centuries over these doctrines. Our Catholic brothers do not officially teach predestination, though Catholic scholars have believed in it [Augustine]. Some will later be called ‘5 point Calvinists’ others ‘4 points’ and so on. I simply believe the words of Jesus. All that the Father gave to him will come to him, those who come will be raised at the last day. No one comes unless God brings them. The point is God is the initiator, sustainer and completer of our salvation. In our minds we can’t grasp this, but without a doubt Jesus teaches it in this chapter. Now, Jesus will also teach that he is the bread from heaven and unless a man eats his flesh and drinks his blood he will not have eternal life. Many good Christians have taught that the way this is carried out is thru transubstantiation, they teach that the bread and wine turn into the literal body and blood of Jesus at the Mass [Catholic theologian Scott Hahn believes John chapter 6 is the foundational chapter for all Catholic theology]. That it just looks like bread and wine, but it is really flesh and blood. Luther and Calvin taught something almost identical, consubstantiation. The doctrine that the bread and wine stay bread and wine, but that the flesh and blood of Jesus are also literally contained within the bread and wine. This doctrine differs very little from the Catholic one. Both of these doctrines are called ‘the real presence’. The only reformer who taught what much of modern Evangelicals believe was Zwingli. He took it to be a symbol only. Zwingli was the dear brother who killed the Ana Baptists for their faith! I visited the spot where this took place in Switzerland many years ago. There is this huge statue of Zwingli overlooking the town where he drowned the poor brothers! The Jews in this chapter say ‘how can this man give us his flesh to eat and blood to drink?’ They are clearly seeing this in the natural. Jesus goes on and teaches that all who believe in him will never hunger again. He is associating eating with faith. He also says ‘the flesh profits nothing, the words I am speaking to you give life’ he is clearly teaching that he was not going to figure out a way to change bread and wine into his literal flesh. He was teaching that all who would believe in his death and resurrection were eating and getting life from Jesus, they would have eternal life. The bread that if a man eats from will live forever. I believe my Catholic and Orthodox and Lutheran brothers are Christian, I do not hold to the view that the ‘real presence’ is a doctrine from hell. I believe good Christians took the words of Jesus literally and developed a belief that became an historic belief amongst many Christians. Some of the greatest Christian theologians hold to this belief. I simply disagree with them.
(584) [a portion from 584- it’s a long entry] Many of these kids found Jesus for real, some great ministries came out of this period. Calvary Chapel with Chuck Smith, the Vineyard Churches with Ken Gulliksen and JohnWimber, and the great music of Keith Green and ‘Last Days Ministries’ that was headquartered in Lyndale Texas [now owned by Teenmania ministries with Ron Luce]. One of the ‘coffee houses’ was called ‘The Living Room’, people like Arthur Blessit were popular at the time, the group from the Living Room would also be called ‘Jesus people U.S.A.’ and re locate and start a great magazine that also did a lot of ‘cult exposing’ and even did an expose on ‘ALBERTO’ the Catholic Priest in the ‘CHICK TRACKS’ it showed him to be a total fraud. They also exposed Mike Warnke [sp?] the author of the best selling ‘Satan seller’ who claimed to have run a coven of witches before he was converted. Mike was also a Christian comedian. I actually read the book in the early days and was a fan of Mike. I even invited him to come to our little church at one time, it never worked out. I liked Mike, and after he was ‘exposed’ it seemed to show that Mike really liked ‘telling stories’. A lot of his friends said Mike was sort of a chronic story teller. Mike was a Christian, and after this incident he did submit to other Pastors to oversee his restoration, but the fact was Mike made up most of the stuff in his best selling book. I think the name of the magazine that the ‘Jesus People’ put out was Cornerstone? It is no longer in print but you can find old copies on line.
(586) John 8-9 before I cover this, last night I was watching a preacher from a classic type ministry. Not the flamboyant ‘prosperity’ type with gold hanging off and all. I was a bit surprised [let down] to hear him teach the classic errors of the prosperity movement. He took the verse in Corinthians where it says ‘though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor’ and taught that Jesus died to make you rich financially [ a direct violation of 1st Timothy 6]. He went to Genesis and showed how Abraham was rich, then jumped to Galatians 3 and taught ‘we are Abrahams kids, therefore we get his blessings[stuff]’ a classic mistake in doctrine. I explained this in the book ‘House of Prayer or Den of Thieves’ in the chapter ‘The Abrahamic Blessing’[you can read this book on this site!]. This stuff shouldn’t have been coming from this program, they are not the type that teach this stuff. You could tell from the look on the faces of the audience that they were feeling uncomfortable with what this guy was teaching! Now John 8-9. Jesus says ‘you seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth that I heard from God’ often times when people are reproved, they don’t like it. It’s not that what the ‘reprover’ is saying is wrong, it’s just we don’t like being confronted with truth. We usually take it out on the messenger. Jesus says ‘before Abraham was, I AM’ this is the name of God in the Old Testament ‘the I AM’. Jesus is the ‘I AM’ in Johns gospel. I AM the door, I AM the resurrection, I AM the way and the truth and the life. I believe you find 7 different ‘I AM’s’ of Jesus in this gospel. Jesus now heals the man who was blind from birth. They ask him ‘who sinned, this man or his parents’? They had a mentality that always wanted to place blame on someone for sickness, sort of like some in the healing movements of today. Jesus said ‘neither’. He simply said ‘this happened to him so I would heal him and God would get glory’. He heals the man and the leaders are mad. ‘Who healed you’? A man called Jesus. They get the guys parents and say ‘you say he was blind, then how come he can see?’ They say ‘ask him’. They go back and ask again. The healed guy answers ‘how many times do you want to hear it, I told you already’. Though the man still doesn’t know Jesus is the Messiah, yet he starts to defend him, and even prophesy! ‘We know that if any man be a worshipper of God, and does his will, him God hears’ good stuff coming from an ‘unsaved’ guy! Jesus hears that they rejected him, he tells the guy ‘I am messiah’ and the guy believes. Jesus says ‘I come to give sight to those who are blind [admit they need help] and to take away sight from those who see’ [think they know it all]. We often can’t receive correction because of religious pride, we think we ‘see everything’ someone comes along and shakes the cart, our first response is ‘who does he think he is, doesn’t he know that we all know more than him’. Quite often whole groups of leaders have the same blind spot. This is what enforces the belief that they must be right! Jesus told them ‘you guys are blind, if you could just admit you didn’t know it all, then I could show you some good stuff, but because you think you already ‘see’ everything, then you are gonna miss out’. Pride is destructive, it keeps us in the dark spiritually. NOTE; Let me give an example. I remember reading an article on tithing from one of the best Christian historical review magazines in print. They do exhaustive historical research on many subjects. To the surprise of the readers, this well respected historical magazine, read by many theologians, showed that all the historical evidence points to the fact that the churches of the first century did not practice tithing! This seemed to go against the grain of what many of the theologians believed, who regularly read this magazine. But you could have easily come to this same understanding from simply reading the New Testament in context. I have basically taught you guys this for years, from scripture. Yet this ‘blind spot’ was an area where many intelligent ‘religious leaders’ were all wrong. They ‘corporately’ were wrong on this subject. It took a ‘jolt’ from true historical evidence before they could ‘see’ the obvious! It would be too humbling to have seen it from a ‘layman firefighter’ who has a web site. NOTE; Tithing as a practice for Christians developed at the same time as ‘the church building’ and the office of ‘Priest’ and eventually the altar [in the Catholic system] and the mass. The church got away from the family/community mindset and took on more of the ‘church building’ form. Tithing fit in easily into an idea of church that asked ‘how much should we put in the offering basket on Sunday’. The whole language and style of church called for the doctrine of tithing to be taught, sort of like a ‘tax’ on the people of God to support ‘the church’. Now, there are some good things that came out of the ‘dark ages’ of Christianity. The ‘desert fathers’, the Catholic mystics and other good spiritual disciplines. I don’t want to fall into the category of those who see the dark ages as a time of no good whatsoever. But we also need to see how the church during that time was very legalistic in the sense that the Mass and Altar and 'Priest’ presiding over the liturgy were all forms of Christian service that were absent from the churches in Scripture. The tithe was just one added aspect of this legalistic approach that seemed to make it all the way into the Protestant churches of today. All these churches are good Christians in my view, but we need to be open to change and reformation as the Spirit leads.
(435) This fits in with the last entry. It is important for Christians to form their view of God thru Christ. You often hear good reformed theologians [whom I like] focus on the holiness and transcendent nature of God. Some will even teach that the reason the church is in a ‘worldly’ state is because we preach the Gospel without the Law. They seem to be saying if we preach God in an Old Testament way, and we preach the law, that this will bring the church back into holiness. The message of God thru Christ was one of reconciliation. There is no doubt that Jesus was against sin. The times he taught that if you looked upon a woman with lust you were just as guilty as committing adultery. These statements were intended to show mans inability to reform himself. Many of the law keepers were counting on their ability to not commit outward acts of sin, even though in their hearts they were just as lost as the prostitute and drunkard. Jesus was not ‘exalting’ law here. He was showing those who trusted in their own righteousness that they didn’t have a chance at being accepted this way. He then of course would die for mans sin and man would receive this ransom freely. This is why you see the Apostle Paul stress justification by faith. I feel we do damage when we believe the answer to ‘worldliness’ is to preach more law. The preaching of law has a tendency to appeal to mans sinful nature. It actually stirs up in man a feeing of ‘I will now go and do what I was told not to’. When you mix this in with an Old Testament revelation of God [one of wrath] this doesn’t produce the desired result of holiness. It is the unconditional message of grace that people need. Not an ‘easy believism’ type thing, but a radical view of Gods mercy as seen thru the incarnation of Jesus. The way Jesus treated sinners and unbelievers gave them an avenue to approach God. His ‘exalting’ of the law was for the purpose of bringing man to him, in some of the reformed circles they think that if you exalt the law it will bring a degree of ‘self restraint’ to the church. I do not see this as a New Covenant function. Once you are in Christ it is the ability to rest in him that brings ‘holiness’. If people aren’t ‘holy enough’ the preaching of the law and the focus on Gods holiness will only increase the level of condemnation. All righteousness comes by faith in Christ, we are to form our ideas about the way God sees us thru the actual way Jesus lived. This is the revelation of God to us. Jesus did not condone sin, but he functioned in such a way that sinners did not see God as far away and ‘transcendent’ they saw God as close and accessible to meet man where he was at.
(606) JOHN 13- Jesus says ‘I am come from God, and I am going back to him’. He had this divine sense of mission. Theologians have disagreed over how much Jesus knew about his own calling as a young person. I kinda see it like he gradually came to greater wisdom and understanding as the father was revealing the mission to him. The fact that Jesus became human also brought with it certain limitations of knowledge and growth. He did come to see his mission at a young age. When he was in the temple as a boy he said ‘I am doing my fathers business’. So I see how he grew in his sense of mission and destiny. You have come from the father, you will some day go back. Live with destiny in mind. At the table Jesus tells the guys ‘I am giving you an example’ as he washes their feet. Peter is like preachers today ‘heavens forbid that you wash me, are you saying I need some correcting’! I have found this response common among leaders [even me!] we sought of cant get corrected, then when we do realize we need it, we go to the other extreme ‘well, go ahead and give me a bath!’ We want to tear everything down and start all over! It is funny. Jesus says ‘what I am showing you, you don’t really know what it means yet, you understand it in your head, but not for real’ I feel the example of ‘servant leadership’ is a subject that most leaders ‘know’ but the fact of it being really lived out is rare. We still see ‘ministry’ and ‘church’ from the paradigm of ‘my successful career’. I am not saying everyone is wrong, I am saying the level we are at is sort of where the disciples were. We ‘know it’ in our heads, but we still ask ‘who will be the greatest in your Kingdom. Can we sit at your right Hand?’ Jesus makes one of the worst statements in all of scripture ‘one of you shall betray me’ he also says in another place ‘it were better for that man if he were never born’ WOW! How would you feel if this were said about you? At the table the disciples were feeling insecure. ‘John, ask Jesus who it is for heavens sake!’ John and Judas know, I don’t know about the others. It seems as if they leave the meal with the possibility of ‘Oh my God, could it be me’ this lets you see into the later distress that Peter has over his denials. He must have thought ‘I am the bad one’. Peter makes every attempt to not be the one. Jesus says ‘where I am going, you can’t follow’ Peter says ‘why not, I will die for you’! Jesus says ‘I tell you, before the cock crows, you will deny me 3 times’! “OH MY GOD IT IS ME!’ do you see the drama here? Why would Jesus say about Judas ‘it would have been better if you were never born’? It sure seems hard. Jesus said this for Judas benefit, not his own. Jesus knew that for the fathers plan to work, someone would have to hate him so much that he would betray him. Jesus loved Judas, he lived with him for 3 years. He saw THE SINCERITY of Judas as a zealot for his political cause. You say ‘but he was a thief from the start’ true. But I am sure he justified it like cheating on your taxes! The point was Judas really thought he was getting in on this new ‘progressive’ political movement of the day. Sure he was stealing, but after all ‘I deserve it, the Pay Jesus gives us isn’t cutting it. Doesn’t he realize we are risking our lives with him. I am deserving of it’. Jesus knew Judas was the average Joe. Jesus had some good times during the 3 years of friendship. Jesus didn’t lie when he said ‘friend, why are you betraying me with a kiss’? Jesus wished he had never been born. NOTE; in the current discussion with ‘Emergent Church’ stuff, some are bringing up the possibility of hell being symbolic in nature. Does ‘fire’ mean ‘fire’ and stuff like that. I believe it does, but want you to understand that true thinkers and movers have differences of opinion on this. Origen, one of the early intellectual church fathers, taught universalism. That all people will ultimately be saved. Of more recent fame, Carlton Pearson left his charismatic roots and embraced ‘no hell’. To be honest, he has gone a lot further than simply being ‘no hell’. He denies the authority of scripture, thinks John wrote Revelation as an expression of being delusional. I feel Pearson, in his journey towards universalism, went way too far. Clark Pinnock, a modern theologian has taught ‘annihilationism’ that all the wicked will be burned up and non existent. There are a few verses where you can get this from! The point is some very good people [and bad] have differences of opinion on this. My point is this statement from Jesus ‘it would have been better if Judas were never born’ sure seems to indicate that every one will not wind up in heaven! It seems as a harsh thing to say if Jesus knew his buddy would one day be in heaven. Judas could rightfully ask ‘why did you say it would have been better if I were never born, after all, all people who were ever born wind up in heaven.’ [I WAS GOING TO COPY CHAPTERS FROM THE ‘JOHNS GOSPEL’ ENTRY, BUT I DEAL WITH PREDESTINATION THRU OUT THE WHOLE STUDY, SO JUST READ THAT STUDY IN CONCERT WITH REFORMED STUFF!]
(115) Had quite a discussion the other day at the mission for homeless people. Spent a good 2 to 3 hours teaching some guys the history of the reformation [16th century] and how both the Catholics and Protestants had certain truths on each side. It got quite technical, but a few of these guys are serious bible students and they were drinking it in! I shared a little on how the ‘continental reformers’ [Luther, Calvin, Zwingli] were producing booklets [Tractarianism] and how these protestant books were ‘smuggled’ into Catholic England and were influencing certain key people in the realm. King Henry was having his own internal dispute with the Pope over getting an annulment, and he found the protestant writings to be to his advantage in the area of the freedom of the ‘nation states’ to worship God without being subject to Rome. The Protestants were wanting religious reform, but Henry was looking for a way to break from the Popes authority without having a religious rebellion on his hands. Well eventually King Henry does break away and starts the ‘Church of England’ the continental reformers have the protestant reformation. The Church of England, also known as the ‘Anglican Church’, was very much Catholic in her doctrine except for the area of being under the Pope [Henry got what he wanted!]. The reformers on the continent had varying degrees of ‘reform’ in the nation states. I find it interesting that certain Catholic scholars believed that the breaking away of these countries from Rome was a rebellion that would lead to world disaster. These Catholic scholars saw the ‘divine right of Kings’ to be the threat. They believed the Protestants were simply replacing the authority of the Pope with the authority of the Kings. That this would eventually lead to world anarchy because the nations could produce any type of theology that they wanted. I don’t necessarily agree with this, but do find it interesting that Germany, Luther’s country, eventually produced a ‘Hitler’ and Hitler actually read some of Martin Luther’s anti Semitic writings. Luther referred to Jews as ‘dogs’ and other derogatory terms in his writings. The Catholic scholars were prophetic in a way by foreseeing certain world events in this way. Well any way I had this discussion for a few hours and it was a good history lesson. These guys hung in and even asked some very intelligent questions. By the way I see all my Catholic friends as Christian! As an evangelical I recognize there are some serious doctrinal differences [Justification by faith] but take the more liberal view of seeing them as my brothers in Christ. I recognize that the Catholic Church has carried the baton in social justice areas when the Protestants were sleeping at the wheel! The Catholics also were doing missionary work for centuries before the Protestants got with it. So the point is we all need humility in this journey that we are on and our goal is towards having Christian unity as much as possible. I still remember a song I learned as young boy in Catholic school ‘they will no we are Christians by our love’. To a great degree the Catholic Church has done her best at being a voice for Christ in the nations, and her witness [along with her faults] can be found in every generation of man for the last 2 thousand years! You can’t say this about any protestant church! Well I hope this added something of value to the debate. God bless all my Catholic and Protestant friends who have made it this far on this site! Note- England continued to struggle between Catholic and Protestant views for quite a while. The rule of Henrys daughters, Queen Elisabeth and Mary [also known as ‘bloody Mary’ for her executing protestants!] both showed the internal struggle that was going on behind the scenes. There were key religious and political figures that were trying to influence the country towards their views. Many of these were sincere believers who truly felt like they were defending the faith. Some were Protestant, others Catholic. There were terrible executions and horrendous acts committed by both sides during this time. You had very dedicated Catholics, as well as Protestants, die for their faith. Obviously this was a tragic result of religion at any price. In the world today you see this in radical Islam. Some believe I shouldn’t say this, but as Christians we must take a stand against any religion that sees its mandate to convert by force or death. I find it interesting how so many social justice groups and women’s groups criticize the United States and Christianity, but wont say a word against radical Islam and how it absolutely subjugates women today. Women must cover their faces like animals, in some of these societies it’s permitted for a father to kill his daughter if she commits adultery! Give me a break, where are the voices crying out against these atrocities?
(57) The other day I was listening to an old time Baptist preacher on the radio. He is a good man who preaches the Gospel. He talked about a Pentecostal woman visiting him and how she was so deceived. He wasn’t being critical, he really believes this. We all have a tendency to ‘see’ God from the paradigm that surrounds us. We as Christians have a tendency to judge others who experience God in a different way then we do. I am not saying that ‘all religions’ lead to God, they certainly don’t! But as Christians we should leave room for those other communities of believers that might have a different history but also embrace the Gospel. This larger community of believers is what I like to call ‘the greater storehouse’. God has tremendous riches to be found in all of these Christian churches. I love studying reformation stuff, but I also like the Catholic fathers. The history of Methodism under Wesley is great, as well as the later Azusa revivals. To be able to see beyond our limited communities and embrace the ‘whole Church’ is a gift that will bring in many rewards, I urge you to partake of the table that the Lord has prepared for us in the midst of our enemies.
(58) Being I have been speaking a little about Catholic/Protestant stuff lately, let me talk on ‘authority and covering’ issues. Recently when certain evangelical leaders fell into sin, others speculated on why this happened. Some Protestants taught that certain Prophets who ‘fell’ were not ‘under covering’ or under the authority of ‘a local church’. I have spoken at length in our books and thru radio on what the Church is and what it means to ‘be part of the local church’. All I felt like saying here is our Catholic brothers historically view ‘all’ Protestants as being ‘without covering’ or not under proper biblical authority. I do find it interesting that some who feel they are ‘apostolic’ in the protestant church start highly independent and entrepreneurial type ministries and then preach that if people are not ‘under one of these apostolic coverings’ then they are in rebellion. Many of these ‘apostles’ have absolutely no ‘covering or connection’ to the historic church and yet preach a form of authority that seems to begin and end with them! To put it simple, we as Christians are all related and responsible to each other. As New Covenant priests we are directly under the authority of our high priest Jesus. I thank God for all the gifted Apostles and Prophets in the church today, I just think we need to remind ourselves of the basics once again.
(48) What I really wanted to speak about [above] was what I call ‘the incarnational principle’. The concept of God manifesting himself thru Christ, and thru us as an extension of his Body in the earth. I will get a little technical here, but bear with me. Paul teaches [in the New Testament] that the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. Historically this issue has been one that divided Protestants and Catholics. During the reformation the Protestant position was the Bible was the ground of truth and final authority on matters of conscience and faith. The Catholic Church agreed in principle to the canon of scripture as ‘inspired’ but also taught that the Church herself possessed separate authority as ‘the pillar and ground of truth’. The Catholics said the Church produced the Bible, while the Protestants believed the Church ‘recognized’ it. That is to say that the ‘Bible’ was already infallible and the Church just recognized it. Well anyway the point here is Gods people [Ecclesia] are the pillar and ground of truth. There is no other ‘thing’ in the planet that God actually lives in. Though scripture is inspired and infallible, God doesn’t actually ‘dwell’ in its pages. I know I open myself up to criticism here [for the first time, not!] but I agree with the great evangelical thinker John Stott. He sees the evangelical Church as practicing a form of ‘bibliolatry’ in the way we express ‘sola scriptura’ [the bible only]. In the earth right now the only actual place where God is literally dwelling is the Church. Not some top heavy institution, but in the people [community]. Because of this in some sense the only real hope for the world is us! God sees us as the ‘pillar and ground’ of truth. We are his ‘superstructure’ that exists in the midst of ‘Babylon’ [the world]. We live here to both testify and actually ‘dispense’ Gods grace thru the gospel. Jesus told the disciples ‘whosoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven’ [I don’t want to teach the Catholic/Protestant view on this here] in essence we carry the gospel in us as well as on our lips. God ‘contacts’ and interacts with the world thru us. This is the ‘incarnational principle’. In military terms its ‘ground truth’. It’s having the perspective of ‘boots on the ground’ as opposed to some defense secretary living in an ivory palace [or pentagon]. We are Gods ‘boots’ on the ground. God has entrusted us to carry out the rest of the ‘invasion’ that Jesus started 2000 years ago. The only problem is too many of us think we are in the guard and are trying to avoid ‘active duty’! [No offense meant to those in the National Guard!]
(107) When I spoke a few weeks ago on not being able to attend college, I want to clarify my thoughts on higher education. I believe one of the problems with ‘fundamentalism’ [some types of evangelical preachers] is the lack of a well-balanced education. It’s good to get a university level of education if you can. In the last century there was a movement in the Christian church that was called ‘higher criticism’. Many of the scholars that were influenced by the previous stage of the enlightenment [from Europe] taught a type of bible interpretation that denied many [or all] the supernatural stories in the bible, even the resurrection! As a result many American universities were inundated with a type of teaching that ‘old fashioned’ preachers thought was apostasy [some of it was, but not all of it!]. The American ‘fundamentalists’ reacted by simply saying ‘we believe the bible literally’. The problem with some of the literalists, was they lacked a balanced historical understanding of the times and life of the early church. They seemed to have no time to become educated on the historical aspects of Christianity. So ‘literalism’ said ‘if the bible says it’s going to happen, then it is going to happen’. Not realizing [because of a lack of education] that certain things already happened. One example of this is the present preoccupation with the ‘antichrist’ and the prevailing hobby of trying to find out who he is. Is he alive today? A lot of speculation on a person that the first century church believed to be fulfilled in the emperor Nero. Without teaching this whole subject, the early church taught and understood that there would be a person who would be a great persecutor of Christians. He would even kill those who would not ‘worship his image and bow down to him’ those who would not ‘receive his number 666 couldn’t survive’. The Roman Empire of the 1st century allowed for religious expression. There form of Government actually ‘deified’ their Caesars. You could believe in other Gods [Pantheism] as long as you bowed the knee to its emperors. Well obviously Paul and other early writers could see the writing on the wall. Early Christians were not to sware allegiance to any other ‘god’ but Jesus Christ! As the early church progressed, the apostles understood that there would eventually be a ‘Caesar’ that would demand allegiance to himself. Those who wouldn’t ‘bow’ and say ‘Caesar is Lord’ would eventually be killed. Polycarp and other early Christian leaders met their fate this way. Nero was the worst. He blamed catastrophes and other events [arson!] on the Christians, though its believed that he himself was the arsonist! Nero’s name, along with his title of ‘Caesar’ does spell out to the numerical value of ‘666’. It just made sense for the early church to have believed him to have been the antichrist! There are many other debates on this subject, and I do leave room for the possibility for the ‘antichrist’ to be a future person, but I doubt it. Also during the reformation of the 16th century, many of the reformers [Luther and others] saw the ‘antichrist’ as the pope. The book of revelation speaks of Rome and both a political and religious ‘Babylon’ as coming against the saints. It was easy for the reformers to ‘see’ the marriage of the Catholic Church with the governments of men as the culprit [The Holy Roman empire and stuff like that]. But again this view doesn’t seem to take into account that Rome of the 1st century was religious, and that wasn’t speaking about Catholics! So I believe a basic understanding of world history, along with a literal interpretation of the bible go hand in hand. Those who despise education [calling the seminary the ‘cemetery’] seem to lack this balance.
(116) I want to go back to Germany and the fact that after WW2 the United States brought over from Germany all of the scientists that eventually were the originators of our ‘space program’. The U.S. acted wisely in recognizing that the German scientists had a level of knowledge that exceeded what we had. Einstein actually gave us the technology to build the bomb that eventually ended the war. Einstein is the most well known of these German scientists [though he came over before the war ended]. Einstein truly was a genius. One of the goals he had was called ‘the unified theory’. He believed it was possible to ‘tie’ all the various fields of science together, and see a harmony that would show that everything didn’t just happen by accident, but there had to be some greater overall ‘thing’ that was at work. Though Einstein wasn’t a Christian, he did believe in God. Some of his fellow scientists came up with a theory that said chance and ‘luck’ played a role in how things work. Einstein disagreed and said ‘God doesn’t roll dice’. All of these guys held to the idea that there had to be a beginning point to all things. Today we call this the ‘big bang theory’. A basic scientific reality that things did come into existence at a certain point in time. It has been said that the fact that something exists now is proof that God exists! I know this is simplified, but let me explain. The fact that we have a creation today, sun, moon, stars and the intricacy of our planet earth. The tremendous complexity in the human body. Even the most ‘simple’ cell is now known to be highly ‘complex’. These realities lead us to question ‘how did all this happen’. If the earth were a little closer to the sun we would all burn up, a little further and we would all freeze! As science learned these complex things over the years, she has grappled with the question of ‘how’. Science has racked its brain on the beginning stage. Was there a time where nothing existed at all? And if so then how can anything exist now? If matter is infinite [which some try to leave as a possibility] then this contradicts everything else we know from science! Thermodynamics teaches that all things are ‘decaying’ from the original stage. The sun loses its strength over many years. The earth and the solar system and everything else are resources that deplete themselves. This fact shows us that ‘matter’ or things didn’t always exist. If at the beginning you had a few cells and things floating around that eventually ‘exploded’ into this tremendous organized universe [which in itself takes faith to believe!] then where did these gases and early forms of matter come from? They had to start somewhere. And if you eventually traced it all the way back to the time where this was nothing, then the scientific fact is you would have nothing today! Matter doesn’t just appear, and matter is not eternal. These simple scientific proofs lead us to the conclusion that something [or someone] outside of this present world had to initiate these things. This ‘someone’ also had to have been around forever, if not then you have the whole problem of where did he come from, what was his beginning, and all the same questions would arise. So Einstein and others saw these things. The most brilliant minds of man came to the conclusion that a greater being had to exist in order to get the ball rolling. If you took a sealed room with absolutely nothing in it, and nothing else could get in or leave. And then after a million [or billion!] years you opened it up, nothing would be there! This is a scientific fact! The process of time, in and of itself, does not have the power to create something out of nothing! Well then we wind up at the place we started, the fact that ‘anything’ exists is proof that God exists! [Note: Let me give credit to our Catholic brothers once again. Saint Thomas Aquinas ‘Doctor Angelicas’ wrote heavily on these issues long before the Protestants began looking at them. St. Thomas is considered to be one of the greatest theologians and apologists of the Catholic Church].
(178) I read an article from Christianity today the other day. It was on Prophets and their role in the Church! It was an excellent article; it kind of surprised me that it was in Christianity today. Out of all the Christian magazines in circulation this is the best. I don’t say this only because of this article. I have subscribed to Charisma and Christianity today and a few others for many years. I don’t subscribe to any write now, but I read from some on line. I canceled the Charisma magazine many years before Christianity today. I felt that Charisma was making an honest effort, but the only valuable stuff seemed to be coming from Lee Grady. He only wrote a brief editorial. The bulk of the magazine was messages by popular preachers, and a lot of them on ‘you can have what you say’ and stuff like that. I actually said to myself one day ‘how many messages does it take on ‘you can achieve some goal, or get what you want’ before they move on to the ‘university level’. Well I feel Christianity today is at the ‘university level’. In the past the majority of preachers/teachers that taught on Apostles and Prophets were the charismatic brothers. I do credit Brother Hagin for re introducing this teaching to the church. I am really excited that more of the mainline Christians seem to be more open to these gifts. It’s hard for believers to distinguish between the reality that some things can be good from a preacher, while other things can be bad. I have seen so many brothers leave the Baptist faith and become Charismatic [OK] but then they view their Baptist heritage in a negative way. They seem to think the future of the church is Charismatic. The future of the church is CHRIST! All charismatics and Baptists and Catholics and every one else who names the name of Christ plays a role in this thing. The message of the church is the Cross of Christ. We are to carry the ‘evangelical’ gospel as the primary voice of the church. If you used to be some denomination and are now another, that’s fine, but don’t think that now the message is ‘the Spirit’ or ‘the anything else’. The message stays the same. Now I believe we should teach and embrace the working of the Holy Spirit, it’s just some brothers have actually said stuff like ‘when I was Baptist I focused on the Cross, when I became charismatic I now focus on the resurrection and the Spirit’ one brother even said the Cross was only for a few hours, leaving the impression that those ‘few hours’ are now over and we move on to other things. This brother is an Apostle out of San Antonio who is a true elder in the church. He has done many good things and I have received from him in many ways. He made this statement at a conference in Corpus Christi and I felt I needed to correct it on radio. I did! Paul told the Corinthians that when he was with them he knew nothing ‘but Christ crucified’. This message doesn’t mean we don’t ‘move on in growth’ it simply means the growth God is looking for is the Body to grow ‘into him’. God’s goal is for us to be mature ‘in him’. Growing is not a matter of moving away from him [or the cross!] Paul told the Galatians ‘MY LITTLE CHILDREN WHOM I TRAVAIL IN BIRTH AGAIN UNTIL CHRIST BE FORMED IN YOU’ Ephesians says we are to grow up into the full stature of Christ and allow his headship over us to fully function as we develop more into being the Body of Christ. All these images show us that the goal of Christian growth is not moving to some other belief, but moving more ‘into him’.
(210) Something that has made me uncomfortable for some time is the dynamic of speaking a strong prophetic word/teaching and then realizing the aftermath. For instance the ‘judiazers’ of the first century were teaching a form of Christianity that embraced legalism. They were doing well for a season until God allowed Paul to ‘blast it’ out of the water. Once the Apostolic authority of Paul exposed the heresy, it was difficult for the Judiazers to continue. They sure tried, but Gods authority was now working against their doctrine. I recognize that there are certain truths that we teach that are contrary to the normal tradition of ‘church’. I do not teach them simply for this reason, in as much as I feel it’s time for certain things to be dealt with [like the judiazers]. After these things are dealt with, many good Pastors will continue to embrace what they have known and are familiar with. This creates a tension in the community. Many of their ‘parishioners’ will embrace the truths they have learned from us and Gods authority always falls on the side of truth. Many of the authority structures that are presently functioning in the church are not really biblical. When you have believers moving in grace in certain areas, and church authorities coming down on the wrong [incorrect] view of the subject, you then have a dynamic where Gods authority is falling on the side of the ‘parishioners’ and not on the side of the clergy. This dynamic was also seen in Jesus ministry with the disciples. It was unthinkable for the 1st century clergy to admit that Gods authority was being expressed thru this rag tag team of unlearned men, as opposed to their theological doctorates! I feel uncomfortable when this happens with us. I used to Pastor, and I do not like people who come to a community just to start trouble and cause division. But sometimes we mistake a true prophetic challenge to the status quoi, as being rebellion [Martin Luther and the Catholic Church of the 16rh century!]
(212) Recently Pope Benedict [formerly Cardinal Ratzinger, defender of the ‘doctrine of the faith’ for the Catholic church] moved against an influential Priest for his teaching in the area of Liberation Theology. This is a popular view with certain south/central American countries. Many political leaders [Daniel Ortega] embraced this view as a part of their Socialist revolution. This view focuses on the radical aspect of Jesus ministry in the area of social justice and his identification with the poor. Most Christians feel that Liberation Theology is too closely aligned with Marxist views and therefore reject it. I simply want to note the New Testament teaching in the area of social justice and how many ‘white conservative Protestants’ dismiss out of hand certain aspects of the gospel. No form of human government is ‘inherently just’. Capitalism, in and of itself is not ‘just’. As a form of government it provides freedom in the marketplace for the free flow of ideas. It works better than most other govts. on the planet, but it in and of itself is not ‘just’. Justice is only found in any earthly govt. to the degree that that govt. is being influenced and ‘infected’ by the ‘just one’ [God] and his ‘justified ones’ [the church]. As human govts. ‘make room’ for the people of God and godly institutions, then there is a degree of justice released into that society thru the church. The book of James talks about ‘just wages’. A doctrine that capitalists don’t fully embrace. Most capitalists argue ‘whatever the market place pays is right’. They feel that the idea of free competition in and of itself is just. If you can get someone to do a days work for $5.00 and that’s the going rate, well they feel that’s OK. The New and Old Testaments don’t agree! God has lots of instruction on fair wages and the treatment of the poor that govt. should comply with. Now I am not advocating socialism, which robs people of hope and independent thought. But I want to show you how no earthly govt., even the best forms of them, are equal to the Kingdom [govt.] of God. I for the most part agree with Pope Benedict and his statement on liberation theology, but I must admit there is a part of the radical revolutionary in me that finds aspects of it to be exciting! NOTE: I would like to note that the Catholic Church has been great in the area of social justice through out the entire history of the church. During the ‘dark ages’ the church actually became the institution that nations appealed to as the highest authority in the land. Our Catholic brothers were speaking out in defense of the unborn long before the Protestants. I just wanted the critics of the Catholics to give credit where credit is due!
(222) Been up since 3 AM praying for you guys as well as a few other things. Was thinking about a conversation I had a few years ago with a ministry leader in our city. He was trying to raise money for his ministry. He attends a great church that I used to attend. The Pastor is a good friend of mine. The ministry leader was asking where I attend church. I told him the church. He then criticized the church for spending money on certain things he thought could be used for other things. I just ignored it. This leader wanted to raise money to build a prayer center building. I guess it’s a worthy cause? Without boasting too much, I have been praying from 2-3 am [sometimes midnight] till around 7- 8 am for more than a few years now. I really didn’t need some ministry building to do this! In my mind the money for so many of our projects is a waste! It seems like we are too often building things to satisfy men’s egos more than anything else. God’s people are called ‘A HOUSE OF PRAYER’. God sees the corporate community of saints [all Christians, Catholics, Protestants, etc.] as a ‘building’ of prayer. Once again there might be a scenario or two where God is calling people to build these types of prayer centers, but most times he simply calls his people to prayer. He wakes you up and you pray! Where? Wherever you happen to be at the time. Religion has ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ divisions that say this is the place to perform ‘religious activity’ and this is the place for ‘secular stuff’. These divisions are contrary to the Kingdom that Jesus preached [I am not advocating a theocracy!] Jesus simply taught that the true worshipers of God would worship [pray] in ‘SPIRIT AND TRUTH’. There is this tremendous liberating aspect to the Kingdom of God that allows it to function everywhere. The church is always looking to start some 501 c 3 that can be the ‘Christian enterprise’ that takes all our time and money when God is simply looking for people to PRAY!
(229) Let me try and do this. I just kind of had an ‘overview’ of old testament history and the ‘history of the church’ run thru my mind in a few minutes. A lot of the stuff I am going to share is from many years of memory. So bear with me with the little details! In the Old Testament Gods people were represented by the nation of Israel. During the journey of Israel from captivity in Egypt to the Promised Land God deposited certain ‘sacred/religious’ rituals into their society for the ultimate purpose of revealing the gospel and reality of Christ’s sacrifice for all people. During this journey Israel ‘divides’ over certain issues. Israel has a northern tribe [Israel] and southern one [Judah] The northern part develops a separate priesthood under Jeroboam, and the southern keeps the original priesthood under Reheboam. The inheritance being divided during the possessing of the Promised Land becomes a theological issue for Jewish orthodoxy. The ‘jeroboam’ group identifies with the altar of worship deemed ‘unorthodox’ while the southern group has the ‘true’ place of worship. By the way this was the issue seen in the gospel of John chapter 4, when Jesus speaks to the woman at the well. She was a Samaritan, part of the ‘unorthodox group’ and was asking this exact question! So the history of natural Israel is one of division and ‘who has the real priesthood’ [sound familiar?] It is interesting to note, that though theologically the southern tribes are more ‘correct’ God later reproves them for their ‘correctness’. The prophets will eventually address Judah and say ‘thus saith the Lord, you pride yourself on being more faithful than your sister [northern tribe] and yet you are worse!’ So already God is dealing with the aspect of pride that comes along with theological correctness. Today the church historically is divided. Most evangelicals think of the 16th century reformation as the ‘dividing point’ but historically it’s the division of the 11th century between our Catholic and Orthodox brothers that is seen as the ‘great schism’. Either way you have the Catholics/Orthodox representing historic orthodoxy and the protestants/evangelicals on the others side. The debate rages on who has the more pure form of orthodoxy. We are like the woman at the well, we are asking Jesus ‘who’s right?’ and Jesus simply tells the woman ‘I am not here to take sides in your theological arguments, I am here to call you to repentance and lead you into true worship with God’. So we find ourselves in a place in history where truth does matter [at least to me!] but where Gods prophetic voice is calling all of his people back to true worship. Sort of like the Sienfeld episode where George is going to convert to the Orthodox religion so he can date some girl. The orthodox priests are questioning George on his reason for conversion and George replies ‘I like the hats’ to the dismay of the priests who were wearing these religious looking hats! We try to come up with reasons to why we associate in our divided groups, and sometimes it’s as silly as the hats! Well I know I got a little theological with you guys today, but I felt the Lord wanted to get you to thinking on these things. God wants unity, and all sides have to display ‘humility of mind’ in the process!
(244) Doing THE FOOTBALL THING again [in the yard praying, walking around with the football]. Got the image of ‘screen pass’. A while back I read a prophecy from Patricia King [extreme prophetic] about the image of water balloons, or some type of ‘bomb’ landing in areas. An image of words and ministries ‘hitting’ areas and having great influence. I had already seen this myself. One of the ‘prayer’ images I use is ‘throwing the football’. I kind of see the Lord ‘launching’ the radio/blog into large regional areas and ‘hitting the ground’ with great influence. I ‘see’ the ball landing in large influential cities and having a wide impact. But I just got the sense of the ‘screen pass’ as well. Sometimes you get so caught up in the ‘hail Mary pass’ [our Catholic friends will like this one!] that you forget to throw the short screen pass. Sometimes you have done all you can do in launching the ‘bomb’ and as you wait for the results you might as well gain a few yards here and there!
(275) Let me speak on abortion. I mentioned earlier on this blog about the Catholic and Protestant divide in the 16th century. One of the fears the Catholic Church had was the fear of the divine right of Kings. That if nation states ‘broke away’ from Rome that eventually the states would do whatever they wanted. Some look at the atrocities of Hitler and point to this as a proof. I personally don’t hold to this view, but I do find it interesting that Hitler came along after Darwin and Eugenics. Eugenics is the science that teaches certain races are more ‘pure’ and others are less pure. It taught a type of ethics that said if you get rid of the weaker ones in society that eventually you would have a healthier, purer race. You saw this mindset in Hitler’s attempt to have an ‘Aryan race’. The man who came up with this ‘science’ was a relative of Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin was the ‘popularizer’ of Evolution. If someone truly believes that all Humans are simply an accident of evolution; there is really no moral grounds to value life. If we are all simply blobs on this experimental earth, then why not eliminate the weaker ones for the benefit of the whole race? After all we know this to be true, science teaches it! There you have it, a slippery slope down a course that ultimately leads to a time in our country where we actually allow, by law, a woman to come to a clinic/hospital. Walk in at 7 months of pregnancy, get an appointment with a Doctor and get a ‘partial birth’ abortion. This procedure allows for the actual baby, living and feeling safe in the mother’s womb to be ‘partially’ delivered, leaving ‘part’ of the baby inside the mother. The other ‘part’ sticking out and the Doctor kills the baby. By law it’s not murder, the baby still has a ‘part’ in the mom. The only difference between this child, and others who are born and live a wonderful life, is a few inches. The procedure is defended by politicians who say ‘I personally am against abortion, but I am for a woman’s right’ What about the right of that beautiful little baby girl who you just destroyed in a manner equal to Hitler’s holocaust? This little girl has rights too. Some of our Politicians couldn’t care less about the ‘right’ of the woman; they allow murder for the political expediency of their constituents! Thank you Pontius Pilate. I recently saw on the news a state that is trying to pass a law that would require the mother to see a sonogram of her baby before she gets the abortion, they are persuaded that if a woman ‘looks at the baby’ that she will of her own free will decide to not kill it. They then had the opponents/proponents give both sides. Those against it said things like ‘ we don’t require a person to look at a tumor before its removed’ babies are not ‘tumors’ or any other type of ‘matter’ that you dispose of at will. I once had actual pictures of ‘buckets full of babies’ that were taken outside of some abortion clinic back in the 70’s. These buckets were filled to overflow with burned, chopped up, mutilated little babies. Just sitting there waiting for some dump truck to haul them to the local incinerator. Now we have cleaned up our act, we ‘burn’ them before they get a chance to be spotted by the public eye. God forbid that we would force society to look at ‘these tumors’. May God help us all. NOTE; a few years back there was an abortion doctor who took an actual sonogram of an abortion procedure. They later made a video. The picture was front page on one of the national magazines of our country. It was called ‘silent scream’ it showed the baby actually grasping hold of the instrument that was inserted into the mother’s womb, and the baby was trying to keep it from stabbing it. The babies face could clearly be seen screaming bloody murder. This doctor, who was not a Christian, could not continue performing this procedure no matter how many politicians call this ‘a woman’s right to choose’! UPDATE ON PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION # 305
(98) I wanted to mention something. After first becoming a believer, I realized that I couldn’t afford to attend college. I was 20 yrs old, had my first daughter in my early 20’s, and by my 30’s I had 4 girls! But what I did do is borrow and read tons of books from the public library. I would purchase college level books for half price at ‘half price books’. I basically utilized what was available to gain an education, without paying some professor $100,000 dollars to tell me to read a book! Now I am not demeaning those who have, I just want you to see that you can accomplish things if you want to! [Added later; I want to make a note here, I have bought books from ‘the Christian bookstore’ and from ‘regular bookstores’. The Christian bookstores have a tendency to promote ‘pop Christian culture’ some of it is good, some not. The ‘theology’ sections of good bookstores contain better stuff for a Christian education. You would benefit to read the classics and other fields of study that you would get if attending some ‘divinity school’ from Harvard [or Notre Dame for my Catholic friends!] then to just read the pop psychology stuff being promoted today!
(609) Over the years I have seen how division happens among good believers. On this site you can read some good stuff [I think!] on doctrine. You can also read lots of stuff on visions and dreams. I realize that there is a whole sector of the church who believe that the current church ‘is rampant with false doctrine’. I here a local commercial on the radio station that I broadcast on say this. When I here it I hope I am not coming across as someone who only sees ‘rampant false doctrine’ in our day. I also see how these reformed guys see ‘rampant false doctrine’. But sometimes there are honest disagreements that wouldn’t fall into the ‘false doctrine’ category. Paul was a tremendous theologian, reformed as much as any one! Yet what would you think if your favorite reformed theologian was raising the dead? Or sending handkerchiefs to sick people to get well? [it might have been Peter?] Or casting blindness on demon possessed followers? We often see only one side of the argument. Then you have the Charismatics who operate in these things, but it is next to impossible to show them that this same Paul who did these things wrote first Timothy 6, one of the strongest reproofs to the money gospel ever written. So we all have a tendency to take what we like and leave the rest behind. Sort of like some of the first canons of scripture, some guys just cut out the stuff they didn’t like! Even the great Luther had problems with James, Hebrews, Revelation, 2nd Peter and others. Sometimes our minds become idols. I want to exhort all my reformed friends to read the New Testament with an open mind, as well as my Charismatic friends. We all have blind spots that we don’t know are there [even me!] God ordained this to be so! That way we would realize we need each other in order to complete the mission. Let the iron sharpen iron.
(610) JOHN 14- Jesus says he is going away to prepare a place for us. He tells the disciples they know where he is going and how to get there. Thomas says ‘we have no idea where you are going, how can we know the way’. Jesus wasn’t talking ‘location’ as much as communion with the Trinity. He was saying I am going to THE FATHER and you now know the Father, because I have revealed him to you. You have seen me, you have seen him. Also, the way to the father is thru the Son, so you not only know where I am going [Father] but the way [Son]. Now I get it! You can take this 2 ways [not three!] you can look at it as Jesus speaking of the sending of the Spirit as his ‘coming again’, in verse 18 he does say this. He says ‘I will come to you’ and he is speaking of the Spirits coming. Thru this chapter the comforter is one just like him. Also you can read this as the literal second coming. We believe Jesus will come again! Some have said this chapter is speaking of something else besides these 2 options, they think this ‘coming’ is the rapture. A separate event from the 2nd coming. I don’t see how you can believe it this way. Also in this chapter Jesus is showing the intent of redemption. He didn’t just come to take us to heaven. In chapter 17 we will read that he prays to the father for us not to be taken out of the world, but to keep us from the evil in it. Thomas seems to be thinking ‘location and how to get there’ when he says ‘we have no idea where you are going, how can you think we know how to get there’? But Jesus is really speaking the language of fellowship in the Trinity/Unity that he has with the father and the Spirit. He is telling Thomas ‘my purpose is to bring you into this oneness that I have with the father, to invite you to partake in this fellowship’ in essence ‘I am not talking about getting you to a location [heaven] in as much as bringing you into a state of being with me and my father’ true ‘HOLY COMMUNION’! You do see this concept thru out the chapter. The disciples seem to be struggling ‘how will you come back and reveal yourself to us and not to the world’ Jesus says ‘if a man loves me he will keep my words, the Spirit will then come and indwell him and we will all have community together’ [Father, Son, Spirit and all believers]. They are grappling with these ideas. They were like us, always thinking in terms of being saved to go to heaven when we die. Now, I thank God for this benefit. I am very happy that I am not going to Hell! Don’t underestimate this blessing. But Jesus is speaking on a much higher plane. He even says ‘the words I am speaking are not mine, but the Fathers’. A few practical things. Jesus says when I leave you will do greater works because I am leaving and the Spirit will come and indwell you. The ‘non Charismatics’ say this is evangelism. Jesus will give us the Spirit and we will evangelize on a mass scale, greater works. The Charismatics say this is doing more miracles, raising the dead and healing the sick and casting out devils. Who is right? Take them all! Just be sure and bring people into the Kingdom. The gifts are not for you to get famous or gain a following, they are for the purpose of evangelism and expanding the Kingdom. In this chapter we see Jesus great promises of peace and his dwelling with us forever. The promise of the Spirit showing us the things of the father. We are invited into this wonderful communion with him. Let’s allow the work of the Spirit to use us to bring others into this community. The 2 great commandments Jesus gives us is to love God and others. The ‘others’ speaks of his desire to bring people into this community. NOTE; on the radio when I spoke on this entry I mentioned some stuff on the historic creeds and the language that the early church used to define the Trinity. In the world today the 3 main religions are Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Islam and Judaism claim to be Monotheistic. Christians also claim this, but Islam and Judaism don’t agree. The reason for this is in the way the historic church came to define the Trinity. There have been Jewish converts to Christianity who accept Jesus as Messiah but do not accept the classic language of the Trinity. The verse that says ‘the Lord our God is one’ is a main text for both Muslims and Jews in their understanding of Gods oneness. Some of the Trinitarian language has been an obstacle to Muslims and Jews converting. Now, like I said before, I do believe in the Trinity. But if you notice the language that Jesus will use in our study in John, it seems more in line with ‘Unity’ then ‘Trinity’. The truth of the Trinity is there, but the explanations that Jesus gives sound better than the way the creeds say it. One of the creeds says Jesus was begotten eternally. That there was never a time where he was begotten. He was always ‘begotten’. They came to this language by trying to defend Christ’s deity. The problem is scripture teaches us that there was a definite point in time when Jesus ‘was begotten’. The fact that Jesus existed always with the father is different from saying ‘he was always born as a man’ which is what begotten refers to. So to be honest about it, the language in this creed is an obstacle. In my recent conversations with my Muslim friend I stood strong for the deity of Christ and God becoming man thru the incarnation, but I also tried to use the actual language of scripture when explaining it. This is going to be important for the future of the church as she tries to bring both Muslims and Jews into the church. We don’t want to compromise on the historic truths of Christianity, but we also want to express our belief in Monotheism in ways that are in keeping with scripture. Also when I say ‘into the church’ I mean bringing them to God thru Christ, not into some ‘culture of Christianity’ that the world sees as ‘church’. NOTE; I also spoke on the second coming and Preterism. Preterism is a way of interpreting the Second coming as having happened in A.D. 70. This belief arose out of a well intentioned answer to the critics of Christianity. Some critics have brought out the idea that the early church were all expecting an imminent return of Jesus, that they took the obvious scriptures that speak of Jesus coming quickly and stuff like that and were let down when Jesus did not come for the first few centuries. So some scholars developed the idea that Jesus did come in ‘judgment’ and fulfilled all the verses of the second coming in A.D. 70. Others have taught how the early church had to later adjust it’s theology around the ‘obvious’ mistaken teachings of Jesus. Some of these guys are believers, but they fall into the liberal camp. My belief is Jesus will literally come again. A Protestant scholar actually made an argument for the ‘literalness’ of Jesus return thru the Catholic teaching on Transubstantiation. He defended our Catholic brother’s ideas on the Real Presence in the Eucharist. He said the church has been faithful to the literal return of Jesus and his immediate presence by the reality of Jesus being present in Communion. Good effort, but a little too much spiritualizing for me. I believe the best argument that can be made, if you were going to go down this road, would be this chapter. Jesus says he will come again and also says the comforter will be the fulfillment of this coming. Now, I also believe in the future literal return of Jesus, because later on in the New testament you see Paul teaching a future return after the initial outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. I was watching an end time teacher using the verse where Jesus spoke on the destruction of the Temple and he was applying it to a future Temple. He was wrong. I also believe the Preterists are wrong. I believe the rapture as a separate event from the second coming is ‘extra biblical’. But in all of our seeking for truth, I don’t throw out the historic belief of Christ’s return. I believe the best way to explain the supposed delay of his return is to look at the character of God. The New Testament says the longsuffering of God is because he wants to bring as many people into the church as possible. That which seems to be a delay is really mercy. No need to try and find ways to explain this to the critics, Jesus is delaying his return for their benefit!
(625) JOHN 17 [radio # 600] Jesus prays to the Father and asks God to ‘glorify him’ with the glory they had in the beginning. In verse 22 he says he gave this glory to the church. That’s strange. Scripture says God will not share his glory with another, yet here he gives it to the disciples. How can that be? Well, as the Body of Christ we are not ‘another’ we are one with him! He also says ‘I have given life to those who you gave to me, you have given me power over all flesh. I have given life to the ones you have chosen’. Here you see the ‘reformed’ part of me. Jesus is not simply offering life to those who want it [though he does this at other times!] but here he is giving life to those whom the father chose. You find both of these themes in scripture. Don’t fight it, we can’t explain it, but praise God, he chose you! [and me]. ‘I have finished the work which you gave me to do’. What work? He hasn’t gone to the Cross yet. I guess you can say in a way that the work was finished from the foundation of the world, and Jesus is saying ‘the course has been determined, I will go!’ But I also see some truth to ‘the work’ being him revealing the Father to the ‘men which you gave me out of the world’ the work of the 3 year mission to disciple and train the 12. God has determined for people to cross paths with you thru out your life. These are ‘the men’ that God has given you out of the world. It is your destiny to reveal THE FATHERS NAME unto them! In present models of church leadership we fail miserably at this. We see ‘the men’ that God has given us as supporters of our ministries. People whom we try to instill ‘faithfulness into’. ‘Be faithful to the vision of this house’ and stuff like that. When these men go their way, we look for ‘new men’ to come and fill the gap. We basically reveal ‘our name’ to them! Keep in mind that you have a destiny to cross paths with people thru out your life. You will have ‘finished the fathers work’ if by the time you part ways, they have seen and come to know HIM. ‘I have given them the words which thou gavest me’ Give people the words that God is speaking. Don’t fall into the trap of communicating only that which benefits the ‘vision’ of your ministry. We often communicate that which brings the crowds in. If we teach something and the offerings go down, we have a tendency to not teach it again! There is so much pressure in modern ministry to tailor the message to the hearer. Speak the things God is saying. Talk on social justice issues. Not only on the popular ones, it’s ‘in’ to be against racial profiling, but how about the truth on quotas and affirmative action? Speak truth in all areas. Speak the words that God wants communicated. You have a destiny to cross paths with people, avoid the temptation to speak with the goal of being accepted. You know, saying things that you know are popular. Speak truth to power! ‘Father, I will that they be with me where I am. That they may behold my glory’ Is he talking heaven only? Remember how Jesus said the Comforter will come and manifest and dwell in those who believe and keep his words? Jesus is speaking in terms of community here. Organic ‘local church’. Where 2 or more are, there is he ‘in the midst’. Jesus wants us to be where he is, Jesus told the Greeks earlier in this gospel ‘If they want to see me, they can meet me at the Cross’ [a grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying]. I think Jesus is speaking of meeting him in true discipleship and union with him and the father. The reality of the New birth and Jesus dwelling in us by the Spirit. Let’s end with Jesus desire for oneness and unity. In the beginning of this chapter Jesus said all who know the father thru the son have life [a big group of believers!] he also wants all of us to be one. This ‘oneness’ is actually a present reality in Spirit, though it is not fully functional and ‘seen’ yet in the world. Jesus wants it to be ‘seen’. This is how the world will know that he was sent by God! Let’s strive for this unity in Christ. I know there are so many divisions in the Body of Christ it isn’t funny. Some people miss read my own belief on this when they see how we reprove lots of stuff in the church. I don’t reprove from the standpoint of ‘we are right and you are wrong’ more from the standpoint of ‘we are all striving to be what the father wants, lets be honest and open with one another. Let’s reprove because we care for each other and don’t want the other to ‘fall off the cliff’. Lets do all we do with the purpose of true unity in mind. I don’t care how afraid you are of ‘the one world church’, but whether you like it or not, you are part of Gods ‘one world church’.
(629) MEGA CHURCH- I want to speak a little on the trend of ‘mega church’. Those of you who have read all my stuff know the way I view ‘church’. Not so much the ‘church I go to on Sunday’ but more of ‘the group of believers residing in my city’. Now, I am not against mega church. Recently a mega church in Texas taught some stuff that was in the class of real heresy. They denied that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel. This got us to discus how stuff like this can happen. In the idea of church as being ‘to get as many people to attend the Sunday meeting as possible’ this environment often breeds a corporate mindset that sees the ‘filling of the building’ as the goal. Along with this comes the ‘meeting of the budget at all expense’. When we first started reproving the doctrine of Jesus being a millionaire, the disciples having a huge budget, Jesus owning an expensive house and all the other stuff that went along with this distorted view of Jesus. It was hard to ‘correct’ the average Pastor who would hear a ‘proof text’ like Jesus wearing an expensive coat and then falling headlong into the money camp. It really upset me that average Pastors could be so easily ‘moved from the gospel of Christ’. I then began to see that in the context of these men’s lives, the major pressure was to ‘fill the building and meet the budget’. All well meaning guys, just distracted from the real goal [the developing of the character and image of Christ in the people groups [oikos] you relate to over your life]. Now, in this environment [the fill the building one!] you grasp hold of any teaching that helps with the accomplishing of the mission. So good Pastors, wanting to meet the budget, hear something from the prosperity group and take it in hook, line and sinker. Any reproof is seen as ‘these rebels don’t see the truth of money and its major role in the Christian life’. While in reality money is dealt with in scripture, but the overall view can be summed up in Paul’s statement ‘using the things of this world while not abusing them’. An overall balance of finances without falling into the trap that Paul warned about in 1st Timothy 6. But in the highly individualistic style of a Pastor overseeing thousands of people [like the San Antonio mega church- 18,000 members] you can become isolated thru viewing everything thru the lens of million dollar budgets and having people come and listen. The safety mechanism that Jesus put in the ‘church’ [corporate body of people] was when all the believers are together, they share and correct and keep each other in balance. The ‘big church’ model can be in danger of losing this ‘safety mechanism’. Some see this and encourage home groups, that’s a good thing. But some mega churches have Pastors who don’t participate. So these brothers are on a course to accomplish huge goals and then when they get off track doctrinally it is next to impossible to correct them. The members are so enamored with the strong preaching of the leader [in the more authoritative situations, I don’t see this in Corpus Christi] that they fall into the category of hearers only and would never confront the leader. Even if he starts to deny that Jesus is the Christ! [Messiah]. So in all of the varied expressions of church, let’s stay balanced and be open to receive from all the Christian communions that are out there. Don’t go down the road of viewing other Christian churches as ‘those deceived traditionalists’. I find it disturbing that when talking with Jehovah witnesses they espouse the same feelings towards the Catholic Church as many Baptists do. While not defending all the teachings of the Catholic Church, this mindset is inherently unhealthy. When a strong mega church is ‘ruled’ by an authoritarian Pastor, this whole dynamic is absent from the New Testament. There was NEVER a situation, NOT ONE TIME EVER where you would have 18,000 believers under the weekly preaching of any single person who was called ‘the Pastor’. Now you can see why the way you view your function as a Christian can be limited if your whole experience in Christianity is one of sitting in a pew and passively hearing bible words being preached. This perspective is not what you find taught in the New Testament assemblies of believers.
(644) OVERVIEW OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHURCH. Pretty tall order! As I finish our study on John’s gospel, I am debating on how much New Testament study to plunge into. I know we will cover the letters and all, but don’t want to finish the whole New Testament in a year or two. I heard a few ideas these last few weeks that I want to cover. One was that we are called to be the ‘21st century church, not the 1st century one!’ Good point, needs to be clarified. People will say this to counteract the strong ‘organic church movement’ to which I am a part of. The best way to understand the ‘21st century church’ is to understand ‘church’. If you have the biblical view of church, as found in the ‘1st century bible’ you see church as a community of people. As she grows thru the centuries she will form and interact with each generation as a real ‘person’ changes with the times. She shouldn’t lose her fundamental message [reconciliation of God and man thru Christ] nor her fundamental nature! She is and always will be the people of God! So any development or ‘seeing her in the 21st century’ has to keep in mind the basic nature of community. If you lose this idea of her, and begin to define her as ‘mega church’ or huge Christian corporation, then you are not really sticking with the actual ‘person’ [Ecclesia] that she is. So any growth has to stick with this basic idea of the church as the corporate people of God. The expressions of mega church or ‘Sunday church’ are fine, just don’t lose the fundamental 1st century idea. It’ not so much a following of a model in as much as it is sticking to the organic person we see as defined by community, got it? Now as we proceed from the Gospel into the book of acts and the letters we do find the basic nature of church. Some have made it harder than it needs to be. For example, the whole area of giving. By now you guys should know my position on ‘tithing’. I believe it’ fine to give 10% of your money, it’s just the whole New Testament is filled with direct instruction on giving. It is always seen in the community context. The later ‘idea’ of tithing into ‘the church basket on Sunday’ as being ‘the local church storehouse’ is really a silly development and digressing away from the idea of community. Not so much ‘those wicked Sunday churches’ an idea seen in George Foxe’s preaching. He was the founder of the Quakers, he would call the ‘churches’ ‘steeple houses’ as he was challenging the mindset of ‘church’ as the building. You would also see the ‘Church of Christ’ emphasize ‘the church of Christ meets here’ as opposed to the word ‘church’ on their buildings. All good people seeing real truth. So as you read into Acts and the epistles you will see Gods people adapting to society around them while not loosing the fundamental nature of being the corporate people of God. We must keep this ‘1st century revelation of Christ’s body’ just as much as keeping the ‘1st century revelation of Christ’. The ways we present the message can change, we don’t have to avoid modern technology or using corporate innovation as a means to advance the gospel. But we cant begin defining ‘church’ as the actual corporation itself! This seems to be the mistake of some who espouse ‘the 21st century church as opposed to the first century one’. So as we begin our way into the New Testament lets keep this in mind. We are going to learn about the great story of redemption, how God chose us and saved us by his grace. Being called the ‘people of God’ and partaking of all the blessings that were once limited to the commonwealth of Israel. Christ destroying racial barriers and ‘making in himself one new man’ from all races of men. Jesus himself being the preeminent ‘stone’ of this building. The singular ‘test’ of whether or not you are ‘one of the stones’ in this building will be defined by Jesus himself who said to Peter ‘upon this rock [your confession of me as Christ] I will build my church’. Jesus himself will be seen as the criterion of whether you are a believer or not. Yes, the message can be seen as ‘narrow minded’, some will challenge this idea ‘who do you think you are telling us we all need Jesus’? But the fact will remain that we all do! You will see thru out history that some will emphasize the teachings of Jesus more than the letters of Paul [Catholics and more orthodox churches] and the Protestants will become focused on Paul’s revelation as seen in justification by faith. While some see these as opposing views, I see them as 2 strains of truth that are destined to merge as Christ becomes more preeminent at the close of the present age. He will truly ‘bring all things together in him’ in ways that we don’t fully understand yet. So as we move ahead, lets fix our eyes on the ‘Captain of our Salvation’ and let him steer this ship the way he wants.
(658) OVERVIEW OF AMERICAN CHURCH HISTORY- Let’s do a little overview of my story. When first coming to Texas I had a catholic upbringing but was pretty well ‘lost’. After truly coming to know the Lord I had the privilege of meeting believers from various backgrounds. I knew good Baptists, Assembly of God, Church of Christ and other good Christians. It didn’t take long to see how the more legalistic believers from all the above groups [some more than others] would view the ‘church down the block’ as either a cult or heretical. They would develop these views from sincere differences they saw from scripture over water Baptism, Gifts of the Spirit, Eternal Security and other important doctrines[I had a friend who would point to the statue of Mary in front of a catholic church. It showed other statues of kids kneeling and praying around Mary. He would say ‘Look, Idols worshipping Idols’!] The infighting from some of these brothers was really detrimental to unity in the Church. Many, like myself, would eventually move on in the Christian experience and continue to hold to the historic doctrines of Christianity while rejecting the strong sectarian mindset that can exist in many of these groups. I still see all of the above groups as Christian. I still actually hold to some of the basic tenets of the Baptist church, as well as the assemblies of God. You would even find me agreeing with my Church of Christ brothers on stuff. But for the most part I see many of these differences as divisive. Some ideas are important to discuss, some basic historic truths are worth dieing for! But not necessarily the ones these brothers have argued over. Other believers who have left the more independent churches will eventually become ‘anti Christian faith’ some will view all Christianity from a negative standpoint because of being burned by one of the above expressions of Christianity. As you study Church history along with the Bible you will begin to see the great revolution of the people of God and the reality of Christianity as the major hinge factor in world events for the past 2 thousand years. You can not trivialize the impact that Christianity has had on world affairs. Some recent books written by Atheists have tried to blame Christianity for all the ills of society, while at the same time others atheists will try to say that Jesus and his movement are a farce and have had little impact historically. Hey, you really cant espouse both of these views at once. The simple fact is Christianity has had a major impact on the world. To refute Christopher Hitchens recent book ‘God is not Great’ he tries to prove that Christianity and religion have done no good whatsoever and the world would be a better place without it. He is not honest about the facts. The truth [historically] is that Christianity has been the major force behind the most noble institutions in our country. The hospital system in the United States as well as the University system was founded by the Church. The major scientific thinkers of history have been Christian [or deist]. The majority of the founding fathers of our country were without a doubt Christian. It is common today for our Public schools to focus on Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson or George Washington when teaching on the founding Fathers. And because you will find certain non Christian statements from Franklin, yet he himself still embraced religion. But more from a Deist standpoint [belief in God while not being a Christian]. This small focus on a few of the fathers [there were at least 50 historic figures who would fall under the category of founding Fathers. Some actually started bible societies. Wrote their own version of the Bible and stuff like that] seems to leave the impression that the founding of our country was by men who were ‘fleeing Christianity’. To start a new world free from religious expression. This is in no way true. Most of the early settlers of our country were called ‘Puritans/Pilgrims’. ‘Pure’ from what? From religious expression? They got the name from being ‘Non Conformists’ under Queen Elisabeth’s rule in England. During the reign of Elisabeth England was dealing with the problem of the ‘Non Conformists’. These were the Christians in her realm who were Protestant, and they didn’t feel the ‘Protestantism of England’ went far enough in her reform. The Church of England was ‘too catholic’ for these brothers. So Elisabeth actually persecuted Protestant brothers under her reign, though she herself was considered to be the ‘Protestant Queen’ after her sister Mary, the infamous ‘bloody Mary’ martyred Protestants. You would think the Protestants under Elisabeth were happy, but they weren’t. Eventually Elisabeth would pass a law that told all the Protestant Pastors to keep wearing the catholic Collar on their vestments during ‘church services’. Eventually these ‘non conformists’ would get their name for not wanting to conform to these regulations. So these eventually would flee England. Some to Holland and other areas. Eventually to the Americas. This is the basic moral underpinning of the religious Puritans [pure form of Christianity as they saw it] who founded our country. In this background you will find the idea of ‘Separation of Church and state’ seen. Though our founding documents reference Christ and God many times, yet this phrase comes from a letter during this time. The phrase itself has been used in the hands of strict separatists as meaning something different from the original ideas of the fathers. Our constitution does have what is called ‘the establishment clause’ ‘Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise’ but if you read this in the context of all I just showed you, it is quite easy to see that they didn’t mean society should be free from all religious/Christian expression. But they used this language to protect the church from the intrusion of government interference. These fathers were fleeing England and a Queen who kept telling them to ‘conform to the sates standards’. They wanted to make sure no state, not even the new one being founded, would ever tell the church how to run her affairs again. I know the other side [the strict separatists] have a different belief about the founding of the country. But this is simple history, you don’t have the option of changing the facts! This is also why Congress still opens in Prayer. Why the Ten Commandments are still found on the walls of government buildings. Why they still ‘have the gall to have our Senators sworn in on the Bible’! It is quite obvious that the majority of the founding Fathers were not atheists who were founding some new world that would be free from religion! Now, this new religious freedom allowed for the ‘starting of many churches/religions’. You would have the rise of many types of religious movements. The breakaway groups from both the catholic church as well as the protestant church would find new freedom in America. Many of these expressions are the churches that I mentioned at the beginning of this entry! But you would also see the rise of ‘cults’. The first major wave of ‘anti cultism’ seen in this country was the strong resistance in the early 20th century against the metaphysical cults. These are the groups know as ‘unity’ ‘Christian science’ or ‘theosophy’. These groups were seen as THE major threat to Christianity in the first part of the 20th century. You would have scholars from the universities, that were founded by Christians, writing against these movements. Princeton, the university from my home state, was one of the Universities that had these scholars. You would also have a strong anti catholic spirit among some of the writings of these Reformed scholars. These were good men who held faithful to what they still saw [and see!] as the major errors of Catholicism. This backlash and anti catholic spirit was seen in the real fear that Many had when John Kennedy ran for President. Kennedy would have to make it clear that his religion would not interfere with his allegiance to our country. The Pope would have no control over him in matters pertaining to state and government. Some feel this is what was behind his assassination, a strong anti catholic spirit. Of course we know this not to be true, Oliver stone [movie maker] has shown us the truth behind his assassination! [of course I had to put this in!] So this leaves us with a good country, with much religious freedom. This also has lead to the freedom for one type of Christian church to bash another type. Even to view them as heretics! So the Christian church of our country is not forced to ‘love our brother in Christ’ by human law, but I think we could find another law in scripture that supersedes human law! Note- There is a ‘curse’ or judgment that believers bring upon themselves when they view other Christian faiths as in total error or apostasy simply because they are catholic, or traditional. I know and believe there are important differences that still need to be dealt with in love. I believe heresy should be dealt with. But I have seen on too many occasions how Christians ‘use’ their judgment on the traditional church in a way that blinds them to truth. How many times have I tried to show someone that Jesus was not about materialistic living. Though he told his followers he would meet their needs, yet he walked above the pursuits of this life. I would get responses like ‘Oh that’s that old tradition/religious teaching the Catholics teach. Vows of poverty and stuff like that.’ These believers sincerely cant see the major body of truth in scripture dealing with the warnings of money because they grasped an idea that all the Catholics or traditional churches are simply wrong. Proverbs says ‘don’t move the ancient landmarks that your fathers put down’ we need to be careful that our view of ‘those deceived Catholics’ is not a blind spot [or should I say log!] in our own eye! NOTE- If you think about it, the effect of the founding fathers writings, our constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Who would have thought these ‘documents from a revolution’ would have had such a major impact? Even today it is considered ‘heresy’ to question the Constitution. Is it a ‘living document’ that changes and grows with the times? Some conservatives will burn you at the stake for saying this! I believe a reason for the influence of these writings can be attributed to the same ‘idea’ as Paul’s letters. Paul wrote most of the New testament. These letters were not ‘university papers’ that Paul spent hours pouring over in some library. These were ‘documents from a Revolution’. Things written during a time of major world upheaval. The instituting of Gods rule thru this new King called Jesus! Writings produced from a Revolutionary mindset. I think we need to get back to laying everything down for this cause once again. We are living and writing from a ‘safe’ harbor. This explains the tremendous lack of authority in the things we are communicating!
(538) This past week the Jehovah Witnesses held a regional convention in our city, the theme was ‘Jesus Christ’. The papers said they were making an all out effort to appeal to Christians at large by doing this. The Pope’s most recent book is ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ he is defending the supernatural and historical accuracy of Jesus as described in the Gospels. He is basically defending the truth of Christ. I find it interesting that most ‘Christian’ groups, even those like the Jehovah witnesses, who historically fall into the cult category, realize that the way to be ‘politically correct’ amongst other groups is to acknowledge Christ. Now I am not saying all groups are doing this out of a pure motive, Jesus said many would come in his name and say ‘I am Christ’ this not only can mean they are claiming to be Christ [Moonies] but it can also mean they are saying ‘Jesus is Christ’ but they don’t truly acknowledge his full deity. The point is even Muslims acknowledge Christ as well as do the Jews. They see him differently than Christians, but they can’t deny him fully! God will draw men to Christ; some of them will preach him out of impure motives, like Paul said. But he also said ‘either way Christ is preached’. I find it interesting that God will even use his enemies to preach his name! [Note: I am not saying this about our Catholic brothers!]
(578) We are still going to cover the gospel of John, I just felt like the Lord had me sidetrack for these last few entries. I actually have been reading this morning as I penned the last 2 or 3 entries. Let me overview something. I am reading chapter 8 right now, I will cover it soon, but I want to focus you in on the greater objective of Jesus and the introduction of the Kingdom of God to planet earth. In Jesus dealings you see him dealing with the issues of forgiveness, restoration and the breaking in to society of a different kingdom. His concerns are not those of today’s church for the most part. We have a tendency to view scripture and Christianity thru the lens of ‘starting churches’ [Christian places for believers to meet] we view the Kingdom [those of us who don’t believe it is on hold!] thru the lens of man. We see change as something we effect by becoming wealthy and influential in society ‘the world will have to pay attention to us now, look at all the wealth we have’ or ‘look at the big voting block we represent, they will pay attention to this sleeping giant now’ we lose sight of the principles of sacrifice and humility and truly being Christ like. We want the world to notice us because we are more ‘threatening’ and influential than they are. This might get their attention, but it doesn’t really reach them for the kingdom. As we read thru the gospel of John, pay attention to the ‘other worldliness’ of Jesus statements ‘I am not alone, the one who sent me is with me’ ‘you are from below, I am from above’ ‘you can not hear or understand me, you are of this world, I am not’ there is this whole sense of Jesus operating outside of the structures and influence of men. He says ‘I am speaking these things to the world’ yet he never traveled far from his hometown, he did not have the types of journeys that Paul had. Yet he was confident that if he spoke what the Father was saying, then it was Gods job to get the message out. He knew his job was humility and the Cross, he chose to not seek the honor of men, and yet he has had more honor than any other person who has walked the planet. I just wanted to do a little ‘course correction’ here at midstream of our overview of John, don’t just read it for principles to fit in to your present paradigm and structure. It is a gospel that calls us to new birth and new ways of seeing the kingdom. Get your eyes off of the natural, see Jesus for real in this book.
(580) I picked up a book at the bookstore a few weeks ago, I didn’t get it at the Christian bookstore, but at a regular bookstore. It was written by a Catholic theologian and it’s defending Paul’s writings in the New Testament against his critics. A hobby among people today is to say that Paul ‘hijacked’ the real message of Jesus and preached this anti gay, women hating, anti Semitic message. These critics will tell you how Jesus never said anything against homosexuality, but the homophobia you see in the church is a result of Paul. Well needless to say I disagree. Even though the author is trying to defend Paul, he is one of those higher critics who questions the authenticity of some of Paul’s letters. In his defense of Paul he falls into the category of ‘New Perspective Theology’ that just looks at Paul’s statements on Gentiles being brought in to the community of fellowship that Israel already had with God, sort of like focusing only on the verses of us sharing in the fellowship with God that Israel had. This truth, apart from the other verses on how Israel too must accept Messiah, leaves the perception that Israel is just fine in her current state [of being!]. Well in our study of John we read the Jews respond to Jesus ‘God is our Father’ and Jesus says ‘if you don’t honor me, you can’t have the Father’ though Israel ‘believes’ in the true God, yet she doesn’t know him, according to Jesus. So anyway the book wasn’t as good as I thought it would be. A few weeks back I read ‘My new kind of normal’ [I think that’s the title, it’s by Carol Kent] it was real good. She tells the story of how her son joined the military and married a nice girl who had some children from a previous marriage. The son winds up shooting and killing the ex-husband to protect his step daughters. The story is very real, that which is lacking in Christian books today. We have famous Christian celebrity authors writing things that don’t really matter, this book matters. I also just got a book in the mail from Amazon Books on the ‘Children of God’ group. I have studied this movement before, they are a cult. And I have another book coming in a few days on the story of the conversion of Jeffrey Dahmer, he was the serial killer who ‘ate’ his victims. He did accept the lord in prison and I have been wanting to read his story for a while. Have you read any good books lately [or at all]? NOTE; when I went back to spell check this entry it sounds like all I am reading is on cults and killers, trust me I read other good stuff too!
(229) Let me try and do this. I just kind of had an ‘overview’ of old testament history and the ‘history of the church’ run thru my mind in a few minutes. A lot of the stuff I am going to share is from many years of memory. So bear with me with the little details! In the Old Testament Gods people were represented by the nation of Israel. During the journey of Israel from captivity in Egypt to the Promised Land God deposited certain ‘sacred/religious’ rituals into their society for the ultimate purpose of revealing the gospel and reality of Christ’s sacrifice for all people. During this journey Israel ‘divides’ over certain issues. Israel has a northern tribe [Israel] and southern one [Judah] The northern part develops a separate priesthood under Jeroboam, and the southern keeps the original priesthood under Reheboam. The inheritance being divided during the possessing of the Promised Land becomes a theological issue for Jewish orthodoxy. The ‘jeroboam’ group identifies with the altar of worship deemed ‘unorthodox’ while the southern group has the ‘true’ place of worship. By the way this was the issue seen in the gospel of John chapter 4, when Jesus speaks to the woman at the well. She was a Samaritan, part of the ‘unorthodox group’ and was asking this exact question! So the history of natural Israel is one of division and ‘who has the real priesthood’ [sound familiar?] It is interesting to note, that though theologically the southern tribes are more ‘correct’ God later reproves them for their ‘correctness’. The prophets will eventually address Judah and say ‘thus saith the Lord, you pride yourself on being more faithful than your sister [northern tribe] and yet you are worse!’ So already God is dealing with the aspect of pride that comes along with theological correctness. Today the church historically is divided. Most evangelicals think of the 16th century reformation as the ‘dividing point’ but historically it’s the division of the 11th century between our Catholic and Orthodox brothers that is seen as the ‘great schism’. Either way you have the Catholics/Orthodox representing historic orthodoxy and the protestants/evangelicals on the others side. The debate rages on who has the more pure form of orthodoxy. We are like the woman at the well, we are asking Jesus ‘who’s right?’ and Jesus simply tells the woman ‘I am not here to take sides in your theological arguments, I am here to call you to repentance and lead you into true worship with God’. So we find ourselves in a place in history where truth does matter [at least to me!] but where Gods prophetic voice is calling all of his people back to true worship. Sort of like the Sienfeld episode where George is going to convert to the Orthodox religion so he can date some girl. The orthodox priests are questioning George on his reason for conversion and George replies ‘I like the hats’ to the dismay of the priests who were wearing these religious looking hats! We try to come up with reasons to why we associate in our divided groups, and sometimes it’s as silly as the hats! Well I know I got a little theological with you guys today, but I felt the Lord wanted to get you to thinking on these things. God wants unity, and all sides have to display ‘humility of mind’ in the process!
(238) A while back I mentioned how the prophet Jeremiah [and others] spoke about ‘tearing down, removing obstacles and building up’. I have been in the ‘demolition stage’ for a while and want to do some ‘building up’. I spoke on the extreme forms of ‘renewing the mind’, things like focusing all your thoughts on money verses, quoting scriptures that seem to focus on what you want out of life. These types of ‘mind renewing’ are not primarily what the New Testament is talking about when it speaks of renewing your mind. Paul the Apostle, who most frequently uses this image, had a basic thrust to his theology JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH Paul was a radical Apostle with a message of God accepting us freely as we believe in his son. Paul knew the terror of legalism and trying to keep Gods commands in order to be saved. The entire Old Testament Jewish law was a complete drain on the human psyche. Man over and over again would attempt to ‘live up to the standard’ to no avail. God allowed the sacrificial system of animals to temporarily ‘cover’ their sins as a future sign of the one sacrifice that would pay for all of mans sin. The Apostle Paul lived under this condemnation for most of his professional life. Paul was a Pharisee who taught Jewish law and was enmeshed deeply into this system. The revelation of being ‘saved’ thru simply believing in the single sacrifice of Christ was a tremendous ‘paradigm’ shift from legalism to grace. It was hard for someone of the Jewish faith to make this transition. It was almost as in if it were too good to be true! This is why Paul says things like ‘If there were a law given that good have made us right with God, then we would be made right by it. But being there is no such law, God has chosen to justify us by faith’. You find this singular theme repeated over and over again in Paul’s writings. Faith in Jesus is not only the way we get into the Kingdom, but it’s also the way we grow and mature once we get in! ‘HAVING BEGUN IN THE SPIRIT ARE WE NOW MADE PERFECT BY THE FLESH [LAW]?’ Galatians. Now with this underlying theme of grace, always warring against the mindset of law, Paul speaks of ‘renewing the mind’. It was a battle to keep at the forefront of the early believers this central reality of the gospel. Paul was continually warring against other religious leaders [judiasers] who did not walk in grace. This is primarily what the New Testament is speaking about in the area of renewing the mind. Some actually teach the renewing of the mind in a legalistic way. They make you think that you have to change your circumstances and ‘world around you’ by some type of mental gymnastics. You fall into this type of ‘mind renewing’ that puts the pressure on you to change things. This is not the biblical image of renewing the mind! The biblical image is seeing all the great things that God has done for us thru the Cross, and living our lives out of this radical gratitude that causes us to lay down all of our agendas for Gods agenda! The fact that this legalistic mindset of trying to live up to some religious standard is now over, this releases us into a radical way of life that makes Gods Kingdom the priority. As Paul teaches this radical good news, he clearly says ‘you are not saved or accepted with God based on your performance. You are accepted because Christ died for you’. Many people in society today don’t know this! They see the ‘church’ as a bunch of ‘moral hypocrites’. They don’t realize that God is not holding things against them. The account has been paid. God is not requiring them to join some church, or convert to some religion. He is simply trying to get this message to them. Why isn’t it getting to them? O that’s right, when they tune in to our TV shows they see us talking about money! [I forgot, I wasn’t going to tear down today]. You see, the thing that should be compelling us to go into all the world with an urgency to preach Christ is a gratitude for what he’s done for us. We don’t have the right anymore to live for ourselves; we have been bought with a price THEREFORE GLORIFY GOD IN YOUR BODY AND IN YOUR SPIRIT, WHICH BELONG TO GOD.
(252) Just woke up, I am at work. It’s real early and I felt like we should overview some things. In the old days when I pastored I would get a thought/idea and then research it and develop it over a 2-4 day period and then preach it on a Sunday [OK]. To just wake up and start writing from scratch allows me to cover a lot of territory, but also risk missing a fact or two. Nothing major, just maybe a side detail. So to my critics, hunt and you will find. To my friends I hope we are breaking thru. A few days ago I spoke on Paul and the underlying theme of our acceptance with God by faith. As a religious teacher of the Jews, Paul was well instructed on the life of Abraham. The Jewish people looked to him as ‘the father of the faith’. In Genesis chapters 12 and 15 you find stories that become the basis of Paul’s theological argument for Justification by faith. Even though Paul and the other Pharisees knew about these stories, it never ‘dawned’ on them until the Spirit of God revealed it to them. Paul will go to these time and again. The books of Romans [4] Galatians [2-3] and to the surprise of some, even Hebrews [11] are actually ‘justification by faith’ arguments. [I will develop the Hebrews argument at another time, but it ‘dawned’ on me one day that this was Paul’s ‘open letter’ to the Jews of his day. This is why it’s unsigned. The Jews would not read something from Paul after all the slander he received by the judiasers. Hebrews ‘theologically’ bridges the gap between the book of James and Paul’s epistles, a lot can be taught right here] Paul lays out for the Jews the simple fact that God counted Abraham righteous [accepted and just] when Abraham ‘believed in God’. It was AFTER he believed in God that he then was circumcised. The law of Moses [10 commandments] weren’t even around yet! This simple truth showed the religious community of the 1st century that acceptance with God was not a cultural [circumcision] or religious/legalistic [10 commandments] thing. God was already receiving people based on their belief in Him years earlier. Now Paul does some tremendous ‘brainwork’ on revealing things from The Old Testament and showing how they were ‘precursors’ to Christ. But I want you to see this simple truth today. One of the main teachings of the New Testament is that God accepts you when you believe in his Son. This is no excuse to go out and sin, but your living different is a result of your free acceptance with God. It is not the CAUSE of it. I find it interesting that the bible actually says that no person can ever be saved by trying to live good, go to church, obey the commandments and all the other things we put on people. Paul actually makes the statement [Galatians] IF A PERSON CAN BE MADE RIGHT WITH GOD BY DOING SOMETHING, THEN CHRIST DIED IN VAIN. Think about that. If there were some other way to ‘get saved’ and go to heaven [now God wants a lot more than this!]Then why would he have given his Son to die? If you owed 100 dollars on some debt and the creditors were calling. Would you say ‘well I guess I will go and die for the payment’. Not if you could get out of it by paying the 100 dollars! So this is one of the arguments that Paul uses. He then goes on to explain ‘why did God give us the 10 commandments’. He teaches that God gave us the law to REVEAL MANS SIN TO HIMSELF. Some believers are not as clear as they should be on this. Even if we could get all the 10 commandments posted in all the schools of the world, this still would not fundamentally change the way kids act. I would rather post John 3:16! I am being a little sarcastic. The point is God gave man the law [10 commandments] so after a few thousand years of ‘trying to be good’ he would come to a point of utter failure. The law did its job; it showed man his need for a savior. This is the New Testament argument. Today I want all my readers that are not really Christian to see this. I can argue all the merits of Gods existence and all the proofs from natural law and every other angle there is. But I want you to see that Christ died for you. God is not telling you to become a religious conservative. He is telling you you’re forgiven and accepted, IF YOU WILL ONLY BELIEVE. [Read Hebrews: 11 commentary on this site!]
(257) Lets go back to an original thought. I want to throw this out to our intellectual readers. The whole idea that Paul wrote Hebrews, and specifically chapter 11 as a way to bring the truth of Justification by faith to the Jewish church is what I want to propose. If you read Romans and Galatians you see Paul’s entire argument for justification by faith as seen in the Genesis 12, 15 story of Abraham. When James teaches Abraham in the book of James, he is primarily seeing the view from the story of Abraham offering Isaac on the altar [Gen 22?] James is seeing ‘actual, experiential justification’ Paul is seeing ‘judicial, declarative justification’. Paul says ‘God declares you righteous at the moment of faith, before you ever see it actually working out in the life of the person.’ James doesn’t contradict this, but James says ‘look at Abraham, when God declared him righteous [Gen 15] he eventually became what God declared! [Gen 22 Actually doing right things, offering up his son]. Now where most Christians [including theologians] miss it is when they try to bring these 2 truths together. They usually say ‘what James is saying is active faith saves you, not works’ If you read James carefully he is not saying that! He actually says ‘see how a man is saved by works, not only faith’. I believe the truth is James is seeing God declaring a person righteous when he actually does a righteous thing. Now this can get hard, but in Paul’s view Abraham became justified in Gen 15, true. And in James view when Abraham actually did the work of obedience, God also said ‘well done, you did good!’ In essence God has the sovereignty to declare you ‘right’ whenever he wants. Now we know the only reason a person can ever get to the point of ‘doing right’ is because he already passed the point of ‘being declared right’ [Gen:15 versus Gen:22]. It’s just that the Jewish church was emphasizing the ‘actually righteous’ part, where as the gentile churches were focusing on the ‘believing and being justified’ part. No contradiction, just seeing at a different timeline. This is also one of the main areas of division between the Protestants and Catholics. Luther was seeing the Gentile view [Romans/Galatians] the Catholics were seeing the ‘actual’ view [James]. The Catholics actually called Luther’s [and Paul’s!] view ‘a legal fiction’ they said Luther taught a man can be legally Justified without ever showing it. Luther really didn’t teach that, but he did say once God justifies you, it’s not up to your works to save you. Many don’t realize that Luther also strongly believed in predestination. All the major reformers did as well! Now you read Hebrews 11 with this in mind. All thru the chapter Paul is saying ‘look, all these heroes of faith acted by faith. They actually did works of righteousness by faith. They ALL obtained a GOOD REPORT [declared right!] by faith’. Read this chapter with this in mind and you will now see the whole point of the chapter. It’s Paul’s treatise of ‘justification by faith’ written anonymously to the Jewish nation. Here my friends is the solution to the problem. This view bridges for the first time [I believe] the whole problem of the book of James and the epistles of Paul. It also helps bridge one of the major divisions in the church today. Take this and run with it! NOTE; Luther called the book of James ‘a straw letter’ and at one point thought it should not have been added to the canon, though later he did include it in his bible versions! Also Paul includes Rahab the harlot as someone that was justified by faith, showing it didn’t matter how many sins you have committed in the past, if you believe you too will be justified. [see Hebrews 11 on this site]
(292) Let s go thru some stuff. I woke up yesterday at 3:00 am, felt like I needed to do some specific prayer. Some times I include about an hour and a half of specific intercession while doing ‘all night’ prayer. This ‘list’ of things has grown and evolved over the last 20 years, but it has kept the basic structure for the most part, Family, Nations, Fellow believers and even old friends from Jersey. I have actually been praying specifically for you guys, often by name, for over 20 years! Well I didn’t get to do the ‘specific set’ yesterday, so I am now up at 2:45 am, been up since 1, and will make a second attempt soon. First lets do some stuff. I recently read an overview of the first book the Pope put out since becoming Pope. I will get it when it comes out in English. He wrote exactly what I have been speaking on the last month or so. He speaks on the dangers of Marxism [communism] as a form of govt. that pushed out God, though it had noble designs in its attempt to have all people ‘equal’ in society. He spoke on the dangers of capitalism as a type of govt. that can fall to the temptation of materialism. He spoke on materialism as an enemy of the church and how western society has fallen into this sin without realizing it. These themes are almost exactly what I have taught! It’s humbling to see God speak the same thing to an insignificant hippie preacher on the gulf coast, as he is speaking to the Pope in Rome! During the time of slavery in this country there were many southern preachers who defended slavery from scripture. Many of these men were sincere, some were not. The sincere ones even had reputations as Christians that their own slaves vouched for. Some slave holders were cruel and abusive, some were actually good to their slaves [as good as you can be considering you have a slave!] The Christian slave holders read the actual verses in the New Testament where Paul writes to slaves and says SLAVES BE OBEDIENT TO YOUR MASTERS IN EVERY WAY, SO YOU DON’T GIVE THE GOSPEL A BAD REPUTATION the slave holders who were truly Christian read the other part that said MASTERS, TREAT YOUR SLAVES WITH LOVE AND RESPECT, KNOWING THAT YOU ALL ARE FELLOW BELIEVERS OF GODS GRACE. Now to read these real verses during the Civil war caused many sincere preachers to say that slavery should not be ‘undone’ because God addressed both the slaves and the masters this way. To be real honest, many of you who hold to a literalist view of scripture [I hold to a literalist view to a great extent] would see these verses the same way. It is the overriding purpose of the Gospel that causes one to fight for freedom despite the ‘verses’. Jesus primary goal in redemption was to set slaves free [spiritually] for this spiritual redemption to follow thru to a ‘physical’ one was only logical. To form your views at the time based on the overriding ACT OF REDEMPTION would trump any specific direction given, even in scripture, to a 1st century slave holder. Context tells us that Paul was addressing slaves under a different time and economy of societal rule. These 1st century slaves were governed by many Old Testament decrees that God allowed, for a multiple of reasons, to exist. It was easy for the ‘literalist’ preachers to say THE BIBLE SAYS SO in defense of keeping slaves; it was proper and just to free them as an extension of Gods purpose in Redemption! It takes courage and boldness to stand against a particular reading of scripture, that is popular at the time, in order to see and move down the bigger road of Gods overall purpose. Many today can’t follow this theme. Its possible to go to Old Testament scripture and find verses on putting to death kids who curse their parents, women who have cheated on their husbands and even those who live the Gay lifestyle. While none of these practices are considered good, even amongst most Christians today, yet to kill them is not an option! [Except maybe for that Westboro Baptist Church bunch of nuts who are going around picketing dead servicemen at their funerals!]. Christian’s today practice tithing under the same reading of scripture, many of them don’t know this, but its true. You can read the verse on robbing God in Malachi and scare people, just like if you read the verses on putting Gays to death. If you read that verse over and over every Sunday you could be persuaded of it. If you read Malachi and tithing as you read other Old Testament verses [with a spiritual truth behind the verse] then you would err on the side of grace. The old testament teaching on tithing shows us that God not only wants the ‘10 %’ of a persons income, but he wants the whole firstfruit. Spiritually we ARE the first fruits unto God. He wants ALL of us, we are his tithe! Simple, isn’t it. Now if you give 10% to your church on Sunday, fine! You shouldn’t read Malachi and tell New Testament Christians their under a curse if they don’t put 10 % in the bucket. The way people ‘rob God’ according to Jesus is by not meeting the actual needs of society WHEN I WAS HUNGRY YOU DIDN’T FEED ME, NAKED AND YOU DIDN’T CLOTHE ME, etc. Robbing God is not done by ‘not tithing’ it is done by not obeying the New Testament mandate given over our treatment of ‘our neighbor’. Now this is supposed to ‘leak’ over into society at large. That’s also why you see certain elements of catholic teaching that harbor illegal aliens [the sanctuary movement] they are responding out of this basic concept of ‘treating your neighbor well’. Neighbor in the 1st century context also meant ‘alien’ those who were living ‘in the land’ but were not really part of Gods covenant. God had specific instructions on how to treat ‘illegals’ and it was WITH GRACE. Sorry Sean Hannity! Well any way I felt the Lord had this word for you guys, hopefully I will get thru this prayer thing without coming back to write, many times I will write in spurts while right in the middle of prayer. Could it be that this is why the Lord allows these ‘words’ to have a big impact? Prayer is more important than ‘pulpit performance’ seek to speak what God is saying and the Lord will give you ‘an audience’. NOTE: When Paul was addressing the early believers and basically telling the slaves to ‘submit’ this was a practical reality that Paul was trying to instill in the new revolutionary movement called ‘church’. There were other messianic groups in the first century, some of these were called ‘zealots’ these people practiced a radical type of reform. A type of civil disobedience that Paul didn’t want the new believers to be associated with. Paul wanted the early believers to be seen as good citizens in society, not zealots. This explains the practical instruction on slaves being obedient. Paul wasn’t justifying slavery for all time!
(298) Let me overview some history from the Fundamental Independent Baptist Church and its beliefs. I used to attend a good one that did preach the gospel. I do want to share in love some examples from this peculiar type of Christianity. The church I attended had a sign that said FUNDAMENTAL, INDEPENDENT, PREMELLINIAL, PRETRIBULATIONAL BAPTIST CHURCH This ‘sign’ was in itself a sign of the danger that Christians fall into when they isolate themselves from the rest of the Body of Christ. While I understand this view and style of belief, I also see a type of theology [eschatology] that can develop when you truncate yourself from the mainstream churches. There are so many things that you can put on a ‘church sign’ why clutter it up with certain end time views [which in my view are actually incorrect!] You can put THE BLOOD OF JESUS WASHES AWAY SIN or John 3:16 or some other way to define your belief system, but this type of Church sees itself as THE ONLY truly Christian church today. Some are not this extreme, but even those have a ‘cultic’ spirit that sees everyone else as ‘straying from the faith’ while they are the true carriers of the faith. I was with a friend at work who is a Christian. I recently recommended the church I attend in Corpus [a great mega church] to him. They have a ‘branch’ church in Kingsville where I work. One day while I was reading the bible during lunch a city inspector came by to take care of business. He noticed I was reading the bible and started talking. I found out that he is a good Christian who attends a fundamental Baptist Church. I gave him some of the books I wrote and told him I am a little ‘radical’ but hoped he would get blessed [to be honest for a Fundamental Baptist to read this entire site would probably give him a heart attack]. It was good fellowship. He shared with me and the other fire fighter how him and his wife travel about 4 towns over [50 miles] to attend a Fundamental Baptist Church. It’s probably a small Church with around 50 people [OK] my friend later thought it strange for someone to do that. After all there are so many good Christian churches right here! I explained to him a little of the legalism that causes this. To see your ‘peculiar style’ of belief as the only ones you can truly worship with. Many Christians suffer from this. Some are more extreme than others. By the way my fire fighter friend did start attending the church I recommended, and he loves it. One day at work we were watching the history channel and they were doing a thing on the Mormon Church, my friend said ‘wow, I would never be a Mormon’ I looked at him with a real serious face and said ‘what do you mean’ he said ‘look at all the stuff they believe, I could never believe that’ I said ‘[my friends name] we are MORMONS! Bay Area Fellowship is Mormon!’ He was shocked, then I told him I was just kidding! I thought it was funny at the time.
(301) Was just thinking about a show I saw a while back. Larry King had a bunch of preachers and Priests on his talk show. One preacher was a ‘fundamentalist’ he was doctrinally correct on a lot of stuff, but you could sense an arrogance. Another brother was a well-known Christian author, I liked him the most. He stood strong for salvation being thru Christ, but was humble and real. The Priest was a little to ‘liberal’ for me. He kind of had the mindset that all people who believe in ‘a’ god are all right [not all Priests are liberal!]. He even had a famous guy who is very popular today, he teaches ‘eastern mysticism’ though they really don’t call it that. It’s easy to fall into categories. I believe true Christianity should be ‘served’ with humility and grace. This doesn’t mean that we give in to extreme liberal views on salvation ‘all roads lead to heaven’ type stuff. One road leads to heaven, his name is Jesus. You can be Catholic, Protestant or any other group, but you must believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Gods Son. God is not asking people to change their cultural heritage, but he is compelling you to ‘get in the lifeboat’ [Ark!]
(83) The other day I was listening to a good preacher on the radio. Sort of a ‘reformed’ thinker who frequently calls the church back to the Puritan days. I love Puritan history and writing. Many of these brothers would agree with some of the stuff I teach in the area of the church being self centered and materially minded, but they would absolutely reject our prophetic stuff. God’s intent for the church is more than ‘the church’. Jesus spoke on the Kingdom over and over again, very little on the church. The reason we exist as ‘the church’ is to invade and impact all areas of society until Christ returns. There are certain ‘old time’ defenders of the faith who cant get past ‘church’ being ‘the old time model’. They stumble over the current ‘mega church’ expression. Many have gone after Rick Warren and his ‘purpose driven church’ model. Our radical teaching on the church being the actual mobile community of God ‘journeying’ thru every generation till now, leaves room for the unique expressions of ‘meeting’ that would go from the simple ‘home based model’ all the way to the ‘mega church’ and even to the Catholic brothers! Our purpose isn’t to meet and argue over the many ways to meet, our purpose is to advance and communicate the gospel of the Kingdom into every arena of man. Some confuse my strong preaching against materialism with a call to come out of the market place. Nothing could be further from the truth! When Christians are able to live above the concerns of the unbeliever, and to do it in a way where they are so intricately involved in society, this itself is a testimony to them. Over the years I have had Christian friends try to tell me ‘why don’t you leave the Fire Dept. and get a building and be faithful to your calling’. I see now that some of them were saying this out of self-guilt. Many of the other Christians in the market place were feeling ‘threatened’ that a so-called ‘preacher’ [to which I hold no claim!] would be working and holding a job like them. Sort of ‘well if this guy can do it, then I am responsible to be more than just a fire fighter’. Then you would have those in ‘full time ministry’ who would get offended that we didn’t take offerings or money. After all they would make the ‘offering time’ 25% of the Sunday meeting. The fact that we weren’t even doing it was offensive [we did take offerings at one time, but I never took a salary from day one]. These examples show you that society is comfortable with secular/holy divisions ‘just keep the church in the church’ and they will be happy. Now to the point of the believer being highly involved in all aspects of society, even economically. It is most definitely Gods will for believers to excel in the stock market, real estate world and all other avenues of finance and influence. Its just we need to distinguish between a message of ‘the Kingdom invading society’ and making the Kingdom about money. This is a real distinction that needs to be taught and understood. Many prophetic people who advocate these things are not yet able to articulate this distinction in an effective way. They will read so far on this blog and think that we are against being progressive, which is not the case. Jesus instituted the Church so the Church would be the key vehicle for expressing the Kingdom in the earth [as well as the whole universe!] We are about much more than which particular style of church or meeting we should have. The style or methods are really un important in my mind. The goal is to harvest enough people who we can then turn out into society to affect it for Christ. The Kingdom starts as a little seed [our small church mentality!] and eventually moves out to cover the earth!
(377) A few entries back I spoke on not judging God or others based on our own experiences. I have noticed over the years how a lot of believers who might have had a Catholic background became very ‘anti catholic’ after being ‘born again’. I do believe in the New Birth. I believe all who believe in Jesus Christ are Born Again. In 1st John it does say ‘whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God’. Some times we associate ‘being born again’ with our own evangelical experience. ‘Have you asked Jesus into your heart?’ If not, then you’re not BORN AGAIN! This is what you would call ‘reductionism’ reducing everything to a simple ‘me and Jesus’ format. You know none of the Apostles ‘asked Jesus into their heart’ [the original 12]. It would sure seem like an awkward thing. ‘Jesus’ ‘yes Peter’ ‘would you come into my heart’ ‘I have been with you from the start, you will soon believe in my death and resurrection. You will be one of the key figures in the founding of my church’ ‘I know all this Jesus, but if I don’t get saved I cant go to heaven’. The point is simply, all the Apostles and every other believer since has had one thing in common. They have all believed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They believe ‘he is the Son of God’. Don’t use your own personal experience to exclude others who might not have come to the Cross the same way. We all come by faith, the peculiar aspects surrounding the event are not what saved you, it was Jesus who saved you. Also it is a common hobby for the more extreme fundamentalists to question whether or not ‘you are really saved’. They often use verses like ‘you should know whether you are in the faith or not’ [Corinthians]. But they use them in a way that’s not really in context. Paul uses these verses to question Christians who are doubting the physical resurrection. He is not using these verses to ‘micro examine’ every little detail of their conversion experience! God gave his son to save the world; it would sure be strange to find out that the majority of people who believe in Jesus didn’t make it because of some technicality! God wants to save people, people need Jesus to be saved. Don’t make it harder than this! NOTE; Now that I mentioned ‘reductionism’ let me say a few things. In the world of ‘theology’ reductionism refers to the ‘reducing’ of Gods greater corporate and societal purposes [the Kingdom of God] to the simple act of ‘getting saved’. There are whole churches and movements whose entire ‘thought life’ is centered on ‘am I saved? If so I will find a church that tells me this every Sunday, and often these same churches will convince the ‘saved’ that they really didn’t get it the first time. And there you have it ‘they get saved for real this time’ and then the whole cycle repeats. The more ‘communal’ churches see salvation in a broader way. They often quote St. Augustine’s famous words ‘there is no salvation outside of the church’. Many good theologians hold to this. I believe this is true to a degree. In Paul’s teachings ‘the church’ are all the communities of people who have come to Christ. Paul does teach a form of ‘corporate salvation’. That is ‘if you’re in the church you are saved’. It’s just there is a tendency [Augustine] to see ‘church’ in an evolving way that restricts ‘church’ to the specific community that YOU personally relate to. So in Augustine’s mind [as well as other great Catholic theologians] to be ‘church’ is to be Catholic. Now after Vatican 2 [1962-65; The year I was born] the Catholic Church officially acknowledged the Protestants as ‘separated brethren’. A big step for them to have made. Some more liberal Catholic thinkers see ‘all religions’ [Muslims included] as being ‘saved’ thru the grace that is resident in society thru the Catholic Church. Sort of like ‘Gods grace to reveal God to people is activated by Gods Son. The only ‘true’ church that is ‘transmitting this grace’ is the Catholic Church. The fact that all Muslims are believers in God is a divine sacramental act that is taking place in society thru the Catholic Church. Therefore the fact that Muslims [or any one else] are truly in communion with God is a real work of grace that has been generated thru the one true church’. Now I don’t hold to this. All Catholics don’t either. This is to show you the broad range from ‘me and Jesus’ to that which borders on ‘universalism’ [the doctrine that says eventually everyone gets saved. Some very intelligent church fathers believed this. Origen was one of them. Though Origen is not considered ‘Orthodox’. He was a very influential teacher and figure in the early church. He actually taught that satan would ultimately be saved. He was a real Universalist. Some Universalists don’t deny the blood of Jesus, contrary to popular opinion. They actually believe the blood is so powerful, that it will ultimately ‘save all people’. There are very smart Christians who do believe this. I personally do not believe this. But I find it interesting that modern evangelicals do not for the most part see ‘universalists’ as other Christians. There are different types of them, the ones who believe in Jesus are Christians, even if they believe all people will ultimately be saved. The other types who reject Jesus are not Christians] NOTE; I remember hearing a story about one of these evangelists that preached one of these ‘you think you are saved, I’ll show you you are not!’ type sermons. The sermon was so ‘convicting’ at the end of the meeting he went down to the altar and had the Pastor ‘lead him to the Lord’, that’s strange. If his own sermon that he preached got him ‘saved’ then that means he ‘got saved’ from a lost mans message. That would mean ‘he’s not really saved’ wouldn’t it? This stuff gets ridiculous after a while.
(393) I felt like the Lord wanted me to share some things, I do not ‘feel’ like doing this at all. These last few days have been real difficult for me. This is an example of ‘doing what God says despite your feelings’. I want to speak on the Kingdom of God. The Christian church has had various ways to ‘see’ the Kingdom of God. For many centuries [19 of them to be exact!] the church for the most part taught ‘amillennialism’ a type of view that saw the work of the Cross as the significant event that ‘triggered’ Gods Kingdom. In effect believers saw the fact that Jesus died and was resurrected to be seated at Gods right hand as Gods Kingdom already being in effect thru this event. The giving of the Spirit to the church was Gods ‘program’ of expanding the Kingdom in the earth thru the growth of Christianity down thru the centuries. Some who held to this view [which for the most part I agree with] also ‘spiritualized’ all the verses of God dealing with Israel and the event of the second coming in a way that denied the literal return of Jesus to David’s throne. During the 20th century you had the rise of ‘fundamentalism’ and dispensational theology that saw the truth of the real second coming and Jesus actual return to Israel to be seated on David’s throne [John R Rice and other fundamentalist preachers brought out much truth in these areas. These brothers would come to be seen as ‘premelliannial’ in the sense that Jesus must first return and take David’s throne in Jerusalem before the ‘millennial’ rule of Christ can come] The divisions between these ways of seeing Christ return are strong. Some from the latter camp began to hold to a view of the Kingdom that said ‘man cannot bring Gods rule in, only Jesus. Therefore until he comes back all the church can do is win souls’. The other camp said ‘ we are here as Christians to initiate Gods rule. We are salt and light and therefore we have Christ’s Spirit in us to bring Gods rule in’. Both of these groups have truth. The fundamentalist for the most part rejected the reality of God initiating his rule thru Christ the King who is already seated at Gods right hand [the position of rule] and is working thru his subjects [the church] right now. In reality man cant change the world, but the church thru the present ministry of Jesus at Gods right hand does have the ‘ability’ thru Gods Spirit to bring in Gods rule. The idea that the second coming is the ‘event’ that God will use to bring about world change denies the reality of Christ’s rule right now. The American president is the president right now. He has certain abilities to effect change by this fact. He is ‘seated’ in the nations capital, you might never actually see him in person, but the fact of his authority is a real thing. The fact that Jesus rose from the grave and is seated at Gods right hand is the event that gave us the authority to affect the world thru the church. This is Gods idea, not mans. It is also true that Jesus will come back and literally return to Jerusalem. But the seat of authority that he now holds at Gods right hand is much greater than David’s throne. There are actually scriptures that show that Jesus has already ‘inherited’ the throne of David by virtue of the fact that he ‘sits on top of the mountain that trumps all other thrones’. The dispensational brothers will look to the world wars and other major events and say ‘see, this is proof that man cant change the world. Until Jesus comes back things will get worse’. The Bible says those in darkness will continue to get worse, those in the light will get brighter and brighter. The Idea is as Gods ‘citizenship’ increases [thru evangelism] more people become children of light. So even though the world is getting darker, the church isn’t. The more people who become ‘members’ of the church will become ‘brighter’. This obviously will affect the world for good. So man in and of himself cant bring in ‘Gods rule’ but the fact that Jesus is presently reigning [though you don’t physically see him] is where the real power of ‘world change’ is located. So for people like myself, I would answer the strong dispensationalist with this fact. Now to the Parables of Jesus. The strong dispensationalists have a ‘strange’ way they interpret some of the Parables. The one on ‘the kingdom of Heaven is like unto leaven that someone took and hid in 3 measures of meal until the whole loaf was leavened’ this Parable, as well as many others show the concept of Gods kingdom invading the planet in a small way at the start [Jesus and the 12] and eventually effecting all the earth. The dispensationalist teach that Leaven is always a sign of something unclean and because the ‘law of first things’ [the first time a certain theme is used in scripture will define it for the rest of scripture] that therefore the leaven here is wickedness, and that the Kingdom of Heaven is different than the Kingdom of God [they are the same by the way!] that what Jesus is actually teaching is that wickedness will eventually invade all of the ‘church world’ [which they say is the Kingdom of heaven-silly]and therefore when Jesus returns he will fix everything. To me this would be a failure of what Jesus is trying to do. He left all authority on earth to the disciples by saying ‘go into all the world’ after he said ‘all authority is given to me’. He commissioned the church to ‘invade the world’. If the evil in the world wins until Christ’s return that would basically be a big failure on the part of the church, which represents Christ Kingdom now! The first century religious mind had a view of religion that was based on Old Testament ideas. In the Old Testament, if a Priest who was ceremonially clean, touched something unclean, then the priest would become defiled. The ‘transmission’ of holiness to unholy things didn’t work. But the ‘transmission’ of unclean things to holy things did! This is why the Pharisees had such a hard time with Jesus ‘contact’ with sinners and prostitutes. The Pharisees saw the ‘church’ as an institutional fortress ‘flee into Gods community and be separate from society’. Now the New Testament gives a mandate for believers to ‘come out from the world’ but this is speaking about not partaking of the sins of the world while being salt and light in the world. Jesus instituted a type of Priesthood that transmitted ‘holiness to unclean things’. A better priesthood [Hebrews]. Scripture says ‘light came into the world and the darkness couldn’t overcome it’ [John] So in Jesus rule you find the ‘Priests’ [all believers] having Christ’s Spirit in them for the purpose of affecting the world with righteousness. Now the church has too often grasped a mindset like the Pharisees. You see this in the strong conservative elements of Christianity ‘the moral majority’ ‘the center for moral clarity’ and all these other silly institutions. These guys mean well, but they are dividing society into ‘sides’ that has the gay lobby and others fighting against the ‘moral crusaders’. In essence this is a return to the ‘Pharisee mindset’. But there is also a movement in American Christianity [by the way we are only a small part of world Christianity!] that is appealing to the other side of the political spectrum Sort of like liberal ‘yuppie’ type Christians who might vote democrat or republican. They don’t hold to the ‘religious right’ persona. They are concerned with environmental issues and stuff [they might even still go to rock concerts, amen!]. I see this movement as great. God can recruit from all sides of the political spectrum. This is Gods ‘leaven’ affecting the whole lump. [By the way, leaven can represent something that starts small and invades everything. Sin can be described this way, or Gods Kingdom. Leaven is simply a ‘material’ that God can use in symbol any way he wants. Just cause it was used for an ‘unclean thing’ doesn’t mean Jesus cant ‘re use’ it for a clean thing. This actually can be a sign in and of itself. Jesus took a natural thing that was ‘sinful’ in scripture [man/leaven] and turned it around into something clean!] Basically what I am trying to get across today is Gods kingdom was not ‘postponed’ in its entirety. Certain aspects of its ‘revealing’ in regard to natural Israel are ‘hidden’ right now. At the second coming all Israel will see that Jesus has been ruling and reigning for thousands of years already. He will appear to natural Israel some day, but remember its not always the way we think!
(406) We all have a tendency to ‘take refuge’ in a ‘completed’ belief system. We want to have every answer down pat. We decide to believe one way or another on certain doctrines [not talking about the basic truths of the gospel!] and then we move ahead in the journey. Whether we are right or wrong doesn’t seem to matter. We have already decided, we have preached it to others, and there is no way I can admit that I have been wrong. It’s funny because many who act like this are the same ones who will criticize the Catholics for holding on to tradition. These guys are worse! God is calling us to take refuge in him. For him to be the ‘rock of defense’ the ‘fortress and one who never changes’ our stability should be in him, not some system of doctrine that has come to us from men. Now the faith that was once and for all given to the church is not what I am talking about, but the other silly stuff we find ‘refuge’ in. Am I pre trib, mid trib or post? Well if there is only one second coming [and there is only one] then you don’t have a lot of choices, do you? ‘But I have been taught this historic doctrine from the great men of faith of days gone by’ no you haven’t, you believe in something silly that is not true. ‘Well I will believe my way, and you will believe yours’ I know that already, but the point is you guys are the same ones that get apoplectic over the Catholics! Just thought I would show you what a bunch of hypocrites you are. NOTE; Let me show you what I mean. If you read the passages in the gospels when Jesus is speaking on his second coming and the end of the world. He says ‘there will be tribulation like never before’ he talks about the obvious events of the great tribulation. He then says ‘after these things you will see the sign of the coming of the son of Man’ the pre tribulation brothers call this ‘the revelation’ part of the second coming. The ‘second part’. You then also have Jesus say ‘then one shall be taken and the other left’. Now he specifically says this ‘one taken and the other left’ is after the tribulation, at his second coming. This seems to make it real simple. Jesus will come and ‘take some and leave others’ at this event, which happens at the ‘second coming’ and his return. The Rapture guys say this is not the event of 1st Thessalonians chapter 4. Even though if you read that chapter Paul says when Christ returns some will be taken and others will be left [the unbelievers]. The rapture guys say this is a ‘different’ taking of people at a ‘different’ second coming. Well I think I could accept the doctrine of Peter being the first Pope before you could convince me of this one!
(727) THE DELUSION OF RICHARD DAWKINS, THE AUTHOR OF ‘THE GOD DELUSION’.
I have been wanting to write a few entries but have hesitated to break into the Genesis study. Recently a noted atheist/scientist Richard Dawkins has been making the rounds to defend the non existence of God. In his comments he has unwittingly defended the existence of God! He is on record as stating that it’s possible that there had to have been a pre existent being who started the ball rolling. He states that this being would have to have great ability and tremendous understanding, very advanced in wisdom. He also acknowledged that he would have had to have either been around forever, or some other being before this being who was around first. He even surmises that this being could be some type of extra terrestrial life. An alien for crying out loud! I am not kidding. Now, what’s wrong with this picture? He seems to not realize that he is making the ancient philosophical case for the existence of God! This whole train of thought is what the ancient philosophers used to prove the existence of God. Thomas Aquinas goes on for hours using this very reasoning. He doesn’t call the being ‘an alien’ but the whole theory of a pre existing intelligent designer is the exact case that Dawkins is making. He seems to be totally out of his league by making this argument. A knowledgeable atheist would never make the drastic mistake of arguing for a pre existent being who started the ball rolling. A true atheist knows that this is basically the proof for the existence of God! I do find it funny how so many people have fallen for Dawkins and the other recent atheists who have become popular. Its funny how one of there leading advocates has actually advocated for God.
(420) ‘Avoiding extreme forms of isolation’ my background with the Fundamental Baptist church allowed me to see how pride and sectarianism affect true corporate unity. There was always a sense of mockery when it came to any type of unity. It was truly deemed ‘part of the one world church that the antichrist is setting up’. Regardless of your views on this, the simple fact is Jesus prayed in John 17 that all believers would be one. If you were to study the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation and were looking for all the times where scripture speaks of ‘one Kingdom’ and ‘unity’ you will see that Gods purpose for this ‘one Kingdom under God/Christ’ and the unity of the church would far out number the times compared to the ‘one world church’ idea. Now there are a few instances where scripture speaks of the unity of lost men and how lost man does come up with religious ways to appease his conscience [tower of Babel]. But the overall truth is God speaks of ‘one Kingdom’ in a right way many more times. So this preoccupation with these isolated Christian groups is simply a sign of extreme immaturity. I remember stopping one time at some highway shop to purchase some lawn ornaments. I talked to the brother who was selling the stuff. I noticed he was listening to cassette tapes of some Old Testament book [Leviticus?]. We fellowshipped a little while. I kind of got the sense that he was one of these brothers who will spend hours listening to bible tapes, but would never partake of anything the Lord is presently doing in the church. Many of these groups wont even study church history or any other Christian writings. This causes there to be a total lack of understanding on how Gods Kingdom has been operating for the past 2 thousand years. Jesus never intended the doctrine of the completed cannon to cause us to not partake of all the great things God has been doing in society for the past 2 thousand years. Well I felt the Lord wanted us to be challenged to come out of our religious shells. Don’t be so consumed with the ‘one world church’ that you never partake of Gods ‘one world Church’!
(413)I want to talk a little about ‘Local Church’. As I am reading on movements who ‘plant’ Local Churches, it is reminding me of some things. First, nowhere in the New Testament is the command given to ‘go and plant New Testament churches’. Now I don’t want to be picky here. I want you to see why this is so. Protestantism has developed an understanding of ‘Local Church’ that is really unbiblical. I recently read about a movement that ‘sends out churches’ to cities as opposed to ‘sending out missionaries/evangelists’. They see the sending of a person to get a building and preach on Sunday and get the tithe and for people to be ‘faithful’ to the ‘local church’ as the right way to evangelize because ‘this is Gods plan’. Then another group says ‘we are a ‘local church’ with a worldwide vision’. The more extreme brothers will teach ‘you are not in right relationship with God until you submit to his plan, which is ‘the Local Church’. All these brothers mean well. They are just expressing views that are un biblical. The ‘local churches’ in scripture were all the believers living in a ‘locality’. In these ‘communities of believers’ there were gifted men who God placed there for the growth of ‘the local church’ [all the Christians]. Today’s idea of every city having 100 to 200 local churches, all with the office of ‘Pastor’ who is the authority over that specific group is no where to be found in scripture. Now all the brothers doing these things are not heretics [notice I said ‘not all’]. But when you take this limited view that sees ‘the local church’ as the separate organization that you start in your area. And then you teach a form of ‘being in submission’ as tithing to that thing, you are in essence usurping Gods authority that is being released thru a wide diversity of gifts in your area. God sees ‘the local church’ and its ‘members’ as those who are called out of the world unto Christ who reside ‘locally’. So you are ‘part of the local church/group of Christians in your area’ by virtue of the fact that you are all ‘partaking spiritually of the Body of Christ’. The outward sign of this is the Lords Supper. So for you to view your ‘membership’ with a particular group [among 100’s] and then to say ‘I am faithful to ‘my local church’ [the Sunday meeting I attend] and to not see the reality that all the believers in your area are ‘local church’ actually harms the church. Most Protestants do not realize how this limited view ‘colors’ the way they read scripture. In the book of Revelation you find the letters to the 7 churches. These ‘churches’ are once again all the believers living in different locals. God is speaking to the ‘Angels’ of these churches in this book. ‘To the Angel of the Church of so and so’ the word for angel is ‘messenger’. You have the majority of Protestants teaching these angels are the ‘Pastors’ of these ‘churches’. There was NEVER a Pastor over all the believers in these locations. Sardis, Ephesus, Thyatira, etc. When I do the radio ministry. It is not a ministry ‘to the radio’. When I speak into the cassette recorder, I am not ‘speaking to the recorder’. In scripture Angels are messengers. They receive and transmit the message from God. These ‘angels’ of these 7 churches were simply that! God is speaking to the ‘messengers’ and saying ‘if you don’t repent I will remove your candlestick’. These are not messages to Pastors over churches [see how your view colors this!] these are Gods words spoken to his ‘transmitters’ and therefore he is saying it ‘to the angels’ just like I preach ‘into the radio’. Now all of this is for the purpose to show you that God doesn’t send people or movements to go and ‘plant churches’ per se. He sends people to preach the gospel to people groups [Gods idea of ‘churches/ communities’]. These ‘groups’ of people who believe become the ‘local churches’ of the New Testament. When Paul writes to these ‘churches’ he is addressing ‘all the believers’ in the locality. If there were an office of Pastor like we practice it today, there would be no way that these letters would not contain strong instructions and rebukes ‘for the Pastor’ [by name if they were singular authorities]. For the ‘churches’ in the book of Revelation to have had ‘Pastors’ over these entire regions, and for us to not know their names is unthinkable! All the major figures [Paul, Peter, John, etc] were well known leaders in the first century church. To have had ‘Pastors’ as the singular authorities of entire regions, and for them to have remained anonymous till this day would have been impossible! So in essence you are not going around setting up some type of organization that people need to submit to in order to be in ‘proper order’. Gods ‘proper order’ is to be ‘under Christ’. This does carry with it the humility to accept and receive the gifts that God has placed in our communities. The Pastors and Prophets and all the other gifts. These are gifts to the entire community to build the people up. When you have ‘church planters’ who are going around [with a good intent] teaching believers that they must ‘submit to the local church, because this is Gods program for reaching the world’ they are seeing ‘local church’ in a way that is really unbiblical. God is sending all of us out into the harvest field to preach the gospel. I don’t see all the ‘Sunday Local Churches’ as wrong or in rebellion. I see that overall we are all Gods kids who are doing our best to please God. When we deal in grace with each other God works. When we use limited forms of church to the degree of seeing those who don’t fully operate in that mindset as being in rebellion, then we are not truly building each other up in love. NOTE: One of the faults with these strong authoritarian church planting movements is they use verses like ‘follow me as I follow Christ’. They use this to push back against their critics who say they are too authoritarian. ‘Hey, Paul told people to follow him’. Yes he did ‘as I follow Christ’. How did Paul ‘follow Christ’ well he certainly wasn’t setting up ‘local churches’ with Pastors ‘over the people’! NOTE; The first 3 centuries of Christianity you didn’t have ‘church’ as the place you go to on Sunday for religious worship. This mindset developed over time. Our Catholic friends developed a way of doing church that saw the ‘priest’ as the ‘minister’ empowered by Christ’s grace to ‘oversee’ the Mass where the Eucharist becomes the means of grace whereby God ‘infuses’ grace into the souls of the faithful. Basically the Catholic chapter for their belief is centered around John chapter 6 ‘unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood you have no life in you’. While I do not hold to the doctrine of transubstantiation I do not see my Catholic brothers as wicked devil worshippers for this. I see it more as an historic belief that did develop out of an ‘infancy stage’ of Christianity. Holding to Jesus words literally [which Luther himself held to in this area of disagreement with Zwingli, the Swiss reformer!] with a childlike belief that many Christians embraced. During the reformation of the 16th century you had many doctrines questioned, but for the most part the Protestants simply changed the office of the priest with the office of ‘the Pastor’ as the ‘clergy person’ who will administer this ‘protestant office’. This ‘office’ does not exist in the New Testament! So today we are seeing the Lord move in an area of ‘reformation’ [a process, not a one time event] concerning church form. Something that really wasn’t adequately dealt with in the 16th century movement. So we move on to maturity as we accept the good things of the church Fathers [even the Catholic ones!] and we ‘move away’ from forms and styles that are not mandated in scripture. We should not be ‘anti Sunday church/Pastor’ as much as we should be ‘pro Body of Christ’. Wanting to see the people of God fully functional under the headship of Christ. NOTE: This causes us to deal in grace with our fellow Christians. I have heard Protestant preachers say ‘the Catholics teach for doctrine the commandments of men’ while all the while they are declaring a ‘form of local church’ as THE SINGULAR TOOL OF GOD TO CHANGE THE WORLD that is nowhere to be found in scripture! NOTE; ‘Enlarge the place of thy tent and LET THEM stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations’ I spoke on this verse from Isaiah a few entries back. The LET THEM speaks of releasing your spiritual offspring to continue the growth of the spiritual lineage that God permits us to ‘birth’ into the Kingdom. This ‘letting them’ is a voluntary act of leadership releasing people to continue the journey on their own with Jesus becoming their ‘Chief Pastor/Shepherd’. In today’s ‘Local Church’ environment we do not practice the ‘letting go’ part well. NOTE; I have taught the term Ecclesia in our books. Let me mention that the way we view ‘Local Church’ rides heavily on how you interpret this word. The word ‘ecclesia’ is the Greek word in the New Testament for Church. In the early centuries we see how the believers understood this to mean a ‘called out community of people’, not necessarily ‘those called to the building on Sunday’. Later Christians [and theologians] began to develop a type of ‘ecclesiology’ [church form] that fit into the limited mindset of Church being the place where Christians go on Sunday. While it is true that the word ‘Ecclesia’ can describe a ‘city council meeting’ or other types of public assemblies. The true intent behind the ‘called out people’ are those who have been called out of society [separated in the biblical sense] and have become citizens of another country/Kingdom. So to limit the ‘church’ to the actual place of meeting is really not scriptural. The term for church was simply the best word to use at the time. Words are limited. It takes the Spirit of God to truly convey the meaning of them. We do not contradict the words that are used in scripture to make up our own definitions [which is a common hobby today] but we allow the Spirit of God to reveal to us things that the ‘surface reading’ can’t fully show us. NOTE; You never had a scenario where Paul would address the ‘church of Corinth’ or another area and say ‘and to you who live in Corinth, but are actually members of the church at Ephesus, because you have chosen to have membership there’ You were part of the church at Corinth by virtue of the fact that you lived in Corinth and were a believer. You didn’t have the idea of joining a separate entity [group] like the ‘Elks’ lodge or something of this nature. We have developed a way of seeing church that seems to tell believers you must join a specific ‘church’ in your city, out of the 100’s of ‘churches’ that exist there. While it is fine to ‘go to a church on Sunday’ we must not see them as actual ‘local churches’ in and of themselves, this cause’s a division to the Body of Christ that is not seen in scripture.
(416)There were a couple of things I felt like sharing, but I was waiting until I cover the book of Hebrews. I hope to overview it on this blog. But I just had a prophetic dream and it dealt with sharing it. The dream was I was on a roof with a friend of mine from the Fire Dept. This friend has learned stuff from me over the years. He wouldn’t be what you would call ‘a real active Christian’. Just a friend who has been kind of interested in all the stuff I do. Well while we were on the roof [sort of like a roof you might be on to ventilate during a fire] there was an authority figure [a military guard] that was keeping him on the roof. Not like he was breaking the law or being in a judgment type situation. Just the sense that the ‘authority’ figure was not permitting him to leave this post yet. I shared a few things and repelled down with a rope. I then was teaching some stuff [the stuff I was going to wait till I got to Hebrews to share] to one of the younger firefighters. He was sort of a rookie and was just beginning to learn some stuff. He had to go and I was not able to finish the teaching. I told my friend [who was now on the ground] to finish teaching him. He was not the type of person who would normally share his faith. But he knew exactly what I was teaching the other guy, and sort of said ‘yea, I’ll tell him John. I know what you mean’. Well let me share the stuff and maybe get back to the dream. The other day I spoke on the concept of ‘Sunday church’ and how we get this from Paul telling the Corinthians ‘upon the 1st day of the week take up a collection’ [1st Cor. 16] The early church began to practice meeting on the first day [as well as every day!] in memory of the resurrection of Jesus. Nothing wrong about this. As the church ‘lost’ her family/community mindset and digressed into a ‘Sunday church building’ mindset, it just became natural to develop ‘Sunday as the New Covenant’ Sabbath. This is not a biblical doctrine. There is no ‘New Testament Sabbath’ in this way. Now there is tremendous truth to what God wants to teach believers thru the Sabbath, but when we simply teach that God changed one religious day to another [Saturday to Sunday] we lose the truth. The mature believer does not ‘hold’ one day above another. It’s fine to ‘go to church on Sunday’ but to see Sunday as the old covenant Sabbath, and all the blue laws and stuff associated with it, is to not ‘see’ the truth behind the shadow. All people who are in Christ, who are new covenant believers have entered into a ‘place of rest’ where they have ceased from their own works [efforts to make themselves righteous before God]. This ‘place’ is the ‘Sabbath’ rest of God. It is not a day, or a mode of religious worship. It is an eternal ‘age’ of rest that comes to all those who are in Grace. Now Paul actually teaches this in Hebrews. I can’t do it now, but scroll down to the tape/book catalog on this site and read the descriptions on Hebrews. I cover some of it in there. Paul teaches that God created all things in 6 days, and rested on the 7th. He tells the 1st century Jewish community ‘you must cease from your own works too [the law, and trying to please God legalistically] and come by faith to the Cross’ Paul teaches it in a way where he says ‘if God rested on the Sabbath, so you must enter into this rest’. He does do a lot of spiritualizing of scripture. But it must be right, it is inspired! So basically the ‘Sabbath rest’ is entering into the New Covenant. The ‘age of Grace’. But as the church lost the family mindset, it just became easy to teach that Sunday is now the new day for religious things, as opposed to Saturday. You then have all the 7th day groups [7th day Adventists and others- there are whole regions in this country where the Baptists are 7th day Baptists. They hold to Baptist belief in every area, but they believe the same way the 7th day Adventists believe. That the Catholics changed the ‘Sabbath’ to Sunday, and that in so many words this is the ‘mark of the beast’] using scripture to prove that Saturday is the Sabbath and not Sunday. Now Saturday has always been the Sabbath Day. This has not changed [It’s just that in Christ the law has been fulfilled and we are not under any legal requirements in this way. We are in grace and not under law]. The issue isn’t ‘what day is church day’, the issue is once you enter into Gods grace and rest [the Sabbath] you are fulfilling the Sabbath by resting in him. In essence you have found Gods rest. This isn’t saying ‘church day’ is Saturday, or Sunday. ‘Church’ day was every day in the 1st century church. But you see how easy it is when you function out of the ‘going to church on what day’ paradigm, it becomes natural to go thru the bible and try to find ‘the right church day’. We do this with the tithe and all sorts of stuff. Well in the dream I felt like the Lord was saying that many of my friends over the years, even the ones that usually don’t view themselves as ‘preachers’ are going to be used to pass along some of these truths that they have learned from me. The ‘authority figure’ was simply God saying to these friends ‘you are to remain here [at the fire dept?] after John leaves and you are going to be responsible to pass along these things’. I also felt like some of my buddies at the dept have felt like the lord wanted to use them in a greater way, but maybe they felt constrained to be working there. To these friends, let the Lord use you by doing the things you have seen me do in ministry over the years. Use this blog. I share some stuff on the Kingsville fire dept. this will give a sense of purpose for the guys who feel ‘stuck’ at a menial job. The older brothers can use this blog and any other tools to pass stuff along to the new guys. In essence you haven’t missed your chance to have an impact in the Kingdom, maybe the Lord left you there by Divine appointment! NOTE; The 7th day brothers will make some arguments like ‘as believers we keep all the commandments, why not Saturday?’ They also point to the fact that one of the Catholic fathers actually taught that the proof that the Catholic Church has the authority to change ‘laws’ and establish new ‘commands’ was the fact that they changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. This is a true argument that a Catholic scholar has made. So this re enforces in the mind of the 7th day brothers that they must be right. Look at all this proof! Well to be honest, if the issue was ‘what day is church day’ as far as what day has God ordained as ‘the special day’ I think the 7th day guys would win. But I believe the truth on this is in the new covenant there is no ‘special day’ because ‘church’ isn’t a ritual at all. Paul actually told the Colossians that the Sabbath day[s] were shadows of truths that were seen fully in Christ. Sort of like what I just told you. The 7th day brothers say Paul was talking about ‘days’ not ‘day’. The point is when you are resting in Christ you don’t kill, steal, and all the other stuff mentioned in the commandments. Well what about the Sabbath? If Christians are ‘keeping’ all 9 commandments, how do you justify not keeping this one? We are keeping it! When you are in Christ you have ceased from all the religious works of the law and are being made righteous by faith. You are keeping the Sabbath like all the other laws. It is a natural outgrowth of your new nature In Christ. It is not ‘going to church on Sabbath day’ you silly Christians! It is daily walking in Gods free grace, being in right relationship with him by faith. You are in essence ‘keeping Sabbath’ because you have ceased from you own works. It is not some type of ceremonial thing you do on Saturday! NOTE: To all my radical readers [Apostles, Pastors, etc] I too believe that the kingdom involves radical continuous action. There are times where we are ‘non stop’. There are others [not like us!] who lay back and experience their Christian life by really not doing anything. They sort of justify it by ‘entering the Sabbath rest’; they think God requires no action. Let me put some perspective. When God entered into the 7th day of rest in creation, it was a time where he initiated 6 days of tremendous SELF SUSTAINING life and then allowed that creation to reproduce as he ‘sat back’ and enjoyed his heritage. So Gods ‘rest’ is not a ceasing of activity, in as much as it is a period of watching the things you ‘planted’ grow. So for you radicals, lets operate in grace and see the things we are planting ‘grow on their own’. Don’t think you need to be involved in all the ‘re producing’. Jesus said faith in the Kingdom was like planting seed and as you sleep and rise the seed is growing, but you DON’T KNOW HOW THIS IS HAPPENING. So be faithful to plant, and let God nurture and sustain and cause to grow [Paul said some plant, others water but only God can cause actual growth]. NOTE: Let me say a few things on cults. Most true Christians see the major cults as the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witness groups. I must admit I too see them as cults. The Jehovah’s primarily because of their denial of the deity of Christ. Their bible translation purposefully misinterprets the passage in John chapter one that says ‘in the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the word was God’ they change it to say ‘the Word was a god’ a big no no! Simply put, this puts you on the ‘cult list’. The Mormons [Latter Day Saints] are a little more difficult. Their main reason why they make the list is because of the extra biblical book [book of Mormon] as well as the unbelievable amount of extra biblical doctrine that can only fit into the characterization of ‘fantasy’. A lot of Christians do not realize the amount of truly weird stuff they teach. They teach God was like us at one time. He basically ‘evolved’ to where he is now, and we are on this journey. Eventually we will be gods populating our own universe with the many wives [therefore plural marriage was originally part of the plan, but not any more! The only ones who still embrace plural marriage are the fundamentalist Mormon groups who believe the church ‘apostatized’ when it officially rejected this doctrine]. So besides all the other historically un true stuff [the whole so called civilization that Jesus appeared to in the Americas] the group has way too much extra biblical stuff to fall into the class ‘Christian’. The one caveat is they do believe in the sacrifice of Christ for man, it’s just how do you balance that with all this other stuff? Sorry, I do call them a cult. Now, I like Mormons and Jehovah's Witness as people. I do not personally demean them! But the facts are there. What about the 7th day Adventists? Too many evangelical friends of mine have classified them as a cult too quickly. I am aware of the few strange teachings they hold to. Nothing even close to the Mormons. I am concerned about the credence they give to certain past ‘founders’ and stuff. Overall I see them as Christian, though they fall into legalism with the classic belief that they are the true church because of the 7th day observance. They say all others who ‘go to church on Sunday’ have received the mark of the beast. Basically I do have disagreements with them, but I do not see them as a ‘classical cult’ the way I see the other groups. I find it troubling that I have had evangelical friends who classified groups as ‘cults’ because they didn’t believe in the Rapture. They don’t even realize that the ‘Rapture’ is basically false! At least the way they teach it. So you can see that it is easy to label groups as ‘cults’. I don’t want to judge any of these groups, I just needed to be honest about these groups and try and share this stuff in love. I am grateful for all the Mormons and any other groups who read this site. I don’t want to lose you guys! God bless you all.
LEADERSHIP [part 1]
(1081) Was thinking earlier what we should talk about today, I have been jumping around thru some of the prophetic books [Revelation, Zechariah, etc.] but then I remembered I got a letter yesterday from my buddy in the New Jersey jail [I have some in the city jail, some in the state prison system of Jersey]. So I thought I should read the letter and mention it. Sure enough they didn’t take the check, I sent him a 25.00 dollar check and they sent it back; it needs to be a money order. The guys need money to get stuff from the commissary and stuff, I have done this plenty of times [by ‘done this’ I mean sent the money!] I realize now that the Lord is going to have me do a little more writing than I expected. Nothing wrong with it, for some reason I didn’t expect my buddy to write back and want to keep in touch. That’s fine. He also told me he was reading the stuff I copied from my blog; he says ‘it’s strange I can hear your voice when I read your stuff’. Just a few weeks back I was ‘thinking’ about the dynamic of hearing someone’s voice when you read their books, I mean it was a conscious thought that I couldn’t shake. Now I realize it was one of those prophetic moments, basically the Lord was telling me ‘people will hear your voice when they read your stuff’. My buddy handed out a few of the ministry cards I sent, he told me some of the other brothers might write. It’s strange, I felt the Lord was telling me a few years ago that he was going to expand my territory and I would once again have contact with New Jersey, and at the same time some of the Texas contacts would wane [the prison stuff- I still have a bunch of cities we speak into]. So it seems like some of this is coming to pass. To be honest with you guys, I have had some tough times these past few weeks. I can’t be ‘too real’ on a public blog like this! But take my word for it, I have struggled somewhat. You know what's funny [or sad?] I have preacher ‘acquaintances’ who preach great, they always have an excellent public persona. Some think I am too ‘worldly’ [possibly so!] but they mean my open sharing and stuff on the blog. Sort of like we should always be in a preaching mode and ‘God’ forbid we should ever be real. I know some of these men personally, some of them have had more ‘private’ problems than you could ever imagine. Now, I am not judging them, but if all we ever see/know about people are their platform image, then we are seeing an unrealistic picture of the Christian life. Our preaching [American Christianity] is consumed with self-help techniques and psycho babble. We present an unreal picture to the world. Then I hear preachers say that this real life style, being open and not perfect, is wrong. I think the American church needs an overhaul in general. I got an email from the news paper that messed up my bill last month, this paper [Jersey Journal] is the only one I put my name in with the ad, the purpose is for any old friends to see it and maybe read the site. In the other papers I just run the blog ad. But the Journal always treats me right, the poor brother who handles my account always profusely apologizes when something goes wrong ‘please forgive us for the mistake’ and stuff like that. So this time I just couldn’t resist it, I emailed him back ‘NO, I CAN NOT FORGIVE YOU GUYS THIS TIME!’ of course I was kidding, but I would have loved to have seen the look on his face when he read it. So anyway, today we learned that we are all in the same boat, we all struggle with things in life, but during this life we are also called upon by God to give ourselves away for others. To transcend our own weaknesses and give of our time and money for the benefit of others. People who live in the real world need others who live in the real world to reach out and help. One of my favorite movies is Donnie Brascoe [yes, I watch the mafia stuff]. It’s the true story of an undercover F.B.I. agent who infiltrates the mob, he made it further in than any other agent in history. The danger was he identified so much with the brothers, that he had a difficult time differentiating between which world he was in. There is always a danger when living in the real world, we are to be in the world, not of it. But for mere mortals this can be difficult, surely Jesus would never identify too much with such sinful creatures! Oh wait, there is this little doctrine that just popped into my head, I think they call it THE INCARNATION.
(1078) I’m getting ready to email one of our news papers [the ones I run the blog ad in] they double billed me again! I have these papers do direct withdrawals from my account, when a few of them over bill in one month it puts me in a bind. Sometimes it bugs the ‘heck’ out of me, but then I calm down and try and correct it the next day. I believe the Lord allows you to have influence, to ‘go far’, by his sovereign will. Not too long ago I emailed a national radio/prison ministry. He’s based out of Washington, famous brother. Sure enough as I heard his 5 minute radio program one morning, he used a rare example that I have taught on our site. I thought ‘geez, he must be reading our stuff’. It was one of those teachings that is hardly ever heard, a short thing on Jesus words about ‘the camel going thru the eye of a needle’. I refuted the silly teaching that used to say ‘the eye of the needle’ was the name of a ‘low gate’ in the city wall, thus- the poor camel can make it thru, but he has to crouch! OUCH! So any way this brother used the example, good for him [and me]. So if the Lord wants a person to have influence that goes far, he will do it. But there are also times where the Lord holds us back, that is he is simply waiting for our maturity to catch up with our ability. What I mean by this is it is all too common for preachers/ministries to master the art of bringing in the finances, getting things together, then expanding their message way beyond the borders of their maturity. That’s why there is so much unbalanced teaching in the church today, the American church spends exorbitant amounts of money on teaching stuff that is ‘less than perfect’ if you get my drift. So let the Lord lead you in how far your voice should go. He might be saying ‘look son, I have great purposes and plans for you, I have given you a gift and talents that are going to be used in a great way in my kingdom. But for the present time this does not include a national/world-wide audience’.
(1074) Yesterday I met Edward; he is a homeless brother from San Antonio. He located to Corpus a few months ago. As I was helping him out during the day I realized he had a situation with another brother who owns a ‘church building’. The building is not being used so they worked out a deal with my friend, he would live in it and kinda be a caretaker while they are trying to sell it. Well after being with the brother most of the day I ‘discerned’ how he is in great strife with the owners. They have told him to leave and all, he is telling me about his ‘legal rights’ to stay [you do run into brothers like this. I have had buddies tell me stuff like this before ‘squatter’s rights’ and stuff. When one of my friends refused to get his motorcycle motor out of my garage, he started using the squatters rights ‘provision’ he saw how quickly I began dragging it out to the curb! He got it out.] So this is kind of a funny thing that the guys do at times. But it did get me to thinking about how often we mix ‘business’ with ‘church’ [charity]. I have a policy, whenever someone asks to borrow money, I NEVER do it, but I will GIVE them some, with the explicit directions to ‘not pay me back’. A few posts back I mentioned how I used to do the real estate thing; buying a cheap rental [some were not cheap] and renting it out until I could sell it. It’s not wrong for believers to do stuff like this, but Jesus also taught us that the pursuit of wealth can affect you in a bad way. At the time I was reading and learning about all types of money investments, consuming my thoughts and energies with this stuff. Then my bible reading/teaching would inevitably become ‘affected’ with this paradigm. I would just naturally gravitate towards the money portions of scripture, when coming across the classic ‘you cannot serve God and money’ verses; I would unconsciously stick it in the category of ‘church tradition’ even though Jesus was the one who said it! So its a popular trend for believers to get into the whole ‘God has called me into the ministry of teaching believers how to become financially independent, so lets spend our time building wealth for my business and at the same time helping other believers build wealth’ sounds noble, but it usually winds up focusing on the money stuff most of the time. It gets your focus on the wrong thing. So anyway I think we need to refocus our thoughts on the New Testament priorities, sure you can be a responsible business investor, nothing wrong with it. But don’t go down the road of ‘my ministry is to bring in the wealth’ you wont be the first [or last] person that has ‘felt this calling’.
(1073) 1st KINGS 22- Well, this study went fast! I basically write a chapter a day and it fly’s by. Ahab consults with Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. He convinces him to fight against Syria and take back Ramoth-Gilead. Jehoshaphat asks Ahab ‘are there any prophets we can get advice from?’ Ahab brings out the troops, these were 400 PAID prophet’s who were ‘on staff’. Sure enough these brothers know how to ‘prophesy’. They all with one voice [unity] prophesy a great victory ‘surely you will prosper’ is the mantra. One brother even makes these iron horns and says ‘just like these horns you will push the enemy back’ they put on quite a show. But wait, Jehoshaphat wants to play it safe, he asks ‘are there any more prophets that we need to hear from’? Sure enough Ahab says ‘well, I have this guy, but he is so negative! He never agrees with these other fine brothers, but what the heck, lets get him’. So they send a servant to retrieve Micaiah. On the way back to the king, the poor messenger says ‘Now look, all the other brothers are on board, they know how to toe the party line. Please give your reformation preaching a rest’. So they arrive at the designated spot, and Micaiah prophesies good stuff. He gave into the pressure. Ahab says ‘how many times do I have to tell you to speak what’s really on your heart’ then he gives the true prophecy ‘I saw Israel like scattered sheep across the terrain’ basically he was saying ‘don’t go to battle’. Ahab says ‘see, what did I tell you! This brother is bad news’ they lock him up and go to battle. Sure enough Ahab gets killed ‘by chance’ [a stray arrow] and the battle goes bad. Also, a story is told how the host of heaven appeared before God and the lord said ‘how will we convince Ahab to go to battle’? And the story says that God allowed a lying spirit to be in all the prophets. It was Gods judgment on Ahab to let him hear what he wanted to hear! Paul says that people will ‘heap to themselves teachers, wanting the ears tickled’ we live in a day where church attendance is ‘seeker friendly’ people want their ‘felt needs’ met. Sometimes the Lord gives people what they want, even if it’s not good for them! [Remember King Saul?] So we end 1st Kings with judgment falling on Ahab, the dogs ‘licked the blood’ from his chariot in Samaria as a fulfillment of Gods judgment on him. We also see the possibility of ‘prophetic ministers’ looking really good, putting on a show, if you will, and yet being dead wrong! In today’s internet environment we live in a day where multiple prophecies go forth on a regular basis, we need to be wary of listening to the ‘many prophets’. I have found a few good prophetic words thru this venue, but for the most part the ‘prophets’ have a tendency to go with the flow. This is not to say that all prophecy needs to be doom and gloom, but we often give voice to the image of Jesus that suits us best. We like a rich, successful, wealthy Jesus, a real go getter if you will. We then speak words that are coming from our distorted image of him. In essence we prophesy [speak] words that are in agreement with the image of Jesus that we choose to hold on to. Ahab had a bunch of prophets who were looking real good, surely they all couldn’t be wrong! God let them prophesy the things that they wanted to prophesy.
(1071)1ST KINGS 20- Benhadad, king of Syria, besieges Israel and threatens Ahab ‘give me your gold, wives and kids’. Ahab was a demoralized man, his wife was already running the show, he relinquished any remnant of nobility years ago. He responds ‘sure, take it all. What do I care?’ So all goes well, Not! Benhadad says ‘one more thing, tomorrow my men will come and inspect your stuff, if they see anything else of value, they taking that too!’ So Ahab consults with his men, he tells them the situation and they decide to reject the final offer. The fight is on. Notice how the Lord sends Ahab true prophets who give him guidance along the way, it’s like the Lord was willing to allow Ahab some time to get things right. The false prophets are dead, Elijah rebuilt the altar, who knows, maybe God was giving Ahab a real chance at reform. So Ahab does okay, he has a few battles with Syria, and at the end he LETS THE WICKED ENEMY GO! God rebukes him for this thru a prophet. God basically says ‘look, I gave you a second chance. I had a task for you, your job was to recognize and eliminate the threats to my people’ what happened? I have noticed thru the years that leaders, good men, will often fall into mindsets that say ‘well, after all our goal is to succeed and be happy. Have good church attendance, good income. Why even bother dealing with stuff that’s wrong?’ There are times in church history where God is looking for reformers, men and women who are willing to take a stand and say ‘enough, this stuff has be going on for too long, we will have no more of it’ [doctrines and stuff that lead Gods people astray]. It seems as if Ahab was living for the day, willing to let the wicked king live another day. After all, what harm can it do? He disobeyed God, he was given a mandate to execute justice, he didn’t. God chose him to complete the task, not just survive. Ahab blew it big time.
(1070) 1st KING 19- Ahab tells his wife, Jezebel, about Elijah’s victory, she sends word to the prophet ‘so help me God if I don’t do the same to you as you did to my prophets’. Understand, Elijah did not simply ‘rebuke’ false doctrine here, he actually dismantled an entire ‘religious system’ that was contrary to the purposes of God. It is very difficult to uproot all that you have put in place for the sake of reformation. I find this to be one of the hardest obstacles to overcome when seeking God for true change in the church. Christians too often associate their relationship with God along with the systems of religion that they were brought up with. Now Elijah flees for his life, God will appear to him at Horeb; he is not in the wind, earthquake or fire, but in the ‘still, small voice’. Elijah is told to anoint a king of Syria, also anoint Jehu as king of Israel and go get your protégée Elisha. Elijah is also told by God there are seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal. We see the danger of prophetic ministry; God vindicated Elijah and truly did miraculous stuff with him. It was easy for Elijah to fall into the trap of ‘I am the only one who sees this stuff’. God reassured him he wasn’t alone. These last few years I have been surprised by the number of Christians who have corresponded with me thru our blog, it seems as if the present challenges to ‘church/clergy’ are becoming commonplace to the believers at large. It is no longer a secret. But it is also disheartening to see many of my friends who have served the Lord for years; they seem to be oblivious to the same truths that the church worldwide is seeing. So with Elijah you did have false prophets who were all wrong at the same time. Yes, just because there were so many who held on to the same view of religion [Baal worship] this did not mean they were right. But at the same time it was obvious to at least seven thousand others that the popular religious system was actually wrong! James says that Elijah was a man ‘subject to the same weaknesses as all men’ yet the Lord used him mightily. All Gods servants have feet of clay, many of the greatest reformers of church history also made big mistakes. Luther was a tremendous force for change, but his anti semitic writings would later be used as a justification for Jewish oppression. As we strive for truth and justice in the days ahead, let us all remember that some of Gods greatest voices are ‘compassed about with the same infirmities as us all’ God does use clean vessels, but even clean vessels sometimes have cracks.
(1068) 1ST KINGS 17- This chapter is pretty famous among Christians, not like the others we have looked at. God’s word comes to Elijah and he enters the scene as a significant Old Testament figure. Jesus will refer to John the Baptist as one who came in ‘the spirit and power of Elijah’. The religious people of Jesus day held on to the prophecy of Malachi that ‘before the great day of the Lords coming, Elijah would appear’ [Jesus applied this to John the Baptist] so the brother has good credentials. He comes out of the shoot like a rocket; he confronts Ahab, the wicked king of Israel and prophesies no rain in the land. God directs him to go into hiding/obscurity and live by a brook. The Ravens bring him food and he drinks from the brook. The drought causes the brook to dry up and God instructs him to go to a city and be cared for by a widow woman. He goes and asks the woman to provide for him, she fears she won’t have enough for both him and her small family [a son]. He encourages her not to fear and take care of him, she does and God provides supernaturally for the woman. Eventually her son dies and she blames God ‘did God bring you hear to show me what a sinner I am? Now my son dies!’ She was feeling condemned/guilty. Elijah takes the child and lays on him and God raises the boy from the dead, one of the greatest miracles that God does with men. A few things; Elijah was not there to instill fear into the average ‘church folk’. Last night I again made the mistake of channel surfing the Christian channels during ‘praise athon month’ [Double ouch!!] One channel had a brother telling the people ‘God is not moved unless your giving is sacrificial, it must hurt you to please God’ [in so many words] The other channel had a brother saying ‘God said if you hear preaching and benefit, and you don’t give money in return, you are sowing to the corruption of the flesh’ I am familiar with this passage, it is found in Corinthians. The tone and overall ‘sense’ of these appeals was wrong. It seemed to leave a feeling of fear and condemnation to the average channel surfer who might be looking for answers. Elijah told the widow woman ‘don’t fear’. Elijah also had the capacity to live in obscurity, though God spoke highly of him, yet he recognized that there would be seasons of obscurity; times when you simply serve the Lord thru simple tasks and go unrecognized for many years. I cant stress enough the contradiction between Jesus ethos of Christian leadership and what the average Christian is taught in our day. We connect Christian success in ministry with the tools of corporate growth and we simply set young ministers on a purpose driven course that often by passes the teachings and character of New Testament leadership. Elijah will eventually appear again on the scene, but he spent an awful lotta time by the brook!
(1064) 1st KINGS 14- Jeroboam’s son gets sick, he tells his wife ‘disguise yourself and go to the prophet Ahijah, he will tell you what will happen to the boy’. She goes and the Lord reveals the identity of the wife to Ahijah, he is old and blind. As soon as she gets to the house he gives her a strong rebuke, tells her the child will die and that her husband was wicked. Sure enough she takes the message back to Jeroboam and these things come to pass. Why did Jeroboam disguise his wife? Ahijah was the original prophet who told Jeroboam that he would be king, Jeroboam knew that he was doing wrong by instituting idolatrous practices into the nation; so why did he do it? Basically he trusted in the arm of the flesh to maintain would God gave him. He did it so he wouldn’t lose the kingdom. He obviously avoided the prophet for as long as he could, he thought he would send his wife incognito and who would know? The Lord knew. God has ways of getting information to you [and me!] whether we want to hear it or not. Also Ahijah was a prophet, another name for prophet is ‘Seer’ [some feel seers are totally different gifts/offices, for the sake of this basic teaching they are closely related] but yet he couldn’t ‘see’ for himself. I find it interesting that many of Gods greatest gifted people can’t seem to find help for themselves. There is a prophecy about Jesus that says ‘physician, heal thyself’, Paul had a thorn in the flesh that wouldn’t go away! Many people that are used by God to pray for healing and get results, they themselves struggle with sickness. Ahijah had a word; not only about Jeroboams son [a localized situation] but also a national word ‘Israel will be shaken like a reed in the water’ the Lord used the local situation to speak to the broader community. The people would ‘be shaken’ because they permitted idolatry into their lives. Understand, we see the idolatry of Israel as blatant [actual idols and stuff] but they really thought that the forms of idolatry that they were practicing were pleasing to God! I often find that well intentioned believers have a difficult time ‘seeing’ idolatry [covetousness, greed]. The American church has incorporated ‘success/abundance’ so deeply into the minds of the saints that we view our worship of God thru this skewed lens. ‘If God wants me to have an abundant life, then what’s wrong with me centering my church life around being successful, confessing and thinking about abundance/money all day long’? Well, what’s wrong with it is Jesus told the church that he didn’t want us ‘thinking’ about these things all the time, he said the ‘gentiles [unbelievers] are always thinking about the stuff, it shall not be so with you’. So it takes time for Christians to see these things, Jeroboam instituted a form of idolatry into Gods nation, the people sincerely went along for the ride. God said they were going to be shaken ‘like a reed in the water’.
(1062) 1st KINGS 13- Jeroboam is confronted by a prophet as he is worshiping at the idol/altar in Bethel. The prophet gives a significant word, he mentions by name a future king [Josiah] who God is going to raise up to institute reform in the nation. When someone’s name is prophesied before their birth, that is a special anointing. Both Jesus and John the Baptist had stuff like this surrounding their births. Now Jeroboam stretches out his hand against the prophet, God curses his hand and the prophet prays for him and he gets healed. Jeroboam invites him to stay for a meal and the young prophet says ‘no, God told me not to stay and eat here’. On his way home an older prophet invites him to come back and eat with him, he tells the young prophet ‘I too am a prophet and the Lord told me for you to “eat and sit at my table’” [a type of fellowship]. Now, the old prophet lied, why? It seems as if he did not do this on purpose, he heard the story about the young man, possibly remembered the glory days of old and simply wanted the fellowship. As the young prophet ‘sits at the table of deceit’ the word of the Lord comes to the old prophet and says ‘because you disobeyed and stayed and ate, you will die’. The old prophet gave a true word and the young prophet leaves and is killed by a lion. His ‘movement’ died prematurely because he ‘sat’ at the table of deceit and disobeyed God. A few things; many years ago as I saw certain things going off track with certain movements [prosperity] I saw things that seemed to be fake, brothers sharing dreams and prophetic words that seemed false. Yet I felt these brothers weren’t doing this on purpose, that in some way they fell into a trap of wanting to be involved and accepted by their peers. And when confronted by real reproofs, they simply retreated into their own groups and refused the reproof. There are things like this happening now with certain elements of the modern prophetic movement. In the above story, the older prophet meant no harm, but yet harm was done! The younger prophet wasn’t there [in Bethel] to rebuke the old man, he was simply carrying the torch of prophetic rebukes that were needed at times. The mistake the younger generation made was being too willing to ‘sit and eat’ at the old mans table. I believe that certain elements of the older ‘prophetic’ movements need to be abandoned and left alone to die [false doctrines, not people!]. Those who walk in wisdom and obedience will reuse to ‘sit and eat at the old mans table’ and those who decide to stay at the table will die prematurely [that is their ministries and movements will be cut short] which group are you in?
(1061) 1ST KINGS 12- At the end of the last chapter Solomon died, Rehoboam his son will now ascend to the throne. Rehoboam is confronted by the nation, they tell him ‘your father was a slave driver! He made it hard on us, we were tools that were being used for his own self advancement’ [my paraphrase] they plead with Rehoboam to go easy on them. I find it interesting that Solomon’s reputation outside of Israel was great, he excelled and the kings of the earth knew it [image building]. But amongst his own people, those who knew him best, he was driven by ambition. Though hey liked the man and he was a great leader, yet they associated him with always putting a yoke/burden on them to build. ‘More and more’ was the logo. The people were tired, they wanted to simply exist as Gods people. They weren’t asking Rehoboam to totally put them on welfare, they just wanted a break from viewing their lives thru the unrelenting pressure of ambition. So Rehoboam consults with two groups; he asks the elders of the land for advice, they advise him to ‘become a servant of the people, go easy on them’ What! A servant, are you kidding me man. Sounds like the teaching of Jesus ‘he that wants to be greatest must serve’. He then consults the young guys, peers in his own age group, they tell him ‘go for it, tell them you aint seen nothing yet! You think daddy was tough, my little finger will be heavier than his leg!’ Rehoboam listens to both groups and chooses the bad advice of the younger generation. So the people [with Jeroboam as the head speaker] come back on the 3rd day for the response, they don’t like what they hear and mount a revolt. The kingdom becomes divided under Jeroboam as the new king of Israel [ten tribes-northern] and Rehoboam as the king over Judah [and Benjamin] the southern tribe. Now Jeroboam realizes that he will lose control of the people if they keep their religious feasts at Jerusalem every year. Jerusalem is the capital where his adversary Rehoboam is at, so he sets up two golden calves [just like what happened in the wilderness in Moses day] and he places them in the city of Dan and Bethel. He also sets up a new class of priests, in violation of Gods law, and he makes up his own religious calendar. This single action of rebellion introduces false religion on a large scale to Gods people. Rehoboam gets together an army and is about to fight and regain his rightful place, God sends a prophet to him and tells him ‘leave it alone, the thing is from me’. God allowed for the split, Rehoboam had the chance to humble himself and instill a new mindset into Gods people. Yet he went for ‘the glory’. There are obviously a lot of lessons here, I don’t have to show them all to you, they are plain enough to see. To all the leaders/pastors who follow us, how are you viewed by those closest to you? Do outsiders see you as a successful leader, ambitious and able to get stuff done? Do those closest to you seem to be saying ‘lets take a break, we have had many years of never being able to sacrifice enough, building things. Okay things, but the job has been tough, we need a break’. Be sensitive to the real purpose of God, for him to be fully glorified and expressed thru is church, the community of God. Solomon reigned over a great people, but he was too ambitious, ambitious in the area of image building. The people themselves should have been the important thing, not the amount of stuff they could produce! In the end Rehoboam lost more than he would have ever gained by choosing the hard route. Allow God to lead you in the paths that he has set before you, the people you lead are the thing of value, not the things that they can produce [financially or any other way].
(1059) 1ST KINGS 11- THE SIN OF SOLOMON- Now we get to the part where Solomon blows it. As I read these stories of the great men who failed, I continually fall into the trap of rooting for them, even though I know the end of the story! The trap being that failure in a sense was built into the story. How could God fulfill his purpose thru the coming Messiah if one of the sons of David actually lived up to the standard? Solomon, in a sense, was destined to fail. So what happened? This chapter says Solomon loved many women [1,000 to be exact!] and IN HIS OLD AGE began worshipping their gods. He set up altars for sacrifice and allowed the pagan gods to affect Gods people. I find this interesting, it wasn’t the actual act of having all those other women, but the sin of being too accommodating to the other ‘world religions’. I’m presently reading a book written by what you would call a liberal scholar, you know, the brothers who challenge the authenticity of just about everything. But I also have some good scholars that I read from. To be honest, at times you still might read something that makes you a little uneasy; they too at times have been affected by higher learning. But the difference between the ‘good and the bad’ ones is the fact that the good ones remain true to the historic gospel. N.T. Wright is a great scholar, he sits in the middle category, between the conservatives and the liberals [in my view]. The prolific Bishop of Durham [Church of England] has written excellent stuff on the resurrection and the kingdom of God. The liberal scholars view him as ‘behind the times’ why? Because he actually defends the historic resurrection of Christ! Yet you can read some higher criticism in Wrights stuff, not real bad stuff, just things that the average fundamentalist might be uncomfortable with. So getting back to Solomon, he became way too accommodating to the religions of his day. Sort of like calling Islam, Christianity and Judaism the ‘great Abrahamic faiths’. Now, I love Muslims/Arabs, I have written in their defense! I also think some Muslim apologetic arguments for the existence of God are good, but I would not describe Islam as one of the great Abrahamic faiths. Just like I would not call Mormonism one of the great ‘restorationist faiths’. A while back a bunch of believers had an ecumenical meeting with Muslims and Jews. Noble efforts to tone down world violence in an attempt to all get along, I think stuff like this is good. But some Christians defended Allah as being the same God as the Christians, just a different name. In my view they went too far. So Solomon became too pluralistic in his old age. Beware of the trend to abandon central elements of the faith as you mature in your thinking. There is a real temptation to want to look ‘enlightened’ to try and put distance between your intellectual faith and those ‘silly fundamentalists’, because if your not careful you might just end up with a bunch of pagan altars at your doorstep. [Ben Witherington and R.C. Sproul are other favorite scholars of mine; one is Arminian and the other Calvinistic, it’s good to read scholars from various points of view].
(1058) 1ST KINGS 10- The queen of Sheba hears about the wisdom and wealth of Solomon and makes a trip to check it out, she says ‘the half has not been told’. Solomon established an impressive economic and military system for the nation; he knew how to accomplish stuff. Wisdom [Solomon’s gift] allows for there to be action along with knowledge. Jesus knew how to use wisdom, scripture says he ‘is the wisdom of God’. The book of Proverbs [written by Solomon] personifies wisdom as Gods firstborn, God possessed him before all things. Scripture says ‘wisdom sends out her servants/ships’ remember when Jesus ‘sent the word’ and healed people? Or when the Leper was told to ‘go wash’ [by Elijah] he almost didn’t follow through because he was expecting some big show. Wisdom does not need you to personally ‘be there’ for all the action. I get frustrated at times when the modern church implies to the average saint that they really cant effect society ‘on their own’ but it is said in a way that makes the average ‘churchgoer’ think that the only way they can have a part of the action is in if they give exorbitant amounts of money ‘to the church’. And then ‘the church’ will send their money to other professional ministers who will carry out the job. Or the church will send their minister all over the world and he will do the job for them! This mindset ‘de-claws’ the average saint, it makes him think his main contribution is ‘the collection plate’! Use wisdom to impact society, you don’t always have to ‘be there’ [physically] to have an impact, but you are not limited to simply giving money to others who will act on your behalf. The believer’s greatest tool is his/her ability to make disciples wherever you are. Of course you can use modern tools like the internet. These things can be done for little or no cost and you can have a worldwide impact. The point is wisdom allows you to get things done by establishing systems of communication and ‘sending’ that can reach far and wide. In this chapter we read of Solomon’s navy, a previous chapter said ‘Hiram [and Solomon] made rafts and floated the trees to Solomon, there they were discharged for the work’. God can give you ‘divine rafts’ systems of delivery and discharge where you can impact large regions with little effort! All in all the wisdom of Solomon put in place systems that could carry the workload, without having to use actual manpower to get everything done by hand [can you imagine the manpower that would have been needed to hand carry all the trees!] To all my readers, you can impact ‘your world’ by listening to God and responding as he directs. Solomon said [in Proverbs or Ecclesiastes] that there was a poor wise man who delivered a city [and no one remembered him- non famous!] yet his wisdom gave him great influence ‘with the elders of the land’. Paul established the greatest ‘church planting movement’ known to man, and he did it on a shoestring budget! Don’t let man tell you that you can’t really accomplish much without being rich, you are a child of God and he that is in you is greater than he that is in the world! [note- as an aside, I was listening to a testimony of a minister who said how he thought it was sad that in the ‘ministerial’ environment there were times when the pastors would gather and the church members as well. But in these scenarios there seemed to be a distinction that was unbiblical; sort of like the ministers were fellowshipping amongst themselves, being excited over the plans and activities of ‘their church’ while the average saints were also fellowshipping amongst themselves and sharing about their lives and stories. In actuality the New Testament communities did not have these types of divisions. You did not have a separate class of ‘minister’ who ‘ran the church’ as a separate business enterprise. All the people [Elders and Saints] were of one community and their stories and lives commingled in a more communal way. There was no separation between the ‘classes’.]
(1056) 1ST KINGS 8- This chapter shows the coming together of the Ark and Temple at Jerusalem. Solomon makes a great dedication to the Lord. He acknowledges the reality that God does not ‘dwell in temples made with hands’ but he asks the Lord to show preference to the temple and the prayers of the people. We really have a tremendous picture of Gods kingdom and rule thru these images. The temple centers the people on the reality of God dwelling in their midst. They worship him from Jerusalem and their king honors the father and leads the people in community wide intercession. There are even provisions made for ‘strangers’ who will become influenced by God’s reality, they will hear about Gods great story with his people [narrative!]. They will then come and also make intercession to him. I find it interesting that in the book of Acts [and 1st century church history] we read about the pagan converts to Judaism, the ‘God fearers’. Israel always maintained this aspect of their culture with God, they left the door open for converts. I also find it interesting that converts came! After all, the Jews did not practice a type of ‘soul winning’ that actively sought proselytes. It was simply the reality of God working with his people that drew others in. These last few years much has been said/written on the church and her mission. Is the gospel too small or too big? Sometimes in our efforts to ‘go deep’ we make it difficult for new converts to come into the church. In all of our efforts to present a gospel that affects society as a whole, the social aspects of our calling. The greater kingdom vision of Jesus as seen in ‘the gospels’ we also want to make sure that the simple initiation of new converts is made plain and easy to understand [in essence we need the Gospels AND the epistles both. A kingdom message is not complete without the reality of Atonement!] Solomon makes a great speech/prayer in this chapter, he worships God for standing true to his promise that he made to David his father. The people hold a seven day city wide celebration and go back to their homes. Even though the temple and it’s structure were not in Gods original plan [go read about David and Nathan] yet God will honor and use this limited system for a season. In the present day reformation of the church and her structures, we always need to keep in mind that we are still dealing with the people of God. Many of them worship God in ‘limited structures’ but yet they still worship God! So as we reform and grow in the coming decades, we also want to leave room for the prayer of Solomon ‘I know you cant be limited to a structure like a temple, but please honor the prayers and simple sacrifices of your people. They are doing it out of dedication to you’ [my paraphrase].
(1054) 1st KINGS 6 ‘CONCERNING THIS HOUSE WHICH THOU ART IN BUILDING, IF THOU WILT WALK IN MY STATUTES, AND EXECUTE MY JUDGMENTS, AND KEEP ALL MY COMMANDMENTS TO WALK IN THEM; THEN WILL I PERORM MY WORD WITH THEE, WHICH I SPAKE UNTO DAVID THY FATHER’ [verse 12] Part of the promise of God to David was he would set up a son, from his natural heritage, that would take an everlasting throne. God would be faithful to his part of the bargain as long as his son walked in obedience, ultimately these promises would be fulfilled thru Christ. We can also apply them to our lives as well, we are all ‘building a house’ in a sense. Jesus said those who heard his words and did them were like those building on a sure foundation, those who ‘heard only’ were building on sand. I find it interesting that many of us seem to think that gathering one day a week to ‘hear words’ is what God requires, in a sense we have become professional hearers! [and speakers] As you relate to the house you are building, seek the Lord for wisdom and insight into how you should build. God gave Moses specific directions in the building of the tabernacle; these are the same blueprints Solomon used, only on a larger scale. Solomon did not have to get ‘another blueprint’ he simply needed to be faithful to what the Lord already revealed. Recently in the ‘church world’ we had the passing of two good men; Avery Dulles and John Neuhouse [spelling?] If I remember right, Avery Dulles said that he was no innovator, he would not be known for his new ideas, but he was just a faithful servant in Christ’s church. I liked that, we too often want to find ‘new blueprints’ sometimes the Lord is simply looking for those who will hear and obey. [Both Avery and John were Catholic’s involved in the evangelical/catholic alliance]
(1053)1ST KINGS 5-Solomon contracts with Hiram, king of Tyre, to supply Cedar wood and trees for the construction of the temple. He also raises up a mighty labor force who will work in 3 shifts, one month in the forest and two months back home. They helped cut down and deliver the logs on rafts back to Solomon. He has a massive labor force of stone cutters as well, they are cutting stone for the foundation of the temple. Like I said in a previous chapter, the temple is a picture of both the Old Covenant [law] and the new gentile church uniting as ‘one new man’ in Christ. Though the temple is basically a large scale replica of the Mosaic tabernacle, yet the only actual piece of furniture that makes in into the temple is the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark represents Gods presence, in the New Testament we see that Gods Spirit and presence left the Old law system [as typified by the temple- Hebrews] and ‘entered’ into the new temple, made up of both Jew and Gentile believers! [Ephesians]. Solomon was wise enough to realize that he personally did not possess all the skills to accomplish the mission, he knew how to hire other skilled people to help with the completion of the task. In ministry we often try and accomplish too much through the personal attributes/gifts of the leader. One of the plagues on the Body of Christ today is the American system of entrepreneurial church, we seem to exalt the personalities and gifts of the main leader at the expense of the functioning of the people of God. Though many good men are involved with this system, yet we need to transition to a place where we understand that in Christ’s church he uses many gifted people in various ways to build his temple [the people of God].This chapter says God gave Solomon ‘peace on every side, he had no adversaries nor evil occurrence’. Scripture says when a mans ways please the Lord he makes even his adversaries to be at peace with him. God gave Solomon a season of peace and rest, not for the purpose of sitting back and resting on his laurels, but for the purpose of building his kingdom. Solomon walked ‘while he had the light’ [he took advantage of the window of opportunity that God put before him].
(1052) 1st KINGS 4- ‘And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness [generous] of heart…and his wisdom was greater than all the children of the east and Egypt…and all the people and the kings of the earth [gentiles shall come to thy light and kings to the brightness of thy rising] came to hear the wisdom of Solomon’- In this chapter we read of the tremendous storehouse of goods and resources that God gave to Solomon. His wisdom was in many areas, not just ‘theology’! He was a true Renaissance man. Before the reformation and the ‘enlightenment’ you had the Renaissance period. For many years the wisdom and knowledge that prevailed in early Greco-Roman society was lost/hidden from the public. Through process of time and events [like the crusades] some of these hidden resources of knowledge were re-discovered and the world went thru a renewal period in wisdom and philosophy. It was thanks to the catholic churches preserving of these early works [Monks and monasteries] that would later lead to them being recovered. Now, even though these works were recovered, they weren’t readily available to the general public on a wide scale. You simply did not have the tools [internet/public libraries in abundance] to disseminate the information at large, but you did have men who became educated in these areas and they were the ‘renaissance men’. Sort of like walking libraries of wisdom, ‘Solomon’s’ if you will. Solomon wrote and studied on all sorts of subjects, he did not limit himself to one field only. Often times in the area of ‘full time preaching’ we send kids off to college [okay] and they get an education that only applies to one field [full time ministry]. I think it would be better if all the ‘preachers’ became well rounded in many practical areas of learning, getting skills in various areas [Paul-tent making] that would enable them to transition when reformation happens [like the current challenge on church practices and the full time pastoral office. Many sincere men are too dependant on their jobs as full time ministers to seriously reconsider the scriptural grounds for their office]. So Solomon was the type of brother who could converse with you in all types of fields. Many of the world’s greatest scientists/mathematicians were Christians, a common mistake is to think the scientific revolution was launched by anti religious men, this is simply not true. A careful study of history would show you that the majority of the great scientific minds were products of the church. It was common to major in theology and use that field of study as the foundation for all the other fields of learning. Jesus said of Solomon that kings and queens went out of their way to hear the wisdom of Solomon [the Warren Buffet of his day] but yet a greater than Solomon was here! [speaking of himself]
(1051) 1st KINGS 3: 16-28 Now to the famous story. Two women [harlots] come to Solomon with a problem. They both had children within a few days of each other, and one night one of the babies died. The other woman woke up and had the dead baby with her, but after she looked at it she realized it wasn’t hers. The real mother of the dead child did a swap at night. So as they are pleading their case to the king, they both claim that the living child is theirs. So Solomon calls for a sword, they bring him the sword and he tells his men ‘take the baby and divide it in two, give half to each mom’ sounds fair enough. Of course the real mom says ‘no, don’t divide it. Give the baby to her’ and the fake mom says ‘no, divide it!’ Ahh! Got ya. Solomon says ‘give the child to the one who did not want to divide it, the child belongs to her’. A few things, it just so happened that the last book we studied was Ecclesiastes, I didn’t plan it like that, it just ‘happened’. Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon. One of the verses I didn’t cover says Solomon wrote on all types of subjects and put together three thousand proverbs. Proverbs are short, concise bits/nuggets of wisdom that get the point across in a nutshell. While there are times when you need to read large volumes and stuff, yet wisdom allows you to cover a lot of content in a little space. In this case Solomon used his wisdom to quickly come to a conclusion that could not be refuted; Jesus did stuff like this with his parables. Notice also that after the judgment was made, there really was no ‘if, ands or buts’ about it. He was right and that settled it. I still have old preacher friends who can’t discern the most basic stuff. Now, I don't want to be mean or condescending, but there comes a time where things are right or wrong. Many years ago I taught how leaders were making a serious mistake when they grasped on to the prosperity interpretation of Jesus parable of the sower [read the chapter ‘twisting the parable of the sower’ in the book ‘house of prayer or den of thieves’ on this site]. Basically many preachers, good men, were going around and teaching that Jesus was speaking about getting a huge harvest of cash. In the parable Jesus says one of the things that hinders the full harvest is ‘the deceitfulness of riches’, so I taught how Jesus was not saying ‘the deceitfulness of riches is holding back the cash’. Now, this is really elementary stuff, but some preachers still can’t discern this, after 20years! There comes a time when Solomon [Jesus] sends a judgment forth, and we ultimately become responsible for what we do with it. In this case, one of the ladies was right the other wrong. Solomon plainly told us who was telling the truth. [note- the other day as I was flipping channels, I stopped at a ‘prophetic’ brother who I haven’t watched in a while. In the past he has had some good words that were right on. But I felt that too many ‘prophecies’ were going forth on a yearly basis that were not really accomplishing anything ‘this year is the year of increase, Rebuke the demon of poverty’ stuff that was being repeated over and over hundreds of times, and yet the word of God was not being taught. Well on the program I tuned in on, the brother was saying how all the media complaints about Sarah Palin's expensive wardrobe were ridiculous [I agree] but then he said that it was nothing but a ‘spirit of poverty’ that needed to be rebuked. Are there ‘spirits/demons of poverty’ no. At least we see no cases of Jesus casting out spirits of poverty in scripture. There comes a time when preachers/media outlets need to return to a sober message of the Cross. I believe in prophecy and miracles and have experienced many of these types of things over the years, but we need to stop being silly with some of this stuff.
(1049) 1st KINGS 2-The best way to describe this chapter would be ‘Solomon practices shock and awe’. The young king is given the charge by his father David to settle some old scores. Was David being vindictive? No, he realized that there were experienced ‘politicos’ who knew how to manipulate things to their own advantage, and they would do it at the expense of ethics [note- after all I have seen and learned these last few months, I believe president Obama, though a good man himself, is surrounded by men like this. His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is a political insider from Chicago, he has already been involved with all types of insider political intrigue that is corrupt at heart]. So David advises Solomon to eliminate these threats and Solomon surprises the opposing team by acting decisively. He even kills Joab while clinging to the ‘horns of the altar’. His brother, Adonijah, who tried to claim the kingdom first, Solomon kills him because he requested to have King David’s maid servant after his death. Basically Solomon cleaned house and knew he would make some enemies in the process. Leadership can be tough at times, you might deal with people who are problematic, everyone knows they need to be dealt with! Yet after you deal with them, you become the bad guy! I get a kick out of people who absolutely hate and oppose me, they sincerely believe our challenges in certain areas are wrong. Then a few years go by, they read and listen to our stuff, and walla! They now think we are on the cutting edge, maybe [to them] even at the top of the list of teaching and understanding. Why do I not get excited about stuff like this? If someone can go from thinking we are a cult to thinking we are one of the best teaching ministries around, who in the heck knows where they will be in another year or two? Now don’t get me wrong, I am glad they came around, but I can’t put a whole lotta stock in this. Now, I have had friends who have been with us for years. To be honest, some of the stuff I teach is over their heads. But they were fruit from the basic years of outreach and evangelism. They identify me with the time in their lives where they were reached with the gospel. Times when I spent many hours helping them on their journey. These brothers are faithful and stick with us out of brotherhood. Solomon knew the difference, he was willing to sacrifice talent [Joab] and stick with those who would be loyal. [Note- sometimes you choose talent over loyalty. That is people do need to be able to handle the job, the point is if you can’t trust people, it doesn’t matter how talented they are, things won’t go well for you or the team that is depending on them]
(1048) 1st KINGS 1- David’s son, Adonijah, plots to take the kingdom and become king in his fathers place [after he would die]. He chooses a team of talented men to become his inner circle, he prepares chariots and gets a force together. David does not discourage him, he seems to be willing to let it slide. One problem, David’s son Solomon was chosen by God himself to be the next king. David’s key men, who were left out of the celebration ceremony that Adonijah threw for himself, realized that if they didn’t act quickly they would be left out in the cold. So Nathan tells Solomon’s mother, Bathsheba, to go in to the king and tell him about the problem. Nathan then will go in after her and also confirm the bad news. Note, Nathan was a powerful prophet, he was the one who faced David head on about the sin he committed when sleeping with Bathsheba and killing her husband. But David is old and sick, even if Nathan took the risk to confront him again in a ‘thus saith the lord’ type thing, there was no assurance that David would listen. Or worse, tell him he has had enough of his ‘prophetic ministry’ and take his head off! Nathan chose influence and common sense to get his point across, he was even a little deceptive in the way he planned it out. David then tells his men ‘go, anoint Solomon as king’ David’s men prevail and they quickly form a new team around Solomon. Zadok, Nathan and Benaiah will be the Prophet, Priest and military commander. Now word gets back to Adonijah that Solomon has been anointed by David, their party ends abruptly and Adonijah flees for his life. These men [Adonijah and his team] had real hopes and dreams for their new administration, but God had other plans. A few things; was Adonijah in total rebellion in doing what he did? Not really, he was fourth in line to the throne, above Solomon. Remember, the Old Testament puts special weight on this seniority thing! And David never discouraged the boy. It’s very possible that Adonijah thought he had the green light in this thing. Solomon will take the throne and though he will become famous for his wisdom, he will also be pretty brutal in his first days as king. He quickly warns Adonijah and in the next chapter we will see him take swift and decisive action to route out his adversaries. I see a little too much personal ambition in Adonijah and his men. One of them was Joab, a great military leader with much experience. If you remember when we studied Samuel he also had his run ins with David. These men were playing party politics and positioning themselves for a ‘wonderful future’. The only problem was God wasn’t in it! I remember many years ago when a friend of mine ‘started a church’. He was quite a few years older than me, but still new ‘to the game’. He made the statement ‘God has now made all my dreams come true’. He innocently fell into the trap of seeing ministry and ‘church’ as some type of structure/business that God allows people to engage in, in order for them to ‘fulfill their dreams’. Adonijah and his men were excited about the launching of their new ‘career’s’ the wind went out of their sails when Gods ordained plan took precedence over their dreams.
(1046) ‘The words of the wise are like nails fastened by the masters of assemblies’ Ecclesiastes 12:11. A few years ago I studied much on the apostolic movement and prophetic stuff. Apostles relate strongly to the gift of wisdom, they are foundation layers of ‘assemblies’ [of believers!] Much of modern Christianity has a tendency to fellowship mainly within their own circle. On my blog roll you will find sites that are reformed, catholic, emergent and prophetic. This does not mean that I agree with everything these various streams teach, but for the most part they all have something profitable to add to the conversation. I recently read a few stories on ‘modern day apostles’ these are humble men who have ‘fathered’ large church movements in other countries. Simple, non famous brothers who are spreading the gospel and planting churches in a humble way. They relate to, and train, other men under them to also launch out and bring the gospel to other places. For all intents and purposes [or as some say ‘intensive purposes’!] these men fit into the category of modern day apostles. Some use the term missionary to describe them. God has placed ‘wise men’ in the church who have the Divine ability to ‘sink nails’ [words of wisdom/ the Cross] in strategic locals for the construction of assemblies [local communities of believers]. Part of the verse I didn’t quote says ‘nails given from one Shepherd’ these men specialize in the message of Christ, they really don’t waste a lot of time on all the ‘new revelation’ stuff that the American church is consumed with. I would encourage all my ‘more reformed readers’ to be more open to the gift of the apostle, they are not all nuts who run around with strange doctrines. Many of them are dedicated servants of the Cross who are gifted with great grace to ground the people of God on a sure foundation. Their words are divinely placed in strategic locations and they play a major role in building Gods assemblies, they carry the words/nails given by the great Shepherd.
(1038)‘The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, neither bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding...for time and chance happens to them all. For man also knows not his time, as fish are taken in a net and birds caught in a snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it comes suddenly upon them’ Ecclesiastes 9:11-12. I was watching ‘King of Queens’ the other day, Arthur [Jerry Stiller] asks the waitress how much his coffee and donut will be, as he takes out his checkbook she says ‘never mind, it’s not worth getting a bad check for a few dollars’. Arthur is insulted! “How dare you” he then explains that his money was being transferred at the time in his ‘offshore accounts’. This reminded me of the time I had a renter who liked to bounce checks. He was an older brother who made more than me [as a firefighter] but couldn’t write a good check! So after a few months I wrote him a notice of eviction. He responded by telling me it wasn’t his fault the checks bounced, his money was in ‘off shore accounts’ [oh please!] It was funny, at the end of his response letter he says ‘sincerely, your brother in Christ’. This was the first time I had any inkling that he was a brother! So time and chance affect all of us, we can’t always control the ‘roll of the dice’. A few years back a bunch of guys lost money in their firefighter retirement funds, the guys at the station were all convinced by the stock guys to invest money in the stocks. Well, I looked at the papers and realized you could make a guaranteed 4%, tax free, from one investment. I was the only one who took this option. If you balance the risk of possibly making 5 % in the market [possible!] along with the risk of loosing it all, then why not do the fixed 4 % tax free? It comes to around 6 % with no risk of loss. It’s just common sense. Sure enough one of my buddies took my advice and did the same. Then the guys took a real hit, the stocks crashed and sure enough ‘time and chance happened to them’. As they were all mulling over their losses, my friend who took my advice was asked ‘how much did you loose’ he said ‘nothing’. He told them he took Johns advice. Now, even though we have little control over the global economy, we can make wise choices and prepare ahead of time. I have no idea why any sane person would stay in the market right now [2-09]. But people take bad advice, like ‘dollar cost averaging’ and say ‘well, if I just keep buying into a sinking ship, it will all average out some day’. I know of no other business where you are told ‘keep buying the bad product, someday it will average out’. While no one can time the market, you should be able to see storms coming. If you think the signs are saying ‘bad storm ahead’ then what in the heck are you doing on the ship! Solomon said there are events that we can’t control, many times we get ‘caught in nets suddenly’ things happen that are out of our control. These events happen to the wise, intelligent and fool alike. When stuff like this happens to you, don’t live in regret, but learn some lessons. Stop listening to the people whose living depends on you staying in a certain investment [like stocks!] I can’t tell you how many times I have heard these investors say ‘sure, you can invest in a C.D., but who can live on less than one percent interest’. While all the while you can be getting around 4 %, guaranteed! You see, people have listened to bad [biased] advice and have come up short. Well, the purpose of this entry is not to be ‘anti stocks’ but to show you we all need to re-evaluate at times. Many times ‘the same event happens to all’ because the wise are making the same bad decisions as the fool. Think ‘outside of the box’ hey, everyone in the box just might be wrong.
(1037)One of the themes of Ecclesiastes is ‘one event happens to all, both to him who sacrifices and to him who does not. Both to the poor and rich, the wise and foolish’. Solomon is writing from the perspective of ‘naturalism’, he sees only what is happening in the here and now. Even with this ‘worldly’ perspective he still favors the ‘God cause’. In essence it’s still better to obey and serve God than not to. Most believers are taught the virtues of standing strong in tough times, fighting the ‘good fight’ putting on that armor! The problem is these really mean little until the ‘rubber meets the road’. I am a boxing fan, love the sport. Most ‘observers’ have no idea how difficult/tiring it can be. Even other pro athletes will sometimes turn to fighting and not realize the strain of the game. I especially find it amusing when some TV star thinks he can do it because he’s ‘done it’ on screen. In the Christian life there are times when you realize ‘this is the season for sticking it out, for enduring hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ’. All the stuff you learned and were taught was for this time, the knowledge of ‘blessed is the man that endures tests’ meant little, until this day! I like Evander Holyfield, he had the heart of a warrior. Was he ‘great’? Probably not, he was what you would call a ‘blown up light heavyweight’ he worked out and got big. I know in the later years it sure looked like he was a full fledged heavyweight, but in the beginning he wasn’t. In the skill department he was not spectacular. We often minimize Tyson’s career/skills because he finished bad. I have heard commentators say he will not go down in history as a great fighter. I must admit he blew it many times, but if you simply look at the few short years he was at the top of his game, he might very well have been the most devastating heavyweight ever! But when Holyfield faced Tyson, he was less skilled [in my mind] not as strong [heavy fisted] but he was enduring, and he had this trait where when you ‘got him in trouble’ [hurt] he became more dangerous! He would actually fight better when hurt! To all you brothers who are in round 11 [or 14 for the old guys- that’s when championship fights went 15 rounds instead of 12] I want to encourage you, now is the time when sticking it out matters. When you question whether or not all you have taught was right on or a little lacking. When the critics seem to have a hotline to your number. Solomon also says ‘don’t listen to every word spoken about you, or else you will hear people curse you. For you yourself know you have spoken badly about others as well’ wow! Today [or this week, month, year!] is a time to endure, not a time to ‘show those critics a thing or two’ but a time to show the heart of a warrior, to stand up against the so called ‘bigger, badder opponent’ and win on sheer guts. I do realize that in our own strength we can do nothing, but I am appealing to the New Testament command to endure some stuff, to recognize that one of the reasons of testing and trials is they can come as a result of our effectiveness, our calling. After Jesus was baptized by the Spirit by John [and the father] he did a 40 day stint in the wilderness, when he came out of the desert he had power. Hey, maybe the Lord is working on your strength factor.
(1032)‘A GIFT DESTROYETH THE HEART’ Ecclesiastes 7:7b Over the last few years I have read testimonies from Pastors who said they felt like they were unconsciously being manipulated to look good or perform for the community. Though they were well meaning, and the people they were ‘pastoring’ were also good people, yet the system of being a paid clergyman caused there to be a degree of inauthenticity. A famous quote of a quote [Frank Viola quotes another person in the book ‘Pagan Christianity’] says it’s hard to convince someone about something when their salary depends on them not being convinced! [paraphrase] So the actual position of being dependent on the offerings/tithes of people can put pressure on leaders to not deal with certain subjects. I have had fellow ministers over the years reject what I was saying simply because they felt it would affect their income. Their priority was on surviving. These men are not bad people, they mean well and don’t purposely want their message to be shaped by their dependence on a job/position. But in many cases the temptation is too great. Solomon said a ‘gift’ can corrupt the motives of people. While it is fine for ministers to receive financial help out of respect for their labor, yet we need to examine whether or not the salaried position of the fulltime minister is in keeping with New Testament ecclesiology. Are you tailoring your message by the support you bring in? Do you view success from the standpoint of material assets? Do you see ‘your ministry’ as a career choice? Lets all examine our hearts and motives, we might not be taking bribes in the classic ‘Mafia’ sense, but if we are allowing our financial support to effect the way we live and teach, then we are allowing our hearts to become ‘corrupted’.
(1031)ECCLESIASTES 7:19 ‘WISDOM STRENGTHENS A WISE MAN MORE THAN TEN MIGHTY MEN IN A CITY’- this chapter has a few good verses in it. It says it’s better to go thru some stuff than to live in continual ‘abundance’. Wise men have increased in the ‘house of mourning’. I watched some stuff on Lincoln the other day, it’s obvious that he grew in wisdom and stature as he battled depression and difficulty. His life’s motto was not ‘discover the champion in you’! When I went to Kingsville the other day I noticed our blog ad was not only running in the Kingsville Record, but also the Kingsville Journal. I am not sure how it got in there. I also have a bunch of papers lying around my office, papers from New Jersey and Houston and stuff. I have been getting some contacts from ‘former’ church members of years ago, they are on fire for the Lord. I kinda think they have friends who learned about us on their own and then they realized that they were talking about us. These old buddies see themselves as part of us, but many of them are not on-line geeks. So they run into other locals who follow us on-line and then they realize they are following our story. The point being ‘wisdom strengthens wise men more than ten mighty men in a city’. A few years ago I felt the lord said to start the blog and put the ad in regional papers. The ‘effort’ to do this was not as much as the various outreach projects I have been involved in over the years, but the results have gone much further. If you gave me ‘ten mighty men’ [employees/staff] and I sent them all over to effect the region, I don’t think they could equal the simple effect of me hearing and responding to the Lord in these simple ways. Now, we most certainly have ‘ten mighty men’ a group of both leaders and ‘regular saints’ [ouch!] who follow the journey, but they are a result of hearing and responding. The wisdom [ideas] from God have a greater effect than the efforts of men. Remember, the battle is not to the strong or swift, the victory comes from the Spirit of God. When we learn to listen and respond, the things we do will go far. When we put a lot of money and effort into stuff, without really listening, we get stuck with Ishmaels [something our govt. should learn!] Also, it is often in the ‘house of mourning’ [seasons of extreme difficulty] that God deposits the wisdom into you. Padre Pio [Catholic Priest] said ‘souls come with a cost, somebody has to pay the price’ are you willing to pay the price?
(1029)ECCLESIASTES- 5:1 KEEP THY FOOT WHEN YOU GO TO ‘THE HOUSE OF GOD’ [ECCLESIA] AND BE MORE READY TO HEAR THAN TO GIVE THE SACRAFICE OF FOOLS- Yesterday we had a good outreach day in Bishop and Kingsville [2 south TX. Cities] I had a few homeless brothers with me and we drove thru a few areas and hooked up with some of the brothers we have been working with for around 20 years. I am always tempted to answer more questions [speak more!] than I should. It’s important to let the brothers ‘do the talking’ they benefit more when there is a real give and take. I read this verse the day or so before the trip, it makes a lot of sense. To all my Pastor/leader friends, do you consciously make an effort to ‘keep silent’ when going to the ‘house of God’ [times of fellowship and community]? I know this needs to become learned behavior for many of us. We usually have grown up in a church environment that emphasizes the need for strong preaching, mounting the ‘sacred pulpit’ [double ouch!] and stuff like that. We are usually well intended, but we need to relearn some stuff. I was surprised how the homeless brothers shared many spiritual truths with clarity. One of the brothers does suffer from mental problems, he is extremely intelligent. He is a machinist who worked for many years in Ohio and knows his stuff. But he is a little unstable in his thoughts at times. Sure enough when he was sharing about the Lord one of the other brothers really took it to heart. On the way to back to Corpus I asked what they learned today. He said he really enjoyed being able to speak and help others. I could tell that this in itself was therapeutic for him, it truly is ‘more blessed to give than receive’. This is why Paul taught the interactive church meeting [Corinthians]. In the background there was a TV preacher on, my buddy put the Christian channel on for atmosphere. Some preachers were answering questions on the Rapture and all, it seemed to be ‘endless chatter’ on stuff that was not even true! I couldn’t but help wonder what the apostle Paul would have thought if he saw his writings being used in this way. On the TV there was no real sense of community, simply preachers telling people their endless views on various subjects. I am glad I tried to ‘keep my mouth shut’ as much as possible [hey, this is hard for preachers to actually do!] I too learned some good stuff.
(1025)GREAT AWAKENING- In between studies I have been reading the ‘shelf of books’ I bought a few months ago. I bought about 70 dollars worth of books at the half price book store, they are worth a few hundred at least. The last three I just went thru were published by universities; Oxford, Princeton, etc. I have learned over the years that your time is well spent in the ‘higher education’ category. You can spend a lifetime reading the popular Christian culture stuff and never really get educated. The book I just started is called ‘Revival and Revivalism’ it was put out by Princeton and covers the history of the first great awakenings. I want to give you a long quote from Samuel Davies, the son in law of Jonathan Edwards. The Lord used him in Hanover, Va. ‘In all the sermons I have preached in Virginia, I have not wasted one minute in reasoning against the peculiarities of the established church; nor so much as assigned my own reasons of non-conformity. I have not exhausted my zeal in railing against the established clergy, in exposing their imperfections, or in deprecating their characters. I have matters of infinite importance to spend my time and strength upon, to preach repentance towards God and faith towards Jesus Christ.’ ‘What an endless variety of denominations, taken from some men of character, or from some little peculiarities, has prevailed in the Christian world and crumbled it to pieces…what party names have been adopted by the Protestant churches, whose religion is substantially the same common Christianity, and who agree on much more important truths than in those they differ. To be a Christian is not enough now-a-days, but a man must be something more or better, that is he must be a strenuous bigot to this or that particular church…but to glory in the denomination of any particular church, as my highest character, to lay more stress on my denomination than on my being a Christian…to make it my zeal to win people to my peculiar denomination than to Christ, to overlook the faults of those in my own party and to be blind to the good in others, or to diminish them; these are the things that deserve condemnation from God and man. These proceed from a spirit of bigotry and faction, directly opposite to the generous catholic spirit of Christianity, and subversive of it. This spirit turns men from the important matters of Christianity, to vain jangling and competitions about circumstantials and trifles. Thus the Christian is swallowed up in the partisan, and the fundamentals are lost in extra essentials’ [I paraphrased a little] I find it interesting that Davies and the other leaders in the awakening were anti sectarian, though most of them were Presbyterian/Reformed, yet they saw their task above denominationalism. In Davies case the main denomination he came up against was the Anglican church, many in Virginia contrasted the traditional church with the ‘new light’ brothers. Many associated with the revivals were seen this way. You can still find prejudicial comments made against Catholics during this period, but I find it interesting that many of the revival leaders were aware of the sectarian spirit and saw it as a danger to the work of God. They warned against what many of their ‘offspring’ would become. I find it hard to understand how many of the offshoots of the awakenings can read and study their history and not see the error that their own fore-fathers warned them about. But for the most part God was working in their day and they were wise enough to rise above religious bigotry.
(1022)ECCLESIASTES Solomon said there was nothing new under the sun. During the 16th century reformation you had a number of ‘offshoot’ movements that sprouted. Some define these as the radical reformers. Groups like the Anabaptists [re-baptizers] and others. As you read the writings of many of these groups you find that they were definitely seeing truth for their day. George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, was hitting the nail on the head when it came to ‘church as the building’ he exposed the limited mindset that many believers embraced. He would refer to the churches as ‘steeple houses’. Many of these groups were deemed heretical for a myriad of reasons. The Quakers would embrace a belief that emphasizes the truth from the Spirit versus the letter of the law. Some would carry this to an extreme and associate all ‘head knowledge’ faith as wrong. Any doctrinal correction from the more reformed brothers was seen as ‘dead knowledge’ coming against Spirit truth. So they would get branded with the heretic title by some. The same goes for the Anabaptists and many others. The sad thing is many of these movements were partial ‘reformers’ in their own right. They had good things to add to the debate. If you read some of their writings you would think they were a few hundred years before their time. I have read scholarly works from Catholic theologians on the Ecclesia [church] and what she is. These works were right on! Even though the average Catholic might not be aware of them. So you find real treasure in many of these groups. Their really is ‘nothing new under the sun’. You should avoid a mindset that begins seeing ‘my group’ or ‘my way of seeing things’ as the true group, and the majority of other Christian groups as false. While it is easy to see whole mindsets of limited understanding that exist in the church at large, I feel it’s dangerous to grasp hold of an idea that says ‘90% of all Christianity is dead wrong, they have all been duped until now’. This is sort of like the teenager saying to dad ‘you’re so behind the times, my new way of seeing things is better than yours’. Most times the teenager later realizes that this was an overreaction. I think we all need to read the great writers of days gone by, Bonhoeffer wrote excellently on the communion of the saints. Our Church of Christ brothers had real truth on the church as the people. The Catholic mystics new that there was more to the Christian way than simple knowledge, they sought a real experience with God. As you enter into this glorious communion of the saints, there will be obvious blind spots that you can find in many of these writers, but maturity allows us to by pass the faults of others [love covers a multitude of sin] while receiving the valuable stuff. Avoid the strong ‘they are all wrong’ spirit, remember ‘there is nothing new under the sun’.
(1020)CORINTHIANS CONCLUSION- Paul concludes this long letter with a bunch of personal notes. He tells them that the Lord has opened up a great effective door for him at Ephesus and there are many adversaries. He wanted Apollos to make a visit but he did not want to at this time. He told them to go easy on Timothy because he was a fellow worker in the Lord. Overall Paul’s message to this church was one of true grace. I want to emphasize again [like we did when studying Romans and the other epistles so far] that one of the main themes of the first century apostles was belief in the gospel. Paul told these believers that it was believing in the message of the Cross that saves them. He defined the gospel as Jesus death, burial and resurrection. He encouraged them to live free as Gods community and to help each other out. Paul did not lay on them some type of guilt trip to become some high powered institution in order to ‘change their world’. He believed that the simple lifestyle of love and purity would be able to do the job. I see a contrast from the first century church and its simple gospel and today’s idea of church. Also notice how Paul was ‘planting’ these churches. He visited them, spent time with them, LEFT THEM, and continued corresponding with them thru letters and friends. In essence, first century church planting was simply establishing groups of people on the foundation of Christ. They were not organizing under some type of 501c3 model [I do realize they didn’t have this back then!] they didn’t see ‘church’ as some type of social group that you joined [Elks lodge type thing]. They actually were the church! I want to stress this theme as we continue teaching thru out the New Testament. Many times believers hold on to and embrace ideas that seem to be biblical [you can find a verse here and there type thing- proof texting] but when you see the whole story you get a better picture of what’s going on. Well I hope you guys got something out of this brief study, try and keep in mind the things that challenged you as we read thru this book. Did you see some things differently than before? Did some stuff get you mad? Did we challenge your belief system in some way? My goal is to encourage reformation in the church, not disorder! Take the new things you might have seen and implement them in Gods time. Those of your starting from scratch [first time church planters] can start with a clean slate and implement many of these ideas from day one, others who are already in ministry will have to take a more measured approach. Do all things as God leads and in his time. To all you ‘church members’ don’t take the stuff that you learned and use it to come against your ‘church’. Let God lead you on your journey and reform as God directs. It’s easy for some young rebels [or old!] to take the stuff on tithing and use it against your current church, that’s not our goal. Be patient with your pastors and leaders and allow God to use you as a force for change, not destruction. Well that's it for now; I am not sure what study we will jump into next. Recently got some good emails and phone calls from some of our friends laboring in other towns, people I did not even know of, but who follow the ministry. Those of you out there who are following along, send me an email every now and then so I can see what type of growth we are having, the different regions we are impacting. Those of you who have launched home groups, let me know how things are going. God bless till next time, John.
(1016)JAMES AND HUMILITY- ‘Humble yourselves in Gods sight and he will lift you up’ ‘He gives grace to the humble’ I was reading a testimony from a reformed type brother who is also an excellent writer on the ‘out of the institutional church movement’. He shared how early in his Christian life he was grounded in truth, he eventually became more reformed in his thinking and pastored various expressions of church. He recalled a few divine appointments in life where he was confronted by truth in a new way. He pastored during the years right after the hippie movement of the late 60’s and he ran into a few simple believers who simply challenged him on why the meetings he was pastoring were centered around his speaking gift. These were simple believers who came to know the Lord outside of the traditional church and naturally developed along the lines of a community. Now the pastor was much more knowledgeable in all things religious, but his humility caused him to rethink his understanding of what these simple brothers said. So over a period of a few years he studied the scriptures with an eye for this type of thing. He realized that most of the examples of one person preaching to a group were actually evangelistic in nature. The times the brethren met for fellowship were in fact not centered around one persons speaking gift, he realized that the questions posed to him from the simple believers were right. So he made adjustments to his ministry. This example shows you the need we all have for true humility. This type of openness is rare in ministry today, most leaders would have simply dismissed the questions that the other believers asked. Most well trained educated men would see their background as a defense for their practices. This does not mean we have no need for a well educated church, in this mans case he still uses his knowledge and education as a benefit for the church at large, it’s just we all have a responsibility to respond to truth in Gods timing. I have read testimonies of ex-pastors who felt like they were filling a position of performance and ‘looking good’ and living up to the expectations of people in a way that was phony. Men who felt like they had to go to some other town to simply enjoy being a simple believer. They were carrying a weight of fame and expectation that they felt were not a real part of Christianity. It was more of a by product of the development of the hired clergy position that they held. So these men left the pastorate out of conviction and humbled themselves in the sight of the Lord. I don’t recommend this for all pastors who see and learn these things on their journey, but this is the correct response for some. I simply want to challenge you today on your response to being confronted with truth on your journey. Do you have a tendency to dismiss all criticism as wrong? Would you have judged the simple believers who challenged your mode of ministry as ‘less than you’? I know I have done this at times, had the wrong response when confronted with truth. I appreciate the pastors/leaders who read this site, my goal is to help all of you on the mission God has placed on your lives. Some of you will have different responses to the things we share, my goal is that we would all come to maturity and unity as a corporate people in Gods timing. I certainly do not advise all pastors to ‘close up shop’ and start from scratch, but to some this might be a real option. But in each case if we respond in humility God will give us more grace, this is something we can all use. NOTE- The brother I used in the above example is Jon Zens, his web site is on my blog roll, it’s called ‘searching together’.
(1015)‘THE LOCATABLE LOCAL CHURCH’? I remember how we were taught in the Baptist church that the local church is ‘locatable’ that it is a real ‘place’ that you could find when visiting a city. This tended to confuse the matter somewhat. In church history you can find teachings on the visible church versus the invisible church. Saint Augustine is famous for this distinction, as a matter of fact Augustine taught that it was possible [not probable] that a person who is a member of the visible church might not really be a believer, and that it was possible for someone to be a believer and not be a member of the visible church, though he did see this dynamic as a rare thing. Even some of today’s organic church teachings seem a little confused at times on this. They seem to indicate that a ‘locatable church’ means a home type meeting that you can find if you visit a particular city. While it is true that in the New Testament you most certainly could locate a home meeting [or temple one or one at the synagogue while Paul was teaching the local Jewish community- evangelistically] yet I prefer to see it like this. If I were to tell you that a wonderful community of people exist, let’s say in Houston. And I described these ‘Houstonians’ as being bright, progressive go getters. I explained to you that they are all real people who live and function as citizens of Houston. If you then studied the history of Houston a thousand years from now, how would you describe them? Were they ‘locatable’? Well yes, of course. If you went to Houston you would be able to most certainly ‘locate’ them. How? Well you would run into them at the store, see them shopping. Possibly playing ball at one of the parks. There are hundreds of ways to ‘locate them’. You would even be able to locate them at some home meeting [or church building]. But you certainly would not describe their ‘locate-ability’ [if this is even a word!] as being the home or building. They were/are locatable because they really exist as citizens from another place! So likewise I think it would be better to describe the ‘locatable, visible church’ as being the actual communities of people who reside in your area and are believers in Christ. Now, you should be able to locate a place where they meet and celebrate the Lords Table and stuff like that, but don’t confuse locating a meeting with the actual people themselves.
(1004)CORINTHIANS 13:11-13 WHEN I WAS A CHILD I UNDERSTOOD AND THOUGHT AND SPOKE LIKE A CHILD, BUT WHEN I GREW UP I PUT THOSE THINGS BEHIND ME- Paul shows us that we presently see and understand things thru ‘a glass’. God gives us insight and glimpses into Divine truth, but we need mercy because we all have limited sight. Over the years I know I have ruffled some feathers. Whether it be our teaching on what the church is, tithing, end times stuff. How New Testament believers should view the nationalistic promises made to Israel under the Old Covenant. I have found that the problem usually isn’t solved by simply proving something from scripture. For instance someone might become convinced by an ‘avalanche’ of information, they might actually see what I am saying. They can even articulate it to a degree [sometimes better than me!] but at the end of the day the answer to the problem is we all need to ‘grow up’. We need an overall change in the way we view things thru a legalistic lens. For instance, the tithe issue. Over the years I have taught the concept that believers are not under this law. Those of you who have read this site for any length of time know this. But I have also taught that it is fine to put 10% of your money into the offering on Sunday. It’s okay to support those who ‘labor among us’. But there are also many examples in the New Testament warning Gods leaders to not be in it for the money. Now, if we took seriously the mandate in Malachi to tithe. If we want to actually bind the believer’s conscience in this way ‘how are you robbing God? By not bringing in the tithes!’ Then we need to also look at the context. Israel as a nation was mandated to ‘tithe’ of their goods [not money] in three ways. They gave to support the Levites, also for the poor, and then they gave a tithe for religious feasts. In essence this ‘tithe’ was a total of around 30 % of their annual income, not 10%! [This by the way is right around what I spend on a monthly basis for the ministry stuff I do]. So, if we were telling people ‘you are going to be cursed if you don’t pay 10%’ we are actually misreading this verse. Also, how many believers think they are going to be cursed if they don’t ‘tithe to the poor’? Most modern preaching on the tithe simply puts it in the category of the Sunday offering. Most of this type of giving goes to support salaries, building upkeep, light bills, insurance for staff. I could go on and on. A very minute portion of this money [in general] goes to the poor. Certainly not a third! Also the portion that went to the Levites could not be used to purchase anything that would be owned by the Levite. They were forbidden to own any type of personal inheritance as Levitical priests. How often does the modern concept of tithing include this? The whole point is if we are going to bind peoples consciences in this way [which we shouldn’t] then we need to make sure we are at least teaching it right! Why bring this up? This is simply a good example of what Paul is saying. ‘When I understood in a limited way, I spoke and acted in a limited way’. The answer to the problem is simply ‘becoming mature in our thinking and speaking’. Recently I read an article from a U.S. congressman, he was speaking about the situation between Israel and Palestine. He sided with a military interpretation of the Old Testament promise to Abraham to ‘posses the land’ and used that to influence his political activism for war. How ‘mature’ is this type of thinking? Did any of the JEWISH apostles do this? No. So instead of trying to ‘crisis manage’ every single doctrinal problem, we really need to mature on an overall basis and view these doctrines thru the paradigm of Jesus and his life and work. Are we imitating his ethos when we do these things? Was this the primary message and life of Jesus when he walked the earth? How did he respond to Roman oppression and unjust govt.? Did he advocate military action in defense of the promises of God made to the nation of Israel? If we as the 21st century church do not ‘rightly divide’ these things, then we are of all men ‘most miserable’ [1st Corinthians 15].
(997) [Note- I stuck this in the leadership section because it is common for leaders to neglect a regular devotional time with the Lord. Leaders often fall into the trap of thinking ‘hey, I don’t need to set aside time with the Lord, or for prayer. I am doing the stuff all the time’ you still need personal time seeking God] JAMES 1:13-15 ‘LET NO MAN SAY WHEN HE IS TEMPTED “I AM TEMPTED BY GOD” [TEMPTED TO DO EVIL] FOR GOD CANNOT BE TEMPTED BY EVIL, NEITHER DOES HE USE EVIL TO TEST PEOPLE. BUT EVERY MAN IS TEMPTED BY HIS OWN SINFUL DESIRES. HE IS DRAWN AWAY BY THEM AND TRAPPED. THEN WHEN LUST IS COMPLETE IT LEADS TO SIN, AND SIN WHEN IT IS FINISHED GIVES BIRTH TO DEATH’ [my paraphrase] James already showed us that tests are good things, but here he makes a distinction between a test and sinful lusts. It is never Gods process to test people to lust. This desire is imbedded in sinful man. Proverbs warns us to avoid ‘the harlot’ it says many strong and mighty men have been slain by her ‘by her a man is brought to a piece of bread’. How come strong men have been pulled down by her, not weak men? The point is once you allow the process to begin [being drawn away by your own lusts] then no matter how strong you are, you will lose! James teaches us that this process is a ‘three fold cord’. Scripture says 3 fold cords are not easily broken. I just finished a regular prayer time, to be honest praying for around an hour and a half seems very easy. It wasn’t that way at the beginning of my Christian life, but after doing it for around 20 plus years, it’s a simple routine. I am now in ‘stage 2’ of my normal daily routine; I am writing/teaching. Stage 3 will be when I clean the house [yes, being I am retired I do about an hour of cleaning every morning] during this time I review future radio messages and also listen to good teaching on c.d.’s or radio [theological stuff]. All in all I get a good 3-5 hours of daily prayer/teaching/studying in. yes I also read both scripture and books as well [once again the books are usually scholarly works of some sought. I try to avoid simply reading stuff that’s popular in the Christian bookstores ‘how I lost weight, made a million’ or whatever]. The reason I share this is to tell you that after you establish godly ‘3 fold cords’ [habits of righteousness] it’s hard to break them! Now, the same goes for ungodly cords. I have known [and experienced!] ungodly habits in life. Sinful stuff that’s hard to break. I have also noticed how many of my good friends who are addicted to hard drugs, many of them are extremely smart, they have talents, and all in all they could have been successful in life. But the enemy [and their choices] hooked them at a young age. People learn habits early in life. If you take someone at the age of 18-23 and train them in some addiction/habit, it sticks with them for life [until they allow God to break the cords]. Many of my buddies established habitual sin habits and these have dogged them for life. We all struggle with stuff and I don’t want to give the impression that it’s just ‘those people’. Now James tells us that God can break this process. James teaches us the wisdom of being ‘doers and not hearers only’. God breaks stuff when you decide to act and function toward his purpose on a daily basis. James will say ‘true religion is visiting the fatherless and widows and keeping yourself clean from the world’. Note the order, first commit to do good works, then avoid sin. There is a scripture that says ‘commit your works unto the Lord and your thoughts will be established’ [Proverbs?]. We learn the lesson of establishing habitual patterns of righteousness to go along with our head knowledge of truth. Do you have ‘cords’ that you are struggling to break? Have you established righteous cords [habits] that flow thru out your week? I don’t want to be legalistic about this, Jesus is the only one with the power to deliver a person from sin, but there are practical righteous habits that God wants you to engage in on a regular basis. You might not pray and study for 5 hours a day! But you can have a regular devotional time [even if it’s only 30 minutes a day] and stuff like this will make a difference. Learn to nip it in the bud when it comes to temptation, once you allow lustful desires to rule, it always ends up in death, even strong men are brought down by it.
(996)1ST CORINTHIANS 12:27-31 Lets talk about ‘the fivefold ministry’ [some say four]. In the 90’s there was a real interest in this subject. It comes from this portion of scripture [and Ephesians 4]. The basic teaching is/was that God was restoring all these ministries [Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers- some see this as one combined gift] and that this restoration was one of the final things to happen before Christ’s return. I read and bought lots of books on church planting and how Apostles are gifted to ‘plant churches’. This teaching really wasn’t a new thing. Back in the 1800’s you had Edward Irving head up an apostolic movement called ‘the apostolic catholic church’ [Irvingites]. You had interesting folk like John Alexander Dowie who would start a modern city of God called ‘Zion’ in Illinois. Brother Dowie saw himself as an apostle and felt the Lord lead him to start an apostolic city. You can still visit the city today. It was also common for many ‘up and coming’ preachers to begin seeing themselves as ‘apostles/prophets’ and actually advertise their callings in this way. Well of course the old time brothers who reject the gifts all together, saw this as another sign of the end time apostasy. You also had a strange phenomenon take place. It was common for ‘apostolic/prophetic’ people to be taught ‘the missing ingredient is covering and authority’- the churches are weak because they are under pastoral authority, they don’t have apostles ‘covering them’ [ouch!]. So it was not uncommon to have respected men kind of stepping over the normal boundaries of relating to churches and to say things like ‘you need to do this’ ‘you over there, be quiet. I don’t give you permission to speak’ and stuff like this. These sincere men thought it their responsibility to act this way. They felt this was a part of the restoration of apostles. Now, do apostles exist today [and prophets]? To be honest with you, yes. If you read this section along with Ephesians chapter 4, it is next to impossible to teach that they passed away in the first century. These scriptures make it clear that after Jesus ascended he gave ‘some apostles, others prophets’ they are included in the list of evangelists, pastors and teachers. If you lose one gift, then you lose them all. Also the timing of their ministries is given ‘till we all come to the unity of the faith unto a perfect man’. These gifts are all given to build Gods people up until we come to fall maturity. We aint there yet! So it’s pretty obvious that these gifts exist. Those who believe they don’t exist usually refer to the fact that the apostles of the Lamb [a category unto itself] did pass away. They will show you the truth of these apostles having to have been witnesses of Jesus actual resurrection. But these are a different category of apostles. The ones in this chapter were not even ‘made’ until after Jesus ascended on high. The same for the prophets. So, what do these strange fellows do? In all the books and stuff I have read on these movements, I feel some have been too limited in their definitions. Some taught that they were primarily itinerant men [traveling church planters]. Of course Paul was the master at this. But you find James as a stable pillar of the church at Jerusalem. Peter did travel, but he was no Gentile church planter like Paul! And Timothy in the New Testament had an apostolic type gifting, yet he was a protégée under Paul. So for the most part apostles do carry a special ability to ground Gods people in truth. Those who are called to ‘plant churches’ need to be more in tune with the example of Paul. Many modern day ‘apostles’ see church planting as going to a region and organizing Christians to meet in certain ways. I have heard it said ‘I have planted an organic church’ ‘I have planted a home group’ or of course the standard ‘I have planted a building based church’. The main ‘church planting’ of Paul was bringing the gospel to UNREACHED PEOPLE GROUPS and evangelizing those groups. Now of course he did give instructions to them on ‘how to meet’ [like in this book we are reading!] But don’t confuse ‘church planting’ with organizing believers around a new way to meet. All in all God gave us these gifts to build each other up and bring us to maturity, a place where we are no longer dependent on these gifts to function. I feel one of the greatest dangers was the strong authoritarian mindset that some of the apostolic brothers had, they meant well, but they stepped over their boundaries at times.
(994)1ST CORINTHIANS 12: 12-26 Paul uses the analogy of a body to describe the church. Keep in mind that the ‘church’ in Paul’s writings mean ‘all Gods people in the region/city’. Not just the gathered assembly! It’s important to make this distinction because much of the talk on the restoration of the organic church versus the institutional church focuses too much on the way believers meet. Here Paul is saying ‘you are all individual distinct members in the local community, you express Christ in various ways, though you have unique gifts you also are part of one corporate expression of Christ in your city’. The distinct gifts function in your community, not just in the meeting! [Whether it be the Sunday building type thing or the living room!] Paul also tells them to be on the guard for the ‘one member dominating the group’ expression of church. If everyone is centered on one particular gift then the corporate expression of the Body of Christ is diminished. Or if everyone saw ‘full time ministry’ as being a modern Pastor then you would have too many sincere believers all seeking to serve God in a limited way ‘if all were an eye, ear, mouth [speaking gift]’ then where would the Body be? I find this chapter to be a key chapter in the current reformation of modern church practices. As Gods people strive for a more scriptural expression of ‘being the church’ we need to keep this chapter in mind. Now, a word for the strong organic church brothers. The fact that Paul encourages a corporate expression in the church does not mean the gatherings of Gods people must be leaderless. Paul includes the concept of Elders in his writings. To be sure these men were not to dominate the meetings, or be the weekly speaker on an ongoing basis. But some hold to a type of idea that the way the church is supposed to testify of the ‘headship of Christ’ is by demonstrating a human leaderless church. That is God ordained the local bodies of believers to have no functioning human leaders in order to show forth Christ’s headship. To be honest I don’t see this in scripture. I see leaders in plurality [never a one man show] and Paul was not afraid to tell Titus and Timothy to ‘ordain’ [recognize!] Elders in the church. But the overall instruction in this chapter is God wants all of his people to function on a regular basis in the Body of Christ. This of course includes the gatherings, but it is not limited to them. The primary way we ‘show’ the world the Lordship of Jesus is by the selfless love we have one for another. When we daily live charitable, sacrificial lives, this demonstrates the ‘headship of Jesus’ over the church. The way believers meet has some effect on this, but most of Jesus instructions to the disciples was on how they would go out into the world and bring the great message of the kingdom to society. The primary ‘battlefield’ of the church militant is the world, not the meeting place!
(992)JAMES 1: 2-4 ‘Count it all joy when you fall into various temptations [trials] knowing that the testing of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work [completeness, the end of ‘a thing’] that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing’. When I first started this blog, I was surprised that brothers from Africa quickly found out about us. I kinda thought that all the invites from the continent were part of the scams that go on incessantly on line. I can’t tell you how many ‘Dear brother, I am a Christian millionaire trying to free up my millions in the U.S.’ or something like that type pleas that I get. It usually gives them away when they spell something like ‘Godd blees yeo’. Yes, I admit I have responded at times by saying ‘I hate to inform you but I am an undercover F.B.I. agent, we have traced your computer to its location. YOU WILL BE EXTRADITED TO THE U.S. SOON!’ I quickly ask the Lord to forgive me after I send it off. But the African contacts were legit. The reason I am even mentioning this is because I feel the Lord has a purpose for messages like ours to go out to the nations. Not ‘my message’ per se, but the basic return to a Christ oriented gospel. Africa has gone thru a few decades of becoming ‘Christianized’ by the American gospel. The most prevalent strain of American Protestantism on the continent is the prosperity message. I don’t know if you knew this or not, but it is common to find African churches that are saturated with the prosperity gospel. Now, after all I have written and taught over the years on the abuses of this type of message, yet I do not see this development as totally ‘from the devil’. I believe it to be possible for the Lord to have used the basic message of self reliance, believing God to improve your economy, a basic message of ‘you can do it’ as a foundation for future growth. That is many Africans needed to be told ‘God does have a future and a hope for you and your continent, start believing and trusting God to turn things around’. But after the ‘elementary teachings’ of this type of message are laid, then the ‘more mature’ message of Christ’s calling needs to come in and build upon the basic self help gospel. So, James says ‘count it a blessing when you go thru stuff, God is working things in you, he is bringing you to a point of completeness in your life. Don’t look at all the trials as things from the enemy that must be rebuked, God allows trials for your personal growth and development’. There is a Christian message that teaches us that the Lord brings us to maturity thru difficult things. The basic message of ‘self help’ has an ethos that says ‘Confess, rebuke and apply all the bibles procedures and you will grow’. Much of this message has you rebuking the God ordained tests! Yes, we don’t like the tests. When the big test day comes along [or all the little ones] it can be nerve racking. So modern psychology says ‘lets avoid the pressure that tests put on people. Lets just tell little Tommy ‘you spelled the word the way you felt it should be spelled’ [Ouch!] I want to encourage you today, God has brought you thru some things for your own growth and benefit. You might look back ten years from now and think ‘Thank God I went thru those tough times, they allowed me to avoid going thru years of teaching and believing a limited gospel’. To all my preacher friends who read this site, God wants to ground you guys in some basic Christian truth, things that are foundational to our call in the kingdom. It is all too common for successful ministries to be built on self help principles. After many years go by this self help message can become too self centered, the people need to be taught ‘count it all joy’ once again.
(989)TRIBUTE TO SHELBY [January 2009]- A few posts back I mentioned my homeless friend ‘painter Bill’. He was very sick and I thought he might have died. Sure enough he made it, with some extra equipment! [They put a pace maker in him]. But sad to say my friend Shelby passed away this week. I have known Shelby for a few years, he was around 70 and had an interesting story. He at one time owned and operated an independent news paper. He got in debt and eventually lost his business and property. Though I never saw Shelby drink, or drunk, yet the word was he battled with alcoholism. After I befriended Shelby he went thru a ‘mini revival’ type period. I took him with me to Kingsville and Bishop for fellowships with some of the brothers. He went thru a period of renewal and excitement about the things of the Lord. It kind of surprised some of the local pastors who knew him. He would give testimonies about the simple things we were doing, to him it meant a lot. He shared with me how in the 70’s he ran a ‘hippie bus ministry’ for a church somewhere in Texas [Austin area?]. How they had some miracles and stuff happen. One time they were driving to some revival or something, they needed money for fuel. They stopped at some Pentecostal church and before they could say anything some Pentecostal/Prophet type brother said ‘the Lord sent you here so we could give you the money for your trip’. One of those common prophetic things that happens every so often. At one time I added Shelby’s articles to my tape/book catalog [I think it’s still on there?] though it was a simple thing, it meant allot to him. The last few months I didn’t get with Shelby as much as I wanted to, I think he got a little offended about it. You can tell when the brothers are mad, they don’t hide it like the ‘rich folk’. They let you know. I let it slide and eventually he got over it. The last few months he also had a renewed vision for starting a Christian paper. I was going to help him, kept an eye out for a used typewriter and stuff [he didn’t want to mess with computers]. He shared with me the plans on getting a used car and starting the paper from his room. He was living at the time with some Christian friends of mine who have a communal type home. I had Shelby over a few times to the house, he saw my cats and dogs and loved them. We have a little blind dog named Molly, he would always ask about her. Shelby just started getting Social Security about a year ago, though he was eligible, he put off applying for it. He was getting around 700.00 a month and he was trying to get a permanent place to stay. I am glad that Shelby had a personal revival in his life right before he died. The few simple things we did together made him proud. He would tell his daughter about it and stuff. I had the sense that after many years he began hoping again, sort of like the Lord was going to use him after feeling hopeless for many years. Shelby was a good man, a good friend of mine. Goodbye my friend. [I stuck this here because Jesus challenged us to be ‘servant leaders’ I think we often overlook what that means]
(987) SPOT THE TREND LINES- One of the themes of proverbs is reproof, correction. Proverbs teaches us that correction/reformation are noble things. Fools despise it, wise men take it to heart. Over the years of dealing with controversial issues in the church, I have found different responses from good men. Most leaders do not initially appreciate correction, they [we] have a tendency to want to use our knowledge and experience as an excuse to not receive correction. We often defend our positions by thinking ‘look how many other men/leaders are doing it [it being whatever area you feel threatened in] so I am at least in good company’. While there is some truth to this [being in the majority] this doesn’t work well when there is a groundswell of reformation on the horizon. For instance, during the 16th century Reformation, I am sure the new reformers looked and acted like contrarians at the time. There were many good catholic priests doing their best to serve the Lord in the limited understanding of the ancient church. I am sure many of these men simply steered clear of Luther and his ‘rebels’ but ultimately God was wanting change! So today we have certain undercurrents of reformation, sure not all the current trends fall into this category, but some do. So leaders should be open to correction or reproof coming from a broad range of influential men. Over the years I have spotted ‘trend lines’, certain changes that I see/hear from a wide range of Christian expressions. When I see them coming ‘from afar off’ I try and make the adjustment before the trend ‘hits the fan’. This is another wisdom nugget from Proverbs, a wise man sees the change coming and prepares himself, the simple pass on and make no adjustments. Another important characteristic is the ability to ‘not change’ too fast or too much! ‘Meddle not with those who are given to change’ reformation takes time and is a process. If I learn or see some knew area of truth that most of my contemporaries don’t see yet, then it would be foolish to think that God has called me to ‘straighten them all out’. God often shows you ‘the trend lines’ so you in wisdom can plant certain seeds that will keep the other leaders on track as the train moves along. In essence your job isn’t to say ‘see, I know more than so and so’. Your job is to be open to avenues of influence that eventually bring ‘correction/course change’ to the rest of the body. I felt like the word for today was for us to re examine the reproofs that we might have heard over the years. Does it seem like we keep hearing the same reproof from different voices thru out our lives? Maybe there’s more to it than just a bunch of disgruntled believers. Wise men take note and seek God for his timing in the course change, foolish men make no adjustment.
(985)1ST CORINTHIANS 12:7 ‘But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to EVERY MAN to profit EVERY BODY’. I want to share a criticism that sometimes gets made against me. I know ‘the critics’ mean well, and are actually sincere men. It’s just they have been ‘shaped’ by the present system of ‘church’. The criticism goes like this ‘sure John has an effective teaching ministry [blog/radio] but if you need someone to come pray for you, lets see if he will come’. The idea is that the true legitimate ‘elders’ are those you can ‘call for’. James says ‘if any one is sick among you, let him call for the elders of ‘the church’. They see ‘the church’ as the actual 501c3, building, Sunday meeting [storehouse] type thing - they are simply seeing thru their ‘lens’. What James is simply saying is ‘if someone is sick in your community/local body of believers, call for the elders [more spiritually mature ones] and let them pray for you and anoint you with oil’. Now, I have personally spent many thousands [yes thousands!] of actual man hours on the streets helping people. I have helped and given to some of the local homeless population who attend some of these ‘churches’, out of my own pocket. Yet these same homeless brothers are encouraged to give ten percent of their money to ‘their church’. What am I saying here? I know the men who level this type of accusation are often intimidated by peer pressure and stuff. But the verse above says ‘the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every believer to profit every one around them’. The biblical view of ‘church’ would simply require all believers to ‘administer the gift’ in a way that would profit all those around them. There is no need to make these types of distinctions between ‘the elders of our church’ or ‘the spiritual leaders in our region’. They mean the same thing. So see your gift as a freely received charism that should be used unselfishly for the benefit of others. Also some Pastors do seem to come around to ‘my view’ after many years of hearing us. They might then try and do some city wide ministry, open to all the body. Then if the results are not good, they can become discouraged also. Understand, many of these men took many years before they could really see what we were saying, don’t expect a majority of local believers to see things that took you years to see! The paradigms don’t come down that easily.
(981)TRIALS/END TIME STUFF- As I was praying this morning I was meditating on what verse to share. Sure enough as I was listening for guidance, I remembered that right before I woke up I had a dream. In the dream I picked up a green Gideon’s bible and read from James. I think it was ‘Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life’. I have been reading a scholarly work on the book of Revelation. Much better than the more popular ‘prophecy teachers’ stuff! The author is a little too Preterist for me, but overall very good. Preterism is the view that sees all of the prophetic end time passages thru a historical view. They teach that everything already occurred, even the final resurrection and judgment verses! I think the modern popular view is too futuristic, that is they seem to take most of the book and try and ‘news paper prophecy’ the thing. I see John’s work as primarily dealing with kingdoms in conflict. The kingdoms of the world warring against the kingdom of God. So he most definitely has Rome and her emperors in view. But this does not mean that John’s vision is limited to Roman leaders. The book can have meaning for believers in every age as they deal with ‘Babylon’ [the world] and the ‘kings of the earth’. So I see both a present reality [present for John’s actual readers who lived in the first century] and a future application. And of course I see the second coming of Christ and the final judgment as future! Now John was ‘on the island of Patmos for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus’. John was a partaker, along with the suffering church, of the trials and difficulties of the first century church. His banishment to Patmos [an island off modern day Turkey, in the Aegean Sea] , most likely by the emperor Nero, was for the purpose of ‘the word of God and testimony of Jesus’. He was being persecuted for the faith, but also for the purpose of receiving and writing down God’s word. Jesus says in John 17 ‘I sanctify myself and ask that they would be sanctified too. I sanctify myself for their sakes. I have given them the words you gave me.’ [my paraphrase] Jesus had a task to get certain words from the father to the elect, he fulfilled the task! John had some trials and things to deal with, it was part of the cost. I felt the Lord wanted to encourage some of you today, you are going thru stuff ‘because of the word of God and testimony of Jesus’. You are being ‘targeted’ because of your destiny! In the gospels Jesus says ‘when the word comes then tribulation and persecutions arise’. One of the strategies of the enemy is to come against you hard ‘after the word comes’. Once God has revealed and made plain to you the purpose and vision, then the enemy works overtime to stop you. He doesn’t want you to ‘deliver the word/purpose’ to those that the father has given you out of the world. Your trials and difficulties are a direct attempt of the enemy to stop you from getting the message out! Don’t take it personal.
(979)PROVERBS 28: 22 and 27- ‘HE THAT HASTETH TO BE RICH HAS AN EVIL EYE AND CONSIDERS NOT THAT POVERTY SHALL COME UPON HIM….HE THAT GIVES TO THE POOR SHALL NOT LACK’. I just finished making a radio program and wanted to share some stuff from my Proverbs reading. I still have the original cheap second hand desk that I bought over 20 years ago in Kingsville. I think I paid 20 bucks for the thing. Though it’s ancient and looks ‘crappy’, it still gets the job done. Over the years I have learned that it can be exciting to amass wealth. Yes even believers can ‘sanctify’ the pursuit of wealth, that is justify it’s pursuit by thinking ‘I am going after money and riches so I can fund kingdom ventures’! While God certainly uses rich people to do his will, the overall ethos of the kingdom is one where you choose not to pursue the wealth of the world, you instead pursue ‘spiritual riches’. This contrast can be found all thru out scripture [read my section on ‘word of faith- prosperity gospel’]. Paul actually tells Timothy ‘those that desire to be rich will fall into a snare’. Notice, Paul doesn’t say ‘unless they desire riches for kingdom things’. He simply says the pursuit of wealth is a deadly game, don’t be ‘wise in your own eyes’ and think that you can tame the monster! Recently the stock market had another one of the worst crashes in history. How many ‘pursuers of wealth’ had ‘poverty come suddenly upon them’? Another verse says ‘don’t set your eyes on wealth, they make themselves wings and fly away’. Ouch! As I sit here and type this entry I will be dropping of 3 months worth of radio messages in a little while. I made them from a cheap recorder purchased from radio shack. I store them in my cheap desk that I bought years ago. I am sitting on used furniture that I bought 25 years ago! I furnished my study/office with it. But yet I have a study filled with excellent books that I purchased over the years. Year’s worth of radio teachings that cost me next to nothing to make. I gave one of my homeless buddies a little money the other day. I take no offerings and spend a little under half my monthly retirement income on ministry stuff. To my amazement the Lord has allowed us to have real impact in a large region, and it’s done on a shoe string budget. ‘He that gives to the poor shall not lack’. Don’t seek to become rich, the scripture forbids it. Give to the down and out, give your life away. Be a servant of people, God will reward you and you will have enough to get the job done.
(975)PROVERBS 27:1 I made some plans to go to Kingsville last week. The morning I woke up I felt the word of the Lord to me [during prayer] was ‘Boast not thyself of the morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth’ [James]. Sure enough I got sidetracked and had to cancel. The next day I read Proverbs chapter 27, the spot where I left off last. I am kinda just reading a chapter at a time over a few month period. The first verse is the same one I just quoted from James! God does speak in stereo. I also read a good article from my January [2009] issue of Christianity Today magazine. It was an excerpt from a new book titled ‘Brand Jesus’. Exposing the dangers of ‘marketing Jesus’ as a product. It was good. I just felt like the word of the Lord today was for us to be careful when we ‘boast of tomorrow’. When we plan great goals [which is not wrong in itself] which seem to be ‘Christian goals’. As I am writing this entry I can hear a Christian song from my TV in the other room. The singer is singing about the temptation of being a singer and glorying in the spotlight! It seems funny that he is sharing this struggle [of self glory] thru this medium. The point being it’s easy to ‘Christianize’ our self motivations. To approach ‘Jesus’ as a brand product that can do something for you. Improve you in some way. Maybe he can carry us to stardom and fame, hey he wants us to fulfill our desires doesn’t he? Well actually not the way the contemporary church preaches it. A main theme of New Testament Christianity is learning to lay down your desires and wants for a greater purpose. Now, this greater purpose will wind up being more fulfilling than what you thought you wanted. That's why ‘your desires’ are not a good measurement of the purpose of God. He that seeks to save his life [get what you think is best] will lose it. He who learns the secret of giving up his life [carrying the Cross, self denial] will find it. What are you ‘boasting about’? Where do you ‘see yourself’ ten years from now? Remember, we as believers do not measure success and fame the way the world does. Our reward is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior. I know this sounds ‘corny’ and old fashioned, but sometimes we need to be reminded about this type of lifestyle. We spend so much time boasting about our dreams and goals, Jesus gets lost in the background as some product who can help me achieve ‘all that I can be’.
(970) CORINTHIANS ‘woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel’ ‘they which preach the gospel should live by the gospel’. Let me do a quick review before we jump into chapter 10. Over the years of re-learning the style and function of the New Testament church, it took time to read these scriptures without superimposing my preconceived ideas upon the text. For instance, you could easily read these verses and simply fit them into the ‘church building’ [as the church!] mindset. I know of, and have partaken of, the excitement that preachers experience when they ‘preach the gospel’. It’s a fulfilling thing. But the problem is much of the present day church follows a program where one main person becomes the attraction of the community. We live and hear and vicariously learn thru the growth experiences of a single individual. Now, we don’t realize that this is not the main intent of meeting together as a community. God originally intended for his people to share as a community of grace. There are specific warnings in the New Testament to avoid the Christian community’s penchant to identify around an individuals giftings [we actually just covered some of these in this study]. But when we simply read ‘they which preach the gospel should live of it’ we think this is justifying the present day context. It really simply meant that those in the community with the ability to read and teach should be taken care of while they are giving themselves for the benefit of others. The first century believer’s could not all read, the majority probably were illiterate. This created a need for those who were literate to actually read Paul's letters out loud in the assembly. These sincere men were not modern day full time Pastors! This is why it’s important to read the scripture with historical context in mind. When I meet with the brothers, or travel to another town. I usually simply ask the guys ‘what’s the Lord been saying, do you have a word to share’? And sure enough, by the time our fellowship is over most everyone feels edified because they gave of themselves for others. One of my homeless friends is an excellent teacher. Believe me, he knows more scripture than many Pastors. He excels in this environment. There is really no need for one person [like myself!] to dominate the conversation, or to think that my calling entails me being the primary voice of the community. Sometimes when I find myself at some Christian function, I can tell that when people find out that you speak on the radio, that they kinda want you to preach. I always [yes always!] avoid it. Not because it would be wrong to teach, but the modern church has made such a profession out of it, that the average saint never really expresses himself on a regular basis. God never intended the church to be a place where people learn and grow and experience most of their Christian lives thru the experiences and gifts of one person. I just wanted to challenge you today with these few verses. When you just read them did you see them thru the old mindset? Don’t feel bad about it, just allow the Lord to ‘re-wire’ your brain as we continue to teach thru the New Testament. We finds stuff like this all the way thru.
(969)1ST CORINTHIANS 9:15-27 I have a letter sitting here from some northern radio station. I guess these guys hear us some how? It’s a great offer to be on 140 stations for next to nothing [$140.00 a month]. I have had radio stations write us before. I choose to stay small so I can be consistent in not taking offerings. I am sure if I took offerings I could easily expand like this, but I think I need to set the example for others. This fits in with the following.
Now Paul will say ‘I would rather die than take money from you’ [and you guys think I’m an over reactor!] and also ‘I don’t take money from you because I want to make the gospel free of charge’. Remember, this is in the same chapter where he says it’s okay to support leaders financially. But yet he also makes these strong statements. Does Paul contradict himself? Some have tried to harmonize these statements by either saying Paul wasn’t really teaching the financial support of elders, or by saying Paul only restricted taking money from the Corinthians. Both of these are not true [Read my Acts 20 study]. Paul was hard on whatever group he was addressing. If he is speaking directly to the local saints, he says ‘you should make sacrifice and support those who labor among you’ but to the elders/leaders he says ‘I worked with my own hands while among you [elders!] to give you an example not to expect the people to support you’ [Acts 20]. He appeals to both sides to lay down their rights and give themselves away freely! He also says he adapts to every type of situation, he ‘becomes all things to all men, that he might save them’. He also brings his body under discipline so that after preaching to others, he himself will not be ‘cast away’. In my Proverbs reading I just came across ‘he that has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls’. God wants you to succeed and accomplish things, the enemy wants to sidetrack you. Allow God to have the upper hand, let the fruit of ‘self control’ [one of the fruits of the Spirit] abide in you. Now remember, Paul says ‘they do it to obtain a corruptible crown’ [material, temporary stuff. Money included] but we do it [discipline ourselves] for an ‘incorruptible crown’. The scripture is filled with examples that contrast money [material rewards] with true spiritual riches. In these examples the scripture teaches us to expend our time and efforts in building a spiritual heritage as opposed to a financial one. Yet some will even use this scripture ‘running the race’ and apply it to stuff! Ahh, when we do stuff like this we are ‘reading/quoting scripture’ without truly knowing it. Jesus told the religious leaders ‘you search the scriptures because by doing this you think you have eternal life, but you will not come to me that you might have life’. It’s possible to spend your whole life searching scripture [for what you want] and still miss the chief cornerstone! [the main point]
(967)PROVERBS- Up early praying and stuff. A few years back when I started writing this blog I never thought I would write so much! I just took the spot where I was reading thru my yearly schedule and began teaching it. It’s really easy to be honest. Sometimes I just do a brief reading and then sit down and write [actually all the time- note that I always pray/meditate for at least one hour prior to writing. Scripture [actually Proverbs!] says ‘write the commandment on your heart [teachings of your father- Gods Word] and bind the tradition around your neck’ [teaching of your mother- church history and stuff]. When you do this it will ‘keep you when you lay down, guide you when you go out, and speak/talk to you when you wake up’. I am not advocating slack studying before preaching, I am advocating that you fill your mind and spirit continually, then when ‘the spot light hits you’ your ready!]. This keeps me from my old routine of reading and meditating slowly. So I try and read other devotional sections of scripture at the same time. I am doing Proverbs right now, I like the wisdom literature. The Old Testament can be divided into three sections; 1- Wisdom literature 2- The law 3- The Prophets. The ‘keeper’ of the law is the Priest, the Prophets are of course the Prophet. The wisdom literature; Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Job and Psalms [James in the New Testament] are associated with the ‘Sage’ or wise man [Apostle]. So Maybe during our ‘down time’ [days where I purposely don’t teach! Because it’s so routine to just get up, pray and teach that it can become a rut. I don’t want to brag, but I am two years ahead of schedule on all our radio broadcasts. I have around 630 individual radio messages already done!] So maybe I will just hit high points from these devotional readings. I recently read ‘LABOR NOT TO BE RICH, CEASE FROM YOUR OWN WISDOM’. I originally felt like just quoting it and saying ‘look! What is he saying now? Hear we go again on his anti prosperity campaign!’ And then responding ‘why brothers, I didn’t say anything, I just quoted scripture’. Well, I guess I just did it. ‘WISDOM BUILDS HER HOUSE, UNDERSTANDING ESTABLISHES IT AND BY KNOWLEDGDE SHALL ITS CHAMBERS BE FILLED WITH ALL PLEASANT AND PRECIOUS RICHES’. Over the years I have had friends who were really knowledgeable, but there knowledge was only available for a short season. Why? They didn’t have the wisdom and understanding to put systems in place that would be the structure that could contain the knowledge. Then you have those who are wise, they can get structures up. But then a year goes by and they are working on another structure! The old ‘house’ is either left for someone else to deal with, or they simply ‘walk away’ from the mortgage [spiritually speaking] and start all over. Then you have those with wisdom, knowledge and understanding. They get things going, they establish systems in place that can maintain and keep things functioning for the long term, and they make sure all these strong systems and ministries are ‘filled with precious riches’. It’s all too common for some very stable ministries to have the structures and systems in place for the long term, but then propagate a message that is ‘less than precious’. Lets ask God today for the grace to function in all three of these divine attributes. When it is all said and done, only God can provide the increase!
(966)1ST CORINTHIANS 9:1-14 Paul defends his apostleship and gives a strong defense for the New Testament doctrine of financially supporting Christian leaders. Now, I never want to be one of those types of teachers who skews or bypasses scriptures that seem to contradict previous teachings. It’s common for good men to do this, all leaders need to avoid doing it. Recently I added my comments to a debate that raged in the blogasphere. You had Frank Viola put out the book ‘Pagan Christianity’ [good book, I read and do recommend it] and another good theologian, Ben Witherington, gave a good critique [I also recommend Bens site, you can find both Frank and Ben’s sites on my blog roll]. Part of the debate hinged on the financial support of elders/ministers. I must admit I fell on Ben’s side in this argument, though I probably would agree with Frank around 90 % of the time on all the other stuff. Ben argued for the biblical mandate to support elders, frank seems to teach the support of apostles [itinerant workers] is okay, but does not leave room for the support of elders who live in the community. Now, you really need to read all I have written under the ‘what in the world is the church’ section of this blog to get my full view on all of this stuff, but this section of Corinthians makes this stuff pretty clear. Paul says ‘I have the right not to work and only live off of the offerings of the people’. So Paul defends this practice, but he also says ‘I choose not to use it’. He also uses two interesting examples from ‘the law’ [Old Testament] to defend the financial support of leaders. ‘The Ox who is treading out the corn shouldn’t be muzzled’ and ‘the priests who serve at the altar get to eat the meat from the sacrifices’. What is the most obvious example that he does not use? The tithe! I would say this is one of the best proofs for the tithe not being a normative practice of the early church. But Paul does use the other examples to say its right to financially support those who labor among you. But Paul has also given examples to elders [read my Acts 20 commentary] to show them that they are not in this for the money! Paul will actually defend the practice of working and not taking money from the believers. So we see a wide range of freedom in this area. I feel the biblical example is it is fine to financially support Christian leadership who are dedicating their lives to teaching and ministering the word. It is also fine to not use these ‘rights’ as a Christian leader. But nowhere are we taught a type of Levitical tithe system for the support of Christian leaders. Why? Paul’s main message was one of grace and coming out from the requirements of the law. To have used the tithe as an example to give financially would have been counterproductive to his whole message. Eventually believers would come to view ‘the church’ and ‘the priest/pastor’ as the single head of ‘the church building’ who would be supported like a Levite who served as a priest under the old covenant [bring all the tithes into the storehouse type concept]. This legalistic view of ‘the church’ is prevalent today in much of Christendom, both Catholics and Protestants seem to cling to this limited view of the church. The modern house church movement is giving the old view quite a run for its money! But let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. Paul said its okay to financially support Christian leadership among you, just don't see it as a tithe that is supporting some type of Christian New Testament Levitical priest!
(963)1ST CORINTHIANS 7: 25-40 let’s be a little unconventional today. This passage deals with Paul’s counsel on celibacy and marriage. The historic church has had a bad rap on this issue. It is common today to say the church devalued marriage [and sex] and therefore we should exalt it. Sometimes this attempt at trying to correct the perceived imbalance puts a stumbling block in the way of those who are truly called to live the single life. Though marriage is an honorable thing, a true gift from God, yet living the celibate life can also be considered a very noble thing. It is rare in contemporary evangelicalism to leave this option open. Paul does say this option is not only available, but a noteworthy calling! He also makes it clear that only those who are called to this single lifestyle should attempt it. The church should not force celibacy on people. Now, do our catholic brothers force it upon the Priests? In a way, yes. But don’t forget that no one is ‘forced’ into the priesthood. Some feel like the scandals of catholic priests who abused children can be blamed on forced celibacy. The problem with this idea is many protestant ministers have also fallen sexually, and they were not celibate! The point being we need to be careful when we brand any Christian denomination with an accusation. Now, Paul also makes an interesting statement that we need to look at. He says ‘for the present distress I give these guidelines’. Is it possible that Paul's seeming harshness on marriage was due to the fact of some type of distress that he saw coming? Possibly the Neronic persecutions? If so, Paul could be saying ‘because of the upcoming severe persecution I recommend everyone just laying low for the time, if married, seek not to be single and vice a versa’. This is possible, we need to keep this in mind when reading this section of scripture. But most of all I think the modern evangelical church needs to retool her message in this area. Marriage and sex are good, God ordained these things in their proper place. But living single and celibate is also considered a very noble calling, we do not normally reflect this balance in the present atmosphere. Also as an aside, a few years back it was common to teach ‘the world/public schools have taken sex and taught it to our kids. They have usurped the job of the family/church’ while there is some truth to this, the problem was some well known TV evangelists began to discuss sex in the sunday morning setting that was improper in a way [If you local Pastors who read this have done this, be assured I am not talking about you!]. I remember watching a national minister speak openly, with grandma’s and children in the service, and say ‘now speaking about sexual climax’ Yikes!! Just because the family/church dropped the ball on these issues, this doesn’t mean there are no barriers at all while dealing with these issues. Those who do this type of stuff seem to be saying ‘sex is not a dirty thing, therefore we need to bring it out into the open’ while this is true to a degree, there are also age appropriate subjects that should be taught in a private setting. If the church feels the need to delve into these subjects, we need to be careful that we are not crossing boundaries when doing it.
(949) 1st CORINTHIANS 4: 1-7 Paul says we are ‘stewards of Gods mysteries’. This hidden knowledge of the gospel that can only be revealed by divine revelation has been committed to us. These great treasures of God’s wisdom are not products of our own intellect, therefore there is no reason to glory in men! Paul says stuff like this in Romans 4 ‘if it is by grace that Abraham became righteous, then there are no grounds for boasting.’ Now, because of this reason we ‘ought not to think of each other in an exalted way’. All men [apostles, prophets, teachers] that you have received truth from are simply ‘carriers of a gift freely given’. When you check out a book from the library and it contains great truth, do you exalt the librarian for it? Of course not, she is just a ‘steward of the book’. So Paul says this about him and Apollos and all other human teachers. Paul also teaches that we all will be judged according to the motives and intents of our hearts. He could care less about the private judgments that others made of him, he realized that all men would give an account some day. Therefore why waste time trying to impress people, it is about the most useless thing a person can do. Why? Because all men are like grass, we are here today and gone tomorrow. How much effort would you make in trying to impress your lawn? It’s all wasted time. Paul is not degrading human dignity, he is battling with the mindset of men worship that the church was falling into. Jesus himself said he would not commit himself to man because he knew what was in man [John’s gospel]. What’s in man? Do you ‘know yourself’? Have you ever tried to impress people? Did you later realize what a useless waste of energy this endeavor was? Well all men are like you [and me!] so why waste your time doing something that has no lasting value. Paul said it concerned him very little, he knew God would some day see all of our motives. He focused on stuff that mattered for eternity.
(946)1 CORINTHIANS 3:1-10 Paul tells them that because of their immaturity he has ‘fed them milk, not meat’. He continues to correct them on their penchant for ‘men worship’. He says ‘I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase’. He even says ‘we are nothing, its Gods Spirit that counts!’ I guess poor Paul wasn’t up on the contemporary self esteem movement in the church? Paul says ‘as a wise masterbuilder I have laid the foundation and others have built upon it’ also ‘ye are Gods building, Gods garden’. I have studied this concept of the ‘wise masterbuilder’ a lot over the years. The Apostle is known for his wisdom. Jesus said ‘I have sent you [Jerusalem] wise men and prophets’. The Apostles are the ‘wise men’. If I remember I will try and paste some entries on the reality of the apostolic ministry today. That is the teaching from scripture on the ongoing apostolic ministry. Don’t mistake it for the original ‘apostles of the Lamb’. They were special eyewitnesses of the resurrection. The ongoing gift which is spoken about in the New Testament plays a different role, yet we can glean things from Paul and others on this ministry gift. Paul was primarily a ‘foundation layer’ he spent no time building ‘buildings’ or human institutions, but he knew the reality of foundation laying. His proclamation of the gospel had the inherent ability to change a region for Christ and his kingdom. He had the wisdom to build into the communities a self sustaining mentality. A few months to a few years was the amount of time Paul spent in these communities. When he left them they were for all practical purposes self sustaining communities of Christ followers. How in the world did he do this on such a shoestring budget? The reality of Jesus and his resurrection was tremendously good news. Paul started them right. In today’s church world we seem to lay all sorts of other ‘foundations’. Faith, prosperity, healing, the ‘house church’; all good things in their proper place, but the reality of Christ seems to take second place. Also, Paul did not institute the pastoral office that we have come to depend on in the modern church. He did establish Elders, but he did not leave a ‘professional minister’ as the primary functioning ‘elder’ in their midst. Why is this important to see? Because when people are given ‘crutches’ they will use them! If momma eagle never kicks baby eagle out of the nest, then baby eagle will wind up on food stamps [Don’t feel bad if you are on them, I am just using this as an example]. In essence Paul built into the first century churches a self sustaining mindset. They were the church and they had the responsibility to represent Christ in their locals. They couldn’t pawn it off on ‘the pastor’. Paul would also do some writing. These letters would circulate throughout the communities and were regularly read by a literate believer in these churches. I know it’s common to think that the early believers ‘had bibles’ but this wasn’t the case. Paul’s letters were part of the early ‘canon’ but you wouldn’t have total agreement on the canon until around the 4th century. But these letters played a major role in ‘foundation laying’. The modern believer is primarily educated thru the sermon. Sermons are okay, but without literature, the job won’t get done. Say if your doctor, or mechanic or tax man told you ‘I have never been educated in school, but every Sunday I attended a lecture at the local lecture hall. I did this for 50 years. So let’s get on with the operation.’ Ouch! But we approach Christianity with this mindset. Paul wrote letters, short booklets if you will. These letters could be looked to as a stable source of doctrine for the early church. They would eventually be canonized and would be passed down to us 2 millennia later. We are reading from one right now.
(942)1st CORINTHIANS INTRODUCTION- Out of all of Paul’s letters, this one is ‘the most verified’ as being his. Of course we know this because Paul says so in the letter! But for all those intellectual higher critics, this helps. Corinth was a city of great influence and trade, many land and sea routes converged at Corinth and her port. The city was also known for her philosophers and ‘preachers of wisdom’ [Rhetoric]. They actually had a custom at Corinth in which you could ‘hire’ your own ‘preacher of wisdom’. These were the traveling teachers who made a living at speaking. This also might be why Paul specifically said ‘when I was with you I did not take money from you’. The custom of the traveling preachers was you could pay a one time honorarium for a single speech, or you could actually hire a regular speaker and have him ‘on salary’. Paul did not want the Corinthians to think that he was their hired preacher! How much influence this type of trade would have on the later development of the ‘hired clergy’ is unknown, but the similarities are striking. The famous 5th century bishop of Hippo, North Africa, Saint Augustine, made his living as one of these traveling teachers of philosophy before becoming a Christian. It’s believed that Paul wrote a 3rd letter to the church at Corinth, so what we know as 1st, 2nd Corinthians might actually be letters 2 and 3. I personally think Corinthians holds special value for the church today. The 21st century believer is being challenged on her Ecclesiology, the whole idea of what the church is. In Corinthians we see a specific picture of what the church is and on how she should meet. Paul will not address ‘the Pastor’ [there was none in the modern sense of the office] but he will speak directly to the brothers at Corinth and give them some heavy responsibilities to carry out [like committing a brother to satan for the destruction of his flesh! Ouch]. Paul went to Corinth on his 2nd missionary journey and spent 18 months with them [Acts 18] one of the longest stays at any church. Because of the pagan background of the city Paul will address specific issues related to believers and certain practices of idol worship. Eating meat offered to idols and stuff like that. Corinth also practiced a form of idolatry that included prostitution, so he will deal severely with the loose sexual morals of the people at Corinth. Well we have a lot to cover in the next few weeks, try and read Corinthians on your own as we plunge into this study, it will help a lot.
(941)2ND SAMUEL 24- David numbers the people. Joab and his men tell David not to do it. Why? Well to be honest we really don’t know for sure, but let me give you my spin on it. The nation of Israel were very religious and sticklers for specific things. You see this development years later with the religious Pharisees, a tendency to focus in on specific instructions and these ideas becoming obsessive in their minds. All Israel knew the original promise that God made to Abraham. God told him that his ‘seed would be like the stars for multitude and the sand by the shore’ [Genesis 15] included in this famous promise were the words ‘go, see if you can count them’? It was understood that God was saying to Abraham ‘go, if you want to test me, try and count them’ [the stars]. It’s possible that the counting of the people was considered a taboo for this reason. Now David does count them and his ‘seer/prophet’ Gad tells him ‘you messed up, you have 3 choices of judgment that will come on you’. David picks the 3 day judgment under Gods hand and 70,000 Israelites die. The census David took showed that Israel had 800 thousand people, Judah 500 thousand [1.3 million total] without counting the women and children! So you can multiply this number by at least 3 to figure the actual size of the nation. God stops the judgment short and David builds an altar at the place where he saw the destroying angel. David also pleads with the Lord ‘why kill the people, let the judgment be on me and my family instead’. David shows the heart of Moses here. Also David had a ‘seer/prophet’ that was part of his ‘ministry team’. In the prophetic churches it is common to have real prophetic people [not flakes!] who are stable in the word, and also give good advice to the leadership. There are real life prophets/seers who function in the church and can play a key role in the future of the church. We end Samuel with David overseeing a large kingdom. The people were the prophetic fulfillment of Gods purpose in the earth at that time. The letter of Peter says we are Gods holy nation today. The Father promised the Son that he would give him ‘the heathen for his inheritance and the ends of the earth for his possession’. Just like David, the anointed king/priest of Israel, Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father and sees the great multitude of people on the earth [and in heaven] that are the fulfillment of the promise of God to him. We are living proof of the faithfulness of God to his Son.
(940)2ND SAMUEL 23- David recounts his life and the mighty men who were with him thru the ups and downs. He says ‘God raised me up on high, the anointed of God. He spake his words thru me’ Jesus was raised up ‘on high’ he was/is Gods anointed one [Messiah] and he spoke only the words that the Father gave him. Now David has some valiant men to mention. Some fought the enemy against all odds. One was in a lentil field and the rest of the people fled. This brother stood his ground and won! This characteristic is important for leaders; there are times where you must stand, even if the rest of your people are afraid! If you start running, then forget it, there isn’t a ‘snowball’s chance in Hades’ that the job will get finished. Also David was in the cave Adullam, and he longed for the water at Bethlehem. His 3 mighty men heard him and they secretly snuck out and broke thru the Philistines front line and got the water for David! A valiant deed. Then they bring it to David and he pours it on the ground! He says ‘God forbid that I should drink the water that you risked your lives for’. I don’t know about you guys, but if I were one of the mighty men, my next valiant act would be ‘watch me make the king drink water off the ground’. One of the brothers killed a lion in the snow. I grew up in New Jersey, when it’s freezing out its hard to carry out tasks. You really don’t want to fight battles and ‘slay lions’ in difficult environments. The mighty men were able to function well, even in harsh conditions. The rest of the chapter is simply the naming of all the others. A few things; God raises up leaders and ‘kings’ at various times in history [Luther, Calvin, Graham, etc.] these men make their mark on history with the help of many other valiant men. In David’s case one of the men saved him from sure death in an earlier fight with the giant’s sons. The point is we are not in this thing to make a name for ourselves or to think ‘I could do a better job than David’ [Absalom] and go and start our own ‘kingdom’. God places key people in key places at certain points in time. It is vital for all the ‘actors’ [those who act/function!] to be courageous, take risks as God ordains, and fulfill the mission to the best of your ability. There are times where leaders WILL HAVE TO LEAD! That means you sought God, you heard what he said, and you followed thru on it. Many sincere men try all sorts of ‘new ideas’ in an attempt to get something off the ground. A year goes by and they have a new idea their working on. What happened? Ultimately you have to lead. You have to follow thru on the directives that God gave you. The problem isn’t with the plan [most of the times] but it’s with the faithfulness to follow thru with the mission. David’s men had the character to stick things out when others fled. Sure, those who flee will be back to check things out every now and then. Don’t despise them, but you know who can be trusted with the next mission. These are the noble warriors who acted valiantly in the face of great odds. These are the ‘go to men’ if you will.
(939)2ND SAMUEL 22- David exalts the Lord and mentions many themes that are found thru out scripture. He also says ‘the Lord has rewarded me according to the cleanness of my hands… he has recompensed me according to my righteousness’. Though David is renown for his sin with Bathsheba and the killing of her husband, yet we must see that David’s repentance was real. Ultimately David turned from his sin and God did bless him. We don’t want people to get the impression that repentance did not matter, in David’s case it made all the difference in the world. David also says ‘the Lord is merciful to those who are merciful…and hard with those who are hard’ Jesus says this in Matthew 5. David says ‘God took me and placed me in a large place’. One of the most frustrating things is to be operating from the wrong paradigm. Too often we leave the impression with young Pastors that their ‘job’ is to preach to 30 people a week for 30 years, marry them, bury them, perform the job of the ‘hired clergyman’ and this is what it means to be faithful. While I recognize that many well meaning men are functioning out of this mind set, yet God puts in people [all of his people, not just ‘full time ministers’!] a ‘large place’ to function out of. Now, when I say ‘large place’ don’t think building, think ‘the area, groups of people that I will influence thru out my life’. Scripture says God took David from ‘following the sheep’ [small pastoral mindset] to being king over the nation. God simply gave David great influence and stature for the sake of his people. Jesus said ‘you have been faithful over a little, I will now give you authority over 10 cities’. Are you frustrated because you are supposed to be ‘over 10 cities’ and are still dealing with ‘the little’? Be faithful to the day of small things right now, promotion comes from God alone. ‘You have made me the head of the heathen…strangers shall serve me. As soon as they hear me they will submit’. These are Messianic themes found elsewhere in scripture ‘ask of me and I will give you the heathen for your inheritance, the ends of the earth for your possession’. Jesus became the ‘head of the heathen’ he is Lord over the gentile nations, John calls this ‘the other flock’ in his gospel. God gave both David and Jesus authority for the benefit of people. What kind of people? The lost, down and out. Those who society rejected. God gives us authority for the ‘sake of the heathen’. Don’t see your ‘ministry’ as a gift to the ‘upper class’ only, spend some time ‘with the heathen’.
(937)2ND SAMUEL 20- Now David comes up against another short rebellion. Sheba, a Benjamite, blows the trumpet and says ‘what part have we in David, every man for himself’. Sheba draws Israel away from her king and Judah remains loyal. David quickly tells his new commander, Amasa, ‘go and gather Judah together and meet me in 3 days’. He takes longer than 3 days and David says ‘surely this Sheba is going to be trouble’ and he sends Joab out too. What’s going on here? First, David removed Joab from the commander position and replaced him with Amasa. For whatever reason Amasa is taking longer to gather Judah, David is reading into it thru the paranoia of Sheba’s rebellion. Was Amasa turning against him too? David then turns to his former commander Joab and seems to be using him as the back up ‘go to man’. Leaders, if you changed the staff for a reason, don’t keep going to the former guy for advice. It only creates tension with the new team. If you think the new guy isn’t working well, then give him a little time and if you have to then go and make the change. But don’t simply give him a title and then undercut his job. Now Joab goes out after Sheba and finds Amasa and kills him. He then chases down Sheba into a city of Israel. Joab comes against the city and a wise woman says ‘why are you trying to destroy us, we are a special town in Israel’? Joab says ‘we just want Sheba’. Sure enough the woman says ‘wait a little bit’ and next thing you know Sheba’s head comes over the wall. You don’t want to mess with these Israeli women! So Joab gets his job back, thru violent means. David puts down this short rebellion. And he has to regroup big time. Leadership means being able to function in the midst of turmoil and inner strife and infighting. That’s part of the cost. There is a verse that says ‘rule thou in the midst of your enemies’. God doesn't tell us ‘I will remove all the problems so you can rule’. He tells us ‘lead right thru all the stuff’!
(935)2ND SAMUEL 18- David and his men regroup and mount a counter attack against Absalom. They divide into 3 groups and go for it. David tells his men ‘take it easy on Absalom’. Why? Understand that David is seeing the prophetic judgment upon his family that was a result of his own sin. I wonder how many times David saw the fulfillment of this former word [the sword will never depart from your house] thru the seeming insignificant acts of Absalom along the way. David felt guilt over this whole rebellion mounted by his son. Now the battle rages and David and his men kill around 20 thousand troops of Absalom. Word gets back to Joab that Absalom got his hair caught in some tree and is hanging in the tree. Joab says ‘why didn’t you kill him!’ the messenger says ‘God forbid that I should kill the king’s son! I heard the strict orders from the king for no one to take his life’. My King James Version says Joab responded with ‘I may not tarry thus with thee’ in today’s terms ‘I can’t waste time listening to your reasoning’. Joab goes and kills the king’s son. When I read thru this chapter earlier this morning I saw 2 possible things here. First, Joab and his history with David are one of Joab being a ‘bloody man’. He killed Abner against the king’s wishes, and now Absalom. Why in the world did David not remove Joab from this position earlier? One reason, Joab knew how to war. The boy was capable; he knew how to get the job done. In ministry [or business] loyalty is important; people need to be able to carry out the decisions of leadership. But loyalty in and of itself doesn’t cut it, you need skills and abilities as well. You say ‘that’s not fair’ well if you don’t have the skills go get them for heavens sake! Proverbs says knowledge is in the street corners calling out to the simple and saying ‘come, receive of my learning’. The resources are there, laziness prevents people from accessing them effectively. Now Joab also acted responsibly to some degree. He realized that Absalom would be a permanent threat to David’s rule, he killed him and saved many. Right after his death Joab blows the trumpet and the battle is called off. 2 Messengers run to bring the word to David. Ephesians says ‘blessed are the feet of those who bring the gospel’ Gospel simply means ‘good news’. In the New Testament this good news was the reality of Jesus death, burial and resurrection [1st Corinthians 15] but in the Old Testament it was simply the news from ‘the runner’. You could tell from the way the runner was running whether the news was good or bad. How? Say if your wife took a lotto ticket that said ‘you one a million dollars’ and said ‘I am going to ask the store clerk if it’s real’. As you are waiting in the parking lot you see her coming out of the store. Do you think you would be able to tell if the news was good or bad by watching the way she approaches the car? So this was what the king looked for as the messengers came running. If they bore good news their feet had this special pep to them. News gets back to David and he is broken over the death of his son ‘O Absalom, my son Absalom. Would God I had died in your place’ I always stop and meditate this verse every time I read it thru my yearly reading thru the bible. This contains the heart of the Father in redemption. A few more things; in this chapter it said that Absalom raised up a monument/pillar after ‘his own name’. Because he didn’t have any sons to carry on his legacy, he left ‘a thing’ that would honor his name after he died. Absalom didn’t simply have a rebellion issue against his father, he really wanted to build for himself a legacy. His motivations were self serving. Jesus warns the leaders of his movement not to approach ‘church and ministry’ with the same ‘gentile’ [worldly] concepts of leadership. The world often succeeds thru the motivation of greed and lust and power. It’s very easy to fall into the Absalom mindset and take it out on Gods people when the ‘pillar’ [the thing of ministry] doesn’t ‘go up right’. Many well meaning sincere men have been side tracked into seeking fame and acceptance by seeing ministry thru the lens of ‘I want to leave some institution that will bear witness to my name after I am gone’. Ministry, according to Jesus, does not operate along these lines. In Absalom’s obsession to become famous in the eyes of men, he went down a path that did leave a memorial to his name for generations to come. We just read it.
(934)2ND SAMUEL 17- Absalom is strengthening his position as the new king. Ahithophel, his chief counselor, advises to strike while the irons hot. He tells Absalom ‘let me gather a 12 thousand man army and quickly pursue David. I will come upon him and his men while they are tired and fearful, then I will kill David only and bring the people back to you’. Now, this advice was the best, but Absalom asks for the advice of Hushai also. He was the secret spy that was really on David’s side. He advises Absalom to wait and gather all the people and mount a broad attack. God put it in the heart of Absalom to believe the bad advice [bad for Absalom, good for David!]. So Ahithophel sees that his counsel is rejected, he goes and hangs himself! Once again we see the ‘sword of David’s enemies enter into their own heart’. Remember what we said earlier about this? So Hushai sends word to David about the plan and David responds accordingly. Leaders, understand the strategy of our mortal enemy [satan]. He wants to target you when you and your people are weary and tired. He wants to take you down more than any other thing. The bible teaches ‘smite the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered’. Now this is a Messianic prophecy with a lot of meaning, but one of the points is the lead ‘point man’ is usually the main target of the opposing side. How can we mitigate this factor? Practice plural leadership as much as possible. The new testament churches were not ‘run by a Pastor’ in the way we do it today. So adjust your leadership paradigm and bring it more into alignment with scripture. Also, spread ‘the wealth around’ [a recent key issue with the newly elected president, Barack Obama]. If you can get the wisdom and truth that God has communicated to you into the hands of many others, then you have accomplished a lot. Paul told Timothy ‘the things that you have learned and been assured of, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also’. This is true apostolic ministry. David will survive this rebellion against his kingdom, but if Absalom listened to the best counsel David would have been finished for sure.
(932)2ND SAMUEL 16- As David flees Jerusalem, Ziba, the servant that was under Mephibosheth joins with him. David asks ‘what are you doing here? You should be home with your master’. Ziba says ‘as soon as Mephibosheth heard about the take over, he said “I will stay in Israel and become the new king, God will restore to me Saul’s throne”’. Now David believes it and says ‘I now put you in charge of all the household of your former master, it belongs to you’. Later on Mephibosheth will deny all of this. Its possible Ziba made this up for his own benefit. Leaders, be careful of advice from people with a personal agenda. They often make themselves look better than others. Now as David flees another enemy comes out and curses and throws stones at him along the way. This guy says ‘look at you now, you rebelled against the old king [Saul] and now you are receiving the just reward’. Now David responds with a Christ like attitude and says ‘let the guy curse me, I will not retaliate. Maybe God will look on this persecution and reward me’. One of David’s men wanted to ‘take his head off’. Gee, David has all types in his leadership circle! Did this guy who was cursing David misread the whole situation? Yes, but don’t forget we are reading this story from the real perspective, some people living at the time of David and Saul saw this new king [David] as a threat to the old ways. It’s only a few days after the 2008 presidential election. Barack Obama won. Though there were many reasons for and against him, now that he won we ALL need to pray for him. But some of the supporters of McCain sincerely saw this ‘new kind of person’ as a rebellious threat to the ‘old order’. Sincere people who saw things from a different angle. So David’s accuser sees the story from a wrong lens. David was being judged by God, but not because he toppled the old order of King Saul. Back at Jerusalem Absalom listens to the advice of Ahithophel and sleeps with his fathers concubines. The advice was that when all Israel heard about it, they would realize that this rebellion was a real rebellion and the people would unite under his illegal rule. Scripture says Ahithophels counsel was like ‘hearing from God’ in those days. Leaders, be open to the counsel that is coming forth from particular streams at certain times. It is not only important for believers to ‘learn the bible’, but also to be able to discern the signs of the times. Specific things God is saying and doing in our day. If you were living in the 16th century the issue of the reformation was vital for every one who was a believer. Whether you were Catholic or Protestant, you needed to be up on the issues. Erasmus, the great Catholic scholar and humanist [not ‘secular humanist’] wrote insightful criticisms against his own church, yet remained within her fold. So matter what Christian tradition you align yourself with, you need to be aware of the seasons and purposes of God for your generation. In Absalom’s day, Ahithophel was the go to man.
(930)2nd SAMUEL 14- David is broken over the estrangement of his son. Joab realizes that the kingdom can’t function to its full potential under this strain. But he knows he can’t confront David himself. Why? Maybe it’s because of the nature of leaders. It’s a very rare thing for one leader to confront another leader over an issue. The natural response is to look for ways to justify ourselves. So instead Joab finds a ‘wise woman’ and gets her to put on this act for the king. She tells him this sob story about one of her sons killing the other one. She is a widow and is left with only one son, but all the other relatives want justice! They can’t forgive the only heir. Well David falls for this scenario again! He did this with Nathan and Bathsheba. So he tells the woman ‘God forbid that someone takes vengeance on the only son. Over my dead body…. on and on’. Now the woman says ‘can I say one last thing’? Knowing David’s history of getting trumped at the end of these things, I would have said ‘no maam, you’ve said enough already’. But David says ‘go ahead’. She tells him ‘you’re the man!’ [Ouch! I wonder if this woman was the wife of Nathan?:-)] So David realizes he’s been duped again. The woman says ‘O, you are so wise and smart and….’ Gee, for someone who is so swift, he sure falls for these stories a lot. David sends Joab to get Absalom and Absalom returns to Jerusalem but the king avoids him for 2 years. Finally he sees his son. All is not well, Absalom resents the fact that his father called him home but never really made things right. Joab is glad that David gave it a shot. And the nameless wise woman gives us a quote worth remembering ‘For we must needs die, and are as water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means [the Cross], that his banished [humanity] be not expelled from him [reconciliation]’. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
(929)2ND SAMUEL 13- In this chapter David begins reaping the judgment on his household. Amnon, David’s son, falls for Tamar. Tamar is the sister of Absalom, another son of David. David had kids from various wives, so you had sons and sisters who were not from the same mother. Amnon devises a scheme and sleeps with Tamar. Then he rejects her. Absalom is incensed over this. David hears about it but doesn’t deal with the problem. Two years go by and Absalom gets even. He tricks Amnon and his other brothers to come to his territory. Then he kills Amnon. Word gets back to David ‘all your sons have been slain by Amnon’. David thinks ‘surely, this is my punishment’. He mourns and is shaken to the core. Now, the report was false. It really wasn’t as bad as David thought. Leaders, don’t always believe the initial report. The first intuition might be wrong. It’s difficult for leaders to recognize that something needs to happen, and then to wait on the Lord for clear directives. Leaders often want action, so they will respond and act based on the initial report. It’s better to sleep on it for a few days. David finds out that all the sons are not dead, just Amnon. Absalom flees to another king and is gone for a few years. David is distraught over the loss of one son and the reality that the other son is estranged from him. Could David have prevented this whole scenario? Maybe not, we do know the Lord said a sword would be in his family. A division and fighting would arise from within. But David also failed in that when he heard of the situation he never dealt with it. Sort of like Samuel and Eli. Eli let his boys run wild and they ruined Gods house. Though the Lord ‘promised’ David would reap what he sowed earlier on, yet the reaping was not as severe as he initially thought. Absalom could have very well killed all the brothers, but the Lord only allowed a limited judgment. Sometimes we mess up and make wrong choices, remember; God is for us. He is on our side. All chastening and discipline are for our ultimate benefit. What good what it have done for David to have been totally wiped out? God was disciplining David and his family, but God was still on David’s side.
(928)2ND SAMUEL 12- Nathan confronts David over his sin. He gives a parable about 2 men in a town, one owned lots of flocks and sheep, the other owned one precious lamb. The man with all the sheep had a visitor come to him in need. So instead of sacrificing his own sheep, he went and took the precious ‘only lamb’ from his neighbor. David is incensed over this injustice, he declares ‘This man will pay back what he did and also die for this sin’! Nathan says ‘you are the man’. David realizes he did this very thing with Bathsheba and Uriah. Notice how we have a tendency to be enraged over the sin and faults of others, but we make room for ourselves when we are guilty of the same things. Jesus confronted the religious hypocrisy of his day when he showed the Pharisees that they were guilty of lust and anger and jealousy, the same root causes of murder and adultery. They wanted strict judgment on others who were guilty of the same sins that they were guilty of. Also the fact that the man with one little lamb lost his favorite, this speaks of the great sacrifice of giving up the ‘only begotten Son of God’. Jesus sacrifice was great because the father gave his only Son. Now David receives the reproof from the prophet and Gods judgment is pronounced ‘the sword will never leave your house. From within your own family treachery shall arise. Your wives will be taken from you and publicly disgraced. The son from Bathsheba will die’. Very strict judgment indeed, yet the Lord says ‘nevertheless, I will spare your life’. This was something David did not leave room for in his earlier judgment on the sheep stealer! David mourns and fasts for the child’s life, but the child dies. David has another son with Bathsheba and his name is Solomon. One of the greatest/wisest kings Israel will ever have. A few things; in David’s earlier scenario he said the ‘sheep stealer’ should pay restitution. He wanted the man to right the wrong. In David’s case he killed the very man whom restitution should have been made to! In essence his sin was so severe that it actually cut off part of his future reconciliation. Unforgiveness towards others falls into this same category. God requires us to forgive those who have wronged us. We often do every thing else under the sun to get back on track, but we ‘eliminate’ the very person that stands in the way of total reconciliation! That person is often times the offender. Also at the end of the chapter David is told by Joab that he is on the verge of taking a city and David should come and finish the job so Joab won’t get the credit. David musters his forces and finishes the job. One of the hardest things to do in ministry/service is to regroup and move forward again. David had some very serious issues he had to deal with. The situation with Bathsheba was not going away. He couldn’t completely resolve this issue. But he still needed to function and carry out his responsibilities. Faithfulness means sticking it out even thru your own personal failures. Completing the task to the best of your ability. At one point they asked David ‘why were you grieving and fasting while the boy was still alive, and after he died you ate and functioned again’? David said ‘who knows, when the boy was alive there was a possibility that God would change his mind and let the boy live. After he died there was nothing else I could do’. Most of us would have been angry at God. David didn’t have all the answers, he knew Nathan was an accurate prophet. The things Nathan said were from the Lord. But David also was ‘from the Lord’. He too had a relationship with God. He depended on this relationship to guide him thru stuff. Maybe God would do something? David did not have all the answers. And when God didn’t do what he wanted, he didn’t take it personal. He moved forward the best he could. God showed tremendous mercy in allowing this sinful situation to produce a future king. Solomon was born from this turmoil and he was a great man of God. Look to the lord to bring forth wisdom from the failures in your life. The ‘first son’ might not have survived, but the second son just might be a prodigy.
(927)2ND SAMUEL 11- David sends Joab and his men out to war. He stays home and takes a walk on his roof and spots Bathsheba. He sends a servant to contact her and he sleeps with her. He finds out she’s pregnant and the gears in his mind start moving. He calls her noble husband, Uriah, from the front lines of battle and pretends he just called him to inquire about the battle. He sends him home, hoping he will sleep with his wife, and then David will be off the hook. Sure enough Uriah is so noble that he refuses to sleep in his house when his men are in the battle. So David gives it a second shot and gets the brother drunk. He sends him home again and Uriah refuses to sleep with Bathsheba. So David calls for Joab, the lead commander of his army, and says ‘put Uriah in the front lines and draw back and let him die’. Something interesting happens. Joab carries out the plan but also allows some of David’s other men to die. Then he sends a messenger to tell David ‘we were at the front lines, close to a wall, and some of our guys were killed’. Joab tells the messenger ‘if David gets mad and says “what were you thinking by getting close to the wall? This is a basic mistake that should have never been made!”’ Joab says if David asks this, then say ‘Uriah is dead too’. It’s possible that Joab stuck it to David here for making him partake in his personal problems. Military men do not like carrying out personal political vendettas. Either way the messenger goes and tells David and David feels he covered up his sin. Of course we will soon find out the cover up didn’t work. Bathsheba does move in with David and they make plans for the coming baby. A few things; David was a great man, he followed God as a man ‘after Gods own heart’. David was also human. Hebrews says ‘every high priest taken from among men must make sacrifice for his own sin as well as the peoples’. I don’t want to excuse sin, but I want you to see that all of us have ‘feet of clay’. Modern ministry has a system where we present the best image of leadership to people. We feel this is part of the role of leaders. The scriptures show you ‘the good, the bad, and the ugly’. We just saw the ugly.
(925)2ND SAMUEL 9- David inquires if there are any sons of Jonathan still alive, he wants to keep his oath to Jonathan that he would treat his offspring well when he became the king. Sure enough they find out that Mephibosheth, the crippled son, is still alive. David tells Ziba, former servant in Saul’s house, to become the servant of Mephibosheth. Later on we see Ziba speak badly about Mephibosheth; he will tell David that he was unfaithful to his rule. It’s possible that Ziba resented this new position of servitude that David put on him and his house. We read stories in the New Testament how the mercy Jesus shows to certain groups of people [lame and crippled and poor] will create a dissension among the others. David’s treatment of Mephibosheth is much like Jesus treatment of the down and out. David honors this lame boy, he allows him to sit at the kings table [Jesus in the parables calls people to ‘his dinner banquet’] and he outwardly, publicly associated himself with the sick and disabled. Truly David is fulfilling his role as a type of Christ. The jealousy of Ziba [down the road] reminds me of the story of Haman in the book of Esther. Haman was this wicked brother who hated the Jews. He particularly loathed this brother named Mordecai. This Jew refused to bow down as Haman rode by. Haman was close to the king [non Jew]. So Haman devises this plot to kill all the Jews and ultimately Esther saves the day [thus the name of the book]. But at one point the king asks Haman’s advice ‘what should I do for the man I respect and like so much’? Haman thinks the king is talking about him, so of course he says ‘Well, have him exalted to the highest position next to the king, let all the kings servants bow down and respect him…and on and on’. Haman thinks ‘Now I’ll get that rat Mordecai to bow!’ And the king says ‘sounds like a great idea, now go and make all this happen for Mordecai’. This was not Haman's day. Jesus challenges our hidden agendas. How do we respond when other ministries excel? Do we secretly feel good when we hear about the failure of a ministry that never honored us? Do we root for the church we attend and kind of have an attitude of ‘we are doing better than the other guys’. All these attitudes violate the family mindset of the Body of Christ. When David, or Jesus or any other king show special favor to another subject, our ‘eye shouldn’t be evil because the king did what was his right to do with what was his’. David honored his former vow to his best friend Jonathan, he kept his word.
(924)2ND SAMUEL 8- As David extends his rule he allows the defeated territories to maintain a level of self governing. The military principle is defeat [demoralize] your enemy, but don’t totally wipe him out. Either put a puppet king over them [Israel’s enemies will do this to her down the road!] or allow the ruling leaders to stay under tribute. Why do this? Some feel our country violated this principle in the present war with Iraq [2008]. The pundits say ‘why did Bush dismantle the Iraqi army, they should have simply allowed them to remain under U.S. rule’. First, the talking heads would have never been satisfied. I could hear Chris Matthews now ‘why in the world did Bush leave the army in place! Doesn’t he know that they were infiltrated with terrorists?’ But David allowed the defeated areas to exist under his rule. He wiped out some of their men, but not all. I think the modern concept of ‘extending Christ’s rule’ thru church planting can learn some lessons here. In the first century ‘church planting’ was the simple process of preaching the gospel to regions of people. Those who believed were baptized and continued in the apostle’s doctrine and the ways of Jesus. The first century ‘church planters’ were not trying to provide buildings and weekly ‘preaching services’ and long term dependence upon the Pastoral ministry. For the most part these new converts were to ‘self maintain’ under the direction of more grounded brothers in the Lord [elders]. This allowed for the ‘conquered territories’ [conquered by the sword of the Spirit, not the sword of man!] to function relatively easily on their own with out a lot of heavy financing and building programs and all sorts of stuff that the modern concept of ‘church planting’ has brought along for the ride. David simply put troops in these conquered cities [Jesus sent them out 2 by 2] and these areas of people understood that they were servants to the king! They paid tribute [I would associate this with the New Testament doctrine of giving as a community, not the Levitical tithe] and the Davidic kingdom [gospel] could spread rapidly in a short period of time. David had men working along side him; priests and scribes and stuff. He did ‘justly’ and ruled with integrity. He exemplified the character of a true leader, but did not back down from his God given authority. God established him as a leader in Israel. The boy did his job!
(918)2ND SAMUEL 3- Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, king of Israel. He accuses Abner of sleeping with one of his fathers concubines [second wife type thing]. And Abner, the military leader who for the most part propped up Ishbosheth as a puppet king for his own sake, gets irate and says ‘who do you think I am that you accuse me like this? I am not some dog that you can mistreat! I will now turn over the kingdom to David. If it weren’t for me you wouldn’t even be a king!’ and Ishbosheth remains stunned and silent. What happened here? When men join a ‘team’ [church-organization] out of jealousy and competition, they see themselves as helping the leader as a by-product of there own selfish motivations. We often see churches/organizations compete with one another like professional ball teams ‘how many games did your team with this season/ what was your average attendance this year?’ and stuff like that. When ministry leaders/staff see their ‘church’ from this type of perspective, then as soon as the leader offends you, you respond like Abner ‘how dare this guy speak to me like that! Doesn’t he know if it weren’t for my support he wouldn’t even be here!’ Now, I am not defending either side in this scenario, I feel for the most part that both of these responses/attitudes are not found in the churches of the New Testament. Because the churches in scripture were communities of believers who lived in your city. They weren’t established along these corporate ideas at all. Now Abner goes to David and tells him ‘I am now with you [people can be fickle!] and will do my best to bring all Israel to you’ David makes the deal and Joab, David’s military man says ‘what did you do? Abner was here simply to spy on you, his motives are wrong!’ Joabs brother was killed earlier by Abner himself, Joab was not willing to make peace with Abner. After all there is only room for one military commander, and Joab is not about to accept a demotion for this late comer to the party. Joab calls Abner back and kills him. David hears what happened and washes his hands from the whole matter. In this chapter we see how the motivations and selfish intentions of people cause strife. I feel the whole scenario of ‘whose side are you on, which ‘local team’ [church] is your team?’ leads us into these types of positioning and intrigue. In the New Testament you did not see Paul interacting this way between the local churches [communities of believers] he was establishing. For the most part he was teaching them to be faithful to the gospel and would only exercise apostolic authority when things got out of hand. He would appeal to his proof of who he was by saying ‘I am the one who brought you the gospel in the first place, don’t listen to these false teachers who are drawing you away from the truth’. But you did not see a dynamic of ‘are you supporting my apostolic ministry or not? If you are not faithful to my ministry then I no longer have time for you’. These limited ideas cause us to compete with one another. Abner and Joab were men who wanted self advancement and recognition, they aligned themselves with various leaders for their own purposes, this is not the family mindset that Jesus will instill in his future leaders.
(915)SAMUEL 31- The Philistines pursue Israel and Saul and his sons are killed. Saul tells his armor bearer to kill him, the armor bearer is afraid to do it. So Saul falls on his own sword. The enemy takes Saul’s body and cuts off his head and they pin him and his sons up on a wall for public humiliation. The inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead hear of it and they get his body and give him a proper burial. David will soon become the king. It’s kind of a sad way to end 1st Samuel. Saul and his sons really die, Jonathan was killed. A true warrior with a pure heart. I think we need to recognize the danger involved with the kingdom. There are times where men and woman of God have come under attack and have fallen. A few years back there were a few public scandals of believers who fell. Some just go away, others try and get back into the ministry. Often times there is no real facing up to the issues and an honest appraisal of what happened. I think many of these believers would be helpful if they wrote a book or shared openly about their struggles and difficulties. But the church has a tendency to cover up the real dangers involved in the ministry. Also Saul commits suicide. There are few suicides in scripture. We know Judas killed himself as well. If I remember right there is a Psalm that speaks of the sword of your enemies entering into them! A basic reality of a curse that comes upon those who fight believers [Gods anointed ones] that they will die at their own hands [or you don’t have to ‘get them’ yourself!]. Jesus taught us to not resist and take out vengeance on our enemies. It seems as if in both of these cases [Saul and Judas] that they fell victim to this judgment from God. How should we view this? Jesus and David were Gods ‘anointed ones’. Can we say that those who challenge present authority structures are rebelling against ‘Gods anointed’? This challenge has been made many times over the years. The two great divisions of western Christianity, the ‘Great Schism’ of 1054 [where the Eastern church- Orthodox, split from the Western branch] and the 16th century Reformation. Both had to do with believers resisting what they felt to be unscriptural authority as seen in the doctrine of apostolic succession thru Peter to the Popes. In both of these cases the ‘rebels’ were considered to be resisting ‘Gods authority’. I see it a little different. In Saul’s case he actually was the old order authority who was resisting change to the ‘old way’. God was bringing in a new anointed one thru David, and Saul was fighting the change. And of course Judas was coming against Jesus, who would institute the most radical change to mans approach to God that would ever come on the scene [in essence Jesus was eliminating the old order priesthood and making all believers priests!] I feel that these truths can apply to the current of change in our day. As the people of God transition from an ‘old order’ idea of leadership, to a more communal concept, both sides need to have respect and appreciation for each other. The new order [organic ecclesia] needs to appreciate all that the old order accomplished, and the old authority structures need to see the writing on the wall.
(911)SAMUEL 27- David realizes that as long as he stays in the area, Saul will never change. He goes to Achish, king of Gath, and asks if he could stay there. David is given Ziklag and it becomes a permanent possession for Israel. David recognized that no matter how many efforts he made to show Saul that the rumors about him were false, that this was going down a dead end trail. Sometimes we need to simply ‘walk away’ from some stuff. It’s not like David was hating Saul, he just recognized that all his efforts to try and get Saul to approve of him were vain. Jesus told the Pharisees that they were seeking glory and acceptance from men. He said those who seek to please men in this way could not please God. He challenged their core reason for being ‘in the ministry’. They wanted to be accepted and successful in the eyes of others. They did not realize that their ideas of ministry strayed so far from the intent of God. Jesus showed them that if their motivation was how others viewed them [they loved to make long public prayers and show themselves to be spiritual] then God was no longer in it. David quit trying to spend so much time and effort in getting Saul to like him, he fled to Gath. Now the king of Gath is overjoyed to get such a talented member ‘on staff’. He believes David is now with him as opposed to Israel. We will see later that this trust he places in David blinds him from David's real motives. The king’s men will advise against using David in a key battle against Israel. Leaders need to be careful in seeing the talents and gifts of people as simple additions to their ministries. Because we live in a day where church and ministry are so intertwined with corporate ideas, this leads to a dynamic of pastors looking for ‘the best men I can find’. In actuality Jesus was seeking the worst! Now, I realize Paul wanted good men to work with him and he rejected those who would quit half way thru the task. But don’t view ministry thru the lens of ‘great, David is now with me instead of Saul’! In Gods kingdom we are all equal as brothers and sisters, we should not allow the talents and gifts of others to cause us to favor them more than others. David stayed in the philistine’s area for around a year and a half, sort of like Paul’s time at Corinth. The whole time he is secretly fighting the enemies of Israel while Achish thinks he is fighting against Israel. Notice also that Ziklag became a permanent inheritance in Israel. A city that David didn’t even fight for! Sometimes when we simply recognize the transitions that God is leading us into, we yield and at the same time take ground. I used to make decisions quickly, recently I had to make some ministry decisions. Changes that I would have preferred not to have made. In the old days I would have jumped thru these changes without really waiting on the Lord. Or I would have persisted to not change and struggle along the sure path. But now I try and wait and decide as a few days go by. If things look like the new direction is the way to go, then I go with it. David left the territories of his homeland for a while, he hooked up with Achish and during this seeming distraction he possessed some territory peacefully. Sometimes we need to relax during the distraction, and allow the lord to give us some easy land.
(910)SAMUEL 26- Saul pursues David in the wilderness of Ziph. David hears that Saul is still on his trail, and he tells his men ‘who wants to go down with me and see if we can spy on Saul’? Abishai goes. They sneak into Saul’s camp and find the men sleeping, they steel Saul’s spear and water supply. They go to the other side and yell 'what's up, why couldn’t a man like Abner protect Saul’? David reveals the stolen stuff and Saul realizes that once again David had the chance to kill him but let him go instead. Saul goes thru the whole ‘you are a better man than me’ thing. But the problem is no matter how many times God vindicates David, Saul still goes after him! I think David would have preferred for Saul to really learn the lesson instead of just making these worthless treaties. It’s like signing these treaties with North Korea on nuclear stuff. Then a few years go by and they say ‘well, you caught us, we were cheating’ and then we go and sign another one! David wasn’t putting much stock into Saul’s words. David also says ‘if God has told you to get me, than explain the reason, I will try and make any fault right. But if it’s these gossiping people that have turned you into my enemy, then let them be cursed’! Notice, it wasn’t just the fact that Saul was pursuing David, it was the reality that David’s secret enemies were the deceivers behind the whole thing. It’s like David has more respect for Saul, because he at least is open and willing to confront him publicly. But the troublemakers spend all their time poisoning the minds of others against you. They are too scared to confront you themselves. Bunch of wimps! Once again Saul recognizes Gods calling on David ‘you will do great things and prevail’. David is Gods new order of leadership, Saul is stuck in the old school. It was obvious that Saul was never going to transition and live peaceably with David as the king. Saul had his ways and he basically was going to live out his days functioning in the comfortable patterns of kingship that he was familiar with. He also could see the writing on the wall. He saw that David had the lord helping him, he was still humble enough to have glimpses of clarity. Being able to see the future and what God was going to do. Saul just couldn’t get to a point where he would peacefully accept the new king.
(909)SAMUEL 25- THERE ARE MANY SERVANTS THESE DAYS WHO BREAK AWAY FROM THEIR MASTER! We see the death of Samuel and the story of David and Nabal. When David was on the run with his small army, he had provided shelter for Nabal's men while in the fields. So David figures it’s time to cash in on the goodwill that he showed to Nabal’s men. He sends some servants to Nabal’s house to remind him of the favor that was done, and to humbly ask ‘can you in return show us some favor and provide us with some supply’? Nabal is considered a fool and replies ‘Who is this David, another one of the many rebels of this day?’ and Nabal refuses to help. Now David hears of the response and decides ‘I have had it! Let’s strap it on’. On the way to wipe out Nabal the servants of Nabal tell his wife Abigail what happened. They speak well of David and Abigail quickly puts together a supply and sends it to David. She averts the disaster that was imminent. The next day Nabal hears what happened and falls into a stroke type condition and dies within a few days. David takes Abigail to be his wife. I sort of see in Nabal a type of response to the new authority structures that God is raising up in the kingdom. David of course is a type of Jesus, but we also see all leadership types in David. In the present system of ‘local church’ there is a legitimate challenge to the ‘old type pastoral model’. Now, some in the past have challenged leadership out of rebellion. But there are very scriptural questions to the development of the one man leadership model that prevails in today’s idea of church. It is easy to mistake these challenges as ‘another rebellious movement like the others of days gone by’. During the reformation of the 16th century you also had this response. But there actually are real times of change and upheaval that come from God. Nabal stuck David in a category of ‘another one of those rebellious types’ but his judgment was way off. Nabal did not act righteously in this challenge to Godly authority. He used ‘rebellion’ as a false defense of his unwillingness to give David and his men their due. There are good men who are seeing the legitimacy of the present challenges to the old authority structures. But then there are others who are not even willing to give a fair hearing to the ‘David’s’ and just assume all new ideas are acts of rebellion. This can breed dangerous responses from both sides. Out of frustration David, who was right in this case, almost committed an act of retaliation that would have forever scarred his ministry. Nabal realized what a foolish judgment he had made and lost his life over it. It would have been better if the old guard recognized the legitimacy of the new guard and tried to hammer out an amicable solution.
(908)SAMUEL 24- Saul heard that David is at Engedi, he pursues him. When they get in the area Saul goes into a random cave to ‘use the restroom’. Lo and behold, this just happens to be the one cave that David and his men are hiding in! David’s men tell him ‘see, the lord has delivered your enemy into your hand’. David secretly cuts a piece of Saul’s robe off. As Saul leaves the cave David reveals himself and bows to the ground and tells Saul ‘see my father, today I had the chance to kill you, but instead I spared your life. Why are you listening to all the rumors that people are saying about me?’ Notice, Saul was being fed gossip about David, and this was affecting David! We need to overcome the reality that part of the cost of ministry is people are going to lie about you and other people will believe it. Yes, Jesus did say this was part of the cost ‘if they spoke falsely about me, then they will about you. But when this happens rejoice! For this is also what happened to the prophets’. Hey, if you want to run with the big boys, then this is part of the price. Now David’s men also were affecting his thinking ‘Look, now’s the chance to get your enemy. After all if God didn’t want you to get even he would have never brought Saul into the cave’. Leaders have to be worried about their own men’s advice as well! It’s hard to walk this fine line at times, but true leadership listens to council and should err on the side of mercy. This is a good rule of thumb. Saul tells David ‘forgive me son, this day you have proven me wrong. Surely you will eventually become the king’. Saul goes home and David goes back to the stronghold in the wilderness. David realized that no matter how many times the lord would defend him against Saul, that Saul would be a permanent obstacle. Why? It’s in mans nature to want to retaliate against change. Especially change that involves a removal of authority that was at one time used by God! Saul was not the original intent of God [or David!] but once God’s people traveled down the road of kingship, God did use this mode of authority. Now Saul did become addicted to power. Even though leaders have good hearts and mean well, when there comes a change of authority [like the movement of communal church where there no longer is the role of ‘the pastor’] this challenges leadership at its core. Even if leaders become convinced that a change is coming [like Saul recognizing David’s destiny] still the sinful nature of man will come back and rears it ugly head. David knew that Saul would be back on his trail soon.
(902)SAMUEL 19- Saul puts out the word to his men ‘if you see David kill him’! Jonathan tells David ‘go hide in the field and I will go out where you are and speak on your behalf to my father. Then I will come and tell you all the words he has spoken’. Jonathan speaks well to Saul on David’s behalf and David is restored back into the presence of the king. I see Jesus intercession ministry here. Jesus goes to the father on our behalf, we ‘rest in a hiding place’ [in Christ] while he speaks well of us to the father. He ‘gives us the words that the father has given him ‘[Johns gospel] and we are restored back into the ‘presence of the king’. But in David’s case the restoration doesn’t last long. David will flee to Samuel in Ramah, Saul sends his men to get David. Each time they show up they are confronted with this prophetic weapon of intercession in the hand of the lead prophet, Samuel. Samuel is prophesying over a company of prophets and Saul’s men ‘fall under the Spirit of prophecy’ and prophesy too! This happens with 3 different groups of men until Saul himself comes. The same thing happens with him. The ministry of prophecy testifies of Christ. The gift itself is a Divine mechanism in the community of God that protects/defends Gods anointed king [David/Jesus]. Samuels’s gift was meant for more than just personal fulfillment, a ‘my ministry’ mentality. He was overseeing a company of prophets and instilling this dynamic into the broader community of Israel. In the church today prophets should function along the lines of building into the broader community for the overall benefit of the church. There have been good men who have operated in the prophetic gift for many years. They have raised up younger prophetic ministries under them and have lived very effective prophetic lives for many years. It is sad that many in the Body of Christ have no idea of this entire section of the church. Because of abuses and flagrant bad doctrine, many simply live their entire lives without ever experiencing the prophetic aspect of Christ’s church. In this story we see the prophetic ministry, under Samuel, playing a key role in the life of Gods people. NOTE- One example of a modern day prophetic ministry that has been stable and has launched many young prophets would be Bishop Bill Hammon out of Florida. He has been around for years and has had a very influential ministry over the lives of many good young men.
(899)SAMUEL 16- Samuel is coming from the recent ‘hacking incident’ of king Agag, and the Lord tells him to go to Bethlehem and anoint a new king. Samuel is afraid ‘what if Saul hears about it? He will kill me’. Notice, Samuel feels intimidated and fearful. When he gets to Bethlehem the scripture says the Elders were all in a panic, they said ‘are you come in peace’? Hey, they just heard about the hacking incident, word spreads fast when a prophet straps it on with some pagan! They must have been thinking Samuel was on a warpath. He tells them he is come in peace and wants to sacrifice with them and worship. As a little aside, when you have prophetic ministers in a city, it’s only natural that Elders [pastors] are going to feel intimidated. Why? Are prophets better men? No, but the prophetic operates under a different type of anointing. Don’t forget you already saw Samuel gain a reputation among the people because of his strong prophetic gift. Sometimes pastors can feel intimidated ‘geez, that guy hit the nail on the head. I hope he doesn’t call me out by name too!’ Samuel doesn’t ‘call them out’ but says ‘hey Elders, where all in this together. Let’s worship God’. Samuel finds David and anoints him. Saul is battling with all sorts of personal issues [evil spirit]. Even his close associates can pick up on it. The servants recommend for Saul to get a worshipper who can play music and minister to Saul. They tell him ‘yeah, there is this guy named David. He’s real good at playing music. Plus he is a valiant and mighty warrior’. We often see David as a ‘mamby pamby mamma’s boy’ at this stage of his life. But scripture says he already built up a reputation as a fighter. David takes the job and becomes a musician for Saul. A few thoughts. In this chapter we see Gods Spirit [anointing] leaving Saul and going with David. David himself in Psalms pleas with the Lord ‘take not thy Holy Spirit from me’ after his sin with Bathsheba. Let me encourage some of my Pastor friends. It’s easy to read stuff like this, or for some ‘prophet’ to pronounce stuff like this to a pastor. I really don’t see applying this scenario to modern day ministers. God’s Spirit in the Old Testament was operating differently than today. Only one king at a time could have the ‘kingly anointing’. When the Spirit left Saul for David it was because God was only anointing one person for the job. Today, while it’s possible for a pastor/minister to mess up and ruin his ministry, I still wouldn’t apply stuff like this in too much of a personal way. Sort of like ‘The Lord must have left me and now he’s chosen so and so on the other side of town’. The Lord ‘doesn’t leave you’ in this way under the New Covenant. Paul said the gifts and callings of God are without repentance, in context he is speaking of natural Israel, but you can also apply it to believer’s gifts today. How much God uses you does depend on your willingness and obedience to his call, but don’t think he left ‘your church’ and went to the other one down the street! [he hasn’t written ‘Michelob’ on your door! See entry 887]
(897)SAMUEL 14- Saul and the people are hiding in fear, Jonathan tells his armor bearer ‘Lets go up to the enemy and show ourselves. If they tell us ‘come here’ we will take it as a sign from the Lord and fight. God can save by many or by few’. They go up and defeat around 20 men in half an acre of land. The scripture says the enemy trembled and the earth as well! It seems like the Lord shook things up, literally! [Another reminder of the book of Acts]. Saul and his people see the enemy fleeing and can’t figure out what’s happened. He takes a quick roll call and realizes Jonathan is gone. They figure out what has happened and enter the fray. The people pursue the enemy and have great victory. Saul says ‘let no man eat today until the sun goes down’. He begins making community wide decisions that are harmful to the people. Jonathan doesn’t hear this rash decision and eats some honey. The people are shocked. They know the curse of Saul. They finally win the battle and they seek the Lord for further instructions. God is silent. Saul figures it’s because there is sin in the camp and they find out that Jonathan was the one who ate the honey. Jonathan says ‘yea, I did eat it, and now I must die’? Sort of like ‘what a stupid and rash thing for you to have said! The people were all tired and drained because of following your singular ideas that were pronounced to the whole community. They would have gained strength if they simply did what was natural and ate when they were hungry’. Saul honors his stupid agenda over his own son and says ‘that’s right, you must die’. He was more willing to kill his son then to admit he was wrong. The people stand up with one voice and say ‘no way Saul, Jonathan has won a great victory. You will not get away with this’! What happened here? Was Saul so inherently evil that he couldn’t help himself? I think what we see here is the result of the mistake for Israel to have wanted a king like the other nations. When the church historically began to be centered around singular authority figures [monarchial episcopacy] you began to loose the freedom and health of the people of God to ‘feed themselves when hungry’. They began to become dependant upon the institutional church to tell them about God and his truth. Eventually you would have the modern expression of highly entrepreneurial ministries that would find well meaning Pastors trying to make corporate wide decisions in ways that were absent from the local churches in scripture. When the people of God lean too heavily on the gifts and leadings of one man, there is a tendency for the leader to come up with goals and decrees that are contrary to the full purpose of God. It is inherent in man to set goals and make broad decisions. That’s not wrong in itself. But the people of God in scripture are formed along the lines of a community of people, not a 501c3 corporation. So the well meaning Pastors have a natural tendency to say ‘what decisions should I make for the church this year? What goals and dreams should we put before the people’ and this inevitably leads to entire communities of believers being too focused on the singular directions of well meaning men. I think Saul simply came up with things to say because he felt he needed to exert leadership. God’s people really didn’t need Saul from the start! As far as I can see from reading the New Testament, the only corporate ‘goal’ or project that Paul would put before the people was his collecting of money for the poor. Now of course there were many spiritual goals of growth and becoming mature believers who praise and glorify God. But I don’t see any other ‘project’ that Paul was regularly laying before the people to join. No structure in the churches of scripture where Paul would say ‘Now Corinth, when I come back next year lets see 50 house churches, reaching 48 % of this region. And oh yes, lets raise this much money for this project’. Much of the modern church is too centered around these types of pleas. The many well meaning men who are operating out of good intentions for the most part are ‘just doing what kings [leaders- C.E.O.'s] are supposed to do’. The fundamental flaw is God never originally intended for his people to be structured along these lines. Many up and coming believers are seeing this and coming out of these limited structures. They are telling Saul with one corporate voice ‘you wont get away with this anymore’. [‘Saul’ in this scenario is not your individual Pastor, who for the most part is probably a good man who loves God. But ‘Saul’ is speaking to the whole concept of modern pastoral ministry that is absent from the churches in scripture].
(895)SAMUEL 12- Samuel is getting old. He calls the people together and reviews his life before them. His defense sounds a lot like Paul's defense to the Ephesian elders in the book of Acts [chapter 20]. Samuel tells the people ‘all the time I have been with you, did I ever take your goods to enrich myself? Did I use my authority in a way to advance myself?’ he basically witnesses before the people that he was not in this for self gain. He also reviews the history of Israel. He reminds them of their past and how the Lord delivered them from Egypt. It is important to see that although Samuel was a great prophet who operated in tremendous gifts, yet he saw the need to also ground the people in history and doctrine. He knew the importance of remembering past events. Both the Passover and the Lords Table are Divine instances of ‘remembrance’ that God has ordained for his people. Samuel will once again rebuke them for rejecting God by choosing a king. He will call down thunder and rain during their wheat harvest as a sign of Gods anger. The people see this and fear greatly ‘pray to the Lord for us Samuel, we have sinned’. He encourages them and tells them ‘even though you have done lots of wrong stuff, yet it’s not too late to turn to the Lord from this day forward and make a course correction’. In all reproving and correcting we need to always leave room for repentance. Some will never change the way ‘they think and act’ [message bibles version of repentance] but we need to understand that this is the goal of all correction and judgment. Samuel tells the people he will ‘not cease praying for them’ and continue to teach them well. Jesus told Peter ‘if you love me, feed my sheep’. John says ‘this is how we can tell we love God, when we love his kids and obey his commands’. What is Jesus command? ‘Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and might. And thy neighbor as thyself’. Samuel realizes that his faithfulness to God is directly related to his treatment of Gods people. Though he is a gifted prophet, yet he prays and teaches and remains consistent in the more mundane areas of ‘the ministry’. I have found that God looks for faithfulness in the mundane things before he honors the more flagrant gifts. It’s good to have the ability to speak or prophesy or sing for the Lord, but the need to be a consistent intercessor for God’s people takes priority. Samuel taught them history. He oversaw the problems and situations they went thru. He did not become wealthy from the people. He served the lord faithfully from his youth. Hannah gave him to the Lord at a very young age, God took what was given and made the most out of it.
(893)SAMUEL 10- Samuel anoints Saul with oil. He gives him very specific prophetic direction ‘you will meet 2 men, then 3. They will be carrying 3 loaves of bread and give you 2’. Very particular information. Saul will meet a company of prophets and prophesy with them. The scripture says the Lord changed Saul into another man thru this prophetic experience. Once again we see not only the significance of Israel being under the divine direction of the prophetic [thru Samuel]. But his prophetic office also opened the door for a ‘whole company of prophets’ having freedom to function in their gifts. Over the years I have found it interesting to see how easy it is to live your entire Christian experience in different camps. Some of the more refined brothers [Reformed, Orthodox] have a great advantage in the field of intellectual pursuit [which is a good thing!] but might not be aware of the sector in the church that deals with the prophetic. The prophetic ministry has grown and even produced some fine intellectual material [some bad stuff too!] The point is we need to try and be aware [at least have a working knowledge] of the many streams that operate in the Body of Christ. You might not agree with a lot of the doctrinal positions that these various groups hold to, but as members of Christ’s church they do represent a certain sector of the church. Saul will follow thru and see all the prophetic signs come to pass in one day. Samuel instructs him to wait for him to come and publicly recognize him as king. After 7 days Samuel comes to town and Saul is hiding. He feared all the things that were coming upon him. Samuel finds him and publicly recognizes him. Also Samuel told the people that their choice of a human king was rejection of God. Some of the people are glad about Saul, others despise him from the start. There is a strange dynamic that I have seen at work over the years. When individual personalities and goals pit themselves against other people’s visions, there seems to be a division that is not healthy. I have had good friends who wanted to publicly join and be identified with ‘my ministry’. I would simply tell them ‘there really is nothing to join, we are simply believers trying to live out the Kingdom of God’. Then other pastors would see that some of the homeless people that they are working with have become ‘joined’ to us in a strong relational way. Then I would sense a kind of mindset that would say to the homeless person ‘well, if brother John has such good influence with you, maybe you should be with him instead of us’. They would not say this in a bad way, just in a way that is prevalent in the present mindset of ‘doing church’. I see all these divisions as silly, they come from an idea of local church that has many various ‘local churches’ [Christian ministries] as seeing themselves as independent entities who are trying to instill loyalty in people. ‘Are you with us or against us’ type attitudes. In Saul’s case he had friends and enemies right from the start. When individual personalities and agendas [which God warned them about!] become preeminent in the minds of the people [contrary to the corporate comminutes as seen in the local churches in scripture] then there is a natural tendency to take sides.
(892)SAMUEL 9- This is a prophetic chapter that parallels the book of Acts to a degree. Remember when we did Acts I showed you how it seemed that Paul [Saul] from Benjamin might have seen some prophetic significance to the fact that he too shared the same name and heritage [Benjamite] as Israel’s first king? Here we see Samuel play a roll similar to Ananias [Acts 9] in hearing the lord give instructions concerning Saul. Both Paul and Saul were told to go into a city and receive instructions. The lord confirms his word to Samuel that ‘this is the man I told you about’. Both Ananias and Samuel have prophetic signs that confirm the sovereign choice of God. Saul in this chapter is seeking for his fathers lost donkeys. They are about to give up and Saul’s servant says ‘there is a man in the city who hears from God’. Samuel had a reputation of being a prophet [seer]. Seers [another word for prophet. There is some distinction between a ‘prophet seer’ and ‘prophet’. But they are basically the same thing in my mind] were able ‘to see’ into the future about things. Samuel is said to be able to ‘tell Saul the secrets of his heart’. His words ‘come to pass’. He has God communicating to him in a direct way. Samuel is like Agabus in the book of Acts. A prophet who experienced God in supernatural ways. Samuel confirms Gods call on Saul’s life and tells him ‘I have some instructions to give you’ [next chapter!] What role did Samuel play in Israel? He obviously functioned in a prophetic gift that not only predicted what would come to pass, but also gave direction and spiritual oversight to Gods people. The New Testament teaching on prophets clearly teaches that they are part of the functioning ministry of the church. There have been many heresies and mistakes and even cultic ‘prophets’. But the basic teaching in scripture is they are a God ordained ministry that never passed away. We should approach prophets as we do pastors or teachers or any other gift. Are they stable in the faith? Do they have a good grasp of scripture? Good character? All the same principles that apply for Elders. The idea that after the canon of scripture was complete there were no more apostles or prophets has no scriptural support [read my section on apostolic, covering, shepherding]. Both church history and scripture support the ongoing role of prophets in the church. Now, I really doubt that all the fine brothers who declare themselves as prophets are. Some are learning about the gift. Some are functioning at various prophetic levels. But the office carries a lot of weight with it. I see Martin Luther King as a prophetic voice to our nation. He actually spoke of his death in a prophetic way the night before he was assassinated. There are also prophetic voices in history who spoke to their nation and people at crucial times. Alexander Solzenitzen [Russia] would speak out against repressive regimes. But we need to understand that the basic revelatory element of the prophetic [to be able to see and know things supernaturally] was included in the biblical gift of the prophet.
(891)SAMUEL 8- Samuel’s sons are appointed as judges over Israel [leaders]. They are wicked, just like the sons of Eli. I find this interesting, Samuel was a product to some degree of his ‘spiritual elder’. Even though Samuel himself was a righteous man, yet he passed on to his kids the same leadership style that he tutored under. The children of Israel come to him and request a king ‘like the other nations’. It is important to see that God states clearly that this is not part of ‘the original plan’. God will tell Samuel that this desire for human leadership, along the lines of other ‘gentile nations’ is rebellion. Jesus will tell the disciples ‘the gentiles exercise lordship over one another, it shall not be like this with you’. Israel wanted to be dominated by a king! God tells Samuel to show them what they are asking for. And then goes thru a long list of things ‘he will take the best of your people and use them for self advancement. He will require a tenth of all you have. He will build a legacy for himself and his name by using you as resources to attain a personal goal of achievement’. In essence the lord is warning them that when you raise up human leadership in a singular way [one king] that violates the plural mindset of scripture, then you inevitably will become a servant to human institutions and purposes. I find it interesting that the Lord mentions the tithe and how this will arise as a result of wrong ideas on what leadership should be. Historically the early church did not practice tithing. As the centuries rolled along tithing was originally instituted as a ‘tax’ from the church/state on the people to support the institutional purposes of the church/state. In essence the tithe/tenth did become a means whereby human government would obtain power and prestige among the gentile nations. The word of the Lord was true! [It’s okay for believers to give 10 % to the church on Sunday, the curse of the law on those who do not do this should not be invoked from Malachi. The appeal should be based on grace giving]. Israel will get her king, God will eventually use the Kings of Israel for his prophetic purposes. David and Solomon will be pictures of Jesus and his future rule. Just like the temple, God will initially tell David ‘who do you think you are trying to build a house for me’? [Thru the prophet Nathan] but will still use the temple as a prophetic type of the people of God being a ‘holy temple’. So the Lord will allow sinful man to obtain things contrary to his original purpose, and yet still be glorified thru these requests. Also the sons of Samuel went astray ‘after lucre’ [verse 3]. Just like Paul and Peters warnings in the New Testament ‘taking the oversight, not for filthy lucre’ ‘some have strayed from the faith while coveting money’ so Samuels boys fell to this temptation. I know it’s popular in today’s circles to simply overlook all these verses from scripture. Many sincere men do not see them because their ‘grid’ of interpretation won’t allow it. I just wanted to note how this theme of covetousness is a scarlet thread that runs thru out the entire body of scripture.
(874)ROMANS 15: 20-33 ‘Now I go to Jerusalem to minister to the saints’ ‘my service to them’. Paul tells the Romans that he is going to ‘minister’ and have ‘service’ towards the Jerusalem saints. How would you take it if I said ‘I am going to New York to minister, hold a ‘service’ in the church’. You would see me as saying I was going to preach in a building, do my best to encourage the people. And before I left I was going to receive an offering. Paul is saying nothing of the sort! His ‘ministry and service’ are speaking of his charitable work among the poor. He received gifts from the churches for the sole purpose of meeting the needs of the poor. He even says ‘if you Gentiles have been made partakers of their blessings, you should help them out financially’. We are familiar with this terminology when Paul uses it to speak of meeting the needs of Elders, but we very rarely apply it to the meeting of the needs of the poor. Paul had a ‘service’ for the saints, and he was not speaking in terms of going to some town and preaching a message and taking an offering. Service in the first century context was giving of your time and resources for the benefit of others. Doing things at your own expense, not always receiving a recompense yourself. I wonder where they got such an ‘unbiblical idea’. It reminds me of the time when Jesus put on a towel and washed the disciples feet. Another one of those strange passages that seem to teach that leadership is here to serve, not be served. These kingdom precepts do not fit in with the modern idea of ‘ministry/service’.
(862)ROMANS 11- let me make a note on the previous entry. Over the last few years, as well as many years of experience with ‘ministry/church’, I have seen how easy it is to fall into the well meaning mindset of ‘I am going into the ministry, this is my career choice. My responsibility is to do ‘Christian stuff’ and the people’s role is to support me’[ I am not taking a shot at well meaning Pastors, I am basically speaking of the many friends I have met over the years who seemed to think ministry was a way to get financial support]. In the previous entry I mentioned how Paul seemed to have a mode of operation that said ‘when I am residing with a community of believers, I refuse to allow them to support me. I will work with my own hands to give them an example, not only to the general saints, but also to the elders. I am showing you that leadership is not a means to get gain’. It does seem ‘strange’ for us to see this. Of course we know Paul also taught the churches that it was proper and right to support those who ‘labor among you’. I have taught all this in the past and I don’t want to ‘re-teach’ it all again. The point I want to make is we ‘in ministry’ really need to rethink what we do. How many web-sites have I gone to that actually have icons that say ‘pay me here’. The average person going to these sites must think ‘pay you for what’? Paul did not teach the mindset of ‘pay me here, now’. Also in this letter to the Romans we are reading Paul’s correspondence to the believers at Rome. He often used this mode of ‘authority’ [writing letters] to exercise his apostolic office. Of course he also traveled to these areas [Acts] and spent time with them. And as I just showed you he supported himself on purpose when he was with the saints. Basically Paul is carrying out the single most effective apostolic ministry of all time [except for Jesus] and he is doing it without all the modern techniques of getting paid. He actually is doing all this writing and laboring at his own expense. He told the Corinthians ‘the fathers [apostles] spend for the children, not the children for the fathers’. So in todays talk on ‘apostles’ being restored. God ‘bringing back into alignment apostolic government’ we need to tone down all the quoting of verses [even the things Paul said!] that seem to say to the average saint ‘how do you expect us to reach the world if you do not ‘bring all the tithes into the storehouse’! When we put this guilt trip on the people of God we are violating very fundamental principles of scripture. Now, let’s try and finish up chapter 11. Paul is basically telling Israel and the Gentiles that God’s dealings are beyond our understanding [last few verses]. God is using the ‘unbelief’ of Israel as an open door to the Gentiles. He is also using the mercy that he is showing to the Gentiles as an ‘open door’ to Israel! He will ‘provoke them to jealousy’. There are a few difficult verses that would be unfair for me to skip over. ‘All Israel shall be saved’. Paul uses this to show that God’s dealings with natural Israel as a nation are not finished. Who are ‘all Israel’? Some say ‘the Israel of God’ [the church]. I don’t think this fits the text. Some say ‘all Israel that will be alive at the second coming’ I think this is closer. To be honest I think this can simply mean ‘all Israel’ all those who are alive and also raised at the return of the Lord. Now, this would be a form of universalism [all people eventually being saved]. I am not a Universalist, but I don’t want any ‘preconceived’ mindset [even my own!] to taint the text. I think God has the ability to reveal himself to the whole nation of Israel in such a way that ‘they all will be saved’. If I were a Jewish person I wouldn’t wait for this to happen! Just like the Calvinists argument of ‘why witness’? Because God commands it. So even though you can make an argument here for a type of universal redemption at Christ’s revealing of himself to Israel at the second coming [which is in keeping with this chapter, as well as other areas in scripture; ‘they will look upon him whom they have pierced’ ‘God will pour out the spirit of mourning and supplication on Israel at his appearing’. Which by the way would fit in with ‘whoever calls on the Lord will be saved’ which I taught in chapter 10. This is a futurist text implying a time of future judgment and wrath’]. So God’s dealings with Israel are not finished. Paul also warns the Gentiles ‘don’t boast, if God cut out the true branches [Israel] to graft you in. He can just as quickly cut you out too’! It would be dishonest for me [a Calvinist] to simply not comment on this. You certainly can take this verse in an Arminian way. Or you can see Paul speaking in a ‘nationalistic sense’. Sort of like saying ‘if Germany walks away from the faith, they will be ‘cut out’. [France would have been a better example! Speaking of the so called ‘enlightenment’ and the French Revolution]. In essence ‘you Gentiles, don’t think “wow, look at us. God left Israel and we are now special!”’ Paul is saying ‘you Gentiles [as a whole group] stand by faith. God could just as quickly ‘cut you out’ and replace you with another group’. I also think the Arminians could use this type of argument for the previous predestination chapter [9]. But to be honest I needed to give you my view. One more thing, Paul quotes Elijah ‘lord, I am the only one left’. He uses this in context of God having a remnant from Israel who remained faithful to the true God. God told Elijah ‘there are 7 thousand that have not bowed the knee to baal’. Paul uses this to show that even in his day there were a remnant Of Jews [himself included] who received the Messiah. An interesting side note. The prophetic ministry [Elijah] seems to function at a ‘popular level’. Now, I don’t mean ‘fame’, but Elijah was giving voice to a large undercurrent that was running thru the nation. If you read the story of Elijah you would have never known that there were ‘7 thousand’ who never bowed the knee! Often times God will use prophetic people to ‘give voice’ or popularize a general truth that is presently existing in the ‘underground church’ at large. Sort of like if Elijah had a web site, the 7 thousand would have been secretly reading it and saying ‘right on brother, that’s exactly what we believe too’!
(861)Romans 11:13- ‘For I speak to you Gentiles, in as much as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my office’. Let me just make a few comments today. How is Paul 'exercising’ his apostolic authority over the Gentiles in Rome? We know he hasn’t been there yet [since becoming a follower of Jesus]. He did not have some type of relationship with them where they contributed to him. He was holding no ‘church services’. He exercised it by speaking into their lives and caring for their welfare. He did this by WRITING THIS LETTER! Recently there has been some discussion on ‘Gods government’ and the apostles ‘bringing things into alignment’ [dealing with the mistakes at Lakeland]. Lots of talk that I am familiar with. What is Gods government? In the world we have 2 competing ‘world views’- systems or modes of operation. You have God’s kingdom, and then the worlds system. When the apostle John said ‘love not the world, neither the things that are in the world’ he was referring to this system of lies and pride and sin. In Gods kingdom you operate under his laws ‘love the Lord thy God with all thy heart… and your neighbor as yourself’. In this family [children of God] you have different types of ‘gifts’. Some are apostles, others prophets, etc. All these gifted ones are given for the singular purpose of building you up so you can have a mature faith grounded in Christ and be the ‘glorious temple’ of God in the earth. Paul was playing his part by communicating Jesus to these Roman Gentiles. He did not have some type of a corporate relationship with them where he said ‘commit to my authority over you. Either I will be your ‘covering’ or someone else!’ These are mans ideas. Now, we often say ‘Paul didn’t receive money from the Corinthians, but he did from the other churches’. I have said this myself. Paul did receive support from the Philippians, but that was support for his traveling ministry. To get him to the next place. If you read carefully you will see Paul telling the Thessalonians ‘when I was with you I did not eat, or take stuff for free. My hands ministered to both me and those that were with me’ I think he even said he worked night and day. When he spoke to the Ephesians elders in the book of Acts, he also said ‘I labored when I was with you, I did not take support from you when I was there. I did this to leave you ELDERS an example’. Now, the point I want to make is it seems as if Paul did not take money when he was actually living among the saints. It seems he took it only for traveling expenses [and of course for his ministry to the poor saints at Jerusalem]. Now, I believe and teach that it is scriptural to meet the needs, financially, of laboring elders. The reason I mention this is to show you that being an ‘apostle’ or any other gifted minister in the church simply means you bear extra responsibility to bring Gods people to maturity. It was not some type of office where you were a ‘professional minister’. When I hear all the talk of ‘Gods apostles are bringing Gods government back into alignment’ for the most part these are men’s ideas being applied to an American corporate 501c3 ministry. Gods ‘government’ operates along different lines. So in this example Paul said ‘I magnify my office’ he was simply imparting some truth to them for the purpose of their own edification. Paul did not see them coming under ‘his covering’,
(850)PROPHETIC UPDATE! As of today [8-08] enough has happened in the last few years to kind of encapsulate the state of the church [Gods people] and where we are heading. Whenever you have ‘prophetic people’ and movements make some real obvious mistakes, I always feel tempted to go thru this site and delete everything that deals with ‘prophecies, dreams and visions’. This has happened to me on more than a few occasions. But the Lord kind of stops me. Now, why do I mention this? Because these last few years the charismatic/prosperity churches have gone thru some turmoil. The ‘Emergent’ movement has also struck a nerve with the Reformed defenders of the faith, and they have also had some battles. In the midst of it all you also had a resurgence of Catholic apologists [Scott Hahn] and ‘the defend the fullness of truth’ conferences. First, I felt the Lord was going to deal with the more obvious abuses of the prosperity movement a few years back. I even ‘prophesied’ that this would happen [on this site!]. So this is a legitimate ‘correction’ that is taking place as of this year. Some of the main leaders of the movement have come under some serious ‘judging’. Also, the more theological/mature Emergent movement has come under fire by the Reformed preachers because of some real problems. Some in the Emergent church have espoused ultra liberal ideas on the Atonement, Hell and other basic Christian doctrines. The problem is the older reform minded ‘correctors’ are for the most part absolutely ignorant of their own ‘blind spot’ in the area of Ecclesiology. They seem to think ‘defending the historic faith’ includes defending a ‘limited’ Ecclesiology. It’s too easy to just believe that Edwards, Luther, Calvin and all the other great minds of their eras must have been right on Church government and structure. For the most part they were not. So this part of the ‘emergent church’ have it right [those who challenge limited ideas of ‘church’]. Now, the recent ‘fiasco’ of the Lakeland revival. I believe the whole ‘group’ of Apostles and Prophets [?] that initially gave their approval are very questionable. Some of the men I do like [Rick Joyner], but the whole ‘apostolic network’ that some of these brothers belong to is very questionable [when I say ‘questionable’, I do not mean they are frauds or fakes. I mean the whole idea of having an ‘apostolic network’ seems to be missing the target]. I believe most of Gods true Apostles and Prophets today are men of great humility, they suffer persecution [like Watchmen Nee] and for the most part are serious students of the Word and ‘followers of the way’ [Christ’s example of a servant]. So today [2008] we need to be open to correction in the areas that are off base. We also need to be careful not to reject all ‘prophetic things’ out of a feeling of being embarrassed to even use the same terminology as some of these guys. And we need to recognize that some of the old time defenders of the faith [Sproul, Macarthur, Colson] do have very good points they are making when the emergent brothers reject the very basis of ‘knowable truth’, but they also have a huge blind spot in their ecclesiology [thinking defending the truth includes ‘Sunday Church’]. Also, the Catholic resurgence is important not to discount, some Evangelicals are becoming so frustrated with the Protestant ‘craziness’ and divisions, that they seem to find refuge in joining this ancient expression of Christianity. Let’s have a good vigorous debate, let’s strive for unity. The prophetic movement needs to receive correction. The prosperity movements more extreme elements need to be rejected outright. At the end of the day God is still going to do a great work in the earth. His people will show forth his glory and truly be the glorious temple that he desires.
(816)Okay, I lied! Just to clarify, these last few entries are dealing with years of studying and dealing with ‘organic church’. Many fine authors; Austin Sparks, Gene Edwards, Watchman Nee, Robert Banks, etc. There are varying themes and ideas that arose out of the ‘Rethinking the Wineskin’ mentality. One of the other areas of concern has to do with the understanding of ‘Apostles’ [itinerant workers] as it relates to the ‘Ecclesia’. I am grateful over the amount of believers in general who have recently come to grips with the fact that Apostles do exist today according to the plain reading of the New Testament. The ‘older idea’ of dividing up the portions of scripture that say ‘after Jesus ascended he gave gifts to men, Apostles, Prophets, etc.’ it is fairly obvious that these ‘Apostles’ were made after Christ’s ascension [Ephesians] and that they exist alongside the other gifts. Now, with all the recent dialogue on Apostles and ‘church planting’, do you know how many times the command is given in the New Testament to ‘start churches’? Zero! That’s right, no where in the New Testament are we [or Apostles] commanded to ‘go and plant a church’ Huh? All Christians [Apostles too!] are commanded to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. It is obvious that in the New Testament the Apostles did have a strong gifting to present the gospel and the gospel taking root in the people [which is what ‘church planting’ is!] But there is no reason to believe that as we challenge the idea of ‘hired clergy’ and the average believer’s dependence on them, that at the same time we should teach a concept that says ‘it is impossible to have a true ecclesia without the extra local worker’. This has been taught many times over the years as I have studied this movement. I feel the mistake is in seeing the power of ‘church planting’ residing in a specific role, and ONLY that role, while at the same time trying to free Gods people from the un biblical role of ‘full time Pastor’. As far as I can tell the church at Rome was ‘started’ by the Diaspora who were scattered sometime after Pentecost. Paul wrote them a letter [Romans] but did not arrive there until later. The point I want to make is this, as we challenge the present ideas and limitations that the ‘institutional church’ has put on the people of God, we don’t want to make the mistake of telling them that ‘the Apostle’ is now the ‘office’ that is indispensable to your healthy existence! The power of the gospel is what makes ‘healthy churches’ [communities]. Sure Apostles are important, but it is the power of the Spirit in the work of regeneration that ‘plants churches’. Now, someone does have to get the message to them! But whether that’s an Evangelist, Prophet or little old grandma! Once the gospel is proclaimed to a group of people, all the essential elements of life are present.
(815) It seems as if every time I take an excursion from a ‘study’ I do 3 or so posts. So let’s see if I can close here. There are obviously major hurdles and feelings at stake when any body says ‘look, I have found some great stuff in the bible. Lots of it has to do with the fact that what you thought was ‘church’ is not ‘church’. What you thought was a fulltime position of ‘Pastor’ is no where in scripture. And what you have been doing for the past 20 years is off track’. Any job description [Prophet!] that carries this type of function is not going to be well received! [I am not talking about me]. So as we examine and learn about the church and the role of leadership, we must realize that feelings are going to get hurt ‘who does he think he is! Man that guy is threatening my livelihood!’ Well, yes it is possible that the fact that there were no 1st century ‘Pastors’ in the context of what that word means today, can be threatening. So do we never address the issue because it is threatening? But do we go around and teach all the believers that they should abandon all present structures? I appreciate all the good teachers I have learned from over the years. Real insights into things that I would have never seen without their help. Some of these teachers have been excellent on revealing the fact that the 1st century church did not have the office of Pastor as the weekly speaker to the ‘local church’. This was not the normal way believers met. The 1st century gatherings were corporate ‘body life’ experiences. People learn and grow in a conversation with others. They stagnate by sitting in an audience [both the pastors and the spectators]. Now, some have argued that Elders, Pastors and Overseers in general had a very limited, if not non existent, role in the first century churches. This can be debated somewhat. I don’t want to argue the point, but simply say that there is enough evidence in scripture to believe that Elders [basic oversight] existed as a regular part of the communities of Jesus in the first century. These leaders were simply more mature men who gave direction and oversight to the flock as God ordained. They were not ‘Pastors’ in the sense of today’s Pastoral office. But they did exist in scripture. So in all of the well meaning efforts of returning back to a more biblical form of church life, I think we need to leave room for leadership to exist and function to some degree. Some of the brothers seem to have gone a little too ideological in the area of ‘no human headship’. They teach that the 1st century churches declared the headship of Jesus by having no human ‘control’ at all in the meetings [communities]. I kind of see their effort as noble, but a little too impractical. Some of this teaching goes along the line of ‘the biggest hindrance to the Body of Christ are the Pastors/Elders’. While I do see a negative result from believers overly depending on the present pastoral office. Yet I do not see a type of New Testament ecclesiology that was absent all human leadership. Leadership is there, it is plural [obey THEM that have the ‘rule’ over you- by the way ‘rule’ here is different than ‘rule’ when referring to human govt. and kings. Jesus did teach that Kingdom leadership would be thru care and oversight] and it is communal. It exercises itself thru leaders [Apostles, Prophets, Elders, etc.] as they live together as a community of people. So the basic reason I am bringing this up is I feel some have drawn a little too idealistic picture of ‘the local meetings’ in the first century. Sort of like the meetings were very spiritual because of a total lack of oversight. I don’t see this description at all. I see Paul writing the Corinthians and rebuking them strongly for having terrible meetings! Now his solution isn’t ‘have everyone one shut up and listen to the Pastor’ [there was no ‘Pastor’!] but there certainly wasn’t some type of purposeful ‘leaderless’ church that had no recognized leaders. To the contrary Paul will give specific instructions in his pastoral epistles [Timothy, Titus] to make sure the local saints knew who were recognized Elders. Paul was not afraid of saying ‘these guys are leaders, if you have problems and situations that arise in my absence, don’t be afraid to go to them. They are stable in the faith’. So while it is true that the first century churches did not have the office of Pastor as we have come to define it today. Yet they weren’t a bunch of ‘leaderless’ people. Elders existed and Paul seemed to have no problem with everyone knowing who the Elders were.
(799) [I stuck this one in because it deals with the mentality of Jesus and his ideas on authority. One of the errors of the Apostolic movement were teachings on ‘the great power and fame’ the end time Apostles and Prophets would have]. JESUS PARABLES- Well I already covered the ‘mustard seed’ in the introduction and spoke on the Tares and Wheat. I forgot to mention that we see a simple end times teaching from Jesus in these parables. Now I realize the many varied views on the subject of the parables and end time dispensationalism. Good Christians [I find myself having to say this a lot!] at times have taught a type of scenario where many of the sayings of Jesus about the end times seem to refer only to the Jewish people and they have ways of ‘watering down’ the many plain statements of Jesus about the final judgment. But notice how he says ‘at the end of the world the angels go forth and separate the good from the bad’. The ‘tares are taken away’ and the good wheat remains. In the parables you see both the believers and unbelievers together right up until the second coming. You don’t see a time where there are ‘no good wheat’ and the tares are saying ‘hey, where did all the good wheat go? Maybe the aliens took them’? [I know this sounds silly, but many believers espouse stuff like this!] So anyway we see the idea of Jesus people being present right up until the judgment. The ‘bad seed’ are taken away first, then the righteous shine forth in their fathers Kingdom. Also we see the value that Jesus places on ‘nothingness’ that is becoming least, giving up the pursuits of glory. He is not looking for ‘great faith and men of great stature’ he is looking for ‘the mustard seed mentality’. Now in the introduction I hit on the idea that Jesus himself embodies the mustard seed. He was truly ‘the least of all seeds’ and buried himself in the ground. He has become the greatest ‘tree’ in all the earth! The Christian church [his Body!] is the biggest worldwide movement today [I know Islam is trying hard to catch up]. Jesus ‘smallness’ allowed him to attain greatness. In Philippians Paul says Jesus emptied himself and became the lowest of all, and because of this the Father gave him a name above every name. Jesus taught this to the disciples when James and John were looking for advancement. Their mother requested that they would have high positions of authority in his Kingdom. Jesus would respond that authority and influence come from servant hood and ‘being least’. Jesus would say of John the Baptist ‘he is the greatest of the prophets, nevertheless he that is least in the kingdom is greater than John’. Some have taught this to mean John was the last of the Old Testament order of prophets, and therefore even the smallest ‘born again believer’ is better than John. But you could also take it as Jesus saying ‘John, you have a great calling. You opened the way for the Messiah. You truly are one of the greatest Prophets of all time. But I, the Messiah, am the least of all seeds to ever be in the earth. I have emptied myself more than any other person. I John, am greater than you’.
(797)INTRODUCTION TO THE PARABLES- I was going to finish our study in Judges today, but I felt like sharing something else. Recently I have been reading the parables of Jesus out of my first King James Bible. Even though I give away lots of my books and stuff, yet I managed to hold on to this keepsake. Actually I did give it away and eventually got it back! That’s why I am writing this entry. If you read the first 50 or so entries [1-50!] from the section ‘Prophecies, Dreams, Visions part 1’ you will read the story of my journey to Texas as a young rebel and how after I became a believer I led one of my old buddies from Jersey to the Lord. This friend became a believer and we learned and grew as Christians. Eventually he would die of Aids. I had given him my first bible and years later got it back. As I read thru it I realized he made notes and stuff in it. Things like ‘ask John about this?’ and other interesting stuff. Of course this bible is special to me because it contains personal insights from my first convert to the Lord. So let me share a few things I recently read. He wrote ‘God will take care of you if you have faith’ and ‘the presence of contrary winds does not mean you are out of Gods will’. Hebrews says ‘though he is dead he yet speaketh’. I consider this a privilege of being part of a Christian communion that all believers belong to. We have brothers who are looking at us from heaven right now. We truly belong to a ‘communion of saints’. After all these years, for you to get something from this simple sharing of my brothers thoughts is part of the process of being in this communion. Look at the simplicity of these words ‘God will take care of you if you have faith’ ‘the presence of contrary winds does not mean you are not in Gods will’. As I finish our study in Judges I think I am going to share a few of Jesus parables. In these parables we see Jesus ethos of the Kingdom, the things he puts value on. These things are contrary to what we value, especially as we look at ‘modern ministry’. Jesus will teach the value of not being famous or recognized! The value of becoming ‘the least of all’. Things like the mustard seed being the least of all seeds, but when it is sown it becomes the greatest. We often see faith from this. While this does apply, we also see Jesus ‘the grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying’ [John’s gospel] Jesus, who Isaiah prophesied ‘I am a WORM AND NO MAN’. The Son of God who would become the least of all ‘seeds’. Who actually experienced the accumulated ‘feelings of unworthiness and absolute condemnation’ that all the sins of the world could bring upon a person. He personally experienced the actual act of being forsaken and told by God ‘you are now a worm and no man’. You think ‘how could this be’ this was an aspect of bearing the sins of humanity on himself. Jesus will teach us the importance of being last, how it is of great value if in the eyes of man you look like a failure, but in the eyes of God you lived humbly. Jesus even values the words of people who lived sinful lives and failed often. He never condones sin, but he still values these ‘little ones’ [in the eyes of men] he will even use the words of one who died of aids.
(791)JUDGES 18- The tribe of Dan sends 5 spies to check out the land of Laish, it was supposed to be part of their inheritance. On the way they pass Mount Ephraim, where Micah and the ‘hired priest’ live. They enquire in the house of Micah about their journey. They are assured God is with them. They see Laish and return with the good report. Laish is a land where the people are ‘isolated’ they do no business with any other tribes. Too sectarian in their little community [ouch!]. So the tribe of Dan hears the report and arms 600 men for battle. As they go to get their land, they once again stop at the idolatrous house of Micah. They make a ‘job offer’ to the ‘hired priest’ and appeal to success and status among clergy ‘do you want to come and be our hired priest? Wouldn’t you rather be priest of a whole tribe instead of one household’? He takes the job promotion and on their way out Micah tries to stop them from taking his priest but doesn’t have the manpower to do it. Dan introduces this false priesthood on a large scale to the people of God. Scripture says while they were involving themselves in this false worship, the House of God was still in Shiloh. Now we have covered a lot of ground here. I want to be careful but truthful about wrong worship in the church. First, I do find it amazing that the Lord did not cut Micah off originally when he got into his stuff! The history of Israel includes a time period where they thought the high places in their land were a sign of true religion. When some of the kings institute a return to the Lord, they leave the high places alone. Although these high places were idolatrous, yet in their ignorance they really thought they were honoring God. I see a degree of this here. Now the hired priest continues to represent the mentality of the hired offices of the clergy. All good people, but often operating in systems that lend themselves to the co dependency of Gods people. It is easy to see the idea of false worship and simply use this to bash Catholics. I prefer to see the false worship of Dan as a mark of all wrong tradition and teaching that come to us from the mind of man. Jesus rebuked the traditions that made void the Word of God, but Paul will tell his spiritual sons ‘hold to the traditions you have been taught by me’. Some traditions are needful. Things that our spiritual fathers have passed down to us. Don’t despise all tradition! Don’t see ‘the ministry’ as a way to gain status and climb the ladder in the corporate world. This priest of Micah took a position based on gentile authority. Something Jesus forbid for the leaders of his church. This priest saw self advancement in moving ‘his ministry’ to oversee the tribe of Dan. This root of pride will cause the limited idolatry at Micah’s house to leaven an entire tribe. Often times well meaning people become part of ‘extending wrong ideas’ thru out the church as they seek fame and recognition. Jesus taught us that true servants will not make decisions based on ‘how will this move promote me, how will I gain a name for myself’ these motivations blind us to the idolatry that exists in the church in our day. The New Testament equivalent of idolatry is covetousness. Leadership often overlooks the blatant abuse in this area as they pursue a name and advancement for ‘their ministries’. It’s easy to not want to hear Paul’s strong words in 1st Timothy 6 concerning leaders. We want to be able to ‘seek fame and fortune’ because it does feel good to be famous! Hebrews says ‘sin does have pleasure for a season’. So I see the whole scenario of Micah’s hired priest in all of us. I see the idolatry of Dan and false worship as leaven that affects all of Gods people [Protestants and Catholics alike]. I see the fact that God still used Micah to be a voice and instrument to the people of God even though he thru ignorance allowed idolatry to be entrenched in Israel. God is merciful and he will put up with our ignorance for a season, but I think that season has already passed. [Though his mercy endures forever!]
(785)Let’s end this little excursion from our study in Judges and finish our look into the 20th century as one of ‘the Spirit of Pentecost’. During the 60’s you had what was known as the Charismatic Movement. On the west coast there was an Episcopal Priest who announced to his congregation that he experienced the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and began speaking in tongues. The area Bishop forbid the Priest to introduce his experience as one accepted by the denomination. Some of his congregants disagreed with this decision and took it upon themselves to contact the media. Soon word spread like wildfire. You also had an outpouring of the Spirit at Duquesne University. Some see this as the historic beginning point of the Charismatic movement. Basically the movement speaks of the gifts of the Spirit, specifically Tongues, breaking into and across denominational lines. Eventually the Catholic Church would put her stamp of approval on the movement. Which after all would be in keeping with their official doctrine. They have always believed the gifts of the Spirit to be available to believers in all ages. During the late 60’s early 70’s the Jesus Movement would spring up on the west coast and many hippies and flower children would ‘turn on to Jesus’. Chuck Smith and John Wimber [initially Ken Guliksen] would lead 2 of the most successful church movements of the late 20th century. Smith would head up Calvary Chapel and Wimber would take the lead in the Vineyard churches. You had Keith Green [musician] room mating with Randy Stonehill at the time. Keith was searching for answers, Randy would recommend him to attend a Vineyard bible study led by Ken Guliksen. Keith would finally accept the Lord at the study and become this on fire musician for the Lord. Though the music industry saw him as ‘a prize’ Keith would start ‘Last Days Ministries’ and relocate to Lyndale Texas [across the road from Youth with a Mission- YWAM]. He would sadly die in a plane crash with 2 of his children on board. In 1989 you had the mixing of the Vineyard with some of the Prophets known as ‘the Kansas City Prophets’. These were the brothers out of Kansas City who were part of Mike Bickles church. Now Metro fellowship in Kansas City. Mike is no longer the lead Pastor, he heads up ‘I.H.O.P’ International House of Prayer, a great group of young people who take turns praying 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Now Paul Cain would meet Wimber and declare that Wimber was the Apostle that the Lord was going to use for the ‘great end time revival’. Paul Cain was so accurate in his ability to know the details of people’s lives, and to predict earthquakes and supernatural signs, that many were convinced that what Paul said was 100% accurate. The ‘marriage’ between the Vineyard and the modern prophetic movement [which is usually seen to have started out of Kansas City with Mike Bickle and Bob Jones, Paul Cain and a few other Prophetic brothers] was debatable. Some Pastors in the Vineyard churches [Tom Stipe among others] would eventually feel their churches were suffering from a lack of true biblical Christianity. Many new believers were looking too much to dreams, visions and personal prophecies as the normal guides for their lives. These believers were straying from the more sure path of prayer, bible study and simple trust in God. Chuck Smith would early on disassociate from the more flamboyant signs of the movement. He would take charge and let his churches know that they were to stick with the verse by verse exposition of the word at the normal church meetings. The Vineyard would run with the ‘go with the Spirit’ type mentality. Eventually the split between the movement known as the ‘Toronto blessing’ ‘Laughing revival’ would occur when John Arnott, Pastor of Toronto airport Vineyard church [in Toronto Canada] would break away from the Vineyard oversight. John Wimber would sadly pass away and the leadership of the Vineyard would return back to a more scripture oriented church [note- John Wimber himself was going this direction before his death, it seems as if he saw too much into the words that were being spoken to him from Paul Cain. Paul is a very humble man, who has fallen on some very hard times these past few years. It was easy for Wimber to believe all the wonderful words given to him from Paul, Paul was operating at a level of gifting that was unheard of for the time. Paul was the only ‘throwback’ from the mid century latter rain movement. He was a student under William Branham and sometimes would fill in for him at his meetings. By all accounts Paul received much of the anointing that Branham operated in]. The century will close out with the Toronto movement, as well as the Brownsville revival [Florida] having a fairly large impact on the church at large, as well as having many critics of the more extreme manifestations of the revivals [Toronto- people barking like dogs and stuff]. I do find it interesting that the century began with a movement that was for the most part associated with crying and repentance and would end with one of laughter and revival. In the restoration books of the Old Testament you have a seen where the foundation is being laid for the rebuilding of the temple. You have the younger generation happy and excited over the prospects of a new temple, but the older generation is standing there and weeping because to them it doesn’t seem to live up to their memories of ‘the good old days’. You had weeping and laughing as legitimate reactions to a real work of God. I think the ‘new’ moves need to be careful that they don’t read too much into the historic aspects of their movements until history itself writes the final chapter. But the ‘old timers’ also need to be open to the possibility of God ‘rebuilding the temple’ [spiritually speaking here!] and allowing the ‘latter house to receive more glory than the former’.
(784)Let’s stick with a little contemporary church history. In the last century you had what many believe to be one of the missing ‘planks’ of restoration of truth. The renewed emphasis on spiritual gifts, the idea that Apostles and Prophets were still gifts that people walked in. During the middle of the century you had the ‘Latter Rain movement’ and the rise of platform healing evangelists. The popular T.V. movie Elmer Gantry showed how the various church communions reacted to some of these evangelists. Many ‘old time’ churches were shocked at the persona and public display of these men [and women!] Some were shown to be outright hucksters! But others did have quite extraordinary gifts. The ‘most gifted’ brother was William Branham. William was a simple uneducated man who grew up in squalor conditions. The story of his birth and the supernatural signs surrounding his life are pretty interesting [look it up on Google, you will find tons of stuff on him]. Branham was gifted with the supernatural ability to know things about people, he had the singular ability to read the exact details of peoples lives. While many brand him as a false Prophet, he did seem to be a humble man that was doing his best to serve the Lord. This does not mean that I agree with all of Branham's teachings or gifts! Other Christians who worked with Branham at the time would eventually leave his ministry out of a concern that his gifts might have been ‘mixed’ with other spiritual means of obtaining knowledge [like fortune telling and soothsaying]. Things that scripture forbids. I personally don’t know whether or not these accusations have merit to them, but it is important to see that these concerns were not coming from those who simply oppose all supernatural gifts. These concerns were voiced by some of Branham's friends. During this time you had a few famous traveling ministers. A.A. Allen, Jack Coe and a few others became famous on the circuit. Many today testify of how the Lord used them in their lives. There were also many rumors [some true] that these men struggled with Alcohol and other vices. The Assemblies of God denomination would eventually openly rebuke a few of them who had credentials from their denomination. Brother Branham [he did believe in Jesus!] would embrace some weird doctrines. He had questions about the Trinity [well, he actually denied the doctrine] and would be impacted by the ‘Jesus only’ Pentecostal movement. He eventually felt like the death of his wife and child was a result of him not being more willing to minister among the oneness groups. As the century progressed you had the waning influence of the platform preachers. Some would still function from this paradigm, but for the most part the men and their movements passed on. You do still find a sort of cultic following of believers who remain loyal to brother Branham. Some believe he is one of the 2 witnesses spoken about in the book of Revelation. How come Branham had such influence over people’s lives? There is no doubt that this can be attributed to the actual real manifestations that took place under his ministry. Even the critics agree that there was some very unexplainable stuff going on. Some of the teachings of this period still influence believers today. The ‘Manifest Sons of God’ doctrine taught that there was coming a generation of saints who would walk in the fullness of all that God has promised, some believed that this group would even attain immortality in this life. The book of Romans does say that the whole creation is groaning and waiting for the day the Sons of God would fully manifest, but in context this is speaking of the resurrection. So the Lord used some of these brothers in a limited way. For the most part they suffered from a lack of a good education [don’t want to be demeaning] but were avid students of the Word. But as you can see this combination of knowing bible verses outside of the historic context of Church history [how others viewed these verses before them] can lead to dangerous conclusions. I for the most part do not condemn these brothers as outright fakes [some were, but not all] but I see in them a willingness to do their best in serving the Lord, but to a degree became victims of the fame and style of public platform ministry. Jesus taught the danger of our own personalities becoming too central to the people we are ministering to. Some of these brothers fell into this ditch!
(781)JUDGES 13- We begin the story of Samson. While all the judges are called by God, Samson has this prophetic type calling from birth. An angel appears to his mother and foretells of his birth. She is barren and it is one of those Divine pronouncements like the birth of Jesus or John the Baptist. These types of callings have special meaning to them. You can study the callings of contemporary prophets and see many of these same characteristics. Though the critics have found faults with many of these men, yet they have had supernatural occurrences surrounding their births and destinies that cannot be explained away. When these children are growing they are surrounded by the stories of these supernatural events. They often do not realize the special signs that accompanied them. When John the Baptist was asked ‘are you the prophet that was spoken about, the ‘Elijah type prophet’ that appears before the Messiah’? John says no. But later the disciples say to Jesus ‘before the Messiah comes, the Elijah type prophet is to come first’ and Jesus says it was John. I think the Lord will allow certain prophetic people to not realize the impact of their destinies during their lives, they will see some day, but not now. So Samson’s mom has this special angelic visitation and the husband hears about it from his wife. They pray and ask the Lord to come again and give them more instructions about the boy. The Lord sends the angel back and they receive instructions about the boy. His calling is special, he will be dedicated to God from birth to death. The parents are to raise him in a way that will simply facilitate the gift. This is important to see. Often times we see ministry as ‘look what God is doing with Corpus Christi outreach ministries’ [or any other name!]. Or ‘God, please use this ministry for this purpose’ God gifts people with special callings and giftings. ‘Ministry’ is simply the parameters, the borders that help facilitate the gift. We too often confuse Gods sovereign gift with the ‘procedures’. God uses people [individuals and groups] to carry out his purposes, all ministry structures should be seen as simple instructions to properly ‘harness the gift’. Samson’s parents receive the instructions and raise him according to the angel’s directives. The Spirit of God will come on him at set times and he will begin to display the anointing at a young age. We will learn from Samson that the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. God will continue to use him thru out his life even though he will stray from the guidelines of his parents. Of course there will come a day where he loses the special ability that God gave him, but his willingness to lay it all down at the end will gain him a place in the great faith hall of fame! [Hebrews 11]
(777) JUDGES 9- Gideon died in the last chapter and his 70 sons were to rule as a plurality of elders. The same picture we see from Moses and the 70 elders. In Judges we see the dynamic of a plurality of leadership, along with the input of strong Apostolic/Prophetic voices. The same idea we saw in the book of Acts. Now Gideon previously refused the role of singular kingship over the people. It took both courage and humility to say ‘I will not be a king over you’. In the struggle to return back to a more biblical example of Christian leadership functioning in the ‘local church’ you need both humility and courage to resist the impulse in man to want a ‘famous leader’ to ‘rule over them’. Now Abimelech, Gideon’s son, was born from one of Gideon’s mistresses from the town of Shechem. Do you remember when we studied this town in the past? It was the town where the son of the prince raped Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. Jacobs’s boys had the towns men circumcise themselves and they went in and slew the city. Well, the boy who raped Dinah was Shechem. The town is named after him. So the history of this city is one of humiliation. Like Germany after WW1, they felt humiliated as a people. The maniac Hitler used a false ethnic nationalism to mobilize the people under him. This is what Abimelech does. He tells the men of Shechem ‘do you want the 70 sons of Gideon to rule over you [plurality] or one king?’ Here you have the temptation of power and authority seen in Abimelech. He does contrary to his father’s rejection of singular headship and thru deception takes a position that was never originally intended [he falls into the trap of singular authority over the people. A trend that the Christian church will also develop over many centuries] so the men of Shechem agree and Abimelech goes and kills the 70 sons of Gideon. But the youngest one escapes. His name is Jotham. He gives this prophetic speech from a hill [God ordained forum] and tells a parable. The parable has these trees asking the olive tree ‘come and reign over us’ and the tree says ‘should I leave my God ordained place and be promoted over other trees’. The same thing happens with the fig tree and the vine. They recognize the futility of leaving their God ordained position and trying to become a ‘ruler of other trees’. Finally the bramble [weed] rules over them. Jotham sees the rule of Abimelech as a twisted distortion of Gods authority. For three years Abimelech rules Israel and a local guy says ‘why should we have him rule over us? I can do a better job’ notice, just because Abimelech is ruling outside of Gods order, does not mean that any ‘Tom, Dick or Harry’ can come along and mount a successful over throw! This local stirs up the men of Shechem and turns the city against Abimelech. Another local resents this and sends word secretly to Abimelech ‘Hey, some guy is telling everybody he can do a better job than you. Come and put him in his place’. Sure enough a few days go by and Abimelech descends the hill with his troops. The rebel who is trying to displace Abimelech says ‘what’s that? I see men coming down’ the other local says ‘you must be seeing things’. Finally the rebel says ‘no, I see an army’. The secret confidant of Abimelech says ‘It’s Abimelech. Where’s you big mouth now! You talk a tough talk, let’s see some action’. Sure enough he realizes that this guy set him up. So Abimelech, even though he is operating unlawfully [outside of Gods original purpose] mounts a strong attack. He has resources and ‘supporters’ who took pride in his ruthless rule. Much like the mafia guys who would help their neighborhoods and gain the support of others, even though they were ruthless murderers! Abimelech defeats this challenge to his rule, but chases the enemy into a city and this lady from a tower drops a stone on his head from the tower and kills him. God did avenge the ruthless slaughter of Gideon’s 70 sons [Gods relational/plural plan of ruler ship] but the immature challenge to Abimelechs rule from an inexperienced local was not going to cut it. I see a lot of pictures from this story. The parable of Jotham really has some spiritual meaning to it. The idea of the trees rejecting false promotion has elements of Jesus teaching in it ‘the gentiles exercise authority by being promoted over people, this shall not be so with you’. The power struggles between those who resent all authority! Some simply challenge the present authority structures in Christianity out of an immature spirit [like the local guy in Shechem]. Over all we see the rebellion in Abimelechs rule and taking a position that his father had previously rejected. Just because someone might be in a position of promotion that God doesn’t want, this does not mean that all challenges to this authority are God ordained. As the Body of Christ struggles to get back to a more biblical idea of Christian leadership, getting away from the strong ‘I am your Pastor’ mentality and returning to a respect and honoring of spiritual elders in your midst [the term pastor is fine by the way] we need to recognize both sides of the coin. Don’t simply follow anyone who says ‘why should so and so think he can tell us what to do’. Some of these voices speak out of immaturity and rebellion. But in Gods timing the mature ‘trees’ will be wise enough to say ‘why should I go and be promoted over other trees’. Leaders will learn to blossom and produce fruit while not taking positions of promotion contrary to their nature.
(758) ACTS 21- Paul goes to Tyre and the saints prophesy for him not to go to Jerusalem. He makes it to Caesarea and Phillip has 4 daughters who also prophesy. Agabus shows up, he is a prophet, and he takes Paul's garment and does one of those weird prophetic actions and wraps it around him and says ‘the Lord says whoever owns this garment will be bound like this at Jerusalem’. A few things, many good men teach that the word for ‘Prophecy’ [to prophesy] is simple preaching. Now, true simple preaching of the gospel is a function of the prophetic. Paul says in Corinthians that whoever says the name of Jesus is speaking mysteries that only the Spirit knows. So preaching does fall into this category. But a simple reading of the text shows you that Agabus, who functioned in the office of a Prophet, was doing more than simple preaching. There obviously was a predictive element to what he did. Agabus is an ‘ascension gift Prophet’. In Ephesians Paul teaches that after Jesus ascended he gave gifts unto men. Some of these gifts are Prophets. Why would Jesus establish an entire class of New Testament Prophets, and take them away as soon as the New Testament was complete? Now Paul makes it to Jerusalem despite the warnings. Right away James and the Elders call him to a meeting. They rejoice over all the Lord is doing with Paul’s gentile outreach, but they tell him ‘look, we have many Jews. They are all believing in Messiah, and they all keep the law’. There is a fundamental rift between James and Paul. Most preachers do not say or admit this, they feel to admit it would violate the Canon of scripture. First, read my commentary on Hebrews 11 on this site. Second, I believe we are simply seeing the historic development of truth as we progress thru Acts. Peter, James and Paul [later we read Johns epistles] never contradict each other as far as the overall message of the Cross is concerned. But God does allow us to peer into the different insights that these key 1st century elders were seeing. So James might really be seeing things from a different vantage point than Paul. Paul might not fully see James reasoning. They are both being used of God, their writings will harmonize. But they don’t necessarily see it yet! James pressures Paul to take a vow with some brothers to basically show he isn’t teaching Jews against the law. Paul does it. The city finds out Paul is in town and they drag him out of the Temple and they beat the guy! The local police come and rescue Paul. As he is being carried away he speaks Greek to the soldiers, they are surprised he speaks Greek. He then addresses the Jews and speaks Hebrew. Paul used positioning and all the influence he had in any area [even language] to make his point. In the next chapter we will read his defense. I want to close with us seeing that Paul was being accused of teaching Jews against Moses and the law and Temple. Was he? Actually as Paul’s understanding of the gospel of grace increases, he does teach this. If you believe Paul wrote Hebrews [the letter] then you see it there. But Paul initially was only preaching grace to the gentiles. James even says ‘show the people that the rumors about you are wrong, show them that you too are keeping the law like all Jews’ and basically Paul gives in by agreeing to join in the vow with the brothers. Some times we read Acts [as well as the bible] as if it were a single book written at one sitting. When you do it like this you don’t leave room for the development and growth of the characters themselves. God is allowing Peter to preach in a more limited way in the first few chapters, after Peter hears from Stephen and Paul he seems to leave more room for believing and being justified. He is learning and growing as the story progresses. The same with James. His epistle is obviously a different view point from Paul. Do they contradict? No. But some commentators do not honestly look at the different angles. James will actually say ‘see how a man is justified by his works, and not faith only’. Now, he does say ‘faith without works is dead’. And many good teachers say ‘all James was saying was you need active faith at the time of conversion’ [James isn’t speaking about the ‘time of conversion’!] Well actually , he was saying more. Was he teaching justification by works? No, at least not in the way most theologians see ‘justification’. But James was seeing justification thru the lens of the future result of the believer actually becoming just! [What some believers call sanctification] He was seeing the Genesis 22 justification of Abraham offering Isaac, not the Genesis 15 account that Paul emphasizes. So James is teaching ‘justification by works’ that is, Gods grace that legally justified you when you believed, actually changes you to the point where you do good works, and at that point God continues to say ‘good job son- you are doing what’s right’ [another word for doing what’s just/right- justification!] Now, I can’t explain the whole thing here, the point is James is dealing with Jewish believers and he is seeing things from a different timeline than Paul. The strife between the early Jewish believers and Paul is intense. Ultimately the Temple will be destroyed and the future of the Christian church will be shaped by Paul’s theology. James writes a great letter! But Paul will carry the day. NOTE- I see James saying ‘see how a man is justified by works’ meaning the future act of God being pleased with the changed life of the believer. We see ‘see how a man is justified by works’ and try to make that fit ‘see how a man is initially saved/born again’ but James, in my view, is not speaking of the initial act of justification [which is solely by faith] when he says ‘see how a man is justified by works, and not by faith only’ James is working on a different timeline!
(751) ACTS 14- Paul and Barnabas continue going thru different cities [Iconium, Lystra] Paul heals a man who was lame from birth and the whole city says ‘these men are gods who have come down in human form’. Paul barely stops them from offering sacrifices to them! In each city they travel to, they have a routine. They go into the synagogue and speak to the gathered. Both Jews and ‘God fearers’ [gentile followers] the pattern of some believing and others resisting becomes routine. Paul also has to deal with the Jews who were following him from past cities. They were sort of 1st century ‘apologists’ who made it their purpose to simply stop Paul. I want you to see that the ‘churches’ were the various groups of people who believed. They did gather together [Ecclesia] but they did not see ‘church’ as a place they went to for religious instruction. They did not start ‘gentile synagogues’ in competition with Judaism. Now Paul goes back thru the cities and at that point ‘ordains Elders in every church’. This is important to see. The ordaining of Elders was the simple process of seeing who had the maturity of understanding in the gospel and could be looked up to as a spiritual guide. Any questions or new converts in the towns would know ‘so and so’ is a responsible believer who Paul put his stamp of approval on. Why even do this? Remember, the enemies of Paul [Jewish law keepers] are going behind Paul’s back and trying to undo all the work that Paul was doing. Elders were gifted men who had the ability to push back against those whose ‘mouths must be stopped’ [Paul’s future language against false teachers]. These Elders were not full time Pastors in the modern sense. They were not singular authorities who ‘cover the flock’. They were not hired clergy! The reason why it is important to see this is because we want to stay as close as possible to the historic picture of the church as we read thru Act’s. These ‘local churches’ were caring communities of Christ followers who did have spiritual oversight that were to be respected and held in high esteem. Paul and Peter will teach the concept of giving honor to those who have spiritual accountability for you. But we can’t apply this to unbiblical forms of ecclesiology/hierarchy that will develop over the centuries. In Luther’s day many well meaning men felt Luther [the 16th century reformer] was rebelling against God ordained authority by going against the Pope. We need to understand that John the Apostle rebuked the rise of singular authorities who would seek to have the preeminence amongst Gods flock [Diotrephes- 3rd Jn]. Paul will warn the Ephesian church [later in Acts] that after his departure men would rise up seeking to make disciples after themselves. The point is any future use of the teaching of Elders/Pastors and the true responsibility to honor and submit to godly authority has to be seen in context with the complete story. While Luther’s [and Paul’s] critics could make the case that they were rebelling against God ordained authority, yet at the same time true revolution always carries an element of casting off old systems and restraint. Paul will confront Peter openly over his hypocrisy between treating Jewish believers different than Gentile believers. Peter was an Apostle before Paul and the argument could have been made ‘who does Paul think he is, going over the head of Peter’. So we need to see the biblical truth of God ordained leadership. The fact that many good Pastors and men of God have faithfully served Christ’s church. But we do not want to develop mindsets contrary to the freedom that we have in Christ while teaching the truth of godly leadership. Paul ordained ‘Elders’ on his way back thru Lystra and Iconium. He sails back to Antioch and recounts all the wonderful success that they had with the gentile believers. Antioch has this free flowing spirit amongst the church. They are gentiles and are not keeping the Jewish law. Paul and Barnabas were getting a reputation amongst the Jewish leadership in the cities and towns. Word gets back to Jerusalem and we will see whether Paul’s gospel will prevail before the ‘church authorities’? I believe we could describe Luther’s response before the Catholic church as fitting Paul’s spirit ‘unless I am persuaded by scripture I can not go against my conscience. Here I stand, I can do nothing else’.
(748) ACTS 11- Peter recounts his vision and experience he had at Cornelius house. The Jews at Jerusalem were upset that he went and ate with non Jews. He explains that the Lord showed him not to view these gentiles as unclean. They were accepted and made clean thru Christ’s blood. The leadership at Jerusalem agree [for now!] We begin to see the tension that will play out thru the rest of the New Testament. This struggle between Jewish law and grace will become the number one issue of contention in Paul’s letters. In this chapter we see Barnabas go down to Antioch and eventually get Paul from Tarsus to help him establish the fledgling church at Antioch. After Peters experience they began preaching to gentiles and Antioch becomes the counterbalance ‘church’ [community of believers] to Jerusalem. I want you to see something important here. The church at Antioch does not have ‘Temple worship’ along side ‘home meetings’. The believers ‘assembled’ as a brotherhood. They met in homes to be sure, but ‘the church’ was simply a description of a called out group of people who continued in grace and lived as a fellowship community. The reason I emphasize this is because we grasp limited ideas of church and then we try and make others fit our ideas. The church at Antioch [and Corinth, Ephesus, Galatia, etc.] will continue to maintain this basic identity all thru out the New Testament and well into the second century. The earliest archeological find of a ‘church building’ is found in the 3rd century. There was an inscription discovered that spoke of the ‘church’ meeting here. The ‘here’ was the home of a believer! [I think the find was ‘Europa/duropa’ or something to that effect]. The point here is I want you to see the original design of the church. Up until this point we see the early church evangelizing large regions by simply being led of the Spirit. The finances are simple, this chapter will end with the believers at Antioch pooling their resources to send relief to the church in Judea. It will be the beginnings of Paul’s ministry of relief that we read about in 1st Corinthians 16. This chapter says Prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. Agabus prophesied of a famine to come, the church made arrangements to send relief to their brothers. One of the main Apostles at Jerusalem, James, will oversee a group of poor saints thru out his life. There is no early doctrine seen of rebuking the poor saints and teaching them how they were redeemed from poverty and the curse of Deuteronomy in a way that poverty was see as a sin. James will actually pen his letter and say ‘God chose the poor of this world [not just ‘poor’ in spirit] rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom’ he will also rake the rich over the coals! The whole point is as we read the bible, we need to read it in context and allow the story to shape our views, not the other way around. This Antioch community received New Testament prophets, they did not view the verse in Hebrews ‘God spoke to us in the past by prophets, but in these last days by his Son’ they didn’t see this as meaning there were no more prophets. These believers were not tithing, they did not have a church building, not ordained clergy or ‘high church’ model. They were a vibrant bunch of grace believers who will be told they don’t have to keep the law to be saved! From this point forward, no New Testament church in scripture will lose this basic idea. Some will struggle [Galatians, Corinth] but the basic truth of ‘the church’ being the people of God justified freely by grace, will remain strong. They are still living a communal type of idea, and giving is still radical, done to meet the real needs of people, and is not a tithe!
[These 2 entries simply give scriptural evidence for the ongoing function of Apostles/Prophets today]
(739) ACTS 1- Luke, the writer of this book, feels the need to document the ongoing work of Jesus and his revolution. He already wrote a gospel and believes this to be the beginning of the story. In essence, the reality of Jesus and his resurrection are just the start, we have much more to do and become on this journey. Most writers jump to chapter 2. We have churches and music groups called ‘Acts chapter 2’. Why does Luke seem to wait till chapter 2 before getting to ‘the good stuff’? Chapter one records the 40 days of Jesus showing himself alive after his death. Luke feels this singular truth to be important enough to simply stand alone [I do realize the early letters did not have chapter and verse divisions like today]. The real physical fact of Jesus bodily resurrection is without a doubt the foundational truth of the gospel. The outpouring of the Spirit and the whole future of the church depends on the reality of the resurrected Christ. Paul will write the Corinthians and tell them if the resurrection were not true then they are the most miserable of all people. Luke tells us Jesus gave instructions for the Apostles to wait at Jerusalem for the Spirit. Thy will be witnesses of him to all the surrounding nations after the Spirit empowers them. We also see Peter emerge as the key spokesman for the group. He quotes freely from the Psalms and reads their own history into the book. He sees the prophetic verse from David on ‘let another take his office’ as referring to Judas betrayal and death. They cast lots and choose Matthias as the one to replace Judas. Peter shows the importance of Judas replacement to come from one that was with them thru out the earthly time of Jesus. Someone who saw and witnessed Jesus after the resurrection. Scholars have confused this with the ‘ascension gift Apostles’. Some scholars have taken the truth of the early Apostles having the criteria of being actual witnesses of Jesus, and have said ‘therefore, you have no Apostles today’. Paul will teach in Ephesians that after Jesus ascension on high he gave gifts unto men ‘some Apostles, others Prophets, etc.’ The New Testament clearly speaks of Apostles as an ongoing gift in the church. Barnabas will later be called an Apostles [Acts 14:14] as well as many other references in the original Greek using the same Greek word for Apostle. But here we find Peter seeing the need to replace Judas. Other scholars think Peter might have jumped the gun. They see Paul’s apostleship as the possible person the Lord picked out as the replacement. You do find Paul referring time and again to his Apostolic authority as one ‘born out of due time’ who saw Jesus on the Damascus road. If Paul was simply an ascension gift Apostle, why would he refer time and again to his authority based on being a witness who also saw Jesus? It’s possible that Paul was in this group of ‘Apostles of the Lamb’ who had extra authority based upon their testimony of being eyewitnesses. So in chapter one we see that Jesus appeared for 40 days giving instructions to the early leadership and told them to wait at Jerusalem for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We see the incarnational purpose of God, Jesus was and continues to be the express image of God to man. He was not some ‘phantom’ like the Docetists will claim, but a very real physical resurrected Lord. Luke begins the early history of the church with this reality being important enough to stand on its own.
HEBREWS commentary copyright 2007 John Chiarello www.copruschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com P.O. box 181256 C.C. Tx. 78480
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CHAPTER 1:
‘God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the Prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds’ Many years ago when I was going to a fundamental Baptist Church, they would interpret this passage in a ‘cessationist’ way. They would say because God says in the past he spoke by prophets, but now by his Son. That this means he doesn’t speak thru Prophets any more. The Prophets here are Old Testament voices. In Ephesians it says after Jesus ascended up on high he gave gifts unto men, some Apostles, some Prophets, etc. The fact that Jesus made Prophets after the ascension teaches us that there were to be a whole new class of New Testament Prophets that were different from the old. I find it strange to believe that Jesus would create a whole new class of gifts, and then take them away as soon as the Bible is complete. Why would Paul give instruction in the New Testament on how Prophets would operate [Corinthians] and then to say ‘as soon as this letter is canonized with the others, all this instruction will be useless’ it just doesn’t seem right.
The reason Paul is saying in the past God used Prophets, but today his Son. Paul is showing that the Jewish Old testament was a real communication from God to man. But in this dispensation of Grace, God is speaking the realities that the Prophets were looking to. Paul is saying ‘thank God for the Old Jewish books and law, they point to something, his name is Jesus’! The Prophets [Old Testament] served a purpose; they brought us from the shadows to the present time [1st century] now lets move on into the reality. Now you must see and hear the Son in these last days. ‘Who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person…when he by himself purged our sins SAT DOWN on the right hand of the majesty on high’ here we are at the beginning stages of themes that we will see later in the letter. The significance of Jesus ‘sitting down’ will be contrasted with the Old testament priests ‘standing up’. Paul [for the record I think Paul wrote this letter, from here on I will probably just refer to the writer as Paul] will teach that the ‘standing up’ of the Levitical Priests represented an ‘incomplete priesthood’ the reason Jesus sat down was because there would be no more sacrifice, and no more priesthood made up of many priests who would die year after year. This doesn’t mean there would be no more New Testament priests as believers, but that there would be no more Old Testament system. Paul will find spiritual truths like this all thru out the Old Testament.
Some theologians feel that Paul is a little too loose with these free comparisons that he seems to ‘pull out of the hat’, for the believer who holds to the canon of scripture, it is the Word of God. ‘Being made so much better than the angels…but unto the Son he saith “thy throne O God is forever and ever, a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy Kingdom”. Here Paul introduces another theme that will be seen thru out this letter. The superiority of Jesus over angels. Why is this important? Most believers know that Jesus is greater than angels, don’t they? Here we see why context is important to understand this letter. In Jewish tradition it is believed that the law was given to Moses by God thru the mediation of angels. Some say ‘well, we don’t use Jewish tradition, we use scripture’. First, Paul used anything he could to win the argument. Second, if we believe Hebrews is an inspired book, then when we read later on that the law given thru angels received a recompense if broken, then right here you have scripture [Hebrews] testifying that God did use angels to ‘transmit’ the law to some degree. Now, why is it important for gentiles to see this? Well it really isn’t! But it is vital for a first century Jew to see it. If Paul can show that Jesus is greater than the angels, then he is beginning to make the argument that the New Covenant is greater than the Old.
Here is the context. Moses law is highly revered in the first century Jewish community, so here Paul says ‘how much better is the law/word given to us from Gods Son’. Since Jesus is much better than the angels, therefore pay closer attention to the words spoken thru Gods Son, he is greater than the angels! ‘But to which of the angels said he “sit at my right hand until I make thy enemies thy footstool” we end chapter one with the theme of Jesus being better than the angels, yet in chapter 2 something funny happens, Paul will make the argument of Jesus being “a little lower than the angels” lets see what this means.
(723) GENESIS 37- Chapter 36 has a lot of genealogies, so let’s skip it. In this chapter we see Joseph having the dreams that his brothers and father and mother will bow down to him. He makes the mistake of telling everyone about it! Rueben is already mad about the favoritism shown towards Rachel’s sons as opposed to him being the firstborn. The other brothers clearly see the favoritism too. Jacob made Joseph the coat of many colors. To me this represents the multi ethnic diversity of Christ’s church [body]. Skins represent ‘covering’ or flesh. All the animals sacrificed in the Old Covenant were a type of Christ. The tabernacle represented a living mobile dwelling place of God, the church. They used skins as a covering. So this coat of many colors is like the body of Christ. Joseph typifying Jesus as the favored son who will eventually bring together all tribes and nations into unity as Jesus ‘wears them like a robe’ [truly we are his dwelling place, covering of flesh if you will!] Jacob sends Joseph to ‘see how his brothers are doing and bring back the report’. Just like the parable Jesus gave about the king sending the servant to check up on the vineyard. Eventually the king says ‘I will send my son’. Jesus says they take the son and kill him. Joseph’s brothers see Joseph coming and say ‘here comes Mr. big shot, the dreamer’. Understand Josephs dreams were simply the destiny of God on his life. It is important to differentiate between ‘what I want out of life’ and Gods purpose. Joseph’s dreams did speak of exaltation and fame. But these were things he did not seek! Jesus gives instruction in the New Testament to actively pursue the lowest place. The teachings on taking the seat in the back of the room and not the front. The teaching against gentile ideas [Roman] of authority. So we must not read into Joseph’s story that God wants us to ‘be all we can be. Become great’. Greatness in Gods kingdom is backwards. You seek not to be exalted and exaltation comes! Now the brothers take him and throw him into a pit [grave] ‘without water in it’. A type of death. Water and spirit are interchangeable words. A pit without water is like the grave [body] without the spirit. James says this is what death is, separation of body and spirit. Now something is happening at this point. The brothers are falling into the trap of group think. Just going along with something because others are doing it. Rueben begins seeing this deception. He also despises Joseph, but begins realizing things are getting out of hand. He says ‘lets not kill the boy, just throw him in the pit’. Judah also speaks up on his brother’s behalf. So they take Josephs coat, put blood all over it. They sell Joseph into slavery and they bring the coat to Jacob. ‘Dad, we found Josephs coat with blood on it. I wonder what happened to him?’ Now, how many options do we have? Maybe the boy got into a scrap trying to save some sheep and that’s what happened, or maybe he hurt himself and used the coat as a tourniquet? Yeah, that’s possible! But Jacob is a pessimist ‘surely some wild animals got to him’ bad enough! But wait ‘and they tore him to pieces, devoured him and he’s gone’ Yikes! Then he says ‘I will be depressed about this for the rest of my life and go to the grave never getting over it!’ Boy, who would have thought the guy was gonna take it like this? We once again see the over reaction of Jacob. It’s so easy for leaders with destiny and purpose to think all is lost. Moses and others have thought the same. Elijah was ready for the Lord to take his life because some Jezebel was giving him a hard time! I want to encourage leadership, don’t make rash or major decisions when your emotions are out of whack. We have a tendency to take reproof or correction the wrong way. We want to quit and start all over. Find someone else to ‘take over the church’ so we can get out of dodge. Jacob thought the worst, but what was actually happening was Gods pre ordained plan that would actually be for his salvation down the road. Jesus is still thought to be dead by Jacobs descendants, they only see the ‘pit without water in it’. They don’t realize that Jesus [Joseph] is actually alive and waiting for them to come and bow the knee!
(685) I was listening to a famous [and good!] radio preacher. Been around for years and is good. Of course I am mentioning him to disagree with a mindset that is prevalent in Christianity. He was teaching on abiding in Christ from Johns gospel. He said ‘are you feeling bored with attending church week after week, year after year? Does it seem unfulfilling to go to a ‘church’ and sit and listen to the Pastor? You know why you feel this way? It’s because you ARE NOT ABIDNG IN HIM!’ Ouch! God didn’t create you to be fulfilled by ‘going to a church meeting and sitting and listening for 50 years!’ The reason you are not fulfilled doing this, is because you weren’t designed to be fulfilled by DOING THIS! This is the whole reason for the present revolution going on in the church over the practices and function of ‘local church’. Now, when I hear a good man says this. I realize he means well and is still functioning under the old paradigm. But after reading all the stuff on this site it becomes obvious that the problem isn’t ‘abiding in Christ’ [at least in the way he spoke of it] but the problem is you were designed to function and daily experience and live out ‘church’ [ecclesia- corporate expressions of Christ’s functioning society of people- community!] Present church leadership teaches a type of ‘loyalty/membership’ to a ‘local church’ that is contrary to scripture. The idea that leaders were designed to ‘be over/ cover’ believers for their entire lives is unbiblical. When God made man, he explicitly told him ‘when you grow up [could this be the problem! We are not ‘growing up’?] You are to LEAVE YOUR Father/Mother relationship and cleave to your wife. In essence you are to establish new relationships with ‘your wife’ [the ecclesia- Christ’s ‘wife’] you are to relate on a co equal plain with the broader body of Christ and to not remain ‘cleaving to your former parents’. A lot of the abuses in the shepherding/apostolic covering movement made this mistake. They taught a type of ‘apostolic covering’ that said the problem in present Christianity is most believers are out of order. Out of order to these guys means ‘go find some man to cover you’! Double OUCH! So for the most part the reason you are bored by attending church for 50 years is because you were supposed to ‘leave you former parental structure’ [I am your Pastor mentality] and establish new relationships with the broader body of Christ. In this new relationship you too will eventually have kids, just remember that there will come a time where they too will ‘leave their father and Mother and cleave to their wife’. This my friend is the reason you are ‘bored with church’. Because what you call ‘church’ is simply a lecture hall. What the bible calls ‘church’ is a living organic manifestation of the Spirit of God functioning in a community of people! [That might have been a little harsh!]
(427) It is common in the modern world of ‘church’ to have a scenario where certain people [deacon boards and stuff like this] rise up and come against ‘the Pastor’. You then have a dynamic where the ‘Pastor’ is in a struggle for ‘control over his church’. Then the fight rages on. All of this is absent from the New Testament. Paul fought against the false teachers who were trying to influence the ‘churches’ [communities of people] with false doctrine, but this power struggle over the ‘control of my church’ [501c3 Christian business who meets on Sunday] did not exist. Recently I have heard/seen a few scenarios along these lines. There actually are scenarios where those who are fighting the Pastor are like what you would find in an abusive relationship. A type of manipulation that says ‘if you don’t say stuff that makes me mad, I will behave’. Then the Pastor feels like ‘I stood up against the opposition and God was with me’. Even though the whole ‘atmosphere’ of stuff like this is unscriptural. This type of stuff is what you see in the world of corporate takeover. The rising up of stockholders and stuff who are ‘dethroning’ the CEO’s who are making millions while the stock is falling. I just want you to see that when we view and function in limited paradigms; this affects the way we carry on with the journey. Jesus taught a type of ‘prophetic preaching’ that said ‘if people don’t receive the gift, go to the next house/city’ I am not saying all Pastors should leave their churches when strife arises. I am saying that the whole scenario is really not of God. Even the part where the well meaning Pastor ‘fights for the control of the church’ [Christian business]. Being the true New Testament Churches were communities of people, as opposed to ‘501 c 3’s’ you never had these types of situations. NOTE: I really don’t blame the Pastors for functioning out of this limited mindset. We send guys to College and they are taught all types of stuff under the guise of ‘Pastoral’ administration. We basically teach them that this means running and administrating a business. We teach a form of ‘deacon board’ and all other types of stuff that are simply bible names given to 501c3 corporations and their boards [Roberts’s rules of order!] The New Testament shows all these ‘gifts’ [Pastor, Deacon, etc.] as gifts that function in a community environment. The modern Pastor is taught in a way that he simply replaces the idea of ‘board of directors’ with ‘Deacon board’. If you try to show these brothers that they are simply putting bible names on an American corporation, they will tell you ‘well brother, the bible speaks of deacons’. True, but the bible speaks of Bishops and Pastor and we think that justifies us putting our own definitions to them. God has placed gifted individuals in the ‘church’ [community of believers]. These gifts are primarily given to build up people. If in this process you need a building, or a ‘501c3’ or a ‘radio/blog ministry’ that’s fine! But your gift is not primarily given to administrate the tool [the whole business and stuff that arises out of modern ideas of church] but the gift is primarily given to facilitate growth in the community of people. Because we don’t really see and function this way, we inadvertently accuse the saints. We say ‘if you don’t put the tithe in on Sunday, you are cursed because you are not submitting to the Local church. Which after all is Gods plan to change the world’. Well it is Gods purpose to function thru the ‘Local Church’ but once again this simply means ‘all the believers residing locally’. It does not mean the whole 501c3 organization that functions in the building on Sunday. You see how easy it is to read the verses on ‘bring all the tithes into the storehouse’ and then to mistake the ‘storehouse’ for the 501 c 3 that owns the ‘church building’. The storehouse are the corporate people. Jesus said ‘my house shall be called a house of prayer’. We are his house! We are a ‘corporate house of Prayer’. Well I have taught all this stuff before, just felt like you needed a reminder. NOTE: I have heard over the year’s well meaning Pastors say things like ‘I don’t believe in Bible college, that’s the job of the ‘Local Church’ or others who might denigrate a ministry because ‘it is not under a local church covering’. The mistake these brothers are making is once again ‘seeing’ the ‘local church’ as the building and all the operations surrounding it. What do they mean when they say ‘it’s the job of the local church’? They seem to be implying that the actual instruction should take place ‘on the grounds of the 501c3 organization’ or in the actual building where the Christians meet on Sunday, after all ‘it is the Local church!’ UGGH! They don’t seem to realize that if the college or other ministry that they are talking about is something that was a God ordained thing, and that ‘thing’ is being administrated or ‘run’ by ‘local believers’ then it is part of ‘the local church’ [community]. But when you ‘see’ local church as the 501c3 building/organization that Christians meet in on Sunday, then you inadvertently ‘accuse’ the brethren by saying ‘you are not under the local church’. God does not vest authority/legitimacy in a ‘501c3’ corp. He vests authority in his people by his Spirit. When you do not see this you accuse the ‘local church’ [the local believers] by thinking that ‘the local church’ is something that its not! Let me also add that I have had friends over the years who ran ‘Para church’ organizations [a misnomer!] some of these brothers have jumped thru all sorts of hoops to gain legitimacy with the ‘local churches’ [organizations] when these brothers see that I am ‘functioning’ as a believer with Gods authority, they do get offended. Sort of like ‘I have jumped thru these hoops for years. Tithing to my ‘church’ and all sorts of things to be in proper order. How dare you come along and challenge the legitimacy of ‘the local church’. The point is God wants all of his kids to function freely under his headship/authority. It’s OK if your ‘Para church’ ministry is working along side a ‘local church organization’ but to then try to make everyone fit into this limited paradigm is out of order. If Jesus taught us anything on authority, he taught that servants gain authority in Gods Kingdom. If you want authority my friends, then serve! Don’t think it comes from being ‘under the covering’ of some man made organization. NOTE: If the Kingdom is not about ‘being over people’ as Jesus taught, then why even ‘have authority’? Those who are being used in the Kingdom to build up the Body of Christ realize that there is no greater joy than to actually ‘wash the feet of Jesus [serving him]’ by building up the Body of Christ [the Local church/community of people]. You build so far and then you need more ‘skills’ to complete the ‘building’. At that stage ‘more authority’ is given for this purpose. The ‘minister’ is rejoicing because God has given him more adequate tools to complete the mission. Further ability to serve! Paul told the believers that God gave him this authority to build them up, not to ‘rule over them’. In today’s environment of success and trying to feel legitimate, people unconsciously fight for this recognition [authority] thinking it will bring them some sort of fulfillment. In the more extreme cases this can lead to ‘authoritarianism’. An ongoing battle between the ‘congregation’ and the ‘Pastor’ for control. So here you see how the limited paradigm affects everything else. In the New Testament churches you did not have scenarios where ‘Pastors’ were trying to be over the people for long periods of time. The shepherding process [discipling] was done over a short time until the new believers were mature enough to be ‘launched out on their own’ [under Christ’s headship]. When you have unnatural environments where men are fighting for control or authority simply for the purpose of ‘having authority’ then this causes an abusive situation for the people of God. Not all Pastors do this, but the unnatural environment lends to this happening more often than it should. The giving of ‘more authority’ is primarily for the continued function of servant hood, to continue to build the people up. It is a violation of biblical authority to see your position as one of singular authority over the people of God [see Diotrephes mentioned in the 3rd letter of John].
(430) Let’s review a few things. In Isaiah it says ‘my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways’. A lot of the stuff I have been showing you on ‘Local Church’ is simply a process of changing our thoughts [ways of seeing things] to Gods thoughts. As you see this stuff you begin to see that ‘knowing scripture’ is different than just memorizing verses, or being familiar with the text. It means having a general understanding of the whole flow of what God means. As you simply ‘see’ Gods thoughts on ‘Local church’ it allows for there to be a ‘grid’ that puts everything else in context. When Jesus debated the Pharisees, they had this ‘obsessive’ ability to memorize scripture. They actually had a ‘profession’ that copied the Old Testament to the tee [scribes]. These ‘brothers’ were obsessed with the technicality of the Word! Yet Jesus would rebuke them for not truly grasping the meaning of the ‘text’. Sort of like not being able to see the forest because of the trees. This ultimately led them to crucifying their Messiah. They couldn’t ‘see the Body of Christ’. So today when we don’t ‘see’ Christ’s Body properly [thru the Church] we also do harm to it. Let God replace your thoughts for his. NOTE: I don’t mean to be picky here. But when we don’t ‘discern’ the ‘Body of Christ’ [the church] we do unconsciously accuse her. Paul writes ‘I have shown you these things so you would know how to behave in the house of God, the pillar and ground of the truth’. We read ‘how to behave in the church building on Sunday’ [our thoughts] when what it is really saying is ‘how to behave in the family of God’. We say things to believers who are ‘functioning locally’ ‘you need to be under a covering, you need to be in submission to ‘a local church’. We often are using a ‘form’ of local church that isn’t to be found in scripture when we say this. In essence we are doing ‘damage to the Body of Christ’ when we do not properly discern her.
(499) The benefit of blogging like this is it allows you to hear God and just write what you hear. When writing a book you really cant jump like that. For some strange reason I just saw a whole scenario of legitimacy that comes from being a child of God and how that relates to family/community. We often see believers as a ‘part of the church’. God does deal with us as a community, as well as individuals. You will find the strong Orthodox/ Catholic brothers emphasize the community aspect of Christianity. You will also see the more individualistic style of Christianity emphasize the ‘individualistic’ aspect. ‘Me and Jesus’ both of these are true. What I want you to see right now is how we often try to ‘de legitimize’ Christians by saying ‘who’s local church are you under? What family do you belong to, you cant function/operate outside of the family. You derive your authority from the family’. Now look at this for a moment. When you are born, you are born into some type of family. It might not be fully functional, but there at least had to have been a mom and a dad at the beginning. Now as you develop you are part of a family. You are part of this family by virtue of your birth. You actually do not derive your life from the family. God created you. But family is vital to your growth and health. As you grow older you learn to depend less and less on the authority figures that God has placed over you. Some times the parents want the children to stay ‘under their authority’ for insecure reasons. The empty nest syndrome. But if the family is healthy the children will eventually launch out. There may be times where the waters get rough and they return for a season, but ultimately they launch. If you were to tell little Johnny ‘who do you think you are leaving us? Don’t you realize that you really don’t have a life apart from us? You were born here, we raised you, everything God has done thru you up until this moment has been in the family context. You leaving us is rebelling against our parenthood over you. Don’t forget what happens when you rebel against us. O well you’ll find out the hard way’ Johnny’s parents are sincerely seeing his role as it relates to them, they don’t fully see or function in the reality that their roles are meant to change over the course of Johnnies life. They sincerely think his step of independence is rebellion. After all they have been ‘over’ Johnnie his whole life. Who does he think he is anyway? Sure enough Johnnie will launch out [to the dismay of his other siblings who tried to launch before and had failures. They later returned back home and thought their failures were a sign from God that they should have never launched] When Johnnie does eventually succeed there is an initial reaction of ‘who needs families anyway, they were just holding me back’ this is a natural result from the way the family tried to hold him past the ‘launch date’. As Johnnie matures he will lose this harshness that he is experiencing at this time. Ultimately Johnnie and a whole new generation of ‘Johnnies’ will grow and leave and become all that God originally intended. The insecure parents will warn all the older children who are still relating to them in co dependant ways ‘don’t do like all these rebels, you know what can happen’ and this reinforces the mindset of never fully growing up. And yet the parents will at times say ‘when are you ever going to grow up?’ not realizing that they have had a big part in creating this unhealthy long-term environment. I feel today we are seeing this play out on a large scale in the Body of Christ. There are so many ‘Johnnies’ who have been told ‘your identity to our family is Gods purpose [true] therefore you really have no authority on your own’ [false]. The authority for both family and Johnnie launching are both from God. They all receive their right to do what God is telling them because they were all born of God. It is easy to only view legitimacy from the standpoint of ‘family’. Not seeing that God originally told the man ‘When you launch out on your own someday [a God given thing] then you will leave your parents and cleave to your wife’ [the wife can be the Ecclesia/oikos that God wants you to relate to as an ‘elder’ as well. While all believers are not ‘5-fold’ ministers, they all are to grow and mature. Becoming an ‘elder’ more mature one who gives oversight to others, is a natural function of your growth] God always intended the oversight role of parents [Pastors/Elders] to be temporary. This launching will eventually create a whole new family, with a whole new home of Johnnies. And the process repeats. I find a lot of believers at the ‘launching dock’ who are fearful to launch. They have seen some launch, and sad to say they drowned. A natural risk inherent in all journeys. These have made ‘shipwreck of the faith’. Others launched and never returned for reunions because they were so mad at the original parents calling them ‘lost children’ when they first left. Ultimately when enough Johnnies do it right then the whole family will see and realize that they were at an immature stage and are now seeing this ‘launching’ as in Gods original plan. Have you launched yet? NOTE: Often times the ‘parents’ [Pastors/elders] find their identity in ‘being parents’ they feel good functioning in this oversight role. They preach, organize, strategize and do many good things. Sometimes out of insecurity they add to their preaching, themes that warn the children ‘don’t ever leave us, it would be a big mistake’ and if they see someone leave, they will often say ‘well, now that you left, who is your new father [Pastor] and which family did you join in order to pay your dues?’ [Tithe]. The former Pastor is trying to say to Johnnie ‘well, you left this nest, you cannot function outside of it’ unless you yourself become one of us [a Pastor] then you have the right to not be under one of us. ‘This is Gods order’. The whole thing can be a big mess. Truly God does have order in his family, but we need to be careful that we are not superimposing a modern way of church, and then calling that ‘Gods Order’. NOTE: It is common amongst ‘apostolic people’[people who feel they hold the office of Apostle] to struggle with ‘who’s local church will I be under’. They often start a 501c3 ministry, relate to other ‘local churches’ and preach a very strong ‘You must be under a Pastor’ type message. They then will struggle with ‘which Local church will be my covering, as I also ‘cover’ many other Local churches/Pastors’ all of this language and covering and everything associated with it is really not seen in the New Testament function of Apostles. Apostles were not people going around ‘covering’ all ready established groups of Christians. The true fruit of an Apostle is someone who has the gift to ‘birth’ communities of believers thru the preaching of the gospel. You never find Paul, ever, telling the new believers to be ‘under the covering of a Pastor’ you do find admonitions to submit to Godly leadership that God has placed in ‘your church’ meaning ‘your community of believers that are around you’. You actually will find references in the New Testament to the ‘Elders of your Church/ Elders of your city’ [i.e.; ordain Elders in every city as I ordained you] so the submission to Elders was the simple ‘growing up stage’ in your life as a believer, until you are mature enough to ‘launch’.
{this is a paragraph from entry 584} A lot of good came out from this time. Some of the converts wound up back in their ‘daddy’s religion’. That is after they ‘got saved’ they became true students of the bible and church history and began ‘rebelling’ against their ‘rebellion’. They saw that many of the historic churches had great roots and were not totally worthless. Some went back to the older churches. Jack Sparks had a ministry called ‘World Liberation Front’ and espoused many of the ideas of the strong authoritarian ‘Apostolic’ ministries. These were the ‘shepherding’ movements that were very influential in ‘covering’ young Christians. Bob Mumford and others were leading the Discipling Movement. Sparks got into the strong apostolic stuff and would write ‘we are going to get noticed, those in the churches that do not recognize us, we will take your people’ pretty authoritarian don’t you think? Well Sparks also got into the ‘cult exposing’ movement, which also was birthed at this time, and he eventually became a Greek Orthodox Priest and as far as I know is still one today [Sparks eventually would become one of the critics of the ‘Local Church Movement’ of Watchman Nee, being led by ‘Witness Lee’ in California. The ‘Local Church’ would eventually take the cult exposing ministries to court over this] so you had some interesting fellows at this time.
(25) As I was just outside praying I felt the Lord leading me to share this. I was at the point of intercession where I pray for all of the people that we have ever worked with or sown seed into by either word or deed. I refer to these as the ‘Ecclesia and her children’. This covers those of you who are reading this right now! What I wanted most of all to get across is that when I pray like this I am not praying only for the success of ‘our ministry’ [I really don’t like using this term at all] but the overall success of all of the Kingdom works that Father has predestined for all of you. This actually positions me to regularly pray for the benefit of everyone who hears us or receives from us in any way. This includes the leaders/pastors who might hear us and even dislike our strong stance on what the Church is. I am praying for their overall success and Gods purpose to prevail in their lives. I am not doing this out of some feeling of ‘I am more noble than them’. But out of the reality of realizing that all who listen or receive from us are the ‘field’ that God has called us to. Seeing things this way, as opposed to your prayer time being about the success of ‘your ministry’ places you spiritually in a great posture. You actually desire the benefit of people who might not fully understand you, or even those who actively work against you. These themes are actually contained in Jesus instruction on prayer. I would encourage you to begin seeing ‘your ministry’ less and less, and focusing on the overall benefit of the people you relate to over your life. You are not here to build some type of Christian business. You are here to build the Body of Christ! Let me also add here that because of the way we see ‘church/ministry’ and the way we confuse it with the 501c3 model, that this hinders prophetic people. I have heard it said ‘you need a local church covering’ in order to be in biblical order. What most people ‘see’ when they say ‘local church covering’ is a modern Christian business. I am not totally opposed to ‘modern Christian businesses’ [I attend a fantastic local church] as long as we are not using them to ‘de-legitimize’ other functioning members of Christ’s Body. I wrote a prophet in San Antonio who I heard years earlier. He advertised his ‘church’ in the S.A. paper. He did split off from another ‘apostolic’ brother thru a disagreement. He started his own ‘church’ in order to feel and be accepted as legitimate. This comes with the whole package of ‘receiving tithes’ and everything else we see as ‘so-called’ legitimate church. I simply felt the ‘prophetic word’ for this prophet was that he was limiting himself by trying to moderate meetings and become a ‘weekly lecturer’ to Christians while this was hindering his true prophetic ability that simply functions freely in society. I don’t see any prophets in the book of Acts setting up lecture hall environments in order to receive tithes and 'feel legitimate’. Well he never wrote me back, but not to long after I noticed he stopped advertising in the paper. I feel we need to re-think the whole issue of what makes up church and ministry and re-focus on our responsibility to build up each other in love. ‘Change the way you think and act, because Gods kingdom is here now. Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this, you are the equipment. No special appeals for funds, keep it simple’. [Message bible]
(32) The other day I was watching fox news [another confession- I am a political junkie] and our current U.N. ambassador resigned his post. This guy reminds me of a prophetic/pastor friend I met years ago in C.C. The U.N. ambassadors name is ‘John Bolt’on. [John Bolton]. The reason he resigned is because when Bush first appointed him he did it as a recess appointment [that’s when you appoint a position while congress is out of session]. Bush appointed him this way because he had a lot of opposition from the opposing party to his nomination. To be fair the guy was doing the job for about a year at the time of his resignation and many of his critics changed their mind about him. But because of petty politics [which both sides practice!] the recent midterm elections gave a majority to the Democrats in the house and Senate and the writing was on the wall. The new incoming senior Democrat stated his opposition to the ambassador and he knew his time was up. The name ‘John Bolt’on is significant, I have said a lot in this paper about these images [John the Baptist as ‘thunder out of the desert. a ‘bolt’ of lightning accompanies thunder]. The fact that he initially was rejected before he even had a chance of ‘proving himself’ speaks to the churches position at large during the ‘restoration’ of the gifts of apostles/prophets. Many didn’t care if people had the ‘ability’ to function or not. They simply did not want these ‘ambassadors’ of the Kingdom to function! After a few years now of these ministries operating and representing the Fathers Kingdom you think it would be time for the church at large to recognize and receive them, but this hasn’t necessarily been the case. While these gifts are being accepted and received to a greater degree than before, they are still not being received in a complete way by the church at large. Jesus said if we receive a prophet ‘in the name’ of a prophet we receive a prophets reward. There is a sense of certain giftings being refused, despite the fact that they have actually functioned well in the office! The ‘majority’ will not entrust to them the legitimacy of their office because of petty things. Jesus also told his gifted ones to shake the dust off of their feet if not well received. John Bolton simply resigned and would not let Bush give him another ‘side title’ that would allow him to still be around without the full legitimacy of his office. I feel there are good and bad things that have happened in the prophetic/apostolic movements. One of the mistakes was seeing a rise in ‘apostolic covering’ type ministries. It was not uncommon to find well meaning ‘apostles’ going around convincing well meaning ‘pastors’ to come under their covering. You can go to some of these web-sites and see all the ‘churches’ that some of these brothers have under their ‘covering’. In many of these scenarios you find too many man made ideas and people/ministries struggling for ways to fit into some misguided idea of ‘covering’. To be simple about this, Jesus is our covering and all of us [apostles, prophets, evangelists, and yes even plain old Christians] should work in unity to build each other up in love. This trying to get people under my covering thing is missing the mark in my opinion. Paul’s apostolic ministry freed people from authoritarian leaders [judiazers] and released believers into the great reality of our universal priesthood that we all equally share under Christ. We derive our legitimacy from the fact that we are the actual house of God. God literally dwells inside the people of God by his Spirit. This causes all of us to be properly related to God and one another on an equal plain. This was one of the great truths of the reformation ‘the priesthood of all believers’. No believer needs to find a ‘spiritual father’ or ‘apostolic covering’ to be in proper order. Paul told the Corinthians that he was their ‘spiritual father’. This simply meant that he ‘birthed’ them into the Kingdom by the gospel. To go around trying to make people submit to your authority is contrary to what Paul was doing here. He actually told the Corinthians that they were allowing other quasi leaders to become their authority and he was invoking his original relationship with them in order to bring them back into the liberty of Christ.
(58) Being I have been speaking a little about Catholic/Protestant stuff lately, let me talk on ‘authority and covering’ issues. Recently when certain evangelical leaders fell into sin, others speculated on why this happened. Some Protestants taught that certain Prophets who ‘fell’ were not ‘under covering’ or under the authority of ‘a local church’. I have spoken at length in our books and thru radio on what the Church is and what it means to ‘be part of the local church’. All I felt like saying here is our Catholic brothers historically view ‘all’ Protestants as being ‘without covering’ or not under proper biblical authority. I do find it interesting that some who feel they are ‘apostolic’ in the protestant church start highly independent and entrepreneurial type ministries and then preach that if people are not ‘under one of these apostolic coverings’ then they are in rebellion. Many of these ‘apostles’ have absolutely no ‘covering or connection’ to the historic church and yet preach a form of authority that seems to begin and end with them! To put it simple, we as Christians are all related and responsible to each other. As New Covenant priests we are directly under the authority of our high priest Jesus. I thank God for all the gifted Apostles and Prophets in the church today, I just think we need to remind ourselves of the basics once again.
(259) Now that I’m getting into it, let me discuss the role of Apostles and Prophets and how they fit into the Church. During the restoration of Apostles/Prophets in the last quarter of the 20th century there were a lot of mistakes made in the area of ‘function’. It was common for Apostles to see the list of ‘5 fold’ that Paul gives ‘first Apostles, then Prophets, etc’ and to read it in an authoritarian way. Apostles would try to form ‘relationship’ with various Pastors and teach a submission that was not biblical. It kind of went like ‘I am now the Apostle who ‘covers’ your Pastor, Your Pastor covers you and the people are under all these levels of ‘covering’ and the view to God was getting ‘cloudy’. Paul wrote the list of Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists Pastors and teachers. Paul did say ‘first Apostles, secondarily Prophets’ some feel this is simply stating the order in which they appeared. First God brought in Apostles, Then Prophets [New Testament ones!] etc. This view has truth to it. But even if you took it the other way, Paul later says God has counted the Apostles last. He tells the Corinthians this. Well how can they be first and last! Surely Jesus never taught any thing like this? Here we go again. Lets just say in general all Gods gifted 5 fold ministers exist to bring you to maturity as Gods people. Any view that has all these authority structures is really not the intent. Some of these brothers don’t even realize the ‘Pastors’ who they think they are covering are not even a biblical position in the way they function today. So Apostles and Prophets and all these gifts do exist [at least in my mind!] but they exist to release you into your full inheritance in Christ [Not talking money here!] As these gifts are restored and recognized, lets keep in mind that Jesus taught the first would be last and the last first!
(112) Just got home from doing some food shopping. On the way back I parked by the bay for a little while. Took a break and read the paper while listening to the radio. I heard a preacher defend the idea of ‘the Pastor’ as the person who ‘runs’ the church. I got upset! He went on to speak about the multimillion dollar ‘church’ that their building in San Antonio, he spoke on the biblical principal of leadership, someone having to make a decision. For example: God makes decisions in the Godhead [Trinity] and things of this nature. Then he spoke on the practical reality of one man needing to ‘make the call’ for the ‘church’ on vital financial decisions and the like. I understood his defense, but it is dead wrong! He basically was making the fundamental mistake of viewing ‘the multimillion dollar building and operation’ as ‘the church’. The Church in the New Testament are all the communities of believers in the various cities and regions where they dwell. The simple fact is there was NEVER a ‘Pastor’ who made the decisions for the whole community. This brother from San Antonio simply was defending the need for one person to make the call in a business environment, but he mistakenly called this ‘the church’. The fact is there was never a single New Testament Church [community of people] who were dependant on ‘a person’ to call the shots! Just cause someone’s on the radio doesn’t always mean that they know what there talking about! [Note; for those of you who think I should have approached him personally before correcting him, I already sent this brother all our books a few years ago, he should have known better by now!] The ‘one man’ who would run the Church in the above scenarios given is JESUS CHRIST! [Next day] Well I cooled down a little bit from yesterday [just a little!]. Let me give you some ‘regional’ history. Back in the late 80’s there were ‘apostles/prophets’ who taught strong ‘apostolic authority’ in the San Antonio area. Many of these brothers are still going strong for God, some I am not sure about. These brothers had a strong influence on the above ‘mega church’. The Pastor of the mega church tried to incorporate ‘plural leadership’ in his ‘church’. They had some difficulties. They were missing the whole point of plural leadership [elders] as being ‘guides and facilitators’ of the community as opposed to leaders who ‘run the church’. The basic mistake was they were ‘seeing’ church as the ‘Christian business’ who meets on Sunday. In this limited perspective it is virtually impossible to incorporate ‘plural leadership’. It’s like ‘who preaches this Sunday’? Or ‘who decides on the color of paint for the church’? Silly stuff like that. I refer to these brothers as being ‘building centric’ as opposed to ‘Christ centric’. Well the Pastor of this San Antonio mega church finally abandoned the whole ‘plural leadership’ mindset in order to simply ‘fulfill my vision’. Which was to have a huge building with lots of people coming to hear him speak. Also during the formative period of all these guys struggling with these issues, a ‘former pastor’ who is now one of the key leaders in the ‘house church movement’ visited San Antonio and spoke on the church as the people, as opposed to ‘the building’. He dealt with plural leadership and the role Apostles play in today’s church. Well eventually the mega church pastor opted out of the idea to do ‘plural leadership’. He needed [or did] embrace a model of ‘one man’ who is highly motivated to get this big building, and no one is going to stop me! The problem with ‘doing church’ this way is that people become assets to another goal. People are ‘expendable’ in these scenarios. The ‘thing’ of importance becomes ‘the building’ as opposed to the harder more long-term goal of ‘the people’. I believe that during the transition stage of this church, the Pastor opted for the easier road of ‘going for the big building’ as opposed to the more difficult road of helping to facilitate a move in the church where ‘plural leaders’ lead people down a road of independence versus being ‘church attendees’. Leaders often choose ‘their vision’ over the overall benefit of the people. God wants leaders to make decisions based on the future of his purpose. Not on ‘what do we want in our lifetime’. Many times Gods higher purpose entails not seeing what you want, for the sake of what he wants! [A few weeks later] I just had a dream [Its 1:22 am as I write this!] about the above San Antonio church. This isn’t the first time I dreamt about this church either. In the dream I was visiting the church, they were very gracious to me. I introduced myself as a visitor who directs ‘Corpus Christi Outreach Ministries’ [I hate relating to ministry people this way, but sometimes I find you have to do this or leaders simply wont give you the time of day!] Well the Pastor, who is a good man, kind of said ‘O this is the Pastor of C.C.O.M.’ and I kind of had to uncomfortably explain ‘well not really the Pastor’. By the way this happens so much in Christian circles, we have a tendency to evaluate people along these lines. ‘What do you do, I am a fire fighter, I do this’ we judge people based on what society believes to be important. Well the dream was all right, the Pastor was nice and well intentioned. I actually plan on visiting this church in the near future. I just felt the San Antonio connection to be important recently. I feel we are going to make some good contacts in this city. Our radio broadcast covers that entire region [as well as Houston and some other major radio markets]. Those of you up there give me an e-mail and lets get in touch.
(174) A few years ago we had an Apostle visit our area. He is fairly well known in ‘prophetic’ circles and does have a worldwide ministry. I do like him and his teaching. He was going to hold some meetings in Texas and I called his office to get directions. A few days later he called back at an inopportune time. If I am busy I will not answer my phone unless I recognize the number. I thought I would answer it this day anyway. Sure enough it was this national minister personally calling me. He didn’t know me at all! I think the Lord told him to call. I spoke only a few minutes and shared a prophetic word. I quoted ‘FOR THY SAKE WE ARE KILLED ALL THE DAY LONG’ he simply said ‘O MY’. I never got in touch with him again. I did send them our books and I feel we might be a little to ‘strong’ for this brother. Many ‘Apostles/Prophets’ are really affected by the prosperity gospel and modern concepts of ‘spiritual warfare’ and I think our teachings in these areas turned them off. I do feel the Lord allowed me to speak this word to him as a precursor to sending our books. It’s like God confirmed ‘the word with signs following [or should I say ‘preceding!’]
(178) I read an article from Christianity today the other day. It was on Prophets and their role in the Church! It was an excellent article; it kind of surprised me that it was in Christianity today. Out of all the Christian magazines in circulation this is the best. I don’t say this only because of this article. I have subscribed to Charisma and Christianity today and a few others for many years. I don’t subscribe to any write now, but I read from some on line. I canceled the Charisma magazine many years before Christianity today. I felt that Charisma was making an honest effort, but the only valuable stuff seemed to be coming from Lee Grady. He only wrote a brief editorial. The bulk of the magazine was messages by popular preachers, and a lot of them on ‘you can have what you say’ and stuff like that. I actually said to myself one day ‘how many messages does it take on ‘you can achieve some goal, or get what you want’ before they move on to the ‘university level’. Well I feel Christianity today is at the ‘university level’. In the past the majority of preachers/teachers that taught on Apostles and Prophets were the charismatic brothers. I do credit Brother Hagin for re introducing this teaching to the church. I am really excited that more of the mainline Christians seem to be more open to these gifts. It’s hard for believers to distinguish between the reality that some things can be good from a preacher, while other things can be bad. I have seen so many brothers leave the Baptist faith and become Charismatic [OK] but then they view their Baptist heritage in a negative way. They seem to think the future of the church is Charismatic. The future of the church is CHRIST! All charismatics and Baptists and Catholics and every one else who names the name of Christ plays a role in this thing. The message of the church is the Cross of Christ. We are to carry the ‘evangelical’ gospel as the primary voice of the church. If you used to be some denomination and are now another, that’s fine, but don’t think that now the message is ‘the Spirit’ or ‘the anything else’. The message stays the same. Now I believe we should teach and embrace the working of the Holy Spirit, it’s just some brothers have actually said stuff like ‘when I was Baptist I focused on the Cross, when I became charismatic I now focus on the resurrection and the Spirit’ one brother even said the Cross was only for a few hours, leaving the impression that those ‘few hours’ are now over and we move on to other things. This brother is an Apostle out of San Antonio who is a true elder in the church. He has done many good things and I have received from him in many ways. He made this statement at a conference in Corpus Christi and I felt I needed to correct it on radio. I did! Paul told the Corinthians that when he was with them he knew nothing ‘but Christ crucified’. This message doesn’t mean we don’t ‘move on in growth’ it simply means the growth God is looking for is the Body to grow ‘into him’. God’s goal is for us to be mature ‘in him’. Growing is not a matter of moving away from him [or the cross!] Paul told the Galatians ‘MY LITTLE CHILDREN WHOM I TRAVAIL IN BIRTH AGAIN UNTIL CHRIST BE FORMED IN YOU’ Ephesians says we are to grow up into the full stature of Christ and allow his headship over us to fully function as we develop more into being the Body of Christ. All these images show us that the goal of Christian growth is not moving to some other belief, but moving more ‘into him’.
(190) A few entries back I mentioned an article from Christianity today. Part of the article spoke on the clergy’s dependence on the offerings from the people being a hindrance to the prophetic ministry. The article even spoke on the modern phenomena of Pastors/Elders being bi-vocational. That is the trend of certain leaders choosing to work a regular job and not be supported by the church. I know what the New Testament teaches on meeting the needs of those who supply spiritual food. Paul, who said this, also said that he chose to not use this right with the Corinthians. He even said by not using it he was preaching the gospel free of charge, and that was a commendable thing. So obviously there are various ways to approach this. The thing we did not see in the New Testament churches was ‘hired clergy’. This is blatantly obvious. Sure it makes us feel uncomfortable to admit this, especially if you are one of them! But the point is we need to recognize that many modern scenarios of Pastors feeling pressured to speak on topics in order to keep the salary money coming in was absent in the first century church. Much of what we do is out of peer pressure and self-survival. I want to challenge you, try doing it for free! Paul said you can, he also said those who got paid didn’t have the same joy of knowing that they were truly doing it from the heart. It’s OK to receive support, but it’s not OK to see yourself as a ‘hired hand’ who is employed by a congregation to provide services [weddings, funerals, etc.]
(191) CHANGE YOUR MINDSET Over the years as I have learned new things and ways to function in Gods kingdom, I would always think along terms of ‘how do we make this happen, who are the group[s] of people that we are to release the gifts in’ I also have read many other ministry ideas and concepts. Often what we are trying to do is produce some biblical ministry in a limited paradigm. For example, when people began learning about the 5-fold ministry [Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers] they tried to ‘make it happen in their church’ the reason it didn’t ‘happen in their church’ is because their paradigm of ‘church’ was limited. They saw ‘church’ as the meeting of believers in the ‘church building’ on Sunday. Though the belief on the 5 fold was correct, it was the limited understanding of ‘church’ that hindered what God wanted to do. I felt like the Lord was saying to many of us ‘why are you always trying to re-produce that which I show you in some building, my gifts are to function freely in society/community and you are always trying to make it happen in some building environment’. So in essence the changing of the wineskin from seeing ‘church’ as the Sunday meeting to seeing ‘church’ as the functioning community of people was the missing ingredient. Many ‘Apostles’ and ‘Prophets’ were struggling on how to get their gift to work in ‘the church’ and they were missing the great excitement of bringing the gospel to the lost world. How did the Apostle Paul’s gift operate? Do you see him going around to ‘New Testament churches’ trying to set up ‘5 day meetings’? He primarily is going into the world preaching the gospel to the lost, and these ‘become’ the churches [communities of people] that he later builds as an Apostle. We need to ‘re-focus’ our mindset from ‘building’ to people. Get your mind off of ‘trying to build your ministry’ and realize that all of our days are limited. Sell out for the cause, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature! Quit trying to ‘find your place in the church!’
(199) Let me try to be nice. Over the tears of seeing a lot of the abuse in the church I recognized that a lot of it existed because good men [prophetic people and others] refused to deal with the issue. Then you had ‘heresy hunters’ deal with it in a way that totally turned off the church. The prophetic people out of defense against the ‘heresy hunters’ would reject any possibility that the ‘money focus’ in the church was getting off track. So on one side you had the old time ‘defenders of the faith’ warring against the ‘prosperity movement’ and the prophets fell on the side of defending the ‘prosperity movement’. Well this whole thing is a mess. The simple fact that it is common to see a Christian preacher, wearing expensive jewelry, telling people that Jesus and the disciples lived extravagant lifestyles. Talking about dreams and visions of Jesus appearing to them and telling them ‘you can have all the money you want’. Guys having dreams/visions of biblical characters telling them things that contradict scripture, and then the prophets in the church actually lining up on the side of this movement is a tremendous hindrance to the prophetic. We shouldn’t be attack dogs, I agree! But at some point Gods prophets must be willing to address these issues. The fact that the prophets have not dealt with it [for the most part] has opened the door for the ‘heresy hunters’ to paint all of us with the same brush. I appeal to you guys [prophets] take a look at what we are doing. Are we letting the true image of Jesus fall to the ground out of fear and being defensive? How can we not see that many of the fathers of this movement [prosperity] have fallen into the category of 1st Timothy 6. Paul said there would be a time when teachers would teach that financial gain is godliness, from such turn away. I too enjoyed the faith brothers for a while. It’s just there came a time where I had to admit that the stuff coming from their camp could not be accepted anymore. I know and believe that the Father wants us to prosper and has a great future for us. But this is different from seeing Jesus the way these brothers present him. This issue must come to the forefront in the prophetic movement or else God will not allow our voices to continue in today’s church. NOTE: Let me also say that scripture tells us to ‘reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine’ Jeremiah speaks of ‘casting up, removing the stones [hindrances], tearing down and building up’. We are supposed to focus on Jesus for sure. There are times where we also bring correction in love. If leaders don’t do this, then many young believers go down a long road of finding these things out on their own. Eventually they will see the shallowness of this movement, but they could have saved a lot of time if their Pastors dealt with it in the beginning. NOTE: In the book of Acts you see Paul receiving prophecies on ‘how much you will suffer for my cause’. You find the apostles praising God that they were counted worthy to suffer beatings and persecution for the name of Christ. You see the prophetic centered around the sacrificial lifestyle that the Gospel calls us to. In today’s prophetic circles it is all to common to hear prophecies on becoming debt free, receiving financial windfalls, money will fall into your hands this year and stuff like this. Sure it’s possible that God is saying a few of these things, but the modern prophetic movement almost has no voice for the prophecies you see given in scripture. The prophetic must come into re-alignment with scripture if she wants her voice to be relevant today.
(201) Just had a bunch of thoughts run thru my head. In the Old Testament the cities were surrounded by walls for protection. On these walls were ‘lookouts’ who would stand guard day and night to ‘see’ things coming. These ‘seers’ were the first to recognize danger, or even an ally coming to help. They would ‘see’ it long before anyone else. This did not make them better than the rest of the community; it simply was their job [gift]. Some seers were higher on the wall than others. You had some actually posted on the wall, while others were in ‘stands’ built off of the wall. This group of lookouts were really seeing far. It was a matter of faith for the community to prepare themselves for what the seers were seeing. Ezekiel speaks of ‘watchman on the wall’ and he says if the watchman see a threat and don’t sound the alarm, then they will be responsible for the results. If they sound the alarm and no one listens, they are not held responsible, but the ones who don’t take action will still suffer. Recently I have been able to ‘speak into’ certain prophetic groups. Many of these brothers do have real gifts, it’s just I feel that a lot of them are not ‘sounding’ the warnings along with the ‘good stuff’. To a degree they also are ‘victims’ of the materialistic mindset that has imbedded itself within the current evangelical church. Many of these prophets immediately reject any talk of correction and re alignment with the central message of the Gospel. They seem to be inundated with the concept of the ‘wealth of the wicked coming to the church’ [which is a true scripture!] to the point of not being able to ‘see’ [which is the prophets main objective!] the writing on the wall. I find it interesting that many of these prophets are on the Elijah list [a prophetic website]. I really like the Elijah list, just not enough balance. Elijah was a prophet in the midst of ‘prophets’. As a singular voice [or so he thought!] he was not in the ‘majority opinion’ of his day. This didn’t mean he was wrong, only that the rest of Gods people weren’t ‘seeing’ as far as he was. I feel there needs to be a re alignment with the current prophetic movement. Too much of it is in alignment with the materialistic gospel. How can God use the ‘watchman’ if they for the most part refuse to ever sound the alarm? Many will not sound it out of self-preservation. Like I have told you before, if ministries are trying to build a support base, there will be a natural tendency to reject any correction along these lines. Unknowingly many prophets simply say ‘I don’t see that’ in the area of all that I have been saying, because without realizing it they are being influenced by a natural desire to ‘bring in the wealth for the end time harvest’. They too have become infected with mammon. I believe the church has a glorious future. I do not hold to an end time fatalistic eschatology, but the future of the church and Gods Kingdom being expressed in the earth is vitally connected to a spiritual people who are not controlled by the materialistic mindset of the day. The prophets must make a break from these things. There is no way the Lord will permit the prophetic to have a greater impact until she learns to distinguish between that which is pure and that which is unclean I remember hearing Paul Cain speak on the 3 dangers to the prophetic ‘GOLD, GIRLS AND GLORY’. He saw the aspect of money as a danger to the movement. The kings of the Old Testament would enlist ‘Eunuchs’ to watch over their bride[s] when they were not around. The Eunuch was ‘unable’ to take advantage of the bride for his own procreation. He could be ‘trusted’ because there was nothing ‘in him’ that could lead to the procreation of his own mind and agenda [thru his seed/offspring]. Many prophets have not passed this test because they are still seeing ‘their future’. This leads them to prophesy abundant wealth year after year to the groups they are speaking into. It is an unconscious ‘self procreation’ [of their dreams and future] that are causing them to do this. I pray the Lord would help all of us [including me!] to put the concerns of the bride before ours!
(202) TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING I have been wanting to use this illustration for a long time. The time is here! I was just taking a bath. When I reached for the shampoo I had a familiar occurrence. I found myself surrounded by many bottles of conditioner, and one bottle of shampoo. There have been many times where I have had 6-8 bottles of conditioner and NO shampoo. I do have 4 daughters and 1 wife. This should explain it. There are times where you can have too much of a good thing. Many times we get inundated as Christians with the message of wealth and happiness to the point where there is no room for the shampoo. The conditioner feels good, it serves a purpose, but sometimes we just need to get clean! There are a lot of great principles of motivation and success in Gods Word. The book of Proverbs has to be the greatest business book ever written. The point is all these things come with the underlying theme of the gospel being the foundation. Simple truths of living for eternal rewards versus temporary stuff. Stories like Jesus talking about the rich man building greater barns, and that night he died. Jesus saying WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN IF HE GAIN THE WHOLE WORLD AND LOSE HIS SOUL. We HAVE LOST SIGHT OF THESE THINGS WHILE reaching for the conditioner! We want to feel good, which is all right, but we really need some shampoo every once in a while!
(208) I was just thinking about the book of James, I haven’t read it in a few years [?] but sometimes the Lord just brings things to your remembrance. James says that GOD IS THE FATHER OF LIGHTS, EVERY GOOD AND PERFECT GIFT COMES DOWN FROM HIM, HE IS NOT PARTIAL BUT TREATS ALL HIS KIDS EQUALLY This is all in context with the fact that James is one of the lead Apostles in the Jerusalem church. [Not the Pastor!] James had spiritual oversight to a large group of POOR believers. These were the same Christians that Paul was taking up the offering for in the Corinthian church. James actually defends these poor believers all thru out the book of James. Yet he makes these statements of God loving all his kids equally. He says God gives good gifts to his children. He also says many of Gods kids are POOR [hath not God counted the poor of this world rich in faith]. These statements in no way contradict the theme of James. James fully understands that the love of God for these Jerusalem saints is not to be measured by THINGS. The New Testament Apostles had a clear understanding of this. They got this understanding directly from Jesus ministry. There is an underlying theme in the New Testament that THINGS are not the way we form Gods opinion of us. You and I measure Gods love and acceptance for us based on the fact that God LOVED THE WORLD SO MUCH THAT HE GAVE US HIS ONLY SON! Paul does say if God gave his son for us, will he not give us freely all things? The implied answer is YES [Romans]. But then Paul ALSO TEACHES HE LEARNED TO BE CONTENT WITH BOTH ABUNDANCE AND LACK. This contentment came from the fact that God already proved his love for us by the work of the cross. There is no other thing that could show you your acceptance with God than this simple fact. So James can confidently say ALL GOOD GIFTS COME DOWN FROM THE FATHER OF LIGHTS, IN WHOM THERE IS NO VARIABLENESS OR SHADOW OF TURNING knowing full well that many of his ‘parishioners’ were dead broke! The father of lights gave us his SON; there could be no question of his acceptance of us based on this reality!
(209) Just had a dream a little while ago. I was strapped into this parachute harness and was going to ‘catapult’ up into the sky for a free fall. I did it once and it felt great [in the dream!] I was going to go for a second time and I knew I wasn’t strapped in right. Instead of ‘re strapping’ I was just going to ‘go for it’. I finally decided to abort. I gave someone else the chance. Over the years I have had various friends and people tell me ‘jokingly/seriously’ ‘you are going to get yourself killed’. I remember a friend at work [officer] said this to me. I said ‘we all have to die’ he told me ‘ but it doesn’t have to happen so soon!’ I had a friend I met at the homeless hangout, I felt a little ‘uncomfortable’ about him. He was new to the area, had a pretty good knowledge of the bible, and would ‘share’ things with me that were prophetic. I have had a few occasions in my life where I wondered if I was encountering angels [or someone else!]. He would often tell me that some of us [me!] were trying too hard to do it all and we needed to not be such ‘workaholics’. It was fairly easy for me to dismiss this criticism, even though I knew in my heart he was right. I simply justified myself [wrongfully] by realizing that this criticism was coming from someone with a less than spotless employment history! But I have had others tell me this [preach it] and basically say the same thing. I know to some degree this is a flaw. It actually is a weakness that comes from pride and insecurity. ‘Hey look at me, I am relentless, cant you tell?’ While up this morning I heard the Lord say ‘A LIVING DOG IS BETTER THAN A DEAD LION’ [somewhere in the bible?] Recently the imagery of a ‘lion’ as well as the name ‘Judah’ has been popping up again. I felt the Lord saying our ‘prophetic voice’ was going much further and stronger than before. I WILL BEND JUDAH LIKE A BOW the bow ‘imagery’ has been in my mind recently, this verse says ‘JUDAH’ is the bow! I felt like the Lord was saying he is giving some of us strong prophetic mantles to accomplish great strides in the Kingdom, with this authority comes a fearlessness that can be deadly. We must embrace the ‘fearlessness’ but not work ourselves to death. Judah is a great warrior, Jesus is the LION OF THE TRIBE OF JUDAH but if we die unnecessarily we wont accomplish all that God has for us. A LIVING DOG IS BETTER THAN A DEAD LION [even one from the tribe of Judah!] NOTE: Just re reading it for errors and felt like the ‘going up in the parachute’ fit in pretty well with John in the book of Revelation ‘COME UP HERE, AND I WILL SHOW YOU THINGS TO COME’
(210) Something that has made me uncomfortable for some time is the dynamic of speaking a strong prophetic word/teaching and then realizing the aftermath. For instance the ‘judiazers’ of the first century were teaching a form of Christianity that embraced legalism. They were doing well for a season until God allowed Paul to ‘blast it’ out of the water. Once the Apostolic authority of Paul exposed the heresy, it was difficult for the Judiazers to continue. They sure tried, but Gods authority was now working against their doctrine. I recognize that there are certain truths that we teach that are contrary to the normal tradition of ‘church’. I do not teach them simply for this reason, in as much as I feel it’s time for certain things to be dealt with [like the judiazers]. After these things are dealt with, many good Pastors will continue to embrace what they have known and are familiar with. This creates a tension in the community. Many of their ‘parishioners’ will embrace the truths they have learned from us and Gods authority always falls on the side of truth. Many of the authority structures that are presently functioning in the church are not really biblical. When you have believers moving in grace in certain areas, and church authorities coming down on the wrong [incorrect] view of the subject, you then have a dynamic where Gods authority is falling on the side of the ‘parishioners’ and not on the side of the clergy. This dynamic was also seen in Jesus ministry with the disciples. It was unthinkable for the 1st century clergy to admit that Gods authority was being expressed thru this rag tag team of unlearned men, as opposed to their theological doctorates! I feel uncomfortable when this happens with us. I used to Pastor, and I do not like people who come to a community just to start trouble and cause division. But sometimes we mistake a true prophetic challenge to the status quoi, as being rebellion [Martin Luther and the Catholic Church of the 16rh century!]
(211) Just got back from an ‘incident command’ lecture. We do these every so often at the Fire Dept. It got me to thinking in terms of organizational structure and command. I think it would help to review some things I have taught over the years. First, the reason I don’t believe the New Testament teaches ‘the end time transfer of wealth’ the way many people are teaching today is because any ‘windfall’ infusion of wealth INTO THE PRESENT SYSTEM would not fundamentally change the way things are. If you poured billions of dollars into the present ‘wineskin’ it would not enable, or release into function the ‘Body of Christ’. For the most part any increase of funds would just perpetuate the current system. God wants a CHANGE in the current system. God wants to ‘release’ the army of people who are sitting in the pews on Sunday. Our current mindset has the army sitting in the barracks once a week, and thinking that this is their main function! Second, the present stage of the Church takes the few instances of Paul [and others] speaking in public forums [in Acts] and tries to duplicate this model, seeming to think that the primary way the church functions in society is by ‘sitting in church on Sunday and listening to sermons’. This is NOT the New Testament model of the first century church. The best ‘view’ of ‘church’ in the New Testament is seen in Corinthians [I did not say they were the best church, it was BECAUSE of their flaws that we are able to read about the way the church should meet!] In the Corinthian model ‘church’ is an interactive experience where Christians come together and share the love of Christ. It is plain to see that the current understanding of church today is not as interactive or ‘corporate’ as the New Testament had. So Jesus model of ‘tasking’ voluntary disciples to GO INTO ALL THE WORLD AND PREACH THE GOSPEL is now relegated to the ‘clergy’ at the expense of the church and the lost world. This limited mindset hurts all the way around. God will take the ‘small’ seeds of influence from the ‘volunteer’ model and cause the seed to exponentially increase. CAST YOUR SEED/BREAD UPON THE WATER, FOR IN MANY DAYS IT WILL COME BACK TO YOU I just watched the movie ‘pay it forward’ and it gives a good concept of one person inspiring others to ‘pass it on’. This basic principle of all believers living in such a way as to inspire others to voluntarily give their lives away is the Jesus model. All the ‘transference of the worlds money’ will not fundamentally change the limited paradigm in which we function today! NOTE; I was having a discussion with some one along these lines. They innocently said ‘but you have to have somewhere to put all the people [church building]’ It is interesting to see that this concern never came up in the New Testament churches. They all knew that they needed to ‘sleep somewhere’ and ‘eat somewhere’ and ‘meet somewhere’ [houses!] but today’s mindset of ‘I have 1000 people as ‘church members’ where will I put them all?’ This concern is absent in The New Testament. The simple fact that the spreading of the gospel in the first 3 centuries was more of a revolutionary movement in the hearts and minds of people explains this reality. They weren’t looking for ‘places to put people’ they were revolutionizing society!
(213) One of my good friends who was part of the original group of brothers called me up at work last night. He asked if I could help him with some money [around $60.00] I told him no problem. I will be getting with him in a few hours when I get off of work. It’s around 4 am, this is one of those days where I woke up at 12:30 am and couldn’t sleep! I was thinking about the reality of this friend [and others] who see themselves ‘connected’ to us in ministry. Even though we don’t have ‘connections’ in the way you would be a ‘member of a church’. If you think about it, I have probably given away thousands of dollars over the years to friends. Feeding guys, doing charity and just helping with bills. I do not see this as ‘paying staff’ but these brothers are faithful communicators of the vision the Lord has given us. No matter how many churches or Pastors they have encountered in the journey, they see themselves as loyal to ‘us’. I find this interesting as to the fact that we really don’t care if people are loyal to us! Our attitude has been ‘if you got blessed thru us in the past, then go bless others’ this mindset that exists in today’s form of ‘local church’ is a type of dysfunctional insecurity. Many good Pastors try to develop criteria to ensure the loyalty of people. We read the book of Acts and try to come up with ‘rules for the church’ that would cause people to be ‘faithful to the vision of this house’. Many times the leaders are well meaning, but this type of trying to teach ‘commitment’ is really not a function in the New Testament churches. They were ‘loyal’ to the gospel and to Jesus. They were to ‘obey’ those over them in the Lord as it pertained to these basic truths. You don’t find Paul setting up ‘systems’ of loyalty that you see today. When you truly reach people for Christ and give your self away, they will be loyal like a son to a father. There will be no need to ‘check up’ on whether they have been faithful to the church and stuff like that.
(214) Let me throw some practical functional stuff in here. Over the years of studying and reading books on the cell/house church movement and Apostolic movements I see the way we are all growing in our understanding as God changes the ‘wineskin’. It was common to transition from ‘seeing’ the church building as ‘the church’ to seeing the ‘house/home group’ as the church. Some brothers simply replaced one structure with another. The true New Testament paradigm was ‘seeing’ the community of people as ‘the church’. Now, I do believe it is more practical to utilize the homes of believers as primary meeting places. If you’re a ‘volunteer’ army of people, you are not trying to raise money for the building and stuff. So practically you use the resources of the ‘soldiers’ being recruited. It’s just that the ‘soldiers’ themselves are the functioning unit that the commander is living in! I know these are not new concepts; it’s just that I feel the people we relate to need to keep this in mind. I do encourage all of our blog readers/radio listeners to sponsor a home group as God directs. Just keep in mind that this is only one aspect of ‘church’ expression. The ‘home group meeting’ is not the church, you are!
(223) Let me use the above example to show you a few things. As I was talking to this ministry leader we did have a fairly good fellowship. During this day of fellowship I shared many of the thoughts on the church as community versus ‘a church building’. He seemed a ‘little’ familiar with this. He said ‘O I know people who believe that way’. Which showed me the Lord has tried to show him this before! He had difficulty grasping many of the concepts, though they were true! It was later on where he got offended and actually yelled at me. He basically said to me ‘your wrong!’ I nicely told him, well I understand you think I am wrong, but I believe I am right. [I know it’s hard to believe I was calm during this exchange, but I was]. It shows how his later frustration of not being able to raise money for ‘the ministry center’ and things of this nature were an outgrowth of seeing ministry as ‘this thing I need to raise money for so I can run it’. If this person learned the lesson of not seeing it in this limited way, he would not have been so frustrated. It’s like the answer wasn’t ‘a transference of wealth’ in as much as a ‘change of thought’. He needed to see the new ‘wineskin/paradigm’ that God is trying to bring forth. These truths are being seen and practiced on a worldwide basis as I write this! Wolfgang Simpson says ‘God is not trying to start lecture halls across the world’ This seems to be the current understanding of ‘planting churches’. We seem to think ‘setting up buildings where people come and listen to bible words being spoken’ is the local church! We really need to be delivered from this mindset!
(242) Let me share something, a few months back I took a ride to one of the fishing piers where I live. Brought the paper, tuned in to the radio. I was able to pick up a San Antonio church that I like [Eagles Nest/ Rick Godwin]. Some of the things from the message kind of stirred me up [got me a little angry]. I shared this earlier on this blog. A few weeks later some of the things I wrote about it on the blog became widely available to the entire city of San Antonio on a huge scale. At the time of writing the entry I had no desire or inclination of reaching so many people with the blog, it just happened. It was like the ‘prophetic Spirit’ rises up at set times to speak into the church, if you are faithful to a few [small area] God will then launch you to a lot [large area]. At the time of me responding to what I heard from San Antonio, I wasn’t mad at Rick. I was angry at the limited perspective of church that he was embracing in the sermon. Nothing personal, just God wants change. Don’t look for a national voice; be faithful in the small things. If God desires he will promote you, don’t do it yourself!
(243) Now a little overview. The idea of ‘church’ as the place where we ‘put all the believers’. I mentioned how in the New Testament, no matter how many people were coming to the Lord, the Apostles never thought along these lines. ‘O my God, all Galatia is turning to Christ, where will we put them all?’ NOWHERE! I am thinking of the verse ‘THE SEED IS YET IN THE BARN’ Gods people are the seed. We are always trying to build bigger barns to ‘put them in’. We need to understand it is not the responsibility of leadership to ‘find places to put all the people’ it is the responsibility of leadership to FIND A PLACE TO ‘PUT GOD’ [that is to win people to Christ and these people become the HABITATION OF GOD]
(256) BRINGING MANY SONS UNTO GLORY The intent of the ministry of Jesus is to bring many sons to a place of interdependence and maturity. The language Jesus uses in the gospel of John is striking. He tells the disciples ‘I don’t call you servants, but friends, brothers’ ‘you have come to me, but now you can go directly to the Father yourself and ask him’. The present development of the role of Pastor has been understood to not be the ideal in Christian community. It is becoming common knowledge among a broad base of believers that the role of Pastor, as the singular voice of the congregation who is looked at as the hired minister, is not found in the New Testament. Does this mean we are all in rebellion? No. Does this mean that all churches must now close and start from scratch? No. But it does mean that as fellow believers we begin to maturely address these issues of form and function as God directs. The fact that the word ‘Pastor’ is found one time in the New Testament [Ephesians] but yet other words are found a lot [Apostle, Elder, Brethren, etc.] shows us that somewhere along the line we introduced a role that wasn’t the original intent of God. We have a tendency to take biblical words and attach our own definitions to them [Bishop, Pastor, etc.] As we see the progression of language in the New Testament itself, we begin to grasp the heart of God. John’s letters are some of the latest written in the New Testament. In John’s epistles you find the language of children and brothers more than elders and Leaders. This showing that as the early church matured she moved away from authoritarian titles, and moved closer to family terms. In Gods desire to ‘bring many sons unto glory’ there is a necessity of top-heavy leadership models to come down. Jesus washing the disciple’s feet and images like this. Blatantly telling the disciples that in the world leadership is based on being in charge, but in the church it is based on not being in charge. Being a servant who grasps the admonition of John the Baptist HE MUST INCREASE AND I MUST DECREASE. As the church progresses down this path the natural result will be for the ‘many sons to come to maturity’. I am sure it felt strange for Jesus to tell the disciples ‘you came to me before, but now you go to the Father yourself’. This is a true act of biblical leadership. People in the beginning depend on leaders a lot; it is incumbent on Godly leadership to let them come directly to the Father.
(272) I forgot to mention that during the restoration of the walls and the Temple, Nehemiah was a type of an Apostle. He had great organizational wisdom The Prophets Haggai and Zechariah prophesied strength into the hands of the builders. This is a great picture of all the 5-fold working together to build the ‘City of God’. The book of Acts says ‘the heavens must hold Jesus until the times of the restoration of all things spoken by the Prophets’. The job of Prophets is to speak the word of the Lord. There were many ‘prophets’ who prophesied ‘out of their own imaginations’ scripture says some were ‘making up dreams’ I basically have showed you guys some ‘made up dreams’ and prophecies that were along these lines. God will allow many who have done this to repent and get on with the program. Gods restorative potential is so glorious that he will even take a false prophet and use him again [Jim Bakker].
(281) Lets jump out of character a little. During a discussion I had with a ministry leader in our City, I shared the function of the church at Corinth and showed him how during their gatherings they all shared and functioned. I showed him this to explain that I felt the Lord is changing the practice of church from an environment of people who come and listen to a Pastor preach, to an environment of all Gods people sharing together. This doesn’t mean there will never be an instructional time where a Pastor or Apostle or another gifted person can share or preach a sermon, but it shows that the original intent of God for the church was one of interactive involvement of all it’s members. My ministry friend disagreed and said that Paul was just dealing with the ‘home group’ here, and the ‘regular church’ was another thing/place. The mistake my friend made was ‘seeing’ scripture thru the paradigm of church as we practice it today. He sincerely took scripture that addressed the ‘church at Corinth’ [all the believers at Corinth] and read his own mindset into it. The scriptures in Corinthians that deal with how the believers were meeting IS THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. There was not ‘the home groups’ and ‘the main sanctuary meetings’ now if your church has this distinction, fine! The point I was making to my friend was Paul was addressing THE CHURCH when he gave them instructions on how to meet practically. When believers meet anywhere and share the love of Christ and mutually build each other up, that is church in its most simple form. To read Corinthians and ‘see’ another sanctuary service ‘down the road’ is a good example of how we read scripture thru the ‘lens’ of our own understanding. Let me also say it’s a common mistake among modern cell church movements to read the meetings of the Church at Jerusalem at the Temple [actually they ‘held’ services in Solomon’s Porch, which was an outside courtyard!] and to read into this that the early Christians had ‘sanctuary’ services and ‘home meetings’. This isn’t so. The only Christians that had ‘temple’ services were those at Jerusalem. All the gentile churches [Ephesians, Corinth, etc.] met in homes. This is a fact that doesn’t change. Does this mean all gentiles must only meet in homes? No. I am just showing you there was no pattern of ‘temple’ and ‘home’ groups. Also some advocates of radical reform see Paul’s warning to the Ephesian elders in the book of acts as a warning against the modern clergy system. Paul told the Ephesus church that AFTER MY DEPARTURE, WOLVES WILL RISE UP FROM AMONG YOU [from the believers] and will draw away disciples after themselves. Some see the rise of the ‘singular Pastor’ as a fulfillment of this scripture [I don’t necessarily hold to this view, but I do see some credence to this speaking of the strong personality worship that exists in the church today] Others also use 3rd John and the example of Diotrophes as one who ‘loved to have the preeminence’ and would not receive the brothers. Some see in these examples a strong warning from the early Apostles to avoid strong singular authorities who are looked to as the authority of a local church. I do believe there is some truth to these insights. My goal today is to simply challenge your present understanding of ‘going to church on Sunday’ to seeing yourself as the actual ‘temple of God’ that moves and interacts in the world around them. God brought his presence out of a Temple made with hands and put it in his people, we must not lose sight of this great reality! NOTE: In the book of revelation it says the ‘City of God’ is ‘as a bride adorned for her husband’. We also know that the New Testament calls us ‘the New Jerusalem, the Zion of God’ basically John is writing prophetic imagery in Revelation. It also says ‘there was no temple in it, God himself and the Lamb are the temple’ [we dwell in God] but it also says the Lamb is the light of the City. The only logical way to fit all these images without contradicting is to see the City/Temple being the Church of the living God. As the ‘body of Christ’ we are a real extension of ‘the Lamb’ so the Lamb can be the City, the Temple or the Light of the Temple. Jesus is the light of the Church, he illuminates us by the Spirit. It’s important to grasp this major change of thought from the earthly Jewish Temple, to the heavenly spiritual one. If you don’t rightly see this you will not interpret scripture properly! [By the way I do believe in a literal heaven!] NOTE: A common mistake amongst Apostolic ministries is thinking that it is a biblical mandate to have ‘a spiritual Father’ [and Mother]. I was reading from an apostles site and it gave some testimonies from Pastors Who said the reason they now have a spiritual Father and Mother [speaking of the Apostle and his wife] was because the bible teaches we have natural ones, therefore we should have spiritual ones. The ‘spiritual’ father is God and the mother is the ‘church’ according to Paul. He says ‘THE NEW JERUSALEM IS THE MOTHER OF US ALL’. Paul does tell the Corinthians that he is their spiritual father. But he is basically saying ‘I birthed you guys into the Kingdom; you are the fruit of my Apostolic ministry. Listen to me for correction, not all these others who are trying to bring you under their authority’. Paul was not advocating for people to go out and find Apostles and make them and their wives their ‘spiritual father and mother’.
(286) When God wants to do a reform/revolution he does it at many levels at the same time. The difficult thing for the reformer[s] is you get those ‘being challenged’ all mad at you at one time! It does take ‘guts’ to be a pioneer. One time when Jesus was rebuking one group, the other group said ‘don’t you know you are offending us too’ [Pharisees and Lawyers] Jesus said he didn’t care. Let them get offended. Every plant that the Father didn’t plant will be uprooted. It’s funny because we have a lot of Apostles/Prophets upset with us. Though we all believe and function in these gifts together. Then we have the whole crowd of old time churches who simply think we are heretics because we believe in Apostles! It can be funny at times [or if you don’t have boldness you could describe it like the Governor of California says ‘girly men’ it wont be ‘funny’ you will be scared! I would attempt to spell Arnolds name but I don’t have time to spell it right!] So lets do a little ‘reforming’. Recently those who are feeling challenged in the whole area of ‘going to church’ have resorted to the classic verses to defend ‘going to church’ FORSAKE NOT THE GATHERING OF OURSELVES TOGETHER AS SOME. HE THAT SEPARATES HIMSELF SEEKS HIS OWN DESIRE lets put some context. Those in the radical ‘out of the church building on Sunday’ movement for the most part practice the ‘assembling of themselves together’ in a more scriptural way than ‘Sunday church’. Also Paul wrote this to the Hebrews, the Jews had a custom of meeting on Sabbath; Paul is simply saying when you transition into this New Covenant keep getting together! You are forsaking old sacrificial ways and law, but keep assembling. This is also why you find the ‘congregation’ and assembly mentioned in James. The Jewish context of those being addressed required them to deal with ‘assembling’ because they already ‘assembled’ as Jews. Also to use these verses to ‘push back’ against the Body of Christ finding freedom and maturity is simply a result of Pastors responding to reform out of insecurity. You can ‘go to church every Sunday for the rest of your life’ and still be ‘separating yourself’ from the purpose of God. When old time preachers do this kind of defense, I know they are sincere, but we must be willing to change!
(308) Just remembered something that I wanted to share. I heard a brother speaking on Revelation. One of the rebukes to the 7 churches is they held to the ‘doctrine of the Nicolatians’. There have been different ideas about who they were. Most commentators agree that it speaks of ‘those who would rise above the saints’ or the rise of both early ecclesiastical offices [Bishop, Priests, etc] as well as later protestant titles [Pastor]. Some feel that the unscriptural foundation for the way these offices function are what this ‘doctrine of the Nicolatians’ is about. You can interpret many of the passages that deal with authority in either ‘family’ terms or ‘authoritarian’ terms. A famous, well respected evangelical scholar [reformed] actually did a whole book on the King James translation and how they chose to interpret many of the words in authoritarian language as opposed to family language. OBEY THOSE WHO HAVE THE RULE OVER YOU and other scriptures that could have said FOLLOW THE GUIDANCE OF SPIRITUAL ELDERS IN YOUR MIDST. Some feel the reason the most popular version today [King James] opted for this way of translating was for political necessity. The Church of England chose to use this terminology to reinforce the mindset of ‘submission to authority’ that is the authority of England and it’s ‘church’ as they were blatantly moving out from under the ‘authority’ of Rome. Sort of ‘you can have your cake and eat it too’ type deal. The historical background to the political motivation of this is no secret. I usually don’t approach it from this angle because it challenges the strong ‘King James only’ crowd a little too much. I believe exposing the simple fact of the New Testament not showing the modern role of ‘Pastor’ as we practice it today is enough to cause us to ‘re think’ the ‘ruling’ offices in the church. I do believe the Lord has Elders/leaders that function in the Body of Christ, but I also see truth to the fact that many modern offices have been ‘developed’ outside of the original intent of the Spirit of God.
(314) CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP DOES NOT EXIST FOR THE PURPOSE OF SELF ADVANCEMENT AND UPWARD MOBLITY AT THE EXPENSE OF THE ‘LAITY’ we need to re think our function in this area. Paul and Jesus were not going around promoting what God was doing thru them, nor were they recruiting ‘financial partners’ to simply experience the Kingdom vicariously thru the gifted leader. They were depositing into the people and releasing them to function on their own. You find Paul and Jesus receiving financial support to send them and help them in their traveling ministry, but today’s mindset of the Leader being ‘sent’ all over the world while the saints sit back and wait to hear all the stories was not the normal mode. Paul did share what God was doing, don’t get me wrong. But today’s mindset sees the people as promoters of the leaders lifestyle and gift. This is why you have well meaning Ministry leaders who live in multi million dollar homes while the average supporter of the ministry lives in a $100,ooo dollar one [or rents an apartment]. It’s OK to live in a million dollar home, but it’s hard to appeal to supporters who are on fixed income, and to ask them to give out of their lack while doing this. The leaders have simply become victims of the western mindset of ministry that pools 90 % of the funds from the average person. While many of the leaders do use the majority of the funds for good things [Christian TV] they seem to justify a lifestyle of wealth and happiness at the expense of the sacrificial giver by their reading of the prosperity scriptures. ‘If God wants me to have wealth, then it’s OK’. They truly don’t see the rebukes in scripture to the ‘shepherds’ who have become wealthy at the expense of the sheep. Being wealthy is OK, you are not allowed to do it from the overall aggregate giving of many average income people. Scripture does forbid this in many places. NOTE: If the leaders salary is equal to those who are sending in support then it’s OK. If the leader is more frugal, a better investor and manages thru time to buy a million dollar home then that’s fine. I am speaking of those who run large ministries and their ‘salary’ including all the perks is in the millions. They often have their family members on the payroll at large salaries [500 thousand] while they really don’t do that much. These leaders look at the average CEO of a large company who makes millions more and justifies it this way. The reason you shouldn’t do this is because the non-profit ministry is really not ‘producing a product’ or commodity. The way they are bringing in millions [or billions] is thru outright giving. This is different than a for profit business. So the way to measure salary shouldn’t be thru the abusive CEO pay, but thru what I just showed you. Paul was reaching the entire known world of his day, pretty much single handedly. He found himself making tents at times to support himself. He traveled like the average person and lived in a lifestyle commensurate with those he was reaching. Jesus also. This is why you read Peter saying ‘desire to be an elder, not for filthy lucre’s sake, but of a ready mind’. This is why it is so important for us to have a good understanding of scripture. A friend of mine was attending a local word of faith church. And right from the start the preacher was confessing ‘you wait and see, my faith is going to produce a Cadillac by the end of this year’. Well this brother means well, he just doesn’t see all the things I just showed you. And when you try to correct this stuff, they will not listen! NOTE: What bugs the ‘hell’ out of me is the inability for prophetic people to see this. It’s like when you try to show a ‘prophet’ something he dismisses all the verses and warnings about this because he knows the other verses on prosperity. Heck [Ill’ be nice] I know them too!
(380) ‘Truth trumps authority’ [or actually ‘truth and authority co exist’] Many years ago when I attended a Fundamental Baptist Church they viewed the ‘Assembly of God’ church down the block as a cult. They had speakers come in and give revivals and they would say that the ‘tongues talkers’ are a cult. They would give examples of people who were speaking in tongues and some one who knew the language actually said they were cursing God [by the way this is possible. There very well might have been a ‘demonic’ infiltration like this. There are incidents of possession that have had a type of demonic thing like this happen. The problem is you can’t paint all ‘tongues speaking’ with this brush. Many ‘tongues speaking’ people are the ones who brought these things out] the point is when I eventually left this church, they were a little ‘cultic’ in their mindset. They challenged leaving their group. But when the Pastor [a really good man who I respect today!] saw that I was going to leave to start a church, he also knew I couldn’t go along with the ‘anti charismatic’ stuff anymore. He then appealed to ‘authority structures’ to challenge my decision. He basically said ‘well if you are leaving to become a preacher, and you think the charismatics are OK, then even they agree with us that you must follow the guidelines of bible school and ordination and all these things. You cant just go and preach!’ I found this interesting, though they viewed the ‘assembly of God’ as a cult, they then resorted to the mutual agreement that they all had that said ‘how dare you try to function outside of the standard norms of authority’. They all saw authority as a process you go thru to gain legitimacy. The simple act of being equipped with truth and declaring that truth [The Gospel] wasn’t really sufficient, unless you ‘jumped thru the hoops’. In scripture you do find ‘lines of authority’ biblical mandates to ‘obey those who care for you’ and things like this. Paul himself taught stuff like this. Paul also challenged the ‘normal lines of authority’. Paul became an Apostle after the original 12. The early church had a hard time with accepting his authority. The Jerusalem leadership actually had the mindset of ‘we were in this before you. You don’t have the legitimacy to preach this gospel to gentiles. You have gone ‘outside’ of the accepted norms to be ‘ordained’ and recognized as one who has authority.’ You read this in Acts chapter 15 as well as Galatians chapter 1. Paul eventually says ‘I don’t care who these guys think they are. It doesn’t matter to me. I am sent to preach the gospel, and if their ‘authority structures’ have been by passed, then the ‘authority of truth’ trumps them’. This is the same reformation spirit you see in Luther in the 16th century. Basically we all have times of growth and development where we learn to respect Elders and those whom God has been using. They have truly earned biblical respect. It’s when these guidelines of authority and leadership try to ‘trump’ truth that truth trumps the ‘structures’ [both the protestant reformation going over ‘Rome’s’ head, as well as what Paul did in the 1st century]. Paul will actually rebuke Peter face to face in the whole area of Gentile acceptance by faith. The fact that Paul was right in doctrine, made him right in authority. The challenge from the Fundamental Pastor sounded good, but it was fundamentally flawed. He basically tried to say ‘even if we view the other church as a cult, we all agree that you cant preach/ start a church without going thru the accepted structural procedures’. Basically if you are called of God and are walking in truth you have authority. If you ‘depart’ from truth along the way, you lose authority. Though Gods giftings and callings are permanent, when you step out of truth you are ‘temporarily’ setting aside your authority. I feel this is important for those who feel like they have really learned truth from us this past year. Don’t stay faithful to systems of thought and belief that are operating on the ‘fringes of truth’. You have the right to walk away from that stuff. Keep loving the people, they are good people [Jerusalem church] but you have a mandate from God, walk in it!
(384) ‘You have been faithful over a little, I will now give you authority over 10 cities’ Jesus says this to the disciples. Sometimes in our minds we picture the Apostles as ‘city managers’ over future cities. Remember in Jesus teaching ‘authority’ was not ‘being over people’. We know Jesus taught stuff like this, yet we read him saying stuff about authority and we see it as ‘being in charge’. How did the apostles ‘have authority over cities’? By bringing the gospel to these regions and the people who believed became their ‘spiritual children’. Paul told the Corinthians that he had apostolic authority ‘over’ them because he birthed them thru the gospel. Being ‘faithful’ over a little. What’s this? Many of you who have made it this far on this blog have read things that you personally knew to be true before you heard me say it. Yet until you heard me say it you never really were able to truly make the break. It’s like we go thru a process of hearing and seeing before we are ‘faithful’ to what God said. Some of the things I have shown you guys are obvious mistakes that even a child could see was wrong. Yet the peer pressure of being in an environment where others hold to certain things, though obviously wrong, is hard to break. Once you learn to ‘be faithful in the little areas of hearing and obeying’ then God allows you to ‘have authority’ over 10 cities. That is he gives you influence in his Kingdom for his purpose. Many times we seek to have a voice/forum in the Kingdom. We do things to ‘make our voice heard’ but God is primarily looking for people who will speak truth when they see it. Learn to be faithful to the things God is plainly showing you, then he will ‘put your feet in a large place’ [of influence]. NOTE: In my own life I have gone thru stages where the Lord will ‘increase my area’ of influence from the present one to ‘another place’. When these events happen I can tell before hand. It’s sort of like the excitement from the present region ‘wanes’ a feeling of ‘this present parameter is too small, don’t despise the ‘days of small things’ but I am bringing you to a larger place’. When this happens with me it’s like a feeling of ‘the people we are presently reaching are still valuable, but you are moving to another place. That which I have done thru you and for you are ‘seeds’ that will continue to bear fruit long after you’re gone. You have been faithful over ‘this little area’ and now move on’. Even if the ‘area’ seemed big a few years ago, when I sense this type of transition, it seems ‘small’. I also make it a conscious point to NOT DESPISE or think condescending towards the previous ‘land marks’. I feel this in itself enables me to gain authority in a larger region. Also the amount of ‘pain’ associated with the larger area of influence [for as MANY as were astonished at thee, so shall you touch MANY nations] keeps you from lusting after the influence. Scripture says Jesus ‘despised the shame’ associated with the Cross [Hebrews] but endured it realizing that the ‘regional impact’ would be directly related to his suffering. The MANY who were astonished equals the MANY who you will have influence with! Also in Isaiah it says the children that you will have, after you have lost the other will say to you ‘this place is too small for me’ and you will respond ‘who birthed all these children, I was in captivity, I was going back and forth, I was suffering. How in the world did I gain such a following?’ It’s almost like the fact of the extreme difficulty was actually producing the children/converts. This is an amazing thing that you will see thru out scripture. ‘More are the children of the desolate, than of the married wife’. Look at the covenant women in scripture, they are for the most part barren [forsaken] and yet give birth to these tremendous prophetic people [Samuels mother, John the Baptist, Sara].
(392) I spoke a while back on the Pastor friend that used to attend the church I Pastored years ago. Let me share a few things from this experience that serve to illustrate a point. One time this friend was struggling financially [actually all the time] I used to advise him to get a job until he felt like ‘the ministry’ would support him. He seemed to fall into the mistake that sees ‘ministry’ as a trade, and therefore getting a job would be wrong. He would get offended when I told him stuff like this. One time he had put some pens he had made with scripture on them into the offering. He later told me he had no money to give, but by putting the pen in, with scripture on it, he was ‘exalting’ the Word and God would see this ‘seed’ he planted and give him a return. All of this was symptomatic of the way the Word of faith movement would approach scripture. In this case my friend was violating all the verses that speak of being diligent, working and stuff like this. He then felt ‘honoring the Word’ was doing what he did. Many in this movement teach that to be a ‘doer of the Word’ means to ‘speak the Word’. Speaking the Word is a good thing, but being a ‘doer’ is contrasted with being a ‘hearer/speaker’. This actual teaching comes from the book of James and James is saying ‘don’t be a hearer only, but be a doer’. ‘doing’ in this context is not ‘speaking’ it is ‘doing’. James says if someone comes to your door and is in need and you say [confess] ‘be warmed and filled’ but you don’t actually meet the need, then you are only a ‘confessor’ and not a ‘doer’. It’s another one of those strange interpretations where these brothers found a way to teach that ‘doing the word’ means ‘saying the word’ even though ‘saying the word’ is what is being contrasted with ‘doing the word’. Jesus did say ‘say unto this mountain’ and the Word of God teaches the principles of confession and speaking truth, the problem is these things are simply tools to help us along the road. They are not to become the road! To simply learn and put into effect all the biblical ‘techniques’ and watch them work does not mean you are in the will of God. Many people have excelled in finances thru the use of biblical principles. Some of them were called to other things and instead chose to become wealthy. They might have even attained the wealth thru ‘diligence’ [a biblical principal] but if that truly was not Gods purpose for them, they failed. I find the focus on techniques and ‘windfall’ inheritances less than profitable. Many who hold to the ideas that my friend held to will see the truth of God giving the ‘wealth of the heathen/Egyptians into the hands of Israel’ and will use this to justify a lazy lifestyle. The above friend believed that God was going to ‘give him the wealth of the heathen’. Does scripture say the ‘wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous’ you bet! But it continues to say ‘and God will give it into the hands of those who are upright in his sight’. Is being lazy upright? Is sitting around spending your life waiting for some windfall upright? God gave the children of Israel the wealth of Egypt because the children of Israel labored for years as slaves, they were not being compensated justly for their work. They got paid for their work by leaving Egypt with their wealth. God did not give an inheritance to his people who weren’t working! Well the point today is don’t use scripture as a ‘technique book’ that if you master you will get more than the next guy. Scripture is a book that brings us the truth of the gospel. We enter into covenant with God thru this gospel. We become ‘debtors’ to this great God and Father. We seek to serve him all our days. We are not looking for schemes to ‘get rich quick’. NOTE: In Jesus teaching he says ‘why do people confess me as Lord, but do not do what I say’ ‘many people will come to me and say ‘Lord, Lord’ and I will say ‘I never knew you’. I am not saying these brothers are not Christians, they are. I just want you to see that Jesus really put the emphasis on ‘doing the works’ more so than on ‘what you say’. The ‘saying of things’ is a part of it. But this is not the ‘heart of the matter’.
(400) ‘Its not the perpetuation of our personas that we are looking for, it’s the impartation of the gift, in order to bring to maturity the Body of Christ’. A crucial aspect of this is the season of recognizing that you have effectively planted the seed. Then to purposefully withdraw your image and ‘preoccupation’ that people will have towards your gift, and to allow Christ to increase as you decrease HE MUST INCREASE, AND I MUST DECREASE [John the Baptist speaking of Christ]. As Jesus ‘increases’ into maturity thru the Church becoming more self sufficient, we must decrease in proportion. If we don’t properly make this adjustment then the people of God will never fully develop. This means ‘Christ didn’t increase’ [as being fully formed thru his people] as a direct result of our not ‘decreasing’. NOTE; There are many modern scenarios where the Pastor is totally frustrated with the inability of his people to grow. They fall into a ‘trap’ where they see this year after year and this develops a ‘dysfunctional family’ where the well-meaning Pastor begins to berate the ‘children’ for never rightfully transitioning into adulthood. The saints ‘come to church’ and the ‘Pastor’ basically yells at them for not growing. They don’t seem to see that the reason they are not growing is because the system depends on them to stay the same. The system [modern church] needs them to be faithful tithers in order to fund the system. Before there can ever be any real change, there has to come a paradigm shift of what ‘being the church’ really means.
(401) One of the hindrances to the development of the Body of Christ is the present mindset of ministry. Most good men who feel God has called them into service usually wind up in a scenario where the main thrust of their life is preparing messages to preach on Sunday. All good men, I too have been there. There are many prophetic people who have had the same types of experiences that you have read on this site. Many leaders who have seen greater things than me. Why aren’t you as familiar with these brothers as me? Why aren’t you growing thru their gift as was intended? For the most part it’s because the average Pastor is consumed with the functioning of his ‘church’ [Christian business]. He sees his responsibility as primarily servicing the people. Marrying, burying, getting the message ready. Stuff like this. Nothing really wrong about it, its just too much time is spent with these things and he never sees himself primarily as a vision implanter into people. Now some Pastors have written books and have done some long term planting. But for the most part the average Christian Pastor falls into this role of ‘full time minister’ that is to be found nowhere in the New Testament! Think long term my friends. If God is revealing things to you, write them down. Give time and attention to the specific areas of revelation that he has shown you. You don’t have to come up with something new to preach every week. Just allow the Spirit of God to use you to shape people into what God has for them. Try to break out of the mold of the modern Pastor who for the most part spends his entire life speaking to the ‘laity’, while spending 1% of his life hearing them. This is not a biblical model! Well that’s all for now, felt this word was for someone [I have no one in specific in mind]. NOTE: As this blog becomes known, I kinda sense the feeling from some Pastors who ‘hear’ about us thru their ‘parishioners’ that they feel ‘we have a web site too’. Sort of in a defensive way. ‘Why don’t you go to our site? I don’t get into this type of competition stuff; I want all people to go to all web sites and every other thing the Lord is using in the church. The reason why some of these ‘church web sites’ are not as popular is because many of them are geared to either promote a book [I am thinking of an out of town site] or to invite people to ‘church’. People are hurting and starving for real truth. See your web site as a radical means to get the message out. If all you are doing is advertising for church meetings, people are looking for more. This might be the reason that some Pastors are wondering why their sites aren’t as popular as they want.
(407) Been studying an apostolic movement. I am familiar with this church. They have a few of them in our area. A lot of stuff on line says they are a cult. They really are not one in doctrine. The leader of the movement has a legalistic background from an old time Pentecostal church [four square] and it seems to me that the movement, though Christian, has embraced a lot of the mistakes from the ‘Shepherding/Discipling’ movement. I am not studying what the so called ‘cult researchers’ are saying about them. I am reading from their actual story on line. It really is a great story. One of the limitations of these movements are the limited way they see ‘church’. For the most part these groups see church as sending someone to a city, either renting, buying or building a building [too many of us still cant get past this building centric mindset- none of the disciples or New Testament Apostles EVER did this!] They then set up ‘a Pastor’ to ‘run’ this ‘New Testament Church’. And then the strong authoritarian types will basically teach a strong doctrine of submission to this ‘New Testament order’ and anyone who questions this very limited/unbiblical view of ‘Local Church’ is ‘out of order’ and seen to be ‘departing from the faith’. We need to get back to the biblical model of Jesus and the Apostles. Jesus sent them out ‘2 by 2’ to go and bring this message [the gospel] to the cities and towns where they were sent. Later you see Paul doing this same thing. The ‘planting of churches’ was the actual speaking the gospel to people groups. Those who would believe and get baptized became ‘the church’. These believers were encouraged to get together, have fellowship meals [the original pattern of the ‘Lords Supper’] and to basically be ‘Gods Ecclesia’ in their town. They were seen to be Gods ‘dwelling place’. There was no ‘church’ that they were going to on ‘Sunday’. Paul told the Corinthians that when they got together on the 1st day of the week they were to take up an offering. We take stuff like this and turn it into a commandment. We teach Sunday as some type of New Testament Sabbath [it is not!] and we say ‘go to church on Sunday, obey your Pastor [singular] and put in a tithe’. This is permitted to a degree, but in no way is this some type of mandated New Testament order. That’s why those Pastors who lean towards grace and liberality are seeing growth. They are operating in this system while not teaching that this system ‘is church’ to the same legalistic degree as the other guys. Now when you take this limited way of seeing church, and you put it into the hands of strong authoritarian types. Then you have the ingredients of a ‘cult like’ culture within the group. You find well-meaning Pastors telling Christians ‘how dare you challenge my biblical authority, you are under me’ well this is an abuse of the grace of God. These well meaning guys have taken a pattern of ‘church’ that is common for our day, and have turned it into THE MEASURE of a person’s faith. Any question from the parishioners is seen as rebelling against ‘Gods Man’. Well just remember Paul was not teaching this strong Sunday church, tithing to the church, obey your Pastor mindset. Paul actually teaches [Romans] that the weaker Christians [in faith] will observe certain days and foods and stuff as clean or unclean. He then teaches those who are stronger [more mature] in the faith don’t do this. So for believers to meet on Sunday and to give offerings and to share in Gods grace is a good thing. But to teach that a limited system where you are under ‘a Pastor’ for the rest of your life can become ‘cult like’ in its expression, especially if you have a legalistic background to begin with. [The movement I am studying is known as ‘the door’ or the ‘Potters House’, not to be confused with T.D. Jakes]. NOTE: A few things that I want you to see about the biblical mindset of every believer having the potential to go and evangelize the world. When a believer goes forth with the gospel and brings the good news of Gods forgiveness and acceptance thru Christ. Others want this. To simply see ‘church planting’ as a natural outgrowth of evangelism allows for there to be a rapid increase of the gospel thru out a region. Everybody can ‘pass it on’ to everyone else. You are not viewing ‘church planting’ as going somewhere to start an organization that will need lots of money to function; you are simply preaching the gospel. Those who believe get together, there will be elders [more mature ones] that will have special ability to ground these new believers. But for the most part the only ‘finances’ needed to do this is enough money to get you to the place of ‘sending’. You then teach these new believers to share of their resources with the less fortunate. This is actually the biblical model of church planting. This is why Paul could evangelize large territories in his day. The modern idea sees the need to raise tons of money to support ‘other pros’ who are doing it for a living [missionaries]. They see church planting/evangelism as the ‘job’ of those in ‘full time ministry’. The average believer is told ‘your primary responsibility is to work in the secular world and bring in the finances for the ‘church’ [Christian business] to have enough money to pay the pros’. We have effectively ‘de clawed’ the average believer from the divine mandate to go and preach the gospel to all nations. That’s why when the well intentioned Pastors get mad at me for preaching against tithing, they really can not see how the ‘law of the tithe’ has actually put people back under bondage. The average believer is under the bondage of seeing himself as the ‘resource pool’ that brings the money in for others to do the ‘ministry’. This is actually a form of legalism that puts believers under bondage. Every so often you get a radical believer who breaks the mold of simply being a ‘funder’ and then he goes off and enters ‘full time ministry’. He is then taught all the above and the cycle repeats! The Pastor feels like he is doing right because he now is so fulfilled [it cant be wrong if it feels so right]. But he doesn’t realize the fulfillment he is experiencing is to a large degree the sense of well being that God intended for all the saints to experience as they express themselves and give themselves away for the gospel. In essence the Pastor had the courage to break the mold and step into the journey, but where we have failed is to then take that person and make him into a propagator of the current system. God wants a change in the current system. God wants all his kids to see that we all have this freedom to run the race and be active. It is not limited to the ‘full time clergy’! NOTE: When the well meaning Pastor in the current system looks at the statistics ‘only so many percent of all Christians tithe, therefore we are not reaching the world’ he is seeing ‘reaching the world’ from his limited paradigm. This type of Pastor truly believes it is the lack of tithing that is hindering the gospel. It is not the lack of tithing that is doing this, it is the above system that is limiting the gospel! NOTE; The other day I was trying to open some bag of lunchmeat or something. I remember how hard it was to get the bag open. So of course I thanked the Lord for this obstacle and praised him as I looked for a pair of scissors [I am lying]. I did think to myself ‘what a wonderful product. I am sure it will taste good. I am sure the producers went out of their way to produce the product. Much thought went into the marketing of it. They only forgot a very small thing, they made it next to impossible to actually access the thing!’ This is what we do in modern church. The most valuable asset are the People of God. They can do unbelievable things in the area of reaching the world. We have made it next to impossible to ‘get the product out of the package’.
(415) I want to talk a little about ‘Local Church’. As I am reading on movements who ‘plant’ Local Churches, it is reminding me of some things. First, nowhere in the New Testament is the command given to ‘go and plant New Testament churches’. Now I don’t want to be picky here. I want you to see why this is so. Protestantism has developed an understanding of ‘Local Church’ that is really unbiblical. I recently read about a movement that ‘sends out churches’ to cities as opposed to ‘sending out missionaries/evangelists’. They see the sending of a person to get a building and preach on Sunday and get the tithe and for people to be ‘faithful’ to the ‘local church’ as the right way to evangelize because ‘this is Gods plan’. Then another group says ‘we are a ‘local church’ with a worldwide vision’. The more extreme brothers will teach ‘you are not in right relationship with God until you submit to his plan, which is ‘the Local Church’. All these brothers mean well. They are just expressing views that are un biblical. The ‘local churches’ in scripture were all the believers living in a ‘locality’. In these ‘communities of believers’ there were gifted men who God placed there for the growth of ‘the local church’ [all the Christians]. Today’s idea of every city having 100 to 200 local churches, all with the office of ‘Pastor’ who is the authority over that specific group is no where to be found in scripture. Now all the brothers doing these things are not heretics [notice I said ‘not all’]. But when you take this limited view that sees ‘the local church’ as the separate organization that you start in your area. And then you teach a form of ‘being in submission’ as tithing to that thing, you are in essence usurping Gods authority that is being released thru a wide diversity of gifts in your area. God sees ‘the local church’ and its ‘members’ as those who are called out of the world unto Christ who reside ‘locally’. So you are ‘part of the local church/group of Christians in your area’ by virtue of the fact that you are all ‘partaking spiritually of the Body of Christ’. The outward sign of this is the Lords Supper. So for you to view your ‘membership’ with a particular group [among 100’s] and then to say ‘I am faithful to ‘my local church’ [the Sunday meeting I attend] and to not see the reality that all the believers in your area are ‘local church’ actually harms the church. Most Protestants do not realize how this limited view ‘colors’ the way they read scripture. In the book of Revelation you find the letters to the 7 churches. These ‘churches’ are once again all the believers living in different locals. God is speaking to the ‘Angels’ of these churches in this book. ‘To the Angel of the Church of so and so’ the word for angel is ‘messenger’. You have the majority of Protestants teaching these angels are the ‘Pastors’ of these ‘churches’. There was NEVER a Pastor over all the believers in these locations. Sardis, Ephesus, Thyatira, etc. When I do the radio ministry. It is not a ministry ‘to the radio’. When I speak into the cassette recorder, I am not ‘speaking to the recorder’. In scripture Angels are messengers. They receive and transmit the message from God. These ‘angels’ of these 7 churches were simply that! God is speaking to the ‘messengers’ and saying ‘if you don’t repent I will remove your candlestick’. These are not messages to Pastors over churches [see how your view colors this!] these are Gods words spoken to his ‘transmitters’ and therefore he is saying it ‘to the angels’ just like I preach ‘into the radio’. Now all of this is for the purpose to show you that God doesn’t send people or movements to go and ‘plant churches’ per se. He sends people to preach the gospel to people groups [Gods idea of ‘churches/ communities’]. These ‘groups’ of people who believe become the ‘local churches’ of the New Testament. When Paul writes to these ‘churches’ he is addressing ‘all the believers’ in the locality. If there were an ‘office’ of Pastor like we practice it today, there would be no way that these letters would not contain strong instructions and rebukes ‘for the Pastor’ [by name if they were singular authorities]. For the ‘churches’ in the book of Revelation to have had ‘Pastors’ over these entire regions, and for us to not know their names is unthinkable! All the major figures [Paul, Peter, John, etc] were well known leaders in the first century church. To have had ‘Pastors’ as the singular authorities of entire regions, and for them to have remained anonymous till this day would have been impossible! So in essence you are not going around setting up some type of organization that people need to submit to in order to be in ‘proper order’. Gods ‘proper order’ is to be ‘under Christ’. This does carry with it the humility to accept and receive the gifts that God has placed in our communities. The Pastors and Prophets and all the other gifts. These are gifts to the entire community to build the people up. When you have ‘church planters’ who are going around [with a good intent] teaching believers that they must ‘submit to the local church, because this is Gods program for reaching the world’ they are seeing ‘local church’ in a way that is really unbiblical. God is sending all of us out into the harvest field to preach the gospel. I don’t see all the ‘Sunday Local Churches’ as wrong or in rebellion. I see that overall we are all Gods kids who are doing our best to please God. When we deal in grace with each other God works. When we use limited forms of church to the degree of seeing those who don’t fully operate in that mindset as being in rebellion, then we are not truly building each other up in love. NOTE: One of the faults with these strong authoritarian church planting movements is they use verses like ‘follow me as I follow Christ’. They use this to push back against their critics who say they are too authoritarian. ‘Hey, Paul told people to follow him’. Yes he did ‘as I follow Christ’. How did Paul ‘follow Christ’ well he certainly wasn’t setting up ‘local churches’ with Pastors ‘over the people’! NOTE; The first 3 centuries of Christianity you didn’t have ‘church’ as the place you go to on Sunday for religious worship. This mindset developed over time. Our Catholic friends developed a way of doing church that saw the ‘priest’ as the ‘minister’ empowered by Christ’s grace to ‘oversee’ the Mass where the Eucharist becomes the means of grace whereby God ‘infuses’ grace into the souls of the faithful. Basically the Catholic ‘chapter’ for their belief is centered around John chapter 6 ‘unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood you have no life in you’. While I do not hold to the doctrine of ‘transubstantiation’ I do not see my Catholic brothers as wicked ‘devil worshippers’ for this. I see it more as an historic belief that did develop out of an ‘infancy stage’ of Christianity. Holding to Jesus words literally [which Luther himself held to in this area of disagreement with Zwingli, the Swiss reformer!] with a childlike belief that many Christians embraced. During the ‘reformation’ of the 16th century you had many doctrines questioned, but for the most part the Protestants simply changed the office of the priest with the office of ‘the Pastor’ as the ‘clergy person’ who will administer this ‘protestant office’. This ‘office’ does not exist in the New Testament! So today we are seeing the Lord move in an area of ‘reformation’ [a process, not a one time event] concerning ‘church form’. Something that really wasn’t adequately dealt with in the 16th century movement. So we move on to maturity as we accept the good things of the church Fathers [even the Catholic ones!] and we ‘move away’ from forms and styles that are not mandated in scripture. We should not be ‘anti Sunday church/Pastor’ as much as we should be ‘pro Body of Christ’. Wanting to see the people of God fully functional under the headship of Christ. NOTE: This causes us to deal in grace with our fellow Christians. I have heard Protestant preachers say ‘the Catholics teach for doctrine the commandments of men’ while all the while they are declaring a ‘form of local church’ as THE SINGULAR TOOL OF GOD TO CHANGE THE WORLD that is nowhere to be found in scripture! NOTE; ‘Enlarge the place of thy tent and LET THEM stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations’ I spoke on this verse from Isaiah a few entries back. The LET THEM speaks of releasing your spiritual offspring to continue the growth of the spiritual lineage that God permits us to ‘birth’ into the Kingdom. This ‘letting them’ is a voluntary act of leadership releasing people to continue the journey on their own with Jesus becoming their ‘Chief Pastor/Shepherd’. In today’s ‘Local Church’ environment we do not practice the ‘letting go’ part well. NOTE; I have taught the term Ecclesia in our books. Let me mention that the way we view ‘Local Church’ rides heavily on how you interpret this word. The word ‘ecclesia’ is the Greek word in the New Testament for ‘Church’. In the early centuries we see how the believers understood this to mean a ‘called out community of people’, not necessarily ‘those called to the building on Sunday’. Later Christians [and theologians] began to develop a type of ‘ecclesiology’ [church form] that fit into the limited mindset of Church being the place where Christians go on Sunday. While it is true that the word ‘Ecclesia’ can describe a ‘city council meeting’ or other types of public assemblies. The true intent behind the ‘called out people’ are those who have been called out of society [separated in the biblical sense] and have become citizens of another country/Kingdom. So to limit the ‘church’ to the actual place of meeting is really not scriptural. The term for church was simply the best word to use at the time. Words are limited. It takes the Spirit of God to truly convey the meaning of them. We do not contradict the words that are used in scripture to make up our own definitions [which is a common hobby today] but we allow the Spirit of God to reveal to us things that the ‘surface reading’ can’t fully show us. NOTE; You never had a scenario where Paul would address the ‘church of Corinth’ or another area and say ‘and to you who live in Corinth, but are actually members of the church at Ephesus, because you have chosen to have membership there’ You were part of the church at Corinth by virtue of the fact that you lived in Corinth and were a believer. You didn’t have the idea of joining a separate entity [group] like the ‘Elks’ lodge or something of this nature. We have developed a way of seeing church that seems to tell believers you must join a specific ‘church’ in your city, out of the 100’s of ‘churches’ that exist there. While it is fine to ‘go to a church on Sunday’ we must not see them as actual ‘local churches’ in and of themselves, this cause’s a division to the Body of Christ that is not seen in scripture.
(417) Being I just discussed healing, lets talk about the ‘baptism of the Spirit’. When attending a Baptist church they taught the Baptism of the Spirit occurred at the new birth. When you are born again you ‘got it’. Every believer most certainly has the Holy Spirit. The Assembly of God friends taught ‘you got saved, but you didn’t get the Baptism until a separate experience’. This too can be found in scripture. If you look at the book of acts [which I haven’t read in years!] you see in chapter 10 the Gentile converts. The fact is ‘they got it all at the same time’. Sorry to my Pentecostal friends. But you can look at Acts 19 and see Paul saying ‘have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed’ to some disciples. They tell Paul ‘we haven’t even heard of the Spirit’. Now I do want to stress that many Pentecostals do read this to show its possible to believe and ‘not have the Spirit’. Actually if you read this passage you will see that they were ‘baptized with Johns baptism’ they were only disciples in as much as they received the initial message of repentance that John the Baptist preached. Paul tells them ‘he preached about someone who was to come later [not the Spirit, but Jesus!] and then after they heard this’ [not the message of the baptism of the Spirit, but the gospel] then they were baptized and Paul laid hands on them and they prophesied and spoke in tongues. The point is these believers were not believing in Christ yet. They didn’t hear the ‘rest of the story’ until Paul preached it. I am not siding today with either side. I am showing that the book of Acts is ‘Gods diary’ if you will, it is a compilation of the ‘experiences of God with men’. It certainly is doctrinally sound, don’t get me wrong. But it shows Gods primary purpose of redemption and how he is sovereign. If he chooses to ‘give it all at once’ in chapter 10. Or to ‘give it thru the laying on of hands’ in chapter 19. He has the right to do whatever he wants. He is God! It is perfectly biblical to have both ways of operation in existence. It’s possible that the Pentecostals are right and the Baptists! You mean God actually might have been experienced in different ways by different groups? Yes! Scripture shows that this is possible. Now I want to make my self clear. I believe in the gifts and operations of the Spirit. You can actually develop a doctrine of ‘multiple baptisms’, times where the Spirit shook and ‘baptized’ groups on more than one occasion. God is God, be open to his reality. Don’t take one part of a chapter and try to make it fit for everyone. Both sides are guilty of this. The Spirit of God is alive and active. John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit from his mother’s womb! You mean before he got saved? Now go and rack your brains on this one.
(446) A few years ago I had a Pastor friend who kind of competed with me in ‘getting’ the addicts/ex-cons to ‘go to his church’. I knew this brother for years. He got saved in his 50’s [?] and started preaching at the jails when I was going in my 20’s. Eventually he left the Pentecostal church he attended and ‘started his own church’. I knew he would talk about me every now and then, and to tell you the truth, it really didn’t bother me. It’s like when you go thru rumors that your are having a gay relationship with an ‘ordained minister/sorcerer’ who started the rumors himself, you kind of don’t mind about the regular normal gossip. I chalked it up to his immaturity in the Lord. Even though he was a good 25 years older than me, he meant well and was going thru the silly games preachers play when they first start out. He did invite me to preach at his church once, and we had a good service. But being he would gossip to me about the Pastor and church he had formally attended, I knew it was only a matter of time before he would get to me! I never even confronted him or anything, I just let it slide. One day he saw me at a restaurant with a brother [ex-con/addict] you could tell he was a little jealous that the brother was with me and not him. I don’t even ‘have a church’ but in his mind he was at the childish stage of ‘why don’t you come to my church’ type thing. This Pastor read my first book ‘house of prayer or den of thieves’ and I think it might have been a little strong. I never gave him my 2nd book, and as we went to the parking lot to get it, he started gossiping about the ex- addict brother who we just left to go into the parking lot! Well I gave him my 2nd book, which challenges the whole concept of ‘local church’ and the role of ‘Pastor’. I knew it wouldn’t be long before he would read it, and more than likely I would become the talk of the town by this Pastor in his 60’s who would probably call me a heretic. I just didn’t worry about it, I figured I would give him the book and just leave it at that. We did have a mutual Christian friend and I finally asked him how Pastor ‘so and so’ was doing. In a nice way, I kinda figured the Pastor might have already gotten to my friend and told him what a heretic I was. My friend said the last time he saw him he was in the hospital and it looked like he was going to die. I don’t think it was because he more than likely talked about me, it was just something that happened. I later thought about it, how so many of us [Pastors/leaders] see people as simple tools in a big game. To try to challenge the present mindset of ‘Pastor’ and ‘church’ is a difficult thing. To be sure all Pastors don’t fall into the category of my friend, but the system itself has a way to bring this type of stuff out of us, even the best of us. NOTE; he died a few months back, the same day I read of his death we had a strange phenomenon in the gulf where I live. We had a real clear ‘water spout’ that the local channels picked up. It was a perfect ‘tunnel’ type spout that showed the water going right up to ‘heaven’ thru this tube. I took it as a beautiful sign of my friend’s home going. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints!
(447) It is difficult for the American church/Pastor to ‘reform’ his understanding of church from one of ‘the 501c3 organization that raises funds to do projects and support ministries’ to that of a free community of people whom Christ’s Spirit dwells in to ‘reform and effect’ society around them. I remember hearing defenses of the ‘Local church’ from the fundamental Baptists that said ‘some people speak of the ‘invisible church/universal church’ well the bible never speaks of a church ‘you cant see’. While there is some truth to this, what these brothers were saying is ‘the local church is this ‘church building’ and all the functions that surround it’! God has his people strategically located all over the earth. When the Bible speaks of ‘local believers’ versus ‘the universal church’ it is not speaking of 2 different things. It is speaking of Christians who reside locally and to the believers who reside ‘universally’. They are the same thing, just in different locations. We have a tendency as Pastors and leaders to want to do some project, complete some goal. This is good. But it becomes ‘not good’ when we view Gods people at large as the primary ‘funders’ of the ‘big project’. This ‘projects’ a mindset into the people of God that is contrary to the function of the church. Moses, Paul and all the other biblical leaders were men with vision and destiny. Moses did ‘collect funds’ for certain godly purposes [the Tabernacle] while leading the people, but the primary thing they were doing, their ‘vision and destiny’ if you will, was bringing the people of God along a journey that led them to a place of self sufficiency/rule under the headship of God [Christ] that released them into a functioning society of people. You never see Paul or the other Apostles primarily relating to the people along the lines of ‘God has given me this vision, if you Galatians, Ephesians, etc. were simply obedient to fund it, then it would happen’ the vision was not some project or thing apart from their own function and growth. They were not following Paul’s leadership to accomplish something apart from them. What Paul [Moses] were doing was bringing them into the reality that God wants to express himself and who he is thru a people that bear his name. The fact that Israel [or the church] were being governed by God and representing him in the earth gave God ‘opportunities’ to act and show himself strong on their behalf. Society around them were not going to be influenced by the great things they were to build [Babel mindset] but they were to be influenced by who they were and their real relationship with God as a nation. So when we ‘see’ the church as ‘this visible 501c3 organization’ and the people as ‘taxpayers’ [tithers] to the projects and goals of the organization, this causes both the Pastors and the people to fall into roles that are not the primary expression of what God really wants. The people are faced, week after week, month after month, year after year, with leadership saying ‘you are not obedient enough in the area of raising funds’ and the primary challenge to the average saint in the pew is ‘I will give more diligently this time’ and his whole function is measured by this rule. Then leadership reinforces the ‘scriptural mandate’ of this dynamic by appealing to the few areas in Paul’s writings that speak on giving. Though Paul was not primarily dealing with it in the same way. We truly ‘see’ the function of the motivated minister to set goals and somehow inspire people to fund these well meaning goals. This is a very small part of what New Testament leadership was doing. In the very verses we use to justify ‘giving on Sunday’ in a legalistic way, Paul actually says ‘take up the collection before I get there [Corinth] because when I get there we have real important things to do, I don’t want to waste time dealing with the money stuff [1 Corinthians 16]’ so we take these verses that are teaching the small role that finances play in the functioning of the church [to support laboring elders/Pastors and to meet the needs of the less fortunate] and we turn these verses around and teach them in a way that giving becomes thee number 1 measurement of a persons faith. We give the mindset to the average believer that his main function is to ‘attend church and give money’ and he measures his faithfulness this way. And he is taught ‘God highly values the ‘local church’ if he loves it so much that he gave his life for it, how much more should you value the local church in your life and give it priority’ But we seem to be telling the poor people that the ‘it/local church’ is the organization and all that surrounds its ‘corporations life’ [versus corporate life]. Yes God does love the 'local church’ [community of believers] and he did give his life for it [them and you!] and this is why you see biblical leadership so unfocused on some ‘vision to accomplish something’ and so focused on ‘seeing the people of God come to maturity’. They were giving their lives for the thing of value, which were the people of God [the LOCAL CHURCH!] NOTE: This is why you can see Paul in prison, writing letters to the churches and being totally fulfilled while doing this. His purpose was not to be in such a ‘state’ of outward self sufficiency and having all the money to accomplish some goal, he was actually doing the purpose of God by building the church, even though his outward man [and all of its expressions] were ‘passing away’. NOTE: the materialistic mindset in the church, along with the confusion on what [who] the church is, causes us to be unable to grasp how Paul could be ‘fulfilled’ even though he was not ‘building’ a ‘ministry or organization’. Paul was the one who said ‘we look not at the things which are seen, but unseen’ also ‘Abraham believed that the things that God said would come true’. We use these verses to bring us to a point of ‘making things seen’ or building outward stuff. In these verses God was defining faith as actually living in such a way that you knew after your departure that your ‘seed/lineage’ of spiritual children would ‘inherit’ the land. In essence ‘faith’ in these stories is the ability to die without actually seeing or possessing the physical promise in this life. The patriarchs are defined this way in Hebrews 11. They died as they blessed their offspring, believing that God would make a great ‘family/dynasty’ from their offspring. So Paul in prison is ‘unstoppable’ because he knew the Word of the Lord would have free course. He knew ‘by faith’ that these outward things were not really where the Kingdom was at. He knew by faith that after his death the ‘everlasting gospel’ would prevail and that by Gods grace his ‘spiritual seed’ would go on forever. That’s why I am writing about him now, and you are listening!
(448) I read an article the other day that illustrates this stuff. It was about a ‘bi-vocational Pastor’ who was ‘Pastoring’ 3 churches at a time, because the churches were too small to ‘afford a fulltime Pastor’ and there was a need for someone to ‘administrate the ordinances’ so what else could they do? The well-meaning Pastor was in his fifties and was a fulltime military man. And it showed a picture of him innocently ‘manning the pulpit’ as he fulfills this ‘office’ every Sunday for these 3 churches. It showed how much our present mindset of ‘church’ and the protestant office of ‘The Pastor’ is really an unbiblical role. I know this sounds ‘mean’ but for heavens sake lets move on with the program. God has been dealing with the Body of Christ for quite some time. He wants to release/empower us to ‘be the church’ [the mobile community of God functioning and flowing in all areas of society] if we can’t get past ‘how can our church function unless someone is pastoring it?’ then we still have a long way to go! NOTE: My ‘spell check’ is prophetic. When I wrote the word ‘unbiblical’ above, it actually fixed it on it’s own to say ‘umbilical [cord]’ we cant seem to ‘break’ the ‘childish’ connections that we have towards these ‘lifelong ties’ to a ‘Pastor’. God never intended any of his gifted ones to be the ‘lifelong’ overseer of anybody. These gifts [Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers] were all given to play a role at various times in your development to bring you to maturity, none of them were to fulfill the co-dependant role that the protestant office of ‘the Pastor’ has become! I think ‘umbilical cord’ was probably the right word! [Sorry, but I just couldn’t help it!]
(450) I was listening to a preacher telling his testimony. I have seen and read his writings before, but never heard him speak. The opinion I had from seeing/reading him was one of a very motivated professional minister. Nothing wrong, just the ‘jet set’ highly mobile successful mega church image. An image that often times is hard for the average person to relate to, though they are still very successful and accomplishing good things in the kingdom. As I finally heard him speak he sounded so much like me. He shared how he grew up in the 70’s, got high, listened to rock music and went to ‘deep purple’ concerts; it was a very real sounding testimony. You almost had the feeling of the voice not fitting the person [I know people feel this way when they see me too. I do not look, or come off as someone who teaches on radio and writes books and stuff]. The point I am making is sometimes the ‘environment’ of professional ministry hinders the ‘realness’ that God intended for the gospel to have. Jesus was very real and human in his lifestyle. Very different from the image/persona of religious leadership. There was no sense of ‘watch what you say, the Pastor is here’ type thing. I think it would do us good if we can be real people with real struggles with real friends. The unbelieving world has so many questions, but the ‘church world’ is so unapproachable that they look elsewhere for the answers. NOTE; In the early church Christianity was not a separate field or vocation like it is today. Today Christianity is a ‘world/business’ unto itself. While God did intend the church to influence all areas of society, he didn’t intend the church to have its own ‘culture’ of Christian things [Christian restaurants, Christian mechanics, Christian bookstores, and on and on] while these types of things are well intentioned, we unconsciously create a separate culture when we do this. The early believers lived and functioned as real people in society, even the Apostles! [Tent makers]. We sort of have developed a society within the church that has young believers seeing ‘the ministry’ as a profession. ‘God has called me to start a [some Christian function] ministry’ and then you have an entire sector of society whose profession and identity becomes defined by ‘full time Christian service’. The New Testament teaches whatever a person is doing as a vocation, he is serving Christ. It does a disservice to the testimony of believers when we make these secular/holy divisions. Christians are to discern between what is evil and what is good, but this does not mean we withdraw from the marketplace of influence, it also does not mean that we influence the market place by ‘Christian stuff’ [holding huge Christian festivals that draw millions of dollars, trying to show the world that we have influence. This really isn’t influence. Though millions are being spent, it is money basically generated by a ‘vacation/tourism’ mentality. While it is beneficial for believers to have times of refreshing, this type of economic impact is not the same as believers actually being owners of the motels and the other establishments that are benefiting from the festival type atmosphere]. I hope you can see what I am saying. It’s OK for a T.D. Jakes to do a ‘mega fest’ but this is not primarily what the scriptures are referring to when it speaks of believers affecting the world by ‘remaining in it’. We affect it by actually being the ‘prime movers’ and shakers in all areas. We carry the Spirit of God within us, we speak the gospel of hope to those around us, and we interact successfully with society, we don’t ‘withdraw’ into some ‘full time ministry’ mentality that causes the church to always appeal for funds [when I say church, I mean believers] because we feel like God has called us to not be employed and instead to make our living by offerings, this really is not a viable Christian testimony.
PROSPERITY GOSPEL [part 1]
(1131) Nehemiah 8- This is really a key chapter. After the walls are built the process of reviving the community can move ahead. Nehemiah already gave the ‘charge’ of the city to two men who he could trust [last chapter] sort of like a Timothy, Titus deal with Paul. Now he lets Ezra do the pulpit preaching! Ezra begins reading straight from the law and gives the understanding, read this chapter and see how many times it says ‘they gave the understanding, the people were very attentive’ it reminds you of the description of the people who heard Jesus! I want to emphasize that Ezra and the teachers [Levites] were simply giving the people Gods word in context! There is a trend going on right now where some of the ‘flashy, young’ pastors are returning to the historic gospel and preaching the word IN CONTEXT! These past few years many of the mega churches focused on a ‘be all you can be’ type message, but there is a new focus going back to the ‘old word’ and simply teaching it in context. You don’t need Paul’s ‘new perspective’ on justification to make it interesting, while some of these viewpoints have stuff to add to our learning [I like N.T. Wright personally] yet the classic Pauline doctrine of justification by faith is more than enough to satisfy the hungry heart! Ezra gave the ‘sense’ and meaning of the law, and the people soaked it in. They are all gathered together at the ‘water gate’ [too much typology to do it all] and the people as ‘one man’ receive the word. Let me quickly quote a bunch of scattered verses ‘the people will come up like a river who overflows her banks and pour out into Judah’ ‘the people will be like fountains dispersed abroad’ ‘out of our bellies shall flow rivers of living water’ ‘pour out your Spirit on our seed’ ‘let your doctrine drop down like rain, your speech distill like dew’. God pours and flows his Spirit thru his people to the nations. The fact that Ezra is pouring Gods word into the people, before the temple [building] is even rebuilt is important. In this picture Gods people are the temple! A few points; Nehemiah willingly functioned as the governor [a type of an apostle] when it came time to hand over the leadership to others, he did it! Often times in modern church scenarios we don’t practice this part well, we feel like ‘geez, I spent my time building this thing, I deserve to be the main person’! In the New Testament churches there were no ‘main persons’, that is the communities that Paul was building were not ‘local churches’ that were providing him with long term income. These communities were the people of God who had the ability to function on their own after Paul left. The local leaders [elders/pastors] were simply men who had a stable grasp of doctrine that the local believers knew they could look to for support. Elders were more like facilitators of the corporate/communal experience, they were not professional speakers that the people listened to week after week! So this distinction is important to see. To all you ‘church planters’ out there [we have a lot of contacts from Kenya, some from Pakistan] understand that the apostles/governors played an important role in setting doctrine, letting the elders and people know what was true and what was false, but the apostle/church planter doesn’t have to be ‘the weekly’ speaker to any specific group of people. It’s okay to have a routine forum in which you can communicate on a regular basis to the communities that your are planting [I use this blog and radio] but don’t think you personally have to ‘be there’ every week! Nehemiah had the self security to hand the daily functions over to trusted men and allow them to ‘get the glory’. I find it interesting that after many years of church planting the apostle Paul wound up living in a rented room in Rome and preaching to those who would listen. Was poor Paul ‘devaluing himself’ by not setting a high salary! [silly things that preachers fall into by using the standards of modern business as opposed to the New Testament] Paul purposefully told us time and again why he did not set up for himself a steady ‘cash flow’ from the communities he was establishing [read Acts 20]. Leaders today need to re evaluate what their doing and why their doing it. Leaders need the self confidence to be able to ‘walk away’ from the communities they are building and to allow the saints themselves to learn how to become dependant/interdependent. Governors [apostles] need to have the self assurance to let the Ezra’s [scribes/teachers] come in and ‘get the glory’ leaders need a basic overhaul in why they do the things they do.
(1129) I am somewhat hesitant about sharing this, but will do it anyway. This morning I had a dream, I was back at the fire house and we had a major wreck. Somehow I found myself preserving the severed hands of a victim. Either his hands were purposefully amputated to save the limb, or maybe just severed. My job was to preserve the hands [to be honest, I think I also might have been used to remove them?] I wasn’t sure if this had any meaning at all. Then I read Nehemiah chapter 6 and he says ‘oh God, strengthen my hands for the work’. I also felt like the words of Jesus ‘if your hand offends you, cut it off’ applied. While we know the Lord doesn’t mean this literally, it does speak of removing the things that are in the way, getting rid of the trash, so to speak. One of the verses in Nehemiah says ‘the workers are tired and there is much rubbish’ speaking of the hindrances to the work. In this chapter the critics are trying to get a message to Nehemiah, they keep sending signals, but he won’t bite. They want him to come to them and justify his work. He says no way ‘I am doing a great work, I don’t have time to set it aside and go justify it to my critics!’ The critics went out on a limb already, they publicly prophesied of failure, now they have a personal reason to make their prediction come true! In this chapter we also read of a bunch of ‘prophets’ and a prophetess who tried to hinder Gods work. Let me make a note here, in Gods work in general you will always have people who feel that they are personally called to be ‘your prophet’ that is they become consumed with how you personally respond to their views. Some of these people mean well, others do not. In Nehemiah’s case the men who publicly reproved him were trying hard to stop him. They finally send an open letter accusing him of wanting to build the wall so he could become the new king! The charge was ‘he’s in this for himself, self gain’ now be careful here, Nehemiah thwarts this charge by actually not ‘being in charge for good’! there are many contemporary challenges to present church structures that do say ‘the modern view of church leadership is geared towards the promotion of the talented leader’ in many cases this reproof is accurate. In order for this charge ‘not to be accurate’ you must ultimately do the John the Baptist thing and decrease! John said ‘he must increase and I must decrease’ so here we see that Nehemiah had no problem using his skill and position to accomplish Gods work, but he will eventually walk away and leave the city in the hands of the people, he is not building the wall and city so he could have some permanent type of leadership position, he was not trying to ‘become the king’. Nehemiah finishes the wall in 52 days, quite a feat. He faces accusations, false prophets and much criticism, if you read the one liners from Nehemiah, you get the sense that he was so occupied with the work that he didn’t take a lot of ‘down time’ to think things out. He just shoots up a quick prayer ‘strengthen my hands’ or ‘look upon the critics and help us’ he simply rolls along and finishes the work as God ordained. He listens to good advice, but manages to discern between the good and bad. He refuses self preservation, one of the schemers tries to get him to hide in the temple [use Gods work for self preservation] and he refuses to do it! It would have taken away from his radical reputation as someone who was not seeking self gain. He asked God to strengthen his hands, to help him have the sufficient skills to complete the task. He, like the apostle Paul, will eventually walk away from the work, he will not create a ‘church/ministry’ that will become a lifetime financial source of income or personal prestige, he will simply build Gods work and then move on, how bout you? [note- this does not mean all Pastors have to eventually leave town! You did have elders who stayed in the communities of the new testament, but as an apostle, Paul functioned in an itinerant way. He was not looking to the churches as a permanent source of income or position]
(1128) yesterday I got with a few homeless buddies, found out that Eddy got arrested and sent back to San Antonio, some sort of serial killer charge, KIDDING! A child support thing, it is funny, the guys have picked up my morbid sense of humor. One time I had Tim with me, a good friend who has been homeless for years. We picked up my daughter from school, they know my friends and all, sometimes as they were growing up they would drive by them with their high school friends and all, see them at the corners. They would be like ‘oh, those are my dad’s friends’. So when I had Tim in the truck as we were picking up my daughter, I tell her ‘this is my friend Tim, he has spent many years in prison [she looks at me like ‘are you kidding me dad, picking me up from school with these bums in the truck!’] Tim tells her ‘yes, I had some serial killer charges that I was dealing with at the time’ he was kidding too! But anyway Eddy got sent to San Antonio, and the cops have been harassing some of the guys. I also wanted to talk a little bit more on Nehemiah chapter 5, Nehemiah really gets on the nobles/elders, he tells them that they were putting too much of a burden on Gods people, some of them were going into debt to simply pay the required taxes to the leaders. Nehemiah rebukes them strongly! He says ‘all the time I was laboring among you as a governor, I turned down the normal pay governors get. I also paid out of my own pocket for the expenses of my team and staff, plus I did not purchase any real estate of my own, but totally dedicated myself to the cause’. The nobles were engaging in the building up of their own financial fortunes, understand this wasn’t forbidden in and of itself, but at the same time the average people were being told to do and give more, to the point where they were actually going in debt as the leaders were increasing in wealth, Nehemiah felt this was wrong. Like the apostle Paul, he would lay down the right to build wealth [purchasing his own land] while working and leading Gods flock. He simply felt it to be a wrong example for him to be gaining in wealth while the people were going into debt; he laid down his own right to prosper for the sake of the people. One of the things Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for was they were putting heavy burdens on the people, but they themselves were not willing to bear the same load. Often times in the world of ‘full time ministry’ we see good men get into scenarios where they unwittingly fall into this mindset, they fall into patterns of becoming wealthy, receiving large salaries at the expense of many low wage supporters, they often see this as a legitimate expression of ‘church/ministry’ while the scripture warns against leaders profiting from the people, while the people themselves are under a burden. I like Nehemiah’s example, he willingly gave up the right to grow his own portfolio while the average church goer was struggling, although he had a right to the governors salary, he saw it to be more noble to donate his time and skills at his own expense, freely he had received, freely he gave back.
(1128) Let me share a few testimonies; I type all this stuff from my laptop, I never work from a desk top. I have 2 laptops that I use, one as a backup if the other goes down [I realized a while back that it disturbs things too much to not type until it gets fixed!] One laptop misses letters as you type, I used to think it was my novice typing skills [I am bad! My daughter caught me doing the one finger thing while looking at the keys and couldn’t believe it] that was the problem, but I actually started looking at the screen while typing and realized certain letters don’t show up, you have to backspace and do it again. The other laptop has a mouse problem, it won’t always respond, this is frustrating for someone who cuts and pastes all over this blog! So when one computer gets me mad, I switch to the other one. Yesterday as I was battling with the mouse problem, out of frustration I said ‘Lord, give me a break! I can’t deal with this’ and it immediately started working, for the first time ever since I got it [it was a used computer when I bought it]. I also prayed about it these past few days while typing, sort of like seriously believing the Lord could fix it, you know you forget stuff like this at times. Then the other day I told you guys how I had an old buddy from prison write me, I had a package of teaching stuff I was going to send him. In the old days I would write the brothers in prison while at the fire house, you have time in to sit around and do this stuff. But it’s really been a while since I regularly wrote any prison buddies [I have written many hundreds of letters in the past, no exaggeration] but I had the letter and stuff in the truck and kept putting it off. Finally the day I sent it was the same day my daughter got hired for a job with the state. My two oldest daughters attend college and have had good jobs. My oldest [24] is now a teacher at the high school she graduated from. My second oldest was a veterinarian assistant, but was looking for something else. She applied for some counselor thing with the state, a job that you usually don’t get unless you have connections. Sure enough the day I sent the packet, she got it! The bible says if you help the poor, reach out to the hurting, spend your time and resources freely for others, that God will reward you. I felt like the Lord returned the favor. As I just read Nehemiah chapter 5, Nehemiah rebukes the leaders for charging interest from the people. The Jews were mortgaging their lands and homes and going into debt trying to accomplish Gods work. The leaders were profiting from the situation. Nehemiah rebuked them, he even sounds like Paul when he says ‘all the time I was with you as governor [type of an apostle] I never took a salary, I provided for myself and my staff’ Paul says the exact same thing to the elders in Acts chapter 20. I think we as leaders need to re think some things. I was thinking the other day how that I have no Christian relationships with anybody in which I ever ask, or receive any financial reward. No offering thing, never speak in ‘a church’ and take an offering. I simply have the freedom to by pass the whole mess. One time the homeless brothers told me ‘brother, if you need your yard cut, or any work done at your house, let us know’ I could tell that they talked about it amongst themselves, sort of like ‘hey, the brother spends a lot on us, lets help him’. I turned down the offer anyway, they are used to local contractors hiring them at slave wages, I wanted them to know I wasn’t trying to get something from them. Although I have kidded about it at times, one time one of them finally got accepted for social security, they were gonna get a big check. I told them ‘you know I sense the Lord telling me that I am supposed to start hanging out with you a little more’! In the long run God will reward you if you really do stuff for free. Leaders, do you have regular friendships with people whom you never bring up money or offerings with? Are the people who know you most always being challenged in a financial way? Always needing to give more? Nehemiah rebuked the nobles because the ‘laity’ were being consumed with having to pay their own bills, plus support the nobles financially, and pay for the structures! Nehemiah said he wouldn’t charge the people, that God would reward him instead, I think he did.
(1125) if you have been paying attention, you’ll notice that I have been reading thru Matthew these last few weeks. Let’s finish this sporatic thing with Jesus final command ‘go into all the world and preach the gospel to every one, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Teach them to observe all the things I taught you, I will always be with you, all power is now given to me, I authorize you to go’ [my paraphrase] I wanted to hit on the command of Jesus for us to teach the nations the things he taught us. Over the years you will notice that one of my pet peeves has been the emphasis the modern church puts on the command to tithe found in Malachi, yet the many commands of Jesus about giving to the poor, helping out the down and out; these commands of Jesus seem to take second place in the tier of importance for the average church goer. In a sense we [leaders] have failed to actually teach the nations the things Jesus taught us! We have taught the nations good stuff from Malachi, boy do they have a grasp on Paul! And oh yes, John writes with such love and compassion, doesn’t he? I don’t want to be crude, I understand that as Evangelicals we believe all of Gods word [Malachi, Paul, etc.] the point I am making is all of these writings have to be seen thru the primary ‘constitution’ of Jesus and his gospel. The Old Testament says we should execute homosexuals, kids who curse their parents and women caught cheating! Now, most of us realize that these commands are no longer valid in a literal way [I hope you understand!] So as believers we need to view all of the words of scripture thru the ethos [values] of Jesus. How did he respond when the Pharisees brought the woman taken in adultery to him? They even said ‘Moses in the law said she should be stoned, what do you say’? He forgives the woman, does not condone her sin, and lets the religious leaders know that they were in no position to judge this woman. As the church embarks on the next millennium, we need to re focus our efforts and instructions on the life and purpose of Jesus. I am not advocating rejecting Paul’s teachings [as some advocate!] or doing away with the Old Testament [as others also advocate] but I am saying we need to take seriously the great commission that Jesus gave us. Are we really teaching people the actual things that Jesus made the priority? I know he told the religious leaders ‘you tithe and stuff, but have overlooked the heavier matters of the law; yes, you should have tithed [telling this to Jews under the law sitting in ‘Moses seat’ not to Gentile believers!] and also have shown mercy and love and compassion’ even the law put the emphasis on these things! Lets try and re balance some things these next few years, lets look seriously at the things that Jesus actually taught [the red letters!] and see if these are the same things we are focusing on. He doesn’t say a whole lot about the ‘just war’ doctrine, he seems like he’s always rebuking the wealthy folk! Let’s see the things he actually taught, and then teach those things! Got it?
(1119) yesterday I took a ride to Mathis [a small town in the area] my daughter and her boyfriend invited me to do a BBQ at the lake. As I drove thru town [it was Sunday] I noticed all the church buildings, some had 20-30 cars, others just a few. It was obvious that the city didn’t need any more places for believers to sit on Sunday! Jesus said ‘who is a faithful AND wise servant whom his Lord makes ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season, when the Lord comes he will make him ruler over all his goods’. Recently the church suffered a loss, a very famous church leader passed away. The loss was two-fold, though this man was influential in fostering unity and was helpful in civil rights and other social justice issues, he was surrounded by scandal most of his life. I used to watch him on TV and did enjoy his ministry, but he was plagued with accusations of sexual impropriety. The straw that broke the camels back was the current pastor of this huge mega church [cathedral that’s worth 25 million dollars!] was thought to have been the nephew of the famous pastor, it was found out that he was actually his son, the ‘father’ was really his uncle, tragic indeed. The building is now on the market and the son now preaches ‘the gospel of inclusion’ [a message that accepts all religions as from God]. I remember one time hearing the famous pastor speak on tithing, he actually taught that those who did not tithe were violating Gods covenant and would not be saved! Much more radical than the normal fare. I thought how sad, the 25 million dollar facility was paid for by many innocent believers who were told if they did not put 10% of their money in the basket, they would go to hell. Now all the money will simply fall into the system of a real estate deal. Jesus said the servants who were wise and faithful would be given charge over all his masters goods, is it wise for Gods people to continue building facilities all over the world, at the cost of billions of dollars? Is it wise for any small [or large] city to see ‘church’ thru a lens that has all these buildings sitting empty on any given Sunday? Many good men start their service to the Lord this way, the church meeting thing, I started this way myself. Over time God adds wisdom to ‘our faithfulness’ he shows us smarter ways to apply our efforts. There are currently worldwide church planting movements who pay no salaries, own no buildings, take no tithes, yet they are literally reaching the world. This should cause us to re-think some things. Is it proper to tell Gods people they will be under a curse if they don’t tithe to the old system? Especially when the ‘new system’ [not really new, it was Paul’s system in the book of Acts] does the whole thing for free! Jesus said the servants are to distribute the meat in due season, faithfully and with wisdom. Paul said to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 ‘feed the flock of God over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers’ he is talking to church leaders here, he tells them [the elders!] ‘All the time I was with you [around 3 years] I did not take offerings from you, I did not allow you to fund me or ‘my ministry’ I worked with my own hands to support myself and those who were with me. I did this to give you [leaders!] an example, so you too would see your ministry thru this voluntary lens, not as some type of career!’ [my paraphrase]. Its makes you wonder how ministers can read the bible and not see this stuff! I want to encourage all my Pastor/leader friends who do frequent this site, seek the Lord for wisdom to go along with faithfulness, examine the way you present Gods word to people, don’t say to them ‘I am appealing for money because this is Gods plan’ Paul didn’t think it was Gods plan [in the salary, building way- he did in other ways] Sometimes God gives us time to step back and sharpen the ax, you might feel like it’s your responsibility to keep hacking away at the tree [faithfulness] but wisdom allows you to step back and sharpen the ax, sure it means you might go a week or month or year without the familiar habit of hacking away, but after you sharpen the ax you will accomplish much more.
(1117) Was just reading the chapter where Jesus rebukes the religious leaders for their love of fame and recognition, they loved to be known and recognized. They loved places of honor. It’s the same chapter where Jesus tells his leaders ‘it shall no be this way with you guys’. He is trying to instill a new mindset in this fledging church. The New Testament speaks of godly leadership, but it warns against authoritarian leadership [see 3rd John- Diotrophes] Jesus tells his men ‘he that humbles himself [on purpose!] will be the greatest, have the most effect’. Would you be willing to live a life where you purposely removed your image and persona from those who wanted to exalt you? To purposefully not allow others to become too enamored with your gifts and abilities? Jesus says ‘among you guys, let none of you be called master, rabbi [leader, the main one] for you are all equal’. How do we reconcile this with the obvious portions of scripture that speak about leaders? A careful study of the New Testament will show a type of leadership that was not the predominant voice of any believing community [local church]. Though you see Paul traveling to different regions and having no problem telling them ‘listen to my instruction’ yet you don’t see any office where one person is the main functioning person in the community. Because of lots of reasons we do this in today’s ‘church world’ environment, but it was not this way at the start. I find it interesting that Jesus taught his men about true leadership in the same chapter where he rebuked those who loved the glory of being a successful leader [there is a difference between being fulfilled as a godly leader, and deriving great joy from the recognition of fame and success!] I see Jesus frustration with the religious leaders; he calls them vipers, hypocrites, fools! I know we have a tendency to read these words in King James English, and not realize what he is saying. It would be like basically saying ‘what a bunch of idiots you guys are! You have come to religious understandings that don't even make sense’ they developed an idea that said the gift on he altar was special, but the altar that sanctified the gift wasn’t [they were technical hairsplitters!] Jesus says ‘what's greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies/makes the gift what it is’? Well, I guess the altar? All leaders and gifted people face the temptation to exalt the gift to a place of honor that God never intended. All we have and accomplish in life is simply a gift that comes thru Christ’s Cross [the altar that sanctifies the gift] when we put the Cross first, ahead of the things it can give us, then we will do well.
(1115) I have been driving around the past few days with a package of materials that I needed to send off to my buddy in prison. I kept putting it off, then I got a message on my cell from his brother in Kingsville, he wants to know if I can send his bother a bible too. So I will stick a bible in the package in a little while, it saved me the extra mailing. Just read the parable of the vineyard owner who leases out his land to caretakers. When the owner sends his servants for the produce, they beat the brothers up! The owner sends his son [Jesus] and they say ‘here’s the son, if we kill him we can have the inheritance [worldly wealth] to ourselves’. I have seen ‘an evil done under the sun’ it’s virtually impossible to preach a materialistic gospel with the Jesus of the New Testament in it. I mean he rails time and again against wealth ‘what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and loses his soul’ I can go on forever quoting him. But some have ‘killed the son’ [eliminated his true image] from the vineyard, and now they can cease upon the inheritance! OUCH! [By ‘eliminate’ I mean they have refashioned his image and message and have presented him in a different light than what the scripture portrays]. I have been reading a little on the church fathers, these are the brothers during the post apostolic period up until around the 4th century. Many Anglicans/Protestants have converted back to Catholicism because of the reading of these men. These church leaders shared a sort of general view of conversion and Christian living. Evangelicals often have difficulty reading them, they don’t teach a strong ‘one time’ ask Jesus into your heart type conversion, more along the lines of ‘believe the gospel, obey Gods commands, get baptized in water and become a member of the church universal’. I love studying the brothers! Cyprian, the 3rd century bishop from Carthage, North Africa was embroiled in the ‘lapsed’ controversy. During one of persecutions many of the believers forsook Christ and burned incense to the cult of the emperor. After the persecution ceased, some wanted back in to the church. Those who did not reject Christ said ‘no way, you guys walked away, it’s all over’. But Cyprian would say that Jesus told Peter that even if your brother sins seventy times seven, you are to forgive. Cyprian erred on the side of mercy [a good way to err!] he would ultimately be killed in the year 259 for the faith. Though these church fathers were not doctrinally perfect, and they also weren’t the only expression of the Christian church in the first few centuries, yet they supply a wealth of knowledge and experience that we can all learn from, these are ‘part of the vineyard’ if you will. When you have a broad range of reading and study from all the various Christian communions, then it’s easy to spot the false, these might try to ‘kill the son’ but wisdom won’t allow it.
(1114) Jesus makes his entry into Jerusalem and the Pharisees are mad, the people and children are praising him. He overturns the prosperity preacher’s tables and whips them! He rebukes the Pharisees ‘the whores and tax collectors are entering the kingdom ahead of you!’ WOW, talk about rough speech! He tells them that the sinners listened to John the Baptist, they came to hear what he had to say and changed their lifestyles, but the religious leaders were too hung up on their own agendas. And after they saw the results of John’s ministry, they responded out of jealousy and still didn’t re-think their views. Who were the Pharisees, how did thy come to represent hypocrisy and religious vanity? A few hundred years before Christ you had the nation of Israel taken captive and living under foreign occupation [like Rome was doing during Jesus day] it was in this environment that the Synagogues were established, they were meeting places where the Jews could gather and practice their religion while in exile. This was when the Pharisees and Sadducees were introduced. They regulated the religious worship of Israel while in exile. The Sadducees were less of a religious order than the Pharisees. The Sadducees were more of a political class that traced their natural bloodline to the priest Zadok [sort of like a Holy Grail thing, the DaVinci code type stuff]. Eventually the Pharisees turned into a class of professional ‘pains’. They knew all the rules and traditions surrounding their religious office and often laid these rules as burdens upon the people, rules that went against Gods commands. It is real important not to underestimate the common themes found in synagogue worship and the ‘church service’. I have written much on what the New Testament church is and how she should function; I have also traced the modern day practice of church to Constantine and the 4th century. But I have also taught that it is very possible that much of modern-day ‘church practice’ might also have come from the practice of Jewish synagogue worship. They bear a striking resemblance to say the least! It is a common mistake to think that Jewish-Christian worship ceased as a distinct practice after the destruction of the temple in a.d. 70 under Titus, but the synagogue made it all the way into the 2nd century, I believe it was the Roman emperor Hadrian who finally put an end to it. Some historians will tell you that there remained a Jewish church all the way up to the 5th century! If so, then it would be a major historical mistake to discount the possible role that the synagogue played in the ideas of Christian worship. Well anyway, these are the same religious leaders that Jesus rebuked in his day, they had their own ideas of what true worship meant, and they would not receive correction! Jesus said the whores and tax collectors had more spiritual discernment than them, sad thing.
(1112) I was just reading Matthew 19 and the story of the rich guy. He asks Jesus ‘what GOOD THING must I do to be saved’ reminds me a lot of Evangelicalism, many sincere believers are hung up on ‘the good thing you must do’ or the singular act of conversion. While it is true that regeneration/conversion takes place in an instant, yet oftentimes believers can’t pin point that instant! Like Paul told the Galatians ‘I travail with you again in the birthing process, until Christ be formed in you’. So sometimes it’s more of a process than a singular act [or better- conversion has both of these aspects present]. Now Jesus tells the brother ‘keep the law’ ah, now were getting somewhere! He’s pinpointing Jesus down to a yes or no answer on conversion; the man asks ‘which one’? Again, back to the ‘one thing’. So Jesus quotes a few of them, the man says ‘great, I have kept these ever since I was a kid’. Jesus says ‘one more thing, go sell your stuff and give it to the poor, and come follow me’. The man left sad, because he was rich. Then Jesus gives the famous statement that I have explained many times on this site, it’s harder for a camel to pass thru the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom [for an explanation go to my ‘prosperity/word of faith’ section]. The disciples are shocked ‘who then will ever make it’ Jesus says not to worry, with God all things are possible. Peter says ‘we left all, what do we get’ Jesus says those who have forsaken things for him will receive back a 100 fold and in the world to come eternal life. I have taught this before as well, how did Peter get more ‘houses and mothers and brothers’ in this life? In the book of Acts they all shared and helped each other, their conversion brought them into a big family who had ‘all things common’ [common purse] and that’s how this was fulfilled, it is obvious Peter did not become rich [silver and gold have I none- remember?] But we see an interesting thing here, the rich young man prospered according to the laws of the old covenant, which many prosperity believers will rightfully tell you brings prosperity. The verses in Deuteronomy that speak of God giving us the power/ability to obtain wealth so his covenant might be established [chapter 8?] But Jesus is doing more here, he is telling the man who did become rich by obeying Gods law, he is saying ‘now it’s time to give it up’. What! I have prospered according to Gods explicit will as revealed thru the prosperity promises in scripture! What kind of preacher are you Jesus? Don’t you know that it’s mans tradition to tell the rich to give up their wealth? It’s the devil trying to trick us out of our wealth! Jesus says ‘give it up’ you have learned and mastered the basics of Old Testament law and blessing, and now you must master the art of self sacrifice, of laying everything down to follow me. It was my father's will to have prospered you thru your obedience to his law, this was necessary, how else would I have ever been able to challenge you to lay it down? If you never had something to give up, then you could never have been in a position to show me your sincerity in giving it all away. Jesus was not telling him it was wrong to have attained this status in society, but he was giving him the choice of whether or not he would willingly lay it down for a higher cause. Are you willing?
(1109) Last night my wife plugged in the vacuum and we lost power to part of the house! I have had this problem before, it was a loose outlet. So I started pulling out the outlets that were not working and began tightening the loose connections, of course I’m the type that over reacts so it’s getting late and I moving furniture, outlets hanging out all over the place [with the power on] and my wife is saying ‘are you sure your not going to electrocute yourself?’ ‘What, what do you think I am, some novice’! [To be honest I am the type that would electrocute myself]. So anyway I think I found the outlet that’s bad [they run in series, so if one goes out you loose the rest down the line] and hopefully will get to it soon [it’s 4:30am, too early to be waking everybody up- you know ‘where’s the screwdriver! Quick, go turn this breaker on and off!’ Somewhat of taskmaster!] It actually reminds me of a funny story, one year at the fire dept. me and one of the guys to the fire truck to some pre school church thing; you know, shoot some water, do a little safety class. So as we are doing our thing, I see out of the corner of my eye that one of the kids is grabbing on to what he thinks is a power line. It’s simply a cable going to the power line, but it’s still a bad thing to do! I hear the kid telling his buddy ‘see, it wont shock you to DEATH’! Geez, I’m like ‘hey, cut that out’! I could just see the story in the paper ‘Fire dept. electrocutes two church pre schoolers while giving a safety class’ that would have been an early retirement for sure. Okay, I was reading Matthew 16 and the famous confession of Peter; Jesus asks ‘who do men say that I am’ and Peter responds ‘thou art the Christ, the Son of God’ Jesus says ‘blessed are you Peter, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my father in heaven. And upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it’. Our Catholic friends focus on Peter, they see Jesus giving special authority to Peter [by the way, he does!] and have developed the Papacy from this. Our Protestant brothers see little about Peter, they say Jesus was saying ‘you Peter, your just a pebble [a play on the Greek wording] and I Jesus, am the rock’ true enough. Our Word of Faith friends have said Jesus was speaking about ‘revelation knowledge’ [a type of prophetic thing] that Jesus was saying he would establish his church on the gift of being able to receive spiritual knowledge directly from God. To be honest about it, I think there is some truth to each one of these views. I primarily think Jesus was saying ‘Peter, this confession of me as Gods Son is the foundation of the spiritual temple that my father is building’ Peter referred to us a ‘living stones’ in his letter. We are called a spiritual temple that God is building out of spiritual stones, so we qualify as building stones in this temple, as ‘stones’ we are ‘chips off of the rock’ so to speak, so we are the corporate expression of Jesus in the earth ‘the Body of Christ’ and therefore Jesus is the rock, and as he ‘grows thru us’ we show forth his glory to the nations. But I also sensed the lord telling me ‘John, the things you build out of a response of hearing and ‘seeing’ me are the things that will last, the gates of hell will not prevail against these things’ [communities, reached people groups]. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would ‘take of mine and show it unto you’ God reveals his Son to us, Jesus told Peter that’s how he knew who Jesus was, when we live out our lives as a response of the revelation of God to us thru Christ, then these are the things that will last, the eternal riches if you will. When we live our lives based on our own priorities and desires, these are the things that fade away. I want Jesus to see me as one who is blessed because the father has revealed his Son to me, someone who is living and teaching and acting out of divine revelation, not out of human desires.
(1108) got up early today, did one of those 2-5am prayer things, happens every now and then. Here in my office I can see my old sea bag from the Navy, I still have it! I remember getting it around 30 years ago in Great Lakes IL. My boot camp city, I actually live right next to the base in Corpus Christi, the spot where they kicked me out 20 something years ago! Though I was stationed in Kingsville, I attended my ‘captains mast’ [court thing] in Corpus. It reminds me of a funny story, one of the guys went to his hearing and the judge says ‘salute’ so he puts his hand up and salutes, then the judge says ‘to’ which means put your hand down. Instead, he saluted with the second hand! [two- get it?] and we are the guys protecting you! Okay, I was thinking of sharing the verse where Jesus says ‘every scribe taught about the kingdom brings forth both new and old things from his treasure [teaching]’. Over the years I have noticed the different dynamics at work amongst various strains of Christianity. The danger with the strong independent churches is you can go thru stages where you are never taught ‘things new and old’. I used to read the prophetic type sites [Elijah list] but haven’t been there in quite a while. There is a tendency for various groups to overdose on one particular slant and to never ‘bring forth the old’ [sound, stable teaching on the scripture and foundational truths of Christianity]. You can spend years feeding at the trough of well meaning ‘prophets’ but the message never seems to move on, how many thousand of words about ‘rebuke the spirit of poverty’ ‘this is the year of increase’ ‘now is a season of suddenlies’ I mean all well meaning people, but the poor saints are overdosing on stuff that might be simple repetition of what people feel like saying! We need both new and old [sound doctrine]. The same can be said of the prosperity groups, or any other Christian group that has no real connection to historic Christianity. A good Pastor may get a hold of the truth of prosperity, then you might spend a few years simply talking about finances, every thing will be seen thru that lens. New Christians entering that environment may never learn the reality of justification by faith, or other foundational truths [things old!] that are vital for a strong walk with the Lord. So anyway I felt the Lord simply wanted to challenge us to bring forth both new and old. It’s okay if people focus on different areas for a short season, but avoid spending all your time and energy in one doctrinal ‘room’ we all need both new and old stuff to stay healthy.
(1104) was watching one of those ‘prophecy conference’ things last night, you know, the brothers with the charts on the wall and all. Kind of funny, as they were being introduced the moderator shared their backgrounds ‘he belongs to the pre-trib study group for advanced stuff’ and then mentions the books and all the brothers wrote. ‘In the 1990’s he wrote the best seller THE END IS NOW UPON US, THERE IS NO TIME LEFT!’ [something to that effect] it does seems strange that it is now 2009 and he’s still around to talk about it! Don’t get me wrong, these are all fine believers, it’s just we need to take a second look at the persona/image that we are projecting out to society at large. As I have been reading the gospels I like the mindset of Jesus ‘the Kingdom of God is now here/coming’ to be sure the historic church has had battles over these concepts, and I don't want to re-do it all here, you can read more on it under my end times section. But I want to look at the scope of Jesus teaching/outreach ‘ministry’. Even though he limits himself physically to a small region of the world, he had no desire to travel the globe, but yet he sees his purpose thru a much broader paradigm ‘the kingdom of God is here!’ How could such a limited charitable ministry make such bold claims? He was giving himself for ‘the least of these’ and the Father would recompense him for it ‘the gentiles shall come to your light, kings and nations shall be influenced by you’ declared the prophets. Now, in the current day we often see ‘ministry’ as going to a town/area and establishing some type of meeting environment where people will attend every week and hear preaching. While this is okay to a degree, it is fundamentally disconnected from the kingdom mindset of Jesus. He believed that he was starting a word-wide movement that would shake the foundations of all mankind! Quite a bold mission statement from such a seemingly insignificant life ‘Come on Jesus, you have never even studied in the upper-class schools of the day’ but that didn’t stop him. These followers of his are not the primary focus of his calling; understand that in today’s ‘church mindset’ everything is focused on getting so many people to attend/join/partner up [money!] we measure our self worth by these things. Jesus told us ‘cast the seed on the ground; sure some will be eaten by birds, others will spring up quickly and have no root. But some will take root, these will change the world!’ He didn’t spend a whole lotta time trying to convince the unproductive seed/plants to ‘re-dedicate’ give it one more shot ‘please attend my meetings’ type of a thing, he had no time for that sort of silly stuff, he was changing the world for heavens sake! I want to challenge you today, God does have a great purpose and destiny for you, you do not exist simply for the purpose of helping people ‘get saved’ while the rest of the planet goes to hell in a hand basket! Jesus started a world wide revolutionary movement that has competed with all the major world philosophies of the last 2 thousand years, the church has been the greatest influence in society for good, more than any other single institution [despite what Christopher Hitchens says!] we are truly the people of God. See yourself as a citizen of this movement, as Christians we are members of the city that is set on a hill; our purpose isn’t just to ‘be the city’ but it is to shine to all of those that see us on the hill and affect the planet for good. It’s time to tear down the silly prophecy charts and get to business, don't you think?
(1101) Jesus was telling the disciples that they were going to go thru some stuff ‘you think that I am come to bring peace? No, but a sword! Families will be divided, they will deliver each other up to death!’ he said we would be brought before kings and governors for his sake. How? By some type of presidential invitation to give the inaugural prayer? I don’t think so! We would be brought before authorities as a witness, just like Peter said, that Jesus gave a good testimony before Pilate, he certainly wasn’t on the way to a prayer breakfast! So Jesus is preparing his men, he is telling them that they too will have cross’s to bear, they will suffer and sacrifice for the greater purpose, they will die to their own desires and dreams, it’s not about us or what we can get or accomplish in life. This is what’s so insidious about the American gospel, it's basically a cross-less message. We go to church and live our lives for self attainment ‘what can I get out this’ type of mentality, Jesus told us those who seek to save/preserve their lives will lose them. Yet the American church is consumed with building our portfolios for heavens sake! We need to hear Jesus words, there most definitely will be times of difficulty and suffering for a higher purpose, don’t try and get around the cross [your weaknesses] don’t cover them up [cross’s entail public humiliation] simply recognize the reality of them being part of the Christian life, when you get to the point where you can embrace it, allow it to take it’s full course, full impact if you will, then you can embrace the death experience and come out on the other side. That’s the only place where truth and life exist, every thing ‘pre-cross’ is simply mans agenda.
(1100) Yesterday I went to my P.O. box and had a bunch of mail. My prosperity friend wrote again, he writes every so often. He’s the older brother I mentioned before, kind of ‘corrects’ me every now and then, recently he has simply thanked me for the messages [long letters!] I also had a package from Jackson, Mississippi. It was a book by a brother who emailed me about a month ago. He is a reformed elder [minister] and must have found out about my site. He kindly asked if I would review a book he wrote last year. I really don’t have time to do a full book review; but Jack, if your reading this here are a few comments. I read the book yesterday, the title is ‘Corinthian elders’ by Jack Fortenberry, put out by bridgepoint publishing co. Brandon MS. I liked and agreed with 90% of the book, much like the themes I teach on organic church life. Jack lays out a good case for unpaid elders, but also makes the case for ‘paid’ apostles [not salary, just worthy of the hire type thing] I have heard and am familiar with this distinction. I believe the New Testament leaves room for the monetary support of elders/leaders, whether apostles, pastors or whomever. I also believe strongly in the ‘do it at your own expense’ mentality of Paul [I receive no money, ever!] But this would be about the only disagreement I would have. I do recommend the book to our readers. Okay, just read a little more from Matthew, Jesus healing and doing good, teaching in ‘their’ synagogues and going thru the cities and villages. I just like his style! Freewheeling, couldn’t care less about what the religious class were saying, his disciples said once ‘don’t you know your offending the leaders’? He said every plant that his Father didn’t plant would be rooted up. He had no time to present a phony image of himself to people, he knew he was losing support amongst the religious class, but he also knew that system was on it’s last leg [Judaism apart from Christ] so he said ‘let them be offended, who cares!’ Ah, what a preacher. The blind men come, he says ‘do you really believe I can do this’? He heals them, but he wanted to know that they were becoming convinced. They had to be willing to go out on a limb for him. After all, Jesus healed people who did not fully believe in him before. They asked once ‘who healed you’ and the man said ‘I don’t know, all I know is I was once blind but now I can see’ [Johns gospel] but this time it’s different ‘do you believe or not’! It was time to be willing to lay it on the line for Jesus. ‘Yes, we have been sick for too long, we need help! To hell with our damn pride, please help us’! Okay, they walked away seeing. No one did this stuff like Jesus! How could you not hear his teaching, the religious leaders were telling the people ‘he doesn’t fit our mold, stop listening to him!’ They were being eaten up by jealousy, the same thing that haunted Cain. He killed his brother Abel because his brothers works were accepted, his weren’t. The religious leaders could not stand the fact that Jesus was being accepted by the common folk, he was moving in on their place of authority. They fed off of the limelight, the prestige of position. Jesus would have none of it, he tells the people he’s healing ‘Don’t spread the word about this, okay’ and sure enough they go out and tell everybody! Jesus fame spread abroad thru the whole country, but he was heading to the Cross for heavens sake! No time to gloat in the honor of men. Yes Jesus was truly one of a kind, people were fascinated by him ‘isn’t he the carpenters son? Isn’t this the kid we played stick ball in the street with’? They couldn’t connect this Divine destiny with the boy they grew up with, he had them all wondering. But don’t forget, he told Peter and Andrew ‘follow me guys, I will teach you how to catch men’. He knew the way to ‘catch them’ wasn’t the route of the religious class, they just spouted their doctrinal positions all day long, told the people how bad they were, the average folk saw right thru the hypocrisy. Jesus had a different style, it would take him all the way to Golgotha, the ‘place of the skull’ [death].
(1096) I had one of those weird prophetic experiences yesterday, I was reviewing a radio tape that I made a while back [6 months to a year?] though I don’t listen to myself on the radio, I review the tape one time before airing, and I will be surprised how many times the thing I just wrote on the blog matches what I said a year ago! I mean the exact words. So yesterday as I am listening to the tape while cleaning the house, I am saying to myself ‘wow, this is exactly what I just taught’ and then on the tape I say ‘you know, sometimes people hear these messages years later and say “wow, that’s exactly what I just went thru”’ weird, isn’t it? Okay, being we have been talking somewhat about Jesus and his movement, let’s do a little about style/procedure. A few weeks back we had a busy day around the mission where I hang out; various Christians/ministers donating time to help out. I met a new brother who introduced himself and we both shared about our various ministries, I told him how I have made many homeless friends and we get together and do stuff. Sometimes we travel to another town and ‘see how the brothers are doing in all the towns where I have preached the gospel’ [Paul does this in the book of Acts] But most of the time we are just friends. During this day as the other Christians were chipping in, fixing things and stuff, my other ‘ministry friend’ kind of wanted to talk ‘ministry’ he saw me sitting with my friends and kind of couldn’t understand what I was doing [just being friends!] sort of like ‘when are you going to do the preaching/teaching thing and then talk ministry?’ He was well meaning, but he just didn’t get the whole point. I do not see/have a ‘ministry’ thing that takes place outside of the confines of simply trying to live out the kingdom of God as a real person with other real people. These people ARE REALLY my friends, I don’t wrap things up and then ‘talk serious ministry’ this is serious ministry! It took some of my preacher friends some time to really see this, sort of like ‘gee, John has some ability to teach and all, if he would only get his act together and start a ‘church/ministry’ he could really be successful’! I have heard/felt this mindset many times. I believe we need to live as real people in society, the great need isn’t for more ‘ministries/businesses/churches’ to stir people up to give more money in order to carry out another endless series of projects! The need is for us to return to the ethos of Jesus as seen in the gospels and try to emulate [by the Spirits power] the things he did and taught. Jesus spent much time among the hopeless; he was teaching and doing good deeds. At the same time you had the religious class of professionals living as some type of upper-class clergy. Jesus style works a lot better.
(1093) woke up too early today, around 1 a.m. The first sound I heard was Dick Van Dyke singing ‘put on a happy face’ from some classic movie on the AMC channel. I never really listened to the words before, but he sings ‘don’t use the word tragic/tragedy in your vocabulary’ I must admit I have been using those words a bit too much. It sounded like a Joel Osteen sermon in stereo for heavens sake! I guess the Lord knew I wouldn’t have received it from a prosperity preacher. But how could I brush off Van Dyke? I know ‘who does Van Dyke think he is! Mr. big shot, big screen actor who stooped so low that he made the Dick Van Dyke show, no REAL actor would do a TV series’ yea, that makes me feel better. I was at the homeless hangout the other day [will be there today as well] now there are also a bunch of gang kids who hang out there, in Corpus we have somewhat of a gang problem, kids shooting every week and all, deaths every so often. I was walking with one of the homeless brothers passed a few of them, I mean you can tell by the way they look, I could never wear my pants half way down my backside! What the heck kind of cool look is that, I think it makes you look like an idiot! Well anyway one of them said something as we walked passed, I of course had to stop and give them one of those ‘are you talking to me’ type looks, to be honest I think the kid got a little scared, just being honest. Okay, I never listen to myself on the radio [maybe 5 times total in 13 years] and the other day I put the station on, seeing who’s new in the area and all. Sure enough I hear this brother, can’t really recognize the voice, but he sounds pretty good. It took me a minute to realize it was me! I quickly turned it off. Remember the Jeff Foxworthy thing? You might be going thru some stuff if you hear yourself on the radio and don’t know it’s you. Thought it fit in good here. My wife got an email from an old friend, she lives in Germany with her ‘new’ husband. We were friends with the lady years ago, I was friends with her first husband. She was the secretary at a Baptist church and yes, she ran off with the Pastor! She divorced my friend and married the Pastor. He left his family and they have been together for around 10 years now. I know people are human, they fall into stuff [I really know!] But I can’t see how the ex pastor can try and get things right and stay in the marriage, over the years I have had ups and owns, yes even times where me and my wife were separated but after getting things right, any side relationships had to go! I mean even stuff like ‘maybe God is in this’ being said by the other person [talking years ago by the way!] wouldn’t even register in my mind! I don’t know how pastors/ex pastors can continue in these types of relationships, God forgives, but the relationships just can’t go on like that. And I am not judging, been there done that, just when things are over you have to do your best to make things right. Just read ‘blessed are the pure in heart, they shall see God. Blessed are the merciful, they shall obtain mercy’ I have learned in my life that there are times where I can ‘see’ God. Days when I know if I stay on course I will hear him, I am the type that if I backslid into drugs and bought a bunch of stuff, that I would not be able to keep the stuff overnight, I would have to throw it out. Or if I woke up and thought ‘later on I will mess up, but for now let me do the prayer/teaching thing’ I wouldn’t be able to do it. Now, if later on wound up being bad, that’s another story, but to actually premeditate the thing doesn’t happen with me, I know I ‘cant see God’ when not truly desiring a pure heart! Now, I have had Christian friends who could do stuff like that, i.e.; staying in the new marriage after leaving your former family, I know I could never do this. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are divorced people who move on with their lives and God forgives them, but the above situation is much worse than that. God says ‘if you regard iniquity in your heart, the Lord will not hear you’ to live with the conscious, ongoing acceptance of sin in your life will cut you off from the presence of God! Blessed are the pure [not perfect!] in heart, for these are the ones who get to see God.
(1083) Let me do a compilation of various readings. In Isaiah we read the famous verse ‘I have laid a cornerstone in Zion, a rock of offence and stumbling; those who believe will not make haste’ [somewhere in Isaiah?] Paul quotes it in Romans. If you go read the chapter [look it up] you will see that the reason God raises up this ‘cornerstone/rock of offence’ is because the leadership of Israel became wicked, they were fulfilling roles in the community, but they left the intent of God behind. So God raises up prophetic voices at certain seasons for the purpose of creating a divine tension in the community. Voices that will be a stumbling stone and offensive to others; this is part of the process. In Zechariah/Revelation you have the witnesses who also ‘devour those that speak against them by the words of their mouth’. The adversaries really cannot refute what the prophets are speaking; Jesus also metes out justice with the Sword coming from his mouth [the word of God]. The lord speaks to Joshua the high priest [Zechariah] and he is standing before God and making intercession with dirty clothes. Like Hebrews says ‘every priest taken from among men is compassed about with infirmity’ this is so the priest can identify with those he is interceding for. Then the Lord removes the dirty clothes and puts a clean garment on him [robes of white/righteousness- revelation] and does this divine act of cleansing. The lord also says he will remove the sin of the land in ‘a day’. All these images speak of the purposes of God, he allows people to speak into his community at set seasons for the purpose of a corporate work. These voices often cause turmoil, they shake things around; Pastors wish they never heard some of the stuff! Why? Because then they realize they have to reform also, a tough process indeed. As you follow along on this blog, you see how I ‘dwell’ in different camps at different times. Whole seasons of doing prophetic stuff, or history, or traditional church stuff. I believe the Lord wants all of us to come out of our secluded shells, our ‘peculiar’ doctrinal slants, and to embrace the broader context of what he’s doing in the nations. We need to quit viewing ‘ministry’ thru the lens of starting a business, raising money for the business [church/para church] to carry out certain functions, and then living our lives in the context of ‘God wants us all to be happy and have a good time, and whatever happens in the rest of the world is none of my concern’. Jesus challenges us with a kingdom message, he told us that we would need to lay down our lives/agendas for a higher, more noble purpose. He constantly challenged those on the edge to jump in and forsake all to follow him. As I read the prophets, I see that God uses them to directly challenge leadership, he raises them up as a result of leadership going off track. Jesus was the cornerstone/rock of offence that made the religious leaders very uncomfortable. The New Testament says they feared they would lose their positions of status if Jesus kept gaining a following. You see, the things he was saying were a direct offence to their way of life, the way they perceived their service to God. Those who believed [Nicodemus] would enter into the beginning of a new worldwide movement that would never end, those who stayed offended would wind up crucifying ‘their rock of offence’.
(1082) ‘For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth. For they are the messengers of the Lord’ Malachi 2:7. I remember a few years back, I was listening to the various teachings that were on the radio station that I broadcast on. Some brother out of the Fort Worth area used to buy air time and all. One time the focus was ‘what is Gods essential character?’ if there were only one word to describe who god is, what his essential makeup was, what would that word be? And of course the answer was ‘abundance’ specifically ‘financial increase’. I know of know other way to describe stuff like this, it falls under the category of ministerial malpractice! God commands leaders/teachers to seek the truth coming from him, we are responsible to at least get the most basic things right! What would be the most obvious answer to the question of how to define God in a word? Surely every preacher should know the answer. It would be ‘God is love’. While there are many attributes of God [omnipotence, omniscience, etc.] yet the ‘one’ word definition, if you had to give one, would be love [yes, he is Spirit too]. The last word you should use to describe God would be ‘much money’. Paul said the false teacher’s god is their belly; their appetites, they live to satisfy their desires. Jesus taught us one of the greatest desires of man is acquiring great wealth. He said you can’t serve God and money [mammon]. Why people still send their offerings to ministries like this is beyond me. The challenge to wealth and oppressive wealthy nations/peoples is sown all thru out human history; Homers Iliad revealed the monster 12 centuries before Christ in his writings on the Trojan War. Adam Smith penned his famous book ‘wealth of nations’ in 1776. Challenges to oppressive govt's. of men who use wealth and power to come against the poor in society are noble themes that all great prophetic voices have hit on [Gandhi, Martin Luther King, etc.]. Who was thee singular greatest prophetic voice who engaged in this type of polemic? Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Most know him as the carpenter, but the actual word used to describe his trade in the Greek means ‘hand laborer’ [or day laborer] you know, those poor brothers we see waiting for a job on the corners of streets, going to ‘labor ready’ [a local place to find daily work]. It is quite possible that Jesus was ‘less’ than a carpenter/tradesmen, but more of an odd jobs worker. Willing to take any job he could get. Well, once he entered his teaching ministry, boy did he speak to power and wealth. If you read all the actual words of Jesus [yes, the red ones!] and try and come up with a singular theme thru out his writings, it could very well be his contrast of the rich and poor. The powerful oppression of wealth and unjust govt. against the poor and weak in society. His incessant condemnation of the wealthy and affluent, I mean you can’t possibly miss this! Unless you are not seeking the ‘law’ [words] that actually were coming from his MOUTH! Malachi rebuked the priests of his day, they were functioning and active and everyone knew they were priests, yet they were not really listening to the words of God himself, I think we need to all give heed to what the brother said.
(1081) Was thinking earlier what we should talk about today, I have been jumping around thru some of the prophetic books [Revelation, Zechariah, etc.] but then I remembered I got a letter yesterday from my buddy in the New Jersey jail [I have some in the city jail, some in the state prison system of Jersey]. So I thought I should read the letter and mention it. Sure enough they didn’t take the check, I sent him a 25.00 dollar check and they sent it back; it needs to be a money order. The guys need money to get stuff from the commissary and stuff, I have done this plenty of times [by ‘done this’ I mean sent the money!] I realize now that the Lord is going to have me do a little more writing than I expected. Nothing wrong with it, for some reason I didn’t expect my buddy to write back and want to keep in touch. That’s fine. He also told me he was reading the stuff I copied from my blog; he says ‘it’s strange I can hear your voice when I read your stuff’. Just a few weeks back I was ‘thinking’ about the dynamic of hearing someone’s voice when you read their books, I mean it was a conscious thought that I couldn’t shake. Now I realize it was one of those prophetic moments, basically the Lord was telling me ‘people will hear your voice when they read your stuff’. My buddy handed out a few of the ministry cards I sent, he told me some of the other brothers might write. It’s strange, I felt the Lord was telling me a few years ago that he was going to expand my territory and I would once again have contact with New Jersey, and at the same time some of the Texas contacts would wane [the prison stuff- I still have a bunch of cities we speak into]. So it seems like some of this is coming to pass. To be honest with you guys, I have had some tough times these past few weeks. I can’t be ‘too real’ on a public blog like this! But take my word for it, I have struggled somewhat. You know what's funny [or sad?] I have preacher ‘acquaintances’ who preach great, they always have an excellent public persona. Some think I am too ‘worldly’ [possibly so!] but they mean my open sharing and stuff on the blog. Sort of like we should always be in a preaching mode and ‘God’ forbid we should ever be real. I know some of these men personally, some of them have had more ‘private’ problems than you could ever imagine. Now, I am not judging them, but if all we ever see/know about people are their platform image, then we are seeing an unrealistic picture of the Christian life. Our preaching [American Christianity] is consumed with self-help techniques and psycho babble. We present an unreal picture to the world. Then I hear preachers say that this real life style, being open and not perfect, is wrong. I think the American church needs an overhaul in general. I got an email from the news paper that messed up my bill last month, this paper [Jersey Journal] is the only one I put my name in with the ad, the purpose is for any old friends to see it and maybe read the site. In the other papers I just run the blog ad. But the Journal always treats me right, the poor brother who handles my account always profusely apologizes when something goes wrong ‘please forgive us for the mistake’ and stuff like that. So this time I just couldn’t resist it, I emailed him back ‘NO, I CAN NOT FORGIVE YOU GUYS THIS TIME!’ of course I was kidding, but I would have loved to have seen the look on his face when he read it. So anyway, today we learned that we are all in the same boat, we all struggle with things in life, but during this life we are also called upon by God to give ourselves away for others. To transcend our own weaknesses and give of our time and money for the benefit of others. People who live in the real world need others who live in the real world to reach out and help. One of my favorite movies is Donnie Brascoe [yes, I watch the mafia stuff]. It’s the true story of an undercover F.B.I. agent who infiltrates the mob, he made it further in than any other agent in history. The danger was he identified so much with the brothers, that he had a difficult time differentiating between which world he was in. There is always a danger when living in the real world, we are to be in the world, not of it. But for mere mortals this can be difficult, surely Jesus would never identify too much with such sinful creatures! Oh wait, there is this little doctrine that just popped into my head, I think they call it THE INCARNATION.
(1078) I’m getting ready to email one of our news papers [the ones I run the blog ad in] they double billed me again! I have these papers do direct withdrawals from my account, when a few of them over bill in one month it puts me in a bind. Sometimes it bugs the ‘heck’ out of me, but then I calm down and try and correct it the next day. I believe the Lord allows you to have influence, to ‘go far’, by his sovereign will. Not too long ago I emailed a national radio/prison ministry. He’s based out of Washington, famous brother. Sure enough as I heard his 5 minute radio program one morning, he used a rare example that I have taught on our site. I thought ‘geez, he must be reading our stuff’. It was one of those teachings that is hardly ever heard, a short thing on Jesus words about ‘the camel going thru the eye of a needle’. I refuted the silly teaching that used to say ‘the eye of the needle’ was the name of a ‘low gate’ in the city wall, thus- the poor camel can make it thru, but he has to crouch! OUCH! So any way this brother used the example, good for him [and me]. So if the Lord wants a person to have influence that goes far, he will do it. But there are also times where the Lord holds us back, that is he is simply waiting for our maturity to catch up with our ability. What I mean by this is it is all too common for preachers/ministries to master the art of bringing in the finances, getting things together, then expanding their message way beyond the borders of their maturity. That’s why there is so much unbalanced teaching in the church today, the American church spends exorbitant amounts of money on teaching stuff that is ‘less than perfect’ if you get my drift. So let the Lord lead you in how far your voice should go. He might be saying ‘look son, I have great purposes and plans for you, I have given you a gift and talents that are going to be used in a great way in my kingdom. But for the present time this does not include a national/world-wide audience’.
(1074) Yesterday I met Edward; he is a homeless brother from San Antonio. He located to Corpus a few months ago. As I was helping him out during the day I realized he had a situation with another brother who owns a ‘church building’. The building is not being used so they worked out a deal with my friend, he would live in it and kinda be a caretaker while they are trying to sell it. Well after being with the brother most of the day I ‘discerned’ how he is in great strife with the owners. They have told him to leave and all, he is telling me about his ‘legal rights’ to stay [you do run into brothers like this. I have had buddies tell me stuff like this before ‘squatter’s rights’ and stuff. When one of my friends refused to get his motorcycle motor out of my garage, he started using the squatters rights ‘provision’ he saw how quickly I began dragging it out to the curb! He got it out.] So this is kind of a funny thing that the guys do at times. But it did get me to thinking about how often we mix ‘business’ with ‘church’ [charity]. I have a policy, whenever someone asks to borrow money, I NEVER do it, but I will GIVE them some, with the explicit directions to ‘not pay me back’. A few posts back I mentioned how I used to do the real estate thing; buying a cheap rental [some were not cheap] and renting it out until I could sell it. It’s not wrong for believers to do stuff like this, but Jesus also taught us that the pursuit of wealth can affect you in a bad way. At the time I was reading and learning about all types of money investments, consuming my thoughts and energies with this stuff. Then my bible reading/teaching would inevitably become ‘affected’ with this paradigm. I would just naturally gravitate towards the money portions of scripture, when coming across the classic ‘you cannot serve God and money’ verses; I would unconsciously stick it in the category of ‘church tradition’ even though Jesus was the one who said it! So its a popular trend for believers to get into the whole ‘God has called me into the ministry of teaching believers how to become financially independent, so lets spend our time building wealth for my business and at the same time helping other believers build wealth’ sounds noble, but it usually winds up focusing on the money stuff most of the time. It gets your focus on the wrong thing. So anyway I think we need to refocus our thoughts on the New Testament priorities, sure you can be a responsible business investor, nothing wrong with it. But don’t go down the road of ‘my ministry is to bring in the wealth’ you wont be the first [or last] person that has ‘felt this calling’.
(1073) 1st KINGS 22- Well, this study went fast! I basically write a chapter a day and it fly’s by. Ahab consults with Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. He convinces him to fight against Syria and take back Ramoth-Gilead. Jehoshaphat asks Ahab ‘are there any prophets we can get advice from?’ Ahab brings out the troops, these were 400 PAID prophet’s who were ‘on staff’. Sure enough these brothers know how to ‘prophesy’. They all with one voice [unity] prophesy a great victory ‘surely you will prosper’ is the mantra. One brother even makes these iron horns and says ‘just like these horns you will push the enemy back’ they put on quite a show. But wait, Jehoshaphat wants to play it safe, he asks ‘are there any more prophets that we need to hear from’? Sure enough Ahab says ‘well, I have this guy, but he is so negative! He never agrees with these other fine brothers, but what the heck, lets get him’. So they send a servant to retrieve Micaiah. On the way back to the king, the poor messenger says ‘Now look, all the other brothers are on board, they know how to toe the party line. Please give your reformation preaching a rest’. So they arrive at the designated spot, and Micaiah prophesies good stuff. He gave into the pressure. Ahab says ‘how many times do I have to tell you to speak what’s really on your heart’ then he gives the true prophecy ‘I saw Israel like scattered sheep across the terrain’ basically he was saying ‘don’t go to battle’. Ahab says ‘see, what did I tell you! This brother is bad news’ they lock him up and go to battle. Sure enough Ahab gets killed ‘by chance’ [a stray arrow] and the battle goes bad. Also, a story is told how the host of heaven appeared before God and the lord said ‘how will we convince Ahab to go to battle’? And the story says that God allowed a lying spirit to be in all the prophets. It was Gods judgment on Ahab to let him hear what he wanted to hear! Paul says that people will ‘heap to themselves teachers, wanting the ears tickled’ we live in a day where church attendance is ‘seeker friendly’ people want their ‘felt needs’ met. Sometimes the Lord gives people what they want, even if it’s not good for them! [Remember King Saul?] So we end 1st Kings with judgment falling on Ahab, the dogs ‘licked the blood’ from his chariot in Samaria as a fulfillment of Gods judgment on him. We also see the possibility of ‘prophetic ministers’ looking really good, putting on a show, if you will, and yet being dead wrong! In today’s internet environment we live in a day where multiple prophecies go forth on a regular basis, we need to be wary of listening to the ‘many prophets’. I have found a few good prophetic words thru this venue, but for the most part the ‘prophets’ have a tendency to go with the flow. This is not to say that all prophecy needs to be doom and gloom, but we often give voice to the image of Jesus that suits us best. We like a rich, successful, wealthy Jesus, a real go getter if you will. We then speak words that are coming from our distorted image of him. In essence we prophesy [speak] words that are in agreement with the image of Jesus that we choose to hold on to. Ahab had a bunch of prophets who were looking real good, surely they all couldn’t be wrong! God let them prophesy the things that they wanted to prophesy.
(1072) I was gonna cover Jezebel today, but lets save it for later. I have a package sitting here, getting ready to send it off to a New Jersey prison. One of my buddies is in prison and it’s a good chance to get him to read some stuff. I copied a bunch of stuff from this blog and added a few notes. He is the friend we prayed for that almost died around a year ago. His name is Patrick, he had a bad overdose on drugs, but the Lord healed him in a miraculous way. You can read about it under the prayer request section. But he was not healed of everything. One of the ongoing problems is he did permanent nerve damage to his leg. One of the problems is ‘it kills you to go to the bathroom’ if you get my drift. Well anyway as it was being explained to me, I really couldn’t empathize that much. I of course would continue praying for him, but couldn’t totally relate. Then after my most recent bout with severe back pain, I too had the problem! I notice that after the severe pain finally goes away, there will be an increased loss of feeling to my right side. Well that affects the nerves in the leg as well, now I can empathize! When one of my homeless buddies came by last week, he asked if his brother could send me some money for him thru the internet. I told him I didn’t have an account like that. He believed me and all, but I explained to him that other ministries are set up like that, they receive offerings that way. But I don’t do anything like that, I don’t take offerings. So as we talked a little I let him know that I also don’t deduct any giving from my taxes [to be honest, now it’s cheaper for me to do the standard deduction. But when I first started doing this it was not for that reason]. Well anyway he said how it’s not wrong to at least benefit in some way thru the ministry stuff I do. I told him that I do realize that many good ministries do use these advantages, yet I have seen over the years that many unbelievers use this single excuse to reject the gospel. So I personally take that excuse away when it comes to us. The bible says Jesus suffered so he might have compassion and be able to identify with our struggles [Hebrews]. Paul told the Corinthians that the suffering he endured enabled him to better empathize with others. If I stopped spending the money on the ministry, or tried to set up an income stream from it, then I could probably afford health insurance. But I’d rather suffer a little now, and build up some eternal rewards for later. We need to understand the biblical doctrine of sacrifice a little bit more, for I trust that ‘the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us’ [Paul].
(1071)1ST KINGS 20- Benhadad, king of Syria, besieges Israel and threatens Ahab ‘give me your gold, wives and kids’. Ahab was a demoralized man, his wife was already running the show, he relinquished any remnant of nobility years ago. He responds ‘sure, take it all. What do I care?’ So all goes well, Not! Benhadad says ‘one more thing, tomorrow my men will come and inspect your stuff, if they see anything else of value, they taking that too!’ So Ahab consults with his men, he tells them the situation and they decide to reject the final offer. The fight is on. Notice how the Lord sends Ahab true prophets who give him guidance along the way, it’s like the Lord was willing to allow Ahab some time to get things right. The false prophets are dead, Elijah rebuilt the altar, who knows, maybe God was giving Ahab a real chance at reform. So Ahab does okay, he has a few battles with Syria, and at the end he LETS THE WICKED ENEMY GO! God rebukes him for this thru a prophet. God basically says ‘look, I gave you a second chance. I had a task for you, your job was to recognize and eliminate the threats to my people’ what happened? I have noticed thru the years that leaders, good men, will often fall into mindsets that say ‘well, after all our goal is to succeed and be happy. Have good church attendance, good income. Why even bother dealing with stuff that’s wrong?’ There are times in church history where God is looking for reformers, men and women who are willing to take a stand and say ‘enough, this stuff has be going on for too long, we will have no more of it’ [doctrines and stuff that lead Gods people astray]. It seems as if Ahab was living for the day, willing to let the wicked king live another day. After all, what harm can it do? He disobeyed God, he was given a mandate to execute justice, he didn’t. God chose him to complete the task, not just survive. Ahab blew it big time.
(1068) 1ST KINGS 17- This chapter is pretty famous among Christians, not like the others we have looked at. God’s word comes to Elijah and he enters the scene as a significant Old Testament figure. Jesus will refer to John the Baptist as one who came in ‘the spirit and power of Elijah’. The religious people of Jesus day held on to the prophecy of Malachi that ‘before the great day of the Lords coming, Elijah would appear’ [Jesus applied this to John the Baptist] so the brother has good credentials. He comes out of the shoot like a rocket; he confronts Ahab, the wicked king of Israel and prophesies no rain in the land. God directs him to go into hiding/obscurity and live by a brook. The Ravens bring him food and he drinks from the brook. The drought causes the brook to dry up and God instructs him to go to a city and be cared for by a widow woman. He goes and asks the woman to provide for him, she fears she won’t have enough for both him and her small family [a son]. He encourages her not to fear and take care of him, she does and God provides supernaturally for the woman. Eventually her son dies and she blames God ‘did God bring you hear to show me what a sinner I am? Now my son dies!’ She was feeling condemned/guilty. Elijah takes the child and lays on him and God raises the boy from the dead, one of the greatest miracles that God does with men. A few things; Elijah was not there to instill fear into the average ‘church folk’. Last night I again made the mistake of channel surfing the Christian channels during ‘praise athon month’ [Double ouch!!] One channel had a brother telling the people ‘God is not moved unless your giving is sacrificial, it must hurt you to please God’ [in so many words] The other channel had a brother saying ‘God said if you hear preaching and benefit, and you don’t give money in return, you are sowing to the corruption of the flesh’ I am familiar with this passage, it is found in Corinthians. The tone and overall ‘sense’ of these appeals was wrong. It seemed to leave a feeling of fear and condemnation to the average channel surfer who might be looking for answers. Elijah told the widow woman ‘don’t fear’. Elijah also had the capacity to live in obscurity, though God spoke highly of him, yet he recognized that there would be seasons of obscurity; times when you simply serve the Lord thru simple tasks and go unrecognized for many years. I cant stress enough the contradiction between Jesus ethos of Christian leadership and what the average Christian is taught in our day. We connect Christian success in ministry with the tools of corporate growth and we simply set young ministers on a purpose driven course that often by passes the teachings and character of New Testament leadership. Elijah will eventually appear again on the scene, but he spent an awful lotta time by the brook!
(1064) 1st KINGS 14- Jeroboam’s son gets sick, he tells his wife ‘disguise yourself and go to the prophet Ahijah, he will tell you what will happen to the boy’. She goes and the Lord reveals the identity of the wife to Ahijah, he is old and blind. As soon as she gets to the house he gives her a strong rebuke, tells her the child will die and that her husband was wicked. Sure enough she takes the message back to Jeroboam and these things come to pass. Why did Jeroboam disguise his wife? Ahijah was the original prophet who told Jeroboam that he would be king, Jeroboam knew that he was doing wrong by instituting idolatrous practices into the nation; so why did he do it? Basically he trusted in the arm of the flesh to maintain would God gave him. He did it so he wouldn’t lose the kingdom. He obviously avoided the prophet for as long as he could, he thought he would send his wife incognito and who would know? The Lord knew. God has ways of getting information to you [and me!] whether we want to hear it or not. Also Ahijah was a prophet, another name for prophet is ‘Seer’ [some feel seers are totally different gifts/offices, for the sake of this basic teaching they are closely related] but yet he couldn’t ‘see’ for himself. I find it interesting that many of Gods greatest gifted people can’t seem to find help for themselves. There is a prophecy about Jesus that says ‘physician, heal thyself’, Paul had a thorn in the flesh that wouldn’t go away! Many people that are used by God to pray for healing and get results, they themselves struggle with sickness. Ahijah had a word; not only about Jeroboams son [a localized situation] but also a national word ‘Israel will be shaken like a reed in the water’ the Lord used the local situation to speak to the broader community. The people would ‘be shaken’ because they permitted idolatry into their lives. Understand, we see the idolatry of Israel as blatant [actual idols and stuff] but they really thought that the forms of idolatry that they were practicing were pleasing to God! I often find that well intentioned believers have a difficult time ‘seeing’ idolatry [covetousness, greed]. The American church has incorporated ‘success/abundance’ so deeply into the minds of the saints that we view our worship of God thru this skewed lens. ‘If God wants me to have an abundant life, then what’s wrong with me centering my church life around being successful, confessing and thinking about abundance/money all day long’? Well, what’s wrong with it is Jesus told the church that he didn’t want us ‘thinking’ about these things all the time, he said the ‘gentiles [unbelievers] are always thinking about the stuff, it shall not be so with you’. So it takes time for Christians to see these things, Jeroboam instituted a form of idolatry into Gods nation, the people sincerely went along for the ride. God said they were going to be shaken ‘like a reed in the water’.
(1063) Yesterday I took my daughter and her friends to help out with a school sports program, they volunteered to help. On the way home I checked my P.O. box and sure enough one of my regular radio listeners sent me 10 bucks cash. I hate when people do this. Why? Because I have a policy of taking no money, ever! So it costs me 25 cents [or whatever stamps cost now] to mail it back. This brother has listened and written me ever since I’ve been on radio [1996-2009]. He used to rebuke me for teaching against the prosperity gospel; his letters reveal that he is an older guy who is an ‘expert’ in that doctrine. But he also compliments me about our program, times where he really agrees and says ‘wow, that was real meat’ [good teaching] this week! So anyway I put up with him. So as I get home I write a short thank you note, stick the money in an envelope and put a stamp on it, figure I’ll mail it out later. Than one of my homeless buddies stops by, I haven’t seen them in a few weeks, been feeling bad with my back and all. Also, just a note to my old buddies, I am still in good shape, hey I used to hold the arm wrestling title at the fire house! It was funny beating the young jocks, the point is I am not out of shape or overweight or anything like that, it’s just my back really hurts at times. I don’t carry health insurance on myself [only the kids] because it’s too much, so I don’t ever go to doctors [only when first injured] so I deal with it by overdosing on Advil’s and stuff. But anyway my buddy came by and I decided to change plans for the day [I was going to do some reading] and had a B.B.Q instead. I also ripped open the envelope and gave my friend the 10 bucks; I felt I wasn’t violating my policy of ‘no offerings’ by passing it along to a friend in need. We had a good fellowship and my daughters came over thru out the day, they help out at the church [Bay Area fellowship] on Saturdays with the child care. So they have been asking me questions and stuff about the bible, my second oldest, Rebecca, does not have the internet at her ranch yet. She owns a few acres out in the country and hasn’t set up wireless yet, so she can’t read this site and learn the stuff. I have been passing books along and stuff to her, I do lend my books out- sometimes they never make it back, but I see this as ministry of sorts, who knows where the books will end up someday. Also I have a tendency to ‘correct’ the stuff I don’t agree with by adding notes to the books, so it gives a better balance [in my view] than jut passing stuff along without doing a little teaching myself. But the ‘dynamic’ of the day was interesting, I have been praying that ‘all my children would be taught of the Lord’ [both natural and spiritual kids] and that ‘God would pour out his Spirit on our seed, our young men would see visions, old men dream dreams. Our handmaidens [ladies!] would prophesy’ [Acts 2] so this was a good interaction of spiritual ‘sons’ and my natural daughters all getting excited about the things of the Lord. Also one of my Christian neighbors who I have known for years stopped by while walking his dog out in the front. He knows I do radio and stuff, but he has never visited this site! He does some teaching on a local basis thru a Christian publication, I like the paper. But the sister who runs it must not like me [probably because of our stance against the prosperity gospel] I have mailed her a few checks over the years and asked for a subscription, not only do they rip the checks up [I guess?] but they don’t respond at all, I just leave it alone [I know she gets the checks, but does not agree with my teaching. To be honest it’s just bad business to not even respond, plus your paid advertisers are getting the short end of the stick as well]. But anyway I gave my neighbor the blog address and hope he learns from it. It’s funny, we have friends all over the world who regularly follow the journey with us, yet brothers right down the block might be ‘out of the loop’ that’s fine, we don’t have to be ‘known’ by everyone. So anyway I just thought I’d share a little today, was going to do the next chapter of Kings, but will get to that tomorrow, God bless till next time.
(1062) 1st KINGS 13- Jeroboam is confronted by a prophet as he is worshiping at the idol/altar in Bethel. The prophet gives a significant word, he mentions by name a future king [Josiah] who God is going to raise up to institute reform in the nation. When someone’s name is prophesied before their birth, that is a special anointing. Both Jesus and John the Baptist had stuff like this surrounding their births. Now Jeroboam stretches out his hand against the prophet, God curses his hand and the prophet prays for him and he gets healed. Jeroboam invites him to stay for a meal and the young prophet says ‘no, God told me not to stay and eat here’. On his way home an older prophet invites him to come back and eat with him, he tells the young prophet ‘I too am a prophet and the Lord told me for you to “eat and sit at my table’” [a type of fellowship]. Now, the old prophet lied, why? It seems as if he did not do this on purpose, he heard the story about the young man, possibly remembered the glory days of old and simply wanted the fellowship. As the young prophet ‘sits at the table of deceit’ the word of the Lord comes to the old prophet and says ‘because you disobeyed and stayed and ate, you will die’. The old prophet gave a true word and the young prophet leaves and is killed by a lion. His ‘movement’ died prematurely because he ‘sat’ at the table of deceit and disobeyed God. A few things; many years ago as I saw certain things going off track with certain movements [prosperity] I saw things that seemed to be fake, brothers sharing dreams and prophetic words that seemed false. Yet I felt these brothers weren’t doing this on purpose, that in some way they fell into a trap of wanting to be involved and accepted by their peers. And when confronted by real reproofs, they simply retreated into their own groups and refused the reproof. There are things like this happening now with certain elements of the modern prophetic movement. In the above story, the older prophet meant no harm, but yet harm was done! The younger prophet wasn’t there [in Bethel] to rebuke the old man, he was simply carrying the torch of prophetic rebukes that were needed at times. The mistake the younger generation made was being too willing to ‘sit and eat’ at the old mans table. I believe that certain elements of the older ‘prophetic’ movements need to be abandoned and left alone to die [false doctrines, not people!]. Those who walk in wisdom and obedience will reuse to ‘sit and eat at the old mans table’ and those who decide to stay at the table will die prematurely [that is their ministries and movements will be cut short] which group are you in?
(1061) 1ST KINGS 12- At the end of the last chapter Solomon died, Rehoboam his son will now ascend to the throne. Rehoboam is confronted by the nation, they tell him ‘your father was a slave driver! He made it hard on us, we were tools that were being used for his own self advancement’ [my paraphrase] they plead with Rehoboam to go easy on them. I find it interesting that Solomon’s reputation outside of Israel was great, he excelled and the kings of the earth knew it [image building]. But amongst his own people, those who knew him best, he was driven by ambition. Though hey liked the man and he was a great leader, yet they associated him with always putting a yoke/burden on them to build. ‘More and more’ was the logo. The people were tired, they wanted to simply exist as Gods people. They weren’t asking Rehoboam to totally put them on welfare, they just wanted a break from viewing their lives thru the unrelenting pressure of ambition. So Rehoboam consults with two groups; he asks the elders of the land for advice, they advise him to ‘become a servant of the people, go easy on them’ What! A servant, are you kidding me man. Sounds like the teaching of Jesus ‘he that wants to be greatest must serve’. He then consults the young guys, peers in his own age group, they tell him ‘go for it, tell them you aint seen nothing yet! You think daddy was tough, my little finger will be heavier than his leg!’ Rehoboam listens to both groups and chooses the bad advice of the younger generation. So the people [with Jeroboam as the head speaker] come back on the 3rd day for the response, they don’t like what they hear and mount a revolt. The kingdom becomes divided under Jeroboam as the new king of Israel [ten tribes-northern] and Rehoboam as the king over Judah [and Benjamin] the southern tribe. Now Jeroboam realizes that he will lose control of the people if they keep their religious feasts at Jerusalem every year. Jerusalem is the capital where his adversary Rehoboam is at, so he sets up two golden calves [just like what happened in the wilderness in Moses day] and he places them in the city of Dan and Bethel. He also sets up a new class of priests, in violation of Gods law, and he makes up his own religious calendar. This single action of rebellion introduces false religion on a large scale to Gods people. Rehoboam gets together an army and is about to fight and regain his rightful place, God sends a prophet to him and tells him ‘leave it alone, the thing is from me’. God allowed for the split, Rehoboam had the chance to humble himself and instill a new mindset into Gods people. Yet he went for ‘the glory’. There are obviously a lot of lessons here, I don’t have to show them all to you, they are plain enough to see. To all the leaders/pastors who follow us, how are you viewed by those closest to you? Do outsiders see you as a successful leader, ambitious and able to get stuff done? Do those closest to you seem to be saying ‘lets take a break, we have had many years of never being able to sacrifice enough, building things. Okay things, but the job has been tough, we need a break’. Be sensitive to the real purpose of God, for him to be fully glorified and expressed thru is church, the community of God. Solomon reigned over a great people, but he was too ambitious, ambitious in the area of image building. The people themselves should have been the important thing, not the amount of stuff they could produce! In the end Rehoboam lost more than he would have ever gained by choosing the hard route. Allow God to lead you in the paths that he has set before you, the people you lead are the thing of value, not the things that they can produce [financially or any other way].
(1058) 1ST KINGS 10- The queen of Sheba hears about the wisdom and wealth of Solomon and makes a trip to check it out, she says ‘the half has not been told’. Solomon established an impressive economic and military system for the nation; he knew how to accomplish stuff. Wisdom [Solomon’s gift] allows for there to be action along with knowledge. Jesus knew how to use wisdom, scripture says he ‘is the wisdom of God’. The book of Proverbs [written by Solomon] personifies wisdom as Gods firstborn, God possessed him before all things. Scripture says ‘wisdom sends out her servants/ships’ remember when Jesus ‘sent the word’ and healed people? Or when the Leper was told to ‘go wash’ [by Elijah] he almost didn’t follow through because he was expecting some big show. Wisdom does not need you to personally ‘be there’ for all the action. I get frustrated at times when the modern church implies to the average saint that they really cant effect society ‘on their own’ but it is said in a way that makes the average ‘churchgoer’ think that the only way they can have a part of the action is in if they give exorbitant amounts of money ‘to the church’. And then ‘the church’ will send their money to other professional ministers who will carry out the job. Or the church will send their minister all over the world and he will do the job for them! This mindset ‘de-claws’ the average saint, it makes him think his main contribution is ‘the collection plate’! Use wisdom to impact society, you don’t always have to ‘be there’ [physically] to have an impact, but you are not limited to simply giving money to others who will act on your behalf. The believer’s greatest tool is his/her ability to make disciples wherever you are. Of course you can use modern tools like the internet. These things can be done for little or no cost and you can have a worldwide impact. The point is wisdom allows you to get things done by establishing systems of communication and ‘sending’ that can reach far and wide. In this chapter we read of Solomon’s navy, a previous chapter said ‘Hiram [and Solomon] made rafts and floated the trees to Solomon, there they were discharged for the work’. God can give you ‘divine rafts’ systems of delivery and discharge where you can impact large regions with little effort! All in all the wisdom of Solomon put in place systems that could carry the workload, without having to use actual manpower to get everything done by hand [can you imagine the manpower that would have been needed to hand carry all the trees!] To all my readers, you can impact ‘your world’ by listening to God and responding as he directs. Solomon said [in Proverbs or Ecclesiastes] that there was a poor wise man who delivered a city [and no one remembered him- non famous!] yet his wisdom gave him great influence ‘with the elders of the land’. Paul established the greatest ‘church planting movement’ known to man, and he did it on a shoestring budget! Don’t let man tell you that you can’t really accomplish much without being rich, you are a child of God and he that is in you is greater than he that is in the world! [note- as an aside, I was listening to a testimony of a minister who said how he thought it was sad that in the ‘ministerial’ environment there were times when the pastors would gather and the church members as well. But in these scenarios there seemed to be a distinction that was unbiblical; sort of like the ministers were fellowshipping amongst themselves, being excited over the plans and activities of ‘their church’ while the average saints were also fellowshipping amongst themselves and sharing about their lives and stories. In actuality the New Testament communities did not have these types of divisions. You did not have a separate class of ‘minister’ who ‘ran the church’ as a separate business enterprise. All the people [Elders and Saints] were of one community and their stories and lives commingled in a more communal way. There was no separation between the ‘classes’.]
(1051) 1st KINGS 3: 16-28 Now to the famous story. Two women [harlots] come to Solomon with a problem. They both had children within a few days of each other, and one night one of the babies died. The other woman woke up and had the dead baby with her, but after she looked at it she realized it wasn’t hers. The real mother of the dead child did a swap at night. So as they are pleading their case to the king, they both claim that the living child is theirs. So Solomon calls for a sword, they bring him the sword and he tells his men ‘take the baby and divide it in two, give half to each mom’ sounds fair enough. Of course the real mom says ‘no, don’t divide it. Give the baby to her’ and the fake mom says ‘no, divide it!’ Ahh! Got ya. Solomon says ‘give the child to the one who did not want to divide it, the child belongs to her’. A few things, it just so happened that the last book we studied was Ecclesiastes, I didn’t plan it like that, it just ‘happened’. Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon. One of the verses I didn’t cover says Solomon wrote on all types of subjects and put together three thousand proverbs. Proverbs are short, concise bits/nuggets of wisdom that get the point across in a nutshell. While there are times when you need to read large volumes and stuff, yet wisdom allows you to cover a lot of content in a little space. In this case Solomon used his wisdom to quickly come to a conclusion that could not be refuted; Jesus did stuff like this with his parables. Notice also that after the judgment was made, there really was no ‘if, ands or buts’ about it. He was right and that settled it. I still have old preacher friends who can’t discern the most basic stuff. Now, I don't want to be mean or condescending, but there comes a time where things are right or wrong. Many years ago I taught how leaders were making a serious mistake when they grasped on to the prosperity interpretation of Jesus parable of the sower [read the chapter ‘twisting the parable of the sower’ in the book ‘house of prayer or den of thieves’ on this site]. Basically many preachers, good men, were going around and teaching that Jesus was speaking about getting a huge harvest of cash. In the parable Jesus says one of the things that hinders the full harvest is ‘the deceitfulness of riches’, so I taught how Jesus was not saying ‘the deceitfulness of riches is holding back the cash’. Now, this is really elementary stuff, but some preachers still can’t discern this, after 20years! There comes a time when Solomon [Jesus] sends a judgment forth, and we ultimately become responsible for what we do with it. In this case, one of the ladies was right the other wrong. Solomon plainly told us who was telling the truth. [note- the other day as I was flipping channels, I stopped at a ‘prophetic’ brother who I haven’t watched in a while. In the past he has had some good words that were right on. But I felt that too many ‘prophecies’ were going forth on a yearly basis that were not really accomplishing anything ‘this year is the year of increase, Rebuke the demon of poverty’ stuff that was being repeated over and over hundreds of times, and yet the word of God was not being taught. Well on the program I tuned in on, the brother was saying how all the media complaints about Sarah Palin's expensive wardrobe were ridiculous [I agree] but then he said that it was nothing but a ‘spirit of poverty’ that needed to be rebuked. Are there ‘spirits/demons of poverty’ no. At least we see no cases of Jesus casting out spirits of poverty in scripture. There comes a time when preachers/media outlets need to return to a sober message of the Cross. I believe in prophecy and miracles and have experienced many of these types of things over the years, but we need to stop being silly with some of this stuff.
(1033)‘DON’T SAY “WHY IS IT THAT THINGS WERE BETTER IN THE PAST THAN NOW” [GOOD OLD DAYS] FOR YOU ARE NOT ASKING A WISE QUESTION WHEN YOU DO THIS’ Ecclesiastes 7:10 [my paraphrase] Is God telling us never to examine our selves? Or our nation? No. But this question speaks of the journey of life. Lets see if I can come up with an original way to state this, I know! How bout we say ‘life is like a box of cherries’ [Okay, I pulled a Biden]. Let’s just say life is like a train/plane trip. Part of the trip entails some turbulence, there are spots along the way where the scenery is great, but also spots where it doesn’t look so good. Many years ago me and the family took the train from San Antonio to New Jersey, the kids were young and it was too long. But I love trains. Anyway when the train finally made it to my home state, my young daughter innocently says ‘why does everything look dirty’ [Ouch!] Trips have ‘built in’ obstacles, times where things don’t go as smooth as before. Why is it not wise to ask ‘why are things not as good during this phase’? It’s because the goal isn’t to continually have a great ride! The goal is to complete the course and finish the race put before you. I know American Christianity has for the most part rejected this, but it is without a doubt biblical. The apostle Paul ended his life in a rented room in Rome, Nero finally took his head off [Peters too]. Now, I am not saying we should all lose our heads, but we need to realize that God has a purpose for the bad spots in the tracks. This chapter speaks of the riches that we get in ‘the house of mourning’ the great things we obtain when the ride is rough. Are you asking the Lord ‘why is this happening to me, why was it better in days gone by’ try and retool your questions to ‘what do you want to teach me during this time? What kind of character development do you have for me during this phase of my life?’ these are the questions that should be asked. The American church spends way too much time trying to ‘beautify the journey’ learning tricks and confessions to make things ‘go away’, God says some of these things are here for a purpose.
(1032)‘A GIFT DESTROYETH THE HEART’ Ecclesiastes 7:7b Over the last few years I have read testimonies from Pastors who said they felt like they were unconsciously being manipulated to look good or perform for the community. Though they were well meaning, and the people they were ‘pastoring’ were also good people, yet the system of being a paid clergyman caused there to be a degree of inauthenticity. A famous quote of a quote [Frank Viola quotes another person in the book ‘Pagan Christianity’] says it’s hard to convince someone about something when their salary depends on them not being convinced! [paraphrase] So the actual position of being dependent on the offerings/tithes of people can put pressure on leaders to not deal with certain subjects. I have had fellow ministers over the years reject what I was saying simply because they felt it would affect their income. Their priority was on surviving. These men are not bad people, they mean well and don’t purposely want their message to be shaped by their dependence on a job/position. But in many cases the temptation is too great. Solomon said a ‘gift’ can corrupt the motives of people. While it is fine for ministers to receive financial help out of respect for their labor, yet we need to examine whether or not the salaried position of the fulltime minister is in keeping with New Testament ecclesiology. Are you tailoring your message by the support you bring in? Do you view success from the standpoint of material assets? Do you see ‘your ministry’ as a career choice? Lets all examine our hearts and motives, we might not be taking bribes in the classic ‘Mafia’ sense, but if we are allowing our financial support to effect the way we live and teach, then we are allowing our hearts to become ‘corrupted’.
(1031)ECCLESIASTES 7:19 ‘WISDOM STRENGTHENS A WISE MAN MORE THAN TEN MIGHTY MEN IN A CITY’- this chapter has a few good verses in it. It says it’s better to go thru some stuff than to live in continual ‘abundance’. Wise men have increased in the ‘house of mourning’. I watched some stuff on Lincoln the other day, it’s obvious that he grew in wisdom and stature as he battled depression and difficulty. His life’s motto was not ‘discover the champion in you’! When I went to Kingsville the other day I noticed our blog ad was not only running in the Kingsville Record, but also the Kingsville Journal. I am not sure how it got in there. I also have a bunch of papers lying around my office, papers from New Jersey and Houston and stuff. I have been getting some contacts from ‘former’ church members of years ago, they are on fire for the Lord. I kinda think they have friends who learned about us on their own and then they realized that they were talking about us. These old buddies see themselves as part of us, but many of them are not on-line geeks. So they run into other locals who follow us on-line and then they realize they are following our story. The point being ‘wisdom strengthens wise men more than ten mighty men in a city’. A few years ago I felt the lord said to start the blog and put the ad in regional papers. The ‘effort’ to do this was not as much as the various outreach projects I have been involved in over the years, but the results have gone much further. If you gave me ‘ten mighty men’ [employees/staff] and I sent them all over to effect the region, I don’t think they could equal the simple effect of me hearing and responding to the Lord in these simple ways. Now, we most certainly have ‘ten mighty men’ a group of both leaders and ‘regular saints’ [ouch!] who follow the journey, but they are a result of hearing and responding. The wisdom [ideas] from God have a greater effect than the efforts of men. Remember, the battle is not to the strong or swift, the victory comes from the Spirit of God. When we learn to listen and respond, the things we do will go far. When we put a lot of money and effort into stuff, without really listening, we get stuck with Ishmaels [something our govt. should learn!] Also, it is often in the ‘house of mourning’ [seasons of extreme difficulty] that God deposits the wisdom into you. Padre Pio [Catholic Priest] said ‘souls come with a cost, somebody has to pay the price’ are you willing to pay the price?
(1023)ECCLESIASTES- I PLAYED THE GAME AND WON! Solomon was in a position where he could do and try anything. I recently read how a very famous Christian singer has come out of the closet and began living the gay lifestyle. He is married and has kids, he is in his fifties. He simply said he woke up one day and told the Lord that he was tired of fighting the desire and gave in. Solomon said he gave in to pleasure, he decided that trying to restrain himself was unfulfilling and he gave in to every pleasure his heart desired. Did it fulfill him? No, he said it was folly. He became the most successful business man in Jerusalem. No one before him was able to achieve the success and prominence in this city where he resided, yet at the end it meant nothing. In essence he played the game, by the rules, and it still wasn’t worth it. Yesterday I was helping out some homeless friends, a sincere older lady asked me if I had a few dollars, I actually didn’t. But I went to the store and bought a few things and took out an extra 20.00. I split it between 4 people; friends that I knew weren’t going to get drunk. They were so happy and grateful, I still can’t get over what a simple 20 dollar bill can do for people. In ‘this game’ that we are in [called life!] God is the scorekeeper, I realize that many modern ‘theologies’ have turned the tables. Some teach that God does keep score by how much material success we achieve before we die, they sincerely think this is right. I watched an exposé on U- TUBE that showed a CNN reporter interviewing one of the prosperity ministers who has come under fire. The reporter got smart, she actually read from scripture the passage where Jesus challenges the young rich man to sell all he has and give to the poor. She quoted the passage where it says it’s harder for a rich man to go to heaven than for a camel to pass thru a needle. The preacher defended his pursuit of wealth by saying ‘if you read the rest of the story, he sold his wealth and God gave him a hundred fold back.’ He said ‘God was telling the man to worship him with his wealth’. I actually was surprised that this minister said this, he does know scripture. He definitely was wrong about this, the rich man went away sad because he had ‘much wealth’ and did not want to depart from it! God keeps score differently than the world. Solomon tried all the options, he was way ahead on points. He was so far ahead that no one was going to catch up, he then realized that ‘being ahead’ wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be.
(1020)CORINTHIANS CONCLUSION- Paul concludes this long letter with a bunch of personal notes. He tells them that the Lord has opened up a great effective door for him at Ephesus and there are many adversaries. He wanted Apollos to make a visit but he did not want to at this time. He told them to go easy on Timothy because he was a fellow worker in the Lord. Overall Paul’s message to this church was one of true grace. I want to emphasize again [like we did when studying Romans and the other epistles so far] that one of the main themes of the first century apostles was belief in the gospel. Paul told these believers that it was believing in the message of the Cross that saves them. He defined the gospel as Jesus death, burial and resurrection. He encouraged them to live free as Gods community and to help each other out. Paul did not lay on them some type of guilt trip to become some high powered institution in order to ‘change their world’. He believed that the simple lifestyle of love and purity would be able to do the job. I see a contrast from the first century church and its simple gospel and today’s idea of church. Also notice how Paul was ‘planting’ these churches. He visited them, spent time with them, LEFT THEM, and continued corresponding with them thru letters and friends. In essence, first century church planting was simply establishing groups of people on the foundation of Christ. They were not organizing under some type of 501c3 model [I do realize they didn’t have this back then!] they didn’t see ‘church’ as some type of social group that you joined [Elks lodge type thing]. They actually were the church! I want to stress this theme as we continue teaching thru out the New Testament. Many times believers hold on to and embrace ideas that seem to be biblical [you can find a verse here and there type thing- proof texting] but when you see the whole story you get a better picture of what’s going on. Well I hope you guys got something out of this brief study, try and keep in mind the things that challenged you as we read thru this book. Did you see some things differently than before? Did some stuff get you mad? Did we challenge your belief system in some way? My goal is to encourage reformation in the church, not disorder! Take the new things you might have seen and implement them in Gods time. Those of your starting from scratch [first time church planters] can start with a clean slate and implement many of these ideas from day one, others who are already in ministry will have to take a more measured approach. Do all things as God leads and in his time. To all you ‘church members’ don’t take the stuff that you learned and use it to come against your ‘church’. Let God lead you on your journey and reform as God directs. It’s easy for some young rebels [or old!] to take the stuff on tithing and use it against your current church, that’s not our goal. Be patient with your pastors and leaders and allow God to use you as a force for change, not destruction. Well that's it for now; I am not sure what study we will jump into next. Recently got some good emails and phone calls from some of our friends laboring in other towns, people I did not even know of, but who follow the ministry. Those of you out there who are following along, send me an email every now and then so I can see what type of growth we are having, the different regions we are impacting. Those of you who have launched home groups, let me know how things are going. God bless till next time, John.
(1018)JAMES AND THE RICH- as James encourages the saints he also rebukes the ‘well to do’. He tells them they have heaped treasure together for the last days and the rust of it will testify against them. He tells the poor believers that the rich blaspheme Gods name and oppress the poor. He tells the poor that God has chosen them to be heirs of the kingdom. One of the main themes of James is that God is on the side of the oppressed person, the down and out. God defends those who have ‘no voice’. They lack the finances and influence to speak up for themselves. Martin Luther King said the New Jerusalem is both a present reality breaking into our current lives ‘New York’ ‘New Chicago’ etc. He spoke of it as the beloved community. He understood that God was not only concerned with the after life, but with society here and now as well. One of the main purposes of prophetic ministry is to bring Gods people back into alignment and to speak out against injustice and materialism. I find it interesting that one of the main themes of James is defending the poor while rebuking the rich. Like we said before James was the half brother of Jesus, he grew up in the same home with the Lord. He experienced the tremendous ministry of Jesus for three years. He heard him speak the parables on rich men in hell and Lazarus in ‘Abraham’s bosom’. He saw the young rich man go away sad because he had lots of stuff and was not willing to give it up for a higher purpose. He heard the parable of the rich guy who wanted to build more storage for his stuff and feel secure by thinking he had abundance for years to come, but then Jesus said he would die that night. James picked up some themes from Jesus, one of them was that those who focused on material wealth were not focused on spiritual things. They seemed to spend most of their time thinking about their stuff. James was one of the lead apostles at the Jerusalem church, their were many poor saints living there. He was not preaching a prosperity gospel to them, he told them their present suffering was only for a short time. They would be rewarded by God for the difficulties they faced, the comfortable would have some stuff to answer for as well.
(1004)CORINTHIANS 13:11-13 WHEN I WAS A CHILD I UNDERSTOOD AND THOUGHT AND SPOKE LIKE A CHILD, BUT WHEN I GREW UP I PUT THOSE THINGS BEHIND ME- Paul shows us that we presently see and understand things thru ‘a glass’. God gives us insight and glimpses into Divine truth, but we need mercy because we all have limited sight. Over the years I know I have ruffled some feathers. Whether it be our teaching on what the church is, tithing, end times stuff. How New Testament believers should view the nationalistic promises made to Israel under the Old Covenant. I have found that the problem usually isn’t solved by simply proving something from scripture. For instance someone might become convinced by an ‘avalanche’ of information, they might actually see what I am saying. They can even articulate it to a degree [sometimes better than me!] but at the end of the day the answer to the problem is we all need to ‘grow up’. We need an overall change in the way we view things thru a legalistic lens. For instance, the tithe issue. Over the years I have taught the concept that believers are not under this law. Those of you who have read this site for any length of time know this. But I have also taught that it is fine to put 10% of your money into the offering on Sunday. It’s okay to support those who ‘labor among us’. But there are also many examples in the New Testament warning Gods leaders to not be in it for the money. Now, if we took seriously the mandate in Malachi to tithe. If we want to actually bind the believer’s conscience in this way ‘how are you robbing God? By not bringing in the tithes!’ Then we need to also look at the context. Israel as a nation was mandated to ‘tithe’ of their goods [not money] in three ways. They gave to support the Levites, also for the poor, and then they gave a tithe for religious feasts. In essence this ‘tithe’ was a total of around 30 % of their annual income, not 10%! [This by the way is right around what I spend on a monthly basis for the ministry stuff I do]. So, if we were telling people ‘you are going to be cursed if you don’t pay 10%’ we are actually misreading this verse. Also, how many believers think they are going to be cursed if they don’t ‘tithe to the poor’? Most modern preaching on the tithe simply puts it in the category of the Sunday offering. Most of this type of giving goes to support salaries, building upkeep, light bills, insurance for staff. I could go on and on. A very minute portion of this money [in general] goes to the poor. Certainly not a third! Also the portion that went to the Levites could not be used to purchase anything that would be owned by the Levite. They were forbidden to own any type of personal inheritance as Levitical priests. How often does the modern concept of tithing include this? The whole point is if we are going to bind peoples consciences in this way [which we shouldn’t] then we need to make sure we are at least teaching it right! Why bring this up? This is simply a good example of what Paul is saying. ‘When I understood in a limited way, I spoke and acted in a limited way’. The answer to the problem is simply ‘becoming mature in our thinking and speaking’. Recently I read an article from a U.S. congressman, he was speaking about the situation between Israel and Palestine. He sided with a military interpretation of the Old Testament promise to Abraham to ‘posses the land’ and used that to influence his political activism for war. How ‘mature’ is this type of thinking? Did any of the JEWISH apostles do this? No. So instead of trying to ‘crisis manage’ every single doctrinal problem, we really need to mature on an overall basis and view these doctrines thru the paradigm of Jesus and his life and work. Are we imitating his ethos when we do these things? Was this the primary message and life of Jesus when he walked the earth? How did he respond to Roman oppression and unjust govt.? Did he advocate military action in defense of the promises of God made to the nation of Israel? If we as the 21st century church do not ‘rightly divide’ these things, then we are of all men ‘most miserable’ [1st Corinthians 15].
(993)THE BILLIONAIRE SUICIDES- ‘Let the brother of low degree [not rich] rejoice in that he is exalted: but the rich in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. … so shall the rich man fade away in his ways’ James 1:9-11. These last few weeks have had a strange thing happen. After the recent fall in the stock market [1-09] there were 3 billionaires who killed themselves. I also watched on the news last night how a stock guy faked his death by crashing his plane, they found out he parachuted out first! Some of the news media said ‘I don’t understand these billionaires killing themselves, sure, they lost billions but they still have money’. This is the deceit of riches. These rich guys were in it for the game, not simply to have enough money to live off of. They fell for the addiction of the game. After losing great sums of money, they weren’t thinking ‘well I still have enough to make it’. No, they were thinking ‘I can never get back to where I was, I will never win the game now’ which to them meant having more than the others ‘in the game’. James said the rich will fade like the grass, they allow their lives to feel secure by the amount they have. When they lose that sense of security they feel all is lost. James was one of the lead elders at the Jerusalem church [Acts 15] he had spiritual oversight to a large group of poor believers. These were the same poor Christians that Paul was taking up offerings for [1st Corinthians 16]. James understood the temporary nature of worldly wealth. I find it notable that James lived and grew up with Jesus, he was his brother. What were the important messages he picked up by living with Jesus most of his life? He understood the shallowness of the rich man. James said ‘they will fade like the flowers on a hot day’. The billionaires took their lives because all that they were living for was gone. The hot sun came up and they were found wanting.
(992)JAMES 1: 2-4 ‘Count it all joy when you fall into various temptations [trials] knowing that the testing of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work [completeness, the end of ‘a thing’] that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing’. When I first started this blog, I was surprised that brothers from Africa quickly found out about us. I kinda thought that all the invites from the continent were part of the scams that go on incessantly on line. I can’t tell you how many ‘Dear brother, I am a Christian millionaire trying to free up my millions in the U.S.’ or something like that type pleas that I get. It usually gives them away when they spell something like ‘Godd blees yeo’. Yes, I admit I have responded at times by saying ‘I hate to inform you but I am an undercover F.B.I. agent, we have traced your computer to its location. YOU WILL BE EXTRADITED TO THE U.S. SOON!’ I quickly ask the Lord to forgive me after I send it off. But the African contacts were legit. The reason I am even mentioning this is because I feel the Lord has a purpose for messages like ours to go out to the nations. Not ‘my message’ per se, but the basic return to a Christ oriented gospel. Africa has gone thru a few decades of becoming ‘Christianized’ by the American gospel. The most prevalent strain of American Protestantism on the continent is the prosperity message. I don’t know if you knew this or not, but it is common to find African churches that are saturated with the prosperity gospel. Now, after all I have written and taught over the years on the abuses of this type of message, yet I do not see this development as totally ‘from the devil’. I believe it to be possible for the Lord to have used the basic message of self reliance, believing God to improve your economy, a basic message of ‘you can do it’ as a foundation for future growth. That is many Africans needed to be told ‘God does have a future and a hope for you and your continent, start believing and trusting God to turn things around’. But after the ‘elementary teachings’ of this type of message are laid, then the ‘more mature’ message of Christ’s calling needs to come in and build upon the basic self help gospel. So, James says ‘count it a blessing when you go thru stuff, God is working things in you, he is bringing you to a point of completeness in your life. Don’t look at all the trials as things from the enemy that must be rebuked, God allows trials for your personal growth and development’. There is a Christian message that teaches us that the Lord brings us to maturity thru difficult things. The basic message of ‘self help’ has an ethos that says ‘Confess, rebuke and apply all the bibles procedures and you will grow’. Much of this message has you rebuking the God ordained tests! Yes, we don’t like the tests. When the big test day comes along [or all the little ones] it can be nerve racking. So modern psychology says ‘lets avoid the pressure that tests put on people. Lets just tell little Tommy ‘you spelled the word the way you felt it should be spelled’ [Ouch!] I want to encourage you today, God has brought you thru some things for your own growth and benefit. You might look back ten years from now and think ‘Thank God I went thru those tough times, they allowed me to avoid going thru years of teaching and believing a limited gospel’. To all my preacher friends who read this site, God wants to ground you guys in some basic Christian truth, things that are foundational to our call in the kingdom. It is all too common for successful ministries to be built on self help principles. After many years go by this self help message can become too self centered, the people need to be taught ‘count it all joy’ once again.
(990)PROVERBS 31: 8-9 ‘Open thy mouth for the dumb [voiceless] in the cause of ALL such as are appointed to destruction [abortion, poor, unjust death sentences]. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy’. This chapter is famous for the second half, the virtuous woman. I have been praying parts of this chapter 3-5 times a week for around 20 years now. I pray the part ‘your wife we be like the merchant ships that bring their goods from afar’ over my wife. I also pray ‘your wife will be like a fruitful vine by the sides of your house, your children like olive plants round about your table’. For some reason the ‘plant’ imagery stuck in my head as a good prayer reminder. The other day, before Shelby passed away [my homeless friend] I was going thru the pictures on my cell phone. I happened to come across a picture I took of Shelby. I have a few pictures from the fellowships and stuff. This one was taken with Shelby and a few other homeless brothers at a park in Kingsville. Sure enough I put the picture as the ‘wallpaper’ [the first picture that shows up as you turn on the phone] on Sunday. He passed away on Wednesday. My daughter says ‘don’t put my picture on your phone’! Actually I kind of see it as a prophetic thing. In some way the Lord was telling me my friend was going to become a ‘memory’ real soon. Also a reminder for prayer. The day I found out about Shelby’s death I took a few homeless people around town to run errands and stuff. We stopped for coffee and one of the brothers insisted on paying this time. He had around 10 bucks and really wanted to. I paid, he left a 2 dollar tip. During the day they were trying to accomplish small tasks that can become real obstacles in their lives. I took one of the guys to the driver’s license place, he got his I.D. but could not get his license. They have a very old charge against him about not appearing for court on some minor thing. He never got the notice, they sent it to his last known address, he hasn’t lived there for years! He simply can’t fix this problem, he has no resources and ability to fix it! I of course helped him with the ride and some money and stuff. But when these guys get into these seemingly small obstacles, when you’re homeless and without a phone and regular transportation, they seem hopeless at times. Now, what do you think happens when the entity they are dealing with decides to mess with them? I canceled a credit card a few years back. I paid the balance and specifically said ‘make sure you cancel the card, I don’t want to keep getting notices that I owe an annual fee and stuff’! Sure enough, a few months go by and they send me a notice that I am delinquent for around 70.00 dollars [not an old balance, but a new annual charge!] and if I don’t pay it the fine will go up. What happened? Someone decided to simply ‘screw me’ [sorry]. The point being, when you are homeless you have very little ability to correct any wrongs done against you, the entity that is messing with you always wins. Society seems to think ‘they got what was coming to them’. The reason God wants us to speak up for all those who are ‘voiceless’ is because this is part of the purpose of Gods anointing. Jesus clearly was anointed for this purpose [Isaiah 11, 61. Luke 4]. There are times when the voiceless are ALWAYS innocent [abortion] and times where they did ‘get what was coming to them’. But Jesus requires us to treat the poor and hopeless with respect and concern. Every now and then I catch a show on E.W.T.N. [the catholic channel] the name of the show is ‘the church and the poor’. It’s the ministry of some priest [Wen Ho Lee? Something like that] who was a Jesuit priest living in the states and having a comfortable life. Then the Lord challenged him to give it all up and move to some foreign land and give his life away for the poor. His message is soul stirring. He often tells the people during the Mass ‘do you think coming to church and going to confession and doing religious things are the main requirements for a Christian’? He then goes on and shares the judgment scenarios that Jesus gave in the gospels. He shows how Jesus couches the judgment of man based on his treatment of the poor and down and out. He sounds like me! God requires us to speak up for those who cannot, he requires us to give our lives away. As you read thru this chapter [Proverbs 31] you will see that kings [leaders] are not supposed to get drunk [like Paul's admonition to elders]. Why? So they don’t forget to do justice and look out for those who are under their care, specifically the down trodden. God wants us clear and sober minded for a divine purpose, to be social activists on the behalf of those who ‘have no voice’.
(983)1ST CORINTHIANS 11:16-34 ‘When you come together IN THE CHURCH’ [king James version] ‘when you come together AS THE CHURCH’ [new king James version]. In this section of scripture we see a real good definition of ‘church’ and also a bad one. The word for church is found over 100 times in the New Testament [114? - if I remember right] in every occasion, bar none, it refers to the people of God. Sometimes it refers to them as ‘coming together’ or simply as ‘the called out people of God’ [that is they are all spiritually gathered as a community in Christ]. The word never refers to a ‘church building’ [there is one reference in James that can seem to indicate a place to meet. James is speaking to Jews, the synagogue [or Jerusalem temple] as a building is different from the term for church in Paul’s letters!]. In the example I just gave you from the king James versions, it shows you how Gods people viewed this term for church [Ecclesia/Ekklesia] as time rolled along. The original translators of the King James saw it as ‘a place you meet in’ the new version saw it ‘as when Gods people come together’. You say ‘what’s the big difference’? Well I am sure the original translators meant well, but in actuality there is a big difference between ‘being an organic family’ or ‘being a building’! As Paul addresses the Corinthians he says ‘your coming together is not for the better, but for the worse’. They were using the gathering as a means of self gratification. ‘What can I get out of this’ type thing. I do see a parallel in much of today’s ‘church meeting’. Do we see Christianity thru the lens of ‘what am I going to hear this Sunday that I can implement in my own personal life for self improvement’? This mindset prevails in today’s church environment. The ethos of Jesus was contrary to this. He challenged his followers to lay down their rights and desires and seek another kingdom, one that was not measured by the standards of this world. Paul rebuked the Corinthians for seeking ‘their own wealth [benefit] and not the other’s’. He also told them to examine their hearts before coming together so they would not be judged. I have heard the new generation of church thinkers [which I am one myself!] kind of mock the old time churches by saying ‘Oh they tell you communion is some dangerous thing that you must approach with a holier than thou attitude’. Most mean well when they level this charge, but the ‘old time churches’ are not without scriptural support for this approach. Paul did say ‘you guys are too flippant in your attitude towards the Lords table, you need to straighten up and take more seriously your corporate call to those around you’. Understand, the celebration of this ‘love feast’ was to ‘show the Lords death till he come’. Who were they ‘showing it to’? The entire ‘unchurched’ community around them! Their selfless lives of being the community of God, loving and sharing of themselves as a spiritual family, was for the intent of having an effective community wide witness. They reminded not only themselves, but those around them ‘of the Lords death’. It was truly a corporate witness! Our Catholic brothers might not be as wrong as most Protestants seem to think. The Catholic Church sees the Eucharist as the central witness and part of their meetings. The Protestants see the preaching of the word from the pulpit. Though the Protestants are sincere in their efforts to teach the word of God, there is a tendency to become ‘pastor/pulpit’ centered, as opposed to being ‘Christ centered’. All in all Paul rebukes and corrects them based on their self centered actions when meeting together. He also sees ‘the gathering’ as ‘the church’. Not the place their meeting at! It’s easy to confuse this when reading ‘when you come together in the church- in one place’ it sure seems like he can be referring to a church building. Take my word for it, he’s not.
(979)PROVERBS 28: 22 and 27- ‘HE THAT HASTETH TO BE RICH HAS AN EVIL EYE AND CONSIDERS NOT THAT POVERTY SHALL COME UPON HIM….HE THAT GIVES TO THE POOR SHALL NOT LACK’. I just finished making a radio program and wanted to share some stuff from my Proverbs reading. I still have the original cheap second hand desk that I bought over 20 years ago in Kingsville. I think I paid 20 bucks for the thing. Though it’s ancient and looks ‘crappy’, it still gets the job done. Over the years I have learned that it can be exciting to amass wealth. Yes even believers can ‘sanctify’ the pursuit of wealth, that is justify it’s pursuit by thinking ‘I am going after money and riches so I can fund kingdom ventures’! While God certainly uses rich people to do his will, the overall ethos of the kingdom is one where you choose not to pursue the wealth of the world, you instead pursue ‘spiritual riches’. This contrast can be found all thru out scripture [read my section on ‘word of faith- prosperity gospel’]. Paul actually tells Timothy ‘those that desire to be rich will fall into a snare’. Notice, Paul doesn’t say ‘unless they desire riches for kingdom things’. He simply says the pursuit of wealth is a deadly game, don’t be ‘wise in your own eyes’ and think that you can tame the monster! Recently the stock market had another one of the worst crashes in history. How many ‘pursuers of wealth’ had ‘poverty come suddenly upon them’? Another verse says ‘don’t set your eyes on wealth, they make themselves wings and fly away’. Ouch! As I sit here and type this entry I will be dropping of 3 months worth of radio messages in a little while. I made them from a cheap recorder purchased from radio shack. I store them in my cheap desk that I bought years ago. I am sitting on used furniture that I bought 25 years ago! I furnished my study/office with it. But yet I have a study filled with excellent books that I purchased over the years. Year’s worth of radio teachings that cost me next to nothing to make. I gave one of my homeless buddies a little money the other day. I take no offerings and spend a little under half my monthly retirement income on ministry stuff. To my amazement the Lord has allowed us to have real impact in a large region, and it’s done on a shoe string budget. ‘He that gives to the poor shall not lack’. Don’t seek to become rich, the scripture forbids it. Give to the down and out, give your life away. Be a servant of people, God will reward you and you will have enough to get the job done.
(975)PROVERBS 27:1 I made some plans to go to Kingsville last week. The morning I woke up I felt the word of the Lord to me [during prayer] was ‘Boast not thyself of the morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth’ [James]. Sure enough I got sidetracked and had to cancel. The next day I read Proverbs chapter 27, the spot where I left off last. I am kinda just reading a chapter at a time over a few month period. The first verse is the same one I just quoted from James! God does speak in stereo. I also read a good article from my January [2009] issue of Christianity Today magazine. It was an excerpt from a new book titled ‘Brand Jesus’. Exposing the dangers of ‘marketing Jesus’ as a product. It was good. I just felt like the word of the Lord today was for us to be careful when we ‘boast of tomorrow’. When we plan great goals [which is not wrong in itself] which seem to be ‘Christian goals’. As I am writing this entry I can hear a Christian song from my TV in the other room. The singer is singing about the temptation of being a singer and glorying in the spotlight! It seems funny that he is sharing this struggle [of self glory] thru this medium. The point being it’s easy to ‘Christianize’ our self motivations. To approach ‘Jesus’ as a brand product that can do something for you. Improve you in some way. Maybe he can carry us to stardom and fame, hey he wants us to fulfill our desires doesn’t he? Well actually not the way the contemporary church preaches it. A main theme of New Testament Christianity is learning to lay down your desires and wants for a greater purpose. Now, this greater purpose will wind up being more fulfilling than what you thought you wanted. That's why ‘your desires’ are not a good measurement of the purpose of God. He that seeks to save his life [get what you think is best] will lose it. He who learns the secret of giving up his life [carrying the Cross, self denial] will find it. What are you ‘boasting about’? Where do you ‘see yourself’ ten years from now? Remember, we as believers do not measure success and fame the way the world does. Our reward is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior. I know this sounds ‘corny’ and old fashioned, but sometimes we need to be reminded about this type of lifestyle. We spend so much time boasting about our dreams and goals, Jesus gets lost in the background as some product who can help me achieve ‘all that I can be’.
(973)1ST CORINTHIANS 10:5-13 Paul warns the Corinthians not to fall for the same temptations that Israel committed in the wilderness. ‘Don't sin sexually, don’t complain about stuff [ouch!] don’t be idolaters [lovers of your cash flow!]’ basic sins that effect us all. He also says something interesting ‘you are now those upon whom the end of the world [age] has come’. Not the ‘end of existence’ but the time period where Gods fullness has come [Galatians 4]. I find this interesting. The first century Apostles saw the breaking in of the Kingdom of God, thru Christ, as the event and ‘moment’ that all human history hinged upon. There was a real sense of ‘this is the special kairos season that all men have been waiting for’. The New Testament teaches that even the angels were waiting to see this day. One of the errors of dispensationalism was the idea that the important, main event was still some future happening [the second coming]. While it is true that this event will happen, and it will be glorious. Yet there was a sense in scripture that said the time of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection was the act of reconciliation that turned the destiny of man. Paul in essence was saying to the Corinthians ‘you don’t understand the full import of all that the Father has called you to. You are part of the most important movement in human history, all humanity has been waiting for this season, the ‘ends of the ages’ have come to this point. Don’t blow it for heavens sake’! Got it? Let’s grasp the fact that we too are part of this ‘time period’ [the new covenant kingdom age] and realize that our forefathers are watching from the stands [Hebrews]. Let’s not blow it [I was going to say ‘like the Cowboys’ but this gets too many locals mad].
(969)1ST CORINTHIANS 9:15-27 I have a letter sitting here from some northern radio station. I guess these guys hear us some how? It’s a great offer to be on 140 stations for next to nothing [$140.00 a month]. I have had radio stations write us before. I choose to stay small so I can be consistent in not taking offerings. I am sure if I took offerings I could easily expand like this, but I think I need to set the example for others. This fits in with the following.
Now Paul will say ‘I would rather die than take money from you’ [and you guys think I’m an over reactor!] and also ‘I don’t take money from you because I want to make the gospel free of charge’. Remember, this is in the same chapter where he says it’s okay to support leaders financially. But yet he also makes these strong statements. Does Paul contradict himself? Some have tried to harmonize these statements by either saying Paul wasn’t really teaching the financial support of elders, or by saying Paul only restricted taking money from the Corinthians. Both of these are not true [Read my Acts 20 study]. Paul was hard on whatever group he was addressing. If he is speaking directly to the local saints, he says ‘you should make sacrifice and support those who labor among you’ but to the elders/leaders he says ‘I worked with my own hands while among you [elders!] to give you an example not to expect the people to support you’ [Acts 20]. He appeals to both sides to lay down their rights and give themselves away freely! He also says he adapts to every type of situation, he ‘becomes all things to all men, that he might save them’. He also brings his body under discipline so that after preaching to others, he himself will not be ‘cast away’. In my Proverbs reading I just came across ‘he that has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls’. God wants you to succeed and accomplish things, the enemy wants to sidetrack you. Allow God to have the upper hand, let the fruit of ‘self control’ [one of the fruits of the Spirit] abide in you. Now remember, Paul says ‘they do it to obtain a corruptible crown’ [material, temporary stuff. Money included] but we do it [discipline ourselves] for an ‘incorruptible crown’. The scripture is filled with examples that contrast money [material rewards] with true spiritual riches. In these examples the scripture teaches us to expend our time and efforts in building a spiritual heritage as opposed to a financial one. Yet some will even use this scripture ‘running the race’ and apply it to stuff! Ahh, when we do stuff like this we are ‘reading/quoting scripture’ without truly knowing it. Jesus told the religious leaders ‘you search the scriptures because by doing this you think you have eternal life, but you will not come to me that you might have life’. It’s possible to spend your whole life searching scripture [for what you want] and still miss the chief cornerstone! [the main point]
(967)PROVERBS- Up early praying and stuff. A few years back when I started writing this blog I never thought I would write so much! I just took the spot where I was reading thru my yearly schedule and began teaching it. It’s really easy to be honest. Sometimes I just do a brief reading and then sit down and write [actually all the time- note that I always pray/meditate for at least one hour prior to writing. Scripture [actually Proverbs!] says ‘write the commandment on your heart [teachings of your father- Gods Word] and bind the tradition around your neck’ [teaching of your mother- church history and stuff]. When you do this it will ‘keep you when you lay down, guide you when you go out, and speak/talk to you when you wake up’. I am not advocating slack studying before preaching, I am advocating that you fill your mind and spirit continually, then when ‘the spot light hits you’ your ready!]. This keeps me from my old routine of reading and meditating slowly. So I try and read other devotional sections of scripture at the same time. I am doing Proverbs right now, I like the wisdom literature. The Old Testament can be divided into three sections; 1- Wisdom literature 2- The law 3- The Prophets. The ‘keeper’ of the law is the Priest, the Prophets are of course the Prophet. The wisdom literature; Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Job and Psalms [James in the New Testament] are associated with the ‘Sage’ or wise man [Apostle]. So Maybe during our ‘down time’ [days where I purposely don’t teach! Because it’s so routine to just get up, pray and teach that it can become a rut. I don’t want to brag, but I am two years ahead of schedule on all our radio broadcasts. I have around 630 individual radio messages already done!] So maybe I will just hit high points from these devotional readings. I recently read ‘LABOR NOT TO BE RICH, CEASE FROM YOUR OWN WISDOM’. I originally felt like just quoting it and saying ‘look! What is he saying now? Hear we go again on his anti prosperity campaign!’ And then responding ‘why brothers, I didn’t say anything, I just quoted scripture’. Well, I guess I just did it. ‘WISDOM BUILDS HER HOUSE, UNDERSTANDING ESTABLISHES IT AND BY KNOWLEDGDE SHALL ITS CHAMBERS BE FILLED WITH ALL PLEASANT AND PRECIOUS RICHES’. Over the years I have had friends who were really knowledgeable, but there knowledge was only available for a short season. Why? They didn’t have the wisdom and understanding to put systems in place that would be the structure that could contain the knowledge. Then you have those who are wise, they can get structures up. But then a year goes by and they are working on another structure! The old ‘house’ is either left for someone else to deal with, or they simply ‘walk away’ from the mortgage [spiritually speaking] and start all over. Then you have those with wisdom, knowledge and understanding. They get things going, they establish systems in place that can maintain and keep things functioning for the long term, and they make sure all these strong systems and ministries are ‘filled with precious riches’. It’s all too common for some very stable ministries to have the structures and systems in place for the long term, but then propagate a message that is ‘less than precious’. Lets ask God today for the grace to function in all three of these divine attributes. When it is all said and done, only God can provide the increase!
(965)1st CORINTHIANS 8- Once again Paul will deal with the issue of what’s clean or unclean, the Christians convictions. Corinth not only had low sexual standards, but also much idolatry. This led to a problem of whether or not believers should purchase the meat sold in the market that was used for idol worship. After the sacrifice was made, whatever good meat was left could be sold on the streets. Now, Paul says the believer knows there is only one true God, so with this knowledge you are not sinning because you know the meat really wasn’t used to worship other gods, because there are no other Gods! But he also says that every man does not have this knowledge. So just like he taught the Romans, he teaches the Corinthians that in all of your freedom, the highest standard is whether you are building others up or tearing them down. If you have a free conscience to eat the meat, then fine, it is no sin to you. But if this liberty is offending the minds of those who are weaker in the faith, then your freedom just became a stumbling block and worked against the main goal of building others up. So the real question isn’t ‘can I do this with a clean conscience’ but ‘does my practice offend or build others up’? Many years ago I had a friend who smoked cigars, he was a believer and simply saw nothing wrong with it. We had a mutual friend who found out about it and bought some cigars and gagged on them. His conscience was emboldened to ‘eat the meat’ and by doing it he sinned. Why was cigar smoking sin to the weaker brother? Because he really wasn’t doing it out of a pure heart with a clean motive. Though the cigar smoker felt he had the freedom to smoke [it wasn’t an every day thing] yet his freedom caused another to fall. So Paul consistently takes this position in his letters. Some day we will get to other verses like ‘the things the gentiles offer to idols are being offered to demons, so don’t partake with them at the same table’ this is dealing with a different thing, I’ll explain it at another time. Paul also says ‘knowledge puffs up, but charity builds up’. One of the side trails believers can easily fall into is thinking the Christian life is simply an exercise is learning things. That is knowledge for knowledge’s sake. While Paul was not advocating ignorance, he was dealing with carnal believers who walked in pride. He was showing them that those who think they stand should be careful lest they fall. Paul was calling them to a higher purpose than just learning scripture and applying it for personal satisfaction, he was calling them to live sacrificially, to take the wrong done to you [legally in court stuff]. To give up the freedom to ‘smoke cigars’ if you will, for the sake of others. Paul was teaching them that it was possible to be right and have the answers to back up your position, but if you are truly not dieing to self, you are simply getting ‘puffed up’.
(959)1ST CORINTHIANS 6: 8-20 Paul paints a ‘canvas’ of those who will not inherit the Kingdom. The list not only includes the big ones, but also the ‘average Joe’. Homosexuals, covetous, straight people who commit sexual sin; just the whole gambit. I do want to stress that Paul is not politically correct, he does categorize homosexuality as sin. He is not simply saying ‘non monogamous homosexuality’ but all types. I know there is an honest effort being made to try as much as possible to be more inclusive of other people’s views and lifestyles. I am for this approach as much as possible, but we also need to be honest about sin, all sin. Now covetous is that strong desire to amass wealth, it is the daily longing and confessing and believing for more material abundance. Yes folks, it’s what many of us have been duped into thru wrong teaching. I had a homeless friend who used to tell me how his dad, who was retired, used to wake up every day and simply consume his day with the stock market and how his retirement was going, he didn’t realize that he made the funding of his retirement [an okay goal] the main thought pattern of his life. I also just saw a story similar to this on some business channel. We need to be ‘ware’ of covetousness. Now Paul makes special mention of the destructive nature of sexual sin, he says ‘it destroys you’. I have been reading Proverbs the last month or so and there are many warnings about sexual sin. It says ‘he that does this destroys his own soul’. A few years back I watched [or read?] a local story of a professor who came down with a disease called Dementia. As they shared his story they described the progressive nature of him slowly losing his mind, and how his family eventually brought him back home [he was not married, his parents took him in] as they shared the sad story, they kinda of tactfully said ‘one of the possible signs of this disease is obsessive compulsive sexual behavior’. They basically were saying part of this mans history included obsessive sexual sin. I wonder if the dementia in some way is a result of the behavior, as opposed to a symptom. There was also as study done years ago that showed the difference in the brain scans of Homosexuals and Heterosexuals, they seemed to have found some real physical brain distinctions. But once again, is it possible that sexually engaging in certain sinful behaviors is actually ‘destroying the soul’, or causing a change in the brain? Paul singled out this sin [not just Homosexual behavior, but all sexual sin!] as causing actual damage to a person’s physical make up in a way that was more damaging than other sins. I think we all need to heed his warning. [note- sexual sin is a common struggle in life. Many believers do struggle and have fallen into this sin. Paul actually is addressing these sins because of the prevalence of the problem. I don’t want to condemn any one who reads this site and struggles this way, Paul is offering hope and forgiveness thru out this letter. He seems to be extra harsh with the Corinthians because of their lax attitude towards this sin].
(936)2ND SAMUEL 19- David sends word to the elders of Judah ‘why are you guys so late in receiving me back to Jerusalem as your king? I am your own kin for heavens sake!’ After the death of the rogue king Absalom, Israel came to her senses and began saying ‘you know, when David was our king things weren’t all that bad, now that Absalom is dead, what are we waiting for, lets call David back’. So David sends word back that he is reuniting with the people again. He also makes some strategic moves; he tells Amasa ‘when I get back, you get Joab’s job’ Ouch! David finally dealt with the talented, yet self willed commander of his men. On the way back one of the first guys that greets him is the same brother that cursed him and threw stones at him earlier. David lived to see the day of Gods vindication. The brother repents and David forgives him. Also the son of Jonathan, Mephibosheth, greets David with great joy. The first thing David says is ‘why didn’t you leave with me at the beginning?’ The earlier slander of Ziba stuck in David’s mind. Mephibosheth swares that Ziba tricked him. David forgives him and says ‘enough! You split the inheritance with Ziba’. Mephibosheth replies ‘Let him keep it, I don’t need the material wealth. I am just glad to be with you again’. The church does not see the reality of this test contained in scripture. There are times where ‘David’ does offer opportunities of self advancement that are simply a test to see what our motives are. In this case David rightfully gave material stuff to Mephibosheth, it was the maturity and character of Mephibosheth to say ‘thanks, but no thanks’. The scripture contains many examples of Christ followers forsaking things for his cause. Just because the bible ‘offers opportunities for wealth’ does not mean Gods best is for you to ‘go for the wealth’. Now that David’s back in Jerusalem, the divided tribes [Israel-10 tribes, and Judah] have a squabble. Israel says ‘Judah, who do you think you are in being the first ones to escort the king back, he is our king too’! And Judah replies ‘yeah, but he is our blood kin, David is from our tribe. We hold a ‘special’ relationship with him because of natural heritage’. It’s funny, these guys were on Absalom’s side a few days ago, now they are fighting over him! I kinda see Jesus and natural Israel in this story. The nation of Israel became offended over the fact that they were ‘blood heirs’ of the Jewish Messiah. They held to this ethnic pride that would be destroyed thru the Cross. It offended the natural mind to see this ethnic figure [in the historic mind of Judaism] to be accepted by ‘all the tribes’. They wanted him solely for their own purposes. So here we see Judah and Israel fighting over David, he will unite them both under his rule [Ephesians ‘the 2 are made one, Jew and Gentile, and God hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us] and Jerusalem will once again be called ‘the city of the great king’ [we are the ‘city that comes down from God out of heaven’ the bride, the Lambs wife!
(926)2ND SAMUEL 10- The king of Ammon dies and David sends messengers to show due respect. The son, who is now the new king, receives David’s men. But the princes of the land say ‘what in the heck were you thinking? Surely David has sent these men to spy on us’. Why would the princes say this? Possibly because the king treated David well when he was alive. He sent David materials and workers to help. Sometimes people resent it when they feel others are getting the favor that they really deserve. They poisoned the mind of the new king. Now he takes David’s men and shaves half of their beards off and cuts their robes in half. An act of public humiliation. David hears about it and the fight is on. Ammon requests help from Syria and Syria says ‘sure, why not?’. I’ll tell you why not, because the scripture says don’t get involved with fights and issues that don’t concern you, that’s why! Well David confronts the armies and wins. Syria winds up surrendering and making a treaty with Israel. What happened here? Once again we see the poor decision making of a younger king. He took the advice of the other princes who were speaking out of wrong motives and intentions. Solomon’s future son will do the same and it will lead to another division in Israel. Paul instructs Timothy [or Titus?] to not allow a novice to be an elder. Does this mean young men can’t be spiritual leaders? Not necessarily. Timothy was fairly young at the time of getting this instruction. But new believers [leaders] have a tendency to grasp doctrine and ideas that might not be totally wrong, but they have a tendency to emphasize them in a distorted way. How many times have I heard teaching on the ‘importance of money’, or some other single issue. The preacher will often defend his distortion by saying ‘look how many times this subject is mentioned in scripture’ not realizing that this in itself does not justify the wrong emphasis. For instance many of the times this subject is mentioned it is in the context of warning believers to not become side tracked with seeking wealth! I could start a doctrine on the importance of ‘water’ or ‘bread’. Look how often water is mentioned! We have it in Genesis and Revelation. Jesus speaks of the waters of life. And I could go on and on. But the fact that this subject is found in so many various ways, doesn't mean we should exalt it into an idol. So young [new] believers do have a tendency to lift things out of proportion at times. The new king acted foolishly and the Syrians came along for the ride. Wisdom would have said ‘let the king of Ammon do what he thinks he should, we will sit this one out’.
(914)SAMUEL 30- David returns from the battle lines and finds out his town was sacked by the Amalekites. They took everything and spared the lives of the women and children. David’s men see the disaster and cry bitterly. They have a deacon board meeting and contemplate stoning him to death. Things were bad, David encourages himself in the Lord. He asks the Lord ‘should I go after them and try and recover our families’? The Lord says ‘go, you will recover all’. David pursues and gets his people back and kills the enemy. Four hundred young men escape. The same amount of men that went with David, 200 stayed behind out of weakness. Why did the 400 Amalekites flee? It’s possible that the Lord used these 400 survivors to spread the word about David’s fierceness. This battle was pumped up, David showed no mercy! After they return, the 400 man army of David despises the 200 who stayed behind and say ‘we will give you your families, but no goods!’ They treated them as lesser men. David would have none of it and says ‘we can’t withhold the things the Lord has freely given us [freely you have received, freely give- Jesus] but we will treat everyone alike’. I see the New Testament ministry of giving and sharing as a community here. What happened in this chapter? David experienced a tremendous possible loss this day. His men were at the lowest point of ‘the ministry’. All seemed lost, they even feared the loss of their families. The Lord does restore to David that which seemed gone for good, and David’s men regroup. All this happens at the next to the last chapter of Samuel. In the next chapter Saul dies and David becomes king. Everything seemed hopeless right before the greatest victory of all! David was soon to enter into his prophetic destiny in God. There is a theme in scripture that goes like this ‘right before, and right after great victories there are great trials’ geez, that means there are always trials! Yes, to a degree this is true. I also want you to have a biblical perspective on what it means to ‘recover all’. The church went thru a stage where we learned all the verses on ‘the enemy must repay 7 fold’ and other themes on ‘all the years the locust hath eaten will be restored’. I like and have used these themes in my own life over the years to claim victory. But I want you to see from an eternal perspective. The theme of the New Testament is one of eternal rewards. Not so much focused on ‘what we get here and now’ but on us having a ‘better reward in heaven’ [Hebrews]. Those of you who have lost loved ones, finances [we just had a tremendous stock market crash 10-08]. What if I were to tell you ‘you are not really much worse off than those who haven’t lost all’. In a few short years all our loved ones will be gone. We will have lost control over all of our wealth and riches. We will all be gone [in the natural!]. But yet there awaits a real future resurrection where we will all get our loved ones back. Where we will reap eternal rewards for a life well lived. In the eternal perspective we do ‘recover all’, all isn’t lost! I want to encourage you today to believe God to restore some things in the here and now. Yes, God can bless you and restore to you wealth and health and family and many good things. And for those who have lost some of these things permanently, God will restore to you real soon.
(912)SAMUEL 28- Saul prepares for battle against Achish. The philistine king thinks David is with him. Saul seeks God and doesn’t receive an answer by ‘dreams or prophets’. Saul expected to get some kind of supernatural sign. Samuel is dead, but he released a prophetic mantle/anointing into the community that showed the people that God can reveal himself in these ways. Saul goes to a witch who works with familiar spirits, a thing forbidden for Gods people! I have had friends ask me about reading the horoscope and going to palm readers. God forbids his people to dabble in sorcery and witchcraft, don’t do it! Saul manages to bring back Samuels spirit from the grave and Samuel rebukes Saul and tells him he and his sons will ‘be with me tomorrow’ [dead!]. Saul is reproved for two things. He didn’t fully obey God, and he refused to carry out judgment/justice [when he was supposed to wipe out Amalek]. I have seen many well meaning men in ministry. Good people who mean well. Ministry can be a tough thing. When people feel intimidated they have a tendency to not want to ‘execute judgment’. To only teach and preach good things, never dealing with error or blatant heresy. God wanted Saul to obey AND do judgment. Not judgment in a wrong way, but a willingness to see things that are out of alignment and to deal with them. God wants truth, truth in love, but truth. When Gods leaders get to a point of both obedience and justice, then we will experience his presence in a strong way.
(895)SAMUEL 12- Samuel is getting old. He calls the people together and reviews his life before them. His defense sounds a lot like Paul's defense to the Ephesian elders in the book of Acts [chapter 20]. Samuel tells the people ‘all the time I have been with you, did I ever take your goods to enrich myself? Did I use my authority in a way to advance myself?’ he basically witnesses before the people that he was not in this for self gain. He also reviews the history of Israel. He reminds them of their past and how the Lord delivered them from Egypt. It is important to see that although Samuel was a great prophet who operated in tremendous gifts, yet he saw the need to also ground the people in history and doctrine. He knew the importance of remembering past events. Both the Passover and the Lords Table are Divine instances of ‘remembrance’ that God has ordained for his people. Samuel will once again rebuke them for rejecting God by choosing a king. He will call down thunder and rain during their wheat harvest as a sign of Gods anger. The people see this and fear greatly ‘pray to the Lord for us Samuel, we have sinned’. He encourages them and tells them ‘even though you have done lots of wrong stuff, yet it’s not too late to turn to the Lord from this day forward and make a course correction’. In all reproving and correcting we need to always leave room for repentance. Some will never change the way ‘they think and act’ [message bibles version of repentance] but we need to understand that this is the goal of all correction and judgment. Samuel tells the people he will ‘not cease praying for them’ and continue to teach them well. Jesus told Peter ‘if you love me, feed my sheep’. John says ‘this is how we can tell we love God, when we love his kids and obey his commands’. What is Jesus command? ‘Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and might. And thy neighbor as thyself’. Samuel realizes that his faithfulness to God is directly related to his treatment of Gods people. Though he is a gifted prophet, yet he prays and teaches and remains consistent in the more mundane areas of ‘the ministry’. I have found that God looks for faithfulness in the mundane things before he honors the more flagrant gifts. It’s good to have the ability to speak or prophesy or sing for the Lord, but the need to be a consistent intercessor for God’s people takes priority. Samuel taught them history. He oversaw the problems and situations they went thru. He did not become wealthy from the people. He served the lord faithfully from his youth. Hannah gave him to the Lord at a very young age, God took what was given and made the most out of it.
(891)SAMUEL 8- Samuel’s sons are appointed as judges over Israel [leaders]. They are wicked, just like the sons of Eli. I find this interesting, Samuel was a product to some degree of his ‘spiritual elder’. Even though Samuel himself was a righteous man, yet he passed on to his kids the same leadership style that he tutored under. The children of Israel come to him and request a king ‘like the other nations’. It is important to see that God states clearly that this is not part of ‘the original plan’. God will tell Samuel that this desire for human leadership, along the lines of other ‘gentile nations’ is rebellion. Jesus will tell the disciples ‘the gentiles exercise lordship over one another, it shall not be like this with you’. Israel wanted to be dominated by a king! God tells Samuel to show them what they are asking for. And then goes thru a long list of things ‘he will take the best of your people and use them for self advancement. He will require a tenth of all you have. He will build a legacy for himself and his name by using you as resources to attain a personal goal of achievement’. In essence the lord is warning them that when you raise up human leadership in a singular way [one king] that violates the plural mindset of scripture, then you inevitably will become a servant to human institutions and purposes. I find it interesting that the Lord mentions the tithe and how this will arise as a result of wrong ideas on what leadership should be. Historically the early church did not practice tithing. As the centuries rolled along tithing was originally instituted as a ‘tax’ from the church/state on the people to support the institutional purposes of the church/state. In essence the tithe/tenth did become a means whereby human government would obtain power and prestige among the gentile nations. The word of the Lord was true! [It’s okay for believers to give 10 % to the church on Sunday, the curse of the law on those who do not do this should not be invoked from Malachi. The appeal should be based on grace giving]. Israel will get her king, God will eventually use the Kings of Israel for his prophetic purposes. David and Solomon will be pictures of Jesus and his future rule. Just like the temple, God will initially tell David ‘who do you think you are trying to build a house for me’? [Thru the prophet Nathan] but will still use the temple as a prophetic type of the people of God being a ‘holy temple’. So the Lord will allow sinful man to obtain things contrary to his original purpose, and yet still be glorified thru these requests. Also the sons of Samuel went astray ‘after lucre’ [verse 3]. Just like Paul and Peters warnings in the New Testament ‘taking the oversight, not for filthy lucre’ ‘some have strayed from the faith while coveting money’ so Samuels boys fell to this temptation. I know it’s popular in today’s circles to simply overlook all these verses from scripture. Many sincere men do not see them because their ‘grid’ of interpretation won’t allow it. I just wanted to note how this theme of covetousness is a scarlet thread that runs thru out the entire body of scripture.
(884)SAMUEL 2- Hannah gives great praise to God for Samuel. This prophetic utterance is a lot like Mary’s ‘Magnificat’ in Luke chapter one. She says ‘God brings low the rich and helps the poor’. This week we had one of the worst financial disasters in U.S. history [9-2008]. It could have been worse, the government took over some major financial [and insurance] institutions. One of them was A.I.G., a major insurer. A day or so before they were taken over I asked my wife ‘did you take out the girls trust money’. We had a lot of money for our girls in the company [lets say between 50 and 100 thousand dollars]. My wife says ‘no, not yet’. I was a little perturbed to say the least. My wife is the trustee for the girl’s accounts, and I have been telling her for about a year to take the money out. So the day she makes the request all the talk on the financial shows is ‘will A.I.G. declare bankruptcy today’? I was upset. Another day went by and they said ‘overnight they will declare’. And we still didn’t get the money. Well the government stepped and basically took the company over and we got our checks. I was talking to my homeless buddies and they were somewhat aware of the crisis, but they could care less. Their lives were not tied up in these systems. They were still going to live the way they were living for most of their lives. Trusting God daily to meet their needs. It made me think of Hannah’s prayer. Also we see the first use of the word ‘Messiah’ [anointed] in the bible. ‘God will strengthen his king and exalt the horn of his anointed’. I read this yesterday and was quoting it all day. It’s appropriate that Mary uses this prophetic utterance while speaking of Jesus, the Messiah. The sons of Eli the priest are wicked. They are robbing the people and sleeping with the women at the tabernacle gate. Scripture says ‘the people abhorred the offering of the Lord’ because of their abuse. For many years I heard ‘if people are offended because the church emphasizes money so much, well let them be offended’. I never really questioned this reasoning. Then I began to see how the majority offence to unbelieving friends and family was the money issue. While most of the pastors were well meaning, they seemed to not realize that we do have a responsibility to not offend in the area of offerings. The apostle Paul adjusted his ministry in such a way that he would not allow the churches to support him while he was with them. [Not just Corinth either, but Thessalonica and Ephesus! Read Thessalonians and the chapter in Acts that deals with the Ephesian elders- 22?] The point being the church bears much responsibility to how the world views us in the area of offerings to God. Eli's sons abused the system to their own benefit and the people began to despise the whole concept of ‘church and money’. A prophet will pronounce judgment on Eli’s household and Samuel will ‘grow in favor with God and men’. Just like Jesus. Samuel is a type of Christ who knew his prophetic/priestly destiny from a young age. Jesus was in the Temple questioning the leaders at the age of 12, Samuel was serving the Lord at an even younger age.
(871)ROMANS 15:1-7 ‘we then that are strong [more mature] ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not please ourselves’. In Philippians we have the ‘KENOSIS’ the act of Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not something to be used for his own advantage. He did not see his purpose in the kingdom as one of ‘let’s find out our rights in the covenant and posses what’s rightfully ours’. A few years back it was common to hear ‘God told me his people don’t have a problem with giving [oh really?] but they need to learn how to receive’. While their might be a ‘speck’ of truth in this, the overall ethos of the kingdom [according to Jesus and Paul] is ‘we are not here to please ourselves, but give up our rights and blessings for the purpose of pleasing others’ [building them up, edifying them]. Paul makes this statement right after the chapter on Christian convictions. He shows us that even if we are right on a particular issue, it is ‘more right’ to not offend or put a stumbling block in our brother’s path. It is possible to ‘be right’ in a particular doctrine or truth, and yet ‘be wrong’ in that we might have used it in a way that destroyed the purpose of God in building others up. Many in the church [at large!] have unwittingly ‘tore down’ the poor and oppressed by seeking ‘their own pleasure’. Many overseas countries have been hurt by the amount of pleasure seeking doctrines that went into their countries. Many 3rd world Pastors gave sacrificially out of their extreme poverty to rich American ‘pleasure seekers’ and their poor people suffered greatly when they did not get a literal 100 fold return as was promised. Paul said ‘we that are strong ought to help the weak, and not please ourselves’.
(866)ROMANS 12:14-21 Notice how Paul puts such a high priority on the principles of Jesus. He exhorts the saints to live by the precepts of the great ‘sermon on the mount’. Often times believers try and make a division between Paul’s revelation of justification by faith and the ‘liberal moral teachings of Jesus’. I see no division here. Paul actually quotes Jesus ‘if you’re treated badly, respond in love. By not getting even you heap “coals of fire on your enemies head”’. Actually, I remember how a few years back, when everybody was coming up with their ‘new revelation knowledge’ ideas on scripture. Things like ‘the camel going thru the eye of the needle’. Some taught Jesus was not really rebuking wealth, he was simply talking about a ‘low gate’ thru the wall of the city that was called the ‘eye of the needle’ and the camels had to crouch a little to get thru, true silliness! This verse ‘coals on the head’ was taught as saying Jesus was simply saying you were helping your enemy on cold nights by ‘keeping his head warm’! Sad. Jesus said don’t avenge yourselves, God will avenge you. Doesn’t sound like the lord is talking about ‘head warmers’! Look at these verses carefully. Paul incorporates the teachings of Christ as having a very high priority for the believer. We are often inundated with modern concepts of ministry. How to raise funds [or amass wealth]. Paul ‘locates’ the important thing as being centered on Christ. He knew if the churches [believing communities] of the first few centuries would follow this idea, that they would truly turn their world upside down for the cause.
(859)NOTE TO THE PASTORS IN CORPUS CHRISTI- I need to do a little ‘local stuff’. First, when I first came to corpus [1992] there were many areas of ‘lack’ in the preaching. Too much materialistic stuff. After a few years of public teaching [first radio, then the blog- as well as actually publishing books] we made enemies. Some who disliked us later became advocates of what I was teaching. I am speaking of key leaders in our region. They realized the damage that the prosperity message caused abroad [Africa and other nations [though Africa is a continent!]]. There came a strong return back to the message of the Cross. How much effect we have had in other regions, I don’t know for sure. But in our region [Corpus and the surrounding areas] we had an effect. Good. Some felt that I was a little too strong in that I mentioned actual names of other preachers. Let me say this; if a preacher endorses, by name, another teacher from his pulpit. He then later needs to ‘un-endorse’ him ‘from the pulpit’ if he has now come to reject the preachers doctrine. I realize some preachers accept our stand now, but disagree with me because I mentioned names. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to ‘mention names’ if preachers did not publicly endorse these same men? Also, I am glad that many In Corpus Christi are really preaching the biblical gospel in a stronger way than before. This was imperative for the purpose of our city to be carried out. There have been many prophetic words over Corpus Christi stating that we would be a ‘representative city’ to some degree because we bear the name ‘The Body of Christ’. I realize that some who finally came along [after many years!] to seeing things ‘my way’ have now been challenged all over again in other areas. This can cause another ‘rift’ like the first stage. I simply want to commend my ‘fellow elders’ for the great changes that they have made. Don’t feel like ‘geez, we can never please this guy [me!]’. I understand that many of you [key leaders] have made real adjustments as a result of reading/hearing our teaching. I commend you all.
(850)PROPHETIC UPDATE! As of today [8-08] enough has happened in the last few years to kind of encapsulate the state of the church [Gods people] and where we are heading. Whenever you have ‘prophetic people’ and movements make some real obvious mistakes, I always feel tempted to go thru this site and delete everything that deals with ‘prophecies, dreams and visions’. This has happened to me on more than a few occasions. But the Lord kind of stops me. Now, why do I mention this? Because these last few years the charismatic/prosperity churches have gone thru some turmoil. The ‘Emergent’ movement has also struck a nerve with the Reformed defenders of the faith, and they have also had some battles. In the midst of it all you also had a resurgence of Catholic apologists [Scott Hahn] and ‘the defend the fullness of truth’ conferences. First, I felt the Lord was going to deal with the more obvious abuses of the prosperity movement a few years back. I even ‘prophesied’ that this would happen [on this site!]. So this is a legitimate ‘correction’ that is taking place as of this year. Some of the main leaders of the movement have come under some serious ‘judging’. Also, the more theological/mature Emergent movement has come under fire by the Reformed preachers because of some real problems. Some in the Emergent church have espoused ultra liberal ideas on the Atonement, Hell and other basic Christian doctrines. The problem is the older reform minded ‘correctors’ are for the most part absolutely ignorant of their own ‘blind spot’ in the area of Ecclesiology. They seem to think ‘defending the historic faith’ includes defending a ‘limited’ Ecclesiology. It’s too easy to just believe that Edwards, Luther, Calvin and all the other great minds of their eras must have been right on Church government and structure. For the most part they were not. So this part of the ‘emergent church’ have it right [those who challenge limited ideas of ‘church’]. Now, the recent ‘fiasco’ of the Lakeland revival. I believe the whole ‘group’ of Apostles and Prophets [?] that initially gave their approval are very questionable. Some of the men I do like [Rick Joyner], but the whole ‘apostolic network’ that some of these brothers belong to is very questionable [when I say ‘questionable’, I do not mean they are frauds or fakes. I mean the whole idea of having an ‘apostolic network’ seems to be missing the target]. I believe most of Gods true Apostles and Prophets today are men of great humility, they suffer persecution [like Watchmen Nee] and for the most part are serious students of the Word and ‘followers of the way’ [Christ’s example of a servant]. So today [2008] we need to be open to correction in the areas that are off base. We also need to be careful not to reject all ‘prophetic things’ out of a feeling of being embarrassed to even use the same terminology as some of these guys. And we need to recognize that some of the old time defenders of the faith [Sproul, Macarthur, Colson] do have very good points they are making when the emergent brothers reject the very basis of ‘knowable truth’, but they also have a huge blind spot in their ecclesiology [thinking defending the truth includes ‘Sunday Church’]. Also, the Catholic resurgence is important not to discount, some Evangelicals are becoming so frustrated with the Protestant ‘craziness’ and divisions, that they seem to find refuge in joining this ancient expression of Christianity. Let’s have a good vigorous debate, let’s strive for unity. The prophetic movement needs to receive correction. The prosperity movements more extreme elements need to be rejected outright. At the end of the day God is still going to do a great work in the earth. His people will show forth his glory and truly be the glorious temple that he desires.
(847)ROMANS 8: 31-39 ‘What shall we say then to these things? [what things? The fact that God predestined us and has guaranteed completion of the purpose he has designed us for!] If God be for us, who can be against us?’ Paul teaches that Christ is the only one with the ‘right’ or authority to pass judgment. If the only person in existence who can ‘officially’ condemn and pass legal judgment has actually died for us for the purpose of ‘freeing us from a state of condemnation’, then who ‘gives a rip’ about others opinions and views of us? Most of us struggle with how others view us. Paul did teach that Elders should have good character and a fine reputation in the community. But there is another type of ‘persona’ that preachers can fall into. A sort of ‘concern’ about what the critics are saying. In this context Paul says ‘If the opinion of the only person in existence whose opinion really matters, is one of “I accept you unconditionally, I declare you free from what others think, you are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Ever since I have known you, you have been pleasing in my sight” [all true scriptures by the way] Then who cares what others think! Paul also teaches that nothing can separate us from Christ’s love ‘not tribulation or distress or famine or persecution’ IN all these things we are more than conquerors thru him who loved us. Most times we view this passage from a ‘Calvinistic’ lens. I want you to see the impact of this statement thru a different lens. In the American church we have taught people ‘would a good father not pay the bills of his kids? Would a good father allow his kids to suffer? If you were really partaking of the New Covenant you would have it made’. While I do realize that many well meaning ministers have taught these viewpoints with honest and sincere hearts, I also have seen how this mindset accuses the saints. It basically tells the struggling believer ‘what kind of father do you have? If he really loved you would you be going thru these things’? In essence we are saying ‘tribulation and distress and persecution’ are all signs that ‘you have been separated from Gods love’! Paul blows this false [materialistic] mindset out of the water. He says it is thru these things that we are more than conquerors. It is the ability to look into the face of Pontius Pilate and say ‘you have no power over me, my father has permitted these things to take place. I am here to lay my life down for his glory’. Paul said all these things we are suffering are opportunities to glorify our father. To look into the face of society and say ‘nay, we are more than conqueror's thru him that loved us’. The early church set the world on fire when they were laying their lives down for the cause, refusing to deny their Lord even at the point of death. They were ‘more than conquerors’.
(845)ROMANS 8:26-28 ‘Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities’ why does Paul say ‘likewise’? He is saying ‘not only does the future hope of the resurrection sustain us, but also Gods Spirit helps us’! He knows how to make intercession for us in ways that we cannot. I just finished an hour prayer time, not an ‘official’ intercession time [which I do a few times a week now]. But an ‘unofficial’ time where I try and hear what the Spirit is speaking. When you are ‘praying in the Spirit’ [which can include the charismatic expression of tongues] you are depending upon the Spirit to transcend your limited ability to articulate what needs to be said. ‘All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are ‘the called’ according to his purpose’. A very famous verse indeed. What does it mean? It means what it says! Over the years I have heard so many excuses for trying to get around difficult things. Why do the righteous suffer? Some taught it was because of their ignorance of scripture. Why did the things that happened to Job happen? Some said it was because he ‘feared’ that the things would happen [this group seems to miss the whole underlying reason for the book. Job’s friends are continually looking for a reason thru out the book. The point is, sometimes there is no reasonable explanation. I realize you can pick apart certain statements from Job and come up with ‘reasons’, but the meaning of the book is God is sovereign and we shouldn’t always think we can figure him out or ‘work the system’]. Here Paul says ‘whatever is happening to you right now [even very bad stuff!] will eventually work out for you benefit’. What about Hitler? Did he love God? I don’t believe so. This scripture says ‘to them that love God’. Your only responsibility thru the difficulty is to ‘love God’.
(843)ROMANS 8: 19-25 ‘the sufferings of this present time [are you ‘presently’ suffering?] are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us’. Paul compares the difficulty to the reward. The reward here is the future resurrection. Paul did not see suffering as ‘from the devil’ or the reward as something material [monetary stuff! The resurrection body will be ‘material’ - real]. Paul teaches that the whole creation is waiting for this day. Not only will we get a ‘makeover’ but there will be a new heaven and a new earth! The creation itself longs for this [almost as much as Al Gore!] This resurrection is called ‘the redemption of our body’. The next verse says ‘we are saved by hope’. John also says [1st John] that the future reality of the resurrection ‘causes us to be pure in this life’ [every one that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure]. Why? Because we know God has a purpose for our bodies as well as our spirits! The ‘getting saved by hope’ simply means the future hope of the resurrection ‘encourages’ us to live clean now. Once again ‘saved’ is a neutral term. In can apply to all sorts of things. I always found it funny how when you read certain commentaries, that you see the difficulty Christians have when coming across these types of verses. There’s a verse that says ‘the woman will be saved thru childbearing’ geez, you wouldn’t believe the difficulty some writers have when they come across this stuff. Some teach ‘she will be ‘saved’ thru the birth of a child [Jesus]’ and all sorts of stuff. I think if we simply changed the word ‘saved’ for ‘delivered’ [which are basically the same thing] that maybe this would help. But thank God that we have a future resurrection to look forward to, let this truth ‘deliver’ you from the temptation to think ‘what’s all this suffering worth, why even go thru it?’ Because we have a great promise at the other end!
(841)ROMANS 8: 14-18 ‘For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the Sons of God’. Many of us are familiar with this verse [I hope!]. We often see it as saying ‘Gods direction in our lives is proof that we are Christians’ true enough. But in context ‘being led by Gods Spirit’ means living the new life thru Christ. The putting to death of the old man and being ‘made alive’ thru Christ is what this is saying. Paul agrees with John [1st John] ‘those that do what is right [led by the Spirit] are of God’. Paul says ‘we have received the Spirit and a natural result of this is crying “Abba, Father”. I don’t want to do too much here, but Paul sees the ‘confession’ and heart cry of the believer as proof, a result of being ‘a habitation of the Spirit’. A sign, if you will, of being born of God is confessing/ praying to the Father. Paul quoted David in chapter 4 ‘for this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found’ [Psalms 32]. Paul knew the reality of ‘the godly calling upon God’ they have an inner cry of ‘Abba, father’. ‘We are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ’. For many years this has been a popular verse among many believers, often times it is used to say ‘God owns the cattle on a thousand hills’ [which he does] therefore if we are heirs ‘give me some cattle’! [stuff]. Here Paul uses this term in speaking of our identification with Christ’s sufferings. ‘If we suffer with him, we too shall share [joint heir!] in his glory’ [future glorification at the resurrection- we shall see him and be changed in a moment, at the twinkling of an eye. This mortal shall put on immortality]. It’s a symptom of modern American Christianity to view all these scriptures thru a materialistic lens, Paul held to the promise of a future reward [at the resurrection] that enabled him to go thru great difficulty and suffering in this present life. He counted the suffering as a privilege that he shared with Christ.
(829)Romans 5:1-9 ‘Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God thru out Lord Jesus Christ’. There are certain benefits ‘results’ of being ‘made righteous by faith’, peace being one of them. Paul goes on and says we glory in hope and also trials, because we realize that thru the difficulties we gain experience and patience. Things that are needed for the journey, we can’t substitute talent and motivation and ‘success principles’ for them. We need maturity and God produces it this way. Those who teach otherwise have a ‘self inflicted wound’ their teachings are very immature! That is there was a ‘strain’ of teaching in the church that said ‘we don’t learn thru difficulty and suffering, we learn only thru Gods word!’ [that is reading it]. Those who grasped onto this false idea have produced some of the most unbalanced teaching in the church, stuff that even the younger generation is saying ‘what in the heck are these guys preaching’? If you by pass the difficult road, you will be shallow. Now Paul says ‘God commended his love toward us, that when we were sinners Christ died for us’ ‘being now justified by his death, we shall be saved thru his life’ [saved from wrath thru him]. Once again this theme pops up; ‘since we are justified, made righteous by believing with the heart, we shall be saved [continual, future deliverance] from wrath thru him’. I don’t know if you ever realized what a major theme this is in Romans? The ongoing, future ‘being saved’ is a result of ‘being made righteous’. Later on in chapter 10, when we read that the righteous call for salvation, we need to understand this context. Remember, when the two are linked together in the same verse, it is not saying ‘saved’ in the sense of some sinner’s prayer. It is speaking of the ongoing, promised deliverance [from many things, not just wrath!] to the ‘justified caller’. We have access ‘by faith into this grace wherein we stand’. Wow! That's some good stuff, Jesus ever lives so that those who come to him are ‘being saved’ to the uttermost. This grace we are in is available to us all of the time, are we availing ourselves of it?
(819)THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS- Let’s try to get a few more parables in before we start the book of Romans. In Luke 16 we have the Rich Man and Lazarus. First, some say this is not a parable, but a true story. Why? Well in all the parables Jesus never uses proper names, here he uses the name ‘Lazarus’ so this cant be a parable! Let’s see, if this is a parable [which I believe it is] then Jesus does use proper names in parables! I realize that many well meaning believers hear things thru out their lives, we all want to do our best in life. We grasp on to certain things out of good intentions, it’s just we need to allow our minds to be ‘molded’ by Gods Word. Now Jesus says there was a rich man who had it made, he ‘fared sumptuously every day’ [he had more than enough all the time!] and a poor man at his gate [border]. The poor man begged for help and was desperate. The rich man, by law, had no responsibility to help. He didn’t! The poor man dies and goes to ‘Abrahams Bosom’ [I really don’t want to do the whole thing to be honest. I believe this is simply a figure of speech. He is in ‘Paradise- Heaven’ I know some have really built some doctrines from this parable]. The rich man dies and ends up in Hell. The rich man asks Father Abraham if he can send Lazarus to give him some water. Abraham replies he can’t, there is an impassible gulf between them. Plus the rich man was rewarded in life and now he is suffering. Lazarus suffered in life and is now rewarded. The rich man asks ‘well, at least send Lazarus back [raise him! –note, I do find it interesting that Jesus is the one ‘making up the names’ in this story. He picks the name ‘Lazarus’ a real name of one of his friends, Mary and Martha’s brother. Jesus also chooses to speak about him being ‘sent back’ [raised from the dead] in this story. Of course Jesus actually does raise Lazarus from the dead, and some Jews- i.e.; the rich mans ‘5 brothers’ still don’t believe!]. Jesus says let the 5 brothers hear Moses and the Prophets [the law for Jews, Jesus showed here that eternal judgment was a foundation of the Old Testament law -Hebrews 6]. The rich man says ‘no, they will believe if one comes back from the dead’. Jesus says ‘if they don’t believe the testimony from scripture, they will not believe even if one comes back from the dead’! This could be one of the most prophetic statements Jesus ever made in a parable. This chapter [Luke 16] also has Jesus famous saying ‘you cannot serve God and Money’ and right after he says it the next verse says the Pharisees, who were covetous, heard him. Jesus once again is dealing with the responsibility that ‘wealthy people, nations’ have towards ‘poor neighbors’ [at your gate- border]. This was one of the fundamental violations of the religious development of Judaism. The Pharisees loved the technicality of scripture and religion, but they found ways to justify not ‘caring for their neighbors’ [or families- Corban!]. This parable warns the rich not to allow himself to become arrogant and uncompassionate. Even though Lazarus [Mexico- illegal aliens] did not have the legal right or power to get the food from the rich man, yet this did not excuse the rich man from the fundamental ‘take care of your neighbor’ ethos. He should have still treated his neighbor with respect and compassion. Though legally it was not required, yet ethically it was. And Jesus once again portrays material wealth in a negative light. Now, I didn’t say he condemned the rich man because he was rich! But he was held to a higher standard because ‘to whom much is given, much is required’. Paul and James will use this same mindset in their letters [Timothy and James]. They will warn the rich to not be ‘high minded’ but to be willing to ‘communicate’ [distribute what they have] to help others. You never see a teaching from the Apostles that says ‘seek to become wealthy so you can use your wealth to advance the Kingdom’. Sorry, it just isn’t there! The principle of God using wealth is found in scripture ‘The Lord gives you the power to get wealth so he can establish his covenant in the earth’ [Deuteronomy]. In context God is speaking to Israel as a nation and is telling them he is going to economically bless them for his purposes. But Paul will actually teach that ‘they that desire to become rich will fall into a snare’ 1st Timothy 6. The point is Jesus often used wealth in a negative way in his parables. His teachings affected the writings of the Apostles. They never praised wealth! [Also the earliest ‘Apostolic’ writings apart from scripture are called the Didache, if you want a real negative view of ‘filthy lucre’ read this!]
(811)HE SPENT HIS MONEY ON PROSTITUTES AND GOD THREW HIM A PARTY! In Luke 15 we have the famous parable of the Prodigal Son. The chapter begins with the religious leaders becoming offended that Jesus was receiving sinners. This is the backdrop to why Jesus gives the story. He starts with 2 other brief parables of lost sheep and coins. The themes of these are ‘just like a man rejoices over finding something that was lost, so likewise God rejoices ‘throws a party’ when a sinner comes home’. This begins the story. Jesus says a man had 2 sons [Jew/Gentile] and one son said ‘Father, give me the inheritance that is rightfully mine’ [the immature son learned the truth of ‘requesting his inheritance’ –money, and getting it rightfully. This did not mean that he was mature or correct in doing what he did. Even though the father had prepared it for him, the son was preoccupied with getting it NOW!] The father divides the inheritance to both boys. The young son goes off and lives it up. He spends all his money and ends up eating pig food. He comes to his senses and says ‘I will return home, my father has servants living better than this! I will request a job from dad’. As the boy nears the house the father runs and grabs the boy. He tells his servants ‘go, kill the calf and let’s have a party!’ He puts a robe on him and gives him a ring. Now the older son [Israel- she has been struggling for centuries to try and please God. Sure she has failed, but heck these other nations weren’t even trying!] hears the uproar and says ‘what’s going on?’ They tell him ‘your brother returned and your father has thrown him a party’. He sulks in his room. The father asks what's wrong and the older son says ‘I have tried my best to live up to your standards [Law] and yet my younger brother spent all his money rebelling against you. Where was he when things got rough? I was here to give you a hand, not him! And as soon as he shows up you are overjoyed about it. What about me?’ Remember, Jesus is giving this story in response to the offence that the Jewish leaders had at the beginning of this chapter. The father says ‘son, you have always been with me [God made his covenant available to Israel for many years. Just because he was opening it up to the ‘sinning nations’ didn’t mean that he cared less about them]. The father tells the son ‘you have always had access to my covenant, this other son [gentile nations] went astray for many years. Don’t take it wrong that I am happy over his return. He was lost and now he’s home’. Jesus challenged the mindset of Israel in this parable. It was only natural for the nation of Israel to have been offended. Jesus even taught ‘offenses must happen’. But they were going to reject their Messiah because of this offense. They couldn’t believe how Jesus treated the outcasts ‘they wasted your money on harlots’! was the corporate cry of Israel. ‘How could you even think of eating with them’. Often times we get offended because God is merciful. Jesus gives other parables along these lines. The hired workers who worked all day felt like they got cheated when the master paid them all the same. In that parable Jesus has the master saying ‘are you mad because I did what I wanted with what was mine? I didn’t cheat you , I gave you what I agreed to pay you’ once again they were offended that Jesus was offering equal access to those who were deemed ‘less worthy’. Jesus did tell the older son ‘all that I have ever had has been made available, don’t let your offense keep you from enjoying the party’.
(809) GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER? Jesus said when you have a feast, don’t invite your friends, neighbors or rich people. For they can benefit you in some way, you can get ‘repaid’. But instead invite the down and out, because they can’t repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection and return of Christ. Once again Jesus precepts are so contrary to the engrained mindset of ‘getting a reward’. We have an endemic problem in the American church. We do most everything with ‘repayment in mind’. We want it, we want it now and we want an overabundance of it! Heck, didn’t Jesus teach this? Well yes he did ‘give and it will be given unto you….’ Hebrews says ‘those who come after God must believe that he is and that he rewards us’. The point is a great body of Jesus teachings show us that this life and all it can afford are temporary riches. Paul said in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 1 that God will repay us at the appearing of Jesus. We need to re- tool our motivations for ‘ministry’ [service] and understand that our real reward is at the end [or beginning!]. Do we really live like this? Do we give and serve with the expectation of getting our rewards soon? Do we ‘sow seed’ [give money] with this very understanding as the primary motive for giving? Jesus said ‘when you do charitable deeds [note- he is not addressing this responsibility to the mission outreach of ‘the church’ or the barrio ministry!] do it with the mindset of not receiving a reward until I return’. Well brother, what’s the use of doing good stuff then? Well its service to our King, its part of counting the cost. It’s part of taking up our cross daily. Make no bones about it, there is an aspect of service to Jesus that says ‘we do not live for present rewards, but our lives show thru word and deed that there is an afterlife. We fully expect to be rewarded then’. I realize that we have focused and gone way overboard on the reality of God blessing us in this life. I understand why people do not like to hear this stuff. But the time has come for the American church to repent of our idolatry and get on board with the rest of the Body of Christ. Our brothers and sisters worldwide have learned to live [and die!] for the cause of Christ, and we can’t even hold a free B.B.Q!
(808)PLANT THOSE SEEDS! - Jesus uses the idea of seeds again. The kingdom is like casting seed into the ground. You plant it and go to bed and get up and live a consistent life, before you know it the seed grows. The earth brings forth fruit OF ITSELF. You ‘knoweth not how’ this is happening. Much of kingdom living is simply trusting in God to produce after you obey. Our natural minds say ‘well, it will take so much money and resource to do this. How in the world can we expect the ‘seed to grow’ unless we all become millionaires’ there goes that ‘stinkin thinkin’ again! Hey, the thing will grow while you are sleeping! Our natural talents and abilities [even to raise funds!] has nothing to do with it. Now, after the process of natural [supernatural] growth takes place, you then can harvest it. The seed goes thru growth stages. The blade, ear and ‘full corn’. Here in South Texas we have these beautiful wild flowers that grow every year. In the wild they grow great, but it’s hard to get them going in your yard! The reason is the flowers need to make it to ‘full growth stage’ and then the seedlings die and fall. If you mow them down before full seed stage they don’t reproduce. There are things in your life that God wants to bring to ‘full harvest stage’ [or dying stage!] A place where you don’t know or even care how the thing will grow, you simply cast the seed because you have learned if you ‘don’t cast it, you will be miserable’ in essence you are obeying out of sheer experience! [Paul- woe is me if I preach not the gospel]. Jesus said ‘I have given them the words that you gave me’ [John 17]. There are so many ‘seeds’ that you have been entrusted with. Some have more than others [30,60,100 fold]. God is not holding you accountable for the ‘size of the harvest’ he is holding you accountable for what you did with the handful of seeds he gave you. When Jesus returns he asks 'what did you do with the talent I gave you’? Some times we fail to plant out of fear ‘I need the land, then some equipment. How much money will it take to plant the first field?’ Just simply plant what you have right now! Jesus said ‘he knoweth not how it is growing, the earth brings forth fruit of itself’. Once you reach the ‘full harvest stage’ the thing looks like its dead [it is] but what do you know, next year you have a yard full of the stuff!
(807)THE WEDDING SEAT- Jesus said when someone invites you to a wedding, don’t sit in the place of promotion/honor. But sit in a low place. If you seek power and position the man who invited you will come and say ‘please give up your place for this man’ and you will be humbled and lose significance. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but he that humbles himself will be exalted. Once again Jesus contrasts the idea of ‘being all you can be’ ‘being the most motivated person in the room’. All natural tendencies that well meaning people fall into when they fail to follow the actual precepts that Jesus gave us for the Christian life. It’s only natural for up and coming ‘ministers’ or believers who feel called to ministry to begin to seek position and prominence. Now most of the time we don’t realize this is happening, it can be a tricky balance to keep. Sometimes it happens, not out of pride but insecurity. People want to be affirmed. If I feel like my position and success are indicators of God being pleased with me, or outward signs of Gods vindication ‘wow, wait until my enemies see me now!’ This can become a trap. The fundamental truth of our acceptance with God is proven by the death and resurrection of his Son. ‘God loved us and he gave his Son to prove this’. Now Jesus showed us the process of being a child of God. His ultimate act of emptying himself [Kenosis] would seem to be contrary to completing his mission. If you possessed all the attributes of God and were given a task of supreme importance [redeeming man] the last thing you would want to do is give up the position and power that you have. It seems contrary to fulfilling the mission! Jesus would ask ‘father, if this is the path to completing the mission, then so be it. But if there is any other way possible, besides me drinking the cup, show me’. It’s only natural for us to want to hold on to power and prestige, to go for ‘the chief seat’. Now in the parable Jesus said the man who invited you will come and say ‘give this man place’ [position]. When the Father exalted the Son and seated him at his right hand, it was after extreme humility. The man who Jesus takes by the hand and says ‘come, sit here in the front’ isn’t jumping up and down and saying ‘I was waiting for this my whole life. I knew if I waited my turn I would be exalted’. He is simply fulfilling the course that was his destiny. He already has learned the futility of trying to gain acceptance and honor from other men. He simply allows the master to move him from a place of insignificance to one of influence. This process is played out time and again in God’s kingdom. We rarely see the practical aspect of truly being Christ like. We think things like ‘God has great plans for me. I am the head and not the tail’ while these things are true, we often mistake the values of the world while seeking ‘headship’. Being the ‘head and not the tail’ means growing up into ‘him’ who is the head! [Jesus]. It is using his own kingdom values as a measuring rod. It means facing the most important decision of your life and saying ‘if you want me Father to give up my position and glory, if you tell me that this path is the one to fulfilling ‘my dreams’. Then even though it seems contrary to all that I see and understand, yet I will do it. Father, your will, not mine be done’.
(801)TREASURE IN A FIELD- Jesus said the Kingdom is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man finds it, he hides it and goes and sells all that he has and buys the field. One of the main values of the kingdom is having a willingness to ‘sell all that you have’ make sacrifices and give priority to God’s purpose. In the history of Christianity you have had famous stories of people who felt like the Lord was requiring them to actually do this. They would take vows of poverty and forsake a life filled with the pursuits of things and self, and would make Gods calling number one. We need to be more in tune with this mindset than we are presently at. It is common to read all the statements from Jesus on forsaking all to follow him, and to say ‘well, in so and so’s case [rich man stories and stuff] money was his idol. But Jesus really isn’t talking about money, he is showing us that you can’t put other things ahead of God’. I think we are missing stuff when we do this. In many of these stories the reason Jesus says ‘he sells what he has’ or ‘leave your nets and follow me’ was because he was showing the natural tension that arises between living ‘our dream’ or fulfilling his purpose. A big part of ‘our dream’ is imbedded with ‘stuff’ ‘more stuff’ ‘more stuff than you could ever imagine’! Jesus taught a mindset that said ‘give and it will be given to you, pressed down shaken together and running over’ but along with this he teaches ‘the world is pre occupied with stuff [what should you wear and eat] and I don’t want my followers to be pre occupied with stuff’. The value of the Kingdom is so great, that Jesus said this man sold all that he had to purchase the true riches. Sometimes it is our unwillingness to ‘sell all that we have’ that keeps us from the true riches.
(800)PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN- I guess we need to do a little more ‘teaching’ than I planned on. I am using the parables from Matthew’s gospel. Matthew uses ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ instead of ‘Kingdom of God’. I have heard different ideas on why Matthew said ‘heaven’ instead of ‘God’. The idea that I need to correct is that Matthew was speaking of something totally different than ‘The Kingdom of God’. This belief rose up among the 19th century Dispensationalists, it basically says ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ means the world of Christendom [all religions that make up Christianity] and the Kingdom of God is that future thing that happens some day. Well, both of these are not real good. Most of all you should reject the first idea. The simple reason is that the other Gospels have these same parables with the term ‘God’ in place of ‘Heaven’. For this interpretation to be true [the Christendom one] you would have to believe that Jesus spoke about an entirely different thing, at an entirely different time and setting in Matthews gospel. When believers interpret stuff like this, it is simply not in keeping with ANY of the previous ways believers saw these verses in 1800 years. Plus it seems odd that Matthew would be the only writer who recorded the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ parables while the other writers recorded the Kingdom of God ones. So for whatever reason you think Matthew said ‘Heaven’ and not ‘God’ you should at least understand that he was not speaking of different parables. Now ‘the Kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened’. Most of the brothers who believe the ‘heaven-Christendom’ idea teach that Jesus was speaking of sin and wickedness invading the world of Christendom. They get this idea from the fact that leaven does describe sin in most [if not all?] of the other pictures of leaven in scripture. First, leaven [yeast] is something that God created. In and of itself it isn’t ‘wicked’. Second, Jesus can use any physical thing he wants to use in any way he wills to use it in his teachings, he is God after all! And third, I think it fitting that Jesus would take a term used to describe sin and turn it around and ‘redeem’ its use to describe righteousness. After all ‘where sin abounded, grace did much more abound’. Now to the meaning. Jesus values ‘least ness’ in his teachings. He absolutely challenges the present idea of Christianity in many of the American churches. He time and again lets his followers know that they must die to their own agendas and ideas. They must put priority on eternal versus material riches. They must seek to become small and last in order to be first. In all of these teachings he also rewards those who follow his ideals with great influence. The things they do ‘will go far’. Their children will impact society [Genesis 12 and 15- Abrahams seed touching nations]. Jesus calls for carrying our cross daily, dying to our own desires and dreams so his purpose thru us can reach all nations. The ‘hiddeness’ of the yeast speaks of this aspect of kingdom living. You don’t take yeast and ‘spread it all over the outside of everything’ [modern ideas of ministry- ‘get our name out, have everyone know about us’. Hire an image consultant!] Jesus says ‘hide the yeast inside of stuff’ package the gift and talents in such a way that they will ‘secretly’ be in many places. You will hardly even know its there, it’s hidden! Than after a while the effect of the yeast will be so hard to stop you will have a revolution on your hands! ‘Who in the heck started this ball rolling?’ The effect will be great, the fame and recognition will be minimal. Now Jesus taught in all of the parables that his kingdom would be like this. It would be silly to apply the yeast here as wickedness taking over Christendom, he doesn’t use these explosive images to describe sin in his other parables. They speak of small things becoming large in righteous ways [note- the tares are an exception, they are the full harvest of unbelievers along with believers. But the kingdom images [seed and stuff] speak of the radical explosive nature of the kingdom of God in the earth]. So lets look for ways to ‘hide the leaven’ in stuff. Is the most effective way to either write a book? Start a blog? What do you think it is for you? I feel many talented Pastors limit their voice by spending the majority of their teaching efforts on preaching to a room full of people and never even recording [in writing or by voice] the teaching. Make it available in various forms. If you saw some great insights from your study time, why have it taught in a forum where only a limited amount of people will hear it one time? We read of Jesus and Paul and think that they taught a form of ‘local church’ that says ‘give priority to the Sunday pulpit’. Now Paul did say ‘how can they hear without a preacher’ [Romans]. But this applies to hearing Paul’s letters as they were ‘re read’ in the churches. We are right now reading the recorded parables of Jesus that millions upon millions of people read every year! Be wise in putting leaven [good leaven!] in places where it can multiply good things. NOTE- leaven represented sin during the Passover feast. That’s why they couldn’t have it their meals. But it was permitted during Pentecost. Why? Pentecost would come to represent the outpouring of the Spirit and the intended growth of Christianity, at Pentecost God wanted a massive explosion. Leaven was allowed!
(798)JUDGES 21- We end the book of Judges with the nation of Israel mourning over the fact that they had to deal with one of their own tribes who left the true path of God. They vowed ‘not to give their daughters any more to them’. They made a determination ‘no matter how much we personally like them, the many good memories of days gone by. The good old stories of our past heritage together. The actual good things that we all shared over the years’. Yet they decided this was the generation that would make the break. By not giving their daughters unto them they were in essence saying ‘we will no longer allow your tribe to effect the whole nation’. Tough stuff, Paul does this with the Corinthians; he says ‘remove the wicked from among you’. Now, Israel does not want the total destruction of the erring tribe! [nor Paul, read 2nd Corinthians]. They work out a deal where the ‘virgins’ of the tribe that did not show up for the initial battle [Jabesh Gilead] would become the wives of the surviving Benjamites. They allowed the tribe to survive, post judgment day! I see lots of spiritual meaning to this stuff. Often times we as believers do not want to deal with ‘errant tribes’. We prefer to think ‘well, we all believe in Jesus. Lets just love each other’. Hey, I am all for love. I have come to realize many well meaning Christians really don’t like dealing with stuff because it gets rough. Jesus said ‘do you think I have come to bring peace? No, I tell you I have come to bring division. Homes will be divided. Brother against brother and family member against family member’. Now, we know Jesus is the prince of Peace. The angels would say ‘peace on earth and good will towards men’. But Jesus was speaking of the reality of having to take sides at certain times. The inevitable conflict that comes with saying ‘this is true, this is false’. Israel dealt severely with a brother tribe, it would not have been ‘love’ for them to have ignored the problem! Lets end Judges with a brief overview. Why did we see all the problems in his book? Time after time God would deliver them and time after time they would fall back into sin. God knew all along that this would happen. The intent of the law was to reveal to man his inability to ‘self reform’. The season of judges was simply a foreshadowing of a future day [now] where there would be a ‘judge’ [Jesus] who would be able to continually save the people because he would have a rule that would not end. Israel did fine as long as the judge was alive, after his death they would fall. So today we have Jesus, the Great High Priest who is able ‘to save to the uttermost, those who come to God by him. For he ever liveth to make intercession for them’ [Hebrews].
(795)JUDGES 20- The nation of Israel gather together as ‘one man’ to figure out what is going on. They all received the body pieces of the concubine as a sign of judgment. Remember, the law [Levite] can not give life to that which is ‘dead in trespasses and sin’ [the dead wife!] but the law can only reveal sin and call for justice. So the tribes are gathered to meet out judgment! They decide to get an army together, 400,000 men. They go to the town of Gibeah, where Benjamin [the tribe] lives. They tell the people ‘you have done wickedly, give to us the men who have infected this whole tribe [denomination/whole groups of believers who have been affected in a wrong way by certain teachers who have ‘crept in unawares’]. Benjamin says no! There is a strange dynamic that takes place in the Body of Christ. Whenever the Lord moves in a big way to correct or reform wrong doctrine, very rarely do the victims of the wrong doctrine want to admit that they were wrongly influenced. The sin of pride says ‘are you telling me that I was duped’? Benjamin actually goes into this protection mode and defends the wicked doers in their midst! So Israel encamps against Benjamin and they fight. Sure enough Benjamin wins! Wow, they must have thought ‘see, we were correct in refusing to deal with the wrong stuff in our community’ [whole groups of believers who harbor false things]. Israel is distraught, were they wrong in going against Benjamin? You honestly have to ask yourself this question at times. God might really have raised you up to deal with some stuff. You might actually lose a battle or two! The Lord tells them ‘No, you weren’t wrong in dealing with the false stuff in the tribe of Benjamin, go back and give it another shot’. The next day Israel attacks again, and again they lose! They ask the Lord about it and he says keep trying. On day three they adjust their procedure; they set an ambush and eventually overthrow Benjamin. Now, this is no great victory, God actually called the rest of the people of God to deal with an aberrant tribe. The church goes thru reformation seasons where she needs to deal with wrong stuff on a global scale. The history of Christianity shows us the great ecumenical councils of the church. Times where the whole Body of Christ had to agree that certain things were right or wrong. It is only natural for those being rebuked to fight back and not admit their fault. This process is very difficult. Paul wrote the Galatians and told them if a brother is in a fault, that the more mature [spiritual] ones should correct it in love. Over the years I have been involved with trying to explain to sincere believers, some of them who hold positions of leadership, how we can’t keep teaching things that have been shown to be blatantly wrong. Often times the ‘tribes’ [groups] will fight back, and win a war or two! Understand, Benjamin was running their tribe as an efficient unit to a degree. Even though they had ‘bad seed’ in their group, yet the fact that they did exist as a functioning unit allowed them to successfully resist a few previous challenges to their tribe [belief system]. But ultimately there came a challenge that was too hard to resist, the rest of the nation joined as ‘one man’ to say ‘enough is enough, we love you as a brother tribe, but this stuff has gone on way too long’. It was the radical act of the Levite that brought the attention to the rest of the tribes of what was going on. It was the responsibility of the nation as a whole to deal with the ‘lost tribe’.
(791)JUDGES 18- The tribe of Dan sends 5 spies to check out the land of Laish, it was supposed to be part of their inheritance. On the way they pass Mount Ephraim, where Micah and the ‘hired priest’ live. They enquire in the house of Micah about their journey. They are assured God is with them. They see Laish and return with the good report. Laish is a land where the people are ‘isolated’ they do no business with any other tribes. Too sectarian in their little community [ouch!]. So the tribe of Dan hears the report and arms 600 men for battle. As they go to get their land, they once again stop at the idolatrous house of Micah. They make a ‘job offer’ to the ‘hired priest’ and appeal to success and status among clergy ‘do you want to come and be our hired priest? Wouldn’t you rather be priest of a whole tribe instead of one household’? He takes the job promotion and on their way out Micah tries to stop them from taking his priest but doesn’t have the manpower to do it. Dan introduces this false priesthood on a large scale to the people of God. Scripture says while they were involving themselves in this false worship, the House of God was still in Shiloh. Now we have covered a lot of ground here. I want to be careful but truthful about wrong worship in the church. First, I do find it amazing that the Lord did not cut Micah off originally when he got into his stuff! The history of Israel includes a time period where they thought the high places in their land were a sign of true religion. When some of the kings institute a return to the Lord, they leave the high places alone. Although these high places were idolatrous, yet in their ignorance they really thought they were honoring God. I see a degree of this here. Now the hired priest continues to represent the mentality of the hired offices of the clergy. All good people, but often operating in systems that lend themselves to the co dependency of Gods people. It is easy to see the idea of false worship and simply use this to bash Catholics. I prefer to see the false worship of Dan as a mark of all wrong tradition and teaching that come to us from the mind of man. Jesus rebuked the traditions that made void the Word of God, but Paul will tell his spiritual sons ‘hold to the traditions you have been taught by me’. Some traditions are needful. Things that our spiritual fathers have passed down to us. Don’t despise all tradition! Don’t see ‘the ministry’ as a way to gain status and climb the ladder in the corporate world. This priest of Micah took a position based on gentile authority. Something Jesus forbid for the leaders of his church. This priest saw self advancement in moving ‘his ministry’ to oversee the tribe of Dan. This root of pride will cause the limited idolatry at Micah’s house to leaven an entire tribe. Often times well meaning people become part of ‘extending wrong ideas’ thru out the church as they seek fame and recognition. Jesus taught us that true servants will not make decisions based on ‘how will this move promote me, how will I gain a name for myself’ these motivations blind us to the idolatry that exists in the church in our day. The New Testament equivalent of idolatry is covetousness. Leadership often overlooks the blatant abuse in this area as they pursue a name and advancement for ‘their ministries’. It’s easy to not want to hear Paul’s strong words in 1st Timothy 6 concerning leaders. We want to be able to ‘seek fame and fortune’ because it does feel good to be famous! Hebrews says ‘sin does have pleasure for a season’. So I see the whole scenario of Micah’s hired priest in all of us. I see the idolatry of Dan and false worship as leaven that affects all of Gods people [Protestants and Catholics alike]. I see the fact that God still used Micah to be a voice and instrument to the people of God even though he thru ignorance allowed idolatry to be entrenched in Israel. God is merciful and he will put up with our ignorance for a season, but I think that season has already passed. [Though his mercy endures forever!]
(787)JUDGES 16- This is the famous ‘Samson and Delilah’ story. Samson once again falls for some strange woman. The philistines ask her to find out the secret to Samson’s strength. She goes thru this procedure of ‘bugging him to death’ until he spills the beans. Scripture says ‘she pressed him until his soul was vexed unto the point of death’ double ouch! Well she finds out the strength is in his dedication unto God, shown thru the act of not cutting his hair. She shaves his head and he is taken captive. Scripture says he woke up and thought ‘I will fight the enemy as usual and win’ and he didn’t realize the Lord wasn’t with him anymore. Now Samson becomes a source of entertainment for the lost world. They bring him out every now and then and parade him around as a ‘jack ass’. Do you remember how the media and late night comics just couldn’t get over the fact that Christian celeb’s have fallen? Re running the crying videos of Brother Swaggart and Bakker. Parading the ‘lover’ of Ted Haggard on all the shows. The Philistines loved using the ‘big buffoon’ as sport. So one day they take him out of his cell and have him stumble around at some party. Samson has some kid place his hands on the 2 main pillars that are holding up the building. He asks the Lord ‘Lord, please return my strength this one last time’ and he pushes on the pillars and the whole corrupt society around him comes down and they all die as one big happy family! Samson killed more of the enemy in his death than thru out his life. Just a few thoughts; right now in the present ‘media church’ there is another tragic situation of a famous celebrity couple who have divorced. Sad story, God will forgive people for their mistakes. But the problem is the wife feels like she should maintain the whole public persona. Now I like these people. I am not a fan of their teachings at all, but the wife has come a long way from a difficult life. When I first read about these things I always pray for the people. But we [the people of God] need to seriously re evaluate the whole ‘celebrity persona’ that allows good people, who seemingly represent the church to society at large, to do stuff like this. Its like the world tunes us in every now and then ‘for sport’. Also Samson used wisdom in avoiding a direct shot at a few Philistines, and placed himself in a position where he could bring down the whole corrupt group at one time. We need to avoid individual skirmishes with people. God is working in our day like he has in every other generation. There are some serious things that the previous generation wrongfully built into the church. The younger generation sees the absolute absurdity of some of these things. Prophetic voices need to ‘position themselves strategically’ and take out some of these pillars [doctrines, not people!] so we can give the next generation a fresh start.
(776)JUDGES 8- As Gideon routes the enemy, the children of Ephraim got in on it. Were they thankful that Gideon gave them a shot? No. They were mad that he didn’t let them in on it from the start! Gideon appeases their jealousy and says ‘you guys have done more than me. I take no personal glory from this’. Gideon saw his calling as one that would benefit the other ‘tribes’ [denominations]. He knew his purpose was not to start his own tribe! Now as Gideon is pursuing the 2 kings of Midian [Zeba, Zalmunna? In keeping myself honest, I did not just check the spelling] he comes thru 2 cities [Succoth, Penuel?] and asks the men ‘can you help us out? We are pursuing the kings of Midian and the troops need some food’. The men of Succoth say ‘why should we help? We don’t see them in your hands yet’. In essence, they were not sure if Gideon and his personal little ‘vendetta’ was going to prevail. We need to be careful that we don’t judge a prophetic act of God and take things personal. These cities needed to get on board when it counted. Gideon is not going to need their help after the job is done! So he tells them ‘fine, but when I’m done with the job, I will come back and whip your Elders with thorn bushes’. Gideon is treading dangerous territory. He actually is setting his judgment up against the God ordained elders of this city [Romans]. But like the Apostle Paul, his unique calling was unstoppable. They would go against elders or whoever they needed to, in order to complete the mission. So Gideon catches the 2 kings and tells his son ‘fall upon them with the sword’. His son hesitates out of fear. The 2 kings actually rebuke Gideon’s boy and tell him to have courage. Gideon takes the sword and kills the kings. A few interesting notes. The people are so overjoyed with Gideon’s authority that they say ‘Be our king, rule over us as a dynasty’. Gideon refuses and says this would be a rejection of Gods authority. Eventually Saul will become the king that fills this role. Even though God raised up strong authority figures, yet there was a distinction between over doing mans rule and recognizing Gods authority. Paul will teach the concept of God recognized elders in the New Testament church. But will also warn of men wanting to draw away disciples after themselves. Some will fall into the snare of ‘becoming kings’. Also Gideon took all the gold jewelry from the Midianites and made an Ephod [a priestly object] and it became an idol to the people. They fell into the snare of covetousness/idolatry that would become a hallmark of Israel’s rebellion.
(774) JUDGES 5-6 Deborah sings a victors song in chapter 5. I only want to mention one verse, she says ‘the mountains melted before you, even Sinai’. In the beginning of Judges I skipped the part where Judah defeats Jerusalem. This wording sounds strange in a way! Jerusalem of course was inhabited by the Jebusites and Judah took it. Sinai represents the law and Moses, grace and truth come from Jesus. I simply felt these ideas to be prophetic, speaking of a time in the future [Now, the New Covenant] where these natural identities will bow before the King! ‘The law came thru Moses [Sinai] but grace and truth came from Jesus Christ’.
In chapter 6 we see one of the famous stories of a judge, Gideon. At this time in Israel’s history the Midianites were coming up every year during the harvest and wiping them out. It’s not that Israel wasn’t sowing [planting] it’s just they weren’t enjoying the harvest! The enemy left them enough freedom to plant and work the fields, it was just at harvest time when he gave them a hard time. Now Gideon is threshing wheat at ‘the winepress’ which is basically a hole in the ground. You can’t really thresh wheat in a cave! You need a ‘thresingfloor’, an open area where you can throw the wheat in the air and let the wind blow the chaff away. But all the children of Israel were doing this in secret spots to hide from the Midianites. So once again the people call out to God and he does it a little different this time. He sends them a Prophet first who says to them ‘God delivered you from Egypt and bondage, yet you feared the enemy and served false gods’. They were living in fear and permitted idolatry to become part of their worship [covetousness is the New Testament equivalent to idolatry]. Then the Lord sends an angel to Gideon and he tells him ‘you mighty man of valor, God is calling you to lead the people’. Gideon says ‘I come from poverty, I am the least in my family. How can I be the one’? The Lord doesn’t say ‘don’t worry, I will make you rich’ he simply tells Gideon ‘I will go with you’. Jesus used a rag tag team of disciples to turn the world up side down. They would ask ‘how can we feed this multitude, we don’t have the cash’ Jesus was with them! Gideon does this prophetic act and destroys the altar of Baal that was in his city. At night [because he was afraid] he takes 10 guys and they tear it down and erect an altar to God right in the city square. In the morning the men of the city say ‘who in the heck did this’? They are infuriated that someone would disturb the system that they became comfortable with [ouch!] They find out it was Gideon and they go to his house and want to kill him. The dad says ‘hey, if Baal is so offended, then let him do something about it’. Gideon’s dad had a little bit of the Elijah thing going on. Elijah tells the false prophets of Baal ‘where’s Baal? How come he can’t come and consume all this wood? Maybe he’s busy with some other stuff?’ One translation actually says ‘maybe he is on the potty’ these idol destroyers seemed to have no respect for the scared cows of the day. So Baal leaves Gideon alone and Gideon blows the trumpet and sends word to the various tribes. God is raising up Gideon to ‘come upon the enemy as one man’. We will later see the enemy have a dream of Gideon and the people rolling into the enemy’s camp as a Barley loaf. These are prophetic images of the Body of Christ. We are ‘one bread’ so to speak. Notice how the people became accustomed to the altar of Baal in their midst. They were irate that someone came along and shook the apple cart. At first they wanted to kill the guy, but then they recognized [grudgingly!] that Gideon was right. Sometimes the Lord will speak a word into the church that at first seems unbelievable. ‘Who does so and so think he is?’ But if the word is from the Lord, the people will eventually get on board with it and even partake of the benefits from the word. Gideon didn’t turn the troops on the men from his city who wanted to kill him. He simply fulfilled his prophetic destiny and attacked the enemy, not his fellow citizens! He allowed them time to get on the bandwagon, they eventually did.
(771) JUDGES 3- The Lord allows the enemies to remain partly in the land to ‘prove [test] the children who saw not the wars of Canaan’. God allowed the younger generation to learn what it meant to overcome some stuff. We live in a day where many believers are used to sitting in ‘church’ and being passive listeners their whole lives. They are all good people, it’s just they have never really learned how to war. To go out on their own and experience the kingdom. God taught the younger generation how to war. They cried unto the Lord during their oppression and the lord raised up Othniel. [Just a note, the way I do all our teaching (radio/blog) is I read the stuff ahead of time and when I teach I do it from memory. So sometimes you will see a misspelled name!] He is the younger brother of Caleb and he delivers the people. They soon back slide after his death and Eglon, the ‘fat king’ of Moab oppresses them. The Lord raises up Ehud. Notice the Lord is raising these judges up from the community! [Like the elders in Acts]. These judges experienced the same oppression as all the people around them. They lived with the complaints and bitterness of a people oppressed ‘geez, what does Eglon want now!’ The deliverers also didn’t carry all the weight, they simply showed the people that it’s possible to stand up for yourself and fight! Ehud goes to Eglon with ‘a present’ [tribute, the payment for being under him. But Ehud’s present doesn’t end there!] Ehud enters the king’s chamber. He says ‘I have a secret message from God for you’ and Eglon thinks he is going to get a little something extra. He does. Ehud takes his dagger out and shoves it all the way into Eglons fat belly! The handle and all. He escapes thru the porch and locks the doors behind him. He runs back to Israel and blows a trumpet and all the people descend upon Moab and slaughter 10 thousand mighty warriors. God gave them peace for 80 years. The description is graphic. The reason why Eglon is described as ‘fat’ is to show how this rule of lethargy and gluttony was suffocating God’s people. It took a risky, radical act of one man to say ‘I have had enough of this guy, I don’t care if I get killed, I am going to take him down!’ Sometimes it takes radical action to overthrow the spirit of mammon off of Gods people [you fight covetousness, not people!] After the violent [prophetic] act of Ehud, the people gained enough courage to cast the entire ruling nation of Moab off of them. Sometimes God will raise up a singular voice [John the Baptist was a voice in the wilderness] to stir up the people to action. The individual can’t do it alone [he might take down an Eglon] but the people have to cast off the oppressors themselves [or at least finish the job].
(765)ACT 25- Festus hears the Jews at Jerusalem, they want him to bring Paul to Jerusalem. Festus goes back to Caesarea and asks Paul ‘why don’t you go back with me’? Paul appeals to Caesar! Of course going to Rome was part of the plan. Now King Agrippa [another one of the many ruling authorities that Rome had over the people!] comes to Caesarea and Festus tells him about Paul. Agrippa will get a strong word in the next chapter. Also the Jews come down from Jerusalem and accuse Paul of many things. I want to make a note here. In the area of apologetics, which we do a lot of, you need to be careful that you don’t jump on the bandwagon of unfounded accusations. There are and have been real doctrinal heresies that needed to be dealt with, but some of the apologists really get personal. Even calling family members degrading names! In Paul’s case he had accusations that were not true. He does defend himself against the false ones, but also admitted that he believes in Christ’s resurrection and that this is considered heresy among certain Jews. Paul’s main message was Christ and the resurrection! As we get ready to close our study in a few more days, I want to recap the importance of seeing Jesus and his fulfillment of the Old Testament prophets as the main message of the Apostles. This early teaching by the Apostles needs to be the ‘tradition’ if you will, once again. We [believers] have a tendency to delve deeply into all sorts of stuff. Paul will warn his spiritual sons ‘don’t get lost in endless genealogies and debates about the law’ and Hebrews says ‘it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace, not with meats [legalistic doctrines] which have been unprofitable to those who have gone that route’. Now, you guys know I believe in correct doctrine, and Paul wasn’t advocating ‘no doctrine’. But it is easy to get lost in endless debates that lead to nowhere. Ultimately our goal is to present every man perfect in Christ. Paul will stick with this message all the way to Rome!
(766)ACTS 26- Paul makes his case before Agrippa. Paul says that he is being accused of the hope that all the Jews are waiting for and serving God day and night to receive! It’s funny how all the religious requirements of the law and temple, the whole culture of Judaism. All the symbols that made up their heritage. All the times they would quote Moses or Abraham ‘we have Abraham as our father’ ‘we know God spoke to Moses’ all of these things were for THE SOLE PURPOSE of coming to a point in Jewish history where the Jews would receive their Messiah. Paul states ‘this actual hope and reason for our existence as a Jewish nation is the cause of contention that the Jewish leaders have against me’. What an amazing thing! Now once again Paul will state the basic Christian doctrine of Jesus and his resurrection ‘king Agrippa, why would it be so hard to believe that God can raise the dead’? Did you ever ponder this question? A few years ago you didn’t exist [30-50-70?] since you were born you have been taught that you exist because of certain natural means. You learned the process of birth, and some of you have actually had kids yourselves. During you life you have heard and learned about the universe, planets, the history of man. We have lived thru an industrial and technological revolution. We put men on the moon, we splice genes, we take men’s hearts out of their bodies and put pumps in there place! Plus all these things came from a point in time where there was no thing! Hebrews says God made every thing from nothing! Science actually does agree with this [read my section on Evolution] and after all this experience and knowledge you have attained in your very short life, yet if God were to say ‘I will raise the dead’ people say ‘now, how can you expect me to believe that?’ We do have pea brains at times! Paul also retells his conversion and says how Jesus told him he would be a witness of the historical events of Christ and his resurrection, but Jesus also said ‘and you will testify of the things I will reveal to you in the future’. Now we have to do some stuff. What were the things that Jesus was going to reveal to Paul in the future? We read these things in Paul’s letters. Basically the great reality of our sharing in the divine nature [actually this is Peter] our sonship. The great mystery of God making one new man out of Jew and Gentile. Truths concerning the ascension and the heavenly realities of redemption [Hebrews]. The point is the ‘future revelation’ of Jesus to Paul was not some knowledge outside of the boundaries already laid down in the gospels. The doctrine of the Apostles was already being taught thru out the book of Acts. God simply gave Paul greater insight and revelation into the truths that already existed. The Gnostics [early second century cult of Christianity- the word comes from the Greek term ‘Gnosis’- knowledge]. They taught a type of special knowledge that said the basic Christian who only has the historical truths of Jesus are at a lower level. Once you become a Gnostic, you then have special revelation that can’t be learned thru normal means. A popular Christian teaching comes close to this ‘revelation knowledge’. Many years ago I was a student of E.W. Kenyon and the word of faith movement. Brother Kenyon taught a type of mystical teaching that said God can reveal things to people outside of the 5 senses, and this is ‘revelation knowledge’. Can God do this? To a degree, yes. We actually read how Agabus gave Paul a prophecy about being bound at Jerusalem. Or Paul dreaming about a man in Macedonia asking for help. I see the reality of God being able to reveal things to us supernaturally as a gift of the prophetic. We are born of Gods Spirit and we do receive understanding from God as his Spiritual children. But yet Paul will write ‘study to show yourself approved’. So Jesus told Paul he was going to show him stuff in the future. Paul based his apostolic authority on this fact [Galatians 1-2]. He would say ‘the gospel I preach was not given to me by men, but God revealed it to me’ what gospel is Paul talking about? The gospel [good news] of the grace of God. Jesus revealed the more important stuff to Paul as time went on, Paul was seeing more and more grace!
(757) ACTS 20- Paul travels with some brothers on the journey. This mode of visiting different regions and bringing brothers with him is exciting! They are truly seeing the Kingdom of God becoming established in the earth. Scripture says ‘they broke bread on the first day of the week’ we read later in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians that when they met on the ‘first day of the week’ he asked them to take up a collection before he arrived [so he could take the money and meet the needs of the poor saints at Jerusalem]. Do we see here some type of Sunday Sabbath, that is the ‘church day to pay tithes’ so you don’t get cursed? Of course not. You are seeing the simple practical outworking of a people who are becoming the people of God. It’s fine to meet on a Sunday and to ‘break bread’. Hey, the group needs to know when to meet for the meal! But don't develop liturgical/sacramental ideas out of this. You say ‘hooray for John [me], he is really giving it to those Catholics’ well, don’t say hooray yet. Now he calls for the Elders at Ephesus to come to Miletus so he can give them some instructions and a farewell. This address from Paul is one of the best in the New Testament. He covers the basics for leadership and church growth. Now, he tells them ‘all the time I was with you guys I was upright. I taught you publicly and from house to house. I showed you repentance toward God and faith towards Jesus Christ. I worked and did not covet your money. I did this to prove I was not there to gain financially from you. To give you an example as Elders yourselves, so you would not see the responsibility of oversight thru a covetous mindset. Beware! After I leave you there will be an attempt by the enemy to undo the work of the Cross. Some men, even from your own group will rise up and speak twisted doctrines. They will try to become eminent in the group, drawing away disciples after themselves. Don’t become sidetracked and become followers of men! Guard the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Feed them Gods good word’. Paul lays down strong guidelines here. He actually teaches the elders that he worked when he was among them to leave this example of leaders not seeing ministry as a means to get gain. In one of his future letters [Timothy or Thessalonians?] he actually says this ‘working’ that he did was a tradition for them to keep. He said this in context of those who refused to work. Very strong indeed. Peter also will teach the Elders to take oversight of Gods flock ‘not for money, but out of a pure motive’. In the wars that rage over ‘simple church’ versus the modern 501c3 model, both sides have shot at each other wrongfully at times. There are very intelligent brothers who will take this chapter and teach that the modern Pastor has fallen into the trap of ‘making disciples after themselves’. They see the development of the role of Pastor as becoming the fulfillment of this. Now, I do see some merit to this, but I see most pastors [all the ones I know and have known personally over the years] as Elders who are striving to help Gods People. I see a real need for all leadership to see that ministry is not a fulltime clergy type office that has developed over the centuries! Paul is simply addressing the Elders [more mature ones- in the gospel, not necessarily old!] and showing them that their purpose is to help the people of God grow in grace and make it to a place of self sufficiency in Christ. Paul is pretty much laying down the gauntlet that leadership is not some ticket of ‘now that I am in ministry, my income comes from the God ordained tithe’. This is never taught as a means of support for New testament ministers. These ideas have developed out of the Old Testament idea of the tithe supporting the Levitical Priests. In the New Covenant all our Priests and we don’t practice this type of thing. But Paul does teach that it’s good to support materially [financially] those who are feeding you spiritual food. He does teach ‘don’t muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn’ [he called us ox's!] seriously, he lays down the biblical guideline of supporting those who minister the word. But it is important to see he was not establishing some type of clergy system, the fact that he was working while with these Ephesians and actually used this as an example for OTHER ELDERS as well as the believers shows you this. All in all the main point Paul is getting across is he wants the basic truth of the gospel to prevail and he does not want top heavy leadership to come in and draw away disciples after them. That is for strong gifted leaders to become the main focus of these Ephesian believers. So this chapter is important because we see Paul address these elders that he has been ‘ordaining’ in the churches [groups of believers]. We see the basic character and function of these men. We see the warning that cults will arise. In Paul’s day groups did come forth from the basic Christian communities [Gnostics and Docetists] that had a basic understanding of certain Christian things, but would deny the reality of Jesus. Paul bids them Farwell as they all embrace on the shoreline. The Elders were heartbroken over Paul’s words that he will probably see them no more. He wanted to keep the upcoming feast at Jerusalem and eventually preach at Rome. He was on this obsession to carry this gospel to the seat of the empire, even if it means his life.
(756) ACTS 19- Paul runs into some of Apollo’s disciples at Ephesus, he asks them if they received the Spirit ‘since they believed’ [Notice what they were believing!] And they said they have never heard about the Holy Spirit. He questions them on what they are believing in. They answer John’s baptism. They only knew the message of John the Baptist on repentance. The basic preaching from Apollos before he was ‘instructed in the way of the Lord more perfectly’. Paul does not say ‘now, believe in the Holy Spirit and you will have the baptism in the Spirit’. He says ‘John [the Baptist] preached that you should believe on him, that is JESUS, who would come after him’ after hearing THIS [the basic message of Jesus!] they were baptized in Jesus name and Paul laid his hands on them and they received the Spirit. There are lots of things here that different groups use to justify there beliefs. I fully believe in all the gifts and workings of the Spirit, but once again many well meaning pastors [from Pentecostal backgrounds] teach this chapter as saying these disciples were believers in Jesus and did not have the Spirit. This is not true! They were not yet believers in Jesus and the actual person they believed in to get the Spirit was Jesus, not the Spirit! But all in all we see the laying on of hands, prophecy and tongues happen. So these guys are charismatic! But also Calvinist [in my mind- I believe Paul was strong in predestination, but also operated in the gifts]. Now Paul goes and ruins his reputation! Can you believe he is actually sending handkerchiefs to sick people and they are getting healed and delivered from evil Spirits! Old Jonathan Edwards would never do that! [Or Calvin or Luther…or would they?] Paul casts out some demons in Jesus name [that’s it, he is cancelled from speaking at our reformation conference!] and 7 sons from a Jewish family try to cast out a demon from some guy using Jesus name. The demon says ‘Jesus I know, and Paul too! But who in the heck do you think you are’ and the guy who’s possessed beats the hell out of them! Ouch! I find it funny that the demons knew Paul by name. They must have heard how Paul was one of the deadliest enemies to satans agenda. The demons who were showing up for orders were scared they would be assigned to Paul, they knew he had some strong handkerchiefs! Demetrius, a guy who made his living building idols to Dianna, a false goddess, realizes that if Paul keeps preaching about Jesus that his living will be threatened. So he stirs up trouble. He says ‘if we don’t stop these guys, our shrine making business will be in jeopardy, oh, and the great goddess Dianna will also lose her honor’ He couldn’t give a rip about the fake god, he was worried about the bottom line! I find it funny how people will choose which image of ‘God-Jesus’ they believe in based on the bottom line. Some choose to grasp an image of Jesus contrary to the New Testament, if you challenge this belief, they will simply ignore you based on the bottom line. The Jesus of scripture challenges the materialistic gospel that permeates many in today’s church. Some grasp this modern image of Jesus because they can’t let go of the possibility that there ‘trade’ [belief system of profit] is going away!
(748) ACTS 11- Peter recounts his vision and experience he had at Cornelius house. The Jews at Jerusalem were upset that he went and ate with non Jews. He explains that the Lord showed him not to view these gentiles as unclean. They were accepted and made clean thru Christ’s blood. The leadership at Jerusalem agree [for now!] We begin to see the tension that will play out thru the rest of the New Testament. This struggle between Jewish law and grace will become the number one issue of contention in Paul’s letters. In this chapter we see Barnabas go down to Antioch and eventually get Paul from Tarsus to help him establish the fledgling church at Antioch. After Peters experience they began preaching to gentiles and Antioch becomes the counterbalance ‘church’ [community of believers] to Jerusalem. I want you to see something important here. The church at Antioch does not have ‘Temple worship’ along side ‘home meetings’. The believers ‘assembled’ as a brotherhood. They met in homes to be sure, but ‘the church’ was simply a description of a called out group of people who continued in grace and lived as a fellowship community. The reason I emphasize this is because we grasp limited ideas of church and then we try and make others fit our ideas. The church at Antioch [and Corinth, Ephesus, Galatia, etc.] will continue to maintain this basic identity all thru out the New Testament and well into the second century. The earliest archeological find of a ‘church building’ is found in the 3rd century. There was an inscription discovered that spoke of the ‘church’ meeting here. The ‘here’ was the home of a believer! [I think the find was ‘Europa/duropa’ or something to that effect]. The point here is I want you to see the original design of the church. Up until this point we see the early church evangelizing large regions by simply being led of the Spirit. The finances are simple, this chapter will end with the believers at Antioch pooling their resources to send relief to the church in Judea. It will be the beginnings of Paul’s ministry of relief that we read about in 1st Corinthians 16. This chapter says Prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. Agabus prophesied of a famine to come, the church made arrangements to send relief to their brothers. One of the main Apostles at Jerusalem, James, will oversee a group of poor saints thru out his life. There is no early doctrine seen of rebuking the poor saints and teaching them how they were redeemed from poverty and the curse of Deuteronomy in a way that poverty was see as a sin. James will actually pen his letter and say ‘God chose the poor of this world [not just ‘poor’ in spirit] rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom’ he will also rake the rich over the coals! The whole point is as we read the bible, we need to read it in context and allow the story to shape our views, not the other way around. This Antioch community received New Testament prophets, they did not view the verse in Hebrews ‘God spoke to us in the past by prophets, but in these last days by his Son’ they didn’t see this as meaning there were no more prophets. These believers were not tithing, they did not have a church building, not ordained clergy or ‘high church’ model. They were a vibrant bunch of grace believers who will be told they don’t have to keep the law to be saved! From this point forward, no New Testament church in scripture will lose this basic idea. Some will struggle [Galatians, Corinth] but the basic truth of ‘the church’ being the people of God justified freely by grace, will remain strong. They are still living a communal type of idea, and giving is still radical, done to meet the real needs of people, and is not a tithe!
(745) ACTS 8- After the death of Stephen the church scatters thru out the region. We see Phillip being used and directed by God. An angel will speak to him, he will be supernaturally translated from one place to another. We see the simple reality of all believers having Gods legitimacy to function. This is important to see! Later on we see the first gentile church at Antioch being told ‘separate me Paul and Barnabus unto the work which I have called them to’[Acts 13]. Some will develop unbiblical restrictions from this verse. The strong ‘local church’ view [the view that sees local church thru the 501c3 Sunday building mindset!] will later teach ‘see, you can’t function on your own. If you are not under a ‘local church covering’ you are an independent rebel out of Gods authority’. Here we see the simple reality of God sending and communicating to Phillip on the basis of him being a child of God. In Acts 13 the Spirit communicated his purpose to an entire group, in this chapter he communicates to an individual. The legitimacy comes from the reality of God being the one who is giving the directions! Now, we see Phillip at Samaria preaching the Kingdom and doing miracles. The sorcerer Simon gets converted. The church at Jerusalem sends Peter and John to see what’s happening and they lay hands on the Samaritan believers and they ‘receive the Holy Ghost’. This is also described as the Holy Spirit falling on them. This chapter is used as a proof text for pro Pentecostal theology and anti! The Pentecostals say ‘see, believers don’t have the Holy Spirit until a separate Baptism takes place’. The anti Charismatics say ‘this is an anomaly. God did this because he didn’t want to have a competing church in Samaria that did not have the approval of the Jerusalem church’. I will agree and disagree with both of these propositions [yes, at the same time!] Paul will teach in his epistles that it is impossible to believe without having the Spirit. He will also teach a doctrine of being filled with the Spirit. The arguments over the terms used can be confusing. The fact is we see both the experiences of believers [who have the Spirit] still experiencing greater empowerments down the road. And we see believers ‘getting it all at once’ [Acts 10]. Theologically, you can’t be born again without having the Spirit. But you can call ‘the Spirit falling on you in a fresh way’ ‘getting the Spirit’. The different expressions people use do confuse the matter. The hard and fast Charismatics will not agree with me. And the old time Calvinists might disagree with me. I believe both sides have things to add to the debate. I want all of us to be open and daily expecting God to renew us with the Spirit on a daily basis. I know one thing for sure, Paul taught we can water and plant all day. But if the Spirit doesn’t do his work we will never see any real increase! Simon the sorcerer sees that thru the laying on of hands the Spirit is given. He asks ‘Hey, I will pay you money for the gift of being able to lay hands on people and have them receive the Spirit’. Peter responds ‘you wicked sinner! How dare you think you can purchase Gods gift with money! You and your filthy money will perish together! You better pray that God forgives you for this’. Simon says ‘can you pray for me’? He didn’t want to get struck down that instant! Peter will later teach in his letters ‘take oversight of Gods flock, not for filthy lucre. But of a ready mind’. James will write in his letter ‘woe to the rich, their day is coming’. John writes in 1st John ‘love not the world neither the things in the world’. Paul will pen ‘The love of money is the root of all evil. Some went coveting after it and have left the faith’. Where in the world did all these first century Apostles get this idea from? Was it the devil tricking them out of the truth of wealth? Were they under the spell of church tradition? Lets see, Jesus said ‘the rich man dies and goes to hell. The poor man to Abrahams bosom’ ‘it’s harder for a rich man to go to heaven than for a camel to go thru the eye of a needle’ ‘the rich man went away very sad because he had much riches’ [after Jesus said go sell all you have and give to the poor] ‘you can not serve God and mammon’ ‘the deceitfulness of riches choke Gods word’ ‘thou fool! This night thy soul shall be required of thee’ [to the rich man who was planning on building more storage for his stuff!] The simple fact is the early church had imbedded in their minds a non materialistic gospel. The modern church seems to read scripture thru the lens of the prosperity promises that you do find thru out scripture. The prosperity promises are true and should be understood, but we need to also see the reality of what I just showed you. The church will eventfully coin the phrase ‘Simony’. It will refer to those who use money to gain influence and official positions in the church. Simons name does becomes famous, but not in the way he wanted!
(736) GENESIS 49- Jacob gathers the boys together to give them a blessing. He realizes the importance of launching them with both blessings and rebukes! Why does he mention the mistakes and failures of the boys? Rueben is unstable like water; he acted spontaneously and out of jealousy. Simeon and Levi have an anger problem. In today’s ‘church world’ we focus and confess the desired outcomes of what we seem to want. We feel it is against a life of faith to even hear or receive reproof. I watched one of the fathers of the prosperity movement the other day. He was overseas doing a convention. I watch now out of prayer and agreeing as much as possible with parts of the meeting. I see this as a function of the prophetic, a willingness to intercede and agree as much as possible with those you have disagreements with. To be honest, you could see a real sense of uneasiness in the audience. It was almost as if these believers were somewhat familiar with this man, but the teachings were really off. During the service the speaker said how people have come up to him and said ‘did you read that book about you’? People who have begun to learn of the errors of this movement. The teacher said he never reads or listens to those who try to rebuke or correct him. This was obvious as to the fact that the meeting ended in the teacher saying ‘satan, get your hands off my money’ in a very aggressive and angry voice. He was leading the people in prayer and said this. The whole thing was very sad. Now Jacob flat out tells the boys where they have done wrong and went off course, he makes no bones about it. These boys heard criticism that was needful. But he also gives some great blessings. I have already internalized and added the blessings from Judah ‘the scepter shall not depart from you’ ‘your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies’ ‘as a young lion you will crouch down and go up from the prey’. To Joseph ‘you are like a bough [vine] by a spring of water, a well. Your branches flow over the wall’ a type of regional influence, reaching beyond your ‘city borders’. The archers hated you and shot at you but did not prevail, but to the contrary your bow has prevailed. The purpose of God for Joseph and his ‘targeting’ of prophetic arrows of destiny would win. These are great promises to these boys. Jacob speaks to his sons as he prepares to die. He wants more than just a successful career during his lifetime, he wants to launch a movement [dynasty] that for generations to come would carry the torch of the original purpose. Jacob tells the boys ‘I am now going to die’ and he instructs them to bury him in the dirt of destiny! He wants to lay in the ground where he first met and learned of the fatherhood of God. He ‘slept’ before in the land and had a true ‘out of body’ experience at Bethel [Not a new age thing, but a real visitation from God]. He will reconnect with this destiny even in death. We still have one chapter left in Genesis, but we have really closed the book for the most part on this entire journey of Jacob and his boys. There is a real sense of this family living and dying with Gods destiny upon them. I want to ‘charge’ all of our readers and ‘family’ to reassess at this point in life. Bring things back into alignment with the true eternal values that count. I know we have rubbed people the wrong way because of our strong stance on a lot of issues. I have been ‘shot at by arrows’ many times, but I feel the Lord has allowed our ‘bow to prevail’ not for the targeting or hurting of people, but for the target that the Lord wants to hit. Children are like arrows in the hand of a mighty man, when they launch in the right direction they hit the target very time.
(734) GENESIS 46-47- Jacob and the family pack up and head to Egypt. They bring 70 ‘souls’ with them. Remember, Jacob is always thinking ‘dynasty’. He has a track record of worrying about his family getting wiped out. He is still relatively small for a ‘nation’ but getting bigger by the day. He enters Egypt and sees Joseph for the first time. What a reunion! I guess now that Jacob realizes all of his worrying was for naught, all the times he allowed his mind to think the worst about stuff, I guess now he learned his lesson? Not. Pharaoh asks him ‘so, how old are you, aren’t you glad to see Joseph? How has life been treating you?’ Jacob responds ‘my days are 130 years, not even close to my forefathers. And they have been short and evil’. Wow, Pharaoh thinks ‘sorry I asked’. Now as Jacob settles down in Goshen, all the nations are coming to Joseph to be sustained. The years of famine that Pharaoh dreamt about are here. Notice something; all the nations spend all their money and the ‘money fails’. Did you know that the overall theme of money taught by Jesus and the apostles was ‘it will someday fail’? James says ‘the rich mans money will evaporate in the day of judgment and it will be to no avail’. Proverbs says the rich mans wealth can not deliver his soul during trouble. Jesus over and over again used examples of people putting their hopes in riches and forgetting the reality of death and judgment. In this chapter the money failed! Now, the nations sell their cattle and lands and eventually themselves to Pharaoh [Joseph]. Joseph and Jacob as well as Joseph and Pharaoh [this one] are types of Jesus and the father. In this case Joseph ‘purchases’ all the people for Pharaoh. Jesus bought us all by his blood. Now, even though I go hard on the prosperity guys, here’s some practical financial advice. Joseph tells the people ‘take the corn [grain-seed] and use it to feed your families and cattle, but plant some of it in the ground for heavens sake!’ he is teaching the mentality of ‘feed a man a fish and you feed him for the day- teach a man to fish and you feed him for life’. Joseph is trying to break the entitlement mentality. Showing the people that a portion of their increase should be invested. Don’t take all your money every month and spend it all. Give a portion to God, and put some in a savings/investment. If you spend all the money you earn [eat all the seeds] then you will be living form paycheck to paycheck. ‘Well brother, I am trusting in social security’ not if you’re a cessationist [someone who believes miracles don’t happen any more] because it would take a miracle for the government to not bankrupt the thing! So we see balance in this chapter. Good financial advice along with the reality that some day ‘your money will fail’. Good Christians maintain good balance.
(726) GENESIS 40- Joseph is in prison and Pharaohs chief men get thrown in jail. His butler [the guy who tastes the wine before the king drinks it, to make sure it’s OK] and the baker. One day Joseph notices there sad faces ‘what’s wrong guys’? They tell him they both had dreams the previous night. They were troubled that they did not know what the dreams meant. Does Joseph say ‘O, you had too much pizza last night’ or ‘don’t you know we have the books of Moses completed! There are no more prophetic dreams.’ Instead he says ‘God is the one who can give the interpretation of dreams’. It is understood that some dreams have meaning and come from God. You find this all thru out scripture. I’ll be honest, I have recently had some prophetic dreams but have stopped sharing them on the site. Why? These last few years there have been so many prophecies shared and put on line and I feel the consumers of these words are not getting a steady diet of scripture and New Testament Christianity. I just read a ‘prophetic word’ that spoke of ‘why we are not getting the end time harvest of money yet’ it went into ‘targeting the demonic forces holding back the cash’ and other techniques to use to get the money. I have written and even sent some of our teachings to some of these brothers. Could it be the reason all the wealth hasn’t been released is because we are viewing the ‘end time transfer of wealth’ from an unbiblical standpoint? So I too have grown weary of all the ‘prophecies and dreams’ that seem to miss the mark. But here Joseph jumps write into the fray and interprets the dreams. He tells the butler ‘your dream means in 3 days you will be restored and hold the kings wine glass again’. The baker likes the word and asks ‘what about my dream’? ‘In three days Pharaoh will hang you on the gallows’ OUCH. Never mind Joseph, I don’t believe in prophecy any way. The dreams do have prophetic significance. The wine and bread [baker] speak of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The 3rd day speaks of the mighty resurrection of the Son of God. Jesus offered his Body [bread] as a sacrifice for all humanity. He ‘hung’ on the Cross for us, just like the baker hung on the gallows. Jesus also was ‘lifted up’ out of the ‘prison’ the 3rd day and once again was restored to his previous position at the right hand of God. He took ‘the cup of his Blood [wine] and presented it once again to his father’. I think these dreams were prophetic.
(712) GENESIS 26- There is a famine in the land and the Lord warns Isaac not to go down into Egypt. Isaac stays and dwells in Gerar and the surrounding area. He pulls the ‘this is my sister, not my wife’ thing. The king finds out she is Isaacs wife and rebukes him for lying. Isaac is really blessed in the land. Scripture says ‘he sowed and reaped a 100 fold’. Now, let’s do a little stuff. The modern church went thru a whole phase where believers were confessing and believing and doing everything [but working!] in order to get ‘the 100 fold return’. We have previously showed you how when Jesus spoke of ‘the 100 fold return’ in the parable of the sower, he in no way was speaking of money! [Read the chapter ‘twisting the parable of the sower’ the book is ‘HOUSE OF PRAYER OR DEN OF THIEVES’ on this site]. But because the Old Testament is the ‘shadow’ of things to come, and not the true riches. That’s why in this story it is speaking of natural stuff. Now the church went thru this stage of believers doing all they could to ‘reap the financial harvest’. We taught believers to think on money, confess it. Basically consume your thoughts with ‘money thoughts’ [all in violation of Jesus teaching on ‘the gentiles are always thinking about this stuff, let it not be like this with you’!] So we had a whole group of young believers violating the mandate in scripture to work and be diligent. And they often times were doing it by believing a distorted doctrine on the 100 fold return. Well Isaac reaped because HE SOWED. He planted that darn farmland! [To be nice about it]. So today we should teach the believer the responsibility of working and living diligently and being responsible. And we need to teach that the way you reap the 100 fold return is by actually planting that field! Isaac also will re open the wells that his father had dug. They were stopped up out of jealousy by the philistines. Sometimes people ‘who are not doing the work themselves’ [sowing] have a lot of free time. What do they do with this free time? Figuring out ways to stop up other peoples wells! Paul called them busy bodies in the New Testament. These brothers just make more work for those who are in the harvest field! Isaac opens up the wells and honors his fathers heritage. The church goes thru these stages every so often. A re opening of the church fathers. Studying Patristics again [1st 7 centuries of church history]. I think it’s a good thing to honor our spiritual heritage. These wells go deep and have been feeding people for centuries!
(709) GENESIS 23- Sarah is old and dies. Abraham mourns for the loss of the ‘mother of many nations’. She was just as much a recipient of the promise as he was. Abraham offers to BUY a burial spot for Sarah and his family. He tells the people ‘sell me a place to bury my dead’. The sons of Heth say ‘you are a great and influential person. Take any spot you want for free’. Once again Abraham refuses a free gift. He did this earlier with the king of Sodom. Why is this important to see? While in today’s economy we allow for ‘churches’ to be tax free. Yet we need to be very careful about looking like we are freeloaders. I have heard unbelievers in the past say ‘these prosperity preachers are claiming God has prospered them. But they are getting tax free stuff’. While I believe it’s o.k. to use the benefits the government provides for advancing the gospel, we need to be aware of the impression this gives to the unbelieving world. Especially when we use the tax free status and at the same time amass wealth! So here we see Abraham purchase the land for the full price. He buys a field from Ephron and counts the silver in public [open books!] and lets everyone see up front that there are no secret financial dealings. I think Abraham would be a member of the financial accountability groups that oversee the ministries finances!
(706) GENESIS 20- Abraham does it again! He travels to Gerar and tells the king ‘Sarah is my sister, not my wife’. This time the king takes her but before he sleeps with her God appears to him in a dream and tells him not to do it. In this chapter we see dreams, prophets and healing mentioned. All before Pentecost! In the following days we will cover Joseph and his dreams. I want you to see the reality of God communicating and interjecting himself into the human story as he wills. The fact that all thru out scripture AND CHURCH HISTORY we see an ongoing work of God in supernatural things shows us that God is still sovereign and can do all the things he has ever done. One of the big divisions in Christianity today has to do with the Charismatic movement and the more Orthodox/Reformed brothers. While I realize the Reformed brothers do accept the supernatural workings of God, some of them hold to cessationist views of the gifts of the Spirit. The Charismatics will accept the gifts, but often fall short in the simple teaching of scripture. I have been frustrated over the years in trying to tell Charismatic brothers that you can’t teach that Jesus was a very wealthy person who taught a money message. No matter how much proof from scripture or history you give them, they dismiss it as ‘that old tradition’. I can see why the more Reformed guys just avoid the whole deal. But to be honest to scripture we need to see and have a basic belief in a supernatural God who can communicate thru dreams and can use Prophets and does heal miraculously! Now after God appears to Abimilech and tells him ‘don’t do it, she is the mans wife’. The king is also told ‘restore her back to the man and he will pray for you and I will heal you, he is a Prophet’. So Abraham makes it right. Now, the king also gives restitution to Abraham. Lots of stuff. Does this contradict what I taught earlier about Abraham? We showed how he didn’t take free handouts. In this case this is really not a free handout, it is the biblical doctrine of restitution. Jesus taught this in the New Testament. When someone is wronged by you, do what you can to make up for it. So we leave this chapter with Abraham once again coming out on top, even though he messed up! This shows you that it is only by the mercy and favor of God that you are where you are today. You might think ‘you know, I really am a pretty talented guy. If I weren’t with the lord I probably would have succeeded in some other endeavor’ NOT! It is his grace alone that has exalted you to success. If it weren’t for the Lord you would be a big mess!
(700) GENESIS 14- Abraham goes after the kings who took Lot captive. He takes his 318 trained men and gets Lot and the rest of the spoils from the invading armies. When Abraham brings the stuff back to the King of Sodom, the king tells Abraham ‘take all the goods as well’. Abraham refuses and takes only his expenses. You also find Abraham later on paying for the burial site for Sarah and his family. Even though the people wanted to give it as a ‘tax free gift’! It is important to see that although Abraham was rich, he often refused free handouts! The problem with the church today is you have too many Preachers who see the truths on Abraham being rich and they mix it with a message that says ‘sow seed into my ministry, don’t disobey God!’ it is taught in a way that violates the whole character of Abraham. If you want the lord to bless you, reexamine the way your are expecting it. Abraham would not take free stuff! The church needs to teach prosperity in balance with all the other principles of diligence and giving to God and being smart investors and AVOIDING FREE GIFTS! This mode of operation will be found in the life of Abraham more than once!
(699) GENESIS 13- Abraham leaves Egypt and the scripture says HE WAS VERY RICH! One of the things we want to do as we review these chapters is to rightly divide the word of God. The church went thru an ‘immature’ level of thinking and teaching. She [the church!] saw all these truths on God blessing Abraham. The many true verses on ‘the blessing of the Lord, it makes rich and he adds no sorrow to it’ ‘the Lord gives you power to get wealth that he may establish his covenant in the earth’ and all the other truths on God meeting the needs of his kids and blessing them. But the teachers went overboard and taught a doctrine of a rich Jesus who died to make you rich. They would become the false prophets that Paul would warn Timothy about in 1st Timothy 6. So here we want to see and understand that the Lord blessed Abraham and did make him rich. We also want to balance this with all the teachings of Jesus on ‘beware of covetousness, for a mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesses’ ‘you can not serve God and money’ ‘the love of money is the root of all evil, while some have gone after it they have left the faith’ [Paul]. All of these scriptures are true, not just the ones we like the most! In this chapter Abraham separates from Lot and the lord reaffirms his promise to him. It seems like God was waiting on Abraham to ‘fully leave his family’ like the earlier verse said ‘get thee out of thy country AND FROM THY KINDRED’ here he finally left ‘the kindred’ and God said ‘now lets keep going’! Sometimes the only thing holding us back is full obedience. You don’t need to re do everything! Just bring some stuff back into alignment. Also after the Egypt ‘side trail’ Abraham renews his ‘first love’ and reconnects with God at bethel, but then moves to another spot and builds another altar. This chapter says ‘he went on his journeys’. God didn’t want Abraham to go stagnant, enjoy the area around the first altar and never advance. The purpose for Abraham was to be a father of MANY NATIONS. You can’t do that if your comfortable just settling down on the street corner and ‘pastoring your little flock’ [ouch!]. God wants us to ‘go on journeys’. I am not saying there are not times where ‘Pastoring the flock’ is OK. But the modern church goes to extremes. She either wants to build huge 20 thousand seat auditoriums [which tends to lead to a spectator mentality] or preach to 30 people at a time! God’s purpose is to impact all of society with the gospel. Jesus gospel was bigger than the one we embrace today. Hey, if you really enjoyed God’s presence at ‘Bethel’ just wait until you get to the next altar! Don’t forget Bethel [your first love] but you have a nation [nations!] to inherit!
(696) THOUGHTS FROM GENESIS- Been reading Genesis 12-22. I felt like the Lord wanted me to overview some stuff. Paul will quote the account in Gen: 15 [and 12] a lot. ‘The just shall live by faith’ is oft mentioned in the New Testament. He uses Abraham as an argument for Justification by Faith. Both Romans and Galatians are masterpieces at this. In my first book ‘House of Prayer or Den of Thieves’ I wrote a chapter titled ‘the Abrahamic Blessing’. I tried to undue a false teaching that arose out of the prosperity movement that taught the ‘Abrahamic Blessing’ was believers being promised material stuff. If you read the chapter [Galatians 3] you will see the Abrahamic blessing to mean Gods promise to Abraham that he would bless the whole world thru his child [seed]. Paul uses this to combat the Judiazers who were teaching you get saved by the law. Paul in essence says ‘God promised Abraham that he would bless [in context, to ‘Justify’ and give the Spirit to those who have faith] the world thru his child [Jesus] long before he gave the law to Moses’. And being God can’t lie, the first promise [to Abraham] is stronger than the second promise to Moses [Law]. Good stuff! But a false teaching twists the ‘promise’ and says ‘see, Paul says we are Abraham’s kids [true] and therefore we get his blessings’ [stuff] false! There are many reasons why it is false, but if your Pastor simply reads scripture in context, he will lead you right. I have grown ‘weary’ over the years in trying to correct this stuff. I have come to the conclusion that many well meaning Pastors/Teachers should have never had the large area of influence [media] due to the ‘basic’ level of thought they were functioning at. I want to be kind, but many of these doctrines are propagated because the mass of teaching going out is by brothers who simply can’t grasp scripture in context. Now, they are not all bad! But if your Pastor can’t see that the same writer of Galatians would also write 1st Timothy 6, and say ‘false teachers will rise in the last days, teaching gain is godliness. Turn away from them’ the fact that Paul connects false prophets to those who connect money with ‘godliness’ shows you that Paul is not teaching the Galatians that they were going to get rich because they had faith! Simple stuff, but the average teacher that can’t see or discern this should not be teaching on TV![or radio]. Because they wind up propagating stuff that is false. That’s why James says ‘don’t all try to be teachers, you will be held to a higher standard’. There seems to be a mindset in Christian ministry that says ‘The goal of our ‘church’ is to raise as much money as possible, expand our influence as far as possible, and have our Pastors message go to the ends of the earth’. This causes there to be a basic violation of ‘not many of you should be teachers’. Or a rush to get your words out! Now, God does ordain certain voices at certain times to have great influence. And it is fine for all ministers to try and get the gospel out as much a possible. But when I hear these national voices teach the most obvious mistakes, I think ‘surely these guys are not supposed to be teaching on this level’! So in Abraham’s story, the Lord tells him ‘I am going to bless the whole planet thru your seed’. God is giving us glimpses of Jesus Christ and his purpose to bring blessing to the whole world thru him. Have you been ‘blessed’ [born again] thru Abrahams seed?
(689) SERMON ON THE MOUNT- ‘Ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall open. Everyone who asks receives, seeks will find…’ I want to credit Brother Hagin/Copeland and the prosperity/word of faith movement for showing us that Jesus doesn’t say ‘ask. And sometimes the answer is ‘no’ sometimes ‘yes’. They did show the truth that in these verses Jesus isn’t saying ‘you always get an answer, sometimes you receive, sometimes not’. They brought out the importance of trusting Jesus to do what he said. The Word is his will, like John Osteen [Joel’s dad] would say ‘this is my bible I can do and have what it says’. The problem comes in when we use these things contrary to the rest of the teachings of Jesus, like say for instance IN THE VERSES SURROUNDING THIS TEXT! James will teach ‘the reason you ask and DON’T RECEIVE [Wow, even James didn’t know this secret formula of always receiving!] is because you ask out of selfishness, wanting to consume things out of lust and covetousness’. So here we see the importance of asking in faith and trusting Gods promises. But we also balance this with Jesus will for us to live above the materialistic pursuits of the flesh. Jesus will meet our needs and even give us material blessings to make us happy. He says ‘if natural fathers give their kids good things, how much more your heavenly father’. God will give you nice stuff, just don’t go overboard with it. I have seen good Pastors actually go down this path and teach their people things that would be considered real heresy. Stuff like ‘Jesus died so you can be rich’ [in money]. Or ‘Jesus wore an expensive coat, owned a fabulous house and preached a message of ‘follow me and you will be rich’. These Pastors have fallen into the warning Paul gave Timothy [1st Timothy chapter 6] they began to teach that gain was godliness, Paul said to ‘turn away from them’. So here we see the good promise of a good God who will give us good things, just stay on course while believing him for good things!
(687) SERMON NO THE MOUNT- Two things before we leave chapter 6. Jesus repeats ‘take no thought’ while dealing with mammon and the material things of life. We all know he didn’t mean ‘don’t be responsible’. But he did mean ‘take no thought’. He did tell us to watch out and be ware of the snare of money. I must say it plain like this because the contemporary church doesn’t believe this any more. The modern success gospel sees any teachings from Jesus against materialism as ‘that old tradition’. There minds are blinded from the fact that this theme of ‘material success versus spiritual riches’ is seen over and over again. Now, the Gnostics and the Docetists [early century Christian cults] taught a type of materialism that said ‘all material things are evil’. The reformers of the 16th century would later correct this [as well as the catholic brothers thru out the centuries! Augustine in particular] the church would show that the bible and tradition do not hold to this wrong view of material things. Matter itself is not inherently evil. The word ‘flesh’ in our English bibles sometimes gives the wrong idea. ‘I know that in me is no good thing, that is in my flesh’ yet Paul would also say ‘present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to the Lord’. So the ‘flesh’ that has no good thing in it is not saying the natural body [material thing] but the sinful nature [carnal-flesh] is absent from any self righteousness. So as the church would correct the false teaching of material things being evil, she would later fall into the snare of seeking material things! It’s like going from one extreme to another. So here Jesus says ‘take no thought’ don’t be consumed with always thinking and meditating and confessing and going to church with the obsession of ‘bringing in my harvest/changing my world’. This inward focus causes us to lose the character of Jesus in giving ourselves away. In forsaking all to gain a true eternal reward. Have you been ‘taking thought’ about these things all the time? Does ministry to you mean ‘finances, buildings, staff, etc..’? All OK things in their proper order, but if you have become consumed with the resources, where it takes up the majority of your thought life, then you are ‘taking thought’ contrary to Jesus commands!
(686) SERMON ON THE MOUNT- ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, but store up treasure in heaven [why?], because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also’. Well, here we are again! Over the years as I have rebuked the prosperity messages abuses, I stumble across a verse and it ‘re opens’ the wounds! Not in a bad way, but in a way that causes believers who have overlooked the main body of Jesus teaching in this area, to re examine their ideas. Once again the message of Jesus goes against the grain of the modern success gospel. He isn’t teaching ‘don’t have an emergency account’ or don’t save up. He is challenging the single most important obstacle to the gospel. MAMMON! Jesus says ‘the world [unbelievers] spend their whole thought life obsessing over finances’ [the Gentiles are always thinking about these things!]. You see commercials on ‘I am 70 years old, my wife is 67. Our biggest fear is if one of us should die, who will pay the bills’? Their biggest fear, according to Jesus, should be ‘If one of us dies, we will stand before God and give an account of our lives. We will spend the next trillion, billion, gazillion years in heaven or hell’ who gives a ‘rip’ about the bills! Our society seems to magnify the insignificant and trivialize the significant! Jesus taught being responsible. He taught the principle of counting the cost and looking ahead. He also taught his followers to be warned against the deception of riches. Yes he warned about money and materialistic living. The church today needs to re tool her message back to the agenda of Jesus Christ!
(671) SERMON ON THE MOUNT Gandhi said ‘if Christians lived what they claimed to believe, they would change the world’. He said this in the context of the Sermon on the Mount. He believed and practiced the principles of Jesus in his fight for justice, he saw the law of ‘non resistance’ as taught by Jesus to be key to changing the hearts and minds of men and government. Though Gandhi was not Christian, yet we could learn from the example he left us by changing society thru the deeds of Jesus! Over the next few weeks I will cover ‘glimpses’ from the gospel of Matthew, chapters 5-7.
Jesus said people went out of their way to hear the Wisdom of Solomon, but a greater than Solomon was here. As we just covered a few weeks in Proverbs, I find it ‘prophetic’ that I accidentally stumbled into the Sermon on the Mount. Of course I knew where it was! But I ‘happened’ to fall upon it and felt the Lord wanted us to do it. The reason it is important to understand that Jesus had greater wisdom than Solomon is because it is a common hobby among Evangelicals/Protestants to ‘search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life [success, fame, fortune- the things that we feel will cause our ‘image/legacy’ to continue!] and these scriptures testify of me’. We often approach scripture with the mindset of ‘let’s find all the wonderful promises and ‘keys’ to success. Let’s look from Genesis to Revelation and find all the stories of men who became rich, of people who had the techniques down. Let’s exhaust scripture to get what we want out of it’. And Jesus comes along and says ‘all the wisdom in scripture, all the ‘Solomon portions’ if you will, are really good verses. I put them there! But I am come as one greater than ‘Solomon’ [all the wonderful success techniques you could ever find- confession, meditation, sowing ‘seed’, etc.] In me you will find life’ [all the answers to your questions]. When Jesus told Peter ‘upon this rock I will build my church’ he wasn’t just telling Peter that the church would be made up of success principles and at the end of the service you would tag his name on to it. He was telling Peter ‘I actually am the foundation stone of this building, all who see and confess me are the living stones’ this meant giving priority to Jesus and his teachings over and above all the great ideas we could ever come up with. Today we build the church on motivational stuff. We can go week after week to the ‘Sunday services’ of the American church and find the same stuff you would hear on the real estate infomercials if you stayed home and watched TV. Jesus is going to show us what it means for him to be the ‘rock on which he builds his church’ a re focusing on him and his purpose as the chief priority of the Kingdom.
‘BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT…BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN…BLESSED ARE THE MEEK’. Jesus right off the bat challenges our present mindset of those who are ‘blessed/successful’. A few years ago I read a great book by John Eldridge ‘Wild at Heart’. John dealt with the idea of the church ‘emasculating’ its male members! He showed how God put in men [and boys] this adventurous nature. And when the traditional church said to men ‘die to yourself, lay your goals down’ that men were being told something contrary to scripture. Is this true? I agreed with most of the book, John seems to be a ‘quasi theologian’ [you can pick this up from some of the statements peppered thru out the book- I guess its just something with these Johns!] But I think part of the book missed what Jesus is teaching us. Paul and Peter and all the followers of Jesus had degrees of success and fortune in their careers. Paul’s career was focused on ‘being in ministry’ he will tell us how he excelled above his peers in the theology of his day. Yet when Jesus called these guys to his Kingdom, they really did lay down there adventurous lives for another calling. Now, was this new calling more adventurous? You bet! But not in the way the American church seems to portray it. Peter and Paul lost a degree of wealth and success that never really came back to them in this life. Though today [after their deaths!] they are famous and respected, yet these things escaped them as they walked the planet! Jesus tells us there is an aspect to being ‘poor in spirit, mourning and being meek’ that causes us to experience his Kingdom. Don’t by pass these characteristics as you pursue Gods purpose for your life. Many flee their place of destiny when they taste failure. They don’t want to face their peers. Often they don’t realize that this feeling comes from a pride and religious arrogance that is rooted in the gentile idea of leadership. You have 2 choices when facing this type of obstacle. You can pack up and go somewhere else and apply all the same principles of success at ‘the new place/church’. Or you can swallow some crow and taste ‘poverty, meekness and mourning’. And you will be surprised at the outcome! Solomon did say ‘before a fall man is proud, but honor comes after humility’.
(669) PROVERBS- A few days ago I woke up and taught Revelation 11. One of the principle ideas of the chapter is ‘after the enemy makes war against you, AND overcomes you. The Spirit of life from God will fill you and you will stand up on your feet’. Whenever I teach a theme like this, it’s like asking for patience! Be assured stuff ‘hits the fan’ [dung- lets stay biblical!] So I just woke up and felt I heard the Lord say ‘If your strength fails in the day of adversity, your strength is small’ [Proverbs]. I then heard on the Christian music station a short testimony from a famous Christian counselor [Steve Arterburn]. He said when growing up his mom had a Christian background that taught temptation and failure will not affect you if you have faith. That true faith will basically safeguard you from bad stuff. I got the sense that he was talking about the Word of faith, Prosperity movement. He then said ‘but then when dad committed suicide’ it made her question her beliefs. And then he said ‘and when my brother died of aids’. I at this point said to myself ‘geez! I hope he doesn’t say ‘and then when the space satellite crashed into the house!’ I don’t want to make light of it, but it was getting weird! The point was he was showing that his mom allowed herself to view faith from an unbiblical standpoint. A few entries back I mentioned how the world news just did an expose on Kenneth Copeland. They quoted Jesus words ‘lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth’ and then showed all the expensive Planes that Brother Copeland has purchased with ministry money. A collection of very expensive Planes that fit more into the category of a collector/investor than a ministry thing. Brother Copeland is an experienced pilot and has a love for flying. I could see how he, thru his own belief system, could justify spending millions on stuff like this. Though Brother Copeland is not extravagant in other areas, it seems like the millions spent on a collection of ‘ministry planes’ from non profit giving is very questionable. The reason ‘churches’ get tax exempt status is for charitable outreach. The idea of meeting the needs of society. To use millions of tax free dollars like this is not right. Now, the verse we begun with. Adversity will come to every believer at one time or another. Jesus told Peter ‘satan hath desired to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy FAITH FAIL NOT. And when you are converted, strengthen thy brethren’. I was thinking the other day how King David could have been so much more successful if it weren’t for the ‘Bathsheba thing’. Or Abraham, what a man of faith! O, except for when he faked that his wife was his sister and she slept with the king. ‘But brother, that’s just one incident’. Your right forgive me! Shall we discuss Hagar? Or Peters denials, hey if the bible is fake, why in the world would these guys be writing such bad stuff on themselves! If you are making it up as you go you can make yourself at least look good! If you think about it God used all these guys despite/because of their humanity. I am not making an excuse for sin! But Jesus actually says that Peters denials and human failure would co exist with ‘his faith failing not’. Faith, in the mind of him WHO GIVES IT, wasn’t some way to by pass failure or discouragement. It was the thing that got you up the next day, after the Bathsheba’s, or the denials. It made you ‘get up seven times’ [Proverbs- a just man will fall 7 times and get up again, a wicked man falls once and stays down for the count. 7 is the number of perfection. Its like God says ‘I will allow you to taste a perfect amount of failure in your life. Just enough to purge you. But be assured ‘after you are converted, after you get back up, you will have this divine ability to strengthen your brethren!’] Do we use our faith to create around us perfect environments? Should we see it as some means to ‘build a fleet of Planes’ [or any other monetary thing]? Faith is being able to keep your eyes on the King. Beholding Jesus in the midst of all the stuff you go thru. Failing in the day of adversity means not being able to see tomorrow. It means you not only ‘denied him 3 times’ but you feel all hope is lost. You want to leave town and start all over. Don’t feel bad if this is you. God is simply showing you that ‘your strength is small’. Hey, when you are weak he is strong. God is just setting you up for some good days ahead! NOTE; I just re watched the story on Kenneth Copeland. You can find it on u tube [or religion news]. They actually show you the offering form from Brother Copeland. It says on the form ‘sow you seed expecting a 100 fold return’. Now, to be fair brother Copeland is not ‘promising’ a 100 times back, like the news reports. But the problem is when Jesus uses this language of the 100 fold return, he actually says ‘the deceitfulness of riches chokes the word’ so you don’t ‘get the full return’ [I taught all this in my FIRST BOOK!]. In essence the ‘100 fold return’ in no way is speaking about CASH! Now, many people like myself have tried to correct this for years. And the fact that many in this movement take it so lightly to actually twist Jesus words like this, it is now being ‘shouted from the rooftops’. [News!]
(668) I am really going to jump around today. Those of you who read this section in order have realized that I still have to finish our study on John’s gospel! I sidetracked and read Proverbs and wound up teaching highlights as an ‘aside’. So yesterday I woke up and felt the Lord wanted me to read Revelation 11. I have been praying for a few years now with a ‘rod’ [stick] in my hand as I walk in many yard [it’s dark so I don’t look too insane]. Let’s read Revelation 11 [by the way it IS NOT SPEAKING ABOUT ME!] ‘And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, rise and measure the temple of God, and the altar and them that worship therein’. This last week I once again had a discussion with a brother who assumed all the language in the New Testament about the Temple was speaking of a future rebuilt one. Some language MIGHT possibly refer to one. But some referred to the ones in the past; some refer to the people of God as the holy Temple [Ephesians]. So God might be telling John that he will wield authority in ‘judging’ the church. That thru John’s prophetic ministry [the actual writing of this vision called ‘the book of Revelation’] he will wield a rod of purging and chastening. ‘But the court that is without the temple leave out’ John’s prophetic vision is specifically designed to ‘line up’ the people of God. The ‘court’ can represent all the gentile nations whom represent those outside of the church. In essence ‘prophesy into the church John, don’t judge the world! I have not come to condemn them; I have come to save them’. The church has gone thru this ‘moral outrage’ stage and has railed against lost man. People who feel they have no hope, who have tried to overcome their addictions and have failed. They then tried to justify them. Why? Because they want to be accepted, they want society to say ‘we affirm you’. Am I saying we should affirm them? No. But we have used the ‘rod’ to condemn them and God is saying ‘leave those in the courtyard alone’. ‘These will tread the holy city [people of God] 42 months’ God was revealing to John that there would be a set time where the world would ‘tread’ on the church. John is actually living at the beginning of the rule of a bunch of demonic Roman rulers who will ‘destroy the people of God’ for a season. We have also seen a season of mocking and outright laughter at the American church. Some of it was deserved. We have allowed our ‘immature’ spokesman to broadcast their images to society as a whole [thru Christian TV] and some of them truly don’t realize how silly they look. I know they don’t mean to look silly, but they have grasped hold of a temptation that Jesus warned against. He told us leadership in the church was not designed to function like ‘gentile leadership’ seeking fame and position. So the American church fell into it and the ‘gentile’s tread us under foot 42 months’. ‘And I will give power unto my 2 witnesses and they will prophesy’ many cults and well meaning believers have erred terribly in thinking their Pastor/Prophet was one of these guys! I have taken this 2 ways in the past. I have seen it as either Israel and the church [2 witnesses in society] or the 2 offices of Apostle and Prophet. The point is after the humiliation and defeat [both in Johns day under the emperors and in every other day] God restores a prophetic voice back into the church. Be assured this voice will not be seen or heard thru many of the mediums being used today to broadcast Christian stuff. ‘Clothed in sackcloth’ part of the price of prophetic ministry includes ‘being clothed in sackcloth’. There just seems to be a principle you find in the Prophets of scripture that at the same time they are prophesying, they are going thru hell! ‘If any man hurt them, fire proceeds out of their mouth and devours them’ there is this funny dynamic wit prophetic ministry. There critics wind up getting ‘corrected’ by the words of the prophets! ‘And when they finish their testimony the beast makes war against them and kills them’ the reality is/was that there was a real price to pay for their prophetic ministry. I recently wrote on Martin Luther King, there is a real question on whether or not his ‘ministry’ would have took hold in the minds of the public if he were not killed for the cause. John will write thru out this book on the power of the blood of the saints being spilled! Their prayers are like incense to God! ‘And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of THE GREAT CITY WHICH SPIRITUALY IS CALLED SODOM AND EGYPT, WHERE ALSO OUR LORD WAS CRUCIFIED’ Wow, I wonder how well this would have gone over if John preached this at one of those ‘Christians defending Israel’ conventions! All kidding aside, John refused to exalt natural heritage at the expense of the Cross. It is important to see this language in a book that many American preachers use to exalt natural Israel. They will confuse all the imagery of the Ark and the Temple and stuff like this with natural Israel. They truly don’t see what I just showed you! The imagery in a prophetic book like Revelation is IMAGERY! Don’t accuse people of ‘not literally believing the book’ because they interpret this book the way it was meant to be seen. Even the ‘literalists’ will concede that the ‘sword proceeding out of Jesus mouth’ is the word of God. That the ‘lamb on the throne’ is not a real lamb. The one I like is ‘God puts his mark/name on his servants’ and you never see movies being made about Christians getting computer implants in their heads! [Or hands]. ‘And all the nations SAW their dead bodies and refused to bury them [public humiliation] and were so excited over the fall of the believers that they sent gifts to each other’ cant you just see this mindset in the church today. How the late night comedians mock us. They are overjoyed when the church falls openly. They don’t want to ‘bury the mistakes’. They still use Jimmy Swaggart as an example. Even though many of them have secretly been just as guilty as swaggart! ‘After 3 and a half days the Spirit of God entered into them and THEY STOOD ON THEIR FEET and fear fell on them who dwelt on the earth’. God will recover his testimony in the earth. An interesting thing is happening right now with our American political scene. The New York Times announced how the ‘religious right is dieing in influence’. But they don’t seem to realize that Christ’s testimony is not limited to the ‘religious right’. You see the Tony Campolo's and the Jim Wallis’s are just as much ‘filled with Christ's Spirit’ as the Chuck Colson’s. The secret to Jesus kingdom is it starts like leaven. It eventually invades all areas of society. Wont the Times be surprised when they see ‘the Spirit of life enter into them’ from both sides of the aisle! ‘And a great voice said to the 2 witnesses, come up hither’. Funny thing here. This is the exact wording that the rapture guys use in chapter 4 to say ‘Jesus took all the believers off the planet’. Well here God says to 2 prophets ‘come up hither’. According to this reasoning more believers left on this flight! ‘The Kingdoms of the world are become the Kingdom of our God and his Christ’ John is preparing the church for a few centuries of real persecution. He is reassuring them that they will ultimately win! ‘And the nations were angry, and the time of the dead to be judged. And rewards given to the prophets and to those who fear your name’ you have multiple times in Johns Revelation where he sums things up. One of the problems with popular interpretations of this book is they try to teach everything in a ‘Line’. Here John is simply summing up the judgment and nature of all that is to come. Man has been and will continue to be angry at God. The more proof rebellious man sees of the reality of God causes him to hate even more. The church is here to do her best to glorify God and bring people into his Kingdom. But make no mistake about it, the world and her rulers have at times done all they could do to fight against God. John is reminding the early church that the rulers who are setting them on fire and hanging their bodies like lamps along the road have their day coming! ‘And the temple of God was opened in heaven [not a man made Temple! God’s people are ‘the Temple/dwelling place of God’. Heaven is also called ‘the sanctuary’ in Hebrews!] And there was seen in his temple the Ark of his testament [The box with the commandments in them. Not Noah’s Ark- this is for the critics of my theory in entry # 662. Those who say ‘get the boat off the planet’! You will have to read the entry!] and there were lightnings and thunder and earthquakes and hail’. Johns Revelation is a great prophetic encouragement for the church in every generation. When John describes a ruler called ‘the beast’ and the number ‘666’. It is only natural for the early church to have seen this figure as Nero. His nickname was actually ‘the beast’. And one of the numerical spellings of his name and title came to ‘666’. Is it heresy to apply modern interpretations to these figures? No. But it is also ‘immature’ to read a prophetic vision like revelation without a basic understanding of how the church read it for 1900 years! This book has tremendous spiritual significance for all believers. To see it as an exact literal translation of geopolitical events of our time is not being ‘mature in our thinking’. NOTE; I wrote this entry yesterday morning. Later in the day I watched the world news with Katie Couric [to all my conservative friends, forgive me for committing the unpardonable sin!] Katie quoted, to the WORLD! ‘Jesus said, lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth’ and then did and expose on Kenneth Copeland ministries. To update you guys. I prophesied on this site that ‘no mountain will be able to stand against what God is doing. Not even Eagle mountain’. Eagle Mountain church is the name of the church Copeland founded. Then a few months back the U.S. Senate began investigating 6 Prosperity ministries. And last night the ‘world/secular’ media quotes Jesus words in rebuking the money gospel. I do not always agree with the ‘exposes’ of the media. I consider Kenneth Copeland a brother in the Lord. I believe he has been a victim of the enemy’s strategy to sidetrack the purpose of Christ’s Kingdom. The Lord only allows public humiliation/chastening [the bodies were lying in the street 3 and a half days! The above reference from Revelation] for his purpose. Don’t take lightly when the secular media quotes Jesus IN CONTEXT while critiquing a minister!
(666) PROVERBS (watch out for this number! Kidding.] I mentioned a few entries back about a local Pastor who had recently died. When I first came to Corpus I gave him one of our books ‘HOUSE OF PRAYER OR DEN OF THEIVES’. I gave them to lots of Pastors. About a year ago I heard him preach on ‘YOU CAN NOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON’ ‘THE LOVE OF MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL’. Themes that were very rarely heard from ANY preachers in this city! [Shame]. I don’t know if he preached it because our blog site and radio program are very popular with the local believers. This allows for many pastors who ‘by pass’ us to later hear from their people stuff like ‘why don’t you ever preach on the dangers of mammon’? And there you go! Proverbs says ‘there is that withholds more than is right and it tendeth to poverty. There is that scattereth and yet increases’. I took one of the homeless guys to Wal-Mart and offered to buy him a tent. It’s cold and his is leaking. I also paid for a weeks rent for another friend [not the rent I paid a few entries back]. I told my buddy ‘don’t spend more than 50.oo on the tent’. He came back from the aisle and said he didn’t need one. He admitted the one he needs is 70.oo and he could manage with the one he has. I told him ‘no, go ahead and get it’. I wrote the check over at the register and added it to some cash on hand and paid the rent for another friend. They at times even say ‘brother, we don’t want you to drain too much money’! There is that scatters yet INCREASES! Are you scattering? The friend with the tent looks clean cut and all, you would have no idea he is homeless. He works odd jobs and looks cleaner than me! I met him a few months back, he knows a lot of bible stuff. I gave him all the books and stuff I wrote on disks and after he read our stuff was really excited. Many things were confirmed in his mind. He had massive colon surgery 6 months ago. He has told me he has been in pain and needs to get checked. He is totally trusting God for healing and has refused the Chemo treatments. I dropped him off and walked to his campsite in the middle of a wooded area. It’s been a few years since I have been to the camps. I spent a little time with him and he was real excited about setting up the tent. It was around 35 degrees and raining. He promised to pay me back, I refused. I never let the guys pay me back, I see this as giving a ‘tithe’. Something that is rightfully Gods. While walking back to the truck, and thinking and praying for him over the past few days I thought ‘Father, take care of your son. It’s cold and these guys need your help’. They are great guys, many of them are reaping years of their parent’s broken homes and lives. David said ‘I have been young and now I am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken or his seed begging for bread’.
(655) As I was just praying for all of our people [Gods!] I sensed an outpouring of the Spirit. A sort of tangible anointing. I also remembered a Prosperity preacher’s story and hesitated to share it. The more I felt the anointing I felt the Lord wanted me to share it. Many years ago my father was visiting Corpus and we were driving downtown with KCTA playing on the radio [the Christian station we broadcast on]. At the time teacher was a prosperity preacher teaching on ‘the anointed one and his anointing’. They got into this teaching of Jesus ‘anointing us’ to get wealth. As the teacher was explaining the ‘oil’ [anointing] he was saying ‘picture yourself rubbing it all over you. Head to toe’ and he was applying it to ‘saturating yourself in Jesus anointing to get money’. I was really tempted to shut it off. My dad says ‘wow, you can really tell how much this preacher is enjoying himself’ my dad said it in a nice way. Sort of complimentary. I didn’t say anything. I just found it so offensive to view ‘rubbing Jesus oil all over your body to get wealth’. Peter says ‘we were not redeemed with corruptible things. Filthy lucre. But by the precious blood of Jesus’. Paul says ‘some have erred from the faith. Teaching that gain is godliness. From these teachers turn away’. I am simply amazed at the amount of Pastors who are still defending this stuff to their people.
(648) HURRICANE KATRINA Let me share some prophetic stuff. Over the past few years it has been interesting to see the churches approach to this hurricane. First, God is very merciful. He requires us to mix mercy with judgment. Many believers have said publicly that the hurricane had absolutely nothing to do with judgment. Katrina means ‘cleansing’. The actual week [or day?] it hit was the same day that New Orleans was to celebrate a ‘day of decadence’. After the devastating storm, man in all his efforts said ‘we will rebuild!’ Even President bush took the position ‘nothing will stop us’. Sort of a slap in the face to a judgment from God. The tower of Babel mindset ‘we will build and no one can stop us’. Now I want to share an area of ‘judging’ that might not have been as obvious. During the time of our ‘prophesying’ [radio/blog] against the distorted teachings from the more extreme prosperity movement, there were certain ‘weather events’ that would concur with the words. Now, these ‘words’ were not judgment things. Just strong reproofs that needed to be dealt with. The hurricane practically wiped out one of the main prosperity ministries from Louisiana. I did not rejoice, but felt it was significant. I haven't really followed up on this brother, but last night I put his show on for the first time in a few years. I only caught the last few minutes and heard him testify of how they didn’t know how they could afford to stay on the air. Maybe the lord was ‘cleansing’ this movement from the air waves? In love and mercy it is very possible that this was a part of Gods will. Often times the lord gives people serious down time to re evaluate their message. It’s easy to start moving ahead in ministry and never take time to ‘re tool’ the message. Bring it more into alignment with scripture. Well I feel this is part of what God wanted. Then the brother shared how the owners of this particular TV network paid from the networks money for 5 free years of broadcasting. Now, they meant well I am sure. But this might have actually been circumventing a ‘cleansing’ that God wanted to do. The President of this network is a good Christian man who has fought the critics of the prosperity movement for years. I do see how he might have come to the defense of this brother by feeling sorry for him. But it is not right to take the years of sacrificial giving that people have done and to use it to win your side of the fight. This causes the money that was dedicated to spread the gospel to be used to win in the game that people play. Sometimes we prevent what God wants to do when we interfere like this.
(640) We had a good outreach day yesterday. Just a brotherhood of believers sharing and living like Jesus and the disciples. Ate some good tacos too! Took my buddies to a Mexican restaurant in Kingsville and had good stuff. Let me challenge you ‘money guys’ [or those of you who are victims of this wrong message!]. Did you know Jesus taught that the power of ‘compounding disciples’ trumps ‘compounding interest’? How many times have we been preached at on ‘the power of money’ ‘you can’t reach the world without money’ ‘if you are not believing God to make you rich, you are sinning’ all wrong stuff that the bible doesn’t teach. You know what the Word teaches? Take your measly little few bucks and give yourself away, the simple work of daily ‘making disciples’ will reverberate and ‘your disciples’ will make more! This is the power of ‘compounding disciples’, it puts the power of ‘compounding interest’ to shame!
(638) I want to remind you of a couple of basic principles. The New Testament does give the primary source of funding for the things God requires you to do. Do you know what it is? I have taught it before ‘he who is not working, let him get a job SO HE CAN HAVE TO GIVE TO HIM THAT NEEDETH’. This is the basic ‘funding source’ actually taught to the average believer. Now, Paul did say ‘who goes to war at his own expense’ teaching the basic truth to help leaders financially. But this does not trump what I just showed you. Paul is addressing a basic principle in ministry, but we should not view everything from ‘the ministry’ paradigm. The problem with ‘modern church’ is we live in a day where ‘ministry’ means ‘the huge Christian business that needs tons of cash’. The fundamental error of seeing ministry in this way causes many well meaning leaders to ‘search the scriptures to find true stuff on bringing in money’. This leads to tons of overemphasis in the modern church on the few verses where you find Paul asking for financial help. Or going to the popular verses on David/Solomon getting money for the Temple. We see thru the paradigm of funding the business, we don’t really teach the New Testament simplicity of all believers sharing what they have. The main teaching from Jesus on giving was doing it this way. The verses I quote from John/James ‘if you have the ability to meet the needs of your brother and don’t, how does Gods love dwell in you’? Direct instructions on you simply taking money from your own budget and meeting the need. No teaching here on you going out and starting some ministry to collect money for some good purpose! Now, you can find the principle of collecting money for ministry stuff. It’s just what I showed you is direct teaching from Jesus and the Apostles on how you should see ‘giving’ and it is in the context of community. The actual judgment scenes from Jesus teach this. ‘When I was hungry you didn’t feed me, naked you didn’t clothe me’ the whole context is couched in the idea of personal responsibility to act. Not for you to either fund the ‘acting’ of someone else [ministry] or to begin with the mindset of collecting money from others so ‘you could act’. Do you see this? This is why it ‘bugs the hell out of me’ when I see the average believer inundated with a message that says ‘become wealthy to fund ministries’ or ‘if you don’t give a tithe into this church meeting you are cursed’ wrong ideas breed wrong actions. I wonder if some of us will tell Jesus at the judgment ‘the reason I didn’t feed you was because I put it all in the church basket’ Ouch!
(643) BUT YOU CAN REALY HAVE THE CANDIES! In all of our dealings with the money gospel, I often find the attitude to be one of ‘you don’t understand, God wants you to have all the candy you want. God owns the candy store! Don’t you see how our lives are consumed with the truth of getting candy. Jesus died so we could have it. Him and the disciples had lots of it! Church tradition tells us otherwise and anyone who tries to stop us from getting more candy is deceived’. While I understand fully the joy of becoming a believer and learning that God does own the ‘candy store’. Yet Jesus would say things like ‘Don’t be like the unbelievers, they are thinking about candy all the time! They read about it, listen to it. They are consumed with the obtaining of candy’ Jesus even tells stories about the deceitfulness of it, he says ‘I want you to bear fruit, to be productive believers in the world. Productive in the sense of bearing spiritual fruit and making disciples. Don’t be deceived! The pursuit of candy is deadly’. Then you have preachers who love candy say ‘the deceitfulness of candy is that old tradition that says YOU CANT HAVE CANDY’! Well even the most simple ‘candy eater’ can see that this is twisting Jesus words. When you try to correct this, they say ‘you just don’t know how much God wants you to have candy’? I get tired sometimes with this response. I know God owns the candy store and gives us candy. But when I walk in to the store and see a 50 year old Christian consumed with the candy aisle, I feel like saying ‘brother, you are 50 years old, the candy diet has not been healthy, it’s time to graduate to real meat’!
(633) This week I heard 2 good messages. One from the radio and the other from a conference on TV. Both national ministries. They dealt with poverty/wealth and the biblical perspective. They clearly reproved the prosperity gospel and its extremes. One of them [to my surprise, the very famous prophetic brother] mentioned 1st Timothy chapter 6. A very strong reproof of the prosperity message and its abuses [it’s ok to prosper, but the strong money focus is what I am against!]. One of the areas of disagreement I had was one of the brothers taught that he still was believing for God to bring in billions of dollars thru his ministry for the kingdom. Though he did say he wanted to use it for good things and not horde it, he still was teaching the mindset that I have heard before that says ‘God is raising up people/ministries to flow billions thru’. He also shared how he believed God was calling ‘many’ people to become millionaires for the kingdom. Let me share why I don’t really hold to this view. First, I see the answer more in the mindset of releasing all the people of God into new paradigms of actually seeing themselves as ‘employees’ of the ministry of the kingdom. That is we are all directly responsible to function and ‘give’ directly as God shows us needs. Instead of the limited view of God raising up Christian ‘ministries’ to collect and distribute the billions, just show the people of God that God all ready has the billions collected, it’s just in all of our pockets! Instead of trying to find the right Christian organization to funnel the money thru, just see all of Gods people as the actual conduits who already have the money and just need to obey when they see the need! ‘Do you see a brother in need? If you do and don’t directly help him, then how does the love of God dwell in you’ [John]. The divine mandate is to act when you see the need. A different mindset than for God to raise up Christian 501 c3’s who are going to collect it all themselves! Now, there are times in scripture where corporate collections were made [Acts, Corinthians] it’s just we cant lose the mindset of Jesus actually using our 5 loaves and 2 fish [a little] or the widows mite. I disagree with the teaching that says God is calling many [I think some or a few is better] to become millionaires for the kingdom. Let me also show you how the ‘church world’ and the ‘money world’ get confused. I read Stephen Covey before. An excellent success/motivational writer. He is a Mormon but writes from a Christian/moral perspective. Over the years many of these brothers would share how the ‘poverty mentality’ saw there was only so much ‘pie’ to go around. That you really didn’t have enough for everybody. So in a sincere effort by good Pastors you would hear ‘God wants lots of you to live to become wealthy so you could give it into the ministry’ good intention, bad exegesis! You never [when I say never, it means never!] find Jesus nor any of the apostles teaching this! You do find Christian stewardship and finances taught, but not once a doctrine that said ‘seek God for millions so you can finance worthy causes’. Why don’t you see this taught? Well it would be a direct violation of many other verses ‘Be content with what you have. You came into the world without money. When you die you can’t take it with you’ [Timothy 6]. Jesus ‘You cannot serve God and mammon’. There are too many themes in scripture that just don't fit in with the teaching of ‘become a millionaire to finance God’s kingdom’. Now, it is possible for you to be in business, to invest wisely and to see your calling as providing for the Kingdom. I didn’t say you couldn’t do this! I am telling you that in the New Testament you never see an appeal made along these lines! You see appeals to give to Gods work, share with those in need and stuff like that. Never an appeal for people to seek wealth to fund the kingdom. That appeal would contradict the other plain teachings on NOT SEEKING WEALTH. Simply put, that’s the reason you do not see this doctrine taught in the New Testament. So any way I give credit to the 2 brothers for going as far as they did in their teaching. I just thought it was worth reminding you about this.
(636) Recently saw an appeal to give. The teaching [TV] was well meaning. They were showing how the scripture is loaded with the doctrine of ‘first fruits’. All good stuff on the ‘secret’ of first fruits. The teacher was being hailed as an authority on Jewish history and why ‘first fruits’ is so important. The main problem with this whole mindset is they ALWAYS seem to see giving in the context of sending money to ministries. Jesus taught THEE NUMBER ONE priority of GIVNING TO GOD was to be expressed by meeting the real needs of people. Now, you do find the woman giving into ‘the offerings of God’ by giving into the Temple offering. Or giving into Jesus ministry, but the overall main doctrine on giving and how it relates at the final judgment of mankind is ALWAYS based on our treatment of our fellow man. ALWAYS! So, no matter how elaborate we get in finding the real ‘hidden truths’ of money in the Old testament, we do a grave disservice to the Christian community when we equate GIVNG TO GOD with giving money to my ministry! The world sees this and mocks us because of it. Do you not see how foolish we look when we teach GIVE TO GOD and than at the end of the teaching we equate it with GIVE TO MY MINSTRY? Do you not see that the STOREHOUSE OF GOD are the corporate people of God dwelling in the earth? The storehouse IS NOT THE CHURCH BUILDING YOU MEET IN ON SUNDAY! So no human should ever teach ‘if you don’t put 10% of your money in this basket you are under a curse’. Sorry about being riled up, but I get so tired of ministries teaching on the importance of giving to God and then equating that with sending money to them, this is outrageous!
(637) Now that I cooled down a little, let me explain some stuff. Recently I posted our blog on another site of ‘ex Christians’ who left a cult. Good kids, very burned by cultic expressions of Christianity. One of the initial reactions was getting ‘cussed out’ [I used to say ‘cursed’ but in Texas this gives you away as a Yankee!] The kids also accused me of being a money hungry preacher who equates ‘giving to God’ with ‘giving to ME’. I realized how really offensive we are to the world when we do and teach ‘giving to God, test God in this [what?] and he will pour out a blessing’. If you rightfully interpret this verse from Malachi [the only Italian prophet in scripture! Kidding!] The ‘test me’ that God is talking about is testing him in bringing tithes and offerings into the ‘storehouse’. A room in the Old Testament tabernacle/temple where the money went. Now in the New Testament the corporate people of God are the spiritual ‘storehouse’ temple of God. This is a very basic truth. So ‘giving to God’ is really not ‘giving to your ‘church’ or my ministry [though it can include this!] But ‘giving to God’ would be giving directly to meet the real needs of humanity, whether believers or unbelievers. There are tons of verses on this. I have quoted them all over this site! So when we see a TV ministry spend an hour on ‘giving to God’ and then at the end of the show say ‘call this number, don’t test God’ the world LAUGHS AT OUR STUPIDITY! They see right thru this. I am not against giving 10 % of your money. I do [actually more now!] it’s just we need to see this stuff. Recently a Prophetic person got a divorce from her husband. Both Christians that I prayed for. The sister was behind on thousands of dollars of taxes for some business venture property. Another ministry gave her thousands to bail her out. I am sure they all meant well, but the media reported how this church gave tens of thousands to help another Christian business venture. It just seems wrong to take the sacrificial giving of the saints and to use it like this. We need an overhaul in our thinking. Be careful not to equate a message on ‘giving to God’ and then appeal for money for your organization at the close. This is a real stumbling block to the world. Some preachers say ‘well, if the world gets offended over this offering stuff, that’s their fault’. Not really, Paul does teach if taking offerings is becoming a stumbling block to people, then you can adjust your procedure! [Corinthians]. So after the kids on the ex-cult site criticized me as a ‘money grubbing preacher’ they then saw that I don’t take money and read some of our stuff. It worked the way it was supposed to!
(627) JOHN 18 (radio # 601) Jesus is betrayed in the garden. John follows Jesus all the way to the judgment, Peter stops short at the door. Why does John record this? Is he being self serving? He is the only gospel writer that tells you this [If I remember?] I think there is a purpose. Jesus already taught the principle of ‘whoever tries to save his life will lose it, but he that is wiling to give it up will save it’. All the others fled out of self preservation. John stayed. All the others will eventually die martyrs deaths, except for John! He will wind up on some island in his old age writing this tremendous prophetic vision [Revelation]. Truly he that was willing to give his life up outlasted them all! Actually if you read the last chapter of John this becomes an issue. Jesus tells Peter ‘if I will that John lives until I come, what is that to thee’? Then a rumor gets started over John not dieing until the 2nd coming! Hey, I wonder what they thought as they were all getting martyred one by one. Each time another disciple dies, they must have been thinking ‘hey, Johns still here, maybe he will live till Jesus comes’? The high priest asks Jesus of his doctrine AND disciples. Both Paul and Jesus had ‘doctrine and disciples’. Paul was a theologian on the run! Getting let down in baskets from city walls. Being stoned and put in prison. Paul was writing theology under crisis. Jesus and Paul weren’t some ivory tower theologians speculating on the latest fad in theology. They were ‘doing the stuff’. I want to challenge all my preacher friends, do you have doctrine and disciples? Let’s end this chapter in a little controversy. In verse 31 it says ‘the Jews’. Verses 35 ‘thine own nation AND the chief priests’. Verses 36 ‘delivered to the Jews’. Verses 38 ‘unto the Jews’. I want you to see how the scripture makes it clear that BOTH the leaders and the Nation of Israel rejected Messiah! Jesus in this chapter says he IS THE KING OF THE JEWS! Peter’s sermons in the book of Acts accuse the Jews as a whole group of rejecting Jesus, not just a ‘conspiracy of the leaders and Rome’ [as John Hagee is teaching]. I don’t want to be anti Semitic, some have actually accused John’s gospel of being anti Semitic. Hey, John himself was a Jew! The point is God has great plans for Israel as a Nation. Read Romans. But it is also a fact that ‘the Jews’ as a people group missed their Messiah. This chapter makes it pretty clear! Also when Peter cuts off the guys ear, Jesus says ‘stop, we are not here to fight. Shall I not drink the cup which my father gave me’? Paul will later teach that his own sufferings were ‘filling up the sufferings of Christ’s Body’ this would be heretical if it weren’t in the bible! Paul and the other early believers understood the calling to suffer along with the ‘being full’ part. I have heard the ‘being full’ verse used out of context a lot! Paul does says ‘I have learned to be content in any condition [state] both having a lot and a little’. I have heard preachers say ‘see, Paul knew how to be rich as well as broke’ no he didn’t! He was never rich. He knew how to have all his needs met [full] and to lack [times of suffering and imprisonment where he couldn’t get the basic stuff to do what he needed to do to carry on the mission]. Jesus says to Peter ‘shall I avoid the cup’? I think the modern American church has answered ‘yes’. I was reading the voice of the martyrs magazine yesterday. How so many believers are suffering and dieing for the faith. In Revelation it says it was the prayers of the martyrs that carried the day. Boy will we be embarrassed at the judgment when we find out it was the prayers of our martyred brothers and sisters who died in our day who really were changing things. And at the same time we were confessing money verses all the way to the bank!
(614) JOHN 15 [Radio # 598] Jesus tells the disciples they are the branches, he is the vine. If they truncate themselves from him they will perish. In the world of ‘once saved always saved’ and ‘if you walk away you are lost’ a lot of these verses become arguing points. I believe the main context here is sort of like when I taught Hebrews [read chapter 6 of the commentary on this blog]. I see Jesus telling the disciples as a microcosm of the Nation of Israel ‘If you don’t continue in the Old Testament revelation of me as Messiah, then you will be cut off [AD 70] and be destroyed’. Basically Jesus telling Israel ‘you must remain in me [after all you have all come from me! John 1:1] if you want to be fruitful’. Jesus says ‘I want you to have full joy’ in the same context of bearing fruit. God designed all of us to be active participants in the spreading of his kingdom. In many modern scenarios you have the Pastors and staff finding fulfillment, but the average church attendee is simply a funder of the organization. They see everything thru this paradigm. ‘Give sacrificially, we can reach the world!’ It’s good to give sacrificially, but God wants all of us to ‘reach the world’ to be active participants in this thing. You can’t have ‘full joy’ unless you do the stuff! Jesus says ‘If I had not come and spoken unto them [religious leaders] they wouldn’t have known they were wrong’ also ‘if I had not done the works among them that no one else was doing’. Jesus reproved by word and deed. I find it funny how after preaching that you don’t need lots of money to reach the world for Christ, that preachers get really mad at this. Then when we do impact a large region [basically Texas, New York area and all the African preachers who have been reading/listening to us on the internet] with me paying for everything, that this really gets the ‘religious leaders’ mad. Don’t be mad, instill this same concept into your people and you will have a full reward. Tell them like Jesus told his disciples ‘go into the world, don’t think you need a lot of equipment for this, you are the equipment. No special appeals for funds, keep it simple’ [Message Bible] Jesus taught and lived contrary to the professional clergies agenda. They got mad! NOTE; Jesus says ‘ye are clean thru the word that I have spoken unto you’. As I was reading this chapter for a few days, getting ready to write on it. I usually get up early and pray ‘aggressively’ for a while before I write. Sometimes I just wait on the Lord and just listen [for about an hour] and hear what he is saying. All of these entries come from this ‘hearing’ time, not from much ‘head knowledge’. As I was waiting the other day, the Lord spoke to me about this verse ‘ye are clean [set apart for my purpose] thru the word I speak to you, not thru what you speak [pray] to me’. I felt like the Lord was saying there are times in our lives where we simply receive and become the ‘incarnate’ purpose of God. That God desires to reveal himself to people thru us. The purpose of receiving his word is not for didactic teaching only, but for becoming what he says. Sort of like the imagery I taught in John 1 [go back and read it!] we in essence become what he is communicating. We don’t just ‘hear’ it, we experience it. Like the Prophets in the Old Testament, God would communicate thru them, but they also would go thru some strange stuff! Jesus also says ‘if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what you will and it will be done’. I want to credit the Word of Faith guys for bringing out truth in this area. They popularized the idea of knowing Gods will and purpose by knowing his word. His will is his word, if you will. The problem became an unbalanced teaching thru only seeing the ‘good stuff’ and avoiding the suffering verses. It would become next to impossible to correct these brothers as they went headlong down the path of materialism. Any attempt to reprove them would be seen as ‘don’t listen to the negative naysayer’ and they would develop a mindset that would not receive correction. In the reality of Gods will being his word, we must understand it is his whole word. Even the verses that give warnings about end time teachers who would stray from the faith by becoming money focused! [1st Timothy 6]. So lets give credit where it is due, but also stay on course.
(425) The other day I heard one of the few [only?] prosperity preachers in our city say ‘we don’t have the right to talk about any other preachers’. I got the sense that word has gotten out that we are uprooting this stuff from the church. This level of discernment that teaches we shouldn’t deal with false prophets is extremely lacking in wisdom. I can say this about any cult. Joseph Smith [Mormon] did good things. It would be absolutely irresponsible to say ‘you don’t have the right to deal with Mormonism’. All false doctrine and teachers need to be dealt with by Christian leadership. This doesn’t give anyone the right to be a ‘self proclaimed’ judge of other believers. It’s just a basic guideline that when teachers go way off track [teaching that Jesus was a millionaire, he died to get money to you, and these same preachers seeing their goal as to reap lots of money!] then we as leaders MUST come against this. I didn’t realize how many of these ministries are in Texas. I would say Texas is the main propagator of this stuff. The Lord is dealing with Texas at this time. Corpus Christi bears the name of Christ. I just think it’s prophetic that the Lord would use our city as one of the major places where he will ‘regain’ his image back in the church. Those in this area who do not line up with Gods agenda will have no future in what he is doing at this time. You guys teaching this stuff still. God will remove your candlestick if you don’t stop it. NOTE: Remember what I said about the prophetic ministry of John the Baptist? He not only had the ability to recognize Jesus in a way that others couldn’t see yet. But he also could not remain silent on the obvious ‘sins’ of the day. He spoke out on the King and his adulterous marriage. Many ‘believers’ of his day grew comfortable with an obvious abuse of leadership. They knew in their hearts that what leadership [King] was doing was wrong, but they had other things on their agenda. To deal with the Kings abuse of his authority would bring difficulty and affliction. John simply felt this to be a carrying out of his Prophetic ministry. To John it was like ‘how can we not speak out against this’. John also paid a severe cost. Note: If you use as a ‘measuring rule’ to be ‘how do I feel’ or ‘does this doctrine benefit me financially’ then you have lost your prophetic edge. I have seen many of these obvious abuses go on with the Christian TV networks. Some of these networks are good, some are not. Why the good ones will permit these abuses to be on is beyond me. They either feel that these brothers are paying well, or they feel like they bring in lots of money during the ‘sharathon’. These brothers are using a measuring line that says ‘if it brings in money, then I don’t care whether or not they preach that Jesus was a millionaire who died to make people rich’ they seem to see the bottom line as the criteria of whether or not to allow them to have influence. This IS NOT THE CRITERIA! Jesus is the ‘plumb line’ if things don’t measure up to him they must be abandoned!
(428) I kind of am hesitant to do this, but I felt it was time. I have had a radio listener who is a prosperity guy. He has written me ‘re proofs’ for years. I am surprised he still listens! He recently sent me a few more letters. He actually liked what I was teaching and did thank me. But he usually sends pages of stuff to teach that Jesus was a millionaire [actually the richest man who ever lived]. He basically has been taught an exhaustive doctrine [that goes on forever!] that traces Jesus roots thru King David to Abraham and goes thru these pages of explaining how Jesus was the natural heir of David and therefore truly owned all the wealth of Jerusalem. He has been taught [or taught himself] an intricate bible system that is absolutely consumed with mammon. The simple fact that Jesus was a carpenter’s son and lived that way escapes these guys. The fact that Paul taught ‘you came into the world without material wealth, when you die you will not be able to take wealth with you. Therefore be happy with your needs being met’ [1st Timothy 6]. Why didn’t Paul teach Timothy that he needed to believe for all this wealth so he could reach the Roman world? These poor brothers who are so consumed with wealth have gone to extremes to search the scriptures and come up with unbelievable teachings that are consumed with mammon. I have come to believe these guys are under a ‘spell’ [Paul says this in Galatians- ‘who hath bewitched you’]. I am glad this guy still listens to the program, maybe he will get free someday? Also for the sake of this brothers argument. Jesus was from the line of King David. The fact that he was ‘conceived’ by the Spirit, a major Christian doctrine, shows that Jesus ‘in the natural’ did not come from the line of natural David [the actual ‘seed’ of David, don’t want to get to explicit here!] because of this Jesus would teach things like ‘my Kingdom is not from this world’. Jesus showed us that his actual lineage [really] was from the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit caused Mary to conceive! This isn’t a problem for most Christians, but this guy has sent me these arguments for years and for his sake I thought I would do this. NOTE: this note is for the last 2 entries. Both the idea that the ‘church’ is the actual 501c3 corp. who meets in a building on Sunday, as well as the teaching on lots of money go hand in hand. It is only natural for the Pastor/CEO mindset to fall into the snare of seeing how ‘if we just had more money’ if Gods people were not disobedient in bringing the tithe to the ‘storehouse’ then we could accomplish ‘the ministry’. These well meaning Pastors get allured by this need for money, they then fall into the extremes of the prosperity gospel. They truly feel unless tons of money comes into the ‘local church coffers’ [which they see as the 501c3 machine!] then the world will never be evangelized. Its easy to look to the examples in the New Testament where Paul is receiving support, or where all the believers gave sacrificially and brought the money and laid it at the Apostles feet. In these scenarios you had the concept of communal sacrifice and giving that ‘equaled the playing field’ and fulfilled the Old Testament type of Manna. Those who gathered what was enough for their families [be content with having your needs met] were provided for. Those that gathered much for the greater need had enough. Those that gathered little for their need had enough. God specifically rebuked hoarding and a covetous mindset by showing that those who took too much, the Manna ‘bred worms’. So in these examples of extravagant giving in the book of Acts, we are seeing Gods family voluntarily [no tithe!] give of their wealth to meet the needs of their brothers and sisters. When the modern minister uses these verses to either teach a doctrine of becoming rich, or to bring in ‘the tithes to the storehouse’ he is not rightly dividing the Word! NOTE: Just read an article in the paper on someone starting a ministry. They showed the facility. Talked about the renovations needed. The eventual staff. The need to obtain I.R.S. status. This is typical of the way we ‘see’ ministry. Our mindsets see a project, a facility and the functioning of some type of a ‘service’ that we will provide. The New Testament mindset was taking the message of the Kingdom and simply proclaiming it to people groups. The fact that the message of the gospel has within it the inherent power to change society caused there to be a mindset that said ‘if I can just plant this Word in the hearts of people, I will have been faithful to the task’. You don’t see Paul going to cities and setting up anything! He is presenting the gospel, and the actual act of the gospel being believed becomes the completed task. The communities of people who believe become the ‘Local church’ that is the ‘outpost’ of God in that region. The people are the ‘facility’ that God takes up residence in by his Spirit and this is the work of the Apostle or believer carrying out the great commission. We focus too much on ‘starting something’ instead of ‘declaring him’! NOTE: It is also a common mistake for Christians to ‘attend church’ and debate the fact that ‘everything our church does is scriptural’. They will mistake the function of someone ‘preaching’ bible words [either the Pastor or Evangelist] as ‘being biblical’ even if the entire mindset of ‘the church I am attending’ is absolutely no where to be found in scripture! Now I don’t want to be too ‘iconoclastic’ [a destroyer of idols] here, but I want you to see that many Christians see ‘being scriptural’ as simply ‘speaking from scripture’. To be truly ‘scriptural’ is to function as the New Testament churches [communities of people] functioned. They lived lifestyles of community that did not view the ‘Sunday service’ as the ‘place I attend and put in my tithe’. When we as Christians view ‘church’ in this limited way, we are being UNSCRIPTURAL, even if we preach from scripture while doing it!
(431) Isaiah 56 ‘Keep judgment and do justice, for my salvation is near and my righteousness is ready to be revealed’ God says he is about to do some major things. He wants you to ‘judge right’ actually stand strong in discernment with mercy. It’s easy to give up on the things God has shown you and to fall into the status quo. God says stay true to what I showed you because it’s for a purpose. ‘Blessed is the man that doesn’t pollute my Sabbath and keeps his hand from evil’. Remember what we recently said about the Sabbath? God says ‘blessed are those who remain in my rest. Those who abide in me and allow me to bring forth the fruit’ this is the only way we can keep our selves from ‘doing evil’. In Gods grace! ‘These are the ones I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in MY HOUSE OF PRAYER’ we also just discussed Gods house of prayer. God will gather all those who are in grace and make them ‘joyful’ as they join in intercession for the nations. You are a ‘house of Prayer’ you will only be fulfilled when you are doing what you were created to do! Remember, we are corporately his facility, our ‘use’ is to be a habitation thru whom God intercedes. ‘His watchman are blind, they cant see. They are greedy, they can never have enough wealth. They are all out for personal gain, they look for it to come to their areas. They say ‘tomorrow will be much more abundant’. Here God rebukes the leadership for always wanting more finances. They live day by day with the goal of ‘great material abundance’. They have usurped Gods purpose for his ‘house’ and made it into a den of thieves! [These are the leaders who teach it obsessively, they have made the goal ‘material wealth’ not so much the Pastors who are raising money for unselfish things! Also see the specific rebuke to those who say ‘tomorrow we will have more wealth’ the actual confession and excitement of seeing more wealth as the goal is being rebuked here!]
(444) Today its June 25th, 2007. It’s been 6 months since I started this blog. Today is the day the Supreme Court outlawed prayer in Public Schools, this day in 1962 [the year I was born]. Yesterday I took my youngest daughter to church. My wife and other kids were busy, 2 of my daughters went on their own. After church I took my girl to see ‘Evan Almighty’ a good movie that does a spoof on the story of Noah’s Ark, but it is good. I told you guys once about my study, it is set up like a throw back to the 70’s. I have a lot of old stuff. One thing is I have the original ‘Gumby’ rubber man. I saw it once in a store and bought it as a collector’s thing. This week for some reason I was thinking of taking it out of the plastic that it’s in. I have no idea why I would be thinking of Gumby. Yesterday [the day I went to see the movie] I also was looking in the paper and saw some Dell Laptops, this week I have been thinking of getting one. They had a flyer on them in the paper so I was looking at the prices. Last but not least, as I am praying in my study I keep noticing this poster of John Lennon, it is a real charcoal drawing that someone had made. My wife found it in an abandoned apartment that she manages. I have had it for a few years. I was thinking of maybe taking it down, because as I am praying it kind of was distracting me, it’s got these real looking eyes that seem to pierce your soul. Well how in the world can any of this make sense? As I go to the movie I am looking for some signs or stuff the lord wants to say. The God character [Morgan Freeman] has the first conversation with the ‘Noah’ character [Steve Carell- ‘the 40 year old virgin’] and God convinces ‘Noah’ that it is him speaking to him by bringing up a childhood memory, he mentions ‘Gumby’. As the story moves ahead Noah grows hair and a beard, the son calls him ‘John Lennon’ and they play some Lennon music as well. Steve Carrel is doing all his work on a ‘Dell computer’ [a form of communication, like what I am doing on my laptop right now!] I did feel like the Lord showed me a few things. I have seen in the past certain things from Lennon and Dylan. Lennon was shocked by the effect that his words were having on a generation, Dylan was real uncomfortable about being a ‘prophet’ to his generation. If you read or watch stories on these figures, it was like the Lord was giving exponential ‘influence’ by the simple words they were speaking. On one MTV/VH1 special I saw Lennon confront a fan from an old video. Lennon was trying to tell this fan who was obsessed with the words from his songs ‘I am just a man, I am just writing my thoughts in my songs, don’t be so enamored with it’ it was like the Lord allowed certain ‘prophetic/rock’ voices to have tremendous influence, whether or not the ‘prophet’ wanted this attention or not. In the movie Steve Carell builds the Ark and is waiting for the rain, it rains a little, but the flood comes form a broken damn instead. This didn’t really fit in with the prophetic stuff I have been ‘seeing’ recently. I just dreamed of a huge storm the other day, where’s the storm? As we left the theatre my daughter says ‘look at the sky dad, a huge storm is moving in’ on the way home it was one of those flash flood storms that covers the sky and looks eerie. I got home and started writing this stuff on my mission statement, it was pouring at the time. NOTE: The reason God shows up is that Evan becomes a congressman and promises to ‘change the world’ God teaches him that you can change the world by ‘one random act of kindness at a time’ this fits in with my philosophy on the church and ministry. The biblical idea of church is for all believers everywhere to see themselves as the actual ‘fire starters’ of this Jesus revolution. It’s not the multimillion dollar ‘church organizations’ that are always appealing for money that will ‘change the world’ its all the ‘simple believers’ who have been told their whole lives ‘you cant have any influence yourself, send your money to us’ that are going to do it!
(447) It is difficult for the American church/Pastor to ‘reform’ his understanding of church from one of ‘the 501c3 organization that raises funds to do projects and support ministries’ to that of a free community of people whom Christ’s Spirit dwells in to ‘reform and effect’ society around them. I remember hearing defenses of the ‘Local church’ from the fundamental Baptists that said ‘some people speak of the ‘invisible church/universal church’ well the bible never speaks of a church ‘you cant see’. While there is some truth to this, what these brothers were saying is ‘the local church is this ‘church building’ and all the functions that surround it’! God has his people strategically located all over the earth. When the Bible speaks of ‘local believers’ versus ‘the universal church’ it is not speaking of 2 different things. It is speaking of Christians who reside locally and to the believers who reside ‘universally’. They are the same thing, just in different locations. We have a tendency as Pastors and leaders to want to do some project, complete some goal. This is good. But it becomes ‘not good’ when we view Gods people at large as the primary ‘funders’ of the ‘big project’. This ‘projects’ a mindset into the people of God that is contrary to the function of the church. Moses, Paul and all the other biblical leaders were men with vision and destiny. Moses did ‘collect funds’ for certain godly purposes [the Tabernacle] while leading the people, but the primary thing they were doing, their ‘vision and destiny’ if you will, was bringing the people of God along a journey that led them to a place of self sufficiency/rule under the headship of God [Christ] that released them into a functioning society of people. You never see Paul or the other Apostles primarily relating to the people along the lines of ‘God has given me this vision, if you Galatians, Ephesians, etc. were simply obedient to fund it, then it would happen’ the vision was not some project or thing apart from their own function and growth. They were not following Paul’s leadership to accomplish something apart from them. What Paul [Moses] were doing was bringing them into the reality that God wants to express himself and who he is thru a people that bear his name. The fact that Israel [or the church] were being governed by God and representing him in the earth gave God ‘opportunities’ to act and show himself strong on their behalf. Society around them were not going to be influenced by the great things they were to build [Babel mindset] but they were to be influenced by who they were and their real relationship with God as a nation. So when we ‘see’ the church as ‘this visible 501c3 organization’ and the people as ‘taxpayers’ [tithers] to the projects and goals of the organization, this causes both the Pastors and the people to fall into roles that are not the primary expression of what God really wants. The people are faced, week after week, month after month, year after year, with leadership saying ‘you are not obedient enough in the area of raising funds’ and the primary challenge to the average saint in the pew is ‘I will give more diligently this time’ and his whole function is measured by this rule. Then leadership reinforces the ‘scriptural mandate’ of this dynamic by appealing to the few areas in Paul’s writings that speak on giving. Though Paul was not primarily dealing with it in the same way. We truly ‘see’ the function of the motivated minister to set goals and somehow inspire people to fund these well meaning goals. This is a very small part of what New Testament leadership was doing. In the very verses we use to justify ‘giving on Sunday’ in a legalistic way, Paul actually says ‘take up the collection before I get there [Corinth] because when I get there we have real important things to do, I don’t want to waste time dealing with the money stuff [1 Corinthians 16]’ so we take these verses that are teaching the small role that finances play in the functioning of the church [to support laboring elders/Pastors and to meet the needs of the less fortunate] and we turn these verses around and teach them in a way that giving becomes thee number 1 measurement of a persons faith. We give the mindset to the average believer that his main function is to ‘attend church and give money’ and he measures his faithfulness this way. And he is taught ‘God highly values the ‘local church’ if he loves it so much that he gave his life for it, how much more should you value the local church in your life and give it priority’ But we seem to be telling the poor people that the ‘it/local church’ is the organization and all that surrounds its ‘corporations life’ [versus corporate life]. Yes God does love the 'local church’ [community of believers] and he did give his life for it [them and you!] and this is why you see biblical leadership so unfocused on some ‘vision to accomplish something’ and so focused on ‘seeing the people of God come to maturity’. They were giving their lives for the thing of value, which were the people of God [the LOCAL CHURCH!] NOTE: This is why you can see Paul in prison, writing letters to the churches and being totally fulfilled while doing this. His purpose was not to be in such a ‘state’ of outward self sufficiency and having all the money to accomplish some goal, he was actually doing the purpose of God by building the church, even though his outward man [and all of its expressions] were ‘passing away’. NOTE: the materialistic mindset in the church, along with the confusion on what [who] the church is, causes us to be unable to grasp how Paul could be ‘fulfilled’ even though he was not ‘building’ a ‘ministry or organization’. Paul was the one who said ‘we look not at the things which are seen, but unseen’ also ‘Abraham believed that the things that God said would come true’. We use these verses to bring us to a point of ‘making things seen’ or building outward stuff. In these verses God was defining faith as actually living in such a way that you knew after your departure that your ‘seed/lineage’ of spiritual children would ‘inherit’ the land. In essence ‘faith’ in these stories is the ability to die without actually seeing or possessing the physical promise in this life. The patriarchs are defined this way in Hebrews 11. They died as they blessed their offspring, believing that God would make a great ‘family/dynasty’ from their offspring. So Paul in prison is ‘unstoppable’ because he knew the Word of the Lord would have free course. He knew ‘by faith’ that these outward things were not really where the Kingdom was at. He knew by faith that after his death the ‘everlasting gospel’ would prevail and that by Gods grace his ‘spiritual seed’ would go on forever. That’s why I am writing about him now, and you are listening!
(451) I want to put some perspective and balance in here. Many people can’t understand my last entry, and how I also can preach so strongly against materialism. I believe there is a big difference between materialism and responsible Christians in the market place. I wont ‘re preach’ it all, but if you read all the stuff on this site you will see what I mean. I also do struggle with the fact that I have made other believers uncomfortable by my dealing with it, I ‘feel’ for the preachers and their kids, I know that because of certain aspects of my calling these individuals have experienced difficulty. I also believe preachers in general have let certain abuses go on for so long, that the Lord allowed our ‘voice’ to be so strong. I like the movie ‘a river runs thru it’ I catch it every now and then. At the end it shows one of the sons who outlived everyone else. His parents have died, his brother is gone and his wife as well. It shows him old and at the end of the journey. He is back home fly-fishing and he is all alone. It puts into perspective the un importance of material things. We will all depart some day, I hope and pray that I will have truly preached eternal things versus temporary stuff. I heard the late J Vernon Magee [sp?] say ‘Now that I have cancer, stuff doesn’t mean so much to me. I have a new reel for my fishing pole that I bought before I found out about the cancer. I was excited about it. Couldn’t wait to use it. Now I look at it and it doesn’t mean anything anymore’ [I am paraphrasing somewhat]. Jesus taught often about the brevity of life. He spoke of the rich man who pulled down his barns to build greater storehouses and have much goods for many days. The mindset of the rich man was his security was in things. Jesus said he would die that night and who then will get his stuff? His family will probably fight over it in probate court. Jesus often pointed to things like this. The Bible teaches financial responsibility and being involved in financial matters, its just Jesus put it all in perspective. I also have heard preachers say ‘the bible speaks more about money than salvation’ [or some other important subject] and the inference is ‘therefore lets make money our top priority’ well if you use this logic, the bible also speaks more on hell [judgment] than heaven, but that doesn’t mean God wants us all to go there! Well anyway I pray that if I outlive my family and friends and make it to a hundred, that if I find myself standing on the end of the North Jetty [Packery channel] that I will have done more then packed away ‘gobs of cash’. P.S. I haven’t been feeling well lately, not only the leg injury. I just saw the x-ray yesterday, one of the discs in my spine is almost completely gone. I was a little surprised to have seen it was really that bad. As of today I think I will have to retire with 25 years as a firefighter. I will be 45 next month, but I didn’t plan on retiring just yet. I really don’t look bad [I hope!] I mean I still look in shape and athletic, but the limp has been giving me away. I also tried to run and realized I cant anymore. I kinda felt a little depressed about that. If I knew that I wouldn’t run again I probably would have done as much as possible this last year. I would appreciate you guy’s prayers, thanks! NOTE: I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, I want to be real with you and get you to pray for me! Because of the way we ‘do church’ it is common to have scenarios where the main leader [Pastor] is overburdened with ‘the pressures of a big ministry/organization’ and the people see this and feel for him. In some more severe situations [where it looks like the Pastor is on the verge of a nervous breakdown!] you can develop really unhealthy environments where week after week the ‘stresses’ are so obvious, and the peoples main relationship with the Pastor is one of ‘I really am trying to do all I can to support you’ even if it means ‘enabling’ situations that are not good. This is an outgrowth of the unnatural environment of the position of ‘the Pastor’ that is not really seen in the New Testament. You did have scenarios of believers [leaders and others] who were struggling and needed prayer. But because there really was no office of a ‘Pastor’ that was the primary speaker [Sunday after Sunday for 30 years in a row] of the local church, therefore you didn’t develop these long scenarios of ‘enabling’ someone and also the co dependency that sometimes can surround the situation. To be sure not all Pastors fall into this category, but I wanted to show how the present model of the Local Church is more prone to allow these things to go on.
(453) I have recently been thinking on the shortness of life. Not only do the toys we have rust [like my 66 Mustang] but our bodies ‘die daily’. I feel sad for some of the teachings in the church that really are obviously wrong. I really don’t know what else I can do to bring to our attention the need to live above ‘stuff’. As I was just outside praying, not feeling too well, I thought of the time I heard it taught that when Jesus said ‘Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven where moth doth not corrupt, or thieves break thru and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also’. I know you guys are tired of hearing me, I am tired too. I really am not in ‘a rebuking’ mode at all right now. I am physically and emotionally drained and tired of the whole thing. It was taught once by the prosperity teaching that this meant ‘when you give by faith, you are actually building up an account in heaven [sort of like a bank book/ledger] and this is what it means to store up treasure in heaven. And then when you have built up a huge account, by faith you can make withdrawals on it here. Your faith is ‘causing the things that are not seen [the account in heaven] to manifest the into things that are seen’. I really feel at times I am at the end of my rope explaining these things. You will be surprised how many intelligent influential people cannot see this as wrong. Do I really need to tell you that this is obviously not what Jesus is teaching. Why do all my prophetic friends not deal with this? Why do you brothers/sisters not give me some help in trying to bring this thing back on track? I don’t think these types of interpretations are funny at all anymore. A lot of my prophetic/pastoral friends will ‘wince’ at stuff like this in private. But in public say things like ‘well, God is happy with all the people who have been won to the Lord thru all the money that the prosperity gospel has brought in’. Just give me some help guys, stuff like what I just showed you is taught en masse thru out this country today [and the world]. I do not want to be an alarmist, I just feel like we need to really build up treasure in heaven, lets not live for this world anymore.
(480) I watched a prophetic conference the other day. I liked it. The brother is a well known ‘Prophet’ in prophetic circles. He did make a statement that I disagree with. He said ‘put behind you all doctrine, theology and creeds and just come to me’. He said this more than once. I do understand that there are times where God says ‘I am God, don’t look to yourselves for help’ I see that there is merit at times in ‘putting all you have learned behind you’ but the overall idea of disregarding theology, doctrine and creeds as ‘old stuff’ is not really biblical. Paul did say ‘hold to the traditions that I have taught you’ it is a funny thing that Paul’s ‘tradition’ in this passage [go and look it up, I forget where it is right now- either 1st or 2nd Thessalonians] is the tradition of ‘getting a job’. He actually is teaching if someone is not working, then he is a troublemaker! The point is ‘all tradition’ is not wrong. Its only when the ‘traditions of men’ usurp the Word of God. This is what you see Jesus rebuking in the Gospels. He says ‘by your traditions you have made void the Word of God’. So anyway I just wanted to clarify that true Christianity doesn’t mean you leave your brain behind you. It does mean that faith in God, even when you don’t understand it, takes priority. The ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ was forbidden to Adam in the garden. This didn’t mean Adam had no wisdom or knowledge, to the contrary he was extremely intelligent. He named all living creatures off the ‘top of his head’. But not eating of the tree meant Adam was not to live his life based on his own moral criteria. His own ability to ‘think things out’. God would be his provider and sustainer. He had full access to the ‘tree of life’. The day Adam made the ‘knowledge of good and evil’ his standard, in that day he died! NOTE: Now look at something prophetic that is going to happen. I just remembered at the end of the above meeting, the Prophet shared a story about Elijah and the woman who was barren. I heard him share this a few times thru the meetings I have caught on God TV this month. The story emphasized ‘making room for the prophet’ at the end of these meetings. This GOOD, WELL MEANING brother is sharing this and saying how the people need to give money into the ‘prophetic’ in order to receive a blessing. This brother is Prophetic, no doubt. He is not a ‘crook’ or ‘fake’, I actually like him. The New Testament leaves NO ROOM for the receiving of money [whether offering/tithe/whatever] directly after the prophetic word. For some reason the early church abhorred doing this. The teaching from Christ about ‘freely you have received, freely give’ is really dealing with the ministry gifts deposited in the people. The earliest writings of the Apostles [early church] that we have today, apart from the bible are called the ‘Didache’ [the teaching of the Apostles]. Though this book is not scripture, it gives us insight into the way the believers dealt with certain things. In the Didache it says ‘if a prophet stays around for more than a few days and is charging money, he is a false prophet’. Now I personally am not that hard. The point is today’s environment of ‘professional minister’ especially as it relates to the prophetic, is not seen in scripture. Though the New Testament leaves room for the financial support of laboring elders [Leaders] it does not permit the direct asking for money right after prophesying. The instance of the guy in Acts, Simon, who thought he could ‘purchase the gift of God’ with money is strongly rebuked by Peter. This guys name later came to represent the abuse of money and Gods gifts and not rightfully dividing the two. The definition of this is called ‘Simony’. The whole point is the above Prophet is a truly gifted brother, he does not see that the direct asking for an offering, and appealing to people to ‘give into the prophets ministry’ is really not scriptural. Though you can use the story of Elijah and others who did get material needs met thru people, the overall teaching that has Prophets actually prophesying and then seeing this as ‘well, I used the gift to build the church, therefore I am worthy of my reward’ and then correlating giving directly into the ministry with ‘giving to God’ is something the first century church would not permit. I am not saying this brother is not a Prophet, or that he is not being used of God. I am saying the Prophets today need to re think what it means to be in ‘Prophetic ministry’ and to bring their gifts more in line with scripture. That is if you ‘didn’t leave doctrine and creeds and theology’ at the door when you came in! NOTE: I have been following the restoration process of Paul Cain. Paul was the Prophet I told you about earlier on this blog. Paul is an older man who is sick and also takes care of some family members who are sick. In following Paul’s restoration I saw how the Christians who are helping him thru this were trying to explain why they feel Paul should start ministering again. Even though others feel he should stay low for a while. One of the reasons was for salary. The team of Christians working with Paul explained that Paul’s only [main] source of income was his prophesying. Therefore he realistically needed to start ministering again. I use this as an example only. I love and pray for Paul Cain. The point is we ‘see’ our gifts as our source of income. This is no where to be found in the New Testament. Again, the actual teaching from JESUS CHRIST was ‘freely you have received, freely give’. The early Christians took this seriously. The teaching from Paul on ‘laborers being worthy of their hire’ was simply showing us that it is all right to support, voluntarily, those who are giving themselves to the word and prayer. There is a big difference between the biblical support of elders [ministers] and seeing our gifts as a means of financial gain. Peter wrote in his letter for elders to not go into ministry for ‘filthy lucre’s sake’. So the idea of a prophetic gift bringing in money, right after the gift was used, is not good. The present church is so inundated with the prosperity gospel that she really doesn’t see or understand this principle yet. When we give, Jesus did say men would give back to us. But these verses must fit in with all the other ones you just saw me quote. Prophets should not ask for money after they prophesy, the New Testament has NO examples of this ever happening. And there is proof that the early church saw it as wrong. It is too common for the modern professional minister to apply ‘sowing into good soil/ giving to God’ to their specific ministry. Over 90 % of New Testament teaching on giving is actually giving to the poor. Meeting the real needs of people. In today’s environment, whether Christian TV or ‘pulpit ministry’ we constantly equate the believer’s faithfulness with giving to US. It is highly irresponsible for so many professional ministries/ministers to continue to do this. We need to redirect our appeal to the church at large and instruct them to give/sow into the needs of the world around us. It is a blatant misuse of scripture for the average believer to hear over and over again that ‘giving to God’ means giving to a ministry or minister. I have tried my best to explain this in the past [the store house being the actual people of God as opposed to the 501c3 church building] but I felt like we needed to be reminded of this.
(482) Last week I watched one of the most famous prosperity preachers do a conference on the west coast. I do not watch to be critical or look for faults. I feel sometimes the lord wants me to watch in order to learn whether or not there are true changes being made. As I watched I kind of felt a little sorry for the brother [for real!] it seemed as if there ministry has taken a toll over these last few years. Many on the west coast have become familiar with the extreme errors of this teaching, and it did look like it was taking a toll. I don’t rejoice over this. I enjoyed the praise and worship part of the meetings. I really felt the presence of God. I also was glad to hear the grandson [?] of the main preacher of this movement. He really preached well and had a greater passion for truth than the leaders of the movement. I watched just long enough to see what the founder of this group [from the Forth Worth area] was going to preach on. There have been times where I have seen brothers truly repent of the more extreme teachings from this camp. Sad to say the brother preached from Corinthians and took a small portion of Paul’s teaching on ‘whoever sows will reap’ and sure enough the whole focus was on getting money. Despite the fact that Paul will later teach Timothy [1st Timothy 6] that in the last days teachers will arise and teach that ‘gain is godliness’ from such turn away. It’s like the most obvious warnings from scripture are consistently overlooked, while we spend entire conferences teaching the side verses of scripture without truly getting to the heart of the matter. I do pray that the next generation coming up will return back to the pure exposition of the Word of God. NOTE: People don’t seem to understand the difficulty of turning from a way you have been taught your whole life and repenting back to the truth. Even when people are faced with indisputable fact, they still will not repent. This is something in man. The root of it is pride. We are all susceptible to this. When Jesus confronted the 1st century religious mind, he did it with absolute undeniable truth. No one could say he was wrong or had a fault. In today’s prophetic environment, you can always find fault with the Prophet. This tends to be the reason why the religious mind today is less open for correction. I have found it utterly amazing that intelligent leaders still dispute the fact that Jesus lived a simple itinerant lifestyle. Some will absolutely teach that Jesus actually was one of the richest men of his day. That he owned an expensive house and bought the most expensive stuff of the day. They will teach that his treasury was so wealthy that he and the disciples were the highest paid ministers of the day. Despite the absolute plain historical, biblical truth to the contrary. The deceitfulness in mans heart is a very hard obstacle to overcome. I do not take it personal when people don’t repent. Paul did instruct us to leave them alone after the 3rd warning of heresy. I still will warn the new believers to avoid it, though I have given up on trying to correct those who have seen the plain error of their doctrine and refuse to repent.
(492) I have a book I was going to read sitting here in my study [I have a few that I have picked up these last few years and haven’t gotten to them yet]. It deals with the story of a large ministry [not in the U.S.] and how by faith the Lord has given them millions of dollars and has truly opened up many doors thru finances for this good work. In today’s environment we often see God thru the lens of ‘you can give me the finances to do this great work’. Many times these are sincere believers whom God does really work in this way on their behalf. We also hear often ‘do you need a financial miracle’ or ‘who needs healing in their finances’ [though Jesus never healed anyone from ‘financial sickness!’] The point is God definitely works in all areas of life. He is our provider and source, the God who is more than enough. It’s just that we really don’t treat him that way. Let me show you what I mean. When the apostle Paul said ‘I have learned in whatever state I am [Texas?] to be content. I have learned to be in need and to be full. I can do all things thru Christ who strengthens me’ we often see ‘doing all things’ as the ‘full’ part. We very rarely see it as the ‘being in need’ part. Because God is truly our source, we don’t always need the financial miracle to see something happen. We actually need him! He has done and will do tremendous things with simple people who do not have lots of money. ‘Well brother how can we reach the world unless we all have lots of money’? Well there goes your lack of faith! Jesus said the gospel is so powerful in the hearts and lips of his people, that the world can and has been revolutionized thru the simple saints thru out the ages. Jesus has truly taken ‘the few loaves and fishes’ and has MULTIPLIED the seed to reach the multitudes. We would have been praying ‘Lord, before we go to the 5,000 people we need to raise lots of money for food. It wouldn’t be responsible for us to have all these people come out and hear you preach until we have the great supply in our hands’ We would have been asking Jesus to give us the actual resources ahead of time in order to ‘reach/feed’ the people. We need a financial miracle Jesus! As a matter of fact that is what the disciples tell him when he says ‘have the people sit down and we will feed them’. The disciples are like ‘we don’t have enough money in the treasury to do this [by the way this also reproves those who teach that the treasury/bag that Jesus and the disciples had was really rich. The disciple in this story plainly states that they didn’t have the treasury money to cover it!] Jesus doesn’t give them a financial miracle in the way they expected. What he does do is he takes the very limited resources of a little boys sack lunch and he multiplies it as they give it away. We don’t really need to be ‘healed financially’ we need to begin giving ourselves away, Jesus will multiply our ‘seed/bread’ [the influence of our lives] when we do this.
(503) Isaiah 59- ‘Gods hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor his ear dull that it cannot hear. But our sins have separated us from God acting on our behalf’ one of the themes we will see in this chapter is God wanting us to speak truth and to stand for justice. He will reprove the times we lie and don’t really speak and walk in truth. There are so many issues with the American church at this season. I saw Benny Hinn speaking to a meeting of Pastors. I have sent Benny my books and stuff. I was encouraged to hear him reprove those who teach that Job [in the bible] was making a bad confession and God recorded his words, but didn’t justify Jobs confession. Those of you in the ‘know’ remember how it was [and still is!] taught that Job went thru trials because of a bad confession, and in essence God doesn’t want us reading Job and believing Jobs confession. You just read Job to see what not to do! I have dealt with this error before. But I was glad to see Benny hit on it in such a public way. This is an example of God telling us ‘Church, I love you guys. I have given you time to overcome this. You can’t keep speaking ‘lies’ and think I am going to move in your country [The U.S.]’ So God is dealing with us in mercy, but he is telling all of us ‘I really want to move on your behalf, you must humble yourselves and repent. I want justice, I want truth. You need mercy and love, but they cannot trump my desire for truth and righteous justice’. ‘None calleth for justice, none speak truth. They trust in vanity and speak lies’ There has been a stubbornness on certain parts of the American church that have consistently ‘trusted fake things, and continue to speak fake things’ we are all guilty of this, Gods agenda is for us to seek him and return to a pure biblical gospel. I am so excited about this younger generation. I have been watching the ‘call’ or the ‘cause’. Basically a group of young people on fire for Jesus. The I.H.O.P. meetings with Mike Bickle. The ‘merchant band’ all of these radical kids seeking the face of God. They put me to shame. And in the midst of this there exists an older generation who insist on ‘speaking lies, trusting in vanity’ the older generation needs to listen to these ‘babes’, out of their mouths God is speaking. They sing things like ‘don’t sell out for the stuff of this world’. ‘They hatch eggs, whoever eats their eggs dies. They will not continue to cover themselves with their teachings’ when we steer off course of Christ’s main message, the things we produce [books, blogs, tapes, etc.] only hurt others. We can’t keep ‘feeding rotten eggs’ to Gods kids. These movements who have veered away from the gospel will not continue to ‘cover themselves’ [hide within their groups] because God is calling for repentance and justice. ‘They have made crooked paths, those who go in them will not have peace’ when teachers establish wrong doctrines and teachings in the church, they become ‘crooked paths’ paths that many will go down. It is very hard to undo this. Jesus actually said ‘let them go down these paths. They will all fall into a ditch’ sometimes God allows the wrong paths to exist until both the leaders and followers see the error of their way. I remember reading how Jim Bakker saw how wrong he was. He started reading the gospels while in prison and couldn’t believe that he was a money preacher who taught that Jesus was rich. After reading the gospels he saw how wrong he was. God is going to take those who have made ‘crooked paths’ and he will use them to go straight again.
NOTE: Let me interject a reminder here. All Christians, especially those who feel the Lord has called them to the prophetic ministry, are required to confront [in love] obvious abuses and error in the church. One of the most difficult things about this calling is the majority of people you are called to speak into will reject you at the start. The gift brings with it an ‘inner mechanism’ that causes the messenger to be rejected initially. Why? Be cause to confront and undo mindsets that have existed in certain areas of the people of God is ‘tumultuous’. You go thru a season where you ‘pluck up, root out, tear down’ and then you get to the place where you ‘build and strengthen’ again. I look at these contractors who buy nice homes on prime lots of real estate. They go in and begin to dismantle the house! Even though it is an ‘OK’ structure, it has provided shelter for many years. Lots of kids grew up in that house. Man, what are you doing coming against all my memories! Well the contractor realizes that it served a purpose, but the time has come to realize that the structure is insufficient for the next level of community growth. So I see the temptation for those whom the Lord has called to prophetic things, to go thru this type of rejection. And when these people go thru difficulty it is own natural to say ‘Physician, heal thyself’ those whom the message is directed will have a tendency to say ‘see, that Isaiah fellow, he thought he was such a voice for God, look at him now’ [or Jeremiah or any of the other prophets]. So as we continue thru Isaiah we will eventually get to the ‘building up process’ but first God has to make sure all the debris is truly removed before the next structure can go up. Remember what I said about the prophecy given to the Virgin Mary ‘a sword shall pierce thru your own heart also, that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed’ God allows prophetic people to be ‘pierced’ so he can see the response of those around them. Note; I have found myself at times thinking ‘If I could just overcome this obstacle, if I didn’t have to deal with these difficulties at this time, I would be so much more effective’ I have to remind myself that ‘when I am weak, then God can be glorified thru me’ natural thinking says ‘why the Cross?’ then you learn to say ‘nevertheless not my will, but yours be done’ amen!
‘Therefore we behold obscurity’ I have found one of the worst judgments in my own life is when I ‘behold obscurity’. When I am in sin in some area of my life, Gods mercy is always there, but there is a real sense of the absence of Gods presence. Jesus said ‘the pure in heart see God’ when our hearts are not pure, we ‘see obscurity’. ‘We roar like bears, and mourn like doves’ Have you ever experienced extreme highs and lows. Days where you were ‘roaring like a bear’ and the next day ‘crying like a dove’. When our hearts are not right, these ups and downs are inevitable. Sometimes we even experience this when our hearts are right, but in this context sin is the main reason for it. ‘our transgressions are with us and our iniquities, we know them’ transgressions are the actual breaking of Gods law, the ‘act of sin’ if you will. The ‘iniquity’ is that tendency in us to gravitate towards certain sins. That ‘bent’ that keeps turning us in the wrong direction. You say ‘why brother, I have no idea what you are talking about’. You’re lying! Here God says ‘we know them’. ‘Truth faileth and he that departs from error makes himself a target’ I find it interesting, when people repent from ‘wrong paths’ they then become the target of those who are still on the path! Why? Because if you can do it, make the change, go to the next level. Then there is no more excuse for those who are not changing. This is at the heart of murder and hatred. The bible says ‘for this reason Cain slew Able, because his own works were wicked and his brothers righteous’ Envy and pride are horrible things. They cause us to want the failure of others who are succeeding. We really don’t want ‘that other church to succeed’ in our hearts. If they get 6 thousand people to attend, then all my excuses of why I only have so many attend my church are no longer valid. Those who start going on the better paths than we have been on become a target! ‘And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, those that turn away from transgression in Jacob’ God will come to those who ‘turn away from sin in Jacob’ like Paul says in the New Testament, it is not natural birth that counts. To simply be ‘Jacob’ [Israel] doesn’t cut it. You need to have ‘turned away from sin’ and accepted Gods sacrifice, Jesus! To those [Jew or Gentile] that ‘turn away from transgression’ [this means the actual act of disobedience!] God will reveal himself. ‘This is my promise to you, the word that I have put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth, nor out of the mouth of your seed, nor out of the mouth of your seeds seed, from this time forth and forever more’ Yesterday we had a good home meeting in Kingsville. One of the ‘sons’ of the fathers I used to preach to years ago in jail. The son is the ‘seed’ [offspring] of the original person from this family that I preached to. His son [the grandson] lives in Corpus and also is a part of what the Lord is doing. God promises that if you speak his words, they will remain in the mouths of ‘the children’s children’ God is always thinking generationaly /dynastically. Man thinks short term.
(509) Let me make a distinction here between ‘professional clergy/salary’ and New Testament giving. Jesus had a treasury [a collection of money/material goods to meet his needs and the disciples during the 3 year ministry of Christ]. During this time THEY WERE THE ONLY ‘STOREHOUSE’ OF GOD ON THE EARTH. [Apart from the actual one at the Temple, this is a transition stage if you will] They were the fledgling movement of Jesus in the beginning stage. Theologians usually point to Pentecost [Acts 2] as the birthing of the church; I have no real problem with that. Jesus said if you have a disagreement take it to the church [what church? He said this before Acts 2. And scripture speaks of ‘the church in the wilderness with Moses’ the point is you had groups of people following hard after God!] During the time of Christ’s earthly ministry people did voluntarily give of material goods to Jesus and the disciples, this is acceptable in Christian circles. You also had the Pharisees [hired clergy!] operating along a legalistic system of giving that came along with their religion [The Tithe!] so right from the start you are seeing a major difference in the way the New Testament church would function, as opposed to the religious law. During this time of giving to Jesus they simply received whatever was freely given. Sort of like the ‘freewill offerings’ taught in the Old Testament. You find Judas getting upset because the woman poured the expensive perfume on Jesus. Judas wanted to sell it because he was stealing from ‘the bag’ [of cash]. So during Jesus ministry we find a great example of how giving and receiving would be carried out in the church. Pretty simple. This style was keeping true to the actual teachings Jesus taught ‘give freely, freely you have received, freely give’ and all the other things Jesus taught. Later on in the Epistles and the book of Acts you see real examples of this being carried out. The only ‘tithers’ were the Jerusalem church. I have explained this before. Not real hard to see! But if you never ‘saw’ this before now, then it is hard. After God shows it to you, you begin to see it all thru out scripture. This leaves us today with the free grace and duty to give to those in need, which can include ‘laboring elders/pastors’ a major difference between ‘hired clergy’ or ‘using your gift to make money’. Jesus and the disciples used their gifts many times with out taking offerings. They did not see this as wrong. You often hear in today’s world ‘I am only asking you to give to me for your benefit’ now Paul does say this at times, the point is you have the average believer hearing this thru TV, when he ‘goes to church’ and the appeal is endless. There are many times where ministry was carried out with no appeals for an offering. Let’s be attentive to what God is saying. Paul did like me, he basically said to the Corinthians ‘I have not charged you for the gospel’ he also said ‘I had a right to receive support, but I chose to lay this right down’ it seems quite plain to me that it is very scriptural for lots of ‘ministers’ to decide to take this route. Some do [not just me] but we often don’t leave this option on the table when training young men to be Pastors. We teach a form of giving that simply looks at the basic need for upkeep of the building, paying salary and stuff like this. In this environment you can’t really teach it the way I just did. But then you have the rise of ‘home/cell’ churches. The ‘emerging churches’ and all types of free flowing styles of Christians getting together and sharing their faith. Many of these movements do not take money at all, except maybe for the meeting of the real needs of people around them. As you can imagine this can cause a type of insecurity to rise up in the hired clergy. The Pharisees said ‘If Jesus keeps doing his stuff, we will lose our position and place in society’. There is a real fear when someone sees the possibility of ‘loosing his job’. So the old time clergy will fight against this more legitimate expression of ‘church’ by saying ‘they are not a church’. And then you have all the problems you have seen me write about up until now! So in grace give to support the work of God, there definitely are good ‘churches’ and Pastors doing good works. Use discernment, go with Gods leading. Give freely. Pastors, some of you can take Paul’s example and ‘do it for free’. Some already do! NOTE; I have heard it taught like this ‘well, if people get offended and think churches/ministries are asking for too much money, then let them get offended. I am doing it for their own good’. Paul actually said one of the reasons why he didn’t take money from the Corinthians was so people couldn’t use the ‘money excuse’ against him. Paul’s attitude wasn’t ‘well, if they get offended, let them’ Paul said ‘I will go out of my way to not offend people, or give them excuses to speak against the gospel’ so much of today’s ‘offense’ that is given because of the churches money focus is a bad thing. Christians are responsible to remove any barriers that the world has. Even if we a ‘right’ to the offering, sometimes you lay that ‘right’ down for the sake of the gospel.
(510) I read a book years ago on ‘church planting’. It was a good book. I remember one of the stories how a brother came to preach a series of meetings in some church. During the week of meetings they collected thousands of dollars. The type of teaching focused on all the scriptures on ‘giving to get’. After the week was over the ‘evangelist’ took the Pastor and their wives to a jewelry store. The Evangelist bought his wife a diamond [or some other jewelry?] and spent all the money on it. He sincerely told the Pastor ‘this is the reward for my service to God’. Because of the tremendous lack of balance in today’s church, stuff like this happens. I do not see this above brother as a ‘fake’ or false prophet [you might!] I see him as a victim [willingly] of the wrong focus and understanding of all we have taught these past few years. I do wonder what they think when they read 1st Timothy 6, or the verses on ‘watch out for the love of money’ or Peters words on ‘elders, take oversight of Gods flock, not for the sake of filthy money, but out of a pure heart’. They seem to think the other verses on Gods provisions trump these verses. It just isn’t so. We do have a long way to go.
(515) I want to challenge you guys. I have spoken a lot on this blog on your responsibility to ‘bring the Kingdom’ wherever you go. Remember, because we have access to God [Jacobs ladder/the Cross] wherever we go we are ‘setting up that ladder’ [bringing an atmosphere where God and man meet]. I have also shown you how God commands us all to go into the world and preach the gospel. Many times we spend way too much time trying to figure out ‘how will I fund it, where will the money come from’ well I hate to say this, but it comes from YOU! What! Show me scripture! Well just a reminder ‘he that is not working, let him get a job so HE CAN HAVE TO GIVE TO THOSE IN NEED’ ‘See a brother in need. Feed him’ ‘give to him that asketh of thee’ ‘how can you say you love God, who you don’t see. When you don’t meet the real needs of your brothers, who you do see’. Now, for sure there are verses where Paul asks for others to give financially into the work. I am not saying there is no biblical authority for doing this. I am saying God does expect all believers to share of their own time and resources to spread the Kingdom. You don’t get off the hook just because you gave into the church offering basket! I want to exhort you today to give yourself away somehow for the kingdom. If all you do is sit around and listen to talk radio, or read the papers and are inundated with how the poor and hurting are such a drain on society, you will get a critical spirit. If you begin touching the lost you will see them as real friends and people. Don’t try and figure out how you will fund your ministry, give yourself away instead!
(521) Was listening to T.D. Jakes the other day. He was preaching on empowering people for the next level. He did share good points. One of the examples was ‘you need people to accomplish something. You can’t do it by yourself. You might be able to make a pound cake, but if you are going to run Sara Lee, you need help’. A good point, scripture shows us how even Moses taught delegated authority. Jesus was the Master at it! My teaching has come against the prevailing mindset in the modern church that says ‘you really can’t make a big impact on your own, you need to give money to us, and then you can reach the world’. Now if you said this, I am not talking about you. I have heard this many times over the years. My point is when we tell people ‘your pound cake doesn’t really matter, or have a big impact’ then we are violating the principle of Jesus when he taught us that our ‘little bit of loaves and fishes’ matters. I know bro. Jakes would agree, he was teaching right on the principle of business that he was sharing. I just wanted to show you how your little bit does matter. Jesus delegated all of us to do our little bit. True delegation empowers everyone. In today’s world we make appeals to people based on money ‘give your money and you will have a reward in all the ministries you support’. There is some truth to this, but Jesus really didn’t teach us that we could ‘witness’ vicariously. Or ‘touch the world vicariously’ he actually told us to GO. So to view the principle of partnering in a way that seems to let the people think if they give money they are off the hook, isn’t a viable biblical alternative. At the judgment he says ‘when I was hungry and thirsty and in jail you didn’t come to me’ he doesn’t say ‘you didn’t support financially the programs that were doing it’. So, go ahead and make your pound cake, you would be surprised how far it can go!
(529) The other week I took some homeless friends to the church I attend, as well as to a ‘tent church’ that had around a hundred homeless people show up. My intent in telling this is not to condemn any particular style of church. I want to share the reaction/way my friends saw things. In my church the service was focused on tithing. The church recently built a big building [seats around 3 thousand] and it just so happened that this Sunday the message was on tithing. My friends also saw in the church pamphlet that around 8 million was raised from the 10 million needed for the building campaign. Now all of these scenarios play out all across the world on a regular basis. There are well meaning and good intended brothers/churches that find them selves in these scenarios often. My friends liked the church, I was happy to have them see it for the first time. I was not critical nor did I critique the tithing message. My friends later made comments about how the money could be used to house and feed poor people. And they simply saw the other things that the money could be used for, they were seeing thru their world. Later at the tent church many destitute people came. They all had church and ate donated chili dogs. More of a street ministry. Over the years of teaching on church and trying to change the mindset of believers, I have run across well meaning believers who question ‘well brother, where are all the believers going to meet? If you want to reach 20 thousand people, you will need a 20 thousand seat auditorium!’ This is why I am trying to steer us more towards the New Testament mindset. It is all too common to truly reach between 1 to 5 thousand people. To then see growing as expanding in the size of the meeting place, and then the believers see the next level thru the eyes of ‘bring in the money so the rest of the people can be reached’. All well intended, but it lacks the focus of New Testament evangelism. Paul and all the other first century Apostles and believers practiced a type of ‘church growth’ that simply said ‘preach the gospel, allow all the people in the cities to spread the word to all the other people. Meet in your homes, break bread, share the great message of redemption. Send people out to other places as God leads’ [Acts 13- Paul from Antioch] and keep growing along the lines of spreading a revolutionary message about Christ. This New Testament mindset never appealed for the Galatians or Ephesians or any other city of believers to get into building campaigns to reach the rest of the harvest field. This mindset also allows for the rapid growth of the gospel to go forth. It is empowering all Christians to do their part. You see your responsibility more along the lines of spreading the gospel, than along the lines of raising money. I do believe and understand that their truly are good guys [Pastors] and others who are advancing along the lines of mega churches. And it is hard to write entries like this. I just wanted you to see the perspective of my homeless friends, and also how the contemporary church sees evangelism along the lines of ‘I need so many members in order to have the funds needed to go to the next level’. This mindset sees the amount of people that need to come to church and give so much for the organization to grow. It can become very limited in its appeal to the Sunday church goer. They can begin to see themselves solely along the lines of ‘We need to be faithful to raise so much money’ they begin to see their main measure of faithfulness and sacrifice along these lines. The New Testament believers were seeing faithfulness in different ways. There were appeals to help Paul go to the next city to preach, and appeals to help the needy, but they weren’t seeing the appeals that are common today. Paul wasn’t asking ‘we need to raise lots of money to go to Galatia and build a church’ or to fund a huge ministry to reach Galatia. They were simply needing the money to survive and get their bodies to the next city in order to preach the word. This is real people evangelism, all the people seeing their main responsibility as being involved, not giving money. Well I don’t mean to offend in these entries, I pray for the success of all of us [I really do!] I just wanted to share some input. I also at times feel bad for the young Pastors who can get in over their heads financially. They are doing it for the most part out of a true love of God. I feel they put themselves at times under great financial strain because they see it as what God wants. It might be at certain times, but it also is an out growth of seeing ‘church’ as having the building big enough for everyone to attend. Sometimes God wants the growth to go outward. You didn’t see the Ephesians or other New Testament churches finding places big enough where they could all get together. They grew along the lines of more people meeting across the cities and being a part of one family of believers in the city. No need for one place to all meet. Say if you had 50 thousand in a city turn to Christ. I know some mega churches [Paul Yongi Cho-Korea] do try to simply build bigger places, as well as home church growth. But the New Testament mindset was not seeing it at all along these lines. They were spreading a radical revolutionary message in the hearts of people. This allowed for the people themselves to run with the message. NOTE; I usually don’t give examples that ‘hit this close to home’. I want the church I mentioned above to succeed. Those of you in the Corpus area that read this blog and attend this church, I want you to do all you can to give and support the church. If you are not giving money in other well established Christian avenues on a regular basis, then give all you can to help the church you go to! Give 10 % or more! Our goal is to see the overall transition of Gods people from the normal view of church, back to a radical 1st century view. It is common in revolutionaries to go overboard [I have!] and then want to see the ‘old church model’ fail. This is not what God wants. Don’t take entries like this and then wait for your view to win while the other guy fails. This is not Christian! So to all the local brothers who read this, support the church financially as much as possible, also begin spreading the Kingdom as well.
(536) Isaiah 64 ‘Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou would come down, that the mountains might flow at thy presence’ There are pivotal times in our lives where we have done all the planning we could imagine. We have prayed, read the Word and done all the things that we thought were necessary to see God move. It is often at the end of all of our efforts that we get to a place where we see the futility of it all, apart from God! In the end, like Paul said, some water, some plant, but only God can cause it to grow! Have you seen the need for God to come down and move on your behalf? You’ve done everything else, might as well call on God and believe that he alone can do it. ‘As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causes the waters to boil’ WOW! Jesus said ‘I am come to set fire to the earth, how I wish it were already burning’ [my translation]. We will read in this chapter ‘God is a consuming fire’. Jesus understood the role he was to play. He knew it would end in violence and resurrection. He knew it would be revolutionary in nature. How can you expect to come to a group of people who truly believe in God, and then show them that they have fallen away from the true intent of God and then say ‘God sent me to tell you this’. The role of a Prophet is revolutionary by its very nature. It will ‘burn’ things, things that need to be burnt. Jesus knew the course he was on, he knew he was going to start a fire that would consume everything in its path, he said he wished it were already burning. ‘For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what you have prepared for those who wait for you’ Paul quotes this to the Corinthians. This is not really talking about the great ministries and things that we think, it can include that. But this is speaking of the unbelievable mystery of redemption thru Christ. The things that Angels desire to look into. The story of mans redemption and how God preplanned it before the world began is a tremendous mystery that no man can see unless God reveals it to him. Paul says ‘no man can say Jesus is Lord but by Gods Spirit’ Paul was not saying no one could ‘mouth’ it, he was saying no human understanding can grasp it apart from the revelation of God. ‘Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways’ God instituted things so his people would ‘remember him’. The Passover, the Lords Supper. Often time’s people remember him in these rituals, but forget him in ‘their ways’. This is the main rebuke Isaiah gives to Israel in this book. When religion digresses to a point of ritual, apart from righteous action [justice] then we are not remembering God in his ways. Because his ways are justice and mercy and caring for the downtrodden and oppressed. It is too easy today to associate Christianity with ‘conservatism’. I am neither liberal or conservative, but you will find I hold to beliefs in both of these camps. The danger of aligning Christiantiy with a political cause is then you begin to think the ‘cause’ is Christian. You can fight against the illegal alien, or be against ‘welfare’ and the people on it, and if taken to the extreme you begin to see Christianity thru a lens that says ‘we are moral preachers to a fallen society’ to a point where we no longer practice charity or justice for the oppressed. God says he wants us to remember him in ‘ritual’ as long as we also remember him in deed. ‘But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our good deeds are as filthy rags’ This verse has been a key verse in many of the revivalist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. They focused on mans inability to please God and be good. Later on the ‘Word of Faith/Prosperity movement’ brought out good points when they emphasized that we are now made the righteousness of God in Christ. The balance here is apart from God, we are absolutely unrighteous and unable to please God. In Christ we are ‘acceptable to God’. God sees us as totally righteous. The caveat is Paul will still refer to himself at times as ‘the worst of sinners’ even after his conversion. I see the balance like this; In God we are accepted and God sees his Sons righteousness as being imputed to us by faith. During our journey we are progressively being made actually righteous. We are being sanctified. There are obvious times in this walk where we totally fail God. We then confess and repent and continue the journey. The closer we get to God, the further we see how far we really are. So Paul [and us] can at times see how ‘we are the worst of sinners’ and at the same time thank God that he doesn’t view us that way! ‘Our iniquities like the wind have taken us away’ Jesus says in John 3 ‘those that are born of the Spirit are like the wind’ Paul also teaches that as we once were controlled by sin, now we are to be controlled by righteousness. The ‘wind’ can describe how either we are led by sin or by God. It is an unseen force that cause’s things to turn in a certain direction. You can look at the wind blowing a tree and say ‘wow, that tree is being bent severely’ and yet you know it is a result of the wind. Often times I have seen [and experienced!] the lifestyle of going down paths that you seem to have no control over, friends who are at the stage of being in the street, robbing everything they can get their hands on for the next fix, and then going off to prison. At these stages they are allowing sin to bend them like the wind. I have also seen these same guys later be controlled by the Spirit and serving God. Paul said the way to ‘not walk in the flesh’ is to ‘walk in the Spirit’. Religion tells people ‘don’t do this or that’ while Gods recovery program is ‘do what the Spirit is saying’. The secret to deliverance is for a person to actively give them selves over to God and to do his works. If you ‘walk in the Spirit, then you will not do the works of the flesh’. ‘Commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts will be established’ we need a breakthrough in obedience, in getting out and fulfilling Gods will. Most Christians who are running around from deliverance conference to deliverance conference are not yet ‘delivered’ because they haven’t yet fully given themselves into the active service of the Lord! ‘There is none that calls upon thy name, that stirs himself up to take hold of thee’ Why? Because our sins have separated us from God! In Hebrews it says ‘let us come boldly before the throne with a clear conscience’ it says this in context of the work of Christ in redemption. Because legally God refuses to hold our sins against us, therefore we have confidence. One of the most devastating things about sin is it separates us from God. It keeps us from coming to him. We feel guilty and unworthy and we can’t seem to get thru in prayer. God says ‘come’ and he will heal and forgive and restore. ‘But you are our father, we are the clay, you are the potter, we are the work of your hand. Don’t be really mad, don’t remember our sins, we are your people’ Isaiah uses the same ‘strategy’ as Moses ‘we are yours, we bare your name. For this reason please come and help us. It won’t look good on your record if your people don’t make it!’ We are asking God to help us because all we are is from him. He chose us and fashioned us with a specific destiny in mind. Tell God ‘you made me to do your will, move on my behalf Father, help me at this time. I have come to do thy will O God’ he often will ‘take away the first that he might establish the second’ [Hebrews]. Look for God to allow the first works of ministry to ‘dissolve’ as he transitions you into new things. Sometimes we hold onto our Ishmael’s because we truly have an affinity for them, yet God says ‘let go of Ishmael, I will still bless him, but the promise will be fulfilled in Isaac’. ‘Our holy and our beautiful house is burned up with fire’ interesting, we just read how ‘God is a consuming fire’ and how Jesus said ‘I have come to start a fire’. In the New Testament God transitioned his ‘holy place’ from the natural temple to the spiritual temple [the church/Body of Christ]. Thru out Israel’s history the destruction of the temple always represented Gods judgment. That was the significance of Jesus saying ‘destroy this temple and in 3 days I will raise it up’ this was offensive to the Jewish mind. It was like desecrating the flag [even though Jesus was speaking of his body, the Jews were offended because they took it to mean their temple]. The fact that Israel, as a nation, would not make the full transition into the New Covenant left them with their temple and sacrifices that God already said were an abomination to him [Hebrews]. Ultimately this would lead to the temples final destruction in A.D. 70 under Titus. The destruction of the temple again was Gods way of saying ‘I no longer dwell in temples made with hands, I no longer will accept animal sacrifices. I will dwell in those who accept the sacrifice of my son, and I will receive their sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, this is the temple I will build, the temple of the Body of Christ’.
(612) I got with some homeless friends yesterday. An older brother showed up. He is a friend of mine, I had met him a few years back. He is very strong on Jewish stuff. I actually refer to him as a ‘Messianic Gentile’. A Gentile Christian who is enamored with natural Israel. When we first met I let him know my feelings on this. Those of you who have read this site know what I mean. I am against the exalting of any natural heritage. But this brother has become a reader of my site and has told a mutual friend that he thinks I am ‘very deep’ in Christian understanding. To be honest I don’t see how prosperity guys and ‘Messianic Gentiles’ could even put up with me. But somehow they see things from our teaching that they like. That’s great! During the conversation my friend was telling everyone how Jesus birthday was today [the first day of Hanukah] and my other friend kinda told me he was announcing this to everyone. I told my friend that most Christians think Jesus wasn’t born in winter. You can look at the surroundings of the birth of Jesus in the gospels and it would seem like it wasn’t in winter. I am not dogmatic at all, I celebrate Christmas with a tree and all. I tried to avoid my Messianic friend. So he and another conservative right winger came and sat at my table [outdoor picnic tables] and started their talk. The conservative guy was also Messianic. He was telling the other guy how he went to the local Jewish meeting last night to light the candlestick and all. Then they started talking about some Christian/Jewish prophet who has this world wide ministry. Moved his family to Israel, looks like a true full blown rabbi and all. I really felt like puking up at this point, but I held it in. The conservative guy would actually ask a question and say ‘I am throwing this out on the table for anyone’s in put’ and as soon as I gave some in put, he would cut me off and say ‘lets stay on track here’. I realized I shouldn’t even get into it with these guys. I tried to ignore the whole deal, but hey they came to my table. After a while I spoke up, didn’t let the guy cut me off. Gave them about a ten minute reproof on some stuff. Quoted lots of scripture and all. Reproved the conservative guys teaching on ‘we create things with prophecy’ sort of a mixture of word of faith elements that he was espousing. I taught the biblical view of Old and New Testament prophecy. Also the ‘extra biblical view’ of Christians being little gods who have the power to create with words just like the ‘Big God’. I explained the reality of prophecy and also the reality of decreeing things as believers. But shot down the ‘we create things with our words like God does’ doctrine. Somehow the conservative Jewish guy had this understanding also. Well I rebuked them for a few minutes, didn’t mean to be mean. But you can only swallow so much of this stuff at one sitting. I have noticed I am becoming a little more known around this mission, kinda uncomfortable with it. A few guys have become avid readers of my stuff. Sometimes people will ask ‘oh, you run the radio ministry for ‘Corpus Outreach’ do you help the main speaker?’ They think someone else is doing the talking on the show. I tell them it’s me, they can’t believe some radio guy would be hanging out with homeless guys. I really like the anonymity, but I figured sooner or later people would become more familiar with what I do. I don’t hide the ministry stuff, I need for friends to listen to the show and read our stuff, I just try to avoid the persona of being ‘a preacher’. There are a few times where the persona comes in handy, like when I rebuked the brothers at the table! Did it in full biblical fashion, quoting scripture and all. Man, all you preachers would have liked me at that point!
(583) I just heard on the radio how a famous baseball manager left the Yankees for the Dodgers. The team he was with offered him 5 million a year, he got a better deal somewhere else. I do like the man, Joe Torre. It got me to thinking about some of the mindsets in the corporate/church world. I have heard it taught that if a C.E.O. of a ‘worldly’ business makes 100 million a year, how much more should Gods people value themselves. Now, Paul was the greatest writer of the first century. Though he wasn’t a great speaker, you had others who were [Apollos]. You had the most gifted people in the church in the first century. The writing of the Gospels and the teachings of Jesus have been called the greatest teachings ever. You also had the profession of speaking [rhetoric] and writing books for money that did exist at the time. Why didn’t Paul ‘value’ his letters and get a good price for them? Why didn’t they charge for their ‘value’ in speaking and philosophy? Others did. There was a built in teaching that Jesus left them ‘freely you have received, freely give’. Peter would write leaders in the first century and say ‘take oversight of Gods flock, not for money, but out of a pure heart’. The Old Testament prophets rebuked the shepherds of Israel’s day for ‘fleecing the sheep’, getting gain from the community of God. So, even though it was very possible for Paul and other gifted saints to have made a huge amount of money, they didn’t. We must see this, because the way it is taught today is Christians find the truth out about God blessing Abraham and making him wealthy. They see the many promises of God meeting our needs, and then they go off on this tangent to see nothing wrong about becoming rich off of the people, even though becoming rich off of the people is explicitly forbidden in scripture! If you look at Paul, he was living well below the means that his tremendous gift could have earned him. He is the most well read author today [along with the whole New Testament]. Many people made a good living this way, Paul didn’t. So don’t confuse the times where Paul does speak on contributing to laboring Elders, or where he praises a church [Philippians] for sending him money. He is simply talking about the basic needs being met in these scenarios, it is all too popular for the modern minister to appeal to Paul’s writings on money and then to develop a lifestyle of wealth that Paul himself would warn against [1st Timothy 6]. So today, we do have good men serving the Lord with an honest heart, many are doing good works for the Lord. Some do make a good salary, that’s really not wrong. What I am warning against is the mindset that seems to say ‘if a C.E.O. can make so much, why not Gods leaders’? Well I just showed you why, this is not my idea, it is scripture. That’s the problem, most brothers think an argument like this is simply ‘old tradition wanting to keep Gods people under’ or ‘that old religious spirit again, rearing it’s ugly head’. Sincere people don’t realize the error of this thinking, that’s why we need to be balanced in scripture. I am sure Paul knew the ‘money promises’ in scripture. I know Jesus knew the nature of God as our provider, the God of more than enough. Yet you will find both of them giving many warnings against materialistic mindsets. ‘A mans life doesn’t consist in the abundance of the things he possesses’ ‘it is easier for a camel to go thru the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven’ to the man who was experiencing great financial increase in his business ‘thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee, then who will get the things you lived for’ [his kids will fight over it with Anna Nicole Smith!] The point is You can go thru the many warnings in the New Testament against materialism and develop a doctrine that says ‘this is why Paul and the others ‘devalued’ their earnings potential’ they were explicitly taught that their spiritual gifts [whether preaching or writing bestsellers] were freely given to them, and it was on this basis that they didn’t ‘charge’ or require a salary for their services. I know this is hard to deal with if you are already ‘making a killing’ in the ministry, it’s something that we just cant get around. Don’t take all the verses where you find Paul speaking of receiving offerings, and then use them in a way that violates the warnings he gave to Timothy in 1st Timothy 6. You shall know the truth and it will set you free, but first it makes you miserable! NOTE; Over the years I have noticed a progression that takes place. Very often you will find good men who do not see what I just showed you, after seeing it they usually come back to balance [after being mad for a while!]. Others are so busy fighting their critics that they don’t even listen to any reproof in any area, these often ‘fall’ for the proof texts [individual verses] that say Jesus wore an expensive coat, Judas was stealing out of the ‘bag’ [and ‘the bag’ must have contained millions because Jesus didn’t notice the few thousand that Judas took] and then in total ignorance start teaching a doctrine that says Jesus was rich. Once people espouse views publicly, or teach them for many years to generations of people, it is almost impossible to bring them back from the brink of obvious heresy. They cant admit to themselves that what they thought all along was true revelation from God, was really total deception. It is hard to repent after you have put out tons of books and tapes on these things. My goal is to ‘catch’ the average Pastor before he spends 10-15 years teaching this stuff to his people. If a man is warned in the beginning then he can deal with it better. Why have so many fallen for this? Good men, Assemblies of God, Baptists, etc. I think one of the reasons is other ‘good men’ particularly Prophets, have not warned against it like they should have. Jesus flat out said ‘beware of covetousness’ Paul warns Timothy about this doctrine[1st Timothy 6]. Peter plainly tells the Elders of his day ‘don’t go into ministry with money in mind’. Leaders are plainly told that part of the cost is to warn against this stuff. So many didn’t warn, and many fell for it. So now what? Well at least those of you reading this can avoid this path, and as God directs use the tools you have to warn others. Take this whole blog site and send it to others you know who are dealing with this. Print sections that you think are relevant and send them out. My goal is not to build an organization [we have none!] or to get speaking engagements [I don’t do that] or to make money [we do not take offerings!] my goal is to get this thing back on track before some innocent Pastor spends 20 years wasting his life teaching this stuff! NOTE; so am I saying Christian leaders can’t be rich? No! But brother if Joe Torre can make 5 million or more, why not a believer? You can. It’s just a fact that God ordained that believers do not become rich thru the administration of their spiritual gift in a way that has other believers giving money as a direct result of the administration of the gift. The verses I showed you above do say this. Aren’t the natural gifts, say of a baseball manager, also God given? Yes. Then why can’t you get rich off of a spiritual gift, just like a natural ability, God is the giver of both. I don’t know, why don’t you ask God about it? The point is we get into natural thinking and we come to conclusions that violate scripture. Jesus said it’s very possible for the pursuit of wealth to sidetrack you [the deceitfulness of riches choke the word] Paul said those that desire to become rich have sidetracked from the faith [1st Timothy 6]. There are clear restrictions and warnings given, as well as the reality of God being able to supernaturally give millions of dollars. God is God, he has the right to be the God of abundance and also to put the restrictions in place that I just showed you. We simply need to obey all scripture. NOTE; Let me give you an example, years ago I was watching a famous prosperity teacher who still teaches many of the errors I have shown you. He said when he was younger he remembers looking up as a plane flew overhead, and with great joy and expectation said ‘you wait and see, someday I will own one of those’ he then went on to explain that that day has arrived. The years of faith and confession and ‘thinking on abundance’ finally produced this harvest. I can imagine a young Billy Graham, as a boy looking out over the harvest field of people, of reading where Jesus said ‘go into all the world and peach the gospel’ how he must have believed and confessed and ‘obsessed’ over reaching his world for Christ. A time would come where Billy would become known as the greatest evangelist of all time. What’s the difference? Billy also has brought in huge amounts of money over the years, much more than the brother who saw the obtaining of things as the goal. Billy lived and exemplified the words of Jesus ‘seek ye first the Kingdom and all these things [planes and money and stuff] will be added unto you’ one man made souls the priority, the other saw the ‘stuff’ as the goal and message. Now to be fair the prosperity guy does win souls to the Lord to a degree, but if you listen long enough the gospel of wealth is entrenched in his belief system. I share this to warn you guys, many good men do see financial miracles happen all the time. There are real stories of God doing these things with good men. When they happen we should rejoice, praise God and stick with the main message of the gospel. The deception comes in when a good man sees the true financial miracle and then falls into the trap of seeing God and his kingdom thru the lens of abundance and money and always believing and speaking and centering his life around finances. The reason Jesus and Paul said ‘beware’ is because you must BE WARE! If it wasn’t a dangerous and difficult balance to keep, then they wouldn’t have been so strong in their warnings!
(52) The other day I mentioned T.D.Jakes. Let me say that I have made it a habit to contact and send materials to key influential people in the Church over the years. I do this for the sake of the church at large. I recognize that if in some small way I can influence a Kingdom person for good, then they in turn will influence their larger circle of friends and the will of God will prevail I don’t want to ‘name drop’ here too much. I remember sending Benny Hinn [who I believe the Lord uses in a great way] some stuff on the prosperity message. It dealt with modern ministers becoming rich off of the people, and how this is not right. I was surprised to get a handwritten note from one of his staff Pastors and forwarding it on to Benny. A few weeks later some news organization did an expose [not the first one] on Benny Hinn and exposed the lucrative salary and wealth he has gotten thru the ministry. I feel that they gave special attention to the stuff I sent because they knew they were being looked at in a critical way by this organization, and there was no way I could have known this. So the prophetic timing of sending these materials was in some way a message from one brother to another as correction in love. I also have had a good friendship in writing with Jim Bakker. He has personally sent me hand written notes over the years. I want to simply stress that as believers God wants us to help each other walk in truth. I don’t want to just write critical exposes on false doctrine. This is what many modern apologists do. God wants us to personally correct and warn each other in love. The times where I have struggled with impatience is when I see brothers who blatantly teach false stuff to a wide range of people and they are not open to correction. NOTE: Benny started as an ordained Word of Faith minister, he actually walked away from this ‘style’ of ministry as the years went by. He saw many faults with the movement. He said ‘I do not hold to this message any longer’. I find this interesting.
(126) ‘Extending your voice beyond the parameter that God has ordained’. This is something that I have meditated on over the years. As ‘ministers’ have learned to ‘professionalize’ ministry, there comes with it a package of trying to ‘get the message out’ to as many people as possible. Is this in and of itself wrong? No! I do this as well. But the result is today you have national level ministries that should not be national! There are Billy Grahams and others who have a great message and testimony. Then you have a whole host of others who are at the ‘3rd’ grade level that are communicating to the entire community. A few years ago one of the most famous prosperity preachers started a church and extension ministry in our city. This was well after I already dealt with this movement on the radio. I kind of felt like some of the prosperity brothers wanted to ‘strike back’ against the strong stance that we took. I remember actually ‘prophesying’ on the radio that some of these brothers were here to see a more accurate picture of Christ and the church. I was a little harsh in that I mentioned the famous guys name, but I felt I needed to. He was famous for spreading the doctrine that Jesus and the disciples were rich. This was a blatant false teaching that spread like wildfire in certain circles. Well this ministry didn’t last very long in our town. Actually there were a couple of well know ‘prosperity’ churches in our area [one well known, the other did a lot of advertising]. They are gone now. This wasn’t my intent to ‘run them off’. But I felt like there needed to be a season where all of the ‘word of faith/prosperity’ churches needed to re-think and re-examine the whole message that they preach. It is unfortunate that many of these ministries have the concept down of getting lots of funds, and then they use these funds to extend there message ‘beyond the borders’ of their level of teaching. Again I don’t want to judge or sound condescending, but many of these movements are at a very immature level of understanding. It has done damage to the church at large to propagate a materialistic mindset in so many young believers. I pray the Lord would give us all grace and humility to limit our voices when he tells us to, and also allow him to ‘exalt our horn like the horn of a unicorn’ when he so desires.
(127) Let me model something for you guys. After the last entry [126] I ‘embarked’ on one of those difficult days. You know, you need to get things done and you feel like the whole day was wasted with difficulties and trials. Well this lasted until a few hours ago when I woke up. I don’t want to make too much out of my habit of getting up early, but its 3:45 am as I pen this and some days I feel I accomplish more from 2-8 am than the rest of the day! Also as an aside if you go to sleep at 8pm instead of 10, and then get up at 2 or 3 a.m. you can get a full day of study and prayer in before you go to work. You can maximize your output to that of 2 people by simply sacrificing 2 hours of ‘awake’ time from 8 to 10 pm. Not saying you all should do this, but use your time wisely and you will get much done. Now to the other stuff. The last few days I have heard a lot of stuff on ‘speaking your world into existence’ ‘there is a miracle in your mouth’ ‘life and death are in the power of the tongue’ and so on. All good ‘basic’ principles. Jesus did say ‘if you say to this mountain be cast into the sea, it will obey you’. The main problem with the way we apply these things is we seem to get a vision of how we want our life to be and then apply all these principles to making it happen. In the scenario I gave the other day when Jesus told Peter ‘I am going to Jerusalem to die’ you could see this as a bad confession. You could say ‘see Jesus got what he said’. While it is true he got what he said, yet his saying it isn’t why it happened! The will of God for your life is primarily revealed to you by God. Over your life he ‘speaks’ to you thru various means [bible, prophecy, direction from friends, etc.] As you learn to ‘die’ to your own dreams and visions [what I want mentality] you at the same time awaken to Gods greater purpose. This whole process is a result of hearing Gods word over your life. In essence you really don’t create your world by the words you speak, in as much as your ‘world’ being a result of the words that God speaks. Now the principle of a good confession is still true, but your focus now becomes ‘moving the mountains that stand in the way of Gods purpose’. When Jesus said to Peter ‘get thee behind me satan’ he was ‘speaking’ to the mountain of ‘self-will’ that always stands in the way of ‘Gods will’. Do you see what I am saying? This is the difference between ‘3rd grade’ and ‘university’ level. I encourage you today to take the stance of Job who I mentioned a few days ago. In the midst of your trials ‘pray for your friends’, that is make your confession one of unselfishness and the welfare of others, for as you do this you are ‘laying down your life for the gospel’! NOTE; If you remember in the temptation story of Jesus being tempted 40 days in the desert, after Jesus rebukes the devil scripture says ‘the devil departed from him for a season’ this indicating that Jesus knew he would have to confront him again before he completed his mission. This confrontation with Peter is the beginning of that confrontation. Jesus had to rise above the friendship and care of one of his closest disciples and make the difficult decision to recognize the voice of satan thru one of his closest friends. Over the years during our teaching on these issues I would often find Pastors un-willing to ‘see’ or even accept the fact that they might have been influenced in a wrong way thru the ‘word of faith/prosperity’ movement. It is difficult to admit and recognize that good people can make serious errors in judgment. The issue isn’t how ‘nice’ or ‘good’ the prosperity brothers are. The issue is whether or not the ‘voice’ that has come from this camp is legitimate! It’s hard to look at your ‘Peter’ and recognize that what they’re saying isn’t really from God. NOTE: It is interesting that there were set times or seasons of temptation in the life of Jesus. These seasons didn’t last forever. Though temptation is always a reality to deal with in the Christian life, yet there is a sense of ‘task completed’ in the area of severe trial and testing. A sense of ‘assignment completed’ in a way. Scripture says ‘affliction shall not rise up a second time. Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more’ this doesn’t mean you will never go thru hard times again, but a real sense that ‘this thing I have been going thru is finally over, God has brought forth what he wanted and now its time to move on’.
(130) NOTE: [this is the 3rd attempt of trying to write this entry. I tried 24 hours ago at work and the computer messed up and I lost it! I then decided to re write it and we had a big structure fire. I am now up at 2:06 am and giving it another shot, obviously this is for you! Whoever ‘you’ are!] Let me do an overview of some things. The last few weeks I have mentioned the ‘Word of Faith/Prosperity movement’. In the late 1800’s there was a preacher by the name of E.W.Kenyon. Brother Kenyon is the ‘father’ of the modern ‘word of faith’ movement. Brother Kenyon brought out some good things in his teaching. The 1800-1900s were right after the great awakenings in our country, many churches emphasized the sinfulness of man and mans need to confess his sins. Brother Kenyon took hold of the truths in scripture where we are to confess ‘Jesus as Lord’ instead of always confessing sin! The focus of much of this teaching emphasized the things we do to change our circumstances. If you ‘walk’ in the ‘sense realm’ [5 senses] you are walking by sight, but if you walk by faith you are not living by the senses. The way faith was taught was more like ‘you create your world by the things you speak’ and stuff like that. The focus was on ‘acting right’. If you say wrong things or ever admit to any problems or failure you are not in faith. While many of these things sound good, the result was you become self-conscious and begin seeing yourself as the person who is in charge of ‘changing your world’. If ‘your world’ is messed up, well it’s ‘YOUR’ fault. Biblical faith is based more on the ‘person’ of God. You are not trying to say and think positive all the time, in as much as you are depending on God even in the midst of your problems and failures. While many of the Word of Faith brothers focus on Paul’s teaching in Romans on ‘looking not at the things that are seen, but unseen’ they seem to forget that Abraham was the man of faith that these scriptures reference. Abraham did not say or do everything right! His life is not shown as someone who had this perfect impenetrable faith confession. He blew it many times. But he always had the ability to ‘look to the promise of God’ instead of his own failures. This type of faith works for you right now. You don’t see the answer in you becoming this ‘robot’ type person who can never say something wrong or even admit to failure. You simply tell God in the midst of your trials ‘I can’t make it, but you can!’ Now bother Kenyon had a background in the metaphysical cults/groups. These are the groups that believe you change reality thru thought and meditation [Christian science and others]. They believe that reality is not this material world, but what you say and think create ‘your world’. Many modern word of faith brothers don’t realize that the type of faith they espouse is a lot like these groups. I have bought and read many of brother Kenyon’s books over the years, also many of the modern word of faith brothers as well. There was always a sense of ‘mystical’ or ‘strange’ stuff I would run across. These brothers teach that Jesus was ‘born again’. They take the verse that says Jesus is the first begotten from the dead and they see this as ‘being born again’. Most Christians see this as meaning Jesus was the first to rise from the dead with a resurrection body. While others were raised from the dead before Jesus, they all died again. Not Jesus! So this is kind of a strange way to take scripture and ‘twist’ it into a form of faith that has Christian elements in it, but really doesn’t present the Christianity of the New Testament. I remember sharing with a person who was heavily into this movement. They were struggling financially for years. They were always living under this guilt of ‘creating this poverty world’ and constantly focusing on rebuking the devil and trying to ‘create a prosperous world’. I tried to show this person that they weren’t really living by simple faith and trust, but more like under a legalism that you are responsible for not being wealthy and you must do and say everything right or its your fault! I showed them 1st Timothy chapter 6. It says its O.K. to not be wealthy and not feel bad about it. I showed this person that faith was simply being able to thank God that all your needs [not wants!] are being met and if you live the rest of your life without becoming rich it’s O.K. ‘BE CONTENT WITH WHAT YOU HAVE, DON’T DESIRE TO BE RICH’ these are actual scriptures! Well this person finally saw the legalism and guilt that their understanding of faith brought upon them. They later sent me a message thru a mutual friend that said ‘tell John thank you, I am now free from the legalism that I was living under’. I do believe that brother Kenyon [and all the others] are Christians who mean well. But we need to recognize that some of our teaching has gotten off track and return to the biblical message. I know some of you are uncomfortable with these things, and I am sorry about this. But I felt it was important to drop this in. God bless! NOTE: Let me add that it was a matter of choosing to believe scripture over and above the teaching of this movement. Its fun to see yourself as rich and happy. Even spending your whole life just thinking about it can be addictive! This is what Jesus meant when he said ‘you can not serve God and money’. Affluence becomes ‘your God’ in many of these groups. I used to watch these weekend realtor infomercials because its fun to strategize and think ‘money thoughts’. In the past I have made money by investing in real estate. But there came a time where I laid that aside for a higher purpose. I am not saying you can’t be in real estate, or that you can’t be rich! Just don’t confuse biblical faith with a ‘get all you can’ mentality!
(181) I felt the Lord wants me to stay on this for a little while. Many sincere ‘word of faith/prosperity believers’ honestly believe that tradition has portrayed Jesus and the disciples as being poor, and they were really rich. These honest believers are already ‘swerving’ from the faith at this point without realizing it. This journey often leads them to a point where they ‘see’ the answer to world evangelism as being ‘if we return to the truth of Jesus being rich, and we become like him as scripture demands, then we will have enough money to finance the end time harvest’. So good Christians at this point don’t realize that they are violating all the other verses I went over in these last few entries. Deception is powerful. I do blame the preachers who continue on this road despite the fact that they have been reproved over and again. It’s difficult to realize you might have spent your life as a false prophet. Few make the break after achieving prominence! Jim Bakker made the break. I remember Jim saying in his book how after the Lord started showing him his faults, that it dawned on him that he was preaching for Christians to become rich. This became his message. A few months back I tuned in to one of the famous prosperity brothers as I was flipping thru the channels. I stopped, not to be critical! I haven’t tuned him in for years. I thought I would give it a shot, maybe he’s preaching the gospel now? You never know. I clicked my remote and could only leave it on for about a minute. He was talking all about money again! The sad thing is that many of the more sincere young believers, who grasp this teaching thinking it will promote end time evangelism, don’t realize that the fact that the message has become money in and of itself is hindering evangelism! If most of the money going to support the prosperity brothers [they do get a lot!] is simply propagating a self help ‘you can be rich’ infomercial type gospel, then this in and of itself is hindering the message. You could be feeding the poor, giving the money to ‘Billy Grahams’ or Larry Jones. The lust for wealth has taken the money and made ‘money’ its God. Jesus said out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. If all your talking and preaching is money, to the point where you doctrine officially has changed the image of Jesus Christ into a contemporary prosperity preacher, then you my friend are in very dangerous territory! I just felt like today there needed to be a ‘strong’ reproof for some of you on the edge of this stuff. Sort of like God saying ‘beware’. Jesus said to ‘BEWARE OF COVETOUSNESS, FOR A MANS LIFE CONSISTETH NOT IN THE ABUNDANCE OF THE THINGS THAT HE POSSESSES’ we sometimes need to ‘BE WARE’!
(182) Paul, in dealing with false teachers in the Church said ‘WHOSE MOUTHS MUST BE STOPPED, TEACHING THINGS THAT THEY OUGHT NOT FOR GAIN’ I know of good men who feel that addressing this issue head on is not walking in love. Over the years what bothered me was the lack of good preachers who refused to deal with these issues. Paul straight-out recognized that the teachers who were doing harm to the church had to be silenced. Not by passing some law, or thru physical restraint. But by dealing head on with the issue thru scripture! This is primarily the way ‘spiritual warfare’ is carried out. CASTING DOWN IMAGINATIONS AND EVERY HIGH THING THAT EXALTS ITSELF AGIANST THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, AND BRINGING INTO CAPTIVITY EVERY THOUGHT TO THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST It is the accurate presenting of Christ as well as the true knowing of him in Spirit that wars against the false images of him that are presented by the false prophets. There comes a time in the Christian preachers experience where he is commanded to reprove things, with all longsuffering. I hold out hope for the innocent victims of doctrines like this, but I sure am mad against the brothers whose ‘mouths must be stopped!’
(183) Now I want you to see how we are doing battle right now against mindsets. The verse I just showed you is scripture. THOSE THAT DESIRE TO BE RICH WILL FALL INTO A SNARE. Many believers do not realize that scripture commands us to not have this desire. If you were to tell them this, they would say ‘well you believe tradition, and I’ll believe the Word’ not realizing that this is ‘the Word’. But didn’t Jesus come to give us abundant life? Yes he did. And ‘abundant life’ is not measured by material wealth according to scripture! The heroes of the FAITH in Hebrews chapter 11 all had great faith. They were stoned, cut in half, as well as receiving the dead raised again and subduing kingdoms. Well I thought faith meant you always get the desired result. The desired result is the purpose of God. If that purpose happens to be a cross or martyrdom, then you fulfilled your purpose. The fulfilling of your purpose IS ABUNDANT LIFE! I know it takes some time for us to see these things, but for some of you it’s really time! Your SET TIME HAS COME in a way that you weren’t expecting! NOTE: One of the ways the enemy ‘steals’ from us is by convincing us into thinking that life consists ‘of the abundance of the things we possess’. In essence many people have been robbed from the ‘abundant life’ by living their lives for ‘things’ while they missed the true destiny of God.
(184) I am listening right now to a brother preaching a prosperity message. He is quoting James words on the power of the tongue. He is using this as an example to always maintain a positive confession [for wealth, victory, etc.] He is alluding to the fact that the ‘nay sayers’ who don’t believe we should all be rich are not using their ‘tongues’ right. Despite the fact that James will go on to say things like ‘God has chosen the poor of this world rich in faith’ ‘the rich despise you and use Gods name in vain’ ‘the rich will have a day of judgment where their riches will be of no value to them’. This brother really doesn’t see the abuse of the Word that this reasoning leads to. If James is teaching in this letter to maintain a positive ‘money confession’ then James himself is failing to live up to his own standard by what he is saying in the rest of the letter! This can be maddening at times! I like the brother who is sharing these things on TV right now, but we seriously need an overhaul in our understanding of scripture.
(215) A few years ago we had a ‘word of faith/prosperity church’ that used to broadcast from our city. I actually liked the program and would tune in from time to time. I remember one week they announced that they were going to have a rich Christian come in and share his faith and how money and riches do not interfere with serving God. The person who sponsored the program then did the interview with this wealthy believer. During the interview it ‘slipped out’ that this rich Christian tried to get out of doing the program because the day before they had some bad weather in their area of Texas and needed to take care of the cattle and couldn’t do the ministry thing. Well the announcer admitted that they twisted his arm to come. It reminded me of the parable of Jesus. How some people couldn’t attend the wedding supper because they had other priorities. Some had to ‘go see their land’ and couldn’t come. Even though this radio program intended to show how riches and other areas of wealth don’t hinder Gods work, they inadvertently showed the opposite. I also remember this broadcaster share at the time that God would never call someone to be a missionary and suffer on the foreign field if they didn’t want to do it. That in essence Gods will is to make us happy, and if we don’t feel we would be happy then God is not going to ask us to do things contrary to our desires. A few weeks later I had the privilege of hearing a missionary family give their testimony. They were on vacation from some 3rd world country and speaking in Corpus. The wife shared all the physical trials that they and their kids suffered. How the medical care is not good where they’re at. She went on and shared that even though in the natural her flesh says ‘why should I suffer’, that when she sees the results of souls saved that the sacrifice is worth it! It’s stuff like this that I have seen over the years that causes me to speak out on these issues.
(258) I am up early at my daughters ranch, walking outside and praying/prophesying. I do realize if someone hears me they will think I am crazy, it wont be the first time! It’s the Saturday right after Good Friday. I will celebrate Easter today. I am working tomorrow. Just remembered something, the religious leaders were always condemning Jesus for ‘working on the Sabbath’. In death he finally shut them up. Can you imagine what they would have said if he rose on the Sabbath day! Well I wanted to share this. There are at this season many Apostles and Prophets who are thoroughly mad at me. I realize why, let me explain. Over the years there have been many ‘cessationists’ that later on saw the truth of the gifts of the Spirit and the ‘5 fold’ ministry. A lot of these brothers cant grasp the fact that even though the Lord has used them to prophesy and even do great miracles [by the Spirit] that he is also tremendously ‘jealous’ for the gospel. God will even allow ‘cessationists’ [I am not one myself] to reprove the more extreme elements of the Charismatic/word of faith movements. It’s like the Prophets feel like ‘hey, I have spoken great words. The Lord has used me to do mighty deeds. Who do you think you are in bringing correction to me’? I don’t care who you are, to be frank about it. Neither does God! Don’t mean to be mean, God is no respecter of persons. When anyone permits really off the wall stuff to slip in to the church, and then not only refuses to ‘prophesy’ against it, but actually defends it. Then at this point God will raise up anybody who is willing to come against it. Listen to the radical contemporary Christian rock of our day. They say things like ‘don’t live for the stuff of this world’ ‘don’t fall for the American dream’. God is using these young kids to prophesy what I have been preaching. Look at the ‘emerging church’ today. The same thing. God is not concerned about defending your Apostolic/Prophetic ministry. If you guys [Prophets who know about us] refuse to speak truth, then it will come from another direction. I just wanted to speak this. The Prophetic/Apostolic pride is preventing the Word of the Lord to have free course.
(263) I want to be careful in sharing this. I had a friend who was either ordained or sponsored by a large regional church [Houston]. Over a period of years I taught this person some of the things I have shown you guys thru this blog. It was difficult for this person to choose scripture over the strong word of faith background that they had. This person even told me ‘well you and Paul [Apostle] can believe your way, I’LL believe mine’. They said this after I simply read 1st Timothy chapter 6 and showed them how the mindset of the New Testament was directly opposed to the peculiar style of belief they were taught. At one point this person began to forsake many of the doctrines they previously held. Then I could tell they went back to their old beliefs and were telling others that I was a false prophet. I do find it strange that someone who preaches a radical message of forsaking all for Christ is a false prophet, but many of the teachers this person listened to routinely distorted the image of Jesus and taught that Jesus and the disciples were some of the wealthiest people of the first century. A total and complete distortion of the New Testament record. Well I am sad to say this person died soon after this. They were in there 40’s and I was not glad to have heard this. I am not saying they died as a direct result of calling me a false prophet. I do believe God allows certain abuses to go on for so long [like the teachings of this movement] before he says ‘enough is enough’ [FOR A LONG TIME I HAVE HELD MY PEACE AND BEEN SILENT, NOW I WILL ROAR LIKE A WOMAN IN TRAVAIL-Isaiah] There was a time where the Lord ‘overlooked men’s ignorance’ and then says ‘I cant let this go on any longer’. I felt the Lord wanted me to share this. The primary job for the preacher of the gospel is to present Jesus, when you blatantly present ‘another Jesus’ [Galatians] God will eventually deal with you. NOTE: I find it amazing that one of these preachers used to regularly come on T.B.N. wearing very expensive jewelry and teach how Jesus was just like this. You can’t be so obviously wrong and spread this stuff to hundreds of thousands of young believers. It’s the devastating effect that these guys have on the new believers that is tragic. This brother eventually tried to start a branch ‘church’ in Corpus Christi. I actually called him out publicly, by name, on radio. I know this was strong, but the amount of blatant heresy had to be confronted. Their church, as far as I know, never made it. NOTE: In the early days I had Pastor friends who heard the stuff we were preaching and without fully realizing the heresy these guys were spreading, would defend them from the pulpit. This directly limited the intended growth of their churches. God is much more concerned with the accurate preaching of his Son, than with the size of a church. Many of these brothers would directly reject our message because they were believing for lots of money at the time. It’s OK to trust God for great resources, the problem was they were believing for the resources and defending the false teachers at the same time. You can believe God for money without defending heretics! NOTE: I remember showing some of these truths to a Pastor in Corpus. He then said ‘the bible speaks of God blessing us financially’ which of course is true. The inability of this leader to be able to distinguish between being blessed and ‘those that teach gain is godliness have swerved from the faith, avoid them’ is a problem in leadership today. The level of discernment is severely lacking.
(264) I saw a good message from Rick Warren, he was speaking at a Hillsong conference in Australia. He basically preached what I preach on money [of course not as strong!] He was quoting Jesus on ‘A MANS LIFE CONSISTS NOT IN THE ABUNDANCE OF THE THINGS THAT HE POSSESSES ’ It was interesting, as they panned thru the front row they showed a major prosperity preacher listening. The message was a great message, but you can tell it didn’t fit in with the usual fare. It’s like you could see that the prosperity crowd would not really ‘draw’ from this message. You kind of get ‘programmed’ to want to ‘receive stuff’ when your in the movement. When someone comes along and preaches the real gospel, it’s ‘strange’ to the prosperity brothers.
(314) CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP DOES NOT EXIST FOR THE PURPOSE OF SELF ADVANCEMENT AND UPWARD MOBLITY AT THE EXPENSE OF THE ‘LAITY’ we need to re think our function in this area. Paul and Jesus were not going around promoting what God was doing thru them, nor were they recruiting ‘financial partners’ to simply experience the Kingdom vicariously thru the gifted leader. They were depositing into the people and releasing them to function on their own. You find Paul and Jesus receiving financial support to send them and help them in their traveling ministry, but today’s mindset of the Leader being ‘sent’ all over the world while the saints sit back and wait to hear all the stories was not the normal mode. Paul did share what God was doing, don’t get me wrong. But today’s mindset sees the people as promoters of the leaders lifestyle and gift. This is why you have well meaning Ministry leaders who live in multi million dollar homes while the average supporter of the ministry lives in a $100,ooo dollar one [or rents an apartment]. It’s OK to live in a million dollar home, but it’s hard to appeal to supporters who are on fixed income, and to ask them to give out of their lack while doing this. The leaders have simply become victims of the western mindset of ministry that pools 90 % of the funds from the average person. While many of the leaders do use the majority of the funds for good things [Christian TV] they seem to justify a lifestyle of wealth and happiness at the expense of the sacrificial giver by their reading of the prosperity scriptures. ‘If God wants me to have wealth, then it’s OK’. They truly don’t see the rebukes in scripture to the ‘shepherds’ who have become wealthy at the expense of the sheep. Being wealthy is OK, you are not allowed to do it from the overall aggregate giving of many average income people. Scripture does forbid this in many places. NOTE: If the leaders salary is equal to those who are sending in support then it’s OK. If the leader is more frugal, a better investor and manages thru time to buy a million dollar home then that’s fine. I am speaking of those who run large ministries and their ‘salary’ including all the perks is in the millions. They often have their family members on the payroll at large salaries [500 thousand] while they really don’t do that much. These leaders look at the average CEO of a large company who makes millions more and justifies it this way. The reason you shouldn’t do this is because the non-profit ministry is really not ‘producing a product’ or commodity. The way they are bringing in millions [or billions] is thru outright giving. This is different than a for profit business. So the way to measure salary shouldn’t be thru the abusive CEO pay, but thru what I just showed you. Paul was reaching the entire known world of his day, pretty much single handedly. He found himself making tents at times to support himself. He traveled like the average person and lived in a lifestyle commensurate with those he was reaching. Jesus also. This is why you read Peter saying ‘desire to be an elder, not for filthy lucre’s sake, but of a ready mind’. This is why it is so important for us to have a good understanding of scripture. A friend of mine was attending a local word of faith church. And right from the start the preacher was confessing ‘you wait and see, my faith is going to produce a Cadillac by the end of this year’. Well this brother means well, he just doesn’t see all the things I just showed you. And when you try to correct this stuff, they will not listen! NOTE: What bugs the ‘hell’ out of me is the inability for prophetic people to see this. It’s like when you try to show a ‘prophet’ something he dismisses all the verses and warnings about this because he knows the other verses on prosperity. Heck [Ill’ be nice] I know them too!
(321) AFFLICTION SHALL NOT RISE UP A SECOND TIME, THOUGH I HAVE AFFLICTED THEE, I WILL AFFLICT THEE NO MORE Over the years I remember discussing many of these issues with national ministers who have come to Corpus. I remember at one event there were many ‘word of faith’ people who attended and would absolutely be against the stuff I preach. They really enjoyed the meeting that the minister spoke at. Afterward I had a chance to fellowship with him. I was honest with him about the issues that I deal with thru our ministry. He told me he could sense the ‘word of faith/prosperity’ type teachings as being a real stumbling block to what he felt the Lord was trying to do at the meeting. I have often seen examples of leaders who were beginning to see a lot of this stuff, and I could tell they didn’t know how to deal with it. I remember hearing one of the Fathers of the movement begin backtracking on stuff that he knew was wrong, it was a sense of trying to undo some of the stuff. It was a good effort, but way too late. He has since died. His son now heads up the ministry and I remember hearing his son [a major word of faith figure] telling the people ‘you have all these people going around afraid to make a bad confession, thinking any bad statement will change their world for the worse. It’s a little legalistic’ [in so many words]. Another very famous black prosperity guy said ‘you have those in the ‘ultra faith’ camps’ and he went on and tried to say that he wasn’t one of them. He is one of the WORST! But it was stuff like this that shows me there is a ‘behind the scenes’ reality of the falseness of this whole movement. Many key leaders know this. The ‘laity’ at large do not realize this! Don’t have faith in men and movements, they will fail. Trust in God! For many of you having to re evaluate all this again has been painful. God is saying deal with it this time around and AFFLICTION WILL NOT RISE UP A SECOND TIME.
(322) I am trying to hear God right now. Felt this is for someone. Many people use as a defense ‘well, I know it works brother [prosperity gospel] because it has turned my life around financially’. This very well might be true. Napoleon Hill, one of the original ‘think and grow rich’ teachers taught a highly successful method of making money. I have read and listened to a tape of him speak [I do have a classic cassette tape from him!] I used to be into studying lots of motivational stuff. The things Mr. Hill taught definitely worked. He taught a type of meditation that said if you think money thoughts all the time, eventually you create an atmosphere around you that brings in wealth. This does work. The only problem is many who try to ‘christianize’ this teaching are violating the teachings of Jesus who plainly said ‘seek first [think on] the Kingdom of God and all these other things [money and stuff] will be added unto you’. So the defense that says ‘well you got what you confessed, and I got what I confessed’ isn’t a real defense. You might well have gotten a lot of money by following this movement. Getting a lot of money is not the criteria you use to judge whether a thing is right or wrong. You judge it by Gods Word! NOTE: Felt like the Lord just freed someone from this movement. Sort of like the straw that broke the camels back. Those of you who are not familiar with Napoleon Hill, he was a very successful turn of the century [1800-1900] motivational teacher. Many in the Word of Faith movement know that Mr. Hill was cultic. Mr. Hill had ‘spirit guides’ who brought these ‘teachings’ and stuff to him. Though many of the prosperity brothers will deny that they have his influence in their teachings, they do have many disturbing aspects of it. E.W. Kenyon also has influenced the main Father of the word of faith movement, Kenneth Hagin. Brother Hagin often would deny this. I do think brother Hagin was a good man who became a victim of deception. I never studied any of these guys out of trying to find fault. I was really into this movement at one time and studied it as a student [I know this statement offends people. I don’t know how else I can say that the visions brother Hagin wrote about are false. Did he really see ‘Jesus’ in these visions where Jesus says ‘you can write your own ticket with God’ Brother Hagin might have thought it? He might have seen ‘someone’? But for me or any other ‘preacher’ to not be able to flatly say ‘this was not Jesus Christ’ is being unfaithful to our calling!] It bothers me to hear Pastors that I like quoting ‘I am creating an atmosphere of money around me with my words’. I feel for these guys, I know their headed down a path that is not good. NOTE: If you read this whole passage from Jesus he plainly teaches the disciples to ‘not think money thoughts’. He says ‘the gentiles are always THINKING/WORRYING about the things of life’. Food, Clothes and money/material goods. Jesus says the Christians aren’t supposed to have these things at the forefront of their thoughts and meditations. Now I do realize that Jesus isn’t teaching irresponsibility. It’s fine to invest and have a financial plan. But he is going against the strong prosperity teaching that causes material things to be meditated on all the time. I had a Pastor friend who would come out and defend these guys at the same time the Lord was trying to undo this stuff. He would make statements in defense that would make it hard to undo. I realize they now see a lot of this stuff. At the time they weren’t ‘studied up’ like I was in all of the verses and stuff. To be frank about it, I work full time, do a lot of actual charity work on the streets, don’t take a salary [or even offerings!] and these brothers are like ‘we didn’t have time to study these verses like you’ What! You guys are in ‘full time ministry’ your main job is TO STUDY. Don’t want to be mean, but give me a break. Also if you use the argument that ‘you got what you confessed, and I got what I confessed’ look at Paul. He preached directly against this doctrine [1st Timothy 6] he was not wealthy at all. He suffered a lot. It would be easy to say Paul got what he confessed. The point is Christianity is not about ‘thinking money thoughts’ all the time. Creating some type of ‘financial vacuum’ around yourself. It’s giving your life for eternal rewards. I heard a Pastor say he was being reproved by someone on the dangers of the prosperity gospel, and later the person needed money for bus fare. Therefore the reproof must have been wrong because this person didn’t have money. I guess you could have said this about Paul and the other New Testament Apostles. Peter made a bad confession when he told the cripple guy ‘silver and gold have I none’ but still God used Peter mightily and performed a miracle. This miracle brought as much ‘advertisement’ as a million dollars of ad space! We need to stop judging people or ministries based on the amount of money they have, this is not the criterion!
(323) I have recently noticed some good prophetic people becoming more aware of some of the things we are saying. Some have seemed to respond in a way that might be like ‘we have secretly known of these major problems for years. We have ‘quietly prayed’ and tried to address these concerns. Don’t be so hard’. No one has specifically told me this [actually now that I think about it someone has!]. Let me say, I don’t want to ‘start a war’ among the ‘prophets’. I like the brothers and really receive direction from a few. The main problem with ‘not going public’ and trying to deal with it quietly is the fact that so many new believers are slipping right past the ‘quiet correctors’ and spending 40 years in the wilderness needlessly. Most of the ‘quiet correctors’ never warned any body away from this movement. There are a variety of reasons, and I can’t judge their motives. Suffice it to say that scripture COMMANDS us to confront these things publicly. Paul said WHOSE MOUTHS MUST BE STOPPED, THEY DECIEVE ENTIRE HOUSEHOLDS while speaking of the false teachers who were doing it for financial gain. I understand the feelings of the ‘behind the scenes’ reformers. It’s just the ‘reform’ never seems to take place under this strategy!
(324) ISAIAH 48 ‘ hear this O house of Jacob [my people listen] which sware by my name, but not in truth [you say JESUS IS LORD but are denying my image constantly] I have declared these things before, these things went forth out of my mouth many times over your life. I knew you were stubborn and would not listen the first time I warned you. I have now once again showed you ‘hidden things’. I knew you would deal deceitfully, and were called a transgressor from the start. For my sake I will hold back my anger and give you another chance to make it right. I have chosen to correct you in the furnace of affliction. I know it’s hard, but how can I continue to let my name be polluted. [You use my name and say ‘Jesus is Lord’ and I have no idea who this image belongs to that you confess!] I have raised up the ‘spirit of prophecy’ [thru many, not just one voice!] I will make HIS WAY PROSPEROUS. I am the Lord thy God which TEACHETH THEE TO PROFIT [godliness with contentment is very profitable, but they that seek wealth come to confusion] O that thou hast listened to me before, your peace would have been like a river. There is no peace saith God to the wicked [wicked is a word that denotes a ‘twisting’ {wicker} when you twist scripture and the truth of Jesus Christ there is no peace. God knew from the beginning that many would take this path. He chooses to call them to repentance so they will now have peace like a river. True peace in God.] NOTE: I remember when I used to regularly watch the brother from the Forth Worth area. He did a whole week or so on finances, and he would end the prayer by praying to ‘our great Lord and financier’ I thought of the verses where the brothers are fighting over their inheritance and they ask Jesus to settle their financial dispute. Jesus says ‘who made me a judge over you in these matters’. Jesus was saying ‘who taught you to come to me in this way and view me as your financier; I am not here to settle your financial disputes. I am hear to fulfill the purpose of my Father’. No mountain will stand in the way this time, even one who calls himself ‘eagle mountain’. THOU HAST HEARD, SEE ALL THIS. AND WILL NOT YE DECLARE IT. I HAVE CALLED YOU, I HAVE SPOKEN THRU YOU AND I SHALL MAKE YOUR WAY PROSPEROUS.
(332) Man was ‘built’ with the inherent desire to ‘storehouse’. This is a need for man to ‘build up, store up, increase wealth’. This desire was originally intended to manifest itself thru the ‘saving’ of eternal rewards. When God made man in his image, this desire was originally ‘sanctified’ and was to coincide with Gods original intention to give man dominion over all the earth. Man would ‘collect’ if you will, all created things under his dominion, man would ‘corral’ these ‘things’ and provide safety and a hedge around these things for the glory of God. In essence the same mindset is seen in the New Testament with the stories that Jesus tells about God giving his ‘vineyard’ to people to take care of and things like this. It is inherent for man to want to storehouse and build the resources of things. This is why Jesus warned against the strong draw that ‘mammon’ [lust for financial increase] would present to the purpose of God in the church. There are verses in the Old Testament that say men build up their financial fortunes and say to themselves ‘when I die I will pass this legacy on to my kids, and MY NAME will endure thru the heritage of this financial legacy that will continue to operate after I am gone’ [King Ranch]. Now scripture says a good man leaves an inheritance to his kids, so this concept is not wrong in and of itself. It’s just that Jesus new how strong this pursuit of wealth can become and he chose to teach that it is the singular most competitive threat to the purpose of the Kingdom. Many fall into this trap by seeing the purpose of God to invade all areas of society, even financial institutions. They see the ‘surface’ level of teaching on finances in scripture, and then go headlong into this twisted interpretation of scripture that finds ‘proof texts’ that eventually leads them to preach a wealthy Jesus who fits the image of the modern day televangelist. You then find people [like us] who try to bring back into alignment the distorted view that many of these brothers espouse, but those ‘taken captive’ by this insatiable desire for wealth cannot see beyond this strong inherent desire that God originally put in man. You can present plain scripture to them, and they will even argue that Paul and Jesus were not really saying what they said. This is caused by the lure of covetousness that has replaced the original intent of God to ‘storehouse’ with the less noble desire of ‘building wealth’. NOTE; this same mindset can be seen in the desire to ‘build’ a ministry. You begin focusing your energies on using your faith to bring in the finances to operate. You ‘see’ the increase of income as the ‘answer’ to the noble intention of carrying out Gods purpose. But when this desire begins to take precedence over the actual preaching of the gospel [by distorting the image of Christ to fit into the mindset of bringing in the wealth] then the enemy has tricked you into preventing the original purpose of God to manifest thru you. At the end of the day you might bring in the desired income stream, and with this a sense of ‘mission accomplished’ you might even reject guys like me out of hand because of this desire to ‘bring in the resources at all costs’ but when all is said and done, if your not really preaching the biblical gospel, the enemy wins, even if you funded the ministry! NOTE; over the years people have confronted the leaders of Christian TV stations. There are a bunch of brothers who regularly preach covetousness to an extreme. Most of the ‘presidents’ of these stations are not ‘full blown’ money preachers. But they have seen God work in areas of finances, and they have seen the uprightness of many of the prosperity brothers. Some [like the Fort Worth brother] are very good people. They do not ‘splurge’ in outwardly fancy lifestyles. It’s just that somewhere down the line they got ‘hooked’ by the lure of these things. The leaders of the networks have seen how the apologists went after these guys, and out of sympathy the network presidents for the most part decided to air their programs. These presidents are going all over the world, trying to start stations in many countries. Doing noble things for the cause of the gospel. Some of the wives of these great stations actually graduated from Rhema [a major word of faith college]. All these people are good people. The TV leaders see the good heart of those who they have known in the past that were ‘prosperity/word of faith’ teachers. It’s a matter of real humility to see the things that I am trying to say, and to fall on the side of ‘truth in love’. I do believe if these stations continue to run these programs, the Lord will do something about it. But those stations who actually ‘make the hard decisions’ in love, will remain and be much stronger for the gospel.
(333) When Jesus overthrew the moneychangers in the Temple, it was a violent prophetic act. When Paul warned against false prophets he was ‘negative’. When Jude [a bible book in the New Testament] warned against false prophets he spent time dealing with a problem. Some [prophets] believe the way to deal with all the problems in the church is thru praise. That if you simply always say positive things and praise God, that the weapon of praise and a positive confession will correct everything. The New Testament disagrees.
(339) Lets try to undo some stuff. One of the other areas where Christians have been ‘taught wrong’ is the area of suffering and difficulty. I remember the elaborate explanations that the Word of Faith/prosperity preachers would go thru to contradict the plain meaning of verses. I don’t want to harp on this, but thanks to the worldwide voice that these brothers have had thru Christian TV there are lots of people who are taught wrong. First; There is a verse in Corinthians that says ‘I sought the Lord 3 times to take this away from me and the Lord said ‘my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness’. The old time churches teach that Paul was sick and God wouldn’t heal him. Of course the prosperity guys would never go for this so they taught that God was telling Paul ‘I have given you the authority, you rebuke it and make it go away’. First, whatever it was that Paul was asking God to take away, if you read the whole passage you will see that the lesson Paul learned was God was allowing this thing to co exist for the purpose of humility. God was bringing great revelation from Paul and the fact that God would not remove the problem was what happened here. Like I said before, it is almost ‘demonic’ how the word of faith preachers get around every single verse like this. It is amazing. Now what do I think the ‘thorn’ in the flesh was. Paul said he asked God to remove the ‘messenger of satan that was sent to disturb him’ it is possible that the ‘messenger’ was an actual person [maybe the main Pharisee out of the Jerusalem church who was going around infecting Paul’s churches with legalism?] It is possible that an actual ‘messenger’ was really what Paul was talking about. To interpret this passage by saying God was telling Paul to remove the problem ‘with his own faith’ is false. Just wish the Christian networks weren’t letting so much stuff like this ‘slip thru’. The word of faith group also teaches that the Lord would never use actual sickness to chasten ‘discipline’ his children. For the most part I kinda agree with this. The old time churches used to have the attitude ‘if I am sick then God is trying to teach me something’ so the prosperity guys go to the other extreme and say ‘if you are sick, somehow it is your fault. Sooner or later you will see you did something wrong, didn’t have enough faith, etc’ There is an interesting verse in Corinthians that says ‘for this cause many are weak and sick among you, and some have died’ and then ‘if we would judge ourselves we would not be judged, but when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord so we will not be condemned with the world’. Believe me I am familiar with all the arguments around these verses. To be honest, in this context the word ‘sick’ and God ‘chastening’ go hand in hand. Can I explain how this is true along with the truth that God heals and the enemy kills. I can go thru a few pages on it, but for now simply go check these scriptures out. I am not saying Christians should sit idly by and accept sickness. God’s word says ‘by his stripes I am healed’ and I believe that. I am just saying we don’t have to go thru the bible and find ways to explain away everything that we don’t like or understand. And finally ‘Is it ever Gods will to suffer’ well the word of faith preachers teach no. They say all suffering, chastening and discipline that God does is limited to ‘the word’. To be honest once again they have a real intricate system of ‘theology’ that seems to explain away all the plain verses on suffering. They will take you to the suffering/discipline verses and say ‘the suffering spoken of here is the ‘pain’ you experience when Gods word shows you that you are wrong’ [I guess sort of like what we have been doing!] and then they also extend the ‘suffering’ to the idea that when all Christians are wealthy and healthy and every thing is full and good, that when others talk about them, that in essence this is the ‘persecution’ that arose ‘because of the word’. That is because they have appropriated the word to arrive at this level of ‘fullness in all areas’ that any one who disagrees is actually fulfilling the suffering verse. Well it does get tiring after a while. First, Peter says [in the bible] that Jesus suffered and left us an example on how to suffer also. Did Jesus suffer by everything going well and people just talking about him? I mean heresy is deceitful because it can be believable. I think it was Hitler who said if you tell a lie long enough people will begin to believe it as truth. The New Testament teaches there are Christians who in Gods will suffer. These prosperity guys even explained away the martyrdom of Stephen in the book of Acts. Cant go thru the whole thing, but they taught basically that it was Stephens choice to believe for deliverance or go thru martyrdom. He chose martyrdom. I guess you can say we all choose whether we will be obedient to Gods call or not. And in some cases people do choose to ‘opt out’ of the suffering. But this is not Gods will. Many of these preachers who preach this have actually ‘opted out of Gods will’ by choosing to embrace these things. They have managed to get around the ‘cross experiences’ thru these elaborate schemes and will have to answer to God for teaching this to so many people. So today we learned that sometimes we are called to go thru hard times. We don’t accept everything that happens to us with a fatalistic mindset ‘whatever will be will be’ like the Calvinist who stubbed his toe real bad and said ‘sure glad that’s over’. But we do understand that sometimes the will of God is ‘my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness’.
(340) There are so many things to say right now, I really wanted to take a break. I read an article from a book on business and fulfilling life’s goals. It wasn’t a Christian book, but I liked the principle. The author shared how she learned that one of the major obstacles to doing what matters in life is YOU! That is we have a tendency to become ‘stagnant’ and live our lives in the parameters that we are familiar with, in the same ‘scenery’ we have been looking at for years. When we decide to step out in faith and ‘remove’ ourselves from familiar surroundings, this act in and of itself creates the new ‘route’ and way to see beyond the present [actually a lot of this wasn’t in the article]. Biblically God calls us at times to ‘Abrahamic’ faith. ‘Get out of your country and from your kindred and from your fathers house and I will make of thee a great nation’ this last year my children moved out and bought homes and ‘resettled’ in new land. If you were to ask me at the beginning of the year to have helped them ‘re camp’ and move out and everything, I would have said ‘no way’ you guys are working full time, attending college and stuff, you are biting off more than you can chew! But now I actually enjoy going to my daughters ranch and spending the night. It’s ‘new territory’ that my ‘seed/offspring’ walked into and I am in a sense entering in to their harvest. I read online some stuff on the prosperity brothers. I really cant ‘stay there’ too long. I know you guys think I am hard on them, but there a lot of critics who really personally attack them with name calling. We look ‘tame’ compared to them. I feel like the reason I am not a ‘theologian’ or even a ‘suit and tie’ preacher is because the Lord wants us to reach a lot of the younger generation of kids who are ‘lost’ in this movement. Most people that finally meet me after hearing us for years don’t realize I really look like some throwback ‘hippie’ from the 70’s. I am not purposely doing it; I just am more comfortable with jeans and raggedy clothes then with the whole ‘ I am a preacher’ type look. I feel many of the kids in these movements have not been effectively reached because the ‘reproovers’ have been the old type guys, and some have been way to personal. I was watching an old show from some businessmen who were Christians. The whole time period and persona of these brothers was another time and place. They were sharing on their experiences of coming to faith in Christ. Very successful and well-known business guys. As one of them was sharing on what the Lord showed him in the parable of the sower, he made an off the cuff remark that the parable wasn’t about money ‘30-60-100 fold’ but about spiritual truths. I thought how sad, that this brother is right, but this false interpretation has been going around for so long that it even reached these brothers from ‘another time and place’. I recently read a vision that a prophet had, part of it dealt with God doing a mighty deliverance among his people. There were some other personal things that led me to see our role in this. I pray for you ‘young guys’ God is asking you to step out and re position yourselves spiritually, you are required to ‘leave your fathers house’ [the old stuff you were taught from men you respected] and move to another place.
(363) I was parked down by the bay/gulf the other day. I was listening to Christian radio out of San Antonio. I heard a church from the area. The Pastor was real nice, kinda reminded me of our early days. A little ‘too nice’. A good word, but very apologetic. Sort of like ‘we have a very nice church, very loving people. Our childrens worker is really nice. We have a very loving family’ all of it was good and true. It sounded like the early tapes I recorded the first few years of ministry. I remember going thru them years later and throwing them out. A lot of the stuff was OK, but there was a lot of ‘word of faith’ mixture that I was uncomfortable with [I used to actually say ‘we now know it’s Gods will for us to all be rich’. Ughh!] There was also a lot of ‘good morning everybody, I hope you had a very, very wonderful week. We are going to have so much fun today’. Ughh again! This just reminded me of how we have lost our prophetic voice. We do sound like wimps to the world at times.
(364) ‘To obey is better than sacrifice’ at this stage in what we are doing, some people have truly questioned the whole concept of what they have been preaching and believing for years. Some times when we question these things there is a tendency to use as a ‘cover’ ‘my ministry has done good things, we might not be as pure as we should be in the gospel, but we have done good things’. This is thinking to ‘sacrifice’ is better than obedience. I do understand the difficulty that ministries go thru when they do an ‘inventory’ and realize that 99% of their teaching was ‘missing the gospel’. I heard a testimony from a word of faith/prosperity preacher. He was/is pastoring a church. For many years he focused on the prosperity gospel. He was convicted over a period of years by seeing the many things I have shown you. He realized that his library was consumed with the teachers of the movement. That most of his focus was not really the true gospel. It was not easy to admit this to himself. He finally threw out his entire library and got back to focusing on the Bible. Jim Bakker went thru this same thing. A ‘realization’ of ‘what have I been teaching and preaching’. The point is God is happy when we ‘sacrifice’. Do good things. Give money to Christian things. But all the sacrificing doesn’t trump obedience. Get back to the gospel of Jesus, and continue doing ‘the sacrifice’.
(376) Many years ago a preacher visited Corpus. He was speaking here locally. I enjoyed him; you could see that he was going thru difficulty. He even questioned some of his beliefs in an open and honest way. He shared from the book of Romans [bible; p.s. to our Christian friends, you know these are bible books. I realized that a lot of my old friends don’t know this. They already think I am a little ‘unhinged’ by the prophetic things I share on this blog, I don’t need them thinking I am quoting things out of ancient books that nobody knows about!] He spoke on the verse ‘all things work together for good to them that love God’ and he openly challenged his ‘word of faith/prosperity’ roots by saying ‘I know we often teach this to mean that ‘all’ things are not really working for our good [the bad stuff] but I am tired of trying to ‘get around’ all the verses that say stuff like this’ [I am paraphrasing]. His church is ‘covenant church’ in Carrolton, TX. He is a good man, and I don’t think he would describe himself as ‘word of faith’ its just I could tell he has been influenced by this teaching. Anyway this first time he spoke there was a realness about him. A ‘prophetic’ cutting edge that comes along with difficulty and trials [you could tell he was really struggling in his life]. A few years later he came back. Still preached well. But he was different. He even looked ‘sufficient’. Sort of like ‘I am now back to the believers authority and this self sufficiency that you didn’t see last time’. He was not arrogant, it was just you could tell that his ‘return’ to the classic word of faith/prosperity type system drained the ‘reality’ he had the last time he was here. He sort of went back to the interpretation of ‘all things work for good’ doesn’t mean the bad stuff. If I remember right I think he even said this? This just was a lesson to me on how God speaks from our reality and difficulty. When we embrace doctrines that reject these aspects of Christianity we lose the ‘cutting edge’. The brother held a few meetings. He did all right. He never came back to Corpus. I think he was on the verge of ‘reformation’ the first time I heard him. Then when he came back you could kind of sense that he never really made the transition.
(383) When I was a Pastor I had a friend who was a ‘word of faith’ preacher. He would attend some of our services. I also let him preach every now and then. I spoke on prayer once. I used the verse from the book of James that says ‘we ask and do not receive, because we ask amiss that we would consume the things we want out of lust’ [paraphrase]. Basically the verse is saying selfish prayers are not answered. My friend tried to explain to me that this was not what it was saying. He was taught this verse in a way that said ‘the reason you are not obtaining the wealth and things you desire is because your are not aiming your prayers in the right direction’ he told me it was saying to ‘aim’ at the proper trajectory and you will get all you want. This was another one of those examples of how we take verses and make them say the complete opposite of what they are saying. Jesus did say ‘when you pray, believe that the things you are saying will happen, and you will have what you say’ I do believe this verse to be true. You will find Jesus and Paul ‘saying’ things this way. Jesus said to the fig tree ‘dry up and die’ it happened. Paul would say to the person who was possessed ‘you are a hindrance to the gospel, be blind’ and it happened. Basically this teaching from Jesus is to fit in with the whole counsel of God. Paul used this truth to spread the gospel. You never found Paul or Jesus using these things ‘to get what they wanted’ in a self serving way. They ‘had what they said’ because they said things in the will of God, not to ‘consume stuff upon their desires’. Jesus would say ‘I am going to go to Jerusalem to be killed’ Peter didn’t like this confession. It didn’t line up with what Peter wanted. Jesus didn’t ‘get what he said’ simply because he said this. He said this out of the reality of fulfilling Gods purpose. He ‘got what he said’ because what he said was the unselfish will of God concerning the Cross. We as believers need to be at a higher level than where we are currently operating. It’s like I could go thru all these types of verses and debate the real meaning of them. Others will stick with the ‘fake’ meaning. You can spend years trying to undo all this stuff. Until we get to ‘another place’ of putting our lives at the foot of the Cross, we will never really see these things. God will give you good things, don’t get me wrong. Just allow all these truths to be ‘filtered’ thru the Cross.
(392) I spoke a while back on the Pastor friend that used to attend the church I Pastored years ago. Let me share a few things from this experience that serve to illustrate a point. One time this friend was struggling financially [actually all the time] I used to advise him to get a job until he felt like ‘the ministry’ would support him. He seemed to fall into the mistake that sees ‘ministry’ as a trade, and therefore getting a job would be wrong. He would get offended when I told him stuff like this. One time he had put some pens he had made with scripture on them into the offering. He later told me he had no money to give, but by putting the pen in, with scripture on it, he was ‘exalting’ the Word and God would see this ‘seed’ he planted and give him a return. All of this was symptomatic of the way the Word of faith movement would approach scripture. In this case my friend was violating all the verses that speak of being diligent, working and stuff like this. He then felt ‘honoring the Word’ was doing what he did. Many in this movement teach that to be a ‘doer of the Word’ means to ‘speak the Word’. Speaking the Word is a good thing, but being a ‘doer’ is contrasted with being a ‘hearer/speaker’. This actual teaching comes from the book of James and James is saying ‘don’t be a hearer only, but be a doer’. ‘doing’ in this context is not ‘speaking’ it is ‘doing’. James says if someone comes to your door and is in need and you say [confess] ‘be warmed and filled’ but you don’t actually meet the need, then you are only a ‘confessor’ and not a ‘doer’. It’s another one of those strange interpretations where these brothers found a way to teach that ‘doing the word’ means ‘saying the word’ even though ‘saying the word’ is what is being contrasted with ‘doing the word’. Jesus did say ‘say unto this mountain’ and the Word of God teaches the principles of confession and speaking truth, the problem is these things are simply tools to help us along the road. They are not to become the road! To simply learn and put into effect all the biblical ‘techniques’ and watch them work does not mean you are in the will of God. Many people have excelled in finances thru the use of biblical principles. Some of them were called to other things and instead chose to become wealthy. They might have even attained the wealth thru ‘diligence’ [a biblical principal] but if that truly was not Gods purpose for them, they failed. I find the focus on techniques and ‘windfall’ inheritances less than profitable. Many who hold to the ideas that my friend held to will see the truth of God giving the ‘wealth of the heathen/Egyptians into the hands of Israel’ and will use this to justify a lazy lifestyle. The above friend believed that God was going to ‘give him the wealth of the heathen’. Does scripture say the ‘wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous’ you bet! But it continues to say ‘and God will give it into the hands of those who are upright in his sight’. Is being lazy upright? Is sitting around spending your life waiting for some windfall upright? God gave the children of Israel the wealth of Egypt because the children of Israel labored for years as slaves, they were not being compensated justly for their work. They got paid for their work by leaving Egypt with their wealth. God did not give an inheritance to his people who weren’t working! Well the point today is don’t use scripture as a ‘technique book’ that if you master you will get more than the next guy. Scripture is a book that brings us the truth of the gospel. We enter into covenant with God thru this gospel. We become ‘debtors’ to this great God and Father. We seek to serve him all our days. We are not looking for schemes to ‘get rich quick’. NOTE: In Jesus teaching he says ‘why do people confess me as Lord, but do not do what I say’ ‘many people will come to me and say ‘Lord, Lord’ and I will say ‘I never knew you’. I am not saying these brothers are not Christians, they are. I just want you to see that Jesus really put the emphasis on ‘doing the works’ more so than on ‘what you say’. The ‘saying of things’ is a part of it. But this is not the ‘heart of the matter’.
(410) I want to talk about the reality of gifted Prophetic/Apostolic people in church history who had real gifts, but embraced false doctrine. This is an area of stumbling for those who are trying to break away from false movements. The Mormons are good people, whenever they come to my house I have real good talks with them [a little too good, after a few visits they go back to their elders with questions and they never come back!] I actually become real friends with them. I honestly discuss their movement’s history and I give an honest evaluation of the Prophet Joseph Smith [the founder of their church]. I do not demean them in any way. I simply acknowledge that the giftings of Joseph Smith were tremendous in the area of pioneering a religious movement. I also challenge the belief that Joseph was the prophet that the Lord chose to restore the true church. I find agreement that the true church are all those who have come to embrace the sacrifice of Christ [which they believe in] and then I explain how Jesus said the gates of hell would never totally prevail against the church. If Jesus words were true [they were!] then there never was a time since the 1st century that the church didn’t exist in some form. The gates never prevailed against her. Therefore Josephs teaching on him being the restorer of the church to the degree that God supposedly told him there was no true church left, has to be wrong. I do make headway with the younger guys. Once you honestly become true friends with people, you can have influence. My position on all the extra biblical doctrines and visions and other so called supernatural things [finding gold plates in the ground!] I simply ‘compromise’ to the point of saying ‘it is possible that Joseph [or any other leader of any other movement] had visions or experiences that they felt were true. They might have actually saw someone/something’. But we go back to the reality of Jesus being the way to God, and we put these other things at the foot of the Cross. The history of the pioneering Mormons is tremendous. The people are all good people [for the most part] there are strides being made right now to influence certain key leaders of this movement and to bring them back into alignment with historic Christianity [like what happened with the seventh day Adventists on the west coast. A few years back some evangelicals established relationships with key leaders and certain seventh day groups came back to the historic church- The worldwide church of God group [not the Pentecostal church of God] had a total reformation from the top down!] The point is, it is possible for certain religious groups to experience great success. In some strange way the fact that there is a small degree of the gospel present within the system [remember the leaven affecting the whole lump?] enables a certain degree of success until the time comes for true reformation. This approach can be seen with the more extreme word of faith/ prosperity teachers. Many were good men who did good things. We should not allow this to be an open door for the other doctrines and stuff that are wrong. Acknowledge the good, and honestly face up to the things that went off track. God requires all of us to do this at certain times. NOTE: After a few talks with these Mormons they see that I am a Christian; I know the bible and am even aware of their history. I use this fact as an example of God revealing himself to people without them joining or identifying with some religious group or organization. One of their beliefs is God has a true real church in society [true] and therefore which one is it? I try to show them that I too believe there is ‘one true church’ and that this church [society of people- not an organization or denomination] is actually made up of all those who have come to the reality of God thru Christ. They will challenge this view [as do some Christians!] and say that it is wrong. That how could people just come to a true knowledge of God unless they are in the true church [which to them is Mormon] I then bring them back to the fact that we have spent hours discussing and sharing many truths about Jesus. We all know many of the same verses [to be honest I usually know more by memory than them] and we have been discussing all these truths of God and his purposes and redemption thru Christ. And yet I have never met you before. I am not Mormon. How did God break thru to me and show me all these things that we have been sharing? It wasn’t thru some organization; it was the fact that God is revealing himself to mankind thru Christ. All who have come to this reality ARE THE TRUE CHURCH. Therefore everyone who worships the Father thru the Son are the true church. This leaves room for them and all others. I don’t whitewash the many wrong teachings of Mormonism, I simply try to bring them to the reality that even if Joseph Smith never existed that the reality of all of us [I include them] right now believing in God and the sacrifice of his son would qualify us as the ‘true church’ you don’t need Joseph Smith for this!
(157) Just remembered a conversation I had with a ministry leader in our city. At the time we were discussing the prosperity gospel. I was telling him the story of how a very popular prosperity preacher wrote in one of his best selling books that he had a vision and went to heaven, and in heaven he saw King David as well as many others. King David told the prosperity preacher that one of the things he regrets was all the negative confessions he made in the book of Psalms! [To be honest stuff like this still gets me mad!] Well I surely thought the ministry leader would be as upset as I about this. Instead he challenged me in defense of the prosperity preacher and said ‘how do you know the vision is fake’? Now I got upset. How do you know Joseph Smith [the prophet of the Mormon church] didn’t find the ‘gold tablets’ in the earth [or even if he found them, how come I know there not from God?] We know by spiritual discernment. Scripture commands us to ‘test the spirits’ and every spirit that is not from God must be rejected. The simple fact that this ministry leader could not discern and willingly reject the prosperity preacher’s vision was appalling. We cannot ever accept a vision that would have a writer of one of the Canonical books basically say he wished he could take something out of the book [in this case Psalms]. The book of Revelation places a curse on those who ‘take away from the Word of God’. I finally answered the question of ‘how do you know the visions fake?’ with the answer GOD TOLD ME! To my surprise the ministry leader accepted it and seemed to submit to this Word. It was almost like this movement casts a spell on people who defend it. Sometimes it takes a prophetic word spoken in authority to break this spell! Paul told the Galatians ‘who hath bewitched you to not obey the truth?’ I have had friends who were Pastors come out and publicly defend this movement because they visited one of their ministry centers and said they ran an efficient operation. Hey, you can visit the Mormon Temple in Utah and you’ll see efficiency! But God help us if this becomes the criteria that we use to judge a thing. I really have struggled with the leaders who were not learned enough to know what they were defending, but would defend it any way. Sort of like ‘hey, I have been attacked before and I didn’t like it, therefore I will defend any one else who gets attacked’. Well I don’t like being attacked either, but leaders need the ability to see things for what they are and try to bring correction in love. I do believe these prosperity guys are fellow believers, but stuff like I just showed you can’t go unchecked. The popularity of some of these things is a direct result of leaders not taking a stand when they should have. I don’t want to offend you guys, but I felt the Lord wanted me to share this.
(592) This year I gave a prophetic word about a prosperity ministry ‘no mountain shall be able to stand against what God is doing, not even Eagle mountain’ it’s somewhere on this site [do a word search]. Just recently [11-07] the senate finance committee, for the first time ever, broke past precedent and began investigating 6 large prosperity ministries, one of them is the Eagle mountain ministry I spoke of in the prophecy. Over the years I have seen obvious blatant abuse in the area of Bible teaching from this ministry. I did like them as a young believer, but after a while I saw how the brother simply did not truly understand scripture, in many areas. It wasn’t just a mistake here or there, that any one can make, but a ‘current’ of ‘mistakes’ that ran all thru out their teaching. The struggle to finally speak out on these teachers was overcome when I realized how many young believers they were affecting [not to mention Pastors!] They taught that Jesus was very wealthy, that he died to make us very wealthy, that all the warnings that Jesus gave against money were really teachings about getting money. When Jesus says ‘the deceitfulness of riches choke the word’ he taught ‘the deceitfulness of riches is that old tradition that says ‘you cant have lots of money’. Paul to Timothy ‘those that desire to be rich fall into a snare’ they say this is talking about those who don’t already know and believe the prosperity message, because those who believe it are already rich. Paul in Galatians ‘we are the children of Abraham, so the blessing of Abraham comes on us. We receive the promise of the Spirit by faith’ which really means being justified and receiving the Spirit, the blessing that comes ‘thru faith’ [like Abraham had] as opposed to law. These guys teach the ‘blessing of Abraham’ are his stuff. I could go on for days with this. The point is after seeing this non stop attack on the basic truth of scripture, to the point where Jesus actual warnings against money were translated to say the exact opposite, I finally realized there is something more going on here than just a few bad mistakes. It falls into the category of real heresy. So any way, let’s pray God will restore all of these brothers, but I wanted to update you on the prophecy we gave this year. ‘I have raised up one from the north, from the rising of the sun shall he call upon my name. He shall come upon princes as mortar, and the coastlands shall wait for his law’. NOTE; Let me give a little example. Many of these brothers are not obvious ‘crooks’, like the guys who have been caught blatantly robbing churches, or putting microphones in their ears during healing crusades. Many of these men are honest in their dealings. When scripture speaks of ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ we often think ‘outright hucksters’ this is not always the case. Jesus said ‘beware of the deceitfulness of riches’ Jesus taught there is a real deception involved with some of these distorted money doctrines. Over the years I have read books from these brothers [not about them!] and have come to see how they fall into this trap. After you justify a particular doctrine, you begin actually believing it to the point where you see your group as having ‘revelation knowledge’ that the mainline churches don’t have. As time goes by any reproof that is given, even reproof that is backed up from scripture, is seen as ‘that old tradition, they don’t see what we see’ [spiritual pride]. Over time the obvious faults in their doctrine are so obvious, that those who are in this camp think ‘surely we cant be this wrong’ like when someone quotes ‘for the love of money is the root of all evil’ they are trained to say ‘see brother, this doesn’t say money, but the love of it’ and this simple explanation justifies the error in their mind. Not realizing that when you ‘love something’ you are consumed with that thing. They can’t see that the love of money, that they teach, is shown by the fact that they have distorted scriptures for years to justify wealth seeking, to the point where they actually changed the image of Jesus and have taken the words from his mouth and turned them around. They truly have fallen down the path of the love of money, but can’t see it! John the Baptist said to leadership ‘It is unlawful for thee to have thy brothers wife’ for a long time these teachers ‘have had the wife’ that is they ‘cohabitated’ with the Bride, who really belongs to Jesus [Jesus called us his brother’s] it is unlawful for them to have had such influence with ‘their brothers wife’ it is time to let her go.
(525) Isaiah 60 ‘Arise, shine; for thy light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Darkness shall cover thee earth and gross darkness the people, but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee’ Like we said when we spoke on the kingdom of God, though the world is getting darker, the church gets brighter! We are ‘the light of the world’ the world needs us! They don’t want to admit it, but at the end of all atheism, humanism and every other ‘ism’ there is a void. They will be drawn to the light! ‘Gentiles SHALL come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising’ ‘thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side’ though these verses are Messianic in nature [they speak prophetically of Christ] yet they are also fulfilled thru us, because we are ‘extensions of Christ’ in the earth. We ARE his Body! ‘Then thou shalt see, and FLOW TOGETHER, and thy heart shall fear and be enlarged’ When the Lord is magnified, when his will and purpose take precedence, we FEAR him and are enlarged. We also flow together as Gods people. There is a real sense of your success being found in your brothers and sister’s success. We flow together. ‘In my wrath I smote thee, but in my favor I have had mercy on thee. Therefore thy gates shall be open continually’ in the ‘New Jerusalem’ [the Church] our gates are ‘open always’ people find access to come in and rest in God. But open gates also allow for there to be exit. Not ‘damnation’ here, but a going into all the world to preach the gospel. The people of God are made to find rest in him and be by still waters. Then there comes this churning, this ‘inner pull’ to go out ‘is it from God’ yes! God allows you to have seasons of rest and refuge, and then he calls you to the example of Christ. He compels you to look at the harvest and say ‘here am I, send me’. ‘The glory of Lebanon shall come to thee, the Fir tree, the Pine tree and the Box tree together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary, AND I WILL MAKE THE PLACE OF MY FEET GLORIOUS’ God will bring great diversity [Pine, Box, Fir tree’s] into one corporate function and purpose. We will no more say ‘I am Charismatic’ I am Baptist, I am Catholic, I am this or that. We will truly bring our diversity together and lay them at Christ’s feet. He makes the place of his feet glorious. Jesus washed the disciple’s feet; he was showing that this place of humility and service will be honored in Gods economy. It is the place of value and exaltation. He offers it to all, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of takers. ‘Whereas thou hast been afflicted and hated, I will make thee an eternal excellency; a joy of many generations’ God allows affliction and hatred for a season. Both natural Israel and her Messiah went thru this. We all will partake of it at one time or another; REJOICE when it happens, because God is preparing you for eternal excellency! ‘For brass I will bring gold, for iron silver, for wood brass and for stones iron, I will make thy officers peace’ we often preach and teach ‘for stones you will get gold’ we ‘skip’ the steps! God’s prosperity comes to those who patiently and consistently give and love and work and invest and do many things in stages. These people are not trying to turn stones into gold. They realize you go from stones to iron to silver and to gold. They have realistic expectations on living a consistent life. God will make our ‘officials’ peace. The verse that says let all your requests be known to God and Gods peace will keep your hearts and minds, this speaks of Gods peace being the ‘officiator’ Christians make good decisions when they cast all their care over to God. Gods peace comes in to officiate for us, we don’t have to worry about the next step, we simply need to rest and walk in it as it is revealed. ‘Violence shall be no more in the land, nor destruction in our borders, your walls shall be Salvation and your gates Praise’ this is speaking of a spiritual/heavenly city. God is already showing that his future place of rest, the ‘eternal city’ that needs no light, because the Lamb is the light, God is showing that it is a place where walls and gates are praise and salvation. Not brick and mortar! He will make this place glorious. ‘The Lord shall be the everlasting light, the days of mourning shall be ended Thy people shall all be righteous, they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will do it in my time’ God will extend you and cause all the people you work with to be right. A day is coming where the smallest one [least significant] shall have great influence. He will ‘grow you and your people like a branch thru the earth’ thru the people you bring into the Kingdom, God will allow great influence to go forth. God told Abraham ‘thru your seed shall all nations be blessed’ you are simply the ‘instigator/initiator’ of the thing, it will get carried out thru your spiritual children!
(540) I got with some friends the other day. We were talking about the Lord. One of the guys brought up the verse where Jesus says ‘it is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven then for a camel to go thru the eye of a needle’ both of these friends are homeless [or about to be]. They are poor and have struggles. The one friend shared the verse to show how riches are not as important as people think. The other friend shared the interpretation that I have heard before. He said some people teach that the ‘eye of the needle’ was a low gate in the wall of Jerusalem, and that the camels can get thru the gate, but they have to crouch down and that makes it difficult. Now this teaching has been taught publicly by prosperity teachers. It used to be fairly popular in this camp. I find it sad that even this homeless guy was affected by it. I told my friend that I too was familiar with this teaching, and that it is fake. Historically there is no evidence of a gate being the ‘eye of the needle’. Second, the response of the disciples to Jesus saying this was ‘who then can be saved?’ they took Jesus words the way you and I would take it. That he was saying something that was impossible to do, except for God. It’s stuff like this that we need to be warned of. You interpret scripture thru the plain meaning, the fact that the context of the verse shows that the disciples didn’t think he was speaking about a ‘low gate’ in the wall should guide us into the right view of the verse. The word for ‘needle’ in this passage is the word used for a regular sewing needle. False teaching is harmful; Christians should refute it in love.
(586) John 8-9 before I cover this, last night I was watching a preacher from a classic type ministry. Not the flamboyant ‘prosperity’ type with gold hanging off and all. I was a bit surprised [let down] to hear him teach the classic errors of the prosperity movement. He took the verse in Corinthians where it says ‘though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor’ and taught that Jesus died to make you rich financially [ a direct violation of 1st Timothy 6]. He went to Genesis and showed how Abraham was rich, then jumped to Galatians 3 and taught ‘we are Abrahams kids, therefore we get his blessings[stuff]’ a classic mistake in doctrine. I explained this in the book ‘House of Prayer or Den of Thieves’ in the chapter ‘The Abrahamic Blessing’[you can read this book on this site!]. This stuff shouldn’t have been coming from this program, they are not the type that teach this stuff. You could tell from the look on the faces of the audience that they were feeling uncomfortable with what this guy was teaching! Now John 8-9. Jesus says ‘you seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth that I heard from God’ often times when people are reproved, they don’t like it. It’s not that what the ‘reprover’ is saying is wrong, it’s just we don’t like being confronted with truth. We usually take it out on the messenger. Jesus says ‘before Abraham was, I AM’ this is the name of God in the Old Testament ‘the I AM’. Jesus is the ‘I AM’ in Johns gospel. I AM the door, I AM the resurrection, I AM the way and the truth and the life. I believe you find 7 different ‘I AM’s’ of Jesus in this gospel. Jesus now heals the man who was blind from birth. They ask him ‘who sinned, this man or his parents’? They had a mentality that always wanted to place blame on someone for sickness, sort of like some in the healing movements of today. Jesus said ‘neither’. He simply said ‘this happened to him so I would heal him and God would get glory’. He heals the man and the leaders are mad. ‘Who healed you’? A man called Jesus. They get the guys parents and say ‘you say he was blind, then how come he can see?’ They say ‘ask him’. They go back and ask again. The healed guy answers ‘how many times do you want to hear it, I told you already’. Though the man still doesn’t know Jesus is the Messiah, yet he starts to defend him, and even prophesy! ‘We know that if any man be a worshipper of God, and does his will, him God hears’ good stuff coming from an ‘unsaved’ guy! Jesus hears that they rejected him, he tells the guy ‘I am messiah’ and the guy believes. Jesus says ‘I come to give sight to those who are blind [admit they need help] and to take away sight from those who see’ [think they know it all]. We often can’t receive correction because of religious pride, we think we ‘see everything’ someone comes along and shakes the cart, our first response is ‘who does he think he is, doesn’t he know that we all know more than him’. Quite often whole groups of leaders have the same blind spot. This is what enforces the belief that they must be right! Jesus told them ‘you guys are blind, if you could just admit you didn’t know it all, then I could show you some good stuff, but because you think you already ‘see’ everything, then you are gonna miss out’. Pride is destructive, it keeps us in the dark spiritually. NOTE; Let me give an example. I remember reading an article on tithing from one of the best Christian historical review magazines in print. They do exhaustive historical research on many subjects. To the surprise of the readers, this well respected historical magazine, read by many theologians, showed that all the historical evidence points to the fact that the churches of the first century did not practice tithing! This seemed to go against the grain of what many of the theologians believed, who regularly read this magazine. But you could have easily come to this same understanding from simply reading the New Testament in context. I have basically taught you guys this for years, from scripture. Yet this ‘blind spot’ was an area where many intelligent ‘religious leaders’ were all wrong. They ‘corporately’ were wrong on this subject. It took a ‘jolt’ from true historical evidence before they could ‘see’ the obvious! It would be too humbling to have seen it from a ‘layman firefighter’ who has a web site. NOTE; Tithing as a practice for Christians developed at the same time as ‘the church building’ and the office of ‘Priest’ and eventually the altar [in the Catholic system] and the mass. The church got away from the family/community mindset and took on more of the ‘church building’ form. Tithing fit in easily into an idea of church that asked ‘how much should we put in the offering basket on Sunday’. The whole language and style of church called for the doctrine of tithing to be taught, sort of like a ‘tax’ on the people of God to support ‘the church’. Now, there are some good things that came out of the ‘dark ages’ of Christianity. The ‘desert fathers’, the Catholic mystics and other good spiritual disciplines. I don’t want to fall into the category of those who see the dark ages as a time of no good whatsoever. But we also need to see how the church during that time was very legalistic in the sense that the Mass and Altar and 'Priest’ presiding over the liturgy were all forms of Christian service that were absent from the churches in Scripture. The tithe was just one added aspect of this legalistic approach that seemed to make it all the way into the Protestant churches of today. All these churches are good Christians in my view, but we need to be open to change and reformation as the Spirit leads.
P.S. Let me also add that there are many prophetic people that I am in contact with in some way. I feel that a lot of them agree with me on prophetic stuff, but get offended by the strong stance we take in other areas of teaching. I realize that just because a person experiences prophetic things, that this doesn’t mean he is correct in everything! It is common to hear things like ‘the end time transfer of wealth’ and themes like this from highly prophetic people. We just assume because someone is prophetic that their doctrine is correct. I really don’t want to teach here, but let me share this. The scripture does speak about the wealth of the sinner being stored up for the righteous and God ‘gives’ it to the righteous. Also the story of the children of Israel leaving Egypt and how God gave them the wealth of the Egyptians. These verses do not teach some type of windfall that simply falls into the hands of Christians. As church history progressed thru time more and more people in the marketplace and other areas of wealth and influence have become believers. As the church age progresses this phenomenon increases. Today the ‘wealth of the wicked’ has much more become ‘the wealth of the righteous’, not thru some windfall inheritance, but thru the process of God redeeming planet earth! ‘Seeing’ it this way does not violate the principles of scripture that over and over speak about the diligent being blessed and the lazy coming to ruin/poverty. There are many believers who are living in disobedience by not working who cling on to doctrines like ‘the end time transfer of wealth’ and wrongly believe that they are going to get money while violating biblical standards. Things like this need to be understood and articulated thru prophetic people before God can entrust us with more. I actually feel that the prophetic movements ‘marriage’ to the prosperity gospel has voided certain things that God wanted to do thru the movement. Balaam was a prophetic person who actually heard from God and spoke Gods words, but scripture says his lust for wealth made him a false prophet [who loved the wages of unrighteousness]. If prophets can’t receive correction from each other then God will never let them ‘correct’ [speak into] the church at large. I feel one of the pitfalls of the prophetic is to think that the goal is to ‘simply be prophetic’. I have met brothers who simply wanted to attend church and stand up and speak. God’s chief concern for all of his people [even prophets] is to carry out the great commission, to be salt and light to a lost and dying world!
John Chiarello
(46) I was just sitting outside praying and noticed that the only plants flowering in my yard are the roses from the ‘coat of many colors’ rose bush that I spoke about earlier in this paper. Its December and cold. Many other plants cannot ‘thrive’ in these bitter conditions. Well you get the hint, don’t you? Over the last several years the Church at large has embraced a gospel that focuses on trying to create a ‘pleasing’ environment around us. We have made ‘creature comforts’ the goal. I recently read an article about a preacher [T.D. Jakes] whom I like. He was being criticized for having a high salary and a few luxurious homes and basically being rich. In his defense he quoted the verse where scripture shows that Jesus wore an expensive coat [which he did] and used this to defend the idea that it is not wrong to become rich ‘from the offerings of many average [or poor] believers’ who give thru the TV ministry or thru the Local Church offerings. The main mistake with this thinking is the New and Old testaments actually teach against the concept of ‘shepherds’ becoming wealthy from the flock. The scriptures teach that its okay to financially support those who are giving to you spiritual food, but to become wealthy from peoples offerings is forbidden. I know people today don’t see this, but it is there! Where did Jesus get his expensive coat? Was he taking money from ‘the bag’ [treasury]? More than likely someone gave it to Jesus as an extravagant act of worship. The woman who poured the expensive perfume on Jesus did something of this nature. While I don’t want to be dogmatic about this, it proves the point that we take scriptures and develop doctrines that violate other plain scriptures. The widow woman who gave to Elijah was poor. But so was Elijah at the time! This story simply teaches the great truth of communal sharing which is taught in the New Testament. See a brother in need, meet the need! Too many preachers have taken stuff like this and have taught theologies that contradict plain scripture. Go read 1st Timothy 6. You have a hard time reading this chapter and believing this other stuff. I don’t want to re write our book on the prosperity gospel here, but I do want to emphasize the fact that God wants us to ‘thrive’ in desert and bitter conditions. It’s not wrong to be rich and have a high salary, but it can’t be from the overall aggregate giving of many poor or average saints over a long period of time! Joseph thrived and was rich and influential, but he also spent many years being unjustly accused and in prison for things that were not his fault. God allowed a life of suffering to co-exist with a successful career. He did this for the benefit of those who sold him into slavery. Joseph ‘ruled’ over his brothers at the end, just like he dreamed many years earlier. The ‘rule’ allowed him to forgive and use his wealth and influence to save his family. God will exalt us at certain seasons for the sole benefit of the salvation of others. It’s ok to enjoy the good things in life, but we are here to fulfill a mandate from heaven. Don’t get lost in the pursuits of this life!
(122) Lets go back to the discussion on ‘motivational/prosperity’ teaching and preaching. In the Church there are different ‘levels’ of understanding and thought. All levels serve a purpose at various stages of Christian growth. The 3rd grade is important as well as high school and college. To stop at the 3rd grade is not good! To miss the 3rd grade is also not good. To explain to someone the importance of ‘elementary level’ teaching, while showing them the need to move on is not easy! Over the years I have dealt a lot with the ‘elementary’ stuff. I try to explain the importance of being motivated and having a positive attitude and good things like that. I then try to transition into the mindset of ‘seeking first the kingdom of God’. There comes a stage with all of us [university level] where God knows we have the basics down and he then calls us to another place. This ‘other’ place is an attitude of forsaking self and the things of ‘this life’ to attain a higher goal. When Jesus told the disciples he was going to Jerusalem to die, Peter says ‘no way, we wont let this happen!’ and Jesus replies ‘get thee behind me satan, for you are concerned more with the things of man than the things of God’. Jesus [our example] reached a point in his life where he knew the purpose of God was not to be measured by whether ‘I like it or not’. Much motivational preaching uses this at its criteria. ‘Surely God doesn’t want his kids to suffer’ ‘where kings kids’ and things like this. I believe these things are true to a degree, but there at a 3rd grade level! [I don’t want to sound condescending, but I want you to see what I am trying to convey]. Remember, the 3rd grade is good, but not if your 21 years old! Also the university is good, but not if your 9 years old! So everything has its time and purpose. God does command us to ‘think like men’ [Corinthians] and the problem with the Evangelical church is we confuse ‘childlike faith’ with ‘childlike thinking’ [The book ‘the scandal of the evangelical mind’ deals with this]. I believe the more mature aspect of the Christian life is to advance beyond the ‘motivational’ stage to the ‘taking up your cross and following me’ stage. I just saw a verse on this Christian calendar I get from the radio station we broadcast on. It says ‘and the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends’. Its so easy to focus on self and ‘how do I get out of the mess I’m in’ mentality. Job was able to come out of this mindset and pray for others. This denying of self is what turned his situation around.
(169) Many years ago after I first started serving the Lord I took a trip back to Jersey. My dad, a firefighter [retired Captain] got me an invitation to preach at the Chaplains church. He was a good man who was pastoring a ‘Church of God’ church. I simply preached a basic gospel message. Many years later [20?] while back visiting family I thought I would drop by and say hi. I didn’t know if the Pastor was around anymore, he was around 70 when I first met him, he would be close to 90 now. Well I stopped by the church and to my surprise he was still there. I spoke to him for a little while and told him I had preached at his church years ago. He couldn’t remember. After a while he finally remembered. I did look a lot different now. As we were sitting in his nice little apartment located directly behind the church sanctuary, his wife was in the other room mumbling. The old Pastor told me she suffers from Alzheimer’s and to just ignore it. He was polite in saying this. The old pastor was truly enjoying one of the sons [me!] of one of the fire Captains that he was a chaplain to, being able to visit and reminisce. During our conversation he seemed content. He told me though he doesn’t have much materially in this life, he is satisfied that he has built up eternal rewards. He kind of said ‘I don’t know how you feel about the modern prosperity movement, but I feel God doesn’t measure success by outward things’. Well I told him ‘Brother Wilcombs, I kind of wrote a little book on this subject’ and I dropped one off to him before I left Jersey. I received a handwritten note in the mail, he really appreciated the book. I kind of felt like the Lord gave me an opportunity to encourage a man who gave his whole life to the ministry and was feeling ‘defensive’ living in a day that blatantly measures godliness by financial gain. I never saw him again, if he’s still alive he would be nearing 100 years old. I thank God for the elders of the faith who served God so many years with their eyes on eternal rewards versus this present world [I had previously heard that he died and found out later that he was still alive. The book I gave him can be read in it’s entirety on this site]
(171) For the purpose of full disclosure let me mention something. All 4 of my daughters have trust funds set up for them. While I am not rich, my kids are set up fairly well. The reason I share this is the other day when I was up early praying at my daughters ranch I felt the Lord saying he was going to expand us ‘thru our seed’ [spiritual children]. While walking around the ranch I saw hundreds of wildflowers and mesquite trees. I have a few in my yard, but these were a lot! I also realized how my daughter [19 yrs old] owns a $125,000 dollar ranch free and clear. She bid $31,000 for it and used part of her trust fund money [it was a HUD repo and no bank would finance a ‘modular home’ on a ranch, though the original owner paid $85,000 just for the house!] The nice mustang she drives is also free and clear [I bought it for $4,000 a few years ago]. I am not bringing this up for no reason. For many years people [friends/family] would tell me ‘instead of helping bums and addicts, you could work a second job [besides being a firefighter] so your kids can have more’. I have found out if you take care of Gods people [kids] he will take care of yours. To be honest, how many 19yr olds own a $125,000 ranch free and clear? See, I know God does bless people financially; I just feel the church today has blurred the lines of Christianity with gain. We as believers have a mandate to not measure ‘Godliness by gain’. Well I believe scripture says ‘first the natural, then the spiritual’ I am looking forward to hearing from you guys on how God is increasing your spiritual borders! NOTE: This is also another benefit of not taking a salary, can you imagine what people would be saying ‘that preacher went and bought his daughter a ranch, and she drives a mustang too!’ [I own a 66 mustang, it’s got a 289 in it for all you car guys] NOTE: I had an old friend in Kingsville, one of our original group, who use to kid me and say ‘for someone who doesn’t believe in the prosperity message, you do pretty good!’ I would answer back ‘I don’t believe it works for you guys, only for me’ of course I was kidding! NOTE: Let me show you guys something. I don’t ‘think money thoughts’ all the time. I don’t ‘confess money scriptures’ all day. I basically don’t believe in the main tenets of the prosperity gospel, but yet I have prospered! Why? I believe if you give your life away for others, practice giving and being generous, be EMPLOYED for most of your life, simply be a responsible person and even invest wisely. These are the things that ‘produce’ prosperity, not some tricks and gimmicks. I know God blesses his people; its just money shouldn’t be the focus! NOTE: I do find it strange that there are many Christians who are ALWAYS talking, thinking and focusing on material wealth. If I were to tell them ‘you have spent 35 years speaking, thinking and developing your entire Christian experience around money. Many of your teachers teach that Jesus was a millionaire; you have actually changed the image of God into one of your own desires. Many of the sermons you have heard thru out your life have been about money. Don’t you think it strange that someone like myself, who outright rejects and preaches against the movement is blessed’ Many of them would respond by saying ‘well, at least I died with a good confession’ No you didn’t, you died spending your whole life focusing on the things that Jesus said were not the true riches! Thanks to your preachers you spent a lifetime doing what Jesus said not to do! He said seek FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND ALL THINGS WILL BE ADDED TO YOU you my friend were seeking THE THINGS!
(172) A few years back a popular preacher in our region [Houston] was speaking about a guy who got stuck in a freezer [walk in!] He shared how even though the freezer was not plugged in, they found the guy dead in the morning. The brother said he believed the guy froze to death, because in his ‘mind’ he believed the freezer was on. I do like this preacher [Joel Osteen] but this is a type of ‘metaphysical’ belief. The groups ‘Christian Science’ and others hold to these views. The biblical view of ‘renewing the mind’ and meditating on Gods Word is a profitable thing. This type of belief [the freezer guy!] is really not biblical. We don’t ‘create reality’ with our thoughts or words. While it is good to keep a positive confession and to ‘set your mind on things above’ yet these practices don’t actually create reality! They can have an effect on our circumstances and help us in our walk with God, but in and of themselves these are simply ‘window dressing’. The basic tenets of Christian belief put the emphasis on character, faith, trusting in God, being diligent and overall ‘root’ issues. The modern focus on words and thoughts are a superficial approach. Though there is some biblical truth to them, they are not the deep issues of walking with God. What about the brother in the freezer? Well it’s possible he died of a heart attack or something, but he didn’t ‘create’ an environment with his mind that caused him to freeze to death.
(173) In the early church of the first couple of centuries there was a group of ‘Christians’ who were called Gnostics. These people believed in ‘special knowledge’. They felt that God revealed things to them thru spiritual means that the average Christians didn’t access. Today you have the equivalent of this in ‘revelation knowledge’. This is a type of belief among Christians that sometimes contradicts scripture, but slips in as ‘special revelation’. While it is true that God does give us prophetic insight and allows us to see things thru dreams and visions and other means, yet all of these ‘things’ are subservient to biblical authority! When things slip in under the title of ‘revelation knowledge’ we must judge it by scripture. If scripture contradicts the ‘revelation knowledge’ then we go with the Word!
(174) A few years ago we had an Apostle visit our area. He is fairly well known in ‘prophetic’ circles and does have a worldwide ministry. I do like him and his teaching. He was going to hold some meetings in Texas and I called his office to get directions. A few days later he called back at an inopportune time. If I am busy I will not answer my phone unless I recognize the number. I thought I would answer it this day anyway. Sure enough it was this national minister personally calling me. He didn’t know me at all! I think the Lord told him to call. I spoke only a few minutes and shared a prophetic word. I quoted ‘FOR THY SAKE WE ARE KILLED ALL THE DAY LONG’ he simply said ‘O MY’. I never got in touch with him again. I did send them our books and I feel we might be a little to ‘strong’ for this brother. Many ‘Apostles/Prophets’ are really affected by the prosperity gospel and modern concepts of ‘spiritual warfare’ and I think our teachings in these areas turned them off. I do feel the Lord allowed me to speak this word to him as a precursor to sending our books. It’s like God confirmed ‘the word with signs following [or should I say ‘preceding!’]
(176) I spoke on fasting a few entries back. I remember hearing one of the most prominent leaders of the prosperity movement [he has since gone on to be with the Lord] say that he didn’t fast anymore, but God told him instead to live a ‘fasted life’. This brother was overweight and had heart problems earlier in his life. I felt it strange that he didn’t fast anymore, and the ‘fasted life’ seemed to not truly limit his eating. I don’t want to be mean, I used to listen to this brother in the early years of my Christian experience, but I felt this to be a sign. Covetousness and the more extreme cases of it that were found in this brothers teaching is a form of lust and addiction. Jesus spoke on the power of ‘mammon’ as the only other addiction that directly competes with the kingdom of God for mans affections. ‘YOU CAN NOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON’ I felt the inability to break from the spirit of mammon was seen in this brothers inability to control his eating. Eventually instead of losing the weight, he seemed to develop a ‘belief’ thru a ‘Rhema word’ [God told me not to fast but to live a fasted life] that justified the appetites of the flesh. This same scenario flowed over into the more extreme elements of the prosperity gospel. Visions of Jesus appearing to these brothers telling them ‘YOU CAN WRITE YOUR OWN TICKET WITH GOD’ teachings on commanding Angels to ‘GO FORTH AND BRING TO ME MONEY’ things that I look at now and am amazed that so many Christians cant break from this stuff. I love the brother who I just used as the example, but our allegiance must be to God first and I felt he wanted me to share this.
(177) I remember sharing some of these things with ‘leaders’ of the church in Corpus Christi and they would say ‘oh that criticism is the same stuff that Hank Hanegraaff preaches’ [this brother wrote a critical book on the prosperity movement]. The inability of this particular leader to see the true deception of this movement would later limit his voice. The brother who said this to me went on the radio station that I broadcast on. I do like the brother, I kind of had the feeling he felt like ‘I will show John some things about radio’ sort of like he was going to ‘teach us a lesson’. He lasted a few weeks on the radio [we’ve been on 11 years as of 2007] I don’t want to boast or sound competitive, I simply believe God gives voice to those who are willing to see beyond there own personal survival and speak the truth. This ministry leader was trying to build a financial support base at the time of our discussion and I felt he dismissed out of hand what God was trying to show him [thru me!] because it simply didn’t fit in with the goal of ‘bringing in the money’. If we are truly in ministry to speak what God is saying, then the ‘goal of bringing in the funds’ must be secondary to the prophetic word. We must speak truth, regardless of how it affects our income base. Well I believe the ministry leader lasted a few weeks on the radio because he had his priorities wrong, what about you! NOTE: This is the same ministry leader I spoke on earlier who defended the prosperity preacher. During our conversation he was showing me things the Lord showed him out of the bible. Okay stuff from the Old Testament, little stories about unity and stuff. I found it strange that he would spend time on finding interesting stories from the bible and yet not see all the plain scriptures in the New Testament dealing with the issues of money DON’T DESIRE TO BE RICH, BE CONTENT WITH WHAT YOU HAVE, TEACHERS WILL ARISE IN THE LAST DAYS WHO WILL TEACH GAIN IS GODLINESS FROM SUCH TURN AWAY, THE LOVE OF MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL THOSE WHO HAVE GONE AFTER IT HAVE TURNED AWAY FROM THE FAITH [shall I go on?] I just think we ‘strain at gnats’ while we don’t realize we are ‘swallowing the camel whole’!
(179) I called the Houston Chronicle and asked them if I can run our blog in the church section, as of now I am still waiting for a response. I was up praying yesterday and heard [not audibly!] ‘Houston, we’ve got a problem’ so I began praying for the brother that I spoke to and also for divine favor. I recognize that if someone who works for these papers attends a prosperity church that they will not want to run the ad. There are obstacles in moving forward, I have given you guys an example on how one person can do great things in God, but there will be tremendous resistance. I gave you the example of my friend being on the radio for a few weeks. Though it doesn’t take a lot of money to impact regions, it does take spiritual courage. We wrestle not against flesh and blood; the adversary will come after you. Don’t want to intimidate you, just want to give you the facts. Also today we come out in the San Antonio paper, my daughter had a friend from high school that moved to San Antonio while they were still in school. He was a boyfriend/friend. I used to drive her midway and the boy’s mom would meet us and we would pick the boy up for a visit in Corpus. I gave the kid one of our books on the prosperity movement. A few weeks later the boy said his mom really liked it and wanted him to tell me. This was a nice Hispanic family. They were from a broken home, the boys ‘mom’ was really his grandmother. She was a nice woman. I kind of got the feeling that she was one of the many who hear the prosperity gospel for many years and feel a sense of guilt about struggling financially. The message has a tendency to say ‘just keep confessing and believing, surely God doesn’t want his kids to suffer and be broke. Look at us we are all rich’ [the preachers!] Many preachers don’t realize the damage their doing to the poor in our midst. James said ‘YOU ARE DESPISING THE POOR AND TREATING THE RICH WITH FAVOR, HATH NOT GOD CHOSEN THE POOR OF THIS WORLD RICH IN FAITH AND HEIRS TO THE KINGDOM WHICH HE HATH PROMISED, WOE TO THE RICH IN THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT, THEIR RICHES WILL DECAY AND HAVE NO EFFECT IN THAT DAY’ Many of the prosperity brothers simply don’t see the overall effect that the message has on people who are poor. James didn’t preach to the poor that if they believe long enough things will turn around. Paul didn’t tell the saints that they can be rich if they believe, he told them YOU CAME INTO THE WORLD WITH NOTHING, WHEN YOU LEAVE YOU WILL LEAVE WITH NOTHING, THEREFORE BE CONTENT TO HAVE YOUR NEEDS MET Now I realize that there are basic principles of believing the Lord for resources to touch the world. George Mueller was a great man of faith who started an orphanage and had miraculous stories of God providing. It’s that we just are blurring the lines too much. Scripture commands us to not show contempt to the poor. How do you think they feel when we say from our pulpits ‘Well our people are doing well, look at all the expensive cars in the parking lot’ now what do you suppose will happen to that innocent grandma raising her grandson for many years, who took the bus to church today? We don’t realize how much damage we have done. Some of you would have benefited to have listened to me 15 years ago when I started preaching this stuff, instead of telling every body ‘Oh that preacher is against the prosperity movement’ No I am FOR THE POOR GRANDMAS THAT JAMES TOLD US NOT TO DESPISE! NOTE: Many of the brothers I have spoken to over the years teach that there needs to be a return of ‘strong Apostolic authority’ like the early church had. It’s funny because when they here or read the stuff we are writing its ‘too strong’ for them! NOTE: Let me add that the preacher who made the statement about all the people doing well because they had nice cars in the parking lot, meant well. He was trying to express the fact that he wasn’t the only one doing well. This preacher is a very humble man in our city. He is more humble than me, and I don’t say this in a demeaning way. I consider him a true friend. Till this day I pray for the church he pastors as well as other area churches [the one I attend!] I consider him an innocent victim of the deception from certain elements of the prosperity movement. He did not realize that he was directly violating the scripture that says ‘DO NOT MEASURE GODLINESS BY GAIN’ Scripture plainly says you are not to use material things as a measure of ones faith. If the people were all poor and had ‘crappy’ cars, they still could have had ‘been doing well’ [spiritually] according to scripture. This innocent statement made by a good man is just one of the casualties of this teaching! Paul warned Timothy that those who would teach that gain was godliness and would make money the focus would ‘swerve from the faith’ that is they would UNCONCIOUSLY make statements and judgments that were outside of biblical parameters. The logic and reasoning of the above statement came from a good man who today realizes many of the things I am showing you, but at the time did not see how he was being affected by those who were ‘swerving from the faith’. We flippantly say things like ‘THE BIBLE DOESN’T SAY MONEY IS EVIL, BUT THE LOVE OF IT IS’ where does it say this? In TIMOTHY, the same book that I have been quoting all these verses from. People don’t realize that to make being rich your goal is forbidden in scripture. Now I didn’t say you can’t be rich, nor did I say you cant try to become rich. But scripture says that those who DESIRE to be rich fall into temptation and a snare. Scripture forbids the desire to be rich to be the motivational force in your life! BUT THOU O MAN OF GOD FLEE THESE THINGS don’t be duped into this stuff, it will cause you to swerve from the faith and God will limit your voice if you do!
(593) John 12- Jesus goes to Bethany, the town where he raised Lazarus. At the house Mary pours expensive perfume on Jesus. Judas gets mad! ‘We could have sold it and used the money for the poor!’ Judas was the treasurer, he had ‘the bag’. He didn’t care about the poor, but was stealing from the treasury. Some teach that the treasury had millions of dollars in it, if this were so then why would Judas be worried about some perfume worth around $132.00 dollars? You guys teaching this ‘rich Jesus’ stuff need to read your bibles! In the town of Bethany Lazarus is the talk of the town ‘hey, did you see the guy Jesus raised from the dead’? The Pharisees were devising a way to kill Lazarus too! It’s a funny thing, these leaders were sticklers for the law, real legalistic. The number one law out of their 10 commandments was ‘thou shalt not kill’ yet they seemed to be thinking of killing an awful lot! Religion does this to people, it causes you to overlook the obvious while worrying about the details. Jesus called this ‘straining at gnats while swallowing whole Camels’. You see this later on at the Crucifixion, they are all concerned over what day they kill Jesus ‘God forbid we break our rules of purity WHILE KILLING THE SON OF GOD!’ Pathetic bunch of losers. The Greeks come to Jesus disciples and say ‘we want to see Jesus’. They go and tell Jesus ‘these Greeks want to meet you’ Jesus responds in a strange way ‘unless a grain of wheat dies it abides alone, but if it dies it brings forth fruit… If any man serves me, where I am they will be’. In essence Jesus says ‘I am not here to present myself to people on some platform, I am here to do the will of my father. If they want to see me they must lay their lives down and die to self and carry the cross also, where I am they can be’. His answer was a call to self sacrifice and denial of self. Today we have an atmosphere of performance ‘lets go watch the great Prophet’. Going to conferences and stuff. Jesus said prophetic gifts function thru sacrifice, if you are laying your life down for the gospel you will interact with all of Gods gifted 5 fold ministers, but they were not designed to be seen on a stage. ‘While you have the light, walk in it. The darkness comes, and no one can function then’ Jesus was showing us to ‘strike when the irons hot’ act when God opens the door. I have found when I ‘go for it’ during seasons of God showing me stuff, then whatever is instituted at the time [some function of ministry] becomes really effective. Then there are times where I don’t go for it when the Lord opens the door, I miss the ‘open window’ and then later try to get something going, it never works! Like the children of Israel not entering the Promised Land on the first try, the next day they thought ‘what the hell, lets do it today’ it didn’t work! Walk while ye have the light [God showing you the next step] because when it gets dark [you missed the window] no one can work.
(227) IS THIS ACCUSING THE BRETHREN? Paul the Apostle dealt harshly with the judiasers of the 1st century. He said very strong things against them. He said ‘whose mouths MUST be stopped’. The judiasers did believe in Jesus! But they added other unbiblical doctrines that were contrary to the gospel. One of the definitions of satan is ‘the accuser of the brethren’. Scripture says ‘God casts him down’. I want you to see a subtle thing. satan is very ‘subtle’. Many of the doctrines that we have exposed actually ‘accused the brethren’ unwittingly. Many poor and struggling saints have been told ‘surely God doesn’t want his kids to suffer’ ‘how can a father not give good gifts to his kids’ and in the more extreme cases I have even heard it taught that the parents of children who have died did something wrong in applying their faith, that the ‘fault’ was on the side of the parents, not God. These forms of doctrine are the most extreme cases of accusation that can ever occur. Especially the last one! What we are actually doing thru our teaching is ‘casting down the accuser of the saints’ at the expense of false prophets. God defends THE POOR and needy. Both Jesus and the Apostles were very hard on the religious leaders, yet very merciful on people who were struggling. I simply wanted to show you that one of the functions of the prophetic is to ‘open eyes’ I hope you see what I just told you. NOTE: by the way we do believe in spiritual warfare, I think what I just showed you about ‘casting down’ the accuser is a good example of it. We accomplish it thru prophetic teaching and preaching, not thru yelling into the sky!
(228) In Isaiah 41 it speaks of ‘God raising up the righteous man from the east and giving nations to him, coming upon princes like mortar, the coastlands shall wait for his law’ [paraphrasing from memory]. Then it says ‘the islands feared and every man strengthened themselves and propped up each others idols’. There have been other significant seasons in the Body of Christ where the Lord dealt with many of these issues. The natural response was for the larger national ministries who propagate these doctrines to ‘prop each other up’. To simply use the tremendous financial store [which they do have!] to defend each other. This was not only a wrong defense of people out of ‘self preservation’ but much of the money that was used to ‘push back’ the reproof actually came from Christians who give sacrificially to these ministries. I couldn’t give in clear conscience to a ministry whose main leaders are making around $500,000 to a million a year from the offerings of many low-income people. But the point is there is a natural response to ‘join hands and strengthen each others idols’ because you know you are all ‘in the same boat’. This response is unfortunate, but it does happen!
(83) Just reading Isaiah 42, it says God anointed Jesus [and the Body of Christ] to bring forth judgment. He shall not cry nor cause his voice to be heard [self promotion]. He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He will open blind eyes and show people aspects of truth that they have never seen before. The ‘coastlands’ shall wait to hear the word the Lord will speak. They will be ‘fascinated’ by the Spirits ministry. The Lord will go forth ‘like a mighty man, he will shout like a woman in labor’. For a long time he held his peace, but finally said ‘it is enough, I cant sit by silently and let this go on’. Those that trust in graven images [idolatry- the old testament equal to covetousness] will be greatly ashamed and distressed. They will see themselves being reproved and corrected like never before. God’s people are like prey, they were ‘preyed upon’ and used as guinea pigs in the laboratories of men’s doctrines. None delivered, none said RESTORE! God will dry up their pools [the polluted sources that were making them sick. The ministries and avenues of ministry that were hurting them] God does all these things with the purpose of restoring and bringing us back to the Cross. God says I will not give my glory to graven images [men’s hearts rejoicing in materialism] but thru this whole process you will feel disoriented. Many of the leaders and sources of the past ‘will dry up’. God will begin to feed you again like the early days. You will hear his voice again, like at the beginning! NOTE: This chapter also says the Lord will roar like a Lion. I have spoken a lot on this blog about the imagery of the ‘Lion of Judah’ there are prophecies I have read this last year that spoke of the Lord roaring thru us, disintegrating obstacles. I feel the ‘roar of the Lion’ can be the prophetic ‘roar’ coming forth from the prophets at this season in the Church.
(236) While reviewing my mission statement I came across a dream that I forgot to mention. In 8-06 I had a dream that I was in a ‘composite’ type city. I wrote ‘Houston/San Antonio/Dallas’ as the cities that I saw. I also saw many friends from different areas and times in life. I saw Navy buddies, New Jersey friends and friends from Texas. I felt this spoke to God giving us open doors to many different people groups. God calls his people ‘the New Jerusalem’ we are called ‘the City of God’ we are the City [that is the people of God] whose builder and maker is God. I thought it was important to share this. I had no idea we would have such an open door to many of you in these cities. The Lord ‘shows you what’s going to happen before it happens’.
(237) A while back I mentioned how the prophet Jeremiah [and others] spoke about ‘tearing down, removing obstacles and building up’. I have been in the ‘demolition stage’ for a while and want to do some ‘building up’. I spoke on the extreme forms of ‘renewing the mind’, things like focusing all your thoughts on money verses, quoting scriptures that seem to focus on what you want out of life. These types of ‘mind renewing’ are not primarily what the New Testament is talking about when it speaks of renewing your mind. Paul the Apostle, who most frequently uses this image, had a basic thrust to his theology JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH Paul was a radical Apostle with a message of God accepting us freely as we believe in his son. Paul knew the terror of legalism and trying to keep Gods commands in order to be saved. The entire Old Testament Jewish law was a complete drain on the human psyche. Man over and over again would attempt to ‘live up to the standard’ to no avail. God allowed the sacrificial system of animals to temporarily ‘cover’ their sins as a future sign of the one sacrifice that would pay for all of mans sin. The Apostle Paul lived under this condemnation for most of his professional life. Paul was a Pharisee who taught Jewish law and was enmeshed deeply into this system. The revelation of being ‘saved’ thru simply believing in the single sacrifice of Christ was a tremendous ‘paradigm’ shift from legalism to grace. It was hard for someone of the Jewish faith to make this transition. It was almost as in if it were too good to be true! This is why Paul says things like ‘If there were a law given that good have made us right with God, then we would be made right by it. But being there is no such law, God has chosen to justify us by faith’. You find this singular theme repeated over and over again in Paul’s writings. Faith in Jesus is not only the way we get into the Kingdom, but it’s also the way we grow and mature once we get in! ‘HAVING BEGUN IN THE SPIRIT ARE WE NOW MADE PERFECT BY THE FLESH [LAW]?’ Galatians. Now with this underlying theme of grace, always warring against the mindset of law, Paul speaks of ‘renewing the mind’. It was a battle to keep at the forefront of the early believers this central reality of the gospel. Paul was continually warring against other religious leaders [judiasers] who did not walk in grace. This is primarily what the New Testament is speaking about in the area of renewing the mind. Some actually teach the renewing of the mind in a legalistic way. They make you think that you have to change your circumstances and ‘world around you’ by some type of mental gymnastics. You fall into this type of ‘mind renewing’ that puts the pressure on you to change things. This is not the biblical image of renewing the mind! The biblical image is seeing all the great things that God has done for us thru the Cross, and living our lives out of this radical gratitude that causes us to lay down all of our agendas for Gods agenda! The fact that this legalistic mindset of trying to live up to some religious standard is now over, this releases us into a radical way of life that makes Gods Kingdom the priority. As Paul teaches this radical good news, he clearly says ‘you are not saved or accepted with God based on your performance. You are accepted because Christ died for you’. Many people in society today don’t know this! They see the ‘church’ as a bunch of ‘moral hypocrites’. They don’t realize that God is not holding things against them. The account has been paid. God is not requiring them to join some church, or convert to some religion. He is simply trying to get this message to them. Why isn’t it getting to them? O that’s right, when they tune in to our TV shows they see us talking about money! [I forgot, I wasn’t going to tear down today]. You see, the thing that should be compelling us to go into all the world with an urgency to preach Christ is a gratitude for what he’s done for us. We don’t have the right anymore to live for ourselves; we have been bought with a price THEREFORE GLORIFY GOD IN YOUR BODY AND IN YOUR SPIRIT, WHICH BELONG TO GOD.
(238) I want to share a few more ‘funny’ stories, but I also have a lot of serious stuff to get to. The last entry is the heart of the gospel message. The radical ‘reconciliation’ of man back to God thru the Cross is the message. The reality of knowing that you, personally, are forgiven and totally accepted is radical. I have friends who read this site who are not Christian. Some are offended at me because of the strong Christian message that we proclaim. We openly say ‘you can only be saved thru Jesus’. I teach that all Jewish people, all Muslim people, all people every where can only be saved thru Christ. This does offend the modern liberal mind, to which some of our blog reader’s posses. The message is as simple as ‘all men need the sun to live’. Well how could you be so arrogant John. There are many opinions on this. Who do you think you are in making such a statement. How could a so called ‘just’ God require all humans to receive ‘sunlight’ to live. Be open-minded! The fact is God has made his sun [Son] available to all humanity. Some live their whole lives under it’s benefits, without ever giving it a second thought. It is not ‘bigoted’ or close-minded to accept the fact that Jesus Christ is the savior of all mankind. God has reconciled the world back to himself thru his Son. This central message is available for all men to receive. There are things in life that all people need to survive [food water, etc.] the simple fact is all men need Jesus. Don’t get mad over this. You don’t have to become a religious conservative [I’m not!]. You can even look like a radical hippie from the 70’s [I do!]. It’s just a matter of truth that you have been forgiven, why wont you accept this!
(266) A few years ago I did a radio series on the book of Exodus. One of the things we brought out was the story of the children of Israel giving freely of their riches and wealth in order to make the calf. The calf represents idolatry/covetousness. I was trying to show how certain forms of ‘giving’ are actually idolatry! For years giving was taught in a way that focused on ‘the act of giving’ as opposed to the ‘actual need being met’. People were only excited about giving, like being excited about investing in a stock or 401 K. The motive for giving was covetousness. There are many people today who ‘give’ willingly to an investment. The excitement is watching it grow. This is not New Testament giving. This is investing. It’s not wrong per se, but it’s not giving out of love. Even though the children of Israel ‘gave’ it wasn’t glorifying God! I remember many years ago being in a restaurant with some friends, preachers and stuff. One of the brothers was a prosperity preacher, he had just finished preaching and we were out fellowshipping. He was so excited about ‘giving’ that at one point he took off an expensive watch and ‘gave’ it to my friend [a prophet]. My friend accepted it, but you could tell the preacher then started regretting that he did it. This is a type of ‘giving’ that glorifies the ‘giving’ part, without actually meeting the true need of a person out of compassion. The New Testament model of giving is based on compassion for your fellow man, not on some investment scheme! NOTE: Just felt like I heard someone say ‘so what’s the point’? The point is when Gods people get free from idolatry [covetousness] we can then move on from our ‘golden calves’ to the true worship of God! NOTE: The prophet friend was one of those types who would ‘butt heads’ with Pastors and leaders. I was challenged this night by him in some way [?] I remember responding, like not letting it get to me and answering whatever challenge he gave me with wisdom. He was familiar with ‘pushing the buttons’ of Pastors and making them feel uneasy and stuff. By this time I had already been thru so much stuff, his little ‘attack’ didn’t produce the desired results. He kind of looked at me and said ‘you’ve been thru this before’ which was correct. NOTE: the ‘calf’ was made out of GOLD and they worshipped it as a god. This is the heart of idolatry, to ‘re fashion’ the image of God into the image of what men desire [Romans 1-2]. Eventually if a person insists on ‘seeing’ the ‘Jesus’ of his own imagination [rich, etc.] then God will ‘give them over’ to that image. In essence their ‘god’ will become a ‘golden calf’ an image of wealth that does disgrace to the true image of Christ! [OUCH!]
(282) Reading Isaiah 44. The Lord says the people made idols out of that which God provided for their sustenance, that is Gods resource to them [trees in Isaiah, money and Gods provision now]. They ‘deck it with gold’ [in Jeremiah?] they worship that which God gave as provision and made it their God. They ‘prayed to it’ and saw it as the answer to their dilemma [if we just had this transference of wealth we could accomplish our mission!] They became just like that which they worshipped. Their idols were blind and deaf and dumb. They became blind [unable to perceive] deaf [unable to hear reproof] and dumb [God took away their voice from society, the church at large]. Because of their worship of the idols they ‘became foolish in their understanding and were ashamed’ their foolishness was seen by all [many even from the secular media have said ‘how can you think Jesus was this money focused mega star, he was a carpenters son!’ Even Larry king, a Jewish talk show host said this about the modern money preachers] HE FEEDETH ON ASHES, A DECIEVED HEART HATH TURNED HIM ASIDE The fact that they ‘fed’ off of their own shallow belief system, caused them to become shallow in their understanding of scripture, unable to see the most obvious things! GOD FRUSTRATED THOSE WHO WERE LYING AND TURNED THESE WISE MEN BACKWARD AND MADE THEIR KNOWLEDGE FOOLISH and at the end God forgave those who were willing to repent and he restored them. First comes strong rebuke, but then a true restoration to the original purpose of God. NOTE: It says they fell down and worshipped THE STOCK OF A TREE paper money is made from the ‘stock of a tree’ the way you worship something is by seeing that thing as your goal, confession, desire. Just thinking about it gives you great satisfaction. You spend a great amount of your thought life strategizing and dreaming about making more of it. It’s a deadly pursuit. Jesus says you don’t have time for God and mammon, the worship of mammon consumes too much time! NOTE It also says that a judgment on those who are held captive by idolatry/covetousness is they are unable to see the most obvious things in scripture. One of the strangest things I have seen from the more extreme prosperity brothers is the inability to read the passages of scripture that PLAINLY deal with covetousness and to SEE what these passages are saying. I heard a brother teach on 1st Timothy 6 [both a local brother and 2 national ones] I guess they were getting some heat from guys like me who tell people that 1st Timothy 6 totally deconstructs the modern prosperity gospel. When they were done trying to teach the chapter they were making it say the exact opposite of the plain meaning of Paul’s words. Paul in Timothy warns Timothy about a ‘coming’ group of preachers who will teach that gain is godliness. At one point Paul says FLEE THESE THINGS AND INSTEAD LAY HOLD ON ETERNAL LIFE. The context of this passage was explained by a prosperity guy to mean Paul was telling Timothy to ‘lay hold of abundant material wealth’ he exegetes the word ‘eternal life’ and showed that one of the definitions speaks of ‘wealth in every area’ he then made the conclusion that Paul told Timothy to ‘lay hold of wealth’ This brother didn’t see that when you exegete [study the meaning] of a word you can find many different definitions that apply at different times [Jesus says ‘save a sheep’ or a coin in his parables. This is the same word for ‘save a soul’ in salvation. The text shows you that Jesus isn’t saying ‘save’ in the same way when he talks about sheep and humans] this basic mistake caused the prosperity guy to take the actual warnings in scripture that deal with covetousness and made it teach covetousness. I have seen this twisted interpretation over and over again from many of these guys. This is a judgment from God on those who choose to preach a wealthy Jesus. God says those who distort his Sons image are committing idolatry. One of the judgments on those who commit idolatry is that there wisdom becomes foolishness; they are held captive by their own distorted views. I do pray that these brothers would repent from this stuff. I have personally sent them books and things over the years. It’s just it got to a point where they refuse reproof and we are now at a stage where we are trying to keep a whole new generation of believers from going down this path.
(283) Lets overview a few things. We have covered verses that said ‘the people go out and cut down a tree a make it into the form of a man, they also cover the tree/idol with gold, they worship the image of their mind’ idolatry is forming a ‘man’ into the image that you desire, and blatantly ‘decking him with wealth’ OUCH! [Remember we mentioned in Galatians Paul said some were preaching another Jesus, this ‘other’ Jesus that some preach today is ‘an image of a man’ that is adorned/decked with expensive jewelry and wealth!] Also the image in my mind this morning [its 2:37 am at the fire house] is that of dismembered baby parts all thru out this country. Understand many of these dismemberings took place on the ‘altar of convenience’ i.e.: ‘we can’t AFFORD this child right now’ God have mercy on us as a people. A few scriptures that are coming to mind. I WILL POUR WATER UPON HIM THAT IS THIRSTY [you Pastors and leaders specifically] AND FLOODS UPON THE DRY GROUND. I WILL POUR MY SPIRIT ON YOUR SEED AND MY BLESSING UPON YOUR OFFSRPING Some of our readers have known us forever, and you guys are still getting ‘poured on’ Great! But I want you to start POURING ON OTHERS. God is going to ‘pour’ on key Pastors/Leaders and allow for you to attain great influence and open doors in the nations. Many of the things ‘from this radical guys blog site’ are going to rapidly advance thru the land. GOD IS GOING TO FLOOD THE DRY GROUND There is an individual ‘pouring’ on ‘him’ that is thirsty. You ‘thirsty’ leaders are drinking much from this place/site, but God is also ‘pouring’ regionally. Some who have heard us in the past have thought ‘thank God this brother doesn’t have a lot of influence’ well the Lord seems to have changed that. Not for personalities sake, for his purpose. Be a part of pouring the stuff out that he has poured into you! God pours on individuals that are thirsty, so they can be rejuvenated to help pour out on the seed [corporate community] God pours ‘buckets of water’ on the dry ground. One person can only haul so many buckets. 2 can haul more, but a 3-fold cord is not easily broken. Once a ‘grouping’ of Prophetic/Apostolic brothers start disseminating new/fresh revelation, it becomes very hard to stop it at that point THY SEED AND THY NAME SHALL REMAIN. THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH YOU, MY WORDS THAT I HAVE PUT IN THY MOUTH SHALL NOT DEPART OUT OF THY MOUTH, NOR OUT OF THE MOUTH OF THY SEED FROM THIS TIME FORTH AND FOREVER MORE. Many of our leader friends and ‘regular’ friends for many years, run with the things the Lord has showed you. I have been running myself for a long time with these things, take the baton! BE STRONG AND OF A GOOD COURAGE, BE NOT AFRAID, NIETHER BE THOU DISMAYED, FOR THE LORD THY GOD IS WITH THEE WITHERSOEVER THOU GOEST Go somewhere! GET OUT OF THE CITY AND DWELL IN THE FIELDS, EVEN BABYLON. THERE I WILL BE WITH YOU AND THERE I WILL DELIVER YOU FROM THE HAND OF THE ENEMY you have to be in enemy territory to be delivered from enemies! THE GATES OF HELL SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST THE CHURCH [ecclesia]. We too often read church as the stagnant place. But read it as ecclesia, the mobile force and community of God. When we ‘mobilize’ and ‘take camp’ in enemy territory it becomes an ‘outpost’ for God. We are the ambassadors representing the Kingdom in that place. Before too long the inhabitants of ‘that place’ become citizens of the Kingdom we represent and we have taken ground for the kingdom. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN SUFFERETH VIOLENCE AND THE VIOLENT TAKE IT BY FORCE The concept of one nation taking up residence in another land and then influencing that society for God is seen strongly in the Old Testament nation of Israel. God allowed for ‘proselytes’ and foreigners to come in and be part of Gods society. This is voiced in Ephesians by Paul. Speaking of us being strangers to the covenant, and now thru Christ being adopted in. Also in the book of Acts it speaks of ‘God Fearers’ this wasn’t a reference to people who just ‘feared God’ it was speaking of outsiders who were embracing Judaism but were not fully converted yet. So we see the intent of God to first reveal himself to a group/nation of people. But that nation is not supposed to ‘contain’ him, but reveal him to all the surrounding nations. The light under a bushel and not being on the candlestick were images that Jesus used to reprove the Jews of the 1st century. They took Gods glory that was specifically given to them to share, and they became ‘self righteous’. They chose to ‘separate’ from society in a legalistic way that said ‘we are better than you, stay away’. Jesus would rebuke this mindset over and over again in the parables. Many Christians today, in certain isolated forms of church, practice this kind of legalism. They view ‘church’ as a place to go and stay clean from the world. They miss the original intent of God, which was to influence the world. Get that light out from under the cover; get that salt out into society. It wasn’t given to us so we could ‘dig a whole and bury it in the ground’ [I think I heard a popular speaker say this once?]
(289) Reading Isaiah again, some stuff from chapter 45. God says his anointing subdues nations [large regions] looses Kings [leaders] from captivity [things that they didn’t even know were holding them back]. God goes before his anointed and breaks in pieces the gates and bars that people trusted would protect their borders [territory]. WOE TO THOSE WHO STRIVE WITH THEIR MAKER some will fight back against what God is doing and it will be harmful to them. Pride will cause them to see the reproof as ‘Oh, it's those critics again’ not realizing that this time certain things have come full circle and the Lord will not let certain things stand anymore. Those whom God anoints will LET GO THE CAPTIVES, NOT FOR PRICE OR REWARD there only motivation is to free the people and finish the purpose of God. THEY SHALL GO TO CONFUSION TOGETHER THAT ARE MAKERS OF IDOLS In the past when they were reproved they were able to ‘whether out the storm’ but not this time. They go into confusion together this time; the only hope is to finally truly address these same rebukes they have heard thru out their lives. I HAVE NOT SPOKEN IN SECRET, OR IN A DARK PLACE God says I have made these things plain, the only thing preventing many from changing is spiritual pride. LOOK UNTO ME ALL THE ENDS OF THE EARTH/ EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW AND EVERY TONGUE CONFESS all people involved will find harmony and peace when there is mutual submission to the Lord ship of Christ. All will bow! MEN OF STATURE SHALL COME OVER TO THEE AND THEY SHALL BE THINE Some influential Kingdom leaders will be persuaded this time around. They themselves have questioned many of these things but this time they know for sure which path to take.
(299) Some things from Isaiah 46. THE IDOLS WERE UPON THE BEASTS, THEY ARE A BURDEN TO THE BEAST Idols wear you down, they put the responsibility on you to change your world. Sooner or later they will weigh you down. I HAVE MADE AND I WILL CARRY YOU AND DELIVER YOU True Christianity puts the ‘burden’ on God to pull us thru. HIS YOKE IS EASY AND BURDEN LIGHT THEY TAKE GOLD OUT OF THE BAG, AND WEIGH SILVER IN THE BALANCE. THEY HIRE A GOLDSMITH AND HE MAKES IT INTO A GOD God will not let this stand CALLING A RAVENOUS BIRD FROM THE EAST, THE MAN THAT EXECUTETH MY COUNSEL FROM A FAR COUNTRY. I HAVE SPOKEN IT AND I WILL BRING IT TO PASS. I HAVE PURPOSED IT AND I WILL DO IT HEARKEN UNTO ME YE STUBBORN OF HEART God says this time around I will perform my purpose to bring true reform. Many times you have been reproved and shown the error of idolatry, you have for the most part ignored it and have not allowed for true reformation. This will not stand any longer. The people are tired of the burden it brings and they will flee to God so he can ‘carry them’. NOTE: I have memorized the ‘ravenous bird from the east’ for over 20 yrs. I always took it personal. Coming from the east and all. ‘Blinded by the light’ song says ‘preacher from the east’. American Pie from Don McLean says ‘the 3 Men I admire most, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, they took the last train for the coast’ you have the train imagery and the coast. And the image from the gospel of John on ‘in my fathers house are many mansions’ speaks of people groups. Well Springstein says ‘ every body’s out on the road tonight in a last chance power drive, took highway nine to the mansions of glory’ I have driven highway 9, as you can tell I still like the old songs!
(319) The enemy uses systems and structures of speech and thought that are closely related to godly avenues in order to sidetrack people. When the serpent came to Eve in the garden, he is using speech [confession] scripture [the words God spoke, though distorted] and the form of communication that God initially established for his purpose [by the way, those involved in Christian TV networks, many of you do broadcast very good stuff. I was just watching God TV last night and enjoyed a Rick Joyner meeting, also I like the I.H.O.P. meetings with Mike Bickle and many other good prophetic ministries. It is the enemies strategy to ‘mix’ the good stuff with the ‘bad’ wheat/tares strategy] The fact that the enemy uses the means of communication that God initiates should cause us to be more selective in discerning that which is holy [good] from that which is not! Pastor[s] can feel like I am ‘threatening’ their livelihood. I understand this. This is a direct result of the modern day phenomena of the ‘full time minister’. Paul and the other New Testament leaders were not trying to ‘defend their jobs’ they were laying their lives down for truth. Sometimes literally! True reform is difficult. People are happy and comfortable with a steady income stream. Regular supporters who are really blessed by other ministries who might broadcast thru the station. All the natural feelings of being threatened and loosing that sense of security are involved with reform. Many Catholic Priests were shaken during the reformation. It was a time in history where God said ‘I am going to change some things permanently in the history of the Church’. I am not saying everything the reformers did was right. But the time had come for a shift to happen. Shifts are very uncomfortable. They cause you to re evaluate all that you have known and held onto in the past. Shifts are necessary. No chastening at the present time seems to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless afterward it produces right things as well as peace. To some it brings destruction. That’s not the purpose of chastening, but some are steeped in rebellion to the point where they have staked their lives on it. NOTE: Let me try to help some of you who are sincerely worried. The reality of God being our provider. The truth behind all the scriptures of God wanting to prosper us and God being a good God and all of these things are true. They were true for Paul who said ‘Preachers will rise in the last days, preaching that gain is godliness. From such turn away’ they were true for Jesus who said ‘be ware of covetousness, a mans life doesn’t consist in the amount of things he owns’. These scriptures of God being our provider teach us that God is good and will most definitely meet our needs. This is a far cry from the other stuff I am trying to ‘root out’. God being our provider is one thing. Making the entire gospel and kingdom about money is something forbidden in scripture! Discern this guys. Especially you Pastors and Leaders, you cannot keep getting away with letting this slip thru to your people. Ideas and wrong teachings have long lasting results. Don’t let your people go down this road! Teach them about the goodness of God, but don’t let them get ruined by this stuff! NOTE: The serpent actually accomplished his goal thru the speaking of Gods word in a distorted version. He ‘marred’ the image of God that was in man. Man continued to exist, but his ‘image’ was not the complete original intent of the Father. This is what I showed you earlier about idolatry. Many in this movement ‘believe’ in Jesus, but the true image of Christ is ‘marred’ by the distorted view of scripture!
(320) DON’T BE AFRAID! God has a great future ahead for you guys [and gals]. A lot of leaders are seeing all the stuff we have spoken on, many know it all to be true. Some are scared. Don’t be. Simply acknowledge that the church went thru a stage where we fulfilled aspects of 1st Timothy 6. Paul said if you rebuke false prophets sharply they will turn to truth. OK now lets move on with the great future ahead. Some of the more notable brothers will not deal with any of this stuff out of fear. Fine. I love them. We showed them what the Lord said. If they don’t listen that’s their problem. Will everything be smoothed over? NO! But they will give an account to God like everyone else. At least you guys who were sending in your ‘seed’ to the TV stations and ministries who were promoting this stuff have gotten wise. Give your money to ‘feed the children’ or Billy Graham or the church you attend [if their not a prosperity one!]. Time rolls on, we have a destiny to fulfill. Get on with It!
(343) The western church [you and me] plays a major role in the purpose of God at this time. We are extremely immature in our thinking. We are extremely materialistic in our view of the churches role in society [read the Popes recent book-2007] we see ‘the answer’ to world evangelism as bringing in more money. God sees the actual people as the ‘riches’ of the nations. ‘Ask of me and I will give you the heathen for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession. Your sons shall come from far and your daughters from the ends of the earth’ Many truly do not see what we have done in the American church for the last 50 years. Jesus is prophetically ‘turning the tables of the money changers over’ he is entering a time period in the western church where he is dealing with and judging ‘our god’. One of the major tools that he raises up to use for tasks like this are prophets. It was a crafty strategy of the enemy to cause the prophets to ‘worship gods of gold’. In doing this the enemy for the most part removed the key tool that our Father wanted to use for this work. This work of dealing with idolatry in the western church is a major [if not the major] prophetic work that needs to be done in order for the nations to say ‘Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’. Jesus wasn’t just dealing with 1st century moneychangers. He was signifying the future ‘cleansing’ of his people from this mindset. Right now the Spirit of God is doing a ‘violent’ work in many key prophets thru out our country. Many were not dealing with these issues out of pride. They put their ministries and the success of their personas at the forefront of their concerns. They saw any reproof in this area as wrong. They were not humble enough to realize that the Spirit of God shows no partiality. God commands all men everywhere to repent. He does not come to take sides in arguments. He comes in power so he can reap the riches of the earth. We must be free from the riches of the world in order for him to do this.
(344) There are tremendous worldwide movements taking place right now in the earth. China is being brought to Christ at a tremendous rate. Some estimate 1200 people an hour are coming to Jesus. I remember hearing a testimony from some Pastor from an overseas country. Many of the Pastors in this country [it was a 3rd world country, I cant remember what one] were looking at the money gospel that we were pumping into their country. They all with one voice joined in an outright rejection and rebuke of these American heretics. They plainly saw all the things I have shown you on this site and flat out rejected it. There is a mindset that comes from these ministries that sees the ‘doctrine’ that they are putting out as ‘deep truths, the meat of the word’ they have deceived themselves into thinking that all of these obvious errors are really the true mysteries of God. Pride is very destructive. It was really humbling to see instances where sincere leaders and believers from the world over have at times openly rebuked the obvious error of these things. The instances I recall were like the people were saying ‘cant you see how deceived you American preachers are’. I realize that all American preachers are not like this. But these worldwide Christians see a regular dose of this kind of Christianity from the Christian networks. I see this as the Spirit of the Lord rising up within his people to correct the Body. I do remember watching the Fort Worth brother teach a series on Hebrews and teach that the meat of the word of God was being able to ‘rule your senses’ to a point where you only hear the promises of abundance and become rich. Any one who can’t ‘rule his senses’ and listens to the ‘nay sayers’ has weak faith and therefore is not financially rich. The amount of deception that was broadcast worldwide form this program is unbelievably harmful to the church. These verses from Hebrews were saying nothing even remotely close to this. It was so obvious to the average believer. But the leaders of this movement are so steeped in this stuff they simply cant see it. NOTE; I have written to some of these networks, as others have done. At times I feel like saying ‘I can’t believe you guys are allowing this to go worldwide’ but I guess they feel like they should. NOTE; Many of these verses that they use to do this are either taken from chapters or books of the New Testament that are actually warning against covetousness. Sometimes the actual verse says something like ‘avoid materialism, seek spiritual riches’ and these guys will take that verse and say ‘the word for ‘riches’ speaks of abundance in every area. Therefore God is telling us to seek wealth and money’ the amount of deception is quite unbelievable. [That’s why I can’t understand how my ‘prophetic’ friends do not only remain silent on this stuff, but they often perpetuate it. This takes the tool that God wants to use to up root this [the Prophets] and actually causes it to line up in agreement. This cannot stand any more.] NOTE; When these guys do this stuff, it’s like the bible and the true person of Jesus are tools to do what they want with. To say ‘Jesus is Lord’ after doing all this makes you think of the verse ‘why do you call me Lord and not do/say the things that I am saying’. This same preacher also taught that Hebrews says ‘Jesus is the Apostle and high priest of our confession/profession’ he actually taught that this meant ‘Jesus is the SERVANT of what we say, if we confess ‘car/money/etc.’ then Jesus as the priest of our confession goes and says ‘yes sir, I will now go to the father and cause the things you spoke to manifest’ This has Jesus ‘being Lord/High Priest’ turned completely around. The verse means we obey him. As our high priest he mediates for us. Because we have entered into covenant with him, we are debtors to him. We lay our lives down for him. To be honest the way this preacher actually showed Jesus in a way that made him look like a servant was truly offensive. He kind of showed Jesus as a slave to our desires. You guys defending this stuff, times up, don’t defend this anymore.
(351) The rise of the Islamic religion came as a direct result of the Christian churches idolatry. 1400 years ago the prophet Muhammad saw the actual idolatry of the church in having statues and Christians actually bowing down in front of them during ‘church’ services. Muhammad led an iconoclastic revolt [image smashing] and felt that God was using him to judge idolatry in the church. In essence ‘radical Islam’ is sort of a type of ‘Babylonian’ judgment that God allows to come against the church when she becomes idolatrous/materialistic. Today radical Islam looks at all the TV and entertainment that is being produced from ‘western’ Christianity, and sees herself once again as an instrument in Gods hand to ‘judge’ idolatry/materialism. The western church doesn’t yet realize the significance of not being materialistic. Many of the mindsets say ‘this is what Christianity is all about, God is a good God [true] and therefore we are all bout ‘accumulating stuff’ [false]. This ‘idolatry’ of things has once again opened a ‘spiritual portal’ that allows ‘pagan’ nations to judge Gods people. In essence God uses wicked govt. and religions to come in and attack the ‘secure’ feeling of those who find security in ‘things’. The significance of the worlds 3 great religions [Christianity/Islam/Jew] at this time in world history is at a critical point. The reason why ‘spiritual Israel’ [all believers] will be the ‘body of people’ that Christ will return to and vindicate is because these have been the servants of all these other nations during these conflicts. Jesus said the last will be first. These humble believers who have been risking their lives reaching out to all these communities and trying to feed and help these nations are the ones that Christ returns to and ‘shows’ himself. In essence the humble church do inherit the earth. Natural Israel could not do this. The Israel of today is a govt. built and established on Old Testament truths. They still have embedded in their minds the concept of ‘animal sacrifice’ and obedience to law as the nationalistic ‘glue’ that holds the fabric of their society together. The return of Jesus will be an event where all nations will see and fall down and confess Jesus as Lord. It will be humbling to realize that at this moment God is not vindicating the thoughts or religions of men, but instead he will be vindicating the Lamb and his followers. Judgment will be given over to the Lamb and the humble ones who have been following him for 2 thousand years. The world will be relieved to see judgment in the hands of those who truly loved and gave themselves for them. Paul said we shall judge the world. Jesus said whosever’s sins you forgive will be forgiven. There is an aspect to the final judgment that is given to the Saints. This will not be an arrogant thing. Jesus is waiting for the saints to be mature enough to return and entrust this to them. You wouldn’t give your car to your 10 year old. But when they are mature enough you will entrust it to them. So a major aspect of Christ’s return is for his people to be mature enough to not want to judge and condemn, but who will be willing to ‘suffer these other nations to come unto him’. After all redemption was his purpose from the start. [I am not advocating universalism, I am showing you that at Christ’s return he wants his people to be able to handle in grace and mercy the role we will play in the judgment of the nations].
(561) I heard a brother speak the other day. He shared a good message. He confessed that most of his background and study came from a certain type of Christianity. He shared from A.A. Allen, John G lake, Kathryn Kuhlman and others who were part of the ‘latter rain’ or healing movements from the middle of the last century. He also said how after he became a Christian he called Rhema Bible college and ordered ‘one of everything’ they had. He had quite a big load of books and tapes! The message the brother shared was good, he seems to be a very humble man. I remember studying many of these movements myself, I realized the danger that comes from seeing only one particular aspect of the church. Like studying year’s worth of teachings that all have the same fundamental error. You might think you are learning year’s worth of knowledge, but in reality you are feeding from a very skewed idea of Christianity. The people the lord used in the latter rain movement were good people [with many flaws] that for the most part were gifted in great ways. I feel the problem with this movement was the whole concept of fame and ‘platform performance’. They didn’t see the wrong paradigm that they were operating from. They didn’t realize that these gifts should be used in a limited way from such a platform. They fell into the mindset of the day that created an organization around them and their personas. So you had tremendously gifted people, like William Branham, who operated in tremendous giftings, but who also had some serious doctrinal flaws. He taught racist ideas about blacks, the ‘seed of the serpent’ and things like this. I do not view all of these people as false prophets, the danger was the individualistic style and performance mentality that went along with the gifts. Real gifts, less than ideal ways of expressing them.
(609) Over the years I have seen how division happens among good believers. On this site you can read some good stuff [I think!] on doctrine. You can also read lots of stuff on visions and dreams. I realize that there is a whole sector of the church who believe that the current church ‘is rampant with false doctrine’. I here a local commercial on the radio station that I broadcast on say this. When I here it I hope I am not coming across as someone who only sees ‘rampant false doctrine’ in our day. I also see how these reformed guys see ‘rampant false doctrine’. But sometimes there are honest disagreements that wouldn’t fall into the ‘false doctrine’ category. Paul was a tremendous theologian, reformed as much as any one! Yet what would you think if your favorite reformed theologian was raising the dead? Or sending handkerchiefs to sick people to get well? [it might have been Peter?] Or casting blindness on demon possessed followers? We often see only one side of the argument. Then you have the Charismatics who operate in these things, but it is next to impossible to show them that this same Paul who did these things wrote first Timothy 6, one of the strongest reproofs to the money gospel ever written. So we all have a tendency to take what we like and leave the rest behind. Sort of like some of the first canons of scripture, some guys just cut out the stuff they didn’t like! Even the great Luther had problems with James, Hebrews, Revelation, 2nd Peter and others. Sometimes our minds become idols. I want to exhort all my reformed friends to read the New Testament with an open mind, as well as my Charismatic friends. We all have blind spots that we don’t know are there [even me!] God ordained this to be so! That way we would realize we need each other in order to complete the mission. Let the iron sharpen iron.
(620) PARABLE OF A FIRE STARTER This kinda goes with the last entry. Jesus said he came to set fire to the earth, and how he wished it were already burning. We are all fire starters in this Jesus revolution. Some mock the revolution. I know of unbelievers who make fun of it. Hey, if you wanna die and go to hell, that’s your problem [you will not start the fires, but believe me, you will see them a lot!] For the rest of us we have a job to finish. Now in this revolution our primary responsibility is to start fires. Sure, there are some who have started ‘fire ministries’ they will tell you how important it is that you recognize that God has called them to start these fires. They will show you the verses where a great past fire starter [Paul] started them. They will even take you to the verses where he asked for others to send him some money because God called him to start fires in other places. He needed bus fare to go to the next place and start another fire. What you usually don’t hear is that the Apostle wasn’t starting a huge ‘fire starter’ ministry to get others to support. He was simply asking for help to go to the next forest and set that thing on fire! Many current fire starters seem to think the job is to convince many others to join the fire starter ministry, when in reality a true fire starter lights the fire and runs! He knows that inherent in this fire is the self sustaining ability to grow and spread rapidly. He will check in every now and then to see how big the fire got, but for the most part he lets the thing burn on its own. One of the things that can stop it is when the future fire starters believe that they only have the responsibility to start the fires. They can unwittingly restrain the nature of the fire. They don’t mean to do this, it is just an outgrowth of viewing ‘fire starting’ as a profession. The early starters all believed that it was everyone’s job to start them. After all, the original fire starter seemed to say this all the time. The early fire starters remembered the words of the first revolutionary ‘I have come to set fire on the earth, how I wish it were already burning’! NOTE; another thing that has hindered the fire is that many starters think the job is to simply raise the money and believe for the money that the fire starter Paul would speak about. These sincere starters have lost track of the original mission, which was to actually start the fire! [win people to Jesus!]
(602) Got with some homeless brothers yesterday, I will be seeing them in a few more hours. They read some of my stuff, one of them just lost his wife and child in a car crash this past year. He is struggling with it. He told me he was raised Mormon and hasn’t believed in God for years. But he started believing again in the last 2 weeks. I felt he wanted to kind of say ‘do you know why’? And maybe give me some credit, but I didn’t go down that road. I wanted him to believe because he chose to, not to impress me. I dealt with Mormonism in an honest way. Didn’t sugar coat the many problems with this belief [Like the total lack of any historical evidence backing up all of the so called tribes of people that Jesus supposedly appeared to in the Americas. All the names of people, cities, the money they used. None of these things have ever been found! Never mind the fact that the ‘angels’ who translated the ‘plates’ that Smith found in the ground, used King James English in his translation! EEEK!]. Well anyway when I went to see a good Christian friend who knows web sites, he was helping me with a few pointers. He started a business, was telling me how thru the business they get opportunities to witness. A good thing. He is an older man, involved in the local scene. He was getting ready to go the office, also spending time working at his house. I was hoping to finish with what he was showing me so I could get with some homeless guys at the mission. I don’t say this to boast or compare myself with my friend. I want to give an example. As he was telling me how thru the business they have opportunities to witness, he mentioned something about me being a fire fighter. I told him I am in the middle of retiring after 25 years. This brother has been financially independent for many years [he is rich!] I never knew this when I first met him. If I knew it I wouldn’t have paid for him and one of his employees when we went out to eat after a prayer meeting! The point is as we were talking, I was kind of rushing to get with the brothers. He was also rushing to go to the office. Why don’t we see the reality of touching people directly? If we retire as believers, or are financially well off, why not see your situation as being a direct conduit into the lost world around us? We often want to establish things [ministries, businesses, etc] and thru these other things we try to influence society. This is okay to a degree. But also leave yourself open to the concept of Jesus giving us authority and a responsibility to directly impact the world. I didn’t see my rushing to leave as ‘I need to go run the ministry’ or ‘establish our ministry’. I have left that mindset years ago. I saw my ‘rushing to leave’ more like Jesus going after the one sheep while leaving the 99 [I would not dare compare myself to the Lord!] The point is, if your child was starving on the street, strung out on drugs. Would your first thought be ‘how can I go start something that will affect them in the long run’? [a sort of Christian ‘trickle down economics!] Or would you take all you have, your time, resources and everything and directly go find that child and try and help them? I think we need to re evaluate what Jesus calls us to. Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in! Don’t just ‘go out’ hoping to have a successful career, give God 10 % on Sunday while hoping you will in some way have an impact in society. Jesus said ‘when I was hungry you never came to me, I was sick and in prison, where were you’ I don’t want to say ‘at the office’! [Or down at the church!] NOTE; let’s ‘tear down every high thought that comes against the knowledge of God’. I want you to see the subtle mindset of religion. We often appeal to people along the lines of ‘support your church financially, live a good Christian life. Come to church on Sunday and be excited about all the mission works and reaching out and supporting missionaries that the church [organization] is supporting’ while all of these works are good and noble, what this tends to do is develop a mindset in the church [the actual ecclesia who are sitting in the pews!] that their main job is to fund the organization [like giving to the Red Cross] and that by their being faithful to fund it, they will have a reward. Now, I am sure the Lord will honor those who have given this way, as well as honor those fulltime missionaries who are doing good works. But when we frame the conversation this way, the poor people in the pews are only spectators who are living vicariously thru the professionals. They hear all the exciting stories form the visiting missionaries. They see the great things that the Pastor has done over the past year. They are very excited about all the good things that are happening. Then they are told ‘it’s good to believe God to use you to excel in the business world and make more money so we can do more projects. Don’t you know if you only believe for your own needs, you are being selfish!’ So the condemnation is ‘why do I not feel fulfilled by simply supporting this system’? Because God didn’t design you to be fulfilled by simply making money and supporting others who are laying their lives down. He designed you to lay your life down as well. To personally be involved in some way by actually doing the work! Not by simply thinking you will get a reward by giving money to others who are doing it. I have found the breaking of this mindset to be one of the biggest obstacles standing in the way of true revolution in the church. Every time you try and break this barrier, you are looked at as some rebel who doesn’t believe in tithing. Then to top it all off, every time a believer gets close to ‘making the break’ in his thinking and acting, he is then told ‘God will curse you if you rob from him’[Malachi]. May God help us all to get beyond this stuff! NOTE; Remember when we covered Exodus? [on radio] The children of Israel were told ‘you need to make more bricks, the reason the people are complaining is because they are not busy enough’! The bricks were being used to build Pharaohs cities, that which would bring glory to mans legacy. When we tell people ‘make more money, become millionaires so you can fund Christian stuff’ what we are doing is taking a very small percent of truth and applying it on a broad scale. In rare cases people are called to be rich to support ministries. The testimony of scripture does show this! Joseph of Arimathea, the rich guy who gave his grave to Jesus. Those in Acts who sold lands. There are examples of this. But you never see Jesus or Paul telling believers ‘trust God to make you rich so you can give us more money’. We err when we do this! We in essence are preaching a message to people that says ‘you are selfish if you are only working for your own needs, you need to give your life to become rich’ this message becomes a direct violation of scripture. In Hebrews it says ‘be content with what you have’. Paul says to Timothy ‘don’t desire to become rich’. This idea of telling believers to get rich to support ministries is way off. It actually falls into the category of ‘making more bricks for men’s glory’.
(629) MEGA CHURCH- I want to speak a little on the trend of ‘mega church’. Those of you who have read all my stuff know the way I view ‘church’. Not so much the ‘church I go to on Sunday’ but more of ‘the group of believers residing in my city’. Now, I am not against mega church. Recently a mega church in Texas taught some stuff that was in the class of real heresy. They denied that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel. This got us to discus how stuff like this can happen. In the idea of church as being ‘to get as many people to attend the Sunday meeting as possible’ this environment often breeds a corporate mindset that sees the ‘filling of the building’ as the goal. Along with this comes the ‘meeting of the budget at all expense’. When we first started reproving the doctrine of Jesus being a millionaire, the disciples having a huge budget, Jesus owning an expensive house and all the other stuff that went along with this distorted view of Jesus. It was hard to ‘correct’ the average Pastor who would hear a ‘proof text’ like Jesus wearing an expensive coat and then falling headlong into the money camp. It really upset me that average Pastors could be so easily ‘moved from the gospel of Christ’. I then began to see that in the context of these men’s lives, the major pressure was to ‘fill the building and meet the budget’. All well meaning guys, just distracted from the real goal [the developing of the character and image of Christ in the people groups [oikos] you relate to over your life]. Now, in this environment [the fill the building one!] you grasp hold of any teaching that helps with the accomplishing of the mission. So good Pastors, wanting to meet the budget, hear something from the prosperity group and take it in hook, line and sinker. Any reproof is seen as ‘these rebels don’t see the truth of money and its major role in the Christian life’. While in reality money is dealt with in scripture, but the overall view can be summed up in Paul’s statement ‘using the things of this world while not abusing them’. An overall balance of finances without falling into the trap that Paul warned about in 1st Timothy 6. But in the highly individualistic style of a Pastor overseeing thousands of people [like the San Antonio mega church- 18,000 members] you can become isolated thru viewing everything thru the lens of million dollar budgets and having people come and listen. The safety mechanism that Jesus put in the ‘church’ [corporate body of people] was when all the believers are together, they share and correct and keep each other in balance. The ‘big church’ model can be in danger of losing this ‘safety mechanism’. Some see this and encourage home groups, that’s a good thing. But some mega churches have Pastors who don’t participate. So these brothers are on a course to accomplish huge goals and then when they get off track doctrinally it is next to impossible to correct them. The members are so enamored with the strong preaching of the leader [in the more authoritative situations, I don’t see this in Corpus Christi] that they fall into the category of hearers only and would never confront the leader. Even if he starts to deny that Jesus is the Christ! [Messiah]. So in all of the varied expressions of church, let’s stay balanced and be open to receive from all the Christian communions that are out there. Don’t go down the road of viewing other Christian churches as ‘those deceived traditionalists’. I find it disturbing that when talking with Jehovah witnesses they espouse the same feelings towards the Catholic Church as many Baptists do. While not defending all the teachings of the Catholic Church, this mindset is inherently unhealthy. When a strong mega church is ‘ruled’ by an authoritarian Pastor, this whole dynamic is absent from the New Testament. There was NEVER a situation, NOT ONE TIME EVER where you would have 18,000 believers under the weekly preaching of any single person who was called ‘the Pastor’. Now you can see why the way you view your function as a Christian can be limited if your whole experience in Christianity is one of sitting in a pew and passively hearing bible words being preached. This perspective is not what you find taught in the New Testament assemblies of believers.
(630) JOHN 19 (radio # 602) The reality of redemption! I want to stress the fact that Jesus actually dieing on the Cross and really shedding his Blood for us is what saves us. No spiritualizing here! Over the years I have seen and read how believers in an attempt to ‘see’ the deep truths of God will sometimes fudge on the real Blood of Christ redeeming us. Let’s make it clear, the New Testament teaches that it was the real Blood of Jesus and his death on the Cross that saves man. Now, were there spiritual aspects to it? Sure. But don’t ‘spiritualize’ the death and real shedding of Blood. Like the recent reproof we did on some who taught that Jesus was not the Messiah, so here we warn that his Blood really saves. I remember reading one of the founders of the Word of faith movement, E.W. Kenyon. He would eventually teach that the ‘death of Jesus [physically] didn’t touch the sin issue’ he would then teach that it was the ‘spiritual death’ that saved us. Then teach that Jesus was the ‘first born again man’ who was separated from God and ‘born again’. The New Testament teaches Jesus was ‘the first begotten from the dead’ meaning the first to rise from the dead to never die again. Not the first person to ‘be born again’! Later on you would have another famous Word of Faith brother teach the same thing. I don't know why we have to always ‘see deeper’ than the plain truth? I guess it offends the natural mind to believe that Jesus physical death and separation from the father actually redeems man. I do believe Jesus ‘went to hell’ I don't teach the ‘hell’ being a separate place called ‘paradise’ that was really like heaven. It would seem strange for David in Psalms to say ‘thou wilt not leave my soul in hell [paradise] nor suffer thy Holy one to see corruption’. It just seems to fit as being ‘hell’, not ‘paradise. But I also believe it was the real death of Jesus on the cross that saves us. He really died and really shed his Blood and it was really finished when he said ‘it is finished’. Jesus will also say to John ‘behold your mother’ and tell Mary to go home and live with John after his death. Catholic apologists use this to defend their belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary. They say ‘if Mary had other natural kids, then it would have been offensive in Jewish culture for Mary to not have gone and lived with them’ good point. But heck, I defend our Catholic brothers an awful lot. Let me defend the Protestants a little. It is also possible that Jesus strong teaching on putting the spiritual family before the natural one might have played a role here. This could be the beginnings of the strong family mindset that you will see playing out later in the book of Acts. True believers living and sharing as strong [or even stronger!] than natural families. Also we already taught how Jesus knew that John would outlive the others. Even Jesus brother James, one of the lead apostles at Jerusalem will be martyred. Maybe Jesus knew [maybe!] that committing Mary over to Johns care was a more long term thing than handing her over to his brothers? We also see Nicodemus openly follow Jesus in this chapter. He is the first of the Pharisees to confess Christ openly. Later in the book of Acts we will see ‘Pharisees who believe’ but most times leaders are the last to repent and change positions. Why? Well some of it has to do with the whole persona of leadership. With this calling comes a type of character that says ‘I preached it, any one who disagrees is simply persecution’. While there are times when this is true, there are also times where God calls leadership to new levels. Some get it on it early [Nicodemus] others later! [some never!] Be part of the early group. I forgot to mention we also see the Jews appeal to ‘King Caesar’ as opposed to King Jesus. They will tell Pilate ‘we have no King but Caesar’. They hated Caesar. The whole Jewish nation were treated like 2nd class citizens under Roman rule, sure they benefited from ‘Pax Romana’ [the peace of Rome] but they hated to be living under an occupying govt. Jesus told them earlier in this gospel ‘you refuse my testimony of who I am, yet you will accept the testimony of another’s name’ some feel this is a reference to anti Christ. I think it fits in good right here!
(646) I felt like the Lord was saying ‘I am not concerned about who is right or wrong in the argument. I am concerned with what you are passing off to the next generation’. In many of the issues I have recently dealt with, I often hear ‘well brother, we will all find out who is right at the second coming. So for now let’s just have peace’. I am all for ‘having peace’ but God wants us to be responsible and willing to complete the task of our generation. Each generation of believers has a responsibility to the next. I am fully persuaded that there is coming a generation that will say ‘how did you guys miss the most basic stuff’! Some will say ‘I can’t believe you taught that Jesus was rich and he died to make us all millionaires’! We will have some forgiveness to ask for! Leaders, God wants you to deal with the issues in love, but he is more concerned with us passing the baton off to the next generation in a noble way. I fear the next generation of believers will look back and see some very obvious mistakes. Things that we should have dealt with before they took the baton!
(654) STUFF FROM PROVERBS 22:16 ‘he that oppresses the poor and gives to the rich shall come to want’. There are many believers who struggle financially. Many of them are sincere believers who don’t understand why they are struggling. I want to encourage you to read proverbs and look for all the verses on giving to the poor. It is too common for sincere believers to tithe to church on Sunday and not realize that they are overlooking the main body of scripture that speaks of God blessing those who meet the needs of others! Also I have heard it taught that if you give to the wealthy you will be blessed [I heard this actually taught by a prosperity preacher. He used the book of Job and said ‘the world thinks giving to the poor is merciful, God says giving to the rich will give you a blessing!] I figured I would throw this verse in so you can have your mind renewed to Gods Word! Also I just retired as a firefighter. I knew the first month of transition would be financially difficult. You have to wait for your first check and all. I also felt the lord telling me ‘John, you have been slacking on giving to the poor’. The budget for my New Paper ads and radio come from my pocket, so I have been slacking on the ‘giving to the poor part’. So I took out some money [in single dollar bills] and when the guys would ask for a dollar or two I would give it. Not much, 20 dollars or so every week. Really simple. Sure enough I have been getting extra ‘income checks’ that I was not aware of. A few thousand over a few weeks. I felt the Lord said ‘give to the poor’. 26:27 ‘whoever digs a pit shall fall therein, rolls a stone it will come back on him’ many years ago at the firehouse we had an older captain [Kriegel- to all my buddies who read this site!]. He was a good guy, used to give me these Christian papers he would get from his church. The guys liked playing pranks on him. One day they knew he was going to Mexico the next day, about a 2 hour drive. So that night they put a sign on the front of his truck that said ‘HONK, I AM A GAY MAN’ [Something to that affect]. Sure enough he couldn’t figure out why all the Mexicans kept beeping their horns! One time he stuck this mouse trap in his kitchen locker. We all had these lockers for each shift and eventually stuff kept finding its way into the other shifts lockers! So we all put locks on them. Well during dinner if you were short on ketchup or something it was just easier sticking your hand thru the bottom of the cabinet than walking to HEB. The technical term in the Greek for this act is called ‘stealing’. So Kriegel stuck a mouse trap in his locker! One morning the guys are just getting on shift and they hear Kriegel screaming. He forgot his keys at home and stuck his hand in his own locker. ‘Who so rolls a stone, it will come back on him’! [I wonder how he knew sticking your hand thru the bottom would work?]
(690) SERMON ON THE MOUNT- ‘BEWARE OF FALSE PROPHETS’ ‘you will know them by their fruits, what they produce. They come to you as wolves in sheep’s clothing’. In Ezekiel the ‘shepherds’ are rebuked because they come to devour the sheep. They see the sheep as a means for self aggrandizement. Here Jesus says ‘they are wearing sheepskins!’ They view ministry and pastoring/shepherding as a means to become wealthy and prosperous! Shall I continue? Let’s also take a broader view. In the history of Christianity you have had Christian cults that were ‘false’ by virtue of the fact that they denied the basic truths of Christianity. In the bible, 1st John deals with ‘those who deny that Jesus has come in the flesh are anti-christ’. John was targeting the early Gnostic/Docetist sects who said Jesus was a ‘phantom’. He appeared to be ‘real flesh’ but wasn’t. John deals with them as ‘anti christ’ because of their denial of the incarnation. Jesus was truly man and truly God. On a broader scale you have the religion of Islam. Arab [Muslim] people are good people! ‘Why brother how can you say that’? Easy, they were created in the image of God! Allah didn’t make them, Muhammad didn’t create them! They were created by Jesus Christ of Nazareth! Now, have they been led astray? Yes. As hard as it is to say this in today’s pluralistic society, they have been MIS LED. What about Jewish people? Good people! We should love and pray for them, not at the expense of Arabs [Muslims] but in concert for their salvation. Ultimately all religions accept for Christianity produce ‘bad fruit’. Why? Because all religions outside of Christ are man centered. You try to self reform thru law. This produces death. Christianity offers a free redemption thru the Blood of Christ. You don’t ‘self reform’. Grace produces the fruit of the Spirit. Jesus does say in this passage ‘narrow and straight is the way to life’. Yes, it sounds narrow minded to proclaim Jesus as the only way. Christians in America have crossed the line in ethnic/religious views. They have wrongfully sided with militaristic views of defending one nation’s military against another’s. Do we as believers have the right to support our countries military actions against radical Islam? Yes. As Christians should we advocate the annihilation of Muslim people because of their religious beliefs? NO! Too many American Christians seem to have not made this distinction. I believe Christians and Muslims and Jews should all work together as much as possible. Respect each others different beliefs. But also advocate for why we believe that Jesus is truly the only way to God. Jesus truly is the answer!
(459) ‘ISAIAH 57’ ‘the righteous perisheth and no man takes it to heart, none considers that he is taken away from the evil to come’ God has/is removing some of you from familiar territory. This ‘land’ has been a source of provision in the past, he is now moving you away from it. You seem confused as to why others can receive income/resource from this land, but you cannot. God is saying ‘I am removing you from these sources because they will not be their for ever, they will dry up. Others put their trust in them, they will fear when the source dries up’. ‘He that putteth his trust in me shall posses the land and shall inherit my holy mountain, and shall say cast up, cast up, prepare the way, take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people’ those who trust in the Lord as opposed to their own wisdom will be used to remove the things that have been causing Gods people to stumble. Don’t rejoice in the fact that you see it when others don’t. You only see these stumbling blocks because of Gods grace, a man can receive no ministry unless it was given to him as a free gift from God. ‘I dwell with him that is humble and contrite, I will revive them’ ‘I will not contend forever, nor always be wroth’ God says there are things he wants to remove and change in us. The things he has shown us should produce humility and a contrite spirit. Don’t ‘kick against the pricks’ don’t rebel against the things God has shown you to change. Don’t blame the prophets, they are just seeing/saying the words of God. ‘For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him. I hid [stopped correcting him for a season] and he went on forwardly in the way of his heart [this part of the Body excelled and went forward in the ways that they chose, even though the Lord had previously said no more] I have seen his ways and will heal him and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners’ Many who have become renown in the area of ‘covetousness’ will be healed. They will see how off track they have been and God will forgive and restore and continue to use them [Jim Bakker] but first there will be a humbling. NOTE: All true ministry is really not about us ‘fulfilling our dreams’ or ‘achieving our goals’ it’s about being faithful to God. Saying and doing the things he wants. You will be fulfilled by doing this, but this is a result, not the goal.
(468) ISAIAH 58 ‘Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins’ When prophets go thru difficulty, the first thing they question is ‘have I been too hard on your people?’ God is going to deal with this in this chapter. He starts by first of all telling Isaiah ‘I have called you to reveal to my people their sins, it is my calling for you to show them the areas they don’t fully see yet. Their ‘sins’ of ignorance. They often ask for me. I am going to show them things about church and the way they worship me that are limited. Showing them ‘their sins’ is not a function of judgment, it is a necessary ‘uprooting’ that they need in order for their prayers to be answered.’ God is basically telling Isaiah ‘when things are hard and difficult, don’t question my basic revelatory ministry thru you. You don’t have the right to stop speaking what I am saying!’ ‘Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, they ask of me the ordinances of justice and take delight in approaching me’ we as believers take the act of seeking and asking and learning, and we turn it into ‘doing what God wants’. In essence we have developed a mindset that says ‘I go to church, I learn all the bible tricks on how to have a happy and prosperous life. If I am ever confronted with teaching that doesn’t appeal to me, or requires sacrifice, I have already learned to ignore it, you cant fly with eagles if you think like a turkey’ we basically have bypassed the instructions on self sacrifice and giving our lives away for the Kingdom. We simply think the ‘acts’ of going and learning from bible truths, even if it is all based on self, that this in itself is pleasing to God. God says why do my people by pass all my instructions and then delight that they are going to approach me? It’s because our ‘approaching God’ in the present mindset of the western church is simply for self-fulfillment. We approach him like a cosmic Santa Clause and this delights us. God says I want to show you things that I require from you and I want you to do them. Don’t simply think that you are pleasing me by ‘approaching me’ I want the action/obedience to be the fruit of your ‘approaching/church going’. [NOTE: It is not totally wrong to seek God for self help/improvement. It’s just many of us in today’s church have made this the priority. When people watch the ‘get rich and famous’ infomercials on the weekends, there is a feeling of ‘hope and self fulfillment’ that simply comes from surrounding yourself in an environment of ‘maybe that can be me someday’. Its OK to hope, but scripture does teach us [1st Timothy 6] to ‘not desire to become rich’ as well as Jesus many other warnings in the gospels. So I just want to warn you to not fall into the trap of making ‘church/approaching God’ a format for self help. It might ‘feel good’ to see Christianity thru this materialistic lens, but in the end it can be dangerous] ‘Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free, that you break every yoke. Is it not to feed your food to the hungry, that you bring the poor to YOUR house. You should clothe the naked, and help your own natural family. If you do these things you will get healed, your goodness will shine like the morning sun. You will call to me and I will hear. Take away from you the bondages, the blaming of others and speaking vanity. Draw out your soul to the hungry, feed them and satisfy them [even with your ministry/teaching] and your light shall rise in obscurity and your darkness will be like day’ you find all the elements of Jesus earthly ministry contained here. The Pharisees lived for religious ritual. They fasted and afflicted themselves [and others] Jesus reached out in love and poured his soul out for the needy, Isaiah is prophesying the heart of Jesus here. God accepts a lifestyle of giving your life away for others. Jesus would teach that this type of love is the greatest commandment. Here we see the heart of ministry. I want to challenge everyone [especially leaders] to re examine your ‘ministry’ does it contain these most fundamental elements? Do we carry out ministry in a way that simply tells the world ‘hey, look at us, we are a highly motivated business and we can compete with any other organization in our area’. Do we view ministry this way? Jesus values the souls of those who lay their lives down for others, don’t fall into the trap of establishing religious functions for the purpose of impressing men. This is what 1st century religion digressed to, even though one of their own prophets [Isaiah] warned against it centuries before! ‘thou shalt be like a spring of water who’s waters fail not. They that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places and make the desolate cities to be inhabited [I added this last part from another place, I am so used to saying it like this] Thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in’ God is saying when you give yourself away for others, when you obey him. When you show compassion. When you do not view ‘ministry’ as trying to attain some degree of respect in the ‘corporate world’ when you approach it like Jesus, then the Lord will allow your influence to go far. The people you impact will be used to spread the Kingdom to various cities. The people will be ‘faithful to the things you spoke’ because they are enjoined to you like a ‘band of brothers’. There memories of you will truly be that of a friend who gave himself away for them. These also will ‘repair breaches, restore paths’ there are so many true Christian values and principles that Jesus taught were the foundations of his Kingdom, things like self sacrifice and laying down your life for others. God will use your ‘seed/offspring’ to restore these ‘lost’ teachings back into the Church. We are so consumed with ‘self help’ that we have lost the foundational principles of the Cross. ‘ If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing what you want on my holy day’. In context God is saying ‘if you rest in me, and stop doing your own works in my day of grace, then I will move mightily on your behalf’. If you remember I already showed you on this blog how the Sabbath is a type of entering into the covenant of Grace. When you cease from your own legalistic attempts to do Gods work, then God will come in and do them thru you! ‘not doing thine own ways, nor speaking thine on words’ much of modern ministry [especially Pastoral] is under the burden to ‘come up with something to speak on for an hour on Sunday’ many of these brothers are well meaning, but because we have structured the church in today’s world around the ‘Sunday meeting’ it has put a burden on Pastors to come up with something to say every Sunday at a certain time. The New Testament churches didn’t function like this. Therefore we have a lot of ‘speaking our own words’ we don’t realize that we are doing this, but in essence we are. I would simply encourage all Christian teachers/speakers to speak only what you hear God saying. If God has a certain vision or direction that he has planted in your heart, then build that into the people. Don’t go thru 20 verses all over the bible and then try to make them fit some theme. The bible has plenty of ‘themes’ already. Focus on whole portions of scripture and teach them as God directs. A lot of the unbalanced teaching in the church today is a result of teachers jumping all over the bible in a 30 minute time span and then making the bible say something that it never meant! ‘If you do all this, then I will cause you to ride upon the high places of the earth’ lets conclude this chapter with an overview. If you do all the things in this chapter: give yourself away for people. Have true religion as described in the book of James. Don’t point the finger in accusation at people, when reproving, which is a function of the prophetic, do it in love. When you speak and do what God is saying, instead of coming up with your own ‘peculiar brand’ of seeing everything, then God will exalt you to a high place. In essence this is the ministry of Jesus, who lowered himself more than any man, who did all the things you read about in this chapter and then God gave him a name that is above all others. Do the will of God my friends and he will exalt you in due season.
(471) I just woke up from a dream a few minutes ago. There was a black man who was experiencing disillusionment from religion and the various streams and divisions in the church. He reminded me of Forrest Whittaker [the actor, I just saw him in the ‘last King of Scotland’ this is a great movie!] This brother was going from town to town in search of answers. He winds up riding along this deserted country road to a little church on the ‘prairie’. He walks in and I see him only sitting in the back row of this empty church. I can hear clearly the voice of the preacher but I do not see him. I only see the black brother. I recognize the preacher’s voice, I haven’t heard him in years, but I am very familiar with the voice. It is Kenneth Hagin. He is preaching on the legitimacy of the gifts of the Spirit, an area where I have credited brother Hagin for doing good. This black brother goes from sitting in the pew and getting up and kneeling and praying. It seems he is still disillusioned and is going thru difficulty. I am not sure what this dream means. Some of it deals with the church in general. Many believers [and many of our blog readers] have questioned things that have been difficult. Areas that you wish you never ‘ran’ into. Some have gone back and looked at the ‘fathers of their faith’ and have had to come to hard decisions. You have gone between sitting and listening and receiving the good things from your past, but you have also had to ‘get out of the pew’ [a place of passive receiving] and PRAY! God will honor your ‘royal courage’ in this and bless you. I also have had some of the most difficult weeks in my life recently. I felt like the Lord was saying to me ‘blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy’. This one area of credit that I have given to brother Hagin has allowed God to be merciful to me. Too often in prophetic correction it is easy to denigrate the people you are reproving. It is too common to attack them personally and be mean. I feel the lord wants us to be merciful as we come out of past errors. God will be merciful to you if you plant ‘seeds of mercy’ along the way.
(531) I watched a panel of 3 of the top Prosperity Preachers host a talk show. I thought it was real interesting, the brother hosting the show was informally talking to his friends, but you could tell he wanted to share something. He then reads from Acts where it says ‘the Holy Spirit witnesses in every city that bonds and afflictions await me at Jerusalem’. It is speaking of Paul. I noticed one of the other Prosperity guys kind of looked a little perplexed [?] as the verse was read. I know they have all taught in the past that bonds and afflictions are not what God wants for us. They have intricate systems of belief that do get around persecutions. But the brother shared it in love and seemed to allow the Lord to use him in this public forum to bring some balance back to this thing. The other brothers had no problem receiving the truth, because it was coming from someone within their own camp. I just felt this was interesting to share. We all need reproof at times, and God is jealous for his reputation. He will gain it back in this camp. NOTE; These brothers have taught in the past that when Paul spoke on his thorn in the flesh, that God was saying ‘his grace is sufficient for thee’ meant that God was saying ‘you have the grace/ability to make it go away’ kind of a perverted view of the verse. God actually told Paul ‘you can live with certain difficulties, because my grace is all you need’ in essence ‘you don’t need a perfect, affliction free environment to operate in, I am all you need’ Basically God was not telling Paul ‘you make it go away yourself’. Now I had one of my homeless friends say the other day ‘I think Paul went thru sufferings because he was reaping what he sowed when he persecuted Christians’ you could tell he has been influenced by this teaching. It was a little sad because this friend does suffer from mental problems, and he was telling me that Paul was suffering affliction as a result of his past sins. I then told him this is not true, and I quoted the verses that say ‘it is given to us also to suffer for his name’ God telling Paul ‘I will show thee the sufferings that you will go thru’ at his initial conversion. In context I explained to my friend that these verses show us the afflictions and sufferings that Paul went thru were NOT a result of him reaping what he sowed. They were an up front part of the cost that all the early believers understood. The sad thing is this poor mentally challenged brother was going thru life with a ‘form of doctrine’ that denied Gods power and reality. It had him thinking that he was really reaping what he sowed by going thru mental challenges. This is why I have said in the past that it is no light thing to undermine the word of God and to distort it. Even though many of these teachings are defined as ‘Word churches’ and stuff. This still doesn’t give you the right to distort the Word.
(543) While at the hospital I had the chance to catch the local religious cable channel. I have direct TV at the house and don’t get to see it. I was a little embarrassed, the level of what Christians broadcast makes you wonder if God wants the ‘TV’ to be a medium for anyone who holds a church service. I also saw a commercial for a national ministry who broadcasts locally. It was a short clip on how it is always Gods will for you to have an abundance of money. This is the well known ministry out of the Fort Worth area. There are times in our growth as Christians where we are at a level that is immature. It’s OK to be there when you are growing. It is not good to then broadcast this level on a wide scale to a broad audience. It would be like taking your 3rd grade class lectures and putting them out on the air as university lectures. It just doesn’t fit. The commercial that said it is always Gods will for you to have an over abundance in all areas [money] is a very unbalanced view. I know they sincerely teach this, but it is unbalanced. For the whole region of south Texas [and all the other places where this ministry broadcasts] to hear this level of teaching is not good. Maybe in some cases it would be OK to teach the biblical concept of God meeting our needs in an abundant way, he surely can do this. But to miss the whole point of ‘being content and in Gods will when both having an abundance and lack’ is directly opposed to what this ministry broadcast. So all I wanted to share today is we as Gods people need to recognize when we are really not at the ‘level’ of a broad audience. Don’t seek to make your voice heard beyond the parameters that God has ordained. Let God lead in all the teaching and outreach you do, if he says not to go ‘regional’ or ‘worldwide’ then don’t! If he says ‘go’ then go! But don’t simply get into this arena because you can. Just because a local cable channel allows you to broadcast to a wide region, doesn’t mean you should. It has a tendency to ‘fill the air with our words’ instead of what the Spirit is speaking.
(549) I had a Pastor friend years ago who was struggling to raise money for his church. He was a good man, but because of the heavy emphasis at the time on ‘bring in the wealth’ and other off balanced teaching in the church at large, he began to focus on all the money promises in scripture. A big part of the Sunday service was on God doing ‘money miracles’ any correction would of course be seen as ‘you are an instigator causing trouble’. It was so easy to fall into the category of spending most of you waking hours believing God for a financial miracle. These types of scenarios play out time and again with good Pastors. It becomes easy to fall into the mindset of viewing God and his resources as the primary thing to believe for, because after all these good men are all surrounded by other good Pastors who are all raising money for good churches. We don’t even see the great body of Christian teaching that speaks of the Kingdom of God being carried out by the poor and humble person. There is so much evidence in scripture, but we overlook it in order to fund the modern machine! Paul lived in a day where wealth and meeting places [buildings] were in abundance. You even had huge coliseums! For Paul to have reached as many areas as he did with the gospel, and with the average salary of say ‘a firefighter’ or some other average paying job, is completely overlooked by the good ministers who appeal to Paul's writings to raise wealth. These brothers don’t seem to see that Paul could have easily gone down the road of ‘renting the coliseum’ or organizing the early church around a multi million dollar organization, yet he saw in the simple proclaiming of the gospel, with minimal financial resources, the key to reaching ‘his world’. I want to exhort all the pastors and leaders who read this blog, look to the simple reality of God again. Don’t become so tunnel visioned that you see God only thru the lens of a money miracle. Money is a small aspect of completing the mission, it can become large if you see it that way, but it is small in the overall scope of the Kingdom.
(550) Deuteronomy 13-18 The Lord instructs the people that he will meet all their needs financially, and that they will always have the poor among them. Just like Jesus taught! The balance is that God would give more than enough provision into the community, and whether or not all the needs were met was up to the generosity of the community. The same thing you see in the book of Acts. Certain rich people gave and the poor had their needs met. To develop a doctrine form Deuteronomy that says to the poor ‘if you just had faith you would be rich’ violates Paul’s teachings in Timothy [chapter 6] where he says certain teaches in the last days will teach that gain is godliness [that is you can measure godliness by material wealth] from such turn away, they have erred from the faith. So in context God will bless us all as a family of people, but do not teach a material gospel. Also the Lord tells Israel ‘when you get into the land and set up a King over you, don’t let him accumulate great wealth unto himself’ interesting, God says make sure your leaders are not living high on the hog thru your money. We violate this all the time in today’s church. How many stories of teachers with million dollar condos and homes, all the while appealing to a broad audience of Christians to give sacrificially. God isn’t saying that leaders can’t prosper, but he is saying they should not be getting rich from the overall giving of many average wage workers. It is so easy to simply read all the wealth verses in this book and to look right past all these warnings. Why do we do this? We all have a tendency to ‘see’ what we want to see and overlook the rest. The Lord also gives instruction on Prophets, he says ‘if a Prophet prophesies something and it comes to pass, but he leads you away from the true God, don’t listen’ also ‘if he prophesies something and it doesn’t happen, don’t listen to him’. It is easy to recognize the second one as false, but we often overlook the first one. I have heard so many times over the years ‘well brother, I know my teachers teach that Jesus was a millionaire, and it works for me, that’s all that counts’ no it isn’t! Whether it works or not is irrelevant [in this instance] God says if it leads you away from the truth, then it’s false! Let all of our teaching and instruction bring us back into alignment with the character and nature of God, he is the goal.
(552) Deuteronomy 28-31 The Lord promises much material blessings in these chapters, but he also says the Levites who receive the tithes are not to own anything. They could not use the tithe as a means to accumulate wealth. I find it funny that the modern church teaches the tithe, but leaves this part out! Also Moses is told ‘you will not go into the land, but help Joshua go in’. Moses must see his gift as something to use to build others and help them achieve goals that he himself will not achieve. Moses learns the true principle of the least being the greatest. He will be the only one who will enter in after death! Out of all the adults who were in the wilderness, only Joshua and Caleb go in to the Promised Land. Moses goes in after death at the mount of transfiguration. He fulfills the symbol of Christ as the first fruits unto God. Moses tells Joshua ‘you must go in with this people’. In the world of church and Pastoral ministry, I have seen how good men will start a ‘work’ and sometimes out of fear begin to look for someone to ‘take it over’. God tells Joshua ‘you must go in too!’ In Moses case the word of the Lord was ‘don’t go in’ [yet!] in Joshua’s case ‘don’t not go in!’ Have you allowed fear and intimidation to lead you to think it’s time to ‘get out’. Only move [remove] as God directs, don’t start looking for a replacement, you have too many years to fulfill, you must go in with this people! NOTE; I thought I just ‘heard’ someone say ‘is this guy talking about me’? Hey, if it’s for you, then yes!
(560) This goes with the last entry, but I wanted that word to stand alone. In the early church you had leaders who raised the dead and operated in miraculous signs. None of them organized a ministry around their personalities or saw their gift as a means to obtain financial independence. They were not operating with today’s mindset. When undue attention was given to them because of their gifts, they saw it as their responsibility to reject it. They would not allow themselves to become famous and become the center of attention. I often hear talk on the return of the early power once again. Until we rethink the purpose and nature of our gifts, we will not have the character to handle it. The present church thru pride has grasped an ideology that sees the gifts and the people as tools to bring success to themselves. This spirit must come down. It is no accident that Jesus dealt with the money changers the way he did. He understood that the merchandising of the gospel would be a tremendous hindrance to his purpose in the earth. We, as a people, must repent and return to a simple concept of all Gods people being equals, and the gifted ones in our midst are simply carriers of the gifts for the mutual benefit of all Gods people. We need to humble ourselves once again.
(561) I heard a brother speak the other day. He shared a good message. He confessed that most of his background and study came from a certain type of Christianity. He shared from A.A. Allen, John G lake, Kathryn Kuhlman and others who were part of the ‘latter rain’ or healing movements from the middle of the last century. He also said how after he became a Christian he called Rhema Bible college and ordered ‘one of everything’ they had. He had quite a big load of books and tapes! The message the brother shared was good, he seems to be a very humble man. I remember studying many of these movements myself, I realized the danger that comes from seeing only one particular aspect of the church. Like studying year’s worth of teachings that all have the same fundamental error. You might think you are learning year’s worth of knowledge, but in reality you are feeding from a very skewed idea of Christianity. The people the lord used in the latter rain movement were good people [with many flaws] that for the most part were gifted in great ways. I feel the problem with this movement was the whole concept of fame and ‘platform performance’. They didn’t see the wrong paradigm that they were operating from. They didn’t realize that these gifts should be used in a limited way from such a platform. They fell into the mindset of the day that created an organization around them and their personas. So you had tremendously gifted people, like William Branham, who operated in tremendous giftings, but who also had some serious doctrinal flaws. He taught racist ideas about blacks, the ‘seed of the serpent’ and things like this. I do not view all of these people as false prophets, the danger was the individualistic style and performance mentality that went along with the gifts. Real gifts, less than ideal ways of expressing them.
(563) John 2- Jesus does his first miracle, changes water into wine. They say ‘most people put the good wine out first, but you have saved the best for last’. This is a type of the new covenant of his blood [wine], Jesus will introduce a better covenant thru his blood. Many will not accept this new way because they have been ‘drinking’ old wine for so long, they are not willing to change. We often see this in Christian circles, people who have functioned in a limited way for years, God might bring to them new ways of seeing things, they will often reject the new wine on the basis of being comfortable with the old way, we don’t want to shake the apple cart. God wants us to shake it! Jesus finds the money changers in the temple and drives them out with a whip, turns the tables over and gets mad. He didn’t take the ecumenical approach! There are times for radical transition, I feel we are at that place now as the people of God. The gospel is not about us increasing our portfolio, it’s about laying our goals down for the kingdom. These money changers lost their influence in the ‘temple’ after Jesus got thru with them, I think it was prophetic. Jesus says ‘destroy this temple and in 3 days I will raise it up’ those hearing this mistake his Body [temple] with the building [temple in Jerusalem]. Evangelicals [some of them] make the same mistake today. They are looking to the natural events in natural Jerusalem, they should be looking at the real temple! [Both Jesus and the Body of Christ]. Jesus goes to the Passover, the people hail him and Jesus says he will not commit himself to them, because he knew what was in man. What was in man? These same people will be asking for his death not long from now. Jesus did not seek commitment from men, contrary to the way we see ministry today. Modern ministry seeks to increase man’s commitment to them ‘pledge so much money, join this or that’ Jesus knew he had a destiny, he would fulfill it without the help of man!
(565) John 3- Nicodemus comes secretly to Jesus, he is one of the few in leadership that is having doubts. The others with one voice reject Jesus, Nicodemus is wondering. Jesus rebukes him for being a ‘ruler’ of the Jews and not being able to comprehend the most basic stuff. I have found it disheartening over the years to talk with Pastors who heard someone teach that because Jesus had an expensive coat, that he must have been rich. Despite all the evidence in the New Testament how Jesus was the son of a carpenter and lived an average life. The tons of verses where Jesus is reproving rich people. The whole historical and biblical truth of Jesus being a man of humble means. The fact that he had an expensive coat can more than likely be explained by the custom of people doing extravagant acts of worship towards him. The woman and the expensive perfume poured on him. Things like this. Someone probably gave him the coat. But for Pastors, who are good men, to fall for this stuff was unbelievable. Sort of like Jesus telling Nicodemus ‘you are a leader and can’t discern the most basic stuff’! Jesus teaches the reality of the new birth. All people must be born of God thru belief in Jesus, or they will not be saved. We must stand strong for Jesus as the only way to God. John the Baptist will be told that all men are going to Jesus. John says ‘great, he must increase and I must decrease’ John understood that the role of leadership [prophets] was to point to the fame and persona of Jesus. Not to go down the common road of pointing people towards us. In modern ministry we draw people to our gifts and abilities. We structure modern churches around the gift of the Pastor. We allow leadership to become preeminent in our minds and thoughts. John knew better. We also see that the wrath of God abides on all who do not believe in Jesus. If you believe in Jesus you escape Gods wrath. It can’t touch you. Whether you are in heaven or earth, or like David said ‘in hell you are there’. That is you can’t escape Gods presence anywhere. So if you are in Christ, wrath can’t get you. If you are not in Christ, it continually abides on you. You do not escape wrath by leaving the planet during the tribulation. If an unbeliever was on a rocket ship right before the tribulation started, and wound up on the moon during the 7 years of wrath, he wouldn’t escape Gods wrath. You don’t escape judgment by being in the right geographical location, you escape it by being IN HIM! John also says a man can receive nothing unless it is given to him. Why be jealous if all of our gifts and abilities are free gifts? We act like we earned them! John says no man receives his testimony, then he says ‘to those who have received it’. What’s this mean? Paul told the Corinthians that we have received the Spirit of God so we might know the things that are freely given to us from God. God gives us his Spirit first, so we can receive his testimony. This goes back to the early centuries of the church and hits all the major doctrines on sovereignty. Augustine, Calvin, Luther [Yes Luther was a strong believer in predestination, it was no accident that he was an Augustinian monk!] Paul tells the Ephesians that were are dead in sins and completely incapable of receiving spiritual truth until God pours his Spirit into us and we become alive. Thank God that even though no man [in the natural] can receive his testimony, that God gives us his Spirit and births us so we can know the things that he has freely given to us in Christ!
(567) John 5- Jesus heals the man at the pool of Bethesda. Scripture says an angel went down into this pool at a certain time and stirred the water, whoever got in after the water was stirred was healed. How do we explain this? Were the people superstitious? Well I think it happened just like John wrote it. We believe in a supernatural God, he raised his Son from the dead, he surely can send an angel to stir up some water. Jesus asks the man ‘do you want to be healed’? You would think ‘of course’ but people that are in situations that can lend to being irresponsible, having others take care of them, they often want to stay that way. It gives them an excuse to ‘not act responsibly’. The man says ‘I have no man to put me into the water after the angel comes’ he is looking for others to do something for him. He has a victim mentality. Jesus says ‘quit blaming everyone else, take up your bed and walk’. It’s time for our society to tell people ‘take up your bed and walk, we love you, we want to help you as much as possible, but you need to eventually take up your bed and walk’ hard stuff! Jesus will call God his father, making himself equal with God. The Jewish leaders will be offended. He then will tell them if they do not honor him, they are not honoring the Father. He says he only does what he sees the Father doing first. His life was an exact duplicate of the heart of God. Our lives should be the result of what God wants and reveals to us. Your life is not the result of your confession, or you seeking success. Your life should be the outcome of what God has revealed to you. It might mean less money, or less success. It might mean a Cross or martyrdom. Don’t presume that Gods plan for you is simply to have lots of money and be successful, it might mean less money and obscurity. But it will be an abundant life because you lived it in the purpose of God. Jesus says the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear will live. You had as much to do with your spiritual birth as you did with your natural one. Before you were born you had no power or ability to choose to be born, so in your new birth you were dead in sin and unable to ‘choose God’ he chose you. Jesus will tell the religious leaders ‘how can you believe if you seek the honor of men’ he will challenge the religious mindset of the day that thrived off of the notoriety of ‘being in ministry’. The leaders loved the greetings in the markets and public places. They lived for the honor that came from their status as ‘preachers’ who were well known. Jesus condemned this mindset. He says ‘I receive not honor from men’ in essence I am here to lay my life down, I will suffer shame and public humiliation, I will do the will of my Father and bare tremendous reproach and hatred from men. I will please my Father. Jesus tells the Jewish leaders ‘Moses wrote about me, you have his writings. If you don’t believe his writings, how can you believe in me, he wrote about me’ we have covered a lot of the ‘hidden’ images of Jesus found in the Old Testament. Paul will use these images time and again in his debates with Israel. I find it interesting that Jesus saw himself in the Old Testament also.
(568) John 6- We see the first miracle of the feeding of the multitudes. It has been commonly taught that this was a miracle of ‘location’, that is they were far from the market and couldn’t get food to feed everyone. This is not the heart of the story. It is actually a question of finance. Jesus in essence asks ‘how can we buy enough food for everyone to eat, where’s the money gonna come from?’ His disciples say ‘200 pennyworth is not enough to feed them’. They tell Jesus we don’t have the cash to cover it. This is important to see, many have taught a doctrine that says Jesus and the disciples had a large treasury with lots of money. This refutes that. This story is one of God being our supply, we don’t need to trust him for the millions of dollars we think we need to reach the world. We need to believe that he can use our limited finances to reach the world! He did it with Paul, why not you? We also see the doctrine of sovereignty again. Jesus says all who the Father gave to him will come to him, and he will raise them up at the last day. No man can come unless the Father draws him. The Father will draw all who are called. Jesus will lose none of the ones the father gives to him. These doctrines are without a doubt taught in this Gospel. I believe them. Some try to make them ‘fit’ the reasoning of men. They eventually taught that Jesus died only for the elect. That the ‘world’ in John 3:16 speaks of the ‘world of the elect’. Others taught that Jesus blood was only shed for the elect [limited atonement]. Christians have fought for centuries over these doctrines. Our Catholic brothers do not officially teach predestination, though Catholic scholars have believed in it [Augustine]. Some will later be called ‘5 point Calvinists’ others ‘4 points’ and so on. I simply believe the words of Jesus. All that the Father gave to him will come to him, those who come will be raised at the last day. No one comes unless God brings them. The point is God is the initiator, sustainer and completer of our salvation. In our minds we can’t grasp this, but without a doubt Jesus teaches it in this chapter. Now, Jesus will also teach that he is the bread from heaven and unless a man eats his flesh and drinks his blood he will not have eternal life. Many good Christians have taught that the way this is carried out is thru transubstantiation, they teach that the bread and wine turn into the literal body and blood of Jesus at the Mass [Catholic theologian Scott Hahn believes John chapter 6 is the foundational chapter for all Catholic theology]. That it just looks like bread and wine, but it is really flesh and blood. Luther and Calvin taught something almost identical, consubstantiation. The doctrine that the bread and wine stay bread and wine, but that the flesh and blood of Jesus are also literally contained within the bread and wine. This doctrine differs very little from the Catholic one. Both of these doctrines are called ‘the real presence’. The only reformer who taught what much of modern Evangelicals believe was Zwingli. He took it to be a symbol only. Zwingli was the dear brother who killed the Ana Baptists for their faith! I visited the spot where this took place in Switzerland many years ago. There is this huge statue of Zwingli overlooking the town where he drowned the poor brothers! The Jews in this chapter say ‘how can this man give us his flesh to eat and blood to drink?’ They are clearly seeing this in the natural. Jesus goes on and teaches that all who believe in him will never hunger again. He is associating eating with faith. He also says ‘the flesh profits nothing, the words I am speaking to you give life’ he is clearly teaching that he was not going to figure out a way to change bread and wine into his literal flesh. He was teaching that all who would believe in his death and resurrection were eating and getting life from Jesus, they would have eternal life. The bread that if a man eats from will live forever. I believe my Catholic and Orthodox and Lutheran brothers are Christian, I do not hold to the view that the ‘real presence’ is a doctrine from hell. I believe good Christians took the words of Jesus literally and developed a belief that became an historic belief amongst many Christians. Some of the greatest Christian theologians hold to this belief. I simply disagree with them.
(573) Jesus asked once ‘who do men say that I am?’ then the disciples gave a short list of ideas. How would this question be answered today? If you looked at the best selling Christian books of the last few years you would think God was a cosmic Santa Claus, some success guru who lived to give us a happy, wealthy, trouble free life. We are not the first generation of people that ‘created God in our own image’. That is we see a ‘god’ of our own choosing. We see what we want! Who do you say that he is? NOTE; The problem with modern publishing is the book publishers are in it for profit [nothing wrong about profit] this cause’s them to publish popular names, regardless of the content. So once a Christian preacher becomes famous, his stuff gets published, because it will sell. This lends to the flooding of the market with ‘average’ [or less than average] stuff. The real good stuff can be found, but you have to wade thru the ‘dung’.
(578) We are still going to cover the gospel of John, I just felt like the Lord had me sidetrack for these last few entries. I actually have been reading this morning as I penned the last 2 or 3 entries. Let me overview something. I am reading chapter 8 right now, I will cover it soon, but I want to focus you in on the greater objective of Jesus and the introduction of the Kingdom of God to planet earth. In Jesus dealings you see him dealing with the issues of forgiveness, restoration and the breaking in to society of a different kingdom. His concerns are not those of today’s church for the most part. We have a tendency to view scripture and Christianity thru the lens of ‘starting churches’ [Christian places for believers to meet] we view the Kingdom [those of us who don’t believe it is on hold!] thru the lens of man. We see change as something we effect by becoming wealthy and influential in society ‘the world will have to pay attention to us now, look at all the wealth we have’ or ‘look at the big voting block we represent, they will pay attention to this sleeping giant now’ we lose sight of the principles of sacrifice and humility and truly being Christ like. We want the world to notice us because we are more ‘threatening’ and influential than they are. This might get their attention, but it doesn’t really reach them for the kingdom. As we read thru the gospel of John, pay attention to the ‘other worldliness’ of Jesus statements ‘I am not alone, the one who sent me is with me’ ‘you are from below, I am from above’ ‘you can not hear or understand me, you are of this world, I am not’ there is this whole sense of Jesus operating outside of the structures and influence of men. He says ‘I am speaking these things to the world’ yet he never traveled far from his hometown, he did not have the types of journeys that Paul had. Yet he was confident that if he spoke what the Father was saying, then it was Gods job to get the message out. He knew his job was humility and the Cross, he chose to not seek the honor of men, and yet he has had more honor than any other person who has walked the planet. I just wanted to do a little ‘course correction’ here at midstream of our overview of John, don’t just read it for principles to fit in to your present paradigm and structure. It is a gospel that calls us to new birth and new ways of seeing the kingdom. Get your eyes off of the natural, see Jesus for real in this book.
(120) Update- Recently I have been in touch with some old friends that I haven’t seen in 27 years. I realize that a lot of water has gone under the bridge [or something like that?]. Some of my friends are Christian, some not. Some are into the modern motivational type preaching. I realize that for them to read our materials is like a slap in the face. It’s not easy to be part of the ‘modern gospel’ of success and prosperity and then read our stuff [you will see what I mean as you get to the 300’s] I just walked into my study and saw one of the many success books I own and have read over the years. It’s just sitting on a table. I don’t know why its out, maybe one of my kids were reading it? I have read and been into the motivational gospel and understand the good aspects of it. I just believe that a lot of it misses the part of ‘if any man wants to save his life, he must lose it for my sake and the gospel’ [Jesus Christ]. Over the years I have had a fairly good measure of success. We have come pretty far for a high school level of education and a Navy drop out! I am not bragging, but what I want you to see is my focus has not been on ‘saving my life’ or living to be successful. I have tried to lose my life for the gospel as much as possible. I don’t believe I am even 1/100th of where I should be. Still selfish and self-seeking. When the rubber meets the road still willing to choose self-preservation over Gods will. Still have a long way to go! But the point today is I don’t want to offend any old buddies from the old days, and I realize that if some of them are into the prosperity gospel they will be offended! But maybe God allowed me to cross paths with some of you for this very purpose? Who knows, maybe I have come to the kingdom for such a time as this! [You too!]
(146) ‘Jesus of suburbia’ Last night I watched a dateline special on a ‘leader’ of a church in Puerto Rico. He quite obviously is a cult leader. Claims to be Jesus. He and his followers tattoo ‘666’ on their bodies and other strange stuff. When questioned on his lavish lifestyle of Rolex watches and taking huge amounts of money, he defended himself by saying ‘tradition portrays Jesus as being poor, but he was rich’ then he gave the verse that says Jesus told Peter to go get the money out of the fish mouth to pay taxes. This is a true verse; the problem is this verse obviously doesn’t prove Jesus was rich. If he were rich then why would he be going to a fish to get the money! Just cash in that jumbo C.D.! Its stupid stuff like this that gets me mad. Even the dateline interviewer said Jesus was a carpenter’s son and obviously was not wealthy. It’s sad that the reporter presented a more correct view of Jesus than the cult guy. It’s even sadder that there are very popular teachers in the American church that teach this same silliness! God help us all.
(151) I am going to be as honest as I can about this. Last night I tuned in to a fairly new Christian station that I like a lot. They have a lot of prophetic people on who I like. They were doing a money-raising thing. They had one of the prophetic people that I like [Mike Bickle] and right after him another brother. This other brother used to be Muslim and is now Christian. When he was Muslim he made some money in business, but when he became Christian he got a hold of the prosperity message and made ‘boat loads’ of it. He is always talking about money. As a brother I love him, but you cant go on national television and say things like ‘there’s someone watching right now ‘GODS’ telling you to give $100,000 right now [that’s one hundred thousand dollars for those of you that might not be familiar with these appeals!]. Be obedient and do it, you will get a million back’ Now is it possible that God is saying this? Sure. But is it responsible to simply say it in a forum [national TV] where anybody can hear and everyone hearing thinks its God talking to them and they ‘obey the word of the Lord’ and do something stupid? There was some military veteran living on fixed income that heard something like this on another Christian station. He donated his meager check [or savings?] and gave a few thousand that he couldn’t afford. Whoever was raising the money made an appeal like the one above. He never got ‘his return’ and contacted the ministry and asked for his money back. They said no. He took it to court in California and the state made the ministry give him his money back. Now this kind of stuff ruins our testimony to the world. We can’t keep doing this. I was feeling let down that the prophetic person that I like was involved with this. May God help us all.
(195) Let me share a few things. A few years back I remember watching a ‘share a thon’ on a Christian TV station. The brother was using the verses from the Gospel of John on Jesus multiplying the loaves and fish and feeding the multitude. He shared how the station also needed to bring in lots of money, just like Jesus multiplied lots of fish, in order to feed the people. Well enough. What I get from the story is that Jesus really didn’t need a lot of ‘stuff’ before he could ‘reach/feed’ the people. In fact I think the story is more in line with what I teach. That you can ‘touch/feed’ the multitudes with very little! That is you simply bring to the table the mindset of ‘my little portion in the hands of the master can go a long way’. It’s just a matter of perspective. The brother from the share a thon saw this verse out of his paradigm. When you view ministry as the need to raise millions, then that’s what you will see when you read scripture. It’s not like the brother was a heretic or something, he was just seeing everything thru his train of thought. I believe Jesus can use a little boy’s lunch to reach the masses, what about you?
(215) A few years ago we had a ‘word of faith/prosperity church’ that used to broadcast from our city. I actually liked the program and would tune in from time to time. I remember one week they announced that they were going to have a rich Christian come in and share his faith and how money and riches do not interfere with serving God. The person who sponsored the program then did the interview with this wealthy believer. During the interview it ‘slipped out’ that this rich Christian tried to get out of doing the program because the day before they had some bad weather in their area of Texas and needed to take care of the cattle and couldn’t do the ministry thing. Well the announcer admitted that they twisted his arm to come. It reminded me of the parable of Jesus. How some people couldn’t attend the wedding supper because they had other priorities. Some had to ‘go see their land’ and couldn’t come. Even though this radio program intended to show how riches and other areas of wealth don’t hinder Gods work, they inadvertently showed the opposite. I also remember this broadcaster share at the time that God would never call someone to be a missionary and suffer on the foreign field if they didn’t want to do it. That in essence Gods will is to make us happy, and if we don’t feel we would be happy then God is not going to ask us to do things contrary to our desires. A few weeks later I had the privilege of hearing a missionary family give their testimony. They were on vacation from some 3rd world country and speaking in Corpus. The wife shared all the physical trials that they and their kids suffered. How the medical care is not good where they’re at. She went on and shared that even though in the natural her flesh says ‘why should I suffer’, that when she sees the results of souls saved that the sacrifice is worth it! It’s stuff like this that I have seen over the years that causes me to speak out on these issues.
(223) Let me use the above example to show you a few things. As I was talking to this ministry leader we did have a fairly good fellowship. During this day of fellowship I shared many of the thoughts on the church as community versus ‘a church building’. He seemed a ‘little’ familiar with this. He said ‘O I know people who believe that way’. Which showed me the Lord has tried to show him this before! He had difficulty grasping many of the concepts, though they were true! It was later on where he got offended and actually yelled at me. He basically said to me ‘your wrong!’ I nicely told him, well I understand you think I am wrong, but I believe I am right. [I know it’s hard to believe I was calm during this exchange, but I was]. It shows how his later frustration of not being able to raise money for ‘the ministry center’ and things of this nature were an outgrowth of seeing ministry as ‘this thing I need to raise money for so I can run it’. If this person learned the lesson of not seeing it in this limited way, he would not have been so frustrated. It’s like the answer wasn’t ‘a transference of wealth’ in as much as a ‘change of thought’. He needed to see the new ‘wineskin/paradigm’ that God is trying to bring forth. These truths are being seen and practiced on a worldwide basis as I write this! Wolfgang Simpson says ‘God is not trying to start lecture halls across the world’ This seems to be the current understanding of ‘planting churches’. We seem to think ‘setting up buildings where people come and listen to bible words being spoken’ is the local church! We really need to be delivered from this mindset!
(225) ALL THAT WAR WITH YOU SHALL COME TO NOTHING/ I WILL GIVE THEM AS STUBBLE TO YOUR BOW I was reading this in Isaiah and felt like I should share this. When I first moved to Corpus and went on the radio I knew there were prosperity preachers that were offended at us. I liked a particular prosperity ministry and even attended their events [Valentine Banquet]. I regularly encouraged my wife to attend a women’s fellowship that they held monthly in our city [Women by Design]. I tried to not allow the strong word coming from us to become personal. I was very familiar with this church and even visited when they had a national Minister come [Jerry Savelle]. I never desire the failure of another brother in the Lord. If God gives you a mandate to speak a certain word, and you don’t, then your are in trouble! This church obviously eventually knew that there was a preacher on the radio going ‘against’ the main tenets of their church. This was never my intent. Though this church was a fairly well known regional ministry in our area, with very influential connections with national ministers, they eventually folded and left town. I did not rejoice over this. I liked going to the banquets and never threw out the invitations they sent regularly to my wife. I think I even sent the women’s thing a small offering of support? When God chooses to speak a prophetic word at a certain season, it’s not a matter of individuals or personalities. It’s a matter of truth. As much as I love Bro. Hagin and others, there were just too many obvious things that couldn’t go unchecked. Blatant visions and dreams that were highly offensive to Christ’s image. Portraying Jesus as saying things that he wasn’t saying. Many of the advocates of these national leaders simply defended these things irregardless of any spiritual discernment. When any one [even me!] begins to defend the images of people over the image of Christ, God ultimately reduces your voice. I pray this ministry is doing well today. They did move to Houston, but I wanted you to see that these issues go much deeper than personalities and loyalties to friends and culture. God will speak a word and sometimes its like ‘STUBBLE AGAINST A BOW’. Eventually the stubble will come to nothing! [I WILL BEND JUDAH LIKE A BOW the prophetic isn’t always fun, God often ‘bends’ you so you can deliver the word with pinpoint accuracy! Bowstrings are under great pressure all the time. Divine tension!]
(226) WHERE ARE WE GOING WITH THIS? those of you who have read all our stuff will remember that the first book I wrote [which you will find on this blog] dealt with Jesus and the moneychangers. I felt his making the whip and ‘cleansing the temple’ spoke prophetically to a time period in the church where he would once again ‘cleanse the temple from mammon’. The simple fact that all of this stuff we have dealt with was so engrained into the leadership of our day, was in and of itself a tremendous hindrance to the work of the Spirit. Many leaders [Prophets included] refused to deal with these issues out of pride. They truly felt that the ‘preaching against mammon’ was a traditional deception of the ‘orthodox’ church that was hindering the gospel. They saw any attempt to ‘cleanse the temple from the moneychangers’ as a traditional push back against the new move of God. We are at a point where God is simply radically re organizing our mindsets. You [Christian] do not exist for the purpose of being told what is right or wrong by some man. The Spirit of God in you will bear witness to truth. Many of you are doing well on this journey. You will be used as a witness of what it means to ‘take up your cross and follow Jesus’. There needs to be a radical re focusing on the basic elements of the gospel. We need to overhaul all the ‘dung’ [I’ll be nice!] and get back to scripture. If leadership is so ‘self consumed’ where they cant see beyond their own desires to be happy and have a successful career, then God will by pass them and work directly thru his body. Many are still defending a ‘rich Jesus’ who gives them dreams that deny scripture and are outright ludicrous! I don’t want to offend you guys but cant you see this! I urge you to be faithful to the Jesus of the New Testament. You will know him in Spirit and truth, but he is the same historical person who MADE A WHIP AND DROVE OUT THE MONEY CHANGERS!
(227) In Isaiah 41 it speaks of ‘God raising up the righteous man from the east and giving nations to him, coming upon princes like mortar, the coastlands shall wait for his law’ [paraphrasing from memory]. Then it says ‘the islands feared and every man strengthened themselves and propped up each others idols’. There have been other significant seasons in the Body of Christ where the Lord dealt with many of these issues. The natural response was for the larger national ministries who propagate these doctrines to ‘prop each other up’. To simply use the tremendous financial store [which they do have!] to defend each other. This was not only a wrong defense of people out of ‘self preservation’ but much of the money that was used to ‘push back’ the reproof actually came from Christians who give sacrificially to these ministries. I couldn’t give in clear conscience to a ministry whose main leaders are making around $500,000 to a million a year from the offerings of many low-income people. But the point is there is a natural response to ‘join hands and strengthen each others idols’ because you know you are all ‘in the same boat’. This response is unfortunate, but it does happen!
(236) Just reading Isaiah 42, it says God anointed Jesus [and the Body of Christ] to bring forth judgment. He shall not cry nor cause his voice to be heard [self promotion]. He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He will open blind eyes and show people aspects of truth that they have never seen before. The ‘coastlands’ shall wait to hear the word the Lord will speak. They will be ‘fascinated’ by the Spirits ministry. The Lord will go forth ‘like a mighty man, he will shout like a woman in labor’. For a long time he held his peace, but finally said ‘it is enough, I cant sit by silently and let this go on’. Those that trust in graven images [idolatry- the old testament equal to covetousness] will be greatly ashamed and distressed. They will see themselves being reproved and corrected like never before. God’s people are like prey, they were ‘preyed upon’ and used as guinea pigs in the laboratories of men’s doctrines. None delivered, none said RESTORE! God will dry up their pools [the polluted sources that were making them sick. The ministries and avenues of ministry that were hurting them] God does all these things with the purpose of restoring and bringing us back to the Cross. God says I will not give my glory to graven images [men’s hearts rejoicing in materialism] but thru this whole process you will feel disoriented. Many of the leaders and sources of the past ‘will dry up’. God will begin to feed you again like the early days. You will hear his voice again, like at the beginning! NOTE: This chapter also says the Lord will roar like a Lion. I have spoken a lot on this blog about the imagery of the ‘Lion of Judah’ there are prophecies I have read this last year that spoke of the Lord roaring thru us, disintegrating obstacles. I feel the ‘roar of the Lion’ can be the prophetic ‘roar’ coming forth from the prophets at this season in the Church.
(287) I had a friend who was investing in some real estate. He kind of ‘asked’ for advice. Didn’t want to be obvious about it, but he knew I had done this in the past and wanted input. I gave him some, he didn’t listen and I think he is suffering for it, oh well! During the conversation he was telling me about the houses he will keep, and the ones he will flip in about 15 years. The others he will pay on for the full 30-year mortgage and pay them off. He was around 50 years old at the time of this discussion. I told him that one of the other mistakes people make when investing is to not count their own mortality into the scenario. You very well might be dead in 30 years! I am even bold with financial advice! I wasn’t really rude, but you could tell that my friend who was all consumed with having a few million for retirement, strategizing on more money, taking courses and studying on investment schemes. He wasn’t calculating in his own mortality. He doesn’t have kids. All you need is enough money to last for a few years, sorry if you don’t like to hear this, but it’s true. Financial advisors will tell you that people often make this mistake. They calculate in the million dollars they need at age 70. They look at how much interest they need to generate off the account, and they do not calculate the eventual need to withdraw the principal over a measured period of time in a responsible manner. Why? Because there is a natural tendency in man to avoid the fact that you will die! Be smart in investing and build a nest egg, that’s all right. Just don’t be buying houses at 50 and think you might flip it in 30 years. You might not be around to ‘do the flipping’! NOTE: as you see I live in a world of extremes, one day my friends are thinking like this, the next day I am working with the guy who runs the $1.oo balance in his account! [He does run more I am sure, I just caught him at a bad time]
(291) As I have been reading sites from other areas where we are reaching out to, I recognize some of the names of people. Around 15 years ago we had a good brother come to corpus to preach at a conference. I remember him saying how he was ‘seeing’ all the deceptions of the prosperity movement and he had to back down because of mercy and love. You got the feeling that he was seeing some stuff, and for young guys it’s hard to believe that so much teaching can be so wrong. I could tell that he was seeing a lot of the stuff you see from this site, but out of fear couldn’t make the leap. He was around my age at the time [30]. Later on during a dinner with some of the preachers, I was invited. I didn’t ‘reprove’ or argue. I was just fellowshipping. Some how the prosperity gospel came up. I told him I just spent a year making radio tapes exposing the flaws of the movement. You could see that he was a little shaken. Sort of like realizing all the things he really wanted to say, but didn’t, were right! He also argued a little with me over some of the money verses. THOUGH JESUS WAS RICH, HE BECAME POOR SO WE COULD BE RICH he made an honest effort to say ‘it might be talking about money’ I just said ‘no it’s not’. Paul is the same guy who wrote all these other verses you see me teach on, there is NO WAY Paul is telling the Corinthians that Jesus died to increase their portfolio! Being we were both the same age and all, and being he himself knew I was right, it kind of shook him up that he didn’t preach this stuff at the conference, you could tell it. By the way you can take the verse I just quoted and make it say MONEY if you want. But you would have to go thru the same distorted way to interpret that I have showed you before on this site. Just about every cult in the world has bible verses, this doesn’t mean they are right! NOTE: to our critics, I was recording tapes for our radio program on KCTA prior to launching the show. I was also broadcasting on smaller venues already! NOTE during the phase a few years back when a lot of this stuff was first being dealt with, there were a lot of sincere brothers who didn’t want to face these issues. There is almost a sense of ‘if this stuff is as deceptive as it looks, it’s too bad to even admit it’ I remember hearing a national minister say at the time ‘ a lot of people are criticizing the prosperity movement, the lord told me when you get to heaven and see all the souls that were won by the money they brought in they will have great rewards’. The problem with this reasoning is Paul and Jesus warned over and over again about the dangers of materialism. The leaders needed to speak with a clear voice many of the things I was saying. This cloudy view was making it difficult for those involved to break free.
(299) Some things from Isaiah 46. THE IDOLS WERE UPON THE BEASTS, THEY ARE A BURDEN TO THE BEAST Idols wear you down, they put the responsibility on you to change your world. Sooner or later they will weigh you down. I HAVE MADE AND I WILL CARRY YOU AND DELIVER YOU True Christianity puts the ‘burden’ on God to pull us thru. HIS YOKE IS EASY AND BURDEN LIGHT THEY TAKE GOLD OUT OF THE BAG, AND WEIGH SILVER IN THE BALANCE. THEY HIRE A GOLDSMITH AND HE MAKES IT INTO A GOD God will not let this stand CALLING A RAVENOUS BIRD FROM THE EAST, THE MAN THAT EXECUTETH MY COUNSEL FROM A FAR COUNTRY. I HAVE SPOKEN IT AND I WILL BRING IT TO PASS. I HAVE PURPOSED IT AND I WILL DO IT HEARKEN UNTO ME YE STUBBORN OF HEART God says this time around I will perform my purpose to bring true reform. Many times you have been reproved and shown the error of idolatry, you have for the most part ignored it and have not allowed for true reformation. This will not stand any longer. The people are tired of the burden it brings and they will flee to God so he can ‘carry them’. NOTE: I have memorized the ‘ravenous bird from the east’ for over 20 yrs. I always took it personal. Coming from the east and all. ‘Blinded by the light’ song says ‘preacher from the east’. American Pie from Don McLean says ‘the 3 Men I admire most, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, they took the last train for the coast’ you have the train imagery and the coast. And the image from the gospel of John on ‘in my fathers house are many mansions’ speaks of people groups. Well Springstein says ‘ every body’s out on the road tonight in a last chance power drive, took highway nine to the mansions of glory’ I have driven highway 9, as you can tell I still like the old songs!
(300) I AM BRINGING IN A TRAIN FROM HEAVEN, IT IS COMING WITH POWER I forgot that chuck Pierce prophesied this around a month ago, I like the train stuff!
(84) The other day I was listening to a good preacher on the radio. Sort of a ‘reformed’ thinker who frequently calls the church back to the Puritan days. I love Puritan history and writing. Many of these brothers would agree with some of the stuff I teach in the area of the church being self centered and materially minded, but they would absolutely reject our prophetic stuff. God’s intent for the church is more than ‘the church’. Jesus spoke on the Kingdom over and over again, very little on the church. The reason we exist as ‘the church’ is to invade and impact all areas of society until Christ returns. There are certain ‘old time’ defenders of the faith who cant get past ‘church’ being ‘the old time model’. They stumble over the current ‘mega church’ expression. Many have gone after Rick Warren and his ‘purpose driven church’ model. Our radical teaching on the church being the actual mobile community of God ‘journeying’ thru every generation till now, leaves room for the unique expressions of ‘meeting’ that would go from the simple ‘home based model’ all the way to the ‘mega church’ and even to the Catholic brothers! Our purpose isn’t to meet and argue over the many ways to meet, our purpose is to advance and communicate the gospel of the Kingdom into every arena of man. Some confuse my strong preaching against materialism with a call to come out of the market place. Nothing could be further from the truth! When Christians are able to live above the concerns of the unbeliever, and to do it in a way where they are so intricately involved in society, this itself is a testimony to them. Over the years I have had Christian friends try to tell me ‘why don’t you leave the Fire Dept. and get a building and be faithful to your calling’. I see now that some of them were saying this out of self-guilt. Many of the other Christians in the market place were feeling ‘threatened’ that a so-called ‘preacher’ [to which I hold no claim!] would be working and holding a job like them. Sort of ‘well if this guy can do it, then I am responsible to be more than just a fire fighter’. Then you would have those in ‘full time ministry’ who would get offended that we didn’t take offerings or money. After all they would make the ‘offering time’ 25% of the Sunday meeting. The fact that we weren’t even doing it was offensive [we did take offerings at one time, but I never took a salary from day one]. These examples show you that society is comfortable with secular/holy divisions ‘just keep the church in the church’ and they will be happy. Now to the point of the believer being highly involved in all aspects of society, even economically. It is most definitely Gods will for believers to excel in the stock market, real estate world and all other avenues of finance and influence. Its just we need to distinguish between a message of ‘the Kingdom invading society’ and making the Kingdom about money. This is a real distinction that needs to be taught and understood. Many prophetic people who advocate these things are not yet able to articulate this distinction in an effective way. They will read so far on this blog and think that we are against being progressive, which is not the case. Jesus instituted the Church so the Church would be the key vehicle for expressing the Kingdom in the earth [as well as the whole universe!] We are about much more than which particular style of church or meeting we should have. The style or methods are really un important in my mind. The goal is to harvest enough people who we can then turn out into society to affect it for Christ. The Kingdom starts as a little seed [our small church mentality!] and eventually moves out to cover the earth!
(309) ISAIAH 47 Here this, thou that are given to pleasures [who see Christianity as a means to self indulgence, getting more and more] You who say ‘I shall never suffer the loss of children’ [those who have followed our belief system will always remain faithful to us] Thy wisdom and thy knowledge have perverted thee [the intricate systems of teaching and the lengths that you have gone to in order to get around plain scripture] stand now with all the formulas and gimmicks that you have performed from your early days, see if they will replace true repentance and open turning back towards the truth. Thus shall be all those who you have merchandised with from your youth, every one shall wander to his quarter [try to find refuge in abiding only in those groups who agree with the distorted views that have been perpetrated on the saints] none shall save thee [you will find that all the assurances of the past will no longer work. The obvious error that has been passed down from the leaders who have gone off course will be very plain to the new generation of believers that God is raising up. Many of the ‘children’ with love and respect for their ‘fore fathers’ will choose faithfulness to the Lord over carrying the ‘torch’ for the fathers of their movements. God will save the day!]
(314) CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP DOES NOT EXIST FOR THE PURPOSE OF SELF ADVANCEMENT AND UPWARD MOBLITY AT THE EXPENSE OF THE ‘LAITY’ we need to re think our function in this area. Paul and Jesus were not going around promoting what God was doing thru them, nor were they recruiting ‘financial partners’ to simply experience the Kingdom vicariously thru the gifted leader. They were depositing into the people and releasing them to function on their own. You find Paul and Jesus receiving financial support to send them and help them in their traveling ministry, but today’s mindset of the Leader being ‘sent’ all over the world while the saints sit back and wait to hear all the stories was not the normal mode. Paul did share what God was doing, don’t get me wrong. But today’s mindset sees the people as promoters of the leaders lifestyle and gift. This is why you have well meaning Ministry leaders who live in multi million dollar homes while the average supporter of the ministry lives in a $100,ooo dollar one [or rents an apartment]. It’s OK to live in a million dollar home, but it’s hard to appeal to supporters who are on fixed income, and to ask them to give out of their lack while doing this. The leaders have simply become victims of the western mindset of ministry that pools 90 % of the funds from the average person. While many of the leaders do use the majority of the funds for good things [Christian TV] they seem to justify a lifestyle of wealth and happiness at the expense of the sacrificial giver by their reading of the prosperity scriptures. ‘If God wants me to have wealth, then it’s OK’. They truly don’t see the rebukes in scripture to the ‘shepherds’ who have become wealthy at the expense of the sheep. Being wealthy is OK, you are not allowed to do it from the overall aggregate giving of many average income people. Scripture does forbid this in many places. NOTE: If the leaders salary is equal to those who are sending in support then it’s OK. If the leader is more frugal, a better investor and manages thru time to buy a million dollar home then that’s fine. I am speaking of those who run large ministries and their ‘salary’ including all the perks is in the millions. They often have their family members on the payroll at large salaries [500 thousand] while they really don’t do that much. These leaders look at the average CEO of a large company who makes millions more and justifies it this way. The reason you shouldn’t do this is because the non-profit ministry is really not ‘producing a product’ or commodity. The way they are bringing in millions [or billions] is thru outright giving. This is different than a for profit business. So the way to measure salary shouldn’t be thru the abusive CEO pay, but thru what I just showed you. Paul was reaching the entire known world of his day, pretty much single handedly. He found himself making tents at times to support himself. He traveled like the average person and lived in a lifestyle commensurate with those he was reaching. Jesus also. This is why you read Peter saying ‘desire to be an elder, not for filthy lucre’s sake, but of a ready mind’. This is why it is so important for us to have a good understanding of scripture. A friend of mine was attending a local word of faith church. And right from the start the preacher was confessing ‘you wait and see, my faith is going to produce a Cadillac by the end of this year’. Well this brother means well, he just doesn’t see all the things I just showed you. And when you try to correct this stuff, they will not listen! NOTE: What bugs the ‘hell’ out of me is the inability for prophetic people to see this. It’s like when you try to show a ‘prophet’ something he dismisses all the verses and warnings about this because he knows the other verses on prosperity. Heck [Ill’ be nice] I know them too!
(317) THE LAWNMOWER MAN many years ago I used to watch a famous prosperity preacher out of the Fort Worth area. At the time I liked his teaching and was attracted to it. I regularly watched him and listened to others as well. One time on their daily TV show they showed a testimony. The story was about someone who got saved and began winning people to the Lord. It showed how this brother spent a few years after his conversion giving his life away for the gospel. It then showed how one day he heard this preachers teaching and it ‘lured’ his interest. He then became a supporter and believer in the prosperity gospel. He started a very successful lawnmower business, made lots of money and that’s it! I thought the story would end with the guy using all this money to reach more people, or some kind of ‘spiritual’ point at all. Nope, That was it! Paul the Apostle made an interesting statement when reproving false prophets, he said ‘they testify themselves that they are false, and their testimony is true’. Over the years of myself and others sincerely writing and confronting these brothers in love, you would think that there would have been some attempt at change, even a little. But over a period of time everything about this message stays the same. You try to be patient and love and forgive, but then you have to seriously ask yourself ‘if these brothers refuse to stop doing this stuff, then it’s our responsibility to tell people ‘beware’. I don’t understand the motives of this anymore. I know that pride and rebellion are at the heart of unrepentance. I just see the age of some of these men, they have been ‘steeped’ in this for so long they cant seem to see their way out. I really am trying to change the course of the younger generation of believers coming up. These preachers who continue teaching people to live for finances instead of spiritual riches will give an account some day. The TV stations that broadcast these shows out of love and a real feeling of friendship towards these people will also give an account. I know many well-meaning people. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witness and many others. They do good things. The Masons are wonderful people who help burned children. I take my kids to their Circus to support them. The children’s ministry that they do is great. But I can’t allow the obvious goodness of many of these groups to take precedence over biblical truth. The simple fact that many of the prosperity preachers cause believers to live for wealth is really wrong. I know these brothers are Christians, but this has to stop. NOTE; A few years back a lot of these false prophets were dealt with the first time around. I remember hearing one of them give a defense by saying ‘some people accuse me of being a money preacher. Well that’s right, I am a money preacher’ Now he said this in a way where he thought he was doing right by saying it. Sort of like saying ‘that’s right, I do believe all the stuff we teach is new revelation’. He didn’t realize he was actually fulfilling the verse where Paul says the false prophets testify themselves that they are false. In the actual statement ‘I am a money preacher’ you are actually saying ‘my God is money, I preach it. I confess it. My Jesus was a 1st century Donald Trump.’ They don’t realize that this is what they’re doing, but they are fulfilling Paul’s prophecy in the bible!
(319) The enemy uses systems and structures of speech and thought that are closely related to godly avenues in order to sidetrack people. When the serpent came to Eve in the garden, he is using speech [confession] scripture [the words God spoke, though distorted] and the form of communication that God initially established for his purpose [by the way, those involved in Christian TV networks, many of you do broadcast very good stuff. I was just watching God TV last night and enjoyed a Rick Joyner meeting, also I like the I.H.O.P. meetings with Mike Bickle and many other good prophetic ministries. It is the enemies strategy to ‘mix’ the good stuff with the ‘bad’ wheat/tares strategy] The fact that the enemy uses the means of communication that God initiates should cause us to be more selective in discerning that which is holy [good] from that which is not! Pastor[s] can feel like I am ‘threatening’ their livelihood. I understand this. This is a direct result of the modern day phenomena of the ‘full time minister’. Paul and the other New Testament leaders were not trying to ‘defend their jobs’ they were laying their lives down for truth. Sometimes literally! True reform is difficult. People are happy and comfortable with a steady income stream. Regular supporters who are really blessed by other ministries who might broadcast thru the station. All the natural feelings of being threatened and loosing that sense of security are involved with reform. Many Catholic Priests were shaken during the reformation. It was a time in history where God said ‘I am going to change some things permanently in the history of the Church’. I am not saying everything the reformers did was right. But the time had come for a shift to happen. Shifts are very uncomfortable. They cause you to re evaluate all that you have known and held onto in the past. Shifts are necessary. No chastening at the present time seems to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless afterward it produces right things as well as peace. To some it brings destruction. That’s not the purpose of chastening, but some are steeped in rebellion to the point where they have staked their lives on it. NOTE: Let me try to help some of you who are sincerely worried. The reality of God being our provider. The truth behind all the scriptures of God wanting to prosper us and God being a good God and all of these things are true. They were true for Paul who said ‘Preachers will rise in the last days, preaching that gain is godliness. From such turn away’ they were true for Jesus who said ‘be ware of covetousness, a mans life doesn’t consist in the amount of things he owns’. These scriptures of God being our provider teach us that God is good and will most definitely meet our needs. This is a far cry from the other stuff I am trying to ‘root out’. God being our provider is one thing. Making the entire gospel and kingdom about money is something forbidden in scripture! Discern this guys. Especially you Pastors and Leaders, you cannot keep getting away with letting this slip thru to your people. Ideas and wrong teachings have long lasting results. Don’t let your people go down this road! Teach them about the goodness of God, but don’t let them get ruined by this stuff! NOTE: The serpent actually accomplished his goal thru the speaking of Gods word in a distorted version. He ‘marred’ the image of God that was in man. Man continued to exist, but his ‘image’ was not the complete original intent of the Father. This is what I showed you earlier about idolatry. Many in this movement ‘believe’ in Jesus, but the true image of Christ is ‘marred’ by the distorted view of scripture!
(382) In the writings of Paul [New Testament] you see him fighting against the Judiazers [trying to convert Christians to half law/grace] he describes them as ‘enemies of the Cross’ he actually says they ‘preach another Jesus’ and that even if an angel appears and brings this new ‘Jesus’ that you are to reject it. Paul was strong for the gospel. It’s perfectly possible for believers to develop an experience with God thru Jesus that leaves out the crucial elements of the Cross. When people ‘choose’ to focus on the other aspects of Christianity that are on the ‘fringes’ of the gospel, they choose to opt out of the Cross. I have said before, you do ‘get’ what you focus on. This is a true principle that works whether you are a believer or not. If people choose a form of Christianity that says ‘we focus on comfort and happiness’ they for the most part will get that. If challenged by the message of the Cross [which includes both redemption and the call to self sacrifice] they can actually choose to reject it based on self-preservation. The choice of thinking ‘I do not want to hear the possibility of me suffering and going thru difficulty. The old time churches taught this and our current teachers showed us they got what they confessed’. So you begin to believe in a ‘Cross less’ gospel, and you justify it by the actual fact that you are materially doing better than the old time Christians ‘our teachers must be correct, look at how much better we are doing materially than they were’. The fact that all of this might very well be true does not mean it’s the biblical gospel. Inherent in our call as believers is the fundamental ‘counting the cost’ mindset. The cost of radical revolution is to put self and the concerns of ‘creature comforts’ away. The many learned men who have seen much truth in the areas of wealth and finances have ‘crossed the line’ in not rightfully submitting these truths to the superiority of the Cross. The many sayings of Jesus on ‘you can’t serve God and money’ are seen as ‘old school’. You then have someone like myself that comes along and preaches the Cross. I am then seen as an ‘enemy’ to this peculiar belief system. The ‘system’ becomes that which you defend, as opposed to the true message of the Cross. Paul ‘nailed’ it down fairly well when he said ‘even if an angel comes and declares a different Jesus to you, let him be accursed’. Paul knew the stakes were high. Jesus went thru too much for the church to sit idly by as the parade of new teachers slowly ‘erases’ away his central message.
(383) When I was a Pastor I had a friend who was a ‘word of faith’ preacher. He would attend some of our services. I also let him preach every now and then. I spoke on prayer once. I used the verse from the book of James that says ‘we ask and do not receive, because we ask amiss that we would consume the things we want out of lust’ [paraphrase]. Basically the verse is saying selfish prayers are not answered. My friend tried to explain to me that this was not what it was saying. He was taught this verse in a way that said ‘the reason you are not obtaining the wealth and things you desire is because your are not aiming your prayers in the right direction’ he told me it was saying to ‘aim’ at the proper trajectory and you will get all you want. This was another one of those examples of how we take verses and make them say the complete opposite of what they are saying. Jesus did say ‘when you pray, believe that the things you are saying will happen, and you will have what you say’ I do believe this verse to be true. You will find Jesus and Paul ‘saying’ things this way. Jesus said to the fig tree ‘dry up and die’ it happened. Paul would say to the person who was possessed ‘you are a hindrance to the gospel, be blind’ and it happened. Basically this teaching from Jesus is to fit in with the whole counsel of God. Paul used this truth to spread the gospel. You never found Paul or Jesus using these things ‘to get what they wanted’ in a self serving way. They ‘had what they said’ because they said things in the will of God, not to ‘consume stuff upon their desires’. Jesus would say ‘I am going to go to Jerusalem to be killed’ Peter didn’t like this confession. It didn’t line up with what Peter wanted. Jesus didn’t ‘get what he said’ simply because he said this. He said this out of the reality of fulfilling Gods purpose. He ‘got what he said’ because what he said was the unselfish will of God concerning the Cross. We as believers need to be at a higher level than where we are currently operating. It’s like I could go thru all these types of verses and debate the real meaning of them. Others will stick with the ‘fake’ meaning. You can spend years trying to undo all this stuff. Until we get to ‘another place’ of putting our lives at the foot of the Cross, we will never really see these things. God will give you good things, don’t get me wrong. Just allow all these truths to be ‘filtered’ thru the Cross.
(385)A few things from Isaiah ‘I have seen your ways and will heal you, I will restore comforts unto you and to your mourners’ I spoke on the Cross a few entries back. One of the hard things was Jesus would say to the disciples ‘you must also take up the cross and follow me’. A central area of identifying with Christ was going thru the Cross. This is a difficult thing. There are times in life where all seems to be going well. You have your life organized and happy. The ‘dose’ of Christianity that you have embraced is just strong enough to insure that all your needs will be met. You have the verses down and all. Then there comes some ‘strange’ preacher you never heard of before. He seems to be a little different. He is speaking the same language and all, it’s just different ‘Jesus spoke with authority, not like the scribes’. The average people could really identify with him. He rubbed the ‘elite’ class the wrong way. One of the main parts of his teaching was those who were ‘well off’ now, would pay later. Yet the ‘poor’ would inherit the earth. This didn’t sit well with the ‘well to do’. The religious leaders were getting tired of him. Every time he opened his mouth it seemed like he was teaching stuff that was right on, and it often reproved the systems of belief that the average preacher was ‘hawking’ at the time. Then the day comes where his zealous followers are going to prove to everybody that Jesus is the Messiah, they have been waiting for a few years to be vindicated. Peter was this ‘zealot’ type reformer who was tired of the oppression of Rome. Being treated as some type of ‘illegal alien’. ‘You wait and see Rome, our Messiah has finally arrived. It was even prophesied that he would deliver the Jews from Rome’s oppression. Our day is here’. Then a funny thing happened. The road to Jerusalem is nearing, our vindication day. All the prophets spoke of the triumphal entry of the Jewish King to take David’s throne. This obviously will be fulfilled in Jerusalem, the city of the great King [David]. Well as the day approached, Jesus started talking about death and leaving us. We couldn’t grasp what he was saying. We gave everything to him; we looked like fools following him against the opinions of the preachers of our day. Jesus doesn’t seem to understand we can’t have him dieing now. It will ruin our ‘day of getting even’ with all those who spoke against us. If he dies now we will feel like we have allowed the enemies to win. We want to win! Then they remember the teachings of Jesus. He told them the Cross was not just something he would experience. He told them a day was coming where they too would identify with him in this process. A day of humiliation and defeat. Those who would experience it would be different on the other side. Peter swallows hard and readies himself. “Though all the others forsake you, I wont’’ He even cuts off the ear of one of the company who come to take Jesus. A very brave thing to do, knowing your out numbered and all. I guess he really wanted to show that he was willing to die this day. But this wasn’t his day to die. Then the hour comes. Jesus begged the Father if there was another way please help me find it. He determines to allow the Cross to take full course. He sees Peter cursing and denying him. Peter tastes it too. They drive the nails thru his hands and prop him up over this hillside. It looks like something out of Hollywood ‘the place of the skull’. Something strange happens. The sky turns dark. It’s eerie, the people were just making fun of him and now they are terrified. One of the others being crucified that day decides to ask Jesus if he could be with him in Paradise. Jesus has so much on his plate right now. The ‘weight of the world’ and yet has time to pray for him. ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’ still putting others first. As the sky darkens the earth shakes. Later we find out that the tombs of believers broke open from this event and after the resurrection many saints rose from the dead and were seen witnessing in the area! A Roman guard is seeing all this, he sees this strange religious leader cry out to his God ‘O my God why did it come to this. You have forsaken me. Into your hands I commit my spirit’ the soldier simply says ‘truly this man was the Son of God’. He is taken down and put in a tomb. Others will come who will teach that Jesus was part of the ‘aristocracy’ that he was from the ‘rich class’. They put him in a ‘rich mans tomb’ but it had to be donated! His followers are distraught. Especially Peter. Peter was thinking ‘what have I done, I cant believe the weakness of my flesh. All that I worked for in this revolution is now lost. I will be remembered as the one who failed. My image is forever stained’. Jesus appears to the women who were his followers after the resurrection. A strange thing for sure. If someone were writing this story and it was all made up, you wouldn’t have Jesus going first to the women. It would take away from the ‘believability’ of the story. 1st century Rome was a bit ‘patriarchal’ you know. The women are amazed. Jesus did it. ‘Go tell the disciples I am alive. Especially Peter. I know he gave it all he could to not deny me. But it had to happen. It was part of his Cross’. They go and tell the others. The disciples will go on and found the greatest religious movement known to man. Peter will gain his boldness back. History even tells us that when they crucified him he asked to be killed upside down, because he wasn’t worthy to die like his King. They finished well. God restored comforts unto Jesus and to his mourners. But first the Cross. NOTE: The martyrdom of Peter. Jesus tells Peter one time ‘where I am going [the Cross] you cannot follow me at this time. Later you will follow me, but your time has not come yet’. Jesus knew it was necessary for Peter’s denial to still take place. Peter had an ‘appointment’ with failure. Peters desire was to be a martyr for the cause. He was a ‘zealot’ a political activist of his day who would have been willing to die for freedom. He tried to show this at the point when they came to take Jesus. The act of cutting off the ear of a Roman soldier is something that you get executed for. The 1st century means of execution was the Cross. Peter actually took a step towards martyrdom with this act. Jesus interrupted the process by miraculously putting the guys ear back on! Its like Peter wanted death, but Jesus already told him it wasn’t yet time. You find Peter after Pentecost preaching to the Jews in such a way that it seemed like he was back to the ‘martyrdom complex’. He says things that could very well get him killed. It’s like he can’t wait to pass thru the ‘tunnel’. When the day finally comes he does get crucified upside down. He never really overcame the guilt of his initial denial. He still felt unworthy over what he did. The early church had a ‘movement’ where Christians were wanting to get martyred. They read verses like the one in Hebrews 11 that says ‘those who are martyred receive a better resurrection’ so this group of ‘Christian zealots’ were actually doing things to get executed for the faith. The early church fathers/Bishops had to put a stop to it. These guys were like Peter after the resurrection! There was a real sense of ‘I want to get killed for the faith’ that some of these brothers had. What a contrast to today’s gospel. We appeal to people by telling them your gonna get rich if you follow Christ. Things will be great. We seem to appeal to the flesh of people. The early followers knew if they embraced the faith that there was a chance that you might get killed.
(396) Some things from Isaiah 53. ‘He is despised and rejected of men, we hid our faces from him’. Funny thing, never did or said a single wrong thing. Theologically correct 100 % of the time. How did we view him? We HID from him when we saw him coming. The gossip was so bad about him we couldn’t even face him. ‘We esteemed him not’. We said ‘I don’t care who he thinks he is, do you know what I heard’? ‘He was wounded for us, bruised for us. The price to obtain the things that would bring us peace was on him’ all the things that caused us to look down upon him were actually part of the price he had to pay for our benefit! ‘He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, he was like a silent lamb being killed’ I don’t have what it takes to be silent when I am being talked about. There was a sort of oppression that kept coming against Jesus. It was like men will keep doing whatever it takes to ‘get to him’. Pilate says ‘don’t you know I might actually have you put to death’ they kept pushing all the buttons. What was it again that they found wrong with him? O yes, he said ‘I am the Son of God’ in so many words. That’s right, now I remember. The great crime that led us to this point of killing him was HE TOLD US THE TRUTH! ‘He did no violence, nor was there ever any deceit in his mouth’ I cant say the same about me. ‘Yet it pleased the Father to bruise him, HE HATH DONE THIS TO HIM’ it’s so hard to comprehend this. You are not only allowing these things, but actually doing them by your great purpose! I thought any thing like this was the work of the devil. I thought I was suffering because of something I did wrong. I have been trying to get out of this difficulty. Everyone today preaches ‘if he were from God surely this wouldn’t be happening’. ‘He will see of the pain in my soul, by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many’ the things I will bring forth from your pain will ‘justify’ [bring into alignment] many. The pain first! ‘I will divide him a portion with the great [he will share the fruits with many well known people, those who thrive on fame]. He will divide the goods with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death. He bare the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors’ in the midst of this personal turmoil he was faithful to continue interceding for others. He did like Job who ‘prayed for his friends’ and then the Lord turned his captivity around. He learned to be faithful in intercession even when his life was being poured out. Who can live up to this? Jesus is the perfect man. NOTE this chapter starts with ‘who hath believed our report’ I was just ‘worrying’ about how many people are ‘accepting/believing’ the things on this blog. A feeling of like ‘am I crazy, is nobody getting reached in a lasting way?’ Then I read the part of ‘our report’. I felt like the Lord was saying don’t worry about whether or not you are accepted. If you speak the things I am saying, then it’s ‘our’ report. Sort of like when scripture says to the prophets ‘they have not rejected you, they have rejected me’. I don’t want to come off as everything I say is right. I just felt like the Lord was saying when you speak in his will, it’s up to him to deal with the problem of whether or not the ‘report’ is being believed. Sometimes it’s in his purpose for reports to ‘not be believed’ so he can get to the next step.
(397) I saw a ministry out of Texas [We sure seem to have a lot of em!] who again preaches money all the time. I have read and listened to tapes from him before. He does have a tremendous amount of wisdom and Knowledge in areas of business and finance. His teachings were some of the best I have ever heard in these areas. He himself testified of how when he became a believer he later began to be ‘fascinated to an extreme’ with rich people. He studied and researched and could not get and consume enough information on these rich and wealthy people. The way he described it sounded like an unbelievable obsession with wealth. He used this description to explain how he became so knowledgeable in these areas. I saw it more of falling into the danger that Jesus warned against ‘Beware of covetousness, for a mans like doesn’t consist of the abundance of the things that he possesses’. I like this teacher, he does have great wisdom. It’s just he advocates so many of the things I have shown you to be wrong on this site. He would never admit it, he is brilliant. Scripture says ‘thy knowledge hath perverted thee’ it is possible to learn the most intricate truths of success from scripture. To apply them in such a way that you become highly successful and wealthy. It is possible to teach this system to others with a PURE HEART, that is you truly are not trying to take advantage of people. All of this in and of itself does not justify the obsession with wealth that these types of teachers promote. Their ‘wisdom’ has truly perverted them. NOTE: Many of these brothers are not ‘crooked’ fakes. They are sincere and honest in their dealings. They give extreme amounts of money to missions. Because of this they do not see themselves like the obvious fakes. There have been blatant deceivers who have robbed people; these brothers do not fall into this category. Because of this they cant see that they have fallen into the snare of desiring to become wealthy, which scripture forbids [1st Timothy 6- go read it!]. This is what makes it so difficult when you try to uproot this teaching from the church. NOTE: Let me show you how humility and truth trump wisdom. Though the above teacher is extremely wise, he also uses the ‘proof texts’ to teach that Jesus was also rich. The many verses I have shown you on this site. You can honestly show these brothers that these ‘proof texts’ do not trump the overall character of Jesus that comes to us from the testimony of the gospels. The gospels plainly show us an itinerant preacher who gathered a rag tag team of disciples and led a radical life. Sure they had a ‘bag’ [treasury] and Jesus wore an expensive coat [more than likely donated!] but these verses do not teach a wealthy Jesus! It is next to impossible for these guys to ‘see’ this. Knowledge can pervert you. These guys have seen real truth [knowledge] in areas of finances that the historic church has overlooked. They see how they know more than the traditional church in these areas. The fact that they posses true knowledge is a stumbling block to trying to show them these other areas of false teaching. They seem to think that all critics are traditional thinkers who do not have revelation knowledge. Deception is deceitful, that means you don’t know you are being deceived! NOTE: I know I have ‘harped’ on this a lot. I do over emphasize this area of correction because there have been so many leaders who have refused to deal with it over the years. Many innocent Pastors who are not familiar with the extreme elements of some of these teachings have inadvertently taught or condoned these teachers by mentioning their names or teaching a small aspect of their doctrine, like Jesus being rich because he had an expensive coat, or the teaching that the parable of the sower is speaking about finances [it is not!]. So in general this area has affected a lot of innocent Christians who are truly not aware of these things.
(410) I want to talk about the reality of gifted Prophetic/Apostolic people in church history who had real gifts, but embraced false doctrine. This is an area of stumbling for those who are trying to break away from false movements. The Mormons are good people, whenever they come to my house I have real good talks with them [a little too good, after a few visits they go back to their elders with questions and they never come back!] I actually become real friends with them. I honestly discuss their movement’s history and I give an honest evaluation of the Prophet Joseph Smith [the founder of their church]. I do not demean them in any way. I simply acknowledge that the giftings of Joseph Smith were tremendous in the area of pioneering a religious movement. I also challenge the belief that Joseph was the prophet that the Lord chose to restore the true church. I find agreement that the true church are all those who have come to embrace the sacrifice of Christ [which they believe in] and then I explain how Jesus said the gates of hell would never totally prevail against the church. If Jesus words were true [they were!] then there never was a time since the 1st century that the church didn’t exist in some form. The gates never prevailed against her. Therefore Josephs teaching on him being the restorer of the church to the degree that God supposedly told him there was no true church left, has to be wrong. I do make headway with the younger guys. Once you honestly become true friends with people, you can have influence. My position on all the extra biblical doctrines and visions and other so called supernatural things [finding gold plates in the ground!] I simply ‘compromise’ to the point of saying ‘it is possible that Joseph [or any other leader of any other movement] had visions or experiences that they felt were true. They might have actually saw someone/something’. But we go back to the reality of Jesus being the way to God, and we put these other things at the foot of the Cross. The history of the pioneering Mormons is tremendous. The people are all good people [for the most part] there are strides being made right now to influence certain key leaders of this movement and to bring them back into alignment with historic Christianity [like what happened with the seventh day Adventists on the west coast. A few years back some evangelicals established relationships with key leaders and certain seventh day groups came back to the historic church- The worldwide church of God group [not the Pentecostal church of God] had a total reformation from the top down!] The point is, it is possible for certain religious groups to experience great success. In some strange way the fact that there is a small degree of the gospel present within the system [remember the leaven affecting the whole lump?] enables a certain degree of success until the time comes for true reformation. This approach can be seen with the more extreme word of faith/ prosperity teachers. Many were good men who did good things. We should not allow this to be an open door for the other doctrines and stuff that are wrong. Acknowledge the good, and honestly face up to the things that went off track. God requires all of us to do this at certain times. NOTE: After a few talks with these Mormons they see that I am a Christian; I know the bible and am even aware of their history. I use this fact as an example of God revealing himself to people without them joining or identifying with some religious group or organization. One of their beliefs is God has a true real church in society [true] and therefore which one is it? I try to show them that I too believe there is ‘one true church’ and that this church [society of people- not an organization or denomination] is actually made up of all those who have come to the reality of God thru Christ. They will challenge this view [as do some Christians!] and say that it is wrong. That how could people just come to a true knowledge of God unless they are in the true church [which to them is Mormon] I then bring them back to the fact that we have spent hours discussing and sharing many truths about Jesus. We all know many of the same verses [to be honest I usually know more by memory than them] and we have been discussing all these truths of God and his purposes and redemption thru Christ. And yet I have never met you before. I am not Mormon. How did God break thru to me and show me all these things that we have been sharing? It wasn’t thru some organization; it was the fact that God is revealing himself to mankind thru Christ. All who have come to this reality ARE THE TRUE CHURCH. Therefore everyone who worships the Father thru the Son are the true church. This leaves room for them and all others. I don’t whitewash the many wrong teachings of Mormonism, I simply try to bring them to the reality that even if Joseph Smith never existed that the reality of all of us [I include them] right now believing in God and the sacrifice of his son would qualify us as the ‘true church’ you don’t need Joseph Smith for this!
(416) Let’s talk about divine healing. Over the years I have heard different ‘angles’ on this. I absolutely believe God can and does heal. If you do an in depth study of scripture there is no question about it. ‘He is the God who healeth thee’. The problem, like anything else, is we have a tendency to go to ‘extreme views’ on this. Recently in some of the movements I have been studying I have seen the idea surface that ‘if you did not act by faith in the healing, it’s your fault’. These sincere people get to the point where they teach if someone is in a wheel chair, and you say to them ‘arise and walk’ and if they don’t do it, they didn’t obey [act upon the word] and it’s their fault. Surely it can’t be Gods? Well you then develop a healing theology of condemnation. You begin teaching ‘if you are not healed you have done something wrong’. All redemptive purposes are in Gods plan. The most obvious one is to redeem man from actual death. 'O death where is your victory’. Jesus is the resurrection and the life right now. He said this to Lazarus sisters. ‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God’. It was not Gods will to heal him during these 3 days. In Gods sovereign plan he chose to allow death to happen so he would be glorified in raising him. So even though healing and the defeat of death are parts of God purpose in redemption, we do not understand why all of the aspects of it are not fully revealed now. We should not develop a teaching that says to the person in the wheel chair ‘if you don’t ‘get up’ when I say ‘get up’ then you didn’t obey the word!’ This has been done more times than you know, in various scenarios. I have used the comparison that if it’s always something the person is doing wrong, then what about raising the dead? Jesus taught healing in the great commission just like raising the dead. He said those who believe would even raise the dead. Raising the dead has happened and does actually happen. Why don’t we go and raise all the dead all the time? I actually heard a brother on the radio who was defending the teaching that every time someone isn’t healed there’s something wrong. And he defended the idea that the person being healed is not believing right or else they would be healed. He then gave an example on ‘well why then are not all people raised from the dead?’ He actually taught an experience he, or someone else had, where the Lord showed them that when a dead person is told ‘rise from the dead’ that the spirit of the person hears it, and if they don’t ‘obey’ well there you have it. As you can see, when preachers want to be extreme, they are like kids. They will come up with the most elaborate schemes to make themselves right. Lets just say all of Gods purposes are not fully revealed yet. Even the promise of ‘never dieing’ does not mean we will ‘never die’. It just means that we will win at the end. I believe God is the healer; all of our doctrines and teachings are for the benefit of man. If you turn them into something that condemns man, then you have defeated the main purpose of God. Like what the Pharisees did with the Sabbath. Jesus said the Sabbath was given for man, not man for the Sabbath. We worship our doctrines and put them on pedestals and we make man fit into them. If we can’t find a satisfactory explanation, we then make it mans fault, surely it couldn’t be Gods?
[this is a note at the end of our other teaching section]
P.S. Let me also add that there are many prophetic people that I am in contact with in some way. I feel that a lot of them agree with me on prophetic stuff, but get offended by the strong stance we take in other areas of teaching. I realize that just because a person experiences prophetic things, that this doesn’t mean he is correct in everything! It is common to hear things like ‘the end time transfer of wealth’ and themes like this from highly prophetic people. We just assume because someone is prophetic that their doctrine is correct. I really don’t want to teach here, but let me share this. The scripture does speak about the wealth of the sinner being stored up for the righteous and God ‘gives’ it to the righteous. Also the story of the children of Israel leaving Egypt and how God gave them the wealth of the Egyptians. These verses do not teach some type of windfall that simply falls into the hands of Christians. As church history progressed thru time more and more people in the marketplace and other areas of wealth and influence have become believers. As the church age progresses this phenomenon increases. Today the ‘wealth of the wicked’ has much more become ‘the wealth of the righteous’, not thru some windfall inheritance, but thru the process of God redeeming planet earth! ‘Seeing’ it this way does not violate the principles of scripture that over and over speak about the diligent being blessed and the lazy coming to ruin/poverty. There are many believers who are living in disobedience by not working who cling on to doctrines like ‘the end time transfer of wealth’ and wrongly believe that they are going to get money while violating biblical standards. Things like this need to be understood and articulated thru prophetic people before God can entrust us with more. I actually feel that the prophetic movements ‘marriage’ to the prosperity gospel has voided certain things that God wanted to do thru the movement. Balaam was a prophetic person who actually heard from God and spoke Gods words, but scripture says his lust for wealth made him a false prophet [who loved the wages of unrighteousness]. If prophets can’t receive correction from each other then God will never let them ‘correct’ [speak into] the church at large. I feel one of the pitfalls of the prophetic is to think that the goal is to ‘simply be prophetic’. I have met brothers who simply wanted to attend church and stand up and speak. God’s chief concern for all of his people [even prophets] is to carry out the great commission, to be salt and light to a lost and dying world!
[#’s 1-216] TEACHINGS Part 1- This section is very long and random, if it’s your first time reading this site you might want to read our shorter books and studies first! A COLLECTION OF DREAMS, PROPHECIES, VISIONS, INTERPRETATIONS AND OTHER STUFF. ‘FOR THIS REASON HAVE I BROUGHT YOU TO THIS PLACE. SO YOU COULD SEE, HEAR AND GIVE YOUR ATTENTION TO THE THINGS I AM SHOWING YOU, AND THEN YOU CAN SPEAK IT TO MY PEOPLE’
John Chiarello johnchiarello@hotmail.com
P.O. Box 181256 www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com
C.C. TX. 78480
INTRODUCTION Over the years I have had many interesting dreams, visions and ‘prophetic’ type experiences. I have shared some of these experiences thru our radio ministry and a few in our books. I felt it would be beneficial to catalog them in one place, so here it is!
The way these types of words work is they can have meaning to the person directly experiencing the event, or they can directly speak to you at this season in your life. I encourage you to write down the numbers of the entries that have special meaning to you so you can go back later and review them. God bless you guys and I hope you get something out of it!
I am cataloging these thoughts on an on going basis; there is no particular order [Think of it like PASCAL’s Penses]. Note; for those of you who don’t read the books or stuff I send, in this paper I share a lot of testimony stuff. Do a quick overview and stop at some of these stories, I think it would be worth it. I tell some stories about coming to Texas from Jersey, and even some things from Jersey that I never told before.
The things that are in bold type [capitalized] are scripture quotes from the bible. Many I just add from memory as I’m typing, others come from my mission statement [that’s why you don’t see me adding the chapter and verse]. During the writing of this paper in 12/06 I am just beginning to contact old classmates and friends from New Jersey that I haven’t seen or heard from in 25 years. Many of you have gotten this paper!
I take the risk of looking like I fried my brain on drugs by sharing these ‘prophetic’ things [signs, dreams, etc.]. I really felt the Lord telling me its time to reach out and simply become friends again with many of you. Maybe some of you will become involved in our ministry in some way [not talking about money here!].
This paper reads more like a journal/diary than a booklet. Maybe you can read a few entries a day like a devotional? I just don’t want you to get bored with this paper and then not read the other booklets on this site! As this ‘journal’ grows there are whole sections that express what I am feeling and seeing at the time. So maybe if you feel ‘bogged’ down in one section, jump to number 300 and start from there. Next time start from number 200, etc.
I SHARE THINGS IN A PLAIN AND OPEN LANGUAGE IN THIS PAPER, TO SOME IT MIGHT BE OFFENSIVE, IT IS NOT MY INTENT TO OFFEND, JUST FELT LIKE THIS STYLE WAS THE WAY I SHOULD GO IN THIS PAPER.
Also let me challenge you guys to ‘keep reading’ even if you come across an entry that you don’t like. I didn’t realize when I started this site that there were ‘prophetic’ things that I would log in the earlier entries that would ‘fit in’ with later entries. I didn’t see this until I went back and edited the site [to be honest some of the dreams I wrote about came eerily true in ways that I could have never imagined when I first wrote them].
So stick with the reading because you might see something later on the site that will bring clarity to something else. The entry that came ‘eerily’ true is a little too personal to get into, but in the actual entry [it was a dream] I made comments that I didn’t even think were prophetic. Then when I went back and re read the entry [months later] the ‘off the cuff’ comments were really prophetic. Its hard to tell you this without looking like I am bragging, but the reason I am telling you this is so you will be attentive to the ‘off the cuff’ comments, these might be crucial to what God is trying to say to you.
One of the ‘radical’ things you will see on this site is that the New Testament Christian is not under the tithe, you will see this explained in depth thru this paper as well as the books I have written on this site. To keep everything in balance, read the note on entry 443 and keep this in mind as you learn.
EAT THE WORDS, IN THY MOUTH THEY WILL TASTE SWEET, BUT THEY WILL BE BITTER IN YOUR BELLY- John in the book of Revelation. You will read things in this section that will taste sweet, you will say ‘wow, that brother sees what I see’ you will also read things that will taste bitter ‘I can’t believe he said that!’ I encourage you to let God speak to you thru both means.
I pulled these first 2 entries from the paper to give a balance right here at the start.
(173)In the early church of the first couple of centuries there was a group of ‘Christians’ who were called Gnostics. These people believed in ‘special knowledge’. They felt that God revealed things to them thru spiritual means that the average Christians didn’t access. Today you have the equivalent of this in ‘revelation knowledge’. This is a type of belief among Christians that sometimes contradicts scripture, but slips in as ‘special revelation’. While it is true that God does give us prophetic insight and allows us to see things thru dreams and visions and other means, yet all of these ‘things’ are subservient to biblical authority! When things slip in under the title of ‘revelation knowledge’ we must judge it by scripture. If scripture contradicts the ‘revelation knowledge’ then we go with the Word!
CONCLUSION Let me end with a final note. Jesus said that a wicked and evil generation seeks after a sign and no sign will be given to them but the sign of the prophet Jonah [in essence Jesus was telling the Jews that until they believe in the most important sign of all, the resurrection of Christ, that they will not be able to ‘see’ any of the multitude of ‘signs’ that God has done thru Christ up until this day!]. The above scenarios took place when I was simply praying, seeking God or sleeping! I don’t feel that we should ‘seek’ after these types of experiences, but we should recognize that God is sovereign and if he desires to communicate to his children then who are we to tell him no. The apostle Paul told Timothy to ‘war a good fight by the prophecies that were given over you’. There are many believers who write down and catalog the prophecies and visions they have received from the Lord, this helps to be able to look back and see a pattern of Gods direction in your life. We should not build our lives or doctrine on these types of things, that area belongs to scripture! But we should be able to discern Gods voice over a period of time and ‘fight a good fight by way of the prophecies that have gone on over our lives’. God bless you guys!
P.S. Let me also add that there are many prophetic people that I am in contact with in some way. I feel that a lot of them agree with me on prophetic stuff, but get offended by the strong stance we take in other areas of teaching. I realize that just because a person experiences prophetic things, that this doesn’t mean he is correct in everything! It is common to hear things like ‘the end time transfer of wealth’ and themes like this from highly prophetic people. We just assume because someone is prophetic that their doctrine is correct. I really don’t want to teach here, but let me share this. The scripture does speak about the wealth of the sinner being stored up for the righteous and God ‘gives’ it to the righteous. Also the story of the children of Israel leaving Egypt and how God gave them the wealth of the Egyptians. These verses do not teach some type of windfall that simply falls into the hands of Christians. As church history progressed thru time more and more people in the marketplace and other areas of wealth and influence have become believers. As the church age progresses this phenomenon increases. Today the ‘wealth of the wicked’ has much more become ‘the wealth of the righteous’, not thru some windfall inheritance, but thru the process of God redeeming planet earth! ‘Seeing’ it this way does not violate the principles of scripture that over and over speak about the diligent being blessed and the lazy coming to ruin/poverty. There are many believers who are living in disobedience by not working who cling on to doctrines like ‘the end time transfer of wealth’ and wrongly believe that they are going to get money while violating biblical standards. Things like this need to be understood and articulated thru prophetic people before God can entrust us with more. I actually feel that the prophetic movements ‘marriage’ to the prosperity gospel has voided certain things that God wanted to do thru the movement. Balaam was a prophetic person who actually heard from God and spoke Gods words, but scripture says his lust for wealth made him a false prophet [who loved the wages of unrighteousness]. If prophets can’t receive correction from each other then God will never let them ‘correct’ [speak into] the church at large. I feel one of the pitfalls of the prophetic is to think that the goal is to ‘simply be prophetic’. I have met brothers who simply wanted to attend church and stand up and speak. God’s chief concern for all of his people [even prophets] is to carry out the great commission, to be salt and light to a lost and dying world!
John Chiarello
(1) I was praying early one morning while at work, and I ‘saw’ an image of a lion’s head, the impression was so strong that I made a mental note to see what it meant. Over the past few years the Lord has used the imagery of ‘Judah’ and the ‘Lion of Judah’ in a consistent way in my life. Well when I got home from work my wife told me that she printed some Christian materials for me from the computer. The materials were simply various prophetic words that as far as I knew had nothing to do with a lion. Sure enough as soon as I looked at the materials it had the very same image of the ‘lions head’ that I had just seen a few hours earlier. The lesson from this was simply a confirmation that there would be some valuable things contained in these prophecies that the Lord wanted me to pay attention to. The prophecies were from Bob Jones, a seasoned prophetic person with a long track record of hearing from the Lord.
(2) While praying early [at work again, let me make a note here. I don’t want to give you guys the impression that all I do at work is pray! But being I work a 24 hour shift I often get up at 2 or 3 A.M. and walk outside while I pray] I was outside looking up at the stars. After a few hours of praying I felt the Lord impress on me to ‘pray the Daniel prayer’, which to me meant pray for the Lord to send ‘divine intervention’ right now [the thought I had was God sending the angel to Daniel after he prayed, a sort of ‘breakthrough’ from heaven to earth]. Also this morning while walking and praying there was a bundle of wood recently cut from a tree. This had me thinking about the ‘God of Elijah’ and whether God could still send ‘fire from heaven’. Well I finally prayed the ‘Daniel prayer’ and simply said something to the effect of ‘God send an angel and show me your ability to supernaturally intervene on our behalf’. Well within a few seconds I saw the biggest meteorite ever, it was huge and you could actually see flames of fire [this was a real meteorite, not a vision]! Well to say the least God was confirming he still is able to supernaturally act on the behalf of his kids, and the ‘God of Elijah’ can still send fire from heaven! [Let me add, I was just outside praying and was thinking about adding this and while thinking about it I saw 2 shooting stars. One left a ‘line/stream’ for a few minutes, sort of like a planes wake. What I wanted to add is when you get up early to pray outside it is not unusual to see shooting stars. I have seen hundreds [without exaggeration] over the years. The fact that this meteorite was at least 50 to 100 times bigger than any I have ever seen was significant] ‘By thy favor you have made my mountain to stand strong’ [bible verse].
(3) While praying early one morning [in my yard at home] I told the Lord ‘I’m tired of being a Lightning Rod’. Within a second or two I ‘heard’ the Lord say ‘I called James and John the sons of thunder’ [this is in the Bible]. While at work praying it was thundering outside, but it wasn’t raining so I was able to walk outside. A very loud thunderclap and bolt of lightning struck so close to where I was praying that I felt a feeling of like being dazed [I wasn’t struck by lightning]. This simply confirmed the word that if God wants me to be a ‘son of thunder/lightning bolt’ who am I to dispute Him. I feel the ‘lightning bolt’ imagery spoke to the many ‘controversial’ subjects I deal with thru our teaching ministry. The teaching ministry often attracts ‘violent’ responses from those hearing us for the first time! A lightning rod attracts lightning by its very nature. It is mounted in a high place, it is often isolated and ‘gets struck’ while no one else is around. I also recently read a prophecy from the Elijah list that spoke of believers walking around with ‘lightning Rods’ protruding out of their bodies and being ‘struck’ by God, I feel this is also in keeping with what the Lord communicated to me thru this experience [earlier I was praying in the same area where this happened, it is about a week after I penned this, and it ‘dawned’ on me that I was standing about 3 feet from a radio tower [it acts just like a lightning rod] when this happened!]. ‘The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force’ [bible verse].
(4) Let me put this one in while its currently happening. Right now while typing this I have fox news on in the background. They are showing a live shot of the Hudson river/New York city region. I was just praying for this exact region this morning. I grew up on the New Jersey side of the Hudson. Well the reason fox news is showing this live shot is there is an old naval ship being moved up the Hudson for repairs. This is an old ship that hasn’t moved for many years. Sure enough the propellers just got suck in the mud. I have been praying for the Lord to give us a breakthrough in the New York City area for quite some time. I believe the Lord wants us to do some ‘Apostolic’ work in this region. One of the classical definitions of an Apostle is the image of a fleet of ships launching out into new territories in order to colonize new lands. Well the ship being moved right now hasn’t moved for years. I feel like this could speak to our present situation, I have been believing the Lord to ‘launch’ us for a long time in this region. The ship finally got moving and sure enough it gets stuck! Well there are always obstacles getting in the way of those trying to ‘colonize’ new regions for the kingdom of God.
(5) I had a dream that I walked into a classroom full of people [a whole community]. They were all sitting in front of a big blackboard. On the board there was a riddle. When I looked at the riddle it seemed obvious to me what it meant. I thought that everyone should know what it meant. I got up and went to the board and solved the riddle. I asked everyone if they saw the answer to the mystery. They all responded yes. I felt like this meant there would be certain things that we would ‘solve’ or reveal thru our teaching ministry that would make things clear and plain. Though the riddle was unsolvable at first, after I solved it, it was easily understandable to every one there.
(6) When I first accepted the Lord I attended a Baptist Church for a few years. I would often have friends call me ‘John the Baptist’. To be honest I never liked being called this. The Church was a good Church, but I always saw myself as being Christian as opposed to some denominational title. Well a few years ago my mother was visiting me from New Jersey and told me an interesting story. She said when I was a little boy [around 6-9yrs old?] that I was in some type of school play and I stood up and said ‘my name is John and I was named after John the Baptist’. I asked her why I said this, was it some sort of Christian play or something, she told me no. She just thought it strange that I would say this out of the blue. Well I felt this to mean if God wants to call you something [whether ‘son of thunder’ or whatever] that he will confirm it in undeniable ways. Also I was 43 yrs old when I found this out, it was like the Lord used me to prophesy to myself and I didn’t even know it! ‘I have raised up one from the north. From the rising of the sun shall he call upon my name. Who raised up the righteous man from the east and gave the nations before him. He will come upon princes as upon mortar and the coastlands shall wait for his law. There was a man sent from God whose name was John [insert your name here!]. Before you were born I made mention of your name. You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you to be a prophet to the nations.’[Bible verses!] [You can apply all this to yourself as God directs. I don’t want to sound to self-important here].
(7) When I first moved to Corpus Christi from Kingsville, there was a political argument going on over whether or not to open an old [ancient] channel from an intercostal waterway to the gulf of Mexico. I live close to this area. This channel has finally opened and I felt like the Lord was saying ‘there are many enemies resisting the opening of ‘waterways’ but he would prevail and new waterways would open [spiritually]’. I felt like the Lord wanted me to go to this new channel and walk the jetty [which is a type of ‘wall’ strutting out into the ocean]. When I finally went I pulled up to a parking area and took off my shoes and socks and began the walk. After about a 150 yards or so I realized that I was burning my feet on the hot sand, but I decided to finish the walk anyway. I also passed a writing in the sand that said ‘I love Chris’ to which I added a T and it said ‘I love Christ’. Well I walked out on the jetty and sat for about 20 minutes and enjoyed the area. By this time I realized that I did burn my feet pretty badly but just went with it. On the walk back to the truck I passed the ‘I love Christ’ writing and saw another writing [which I didn’t see the first time] that said ‘I love Peter’. I felt that ‘Peter’ represents the ‘flesh’ and the Lord was simply confirming his love and acceptance for me [and you!] despite the many failings of our flesh! A few days later I was reading from a prophetic website [Glory of Zion/Chuck Pierce] and they share both prophecies as well as the actual things that they do during their early morning prayer time. One of the early prayer watches had a brother named John ask for a shofar, well I just attended a meeting a few weeks earlier and made the strange request for someone to donate to me a shofar. I really didn’t know why I asked for a shofar, but felt the Lord wanted me to ask for one. Well after reading the prophetic site I realized it was just a confirmation telling me to pay attention to this prophetic word. Well the word [from Chuck Pierce] continued on to speak about new waterways opening and also for us to walk on these new ‘higways/walls’ that will bring us to a higher place. The prophecy even said ‘that where you walked before and burned your feet, you will walk there no more’. Well my feet had blisters for a few weeks! Scripture says God will make a ‘way’ [waterway?] thru the wilderness and ‘rivers in the desert’. Both of these images speak of ‘cutting a road thru the sand and letting water run thru it’. Also if you add this to the ‘John the baptist/lighntnig rod/sons of thunder’ prophecy it really has meaning from the message bible, it calls John ‘thunder out of the desert’. John was a ‘prophetic blast’ that came out of [cut thru] the desert! Let me add another thing, after I wrote this, later on in the day I was watching the ‘God channel’ on direct TV. I saw a prophetic sister [Patricia King] who I never watched before. Her show is called ‘extreme prophetic’. Well it started with the verses about John the Baptist and spoke of the ‘burning man’ coming out of the desert. I thought maybe I should pay attention to this show. She spoke all about prophetic stuff and at the end gave a prophecy saying ‘the fire and lightning of God Are going to burn things out of you that don’t need to be there’ [This is not an exact quote, but the fire and lightning are!]. This experience at the channel happened in 2006, in 1980 I went to this area of the ocean at night with some friends to party [my girlfriend, who is now my wife, and my friend from N.J. who died of aids, you’ll read this later] As we were drinking and getting drunk I had the great idea of swimming out as far as we could and live on the edge of possibly drowning. A great idea! Well me and my buddy did swim out, and of course I had to go much further than him. I realized that I swam too far and the undertow was drawing me out. I’m drunk, it’s around midnight and I feel like I am going to die this night. I started swimming back frantically and finally reached the point where I could touch ground! The same places where God would speak to me years later, the enemy tried to kill me on this night! ‘For thy sake we are killed all the day long. I will pay back reproach to the islands, I will cast your sins into the sea’ [bible verses]. Let me take a chance here and confess a few things. I believe I risked death too much with some of these chances I took. There is actually a ‘thrill’ at risking your life. Jim Morrison [the doors] also had this fixation. Listen to the songs ‘the end’ and ‘break on thru to the other side’. A few years ago I was at a truck fire [pretty common for firefighters] and out of laziness didn’t put on any protective gear. I was putting it out with the fire hose when the propane tank released hot propane from the relief valve. It didn’t blow up, but it did get hot. I just stood there [from a little distance] and kept putting water on it. I know its stupid but it could have exploded and hurt me pretty bad. The friend I was with at the fire is the fishing friend you will read about in this paper. He once came over to see me because it was a while since we got together and he had a dream that I died. I realize that even working with the guys I work with [addicts and ex-cons] that there is still an inherent danger in doing this. Not to long ago I was with some guys and they were actually smoking crack at one point. I am saying this to confess that you can try to play it safe and not take risks and live your life on a church pew [boring], or you can take real risks and possibly ‘leave’ a little early, but no one ever gets out alive anyway [another quote from Jim Morrison]. Don’t take dumb risks, but don’t live too safe!
(8) These next three experiences all happened within the first few years of becoming a Christian. During this time I was attending a Fundamental Baptist Church [they were a good Gospel preaching Church!] that did not believe in the gifts of the Spirit or prophetic things.
A- One night I was invited to preach at the Church as one of the ‘preacher boys’ [a group of a few young guys who felt the Lord was calling us to be preachers]. During the sermon, as a joke [or so I thought!] I pointed out a friend and said that his secret sin was smoking cigars. Well I immediately said I was just kidding but wanted to say it to illustrate some point. Well little did I know that the ‘point’ God wanted illustrated was the fact that this friend of mines secret sin was smoking cigars! His wife and another friend confirmed this right after the message.
B- One of the friends from the above story [not the cigar smoker!] loved to listen to Brother Rollof. We all loved and admired Bro. Rollof as one of the most prominent Baptist preachers in the area. Well one day, out of the blue, I remember telling my friend ‘Brother Rollof will be dead soon’. My friend was offended that I would say this [and to be honest it offended me too!]. Well within a few years Bro. Rollof did die in a plane crash. Bro. Rollof was the type of health minded person who could have easily lived to a hundred. I believe he was around sixty years old at the time of his death, it was definitely premature. [This was simply prophecy, I don’t want you guys to think I am going around pronouncing peoples deaths!] UPDATE- I just read a memorial for brother Rollof. He died in November of 1982, less than a year, possibly only a few months from the prophetic word. I try not to over exaggerate dates and stuff, so I originally erred on the possible longer date.
C- This last one will probably be the most interesting. During this time as a new believer I was daily learning the word and truly enjoying the journey. I was working as a house painter for a Christian homebuilder. We were building a huge house for a dentist. While inside painting one of the rooms I heard a loud scream as in if someone was hysterical. I quickly went to the room downstairs where I thought the scream came from. When I entered the room I saw the mother of the boys who lived in the home had found her young boy [around 2 or 3 years old?] at the bottom of the swimming pool and he was blue and lifeless, this boy was dead! Well one of the other carpenters began doing C.P.R. on the boy. The mother was in hysterics and I started to pray. I distinctly remember the prayer. I simply prayed for God to put the boys spirit back in his body and for God to bring him back from the dead [it was not one of those ‘if it be thy will’ type prayers!]. Well sure enough after a minute or two the boy started coughing and breathing. Later on during the week the boy had told the doctor when he was dead at the bottom of the pool that Jesus had appeared to him. The doctors testified that the lack of brain damage and the recovery were miraculous. The local newspaper ran a front page story that read ‘child says he saw the Lord’ [Kingsville Record- early 80s. maybe you can find it on line?]. The boys father is still a local dentist here in Kingsville, and the boy is alive and doing well today. I would like to mention that at the time I didn’t make a big thing out of it, but there were people that I knew from the Baptist church I attended that kind of said ‘wow, what happened’ and my response was ‘oh the Lord raised the boy from the dead’. It was more of a childlike faith as a new believer trusting God to do a miracle. We have such a tendency to want to publicize these types of things that I feel this hinders the Spirit from doing more miracles. Sort of like God knows how much we really like getting the glory out of ‘God used me to raise the dead’ that this prevents him from doing it more often! [Let me add that this is the 1st time I have told this story in writing, 20 something years after the fact. And the only other time I ever shared it was on the radio about 8 to 10 years after we started broadcasting]
(9) One of the friends I work with became a fishing buddy over the years. This friend is a Christian, but not so much into the word or real ‘active’. He’s a good friend whose part of an older type denomination. Over the years of our friendship I would encourage him to get a bible and read it for himself. One day while in simple conversation I ‘saw’ him going into a bookstore, picking up a bible, looking at it and then putting it back [let me say I ‘saw’ all this within a few seconds while talking to him!]. Well I relayed what I saw to him, and you could see the look of surprise on his face as he admitted to me that this just happened a few days earlier! I believe this to be a type of ‘prophetic evangelism’ where God uses us in simple every day settings to prophetically testify to people of the grace of God.
(10) let me put this one in here because it has to do with my ‘fishing friend’. One day I had a dream of a major earthquake. It was quite vivid and till this day I can still ‘see’ all the people running for cover and fleeing for their lives. Well a few days later I told my friend about the dream. Within a few weeks a major earthquake occurred in some part of the world and it was all you saw on the news for a few days. If I remember right they said it was the most deaths caused by an earthquake within around one hundred years.
(11) I had a dream that me and one of the people I was trying to reach out to were on a railroad track. We were in my truck and were stuck. As the train passed by we had to jump. My friend jumped to far and needed me to reach out a hand. Out of fear and self-preservation I didn’t. Well the train passed and we were both fine. But he was offended that I let him down at this point. This friend is one of the brothers who is struggling with drug addiction [cocaine!]. Well within a few weeks he went to jail and started writing me. I have written friends in prison for many years. I would say hundreds of letters over the years would not be an exaggeration! But it was many years since I have done it. I was tempted to put the letter aside and just read it and that’s all, but then I remembered the dream and felt like I should not let this friend down. I sent him all the little books I wrote over the years and after a few months of writing I could tell that there was a change for the better. Not just because he was in jail, but he would tell me how after reading the books I sent that it was amazing how much God was doing in his life. He really felt a type of ‘baptism’ of the Spirit while reading the books. [These are my words to describe what he was telling me]
(12) Back in the early 90s we had a prophet visit our city who was one of the original prophets from the Kansas City Prophets [this is the story of Mike Bickle and the Kansas city Church that is usually looked to as the ‘birthing’ of the modern prophetic movement]. After the service I felt the Lord wanted me to share a prophetic word with this brother. It was a personal word that could have been right or wrong [not one of those prophecies like ‘God loves you my child’ type things]. Well after I shared the word he told me that it was right on. This sounds a little like I am bragging to share this, but the reason I share this is I felt the Lord wanted Corpus Christi to ‘be on the map’ spiritually speaking. That there was a ‘prophetic’ connection that he wanted our city to have with the current prophetic movement. The prophecy said ‘you are going thru a period of disorientation, where its difficult to function. This season seems like its not going to end, but after a while the lord will stabilize you and you will feel ‘grounded’ again in order to function’. They had moved from the Kansas City area to Dallas and the wife was having these types of feelings [him too?].
(13) When I was a boy growing up in New Jersey I lived next to a cemetery on a hill. Well this cemetery became a place to explore and have fun in. During the winter after a good snowfall we would ride our sleds down thru the headstones. It was illegal but we would also keep an eye out for the cops, we were good runners! Also in the middle of the cemetery there was a train tunnel that went from my neighborhood and exited out to the Hudson River. It came out right across the Manhattan area of New York City. The skyline where the twin towers and other historic landmarks were located. We used to walk thru the tunnel [about a mile underground] and exit on the Hudson River. If a train were going thru we would hide behind a huge pipeline until it passed. The train guys would yell at us thinking we were going to rob the train [which I did do another time with some friends at a different location]. We even got arrested once for trespassing. Also one time me and a friend were going thru with bows and arrows and we saw the lights of 2 dirt bikes heading our way. We just stopped in the middle of the tracks [it was pitch black] and had the bows drawn until they got to us. We scared them pretty bad; I guess they thought we were going to kill them. Well anyway one time this cemetery demolished an old mausoleum. I went thru the wreckage and found what looked to be a cement seashell. It was big and heavy, but I thought it would look good in my yard. So I took it home and left it in the yard. Many years later [30 yrs?] on one of my trips back to New Jersey I took this ‘sea shell’ back to Texas with me in my truck. This was the year the Lord was using the imagery of the Lion of Judah in my life. I felt like the Lord was referring to me as Judah. This also was a time where I received certain words about increased authority to do Kingdom Works [Lions exercise great authority]. Well after returning back to Texas I placed this concrete thing in my backyard [where it still is today]. Well one day while talking to my dad on the phone I told him I took it. And he said ‘oh you took that old lions paw’. I then realized that this ‘sea shell’ was really the broken off foot from a lions statue that was mounted in the cemetery. To me this fit in perfectly with all the lion of Judah imagery I was seeing at the time. It spoke of exercising authority to do Kingdom works in that area of the country. It was a sign from my childhood that would take 30 years before it would have any significance. The ‘foot’ is significant; scripture says ‘blessed are the feet of those who are bringing the Gospel’. This spoke to me about having authority to bring the gospel to this region of the country. The friend I went thru the tunnel with was a good friend of mine while growing up. The second trip coming back to Texas as young men [18-19 yrs old] he came back with me. Eventually after I accepted the Lord I was able to lead my friend to the Lord. He stayed in Texas for a few yrs. Eventually he got married and had kids. He was a member of the Church I started in Kingsville in 1987. We were still young at the time [around 25 yrs old]. It was a blessing to fellowship as believers after all the years as good friends and doing crazy stuff. Eventually he went back to New Jersey and I found out that he discovered that he had aids. His wife also later found out she contracted it from him. I prayed for them as good friends for years. Out of the blue one day the wife called to let me know my friend died. He was around 32 yrs old. A few yrs later I received a letter from the wife and though she was sick it was a great testimony how her oldest son was on fire for the Lord and preaching the gospel in New Jersey. I never heard from them again, I assume the wife died by now. Till this day I continue to pray weekly for the boys [they had 4 boys] and pray that the Lord would continue to use them in ministry.
(14) I had a dream that I was on the old block that I grew up on as a boy. I was talking to a friend on the block and he invited me to look into his house. As I looked in I was surprised to see the amount of space in this house. Though I lived on the block as a boy, it surprised me that it was so spacious. I felt like the Lord was telling me that I would be surprised at the open door/access that he would give us in this region. That there would be more ‘room’ to function than I presently saw. Rooms/Houses can represent families/communities [the house of David, etc.] The Lord says things like ‘I have set you in a large place’ ‘in my Fathers House are many mansions’ [Bible verses] meaning spiritual access and ability to function freely.
(15) I had a dream that me and some friends were canoeing down a river/rapids and the friends who were in the canoe with me were seeing sights that they never saw before, they were truly like kids seeing fun sights for the 1st time. The ride was inherently dangerous [rough water] but it was a necessary danger in order to complete the course. I felt like the Lord was saying there would be many friends who would ‘take the journey’ with us even though it will be risky. Those who persevere will ‘see’ spiritual truths that they have never seen before.
(16) I received different prophecies over the years from various prophetic people. I distinctly remember a few from well-established national ministers. One said ‘I see your right hand as possessing great authority to do kingdom works, not just ordinary authority, but special authority to function’. Another said ‘you will have great influence, not just local but worldwide’. I am paraphrasing somewhat, but this was the jist of it. I don’t want to sound self-serving by sharing these, but I do want to say that when I received these types of words there was a tendency to think they must say this to everyone. I know they don’t, but there is always that ‘doubt’ that the Lord cant really be saying this about me. I do know he says things like this to many people throughout their lives, but we have a tendency to ‘write it off’ when God wants us to pay attention to prophetic words and if we discern them to be true, then we are not to ‘despise prophecy’. I also received a word from a friend of mines daughter. We were in a service [that her father was pastoring] and after the service the girl told her father that she heard the word ‘umpire’ while looking at me. Umpires make judgment calls that often offend both sides, get a lot of people mad at them, but are necessary in order for the game to proceed! [keep this one in mind as you continue to read!]
(17) One of my homeless friends [who now has a home] was trying to contact me because he had a vision of seeing chains falling off. Sort of like a ‘mantle’ of chains falling off and leaving his room. During this same week one of my good friends from another town who was part of our early church, and is one of the original ‘drug addicts/ex-cons’ who we reached out to in the early years. He contacted me to tell me of a dream he had. He dreamt that there were people hiding in a tunnel until a huge wave passed over. The wave was made of sand. After the wave passed the people came out and there was a huge pool/body of water. The people were required to ‘get in the water’ but were afraid and hesitant. I felt the dream spoke of a time of confusion/disorientation [sand] that would eventually pass. But after this season of disorientation is over we will be tempted to ‘settle in’ and not plunge into the continuing purpose of God. Don’t fear to go all the way into the water and allow God to carry you. The chains falling off spoke of the breaking of yokes and bondages that hinder us from fully functioning as Gods children. [Also remember the friend I went thru the tunnel with in the N.J. cemetery, when we came out we were at a huge body of water, the Hudson River. My friend who went thru the tunnel with me in New Jersey came to Texas with me. I always felt that the reason he left Texas and went back to N.J. prematurely was out of fear. It’s hard to make it in a strange state when you’re young with a family. In a sense my friend ‘came thru the tunnel’ with me, but the ‘body of water’ was to intimidating and he turned back to soon. ‘My soul is escaped like a bird out of the snare of the fowler, the snare is broken and I am escaped’ [Bible verses].
(18) Let me share a few signs that have to do with creation. Stars and trees and stuff like that.
A- Over the years I liked the imagery of scripture that speaks of being ‘like a tree planted by the rivers of water’. I actually bought a tree and planted it in my yard by a pond. While praying over the years in my yard I thought of the fact that this tree was planted by ‘water’ and it would remind me of Gods word. This tree is a bald cypress tree. During one of my trips to San Antonio I went to the river walk with the family. I noticed that there were lots of these trees along the ‘river’ walk. These trees were fully grown [not like the small one in my yard]. They had roots that grow down and up! I felt this to mean that our teaching ministry would ‘go deep’ and ‘go high’. This speaks of being grounded in the historic Christian faith as well as ‘going up’ into the realms of prophetic things. I also ‘noticed’ these trees in various surrounding cities that cover our broadcast area and felt like this spoke of our ‘perimeter’ spiritually speaking. I have a cousin that moved to a suburb of Houston a few years ago. I finally sent him some materials and recently felt the Lord wanted us to ‘extend’ to this outer border of our broadcast region. When I finally obeyed the Lord to ‘reach out’ to my cousin I asked my mother exactly what his address was. He lives in a suburb called ‘cypress’. God often uses trees in scripture ‘the lips/mouth of the righteous are like a tree of life’ ‘the kingdom of heaven is like a seed, after its planted it becomes a tree’. This imagery speaks of teaching, becoming established and things of this nature. Also a newly planted tree/bush requires more frequent watering [high maintenance] until its root system becomes fully established, but after it’s established it can draw sufficient resources on its own without having to be ‘spoon fed’. This speaks of the development of new converts. They often require special attention in the early days, but later on should become less dependent on others and learn to draw ‘water’ on their own. Jesus is the gardener and we are the field/garden.
B- Another tree in my yard is a mesquite tree. When I first moved to C.C. I went to the bay and pulled it up, as it was small and growing in the wet sand. This enabled me to pull it up easily and keep the roots at the same time. Over the years this tree has grown very wide [in contrast to the cypress that grows tall]. Just recently it ‘dawned’ on me that this tree was taken from the water area of the bay. It’s a tree that grows quite well along the water. While meditating on the idea that this tree represents a broad stable range of territory, I likened this to the ministry not only going ‘high’ and ‘deep’ but also going ‘broad’. This speaking of an extended area of influence. Just recently they did a study on the mesquite trees of our area. For many years they were considered trash trees [can anything good come out of Nazareth? Bible verse] but this study found the trees to be good for fuel [ethanol] were extremely durable [farmers cant get rid of them if they try!] and very strong hard wood. These are all good character traits that God wants to develop in all of us.
C- One day while shopping at Wal Mart I picked up a rose bush for the yard. Later on I read the tag and found out the name of this bush is ‘Coat of many colors’ after the story of Joseph. I can’t remember exactly but within a day or so the Lord spoke to me about Josephs coat. Josephs ‘coat’ [made from skins] represents ‘flesh’ or ‘body’. The diversity of colors represents Gods house [body] being comprised from every ethnos. God favored Joseph above every other ‘ethnic’ tribe that comprised natural Israel. This showing Gods favor resting on the Church [comprised of both Jew and Gentile] as opposed to any natural ethnicity. All the colors of this coat were worn by one man that had great favor with both man and God. In Jesus all ethnic groups are brought together as his ‘flesh’ [skin/ covering] and the fathers favor rests on us as ‘one new man’!
D- Over the years I have planted, transplanted trees. I have seen many bushes, plants and other types of growth occur naturally as well as by design. Some of the sturdiest flowers [you cant stop them!] actually grow in the wild. These are Texas wildflowers. I have bought cases of wildflower seed and tried to ‘make it happen’ in my own yard. I realized that these wildflowers could take root this way, but its not easy! Some people are under the impression because they are wild and grow in near drought conditions, that somehow this means they can easily be planted. Wrong. I like this imagery; they remind me of the Ecclesia [the Greek word in the New Testament for Church]. They grow ‘by nature’ and are hard to imitate [or make happen]. They survive and actually grow in extreme desert like conditions [wow!] and they are some of the most beautiful plants that you will notice at the right time of the year. God has many different ‘methods’ of establishing his ‘garden’. Some are natural, some are transplanted and some come from the store [the more organized type of Church/Christian] but they are all his planting and provide food and shade and other good benefits. Also the ‘wild’ ones seem to thrive the best in ‘desert’ conditions and are very hard to ‘force produce’. The Old Testament prophets actually use the imagery of the ‘desert blooming’ as a type of Gods restoration of Israel. The fact that God causes his people to prosper/blossom in dry/desolate places is an encouragement for all of us! The other day I took a ride around the Corpus Christi bay area with the family. We just drove thru a number of cities that I don’t usually drive thru. We stopped at a K Mart [Portland- this is the city you will read about later where we were going to rob a car] and went in to shop. I randomly picked up a book and opened it up to the middle and read ‘things are about to change drastically in your life, be excited about it’. I felt the Lord speak to me in this simple way. I immediately looked at another book next to it. It was a beautiful picture book called ‘the desert in bloom’. It’s a collection of many of the wildflowers and plants that blossom in the ‘southwest desert’ of the United States. I bought the book and quickly wrote the ‘verse’ that I read in the first book [I admit I wrote it before I bought the book and my kids were like ‘now dads writing in the books in stores’!]. I felt the Lord saying to many of us that he’s about to bring forth growth and beauty from our ‘dry and barren wilderness’. Scripture speaks of ‘suddenlies’ or specific seasons of drastic change and breakthrough. There are times when God works ‘drastic’ changes that set the course for the rest of our lives; we should be open and willing to allow him to do a ‘suddenly’ on our behalf! ‘SHALL THE EARTH BRING FORTH IN ONE DAY? SHALL A NATION BE BORN AT ONCE? FOR AS SOON AS ZION TRAVAILED SHE BOUGHT FORTH HER CHILDREN. I WILL EXTEND PEACE TO HER LIKE A RIVER. WHEN YOU SEE THIS YOUR HEART SHALL REJOICE. YOUR SEED AND YOUR NAME SHALL REMAIN. LET THY WORK APPEAR UNTO YOUR CHILDREN AND YOUR GLORY UNTO YOUR SERVANTS. THOU MEETSET HIM THAT REJOICETH AND WORKET RIGHTEOUSNESS. AS THE NEW WINE IS FOUND IN THE CLUSTER SO WILL I DO WITH YOU. I WILL BRING FORTH A SEED OUT OF JACOB, AND OUT OF JUDAH AN INHERITOR OF MY MOUNTAINS. THE FORMER TROUBLES ARE FORGOTTEN, THEY ARE HID FROM MINE EYES. REMEMBER NOT THE FORMER THINGS, NEITHER CONSIDER THE THINGS OF OLD. FOR I AM DOING A NEW THING, I WILL MAKE A WAY IN THE WILDERNESS AND RIVERS IN THE DESERT. YOU WILL NOT LABOR IN VAIN NOR BRING FORTH FOR TROUBLE. FOR YOU ARE THE SEED OF THE BLESSED OF THE LORD, AND YOUR CHILDREN ALSO.’ [Bible verses]
E- Let me share some ‘signs from heaven’. The bible warns us against seeking wisdom from satanic/occult sources. There is a distinction between astronomy and astrology. Astrology is forbidden for believers, astronomy isn’t! The scriptures actually contain many events where God used stars and signs from heaven in his dealings with man. The story of the wise men following the star until they found Christ. Future prophecies of the sun and moon turning into ‘blood’ and not giving off light. All these types of signs from heaven are biblical and legitimate. Over the years spending many hours outside praying has afforded the opportunity to see things in the sky while not really seeking after it. One morning I had a dream of a Christmas tree, it was the type of impression that I felt it to be significant. Over a few weeks I simply tried to be open to any type of confirmation from a tree or something to do with Christmas [it was July]. After a few weeks I let it go and really wasn’t going all out over this impression from the dream. While outside praying in the early hours [between 2-5 am] I simply looked up and saw a formation in the stars that looked just like a Christmas tree. I immediately felt this to be the sign. The day I saw the tree was July 17, my birthday. As I looked at the ‘tree in the stars’ a plane flew right thru the ‘tree’. I felt the Lord speaking to me on my ‘birthday’ with a sign from Christ’s ‘birthday’ [I know Jesus wasn’t born on Christmas]. Scripture says ‘this day have I begotten thee, ask of me and I will give you the heathen for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession’ [somewhere in Psalms]. The plane spoke of sending [wings on your feet type imagery] and I felt the Lord saying he was going to ‘birth’ some new things in my life in the area of sending and going.
F- Another image I have seen in the stars is a ‘kite’. I really don’t know the actual formations of any of these stars [I couldn’t tell you where the big dipper is and stuff like that] but I simply see these formations as I pray. Also all of these formations are always there. Some times of the year you cant see them as well from where I pray, but these formations were there this morning while outside praying. I don’t want to give the impression that these are one-time events. That was true of the ‘meteor’ sign, but not with these things. Well as I saw the ‘kite’ imagery I remembered as a boy growing up in New Jersey how after flying a kite in a local park I broke the string and me and my dad drove a few blocks over and actually found it behind some house on a hill. So this image fit in with my prayer time over the northeast. From where I pray the ‘kite’ is actually located over the northeast. Also from my youth I remember going to Philadelphia on class field trips and visiting the historic areas of our country. By my old neighborhood as a boy there was a huge liberty bell as a memorial of the liberty we have in our country [Fairview]. I also have an old coin from boyhood that my father gave me with Benjamin Franklin on one side and the liberty bell on the other. Well all this speaks of freedom/liberty and the person of Benjamin Franklin. On one of my drives to work I recently noticed a billboard add for some company and it has a huge picture of Benjamin Franklin saying ‘go fly a kite’ [Ben Franklin was the one who flew the kite to see if he could harness the power of electricity thru a lightning bolt. There’s the lightning image / sons of thunder. The earlier vision of the lightning rod protruding into heaven and being struck also fits in here. Franklin was acting like a human lightning rod when flying the kite]. All these images spoke to me about sending and going into the nations. Scripture says God sets his ‘tent/tabernacle’ in the stars. Gods ‘territory/parameters’ are seen in the stars. The fact that this kite image is over the northeast spoke to me about ‘possessing this land’. Remember John the Baptist was called ‘thunder out of the desert’ showing God brought ‘lightning’ from Johns ministry out of the desert! I am surrounded by sand and ‘desert’ conditions where I live on a bluff. John the apostle wrote in revelation that he ‘saw a door opened in heaven’. John was on an island [desert/isolated place] when he ‘saw this’ sign from heaven. Putting it all together it simply means to me that its time to truly impact the northeast and bring some ‘thunder out of the desert’! Jesus said of John the Baptist that people rejoiced to see and partake of the ‘light’ [fire gives off light] for a season. Jesus understood thru prophecy that John’s time was limited. God is a consuming fire who makes his ‘ministers’ flames of fire. Scripture speaks of people at certain seasons of history as being ‘firebrands’. God ‘ignites’ people for specific purposes. Sometimes the actual ‘purpose’ causes us to be ‘consumed’ [the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up-Bible verse]. There should be a real sense of Gods purpose in our lives that goes beyond a ‘survival mentality’. We should allow God to ignite us for his purpose and be ‘used up’ [consumed] before we leave this life! ‘I will raise up a prophet among them like unto thee and I will put my words in his mouth, and he will speak unto them all that I command him’ [Bible verse].
G- Let me put these last 2 ‘signs in the stars’ here. I have seen the forms of both a trumpet as well as an arrow [it also looks like a cross]. Both of these speak of ‘a prophetic voice’ and ‘direction/sending forth’. John the Baptist was a ‘trumpet [horn] of salvation/ a voice in the wilderness’. God makes his ‘tent’ in the stars, Gods prophetic parameter extends much further than we comprehend! Also scripture speaks of children being like arrows in the quiver of a mighty man. Train up a child ‘in the way he should go’ and when he is old he will not depart from it. This speaks of direction and staying on course. Arrows are things you point/start in a certain direction and they stay on course until they hit the mark. The scripture speaks a lot about trumpets. Both actual and in symbolic ways. People at times are referred to as ‘trumpets’. Trumpets and ‘things giving off sound’ are actual weapons in scripture. The story of the children of Israel marching around cities and giving shouts. Israel’s history of blowing trumpets as they enter into battle. God’s people are like prophetic mouthpieces in society who carry on their lips [thru proclamation and prayer] powerful weapons that tear down the strategies of the enemy. God ‘sets’ us and points us in a definite direction [the path we should go] throughout our lives and launches us forth as ‘arrows in the hand of a warrior’ and we hit the mark [his purpose for us] and do damage to enemy territory! The arrow/cross speaks of God sending his son to earth with a purpose to ‘hit the mark’. Jesus was born to die.
H- I was reading the bible the other day and came across some scripture that spoke to the truth of all the patriarchs and saints of old having seen the stars. Things like God telling Abraham go outside and count the stars if you can. Jesus spent entire nights in prayer. It just struck me that they were all looking at the exact same stars that I see! There are not many [if any] things that you can actually look at on a daily basis that are the same things that Jesus and David and others also saw daily. I mean you can go to the shore if you live on the coast, but you still would not be seeing the same part of the beach or water that they saw [unless you live in the holy land!]. I just wanted you to have a sense of the unchanging nature and reality of our God. Scripture teaches us that creation itself is a wonderful testimony and reminder of Gods majesty and faithfulness. I would encourage you to make it a point and wake up early someday and go outside and pray under the heavens and realize that these are the exact same stars that Jesus prayed under 2 thousand years ago. I recently read a prophetic word from Chuck Pierce which said ‘the stars will be for signs and direction in the days ahead’ we forget the importance that signs and dreams played in the lives of the biblical characters. Solomon’s great story of God appearing to him and Solomon asking for wisdom as opposed to riches, you know the story, well it all happened in a dream! The story surrounding the birth of Jesus and fleeing to Egypt and God telling Joseph not to fear. The naming of Jesus and John the Baptist were words God sent from angels! I am currently doing a radio study on the book of Hebrews; the law is referred to as ‘the word spoken by angels’. God uses angels to communicate at times to man. All of these things were revealed thru dreams, angels were involved as well as signs from heaven [the star that led the wise men to Christ] we need to realize that we serve a living God, and he desires to communicate to his kids in various ways. None of these ‘ways’ should contradict scripture, and if they do then you reject the ‘sign’ and go with scripture! But we should not limit God thru our unbelief. Look at this verse ‘When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy Sons o Zion, against thy sons o Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man. And the Lord shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and the lord God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with the whirlwinds of the south’. I like this, it contains arrows, lightning and trumpets, as well as the strategic ‘Southland’ many of the above signs can be seen here.
(19) Let me share something that I just felt the Lord wanted me to share while outside praying. I came to Texas from New Jersey at 18 years of age. After getting into trouble in the navy I got kicked out after a few months [I like to tell my wife I earned my discharge in a few months while it took her 4 years! she was also in the navy]. After a few more months of partying and being ‘lost’ I ran into some Christians who I earlier met while in the navy and eventually accepted the Lord. As a young Christian I immediately saw the responsibility of the great commission and started reaching out to anyone who would listen. This is how I met a lot of the friends of mine who were drug addicts/ex-cons; I would go to the local jails and preach. Many of the older guys I would preach to [in their 40s] had sons who were also into drugs and stuff, these sons were my age. After I started our Church these younger guys eventually would get reached because I was friends with some of their fathers. Till this day there are a few good friends that I still keep in touch with from this group. We had various people attend our church while we rented space in an old hospital building. We eventually moved into my 2-car garage and held services there. One of the people who became a member of our church [though I didn’t have an ‘official’ membership thing for people to join] was an ordained minister who also had a background in sorcery and witchcraft. He was around my age at the time [26yrs old] and had a background of causing trouble in churches. I tried my best to let him help in any way I could, but I would notice little things that he was doing to cause trouble. Like leaving signs of sorcery/occult things around our house or the homes of some of our members. After a while it became obvious that he was here to start trouble. I always saw him as somewhat of a threat to the church, but I also recognized that maybe in some strange way we could reach out to him like anybody else. I was wrong! This person did all he could do to bother us. He started a rumor that me and him were having a gay relationship. A few people told me he was going around saying this. I went to his home with another brother in my car [who he said this to] and I asked him on his porch if he said this to so and so. He emphatically denied it. Well when the brother who he said it to got out of the car he knew he was caught. Of course this didn’t stop him. By this time I already told him not to attend the meetings anymore and tried to keep my distance from him. He would send people to my home at 2 in the morning while I was at work on a 24-hour shift. He harassed my wife and kids. He brought tainted food to my house for my family while I was not there [he pretty much confessed to this himself]. He would call the fire dept. while I was on duty and make false alarms. One time he called and actually reported a real fire in an abandoned house a few blocks away from where he lived. He was there when I showed up and acted like he had nothing to do with it. I had my tires slashed, window on my car broken while at work. It was pretty much a nonstop thing for a few years. A real pain! Over the years it eventually stopped. I did move to Corpus Christi from Kingsville and this did have something to do with it. I had to eventually come to a point where I could forgive him, which I did. Over the years he actually went down hill pretty bad and I helped him in a number of ways. I never let him get my address or phone # [which by the way he tried to get from my job once!] but I did forgive him and even prayed for him over the years. This was coming a long way from being on the verge of beating him up, as well as a few people he ‘enlisted’ in harassing me. They called me up at work to threaten me and in anger I told the guy to come on down right now and I’ll kick your @#$#@ right here. Obviously the Lord would have had to forgive me later, but it sure felt good at the time. I managed to eventually be a help to him without ever letting him get ‘to close’ to become a threat. I did pray for him a few times while at work and even visited him and prayed for him when his dad died. The last time I saw him [about a year ago] he and his son came by the firehouse just to say hi, he looked really bad. I sat with them for a while and shared some scripture with them. I prayed for my friend at the end, and an interesting thing happened. His son [around 20 yrs old] began uncontrollably crying as I prayed for his father to be restored and to return back to the original destiny and purpose that God had for his life. The father was surprised to see his son crying like this, I felt like those words I prayed were more for the son than the father. There is a verse in the bible [I think Isaiah] that says the sons of those who hated you and persecuted you will come and bow down before you. I feel this was a part of it. I believe God allowed all this to happen to me for his glory. Joseph said to his brothers who betrayed him ‘you meant it to me for evil but God meant it for good’. Joseph recognized that even though his brothers really meant evil, that God would turn it around for good. If all this stuff never happened I probably would have never moved to C.C. and started our radio ministry [which is located in C.C.] and you probably wouldn’t be reading this right now! [I’m adding this a few weeks later]. During the time between all of this happening and us moving to Corpus Christi I backslid pretty badly. Me and my wife were separated for a while. I actually did cocaine with some of the people I was previously helping, and had a few violent episodes. It wasn’t easy to recover from this, but I thank God I finally did. ‘I have seen your ways and I will heal you, I will lead you also and restore comforts unto you and to your mourners.’ [Bible verse]
(20) One of my ‘lost’ experiences prior to being discharged from the Navy was one night me and a friend decided to go U.A [unauthorized absence] from the base in Kingsville. We left the base and went to the local bus station and forked over all the cash we had to our names. I think it was around 15 dollars. We simply told the teller ‘give us a ticket to the furthest city we can afford’. We thought it would at least get us to Houston, but it took us only to Corpus Christi. Well we hopped on the bus and went to Corpus. We had no money so we went to the local blood bank and made a few bucks. We lost it when we got ripped off trying to by some drugs. We decided to rob someone for their car and leave Texas. We managed to go to some older guys house to party. I told my friend not to worry about it, Ill beat him up, you just help me get the keys. We went to a city over some unknown bridge [I know it now to have been the harbor bridge] and went to some unknown city [Portland]. As we sat there drinking some type of German beer [it tasted strong] I simply told my friend that when the guy comes back into the room I’ll hit him with the bottle and we get the keys and take off. While I was sitting there waiting for the guy to come back, I looked into a mirror on one of the walls and saw a beautiful painting of Christ on the wall. It was a real painting on one of the walls and it struck me in my tracks. I immediately felt like God was telling me not to go ahead with the plan so I aborted the mission. We got the guy to take us back to the seawall and I told him he lucked out because I was going to mug him but changed my mind. He looked pretty scared after I said this and just took off. I see this now as the Lord giving me a simple warning thru a work of art hanging on some wall! [It can be wrong to share these types of stories. I really haven’t shared them in detail like this before, but I’m trying to hear the Lord on what to share and not to share. I felt like he said to share this one]. ‘Remember not against us former iniquities, but let your mercies speedily prevent us’ [Bible verse].
(21) Another ‘story’ of Gods hand at work. While still in the Navy in Kingsville one night I was out partying and hanging out on the streets of Kingsville. I was new to town and didn’t know my way around. I wound up walking thru this field at night while sniffing a bottle of rush [its basically a chemical in a bottle that you take a hit from and get a quick ‘rush’]. I was totally high and disoriented walking thru this unknown town in the middle of this dark field at night. I eventually made it to a street and found my way back to the base. A few years later after accepting the Lord I had a friend who was a drug addict for many years who got converted and was a part of the church we started in Kingsville. One day while in his parents neighborhood I looked over at some ‘field’ and realized that this was the same field I was in that night. God says ‘I will save you out of all the dwelling places where you have sinned, and I will cleanse you’. ‘Get out of the city and dwell in the fields, even in Babylon, and there I will be with you and deliver you from the hand of the enemy’ [Bible verses]. God takes the places where we have fallen and gives us authority to advance his Kingdom in the ‘places where we have sinned’!
(22) Let me share a little about the friend in the above story. He was one of the first guys I met while going to the jails to preach. He eventually accepted the Lord after many years of being a heroin addict. Many of the older guys were into heroin, while the younger ones were into cocaine. After he became a Christian he was on fire for the Lord. He eventually helped us in our church as the praise leader. He also filled in to preach every now and then. He eventually pastored the local victory outreach in Kingsville and even invited me to preach at the fellowship. He worked with the same group of addicts and ex-cons that I worked with. He was a blessing to me and the ministry. His wife and boys [he had around 4 or 5, I don’t exactly remember] were all good friends and co-laborers in ministry. One night while on duty at the firehouse we got an ambulance call and I responded with my partner. Upon arrival I realized it was my friend who suffered a massive brain aneurysm. He lived about a week and passed away. The Lord allowed me to see him go from drug addiction to serving the Lord and finally leaving this life. A few years back I ran into his wife and kids in Bishop, TX. I prayed for her and spent some time with the youngest boy. He was catching turtles down by one of the creeks. I spent some time with him though there were many ‘ministry’ things that I needed to do that day. I talked to him about his dad and serving the Lord. I felt it was time well spent. The family has had some hard times since the death of the dad, I pray for them till this day. As I’m writing this it occurred to me that I’m surrounded by art that many of these friends sent me over the years. Whenever I would correspond with them in prison they would draw beautiful biblical themes on the envelopes. They also sent me handkerchiefs and actual paintings. I have a beautiful leather bible cover from a friend who made it while in prison. It’s all leather and personalized with our ministry name, its well worth a few hundred dollars if you were to have it made!
(23) One of the other families who lived in the same town [Bishop] had a few sons caught up in drugs and prison and the whole cycle. The one son I met first was pretty bad. He actually shot 2 cops thru the back seat of their police car when he was picked up as a boy. He spent some time in the juvenile facilities as well as prison. He also would come to our church and was a good friend of mine. He struggled with drugs and violence more than the others. I remember visiting him at his place one time. He knew he had a reputation of being mentally unstable and dangerous. While visiting him he did pick up a military type knife and was walking around with it. He wasn’t threatening at all, I just felt like it was a test. He wanted to see if I could trust him. He walked behind me at one point while I was reading something and I just ignored it. I felt the Lord said there would always be risks involved in working with people, and I would have to go for it. This friend was being chased by the cops one night. They knew his past, especially his history of shooting cops! When they caught him he swallowed a bag of cocaine and it broke in his stomach. He had a massive overdose and died about a week later. I did speak at his funeral and at least one of the younger boys who accepted the Lord during this time is still serving the Lord. I remember how the father would attend our home meetings with the boys and he was so happy that someone was spending time reaching out to his boys. The father [divorced from the mom] had a difficult past as well but became a believer before I met him and always prayed for his sons. It was an answer to prayer to have his sons seeking the Lord to some degree. Actually I just got a call from one of the ‘sons, sons’ who lives in Corpus Christi. He is doing well and just wanted to say hi. Scripture says ‘the words that I have put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth, nor out of the mouth of your seed, nor out of the mouth of your seeds seed’. God thinks and works generationaly. It’s a great blessing to see the sons of your spiritual sons serving Christ! ‘I will contend with him that contends with thee, and I will save thy children. The littlest one shall become a thousand, and the smallest one a strong nation. All thy children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of thy children’ [Bible verses].
(24) One of the many ways God speaks to me is thru movies. Yes God can even use ‘worldly’ movies! I rented the movie ‘walk the line’ about Johnny Cash. I felt the Lord wanted me to watch it. I remember reading a ‘tract’ on the conversion of Johnny when I was in the Navy. I woke up one night around 1 or 2 am and was debating on whether to watch it or not. I very rarely will watch TV at this time. Usually if I wake up like this I will go outside and pray. I sat down and put the movie in the DVD player. As the movie is running thru the advertisements I cant seem to relax and get ready to watch it. I keep thinking of a recent trip I took to San Antonio. I am thinking of how I heard the train whistle while staying at a hotel downtown. The trains are also things that the Lord has used as signs in my life. Well as I'm sitting there unable to focus on the beginning of the movie, I hear Johnnies voice in the background singing ‘I took the train to San Antone’ and realized it was time to watch this movie! Some of the significant points were how Johnny had a turn around in his life when he started reaching out and sharing his testimony in the Prisons. This reminded me of the stages I went thru in the early years of our ministry. I had [and still have] many good friends I met while going to the jails to preach and writing these brothers as they went to prison. I usually look for some ‘prophetic’ sign while watching a movie like this. June carter gives Johnny a book called ‘the prophet’. Well there is a lot of imagery of John the Baptist and prophetic type things in my life; this was a good sign to me.
(25) As I was just outside praying I felt the Lord leading me to share this. I was at the point of intercession where I pray for all of the people that we have ever worked with or sown seed into by either word or deed. I refer to these as the ‘Ecclesia and her children’. This covers those of you who are reading this right now! What I wanted most of all to get across is that when I pray like this I am not praying only for the success of ‘our ministry’ [I really don’t like using this term at all] but the overall success of all of the Kingdom works that Father has predestined for all of you. This actually positions me to regularly pray for the benefit of everyone who hears us or receives from us in any way. This includes the leaders/pastors who might hear us and even dislike our strong stance on what the Church is. I am praying for their overall success and Gods purpose to prevail in their lives. I am not doing this out of some feeling of ‘I am more noble than them’. But out of the reality of realizing that all who listen or receive from us are the ‘field’ that God has called us to. Seeing things this way, as opposed to your prayer time being about the success of ‘your ministry’ places you spiritually in a great posture. You actually desire the benefit of people who might not fully understand you, or even those who actively work against you. These themes are actually contained in Jesus instruction on prayer. I would encourage you to begin seeing ‘your ministry’ less and less, and focusing on the overall benefit of the people you relate to over your life. You are not here to build some type of Christian business. You are here to build the Body of Christ! Let me also add here that because of the way we see ‘church/ministry’ and the way we confuse it with the 501c3 model, that this hinders prophetic people. I have heard it said ‘you need a local church covering’ in order to be in biblical order. What most people ‘see’ when they say ‘local church covering’ is a modern Christian business. I am not totally opposed to ‘modern Christian businesses’ [I attend a fantastic local church] as long as we are not using them to ‘de-legitimize’ other functioning members of Christ’s Body. I wrote a prophet in San Antonio who I heard years earlier. He advertised his ‘church’ in the S.A. paper. He did split off from another ‘apostolic’ brother thru a disagreement. He started his own ‘church’ in order to feel and be accepted as legitimate. This comes with the whole package of ‘receiving tithes’ and everything else we see as ‘so-called’ legitimate church. I simply felt the ‘prophetic word’ for this prophet was that he was limiting himself by trying to moderate meetings and become a ‘weekly lecturer’ to Christians while this was hindering his true prophetic ability that simply functions freely in society. I don’t see any prophets in the book of Acts setting up lecture hall environments in order to receive tithes and 'feel legitimate’. Well he never wrote me back, but not to long after I noticed he stopped advertising in the paper. I feel we need to re-think the whole issue of what makes up church and ministry and re-focus on our responsibility to build up each other in love. ‘Change the way you think and act, because Gods kingdom is here now. Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this, you are the equipment. No special appeals for funds, keep it simple’. [Message bible]
(26) I shared this dream in one of our books. I dreamt that I was going to a university. Upon arrival I noticed many classes going on with many scholars in suits and ties. In one of the areas of the school there were a bunch of professors in a circle examining something. As I got closer I realized they were surrounding a person who looked like a wounded Indian warrior. His wounds were not normal wounds. They were an extreme mutilation. I thought of the verse in Isaiah that says Jesus was marred more than any man, beyond the point of recognition. I understood part of this dream speaking to the danger of Christians being able to learn and speak on many truths while never being able to fully embrace him. I also believe this could speak to Christ being the source of all knowledge and wisdom, a ‘pool’ or fountain of revelation that can never be totally exhausted. Scripture says that in Jesus are hidden ‘all’ the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. If you remember I shared earlier about John seeing ‘an open door’ in heaven [revelation]. Jesus is called the ‘door’ in the gospel of John. This is the same ‘John’ who wrote revelation. Revelation is a prophetic book that uses many types and symbols. The ‘door’ in heaven imagery can also speak to Jesus being ‘opened up’ [a spear was thrust into his side on the cross] and us entering in by faith and accessing all the riches and wisdom that are ‘in him!’.
(27) Let me share some train ‘imagery’. When I first moved to C.C. in 1992 I would drive to work in Kingsville thru a country road. Around 2004 the Lord was leading me to take another route that would go thru a lot of the surrounding cities on a regular basis. This allowed me to pray and prophesy as I drive thru this ‘perimeter’. I immediately saw the significance of this new route. ‘GO THRU THE CITIES, SAY UNTO JUDAH BEHOLD YOUR GOD’ and scriptures like this speak about going thru the land, prayer territories and going on the ‘walls of the city’. This route actually parallels the Railroad Tracks in this area. I began to see these tracks as the ‘borders’ of our local perimeter. ‘STRENGHTEN THE BARS OF YOUR GATES/ STRENGTHEN YOUR STAKES AND LENGHTEN YOUR CORDS’. I began ‘seeing’ the ‘bars’ of our gates as the tracks, they are strong ‘bars’ of steel. I had a prophet tell us that the Lord was going to ‘explode’ in our perimeter. He used the words ‘circuit’ and perimeter. During these early morning prayer drives I also sensed the imagery of the ‘lion of Judah’ being significant. One time I saw a bobcat on the tracks and incorporated the ‘lion of Judah’ imagery in with this perimeter. Well watching TV one night I was flipping thru the channels and stopped at a show documenting Railroads. I felt the Lord wanted me to watch it. They were talking about the original railroad system in the country and how there was a ‘race’ between different people to see who could get the first railroad that would criss-cross the country. The man who accomplished this was Theodore Judah! During the time that I began driving this new route I noticed that they were replacing all the tracks thru out this area. It was a few year process. While watching the news one night they explained that the reason they were doing this was so the train speed could ‘accelerate’ from 30 miles an hour to around 60 MPH. I felt this speaking to the many prophetic words concerning an ‘acceleration’ that the Lord wants to do at this season. Also during this season of driving thru the land they built many new overpasses for the first time thru out all these cities. This allowed me to drive ‘on the walls of the cities’ for the first time ever. The view of circling new territories and ‘being watchman on the walls/early morning prayer watch’ was significant at this time for our area. God always ‘softens up’ new ground thru prayer/intercession before launching the ground campaign! Also remember the earlier things I shared about the train tunnel growing up as a boy. Both New York and South Texas have connections with this type of imagery. ‘THE COASTLANDS SHALL WAIT FOR HIS LAW’ speaks to areas where people are ‘waiting’ to hear the prophetic word. These territories are both ‘coastlands’ [the gulf coast/Atlantic ocean]. ‘God shall be with you and bring you again into the land of your fathers’ [bible verses].
(28) I just had a dream about 30 minutes ago. Me and a bunch of people were shopping and ‘vacationing’ in some store area. It could have been an open market or something to that effect. It was winter and as we were shopping, there were people who were waiting for it to snow. There was a person there who never saw snow before. As we walked outside we began to see this commotion in the sky a long way off. As the sky began to ‘churn’ and show movement we began anticipating snow. Then the sky ‘exploded’ into an awesome multicolor light show. Even in the dream I stood back in awe and realized this was significant. As this ‘storm’ approached it caused fear in some and also great expectations. Some of us simply stood still in a praise type position and waited until it reached us. There was a strange phenomenon that occurred. As the storm reached us it sent out a bolt of lightning that also could have been a ‘bolt of snow’. Many of us gladly submitted to the experience, some for the first time [those who never saw snow before]. Also when this was happening there was a half price sale on everything in this shopping area. People were shopping like the day after thanksgiving sale. I feel this speaks to God visiting us in unique and ‘drastic’ ways in the days ahead. During these times of visitation ‘things will be purchased easily’ or treasures that were harder to access before will be easier now. The snow represents a ‘cleansing’ type experience [though your sins be like scarlet they shall be white as snow]. A few years ago it snowed on Christmas day in Corpus Christi. This was an event that hasn’t happened in 100 years or more [the snow stuck to the ground and it was all over town up to a few feet!]. Many of us have been struggling to enter in to places with the Lord, to ‘access’ divine resources from his ‘store house’. As God visits us with ‘divine bolts’ of cleansing we will find it much easier [half price] to possess the true riches that he has for us. [I just went into the house from my office and the song playing on the Christian music channel on TV was ‘let it snow, let it snow, let it snow’!]
(29) Let me make a confession here. I often listen to the old rock songs that I grew up with. I actually sense a strange type of ‘identifying’ with this generation while interceding in prayer listening to this music. Prophetic things can be very strange at times. Well I was just listening to the song ‘comfortably numb’ by Pink Floyd and remembered this. I don’t know if it was a dream or vision or what. I remember ‘seeing’ people by a waterfall. As they stuck their hands into the fall they became ‘numb’ and one with the fall. I feel this speaks to our ‘thrusting’ in to Gods purpose and becoming one with him. You might think the ‘numbness’ being insignificant. In Isaiah it says ‘ for more are the children of the ‘desolate’ than of the married wife’ this can be interpreted as being ‘numb’.
When I was a boy growing up in New Jersey my dad brought me home a stick [small tree] that he pulled out of the ground when he went mushroom hunting. I made a cane out of it [you use the ‘root’ end as the handle]. It actually looks like a serpent. On one of my trips back north I brought this back with me to Texas. There were times while praying and walking in my study that I would hold it and use it ‘prophetically’ to point to areas. I had the sense of holding it like Moses staff or Aaron’s rod that budded. This tree is a dogwood tree. My friend told me that dogwood was the wood believed to be used to make Christ’s cross. This could represent having authority [Moses staff displayed Gods authority in Egypt] as well as the ‘serpent on the pole’ imagery used when God told Moses to put the statue of the serpent on the pole. Jesus used this imagery in John chapter 3 to speak of himself ‘as Moses lifted up the serpent…’ Jesus is pictured in this strange way because he became cursed [serpent] for us on the cross. Jesus gives us authority thru his suffering for us. Thanks to the ‘dogwood’ we can rule and reign in life thru him!
(30) I was just thinking about the recent ‘fall from grace’ of Ted Haggard. Basically Ted was exposed as struggling with homosexuality for some time. He was a very influential leader in the evangelical church. I immediately began praying for him and his family after this happened. I have gotten beyond the point of judging and looking for reasons why these things happen. The most honest statement I have heard in a long time is after a few days of trying to cover up his sin; Ted made a statement saying ‘I am a liar and a deceiver’ and admitted to his failure. David said in Psalms 32 that every one that is Godly would pray at one point or another ‘cleanse me from my iniquity’. There seems to be an appointment with all of us as believers at coming to a point of total honesty and not fearing what man will think of us. This happened with Jimmy Swagart and Paul Cain. Both Godly men who came face to face with their flesh. I see an identifying with Christ that these men go thru that exceeds the normal image that we try to present to people. David also said in Psalms ‘I am a worm and no man’. This was speaking of Christ’s feeling at the cross. Jesus experienced a moment of total worthlessness as he ‘drank’ the sins of the world into his very being. I believe that there are moments of feeling like this in our lives that God uses to cause us to be real and deliver us from the opinions of men. If what we are doing is truly for God then we can overcome these times of inadequacy and journey forward to what is ahead. ‘And they that understand among the people shall instruct many, yet they shall fall many days. Now when they fall they will be helped with a little help. And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try and to purge them and make them white, a time appointed by the father!’ [Bible verse]
(31) Let me make a confession here. I have shared a lot of stories of fighting and being violent. After all these years you would think that it’s over. I don’t fight like I used to, but there have been times were I have been close. I recently was at a homeless hangout where I see friends who are quite rough. Most of them know me pretty well and I do help them in different ways. The other day I was there with some friends just sitting and reading the paper. A new guy showed up and was acting tough. He had long hair [longer than mine!] and was shirtless with tattoos all over his body. After a while he asked someone who I was. And the other guy said he’s some Christian who must not have a job [wrong] and probably lives off the offerings from the ministry [wrong again] and his wife probably supports him [strike 3]. I ignored it for a little while. Then the guy with the tattoos [who now had his shirt on] walks up to us and takes his shirt off and displays the big tattoo on his back. It was big letters that simply said F. U. Well I got the hint. As I was leaving I gave in to it. I got loud and walked up to the ‘brothers’ and told them I am a firefighter and don’t take money from the ministry or my wife. I laid ‘hands’ on his shoulder and asked if he had any more questions or any thing else he needed to settle. He didn’t. They looked humble at this point. I know this was wrong, but I felt I needed to tell this to let you guys know that I’m still real. Some of my friends know I have lost my temper before and I don’t want to give the impression that I’m perfect.
(32) The other day I was watching fox news [another confession- I am a political junkie] and our current U.N. ambassador resigned his post. This guy reminds me of a prophetic/pastor friend I met years ago in C.C. The U.N. ambassadors name is John Bolton. The reason he resigned is because when Bush first appointed him he did it as a recess appointment [that’s when you appoint a position while congress is out of session]. Bush appointed him this way because he had a lot of opposition from the opposing party to his nomination. To be fair the guy was doing the job for about a year at the time of his resignation and many of his critics changed their mind about him. But because of petty politics [which both sides practice!] the recent midterm elections gave a majority to the Democrats in the house and Senate and the writing was on the wall. The new incoming senior Democrat stated his opposition to the ambassador and he knew his time was up. The name ‘John Bolt’on is interesting, I have said a lot in this paper about these images [John the Baptist as ‘thunder’ out of the desert. a ‘bolt’ of lightning accompanies thunder]. The fact that he initially was rejected before he even had a chance of ‘proving himself’ speaks to the churches position at large during the restoration of the gifts of apostles/prophets. Many didn’t care if people had the ability to function or not. They simply did not want these ‘ambassadors’ of the Kingdom to function! After a few years now of these ministries operating and representing the Fathers Kingdom you think it would be time for the church at large to recognize and receive them, but this hasn’t necessarily been the case. While these gifts are being accepted and received to a greater degree than before, they are still not being received in a complete way by the church at large. Jesus said if we receive a prophet ‘in the name’ of a prophet we receive a prophets reward. There is a sense of certain giftings being refused, despite the fact that they have actually functioned well in the office! The ‘majority’ will not entrust to them the legitimacy of their office because of petty things. Jesus also told his gifted ones to shake the dust off of their feet if not well received. John Bolton simply resigned and would not let Bush give him another ‘side title’ that would allow him to still be around without the full legitimacy of his office. I feel there are good and bad things that have happened in the prophetic/apostolic movements. One of the mistakes was seeing a rise in ‘apostolic covering’ type ministries. It was not uncommon to find well meaning ‘apostles’ going around convincing well meaning ‘pastors’ to come under their covering. You can go to some of these web-sites and see all the ‘churches’ that some of these brothers have under their ‘covering’. In many of these scenarios you find too many man made ideas and people/ministries struggling for ways to fit into some misguided idea of ‘covering’. To be simple about this, Jesus is our covering and all of us [apostles, prophets, evangelists, and yes even plain old Christians] should work in unity to build each other up in love. This trying to get people under my covering thing is missing the mark in my opinion. Paul’s apostolic ministry freed people from authoritarian leaders [Judaizers] and released believers into the great reality of our universal priesthood that we all equally share under Christ. We derive our legitimacy from the fact that we are the actual house of God. God literally dwells inside the people of God by his Spirit. This causes all of us to be properly related to God and one another on an equal plain. This was one of the great truths of the reformation ‘the priesthood of all believers’. No believer needs to find a ‘spiritual father’ or ‘apostolic covering’ to be in proper order. Paul told the Corinthians that he was their ‘spiritual father’. This simply meant that he ‘birthed’ them into the Kingdom by the gospel. To go around trying to make people submit to your authority is contrary to what Paul was doing here. He actually told the Corinthians that they were allowing other quasi leaders to become their authority and he was invoking his original relationship with them in order to bring them back into the liberty of Christ.
(33) During my last year of high school, prior to joining the navy, I had a few violent and ‘drug’ induced experiences. One night at an annual carnival I told one of my friends that if I see someone tonight I’m going to #$@@ [Beat him up]. It was the last year I would attend this carnival [and if I remember it was the last time they would hold it in this park. Carnivals are supposed to be fun, but this became a place for rival schools to fight and see who could be the toughest. I remember one year where the students were actually going punch to punch with the operators of the rides and where the students turned over the travel trailers where the guys were staying] and I wanted to ‘go out with a bang’. The particular person I was looking for used to be a friend of mine, but this night I had a reason to fight. He was big and looked like a biker, but I knew I could take him. Sure enough the friend I was with spotted the guy. I think my friend wanted me to beat the guy up because over the past few years he got big and was more threatening to some of the guys in this area of the city. Well I did walk up to him and beat him up pretty severely, I was later accused of beating him with a pipe. I didn’t, but I did hit him pretty hard and even drop kicked him in the face with work boots. I was to the point of uncontrolled rage that I wouldn’t stop until one of my other friends grabbed me. Later on as we were leaving the park some of his friends [about 20 of them!] tried to jump us on our way home. They were swinging chains and stuff. My friend looked at me and asked what to do, like I could fight our way out or something. I just told him ‘run’ and we got away. The cops were looking for me for a few days and I had to watch my back after this.
Also one night me and a friend did some ‘mescaline’ [I don’t know if its spelled right, but this was a type of ‘acid’/hallucinogen] I did more than your supposed to do and began hallucinating pretty badly. I stayed at a friend’s house for a day or two until I could come out of it. I feel I overdosed pretty bad on it, and for years later I would experience ‘flashbacks’. It was having the same sensation or feeling of being ‘high’ even though you are not doing the drug. During this time the friend I was with gave me a cross that he had bought for a Christmas present for his mom. He had it in his pocket that night and knew that I was not doing well. This actually is one of the signs of a series that would take place in the next few years as a warning to get off of the track I was going on. [Let me add again that some of you that are reading our materials are not getting much out of the telling of these stories, that’s OK. I give our books away to all the people we work with, and to some of them these ‘testimonies’ can be evangelistic tools. I sometimes am concerned that our booklets and teaching might be hard to understand by some of the people we work with. So for you who get something out of this, good. To the others, just skip it and go to the other stuff. Also you notice how you never hear people testifying of how they used to be child molesters or rapists, this shows you how we tend to ‘testify’ of the things that make us look ‘cool’, be assured I have been at the losing end of a few fights myself!]. ‘ In the day I deliver you from all of your iniquities, I will cause you to dwell in the cities and the wastes shall be built. Your warfare is accomplished, your iniquity is forgiven. Now is the judgment of this world, now is the prince of this world cast out.’ [Bible verse]
(34) Another movie that I felt the Lord spoke to me thru was ‘Cinderella man’. This is the true story of James Braddock who became heavyweight champion of the world during the depression. The story spoke of overcoming huge odds in order to eventually succeed. I always liked boxing and did some as a boy. During the golden gloves I had the chance once to box in Madison Square Garden. Well in the movie Braddock fights in the garden. He lived in North Bergen [my hometown] and the park I was telling you about earlier where we had the fights has the name ‘Hudson County Park’, but the real name is ‘James J Braddock Park’. I didn’t realize any of these things until I saw the movie. God can take us out of seemingly hopeless situations and turn things around no matter how bad it looks!
(35) ‘Remember not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold I am doing a new thing. I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Those that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. Thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in. Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father’s house unto a land that I will show thee and I will make of thee a great nation. Fear thou not for I am with thee, be not dismayed for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee, yea I will help thee and I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. No weapon formed against you shall prosper. I have made you a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth. You will thresh the mountains and beat them small. All that strive with thee shall perish. Though I have afflicted thee I will afflict thee no more. It was good for you to have been afflicted. Before you were afflicted you went astray, but after you kept my word. In the land of my affliction you have made me fruitful. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me, for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no longer flood the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee! Thou art my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Spare thy people O Lord and give not thine heritage to reproach. All the trees of the field are withered away because joy is withered away from the sons of men. Come lay all night in sackcloth ye ministers of my God. I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten. Fear not O land, be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God. And you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord your God. My people shall never be ashamed. Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy: break up your fallow ground. For it is time to seek the Lord till he come and rain righteousness on you. Therefore turn to thy God, keep mercy and judgment. Wait on thy God continually. I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. O Israel thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thine help. Don’t stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children. I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely. For my anger is turned away from him. I will be like due unto him, his branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be like the olive tree. I will not leave your soul in hell, nor suffer you to see corruption. For you will forget the shame of your youth and not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore. Though he were a son, yet learned he obedience thru the things that he suffered. He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin, that he should no longer spend the rest of his time fulfilling the desires of the flesh, but the will of God. When I was in distress you enlarged me. Lift up thine eyes round about and see, all they gather themselves together and come to thee. Thy sons shall come from far and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. Thy people shall all be righteous, they shall inherit the land forever. The branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand and a small one a strong nation. I the Lord will hasten it in his time. Be in pain and labor to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail. For now thou shalt go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the fields, and thou shalt go even to Babylon. There shalt thou be delivered, there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.’ [Bible verses]
(37) Earlier in this paper I spoke on the identification that takes place when we experience failure and inadequacy. When David in the psalms prophesies ‘I am a worm and no man’ he is speaking of Christ’s feeling of worthlessness and total degradation that he experienced at the cross. We seem to think that the cross in Christ’s life was an experience/feeling of victory and excitement. These are the results of the cross, but the process itself was separation and a tremendous sense of worthlessness. When you fail and sin, how do you ‘feel’? Even though God ‘legally’ does not hold it against you as a believer, yet the sense of guilt and failure are there. Though Jesus ‘knew’ he was fulfilling the Fathers will, this in itself did not immunize him from the same feelings many times fold. Dietrich Boenhoeffer, the great German theologian, was complicit in an assassination plot against Hitler. Boenhoeffer was a part of the 'confessing church’ as compared to silent church during World War 2. Boenhoeffer believed it was the church’s responsibility to do more than just exist in a time of great cataclysmic change. The events of Hitler’s third Reich would affect the world for many generations to come. Boenhoeffer took this to an extreme [in the eyes of some historians] by actively pursuing the assassination of Hitler. He wrote about this in some of his writings. He ‘flirted’ with the idea of doing something 'wrong’ and aligning with a certain type of evil [assassination] in order to fulfill Gods will. I don’t want to get too technical here, we know the New Testament says ‘shall we do evil that good may come? God forbid!’ but Boenhoeffer was ‘dancing’ with this concept of ‘becoming one with Christ’ even in his moment of ‘I am a worm and no man’ experience. This is why I said earlier that the Ted Haggards and others who have been thru these experiences can to some degree identify with Christ in certain aspects of his suffering that the average believer might not enter into. I know these ideas are controversial in the world of ‘theology’. All I wanted to express today is some of you are allowing the failures and past sins in your life to side track you from getting up and moving forward. Let God ‘redeem’ the years that the locust hath eaten and see your failure as the potential of being able to identify with Christ in ways that others cannot. Read the stories of the prophets in the Old Testament, they saw themselves as unclean and unworthy to do Gods will. God sovereignly ‘cleansed’ them, but in and of themselves they were ‘undone’. This principal is seen in the apostle Paul’s life as he ‘sees’ his weaknesses as ‘necessary evils’ in order to allow Gods will to move forward. In your weakness God receives the glory by what he’s dong thru you. You know its him doing his will thru you, because you know that ‘in your flesh dwelleth no good thing’.
(38) ‘The siege mentality’. While I was just outside I thought about [and felt like!] being under siege. One of the strategies of war contained in the Old Testament is for one nation to ‘besiege’ another nation. What they would do is surround the central city and ‘isolate’ them from all incoming or outgoing connections/resources. This created a mentality in the city that would cause the people to ultimately turn on themselves, and in extreme conditions even eat their own children to stay alive. I feel there are times where the enemy realizes the impact we are making and uses this strategy against us. We get to places where it’s difficult to ‘break out’ thru prayer and intercession and it’s also difficult to ‘bring in’ or receive fresh resources from the Lord. The cities and Kings [David in Jerusalem and other Kings of Israel] that would overcome this attack where those who ‘stored up’ enough resources during times of peace in order to carry them thru to victory. Either the attacking force would themselves get tired and have difficulty re supplying, or they too would be attacked at their home base while they where out attacking others [wow!]. I felt the word of the Lord to you right now is ‘strengthen the things that remain [Revelation]’ and trust in the storehouse of resource that you have ‘built up’ until this period of time in your life. Don’t think you have to ‘do as much’ during this time as you’ve done in the past. What I mean by this is you are to still reach out and go forward, but the long hours of preparation are over! Don’t feel guilty about it. Trust God to use you to ‘cast your bread upon the water’ and to ‘sow much seed’ it will not return void! Also the ‘eating of the young’ speaks to the churches mentality of not welcoming or receiving the spiritual offspring that she herself has given birth to. There are times where Christians attack and devour the prophetic people that actually have come forth from her. We ‘eat’ them by blaming them for the problems that they simply ‘saw’ coming. It’s like there being blamed for simply being the mouthpiece. Also I remember reading one time that a company somewhere in the world actually used certain parts of unborn aborted babies as a supplement in certain dietary products. If this were true it would speak to the horrendous act of aborting our children and actually ‘eating’ them in some form! Wow may God have mercy on us all [I don’t want to lie here, but the product might have been something they injected as opposed to ingesting].
(39) I have been meaning to speak on this for some time and wasn’t exactly sure what forum to use. Well I guess this is as good as any. In the world today there is no greater singular threat posed to western civilization than that of radical Islam. I am not saying here that all Muslims are the threat, but the simple fact is the rise of radical Islam is now the most serious threat to peace on the world stage. The fact that the adherents to this religion believe they are carrying out the dictates of their ‘prophet’ has tremendous spiritual significance that the church at this time in history needs to understand. Scripture speaks of ‘false prophets’ and ‘the false prophet’ who will influence society and cause people to ‘worship the beast’ and imagery like this. American Christianity often relegates these prophecies to some future dictator and ‘Tim Lahaye’ type interpretations that miss the relevance of what I just discussed. The fact that the greatest threat to world peace today is a movement whose followers are carrying out the dictates of their ‘prophet’ has to be understood thru spiritual discernment. I know it’s politically incorrect to call Muhammad a false prophet. My intent is not to offend Muslims. The simple fact is if you look at the story of Islam and Muhammad there is no other true Christian perspective than to see him as a false prophet. There have been many thru out history to be sure, but this one is the dead spiritual leader of a worldwide movement whose aim is world domination. These radicals indoctrinate their kids in there religious schools from a very early age. The Muslim population is exploding worldwide at the time of this writing and I can’t see a better candidate at this time for the title of ‘the false prophet’ than Muhammad. He causes many people to ‘worship Allah’. Allah is not the Christian God! If they are not worshipping God then whom might it be that they’re worshipping? I know language like this is not common toady, but I agree with Franklin Graham’s assessment of this religion as being ‘an evil and wicked religion’. I am not saying this is true of all Muslims. Muslims are humans whom God created in his image and for his glory. Our goal is not to ‘kill them off!’ but to deliver them from the bondage of false religion and bring them into the true knowledge of God in Christ!
(40) Yesterday I was fellowshipping with some homeless brothers and we had a real interesting discussion. Over a 2-3 hour time together we eventually went to whataburger and met with another Christian who regularly witnesses to anyone he sees there. During the discussion I was so impressed by the level of knowledge and understanding that some of these ‘simple’ believers had. The grasp of sharing in community [as opposed to tithing to the institution] was truly grasped by one of the guys. It wasn’t a rebellious thing; this one brother is actively serving the Lord with a local church that reaches out to the homeless. After this discussion it humbled me to think of the reality of this homeless person having a better grasp of giving and New Testament sharing of goods, then most Pastors have! These guys quoted scriptures on giving and were in no way ignorant of the subject. One of the other guys finally gave me a copy of a booklet he’s writing and I am including it in our tape and book catalog. What I feel the Lord wanted me to express thru this simple story is that Christ’s Spirit is always active and instructing those who believe in him. The verse that says ‘God hid things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes’ speaks to the humility of these simple believers actually having a better grasp on certain aspects of Christian truth then the Pro’s!
(41) It just occurred to me that over the last week or so I have given this paper and some other stuff to a wide range of people and past friends. Many of you have been on this journey with me at various stages. Some of you are still at different points in this story! What I am feeling is some of you have been ‘left’ [not in a bad way] at these places [geographically and spiritually] for the continuing purpose of God. You are where you are to complete ‘this story’. I just was thinking of one of my old buddies from the early Kingsville days as I was driving to work yesterday. He is one of the ‘ex-addicts’ who spent lots of years in prison and who made me the leather bible cover I spoke about earlier. As I haven’t seen him in a few months I felt like I needed to get this paper to him. Sure enough as soon as I pulled up to the fire station he was waiting for me. Later I got a call from him and he already was sharing some of the stuff from this paper. I just sensed the great responsibility all of us in this journey have for each other. There are times where I have moved on from one point to the next and some of the older friends wanted things to stay the same. I sometimes also get the feeling that some of my Christian friends are excited about ‘the ministry’ and want to ‘join’ or be part of some Christian thing that we are doing. I really have no avenue or ‘Christian thing’ that we have to join. I simply try to convey the responsibility we all have to move forward in this journey and ‘I’ll meet you when this thing is wrapped up’ [when the Lord returns]. I don’t want to be rude, but I want all of our friends to embark on their journey as well. We as Christians have the tendency to ‘arrive’ at places spiritually where we get comfortable and stop truly reaching out to the world around us. I don’t want this for myself or any of you! I want to always be in touch with all of our friends, but I also want to live the journey ‘on the road’ and see you at the finish line. There will be plenty of time to sit back and go over things then!
(42) I just saw an interview with Mel Gibson that reminded me to share some stuff. This past year Mel has been in the news because of an incident of being stopped by the cops while driving drunk and making anti Semitic remarks. In the recent interview on CNN Wolf Blitzer asked Mel about the fact that a highly influential Jewish leader refuses to forgive Gibson no matter how many times he confesses [I think Jesus told Peter if your offended 70 times 7 to forgive!]. Well this particular Jewish leader also believes it is his responsibility to destroy Gibson’s career and boycott him into ruin. All of this is being done under the banner of ‘Jewish ancestry’ and a feeling of wanting to destroy those who would in any way denigrate their race. Well its obvious that Mel was wrong in what he said, but the reaction from this Jewish leader shows the danger of seeing any natural heritage as ‘the ethnic group’ that must be defended at all costs. The New Testament teaches a balance in dealing with natural Israel outside of the Church. Paul says as far as the Gospel is concerned they are ‘enemies’ [strong words!] but as far as Gods purpose for them in history God still has great plans for Israel. The mistake the evangelical Church is making is they are not ‘rightly dividing’ these two lines. I recently heard a preacher in Israel teach a message [on TV] that spent a whole hour going back to the Old Testament promises to Abraham and arguing the fact that the New Covenant does not ‘supersede’ the Abrahamic one. This was all taught under the guise of exposing the false view of ‘replacement theology’. The underlying mistake that this minister was making was he left the impression to the Jewish people who were there that God is still dealing with them apart from the Christian gospel. While there is some element of truth to this [as God deals with all nations, even those that are not Christian] the basic flaw to this type of thinking is we give the impression that God still favors people based on natural ethnicity, which is fundamentally wrong. Gods favor today rests on the ‘new man’ made up of both Jew and Gentile [and any other race who believes!]. God said the day was coming when he would institute a ‘new covenant’ not according to the old ways. I know some are teaching that this is Moses Law [the old ways] and therefore the abrahamic covenant still exists, but the fundamental shift from law to grace is a ‘new thing’. God deals with all mankind based on there answer to the question ‘what will you do with this man’ [Christ]. Those who do not believe remain under wrath and judgment, and those who believe enter into peace. The fine line between anti Semitism and the wrongful exalting of Israel’s natural heritage must be understood. I read an article from a protestant minister who named all his kids after Israel [Abraham, Isaac, etc.] and during the interview referred to himself and other Christians as simply being saved sinners, whereas Israel were truly Gods special people. What do you think this view does for evangelism? How does natural Israel see herself when we do this? They must think that if all these Christians view her in this way, then why even think about accepting Messiah! Another view I recently heard was because all the apostles and Jesus were Jewish, therefore ‘Jewish ness’ is just as important as faith in Christ. This view doesn’t seem to understand that these Jewish apostles made statements like calling natural Jerusalem ‘Sodom and Egypt’ [referring to Israel’s rejection of Christ]. The New Testament speaks of ‘the synagogues of satan’, was this some 1st century satanic cult? This was speaking of religions emptiness apart from Christ [all the synagogues that tried to carry on religion without Christ!]. I know that this type of language is strong for the Church today. My intent is not to be anti Semitic! It is simply to be Christian. All peoples and nations will be judged on what they do with Christ. God said the days were coming when he would deal with Israel under a ‘new’ covenant, not some ‘re-vamped’ old one. Those days are fast approaching [theologically there already here!] when all Israel will ‘see him’. Israel [the holy land] has become the ‘Disney world’ for much of modern evangelicalism. We need to see her as Jesus did, when he wept over her and said ‘if you only knew the things that belong to your peace, but they are hid from your eyes’. May God open the eyes of all races so the prophecies of all nations flowing into Gods nation may be fulfilled. For we [The Church] are truly one nation under God.
(43) As of this writing I am still in the month of December 2006. I just started sending this paper [and our other stuff] to old friends from New Jersey. The images of ‘colonizing’ the north and the ‘Ports’ [both Corpus Christi and New York City have Ports] are images that I have incorporated into my prayer time for this region. I thought it interesting that the very first contact I had from the classmates site that I use to find old friends was from an old friend I use to play street football with as kids growing up [for some reason their team would always win!]. Well this old buddy gratefully sent me his mailing address and I mailed him a packet of materials [I see this as planting seed, I don’t understand why we don’t all do this. I have given away books and stuff for years, both to ‘big name’ national ministers as well as to homeless friends. Doing this thru out your life is a process of fishing for men. You can’t catch fish without bait. And the fish aren’t going to pay you for the bait!]. This friend told me he works at the Port authority of New York City, and he lives in a town called ‘Colonia’ in New Jersey [This is exactly how you pronounce ‘colony’ here in south Texas!].
(44) I was just thinking about the times over the years where I have spoken to ministry leaders and others who found it difficult to grasp our teaching on the ‘Local Church’ and what she is. Sometimes these brothers unknowingly confirm what I believe. For instance they might criticize their Pastor for blatant ‘holes’ in his teaching that ALL LEADERS have. The fact that we have a tendency to exalt and prop up people where one individual is the main voice of the Local Congregation allows for the Body of Christ to see these faults to an exaggerated degree. It is my belief that the modern phenomenon of Christian leadership is to some degree a ‘disability’ that causes believers in general to be ‘deformed’ [I don’t want to sound too critical here, those of you who have read our stuff know what I mean]. This leads to the effect of many ‘congregants’ seeing the shortcomings of leaders simply because it was Gods original intent to speak thru the whole group corporately. When this natural flow is restricted by the limited forms of ‘Church’ that we embrace, the end result is for the ‘members’ to see these mistakes. What I wanted to emphasize is in the past while having discussions with individuals who do not see Church the way I see it, I found it interesting that they are the very same ones who ‘see’ all the faults of ‘their Pastor’!
(45) I was just reading in Psalms where it talks about ‘the stone being smitten and water coming forth’. Also God bringing forth water like rivers from the ‘smiting’ or piercing of the stone. Well we know that Jesus is the stone that was pierced and bruised for us. God brought forth rivers of life [Holy Spirit] from the piercing of his son. I also see the language I have used earlier in this paper about the opening up of the channel and water flowing thru it. The channel is literally 2 huge stone walls strutting out into the Gulf. Bringing forth a ‘river’ of water into the dry land as well as allowing a river to flow out to the nations. The stone imagery is used of Christ in other ways as well. He is a tried stone, tested. The stone which the builders rejected. The chief corner stone. One of the aspects of ‘becoming a stone’ is the process of rejection and testing. This ‘qualifies’ us as living stones in Gods temple [Peter]. Thru process of time God brings us to a place where we finally can be trusted stones to complete the mission. What does he do with us then? He ‘pierces’ us [the cleft rock imagery] so a ‘river of water’ can flow thru us [gospel of John]! ‘He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great depths. He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers. Behold, he smote the rock, that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed’ Psalms 78: 15,16,20.
(46) I was just sitting outside praying and noticed that the only plants flowering in my yard are the roses from the ‘coat of many colors’ rose bush that I spoke about earlier in this paper. Its December and cold. Many other plants cannot ‘thrive’ in these bitter conditions. Well you get the hint, don’t you? Over the last several years the Church at large has embraced a gospel that focuses on trying to create a ‘pleasing’ environment around us. We have made ‘creature comforts’ the goal. I recently read an article about a preacher [T.D. Jakes] whom I like. He was being criticized for having a high salary and a few luxurious homes and basically being rich. In his defense he quoted the verse where scripture shows that Jesus wore an expensive coat [which he did] and used this to defend the idea that it is not wrong to become rich ‘from the offerings of many average [or poor] believers’ who give thru the TV ministry or thru the Local Church offerings. The main mistake with this thinking is the New and Old testaments actually teach against the concept of ‘shepherds’ becoming wealthy from the flock. The scriptures teach that its okay to financially support those who are giving to you spiritual food, but to become wealthy from peoples offerings is forbidden. I know people today don’t see this, but it is there! Where did Jesus get his expensive coat? Was he taking money from ‘the bag’ [treasury]? More than likely someone gave it to Jesus as an extravagant act of worship. The woman who poured the expensive perfume on Jesus did something of this nature. While I don’t want to be dogmatic about this, it proves the point that we take scriptures and develop doctrines that violate other plain scriptures. The widow woman who gave to Elijah was poor. But so was Elijah at the time! This story simply teaches the great truth of communal sharing which is taught in the New Testament. See a brother in need, meet the need! Too many preachers have taken stuff like this and have taught theologies that contradict plain scripture. Go read 1st Timothy 6. You have a hard time reading this chapter and believing this other stuff. I don’t want to re write our book on the prosperity gospel here, but I do want to emphasize the fact that God wants us to ‘thrive’ in desert and bitter conditions. It’s not wrong to be rich and have a high salary, but it can’t be from the overall aggregate giving of many poor or average saints over a long period of time! Joseph thrived and was rich and influential, but he also spent many years being unjustly accused and in prison for things that were not his fault. God allowed a life of suffering to co-exist with a successful career. He did this for the benefit of those who sold him into slavery. Joseph ‘ruled’ over his brothers at the end, just like he dreamed many years earlier. The ‘rule’ allowed him to forgive and use his wealth and influence to save his family. God will exalt us at certain seasons for the sole benefit of the salvation of others. It’s ok to enjoy the good things in life, but we are here to fulfill a mandate from heaven. Don’t get lost in the pursuits of this life!
(47) It’s 12-24-06 as I write this. I have been listening to Christmas music for the last few days. It’s got me thinking about the incarnation and death of Gods Son. If you remember the story in the gospels, after the death of John the Baptist Jesus felt sorrowful and heavy. It’s almost as if the whole reality of what he was about was weighing on him. John was a cousin and friend to Christ. It was because of Jesus that his friend died! Do you ever feel bad when one of ‘your disciples’ falls? [By the way we all should have them. Also when I say ‘your disciples’ I mean those you are ‘discipling’ unto Jesus!]. Do you wonder if in some way you failed them or let them down? I know I do. What if they died because of you, how would this make you feel? [Let me note I realize that more people I have worked with have died then on average, my only consolation is I realize that I ‘fish’ from a ‘high risk pool’] The death of John was a necessary evil for him to fulfill the prophetic role that he played. He ‘prefigured’ Christ in his early death. Prophets don’t just have great speaking ministries; their lives also carry out prophetic themes that often cause tremendous pain and suffering. Why couldn’t John or Jesus have lived till 65 or 70 before their deaths? I know theologically why, but that’s not what I am asking [to you smart people!]. There is a real sense of sacrifice when people lay their lives down for Gods purposes at the prime of their life. True sacrifice entails giving something of value up for Gods higher purpose. It carries with it the inherent nature of living for a greater cause than for just ‘being all that you can be’. It says to God I am here only to fulfill your destiny, and if in this process I don’t reach my full potential then I will gladly sacrifice it for the greater cause. This is what I see in the Dietrich Bonhoeffer story. A brilliant theologian who dies at the prime of his life. But God took his death as seed and allowed the small volume of his writings to impact generations to come. I wonder what other great parables and ‘sermons on the mount’ that Jesus could have given if his teaching ministry lasted 20 years. But he was here to fulfill a higher calling, and this dieing on the Cross took precedence over the great future he could have had ‘in the ministry’.
(48) What I really wanted to speak about [above] was what I call ‘the incarnational principle’. The concept of God manifesting himself thru Christ, and thru us as an extension of his Body in the earth. I will get a little technical here, but bear with me. Paul teaches [in the New Testament] that the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. Historically this issue has been one that divided Protestants and Catholics. During the reformation the Protestant position was the Bible was the ground of truth and final authority on matters of conscience and faith. The Catholic Church agreed in principle to the canon of scripture as ‘inspired’ but also taught that the Church herself possessed separate authority as ‘the pillar and ground of truth’. The Catholics said the Church produced the Bible, while the Protestants believed the Church ‘recognized’ it. That is to say that the ‘Bible’ was already infallible and the Church just recognized it. Well anyway the point here is Gods people [Ecclesia] are the pillar and ground of truth. There is no other ‘thing’ in the planet that God actually lives in. Though scripture is inspired and infallible, God doesn’t actually ‘dwell’ in its pages. I know I open myself up to criticism here [for the first time, not!] but I agree with the great evangelical thinker John Stott. He sees the evangelical Church as practicing a form of ‘bibliolatry’ in the way we express ‘sola scriptura’ [the bible only]. In the earth right now the only actual place where God is literally dwelling is the Church. Not some top heavy institution, but in the people [community]. Because of this in some sense the only real hope for the world is us! God sees us as the ‘pillar and ground’ of truth. We are his ‘superstructure’ that exists in the midst of ‘Babylon’ [the world]. We live here to both testify and actually ‘dispense’ Gods grace thru the gospel. Jesus told the disciples ‘whosoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven’ [I don’t want to teach the Catholic/Protestant view on this here] in essence we carry the gospel in us as well as on our lips. God ‘contacts’ and interacts with the world thru us. This is the ‘incarnational principle’. In military terms its ‘ground truth’. It’s having the perspective of ‘boots on the ground’ as opposed to some defense secretary living in an ivory palace [or pentagon]. We are Gods ‘boots’ on the ground. God has entrusted us to carry out the rest of the ‘invasion’ that Jesus started 2000 years ago. The only problem is too many of us think we are in the guard and are trying to avoid ‘active duty’! [No offense meant to those in the National Guard!]
(49) I was just thinking about ‘Job’ and the trials he went thru [I haven’t read Job in a few years, so bear with me in the details]. I remember hearing preachers try to explain why Job suffered. Some said it was because of his sin of fear and making a bad confession. ‘The things that I feared came upon me’. It seems to me that these brothers who are looking for Jobs fault [sin] are falling into the same mistake of Jobs friends who spent the whole book looking for the reason for Jobs suffering. The point of Job is ‘why do the righteous suffer’ and the answer is we are finite and God is infinite, and who are we to question God. There is no reasonable explanation for his suffering. Jobs friends said some theologically correct things in trying to find fault. They said stuff like ‘the curse causeless doesn’t come’ which is in keeping with the teaching of proverbs. But in this case ‘good theology’ didn’t cut it. God actually tells satan that Job is upright and without fault. If Job had a ‘bad confession’ or ‘too much fear’ that caused his suffering, then God wouldn’t have called him faultless. I find it troubling that highly influential teachers in the American church can’t seem to grasp these basic principles. I’m not talking deep stuff here. Just the basic ability to read literature! Well let me encourage you with the simple truth of Job. Don’t stress out over your trials. Don’t spend endless ours of regret and too much introspection. Sometimes things happen to you that you can’t control. Our response during these seasons is praise to God and a total committing of everything into his hands.
(50) A few days ago I read a verse in Psalms that spoke of ‘bringing presents to God’ [Psalms 76:11]. It was a few days before Christmas and I thought it was interesting/prophetic that I hadn’t seen this before. I ‘piously’ wrote down ‘love and devotion’ next to the ‘presents’ verse. Surely these are the ‘gifts’ God wants us to bring. Well I’ve also been ‘seeing’ and thinking about bringing in the harvest of people for the new year [2007]. I even dreamed the old football that I used as a boy. In the dream it was just lying there on the ground waiting for someone to pick it up and ‘run with it’. I also have been meditating on the image of ‘fishing in the harvest’ of people. Well for Christmas I got 2 main gifts. A football and a fishing pole. I felt the Lord said I want your love and devotion, but the gifts I want are the ‘harvest of men’. Follow me and I will make you fishers of men!
(51) Last night I was watching a special on the history channel dealing with comets and meteors. The other day I was talking to a friend and he spoke about the emperor Constantine ‘seeing’ the form of a cross in the sky. [I actually corrected him, he thought the sign originally was used in the crusades against Muslims, and I told him it was first seen in Constantine’s raid against another emperor in an effort to unify the Roman Empire under Constantine’s control]. The ‘Cross’ that Constantine ‘saw’ is debatable. Some Christians don’t believe any of it. Others take a more open view and see God at work in a limited way. I simply want to note that the ‘Cross’ sign that I’ve mentioned earlier in this paper looks like a Maltese Cross. While speaking to my friend he reminded me that Constantine saw a Maltese Cross. While watching the history channel special they also said some believe that Constantine saw a Comet. It made me wonder if I was seeing the same thing that an Emperor saw 1700 years ago! This is not to say I am special in any way, but we should recognize that God is in charge and in control of the affairs of men in the 21st century just as much as he was in the 4th! Also I realize that there are a whole bunch of believers who don’t believe in any ‘miraculous’ occurrences at all. These Christians are ‘cessationists’. They have reasons why they believe there are no more supernatural events. I obviously don’t hold to this view, but I see them as sincere believers in Christ. I kind of feel that when I deal with ‘corrective’ issues in the Church that people might view me as a ‘critic’ of all things supernatural, or relevant for our day. Many of the prophetic people fully grasp the prosperity message and look at those who try to bring correction as ‘cessationists’. I don’t know why this is so. Prophetic people should be able to discern the difference between the reality of biblical prosperity and the distorted preaching of the more extreme prosperity preachers. Surely Jesus gives many warnings against riches and materialism in the gospels. We should have the same balance as he had. God meets the needs of his kids, but the Kingdom is about true riches and not about money!
(52) The other day I mentioned T.D.Jakes. Let me say that I have made it a habit to contact and send materials to key influential people in the Church over the years. I do this for the sake of the church at large. I recognize that if in some small way I can influence a Kingdom person for good, then they in turn will influence their larger circle of friends and the will of God will prevail I don’t want to ‘name drop’ here too much. I remember sending Benny Hinn [who I believe the Lord uses in a great way] some stuff on the prosperity message. It dealt with modern ministers becoming rich off of the people, and how this is not right. I was surprised to get a handwritten note from one of his staff Pastors and forwarding it on to Benny. A few weeks later some news organization did an expose [not the first one] on Benny Hinn and exposed the lucrative salary and wealth he has gotten thru the ministry. I feel that they gave special attention to the stuff I sent because they knew they were being looked at in a critical way by this organization, and there was no way I could have known this. So the prophetic timing of sending these materials was in some way a message from one brother to another as correction in love. I also have had a good friendship in writing with Jim Bakker. He has personally sent me hand written notes over the years. I want to simply stress that as believers God wants us to help each other walk in truth. I don’t want to just write critical exposes on false doctrine. This is what many modern apologists do. God wants us to personally correct and warn each other in love. The times where I have struggled with impatience is when I see brothers who blatantly teach false stuff to a wide range of people and they are not open to correction. NOTE: Benny started as an ordained Word of Faith minister, he actually walked away from this ‘style’ of ministry as the years went by. He saw many faults with the movement. He said ‘I do not hold to this message any longer’. I find this interesting.
(53) Over the years I have had friends who felt the Lord was calling them to start a ministry. I would always advise them to seek God and work a regular job until the doors open. In some cases these friends would get offended at being told to work [Paul told people this! Thessalonians]. Some feel that the Lord is calling them to start a ministry [Christian business] and seem to spend their time and effort in ‘getting it off the ground’. I find it helpful to view ‘ministry’ as something like this. We [the Church] are citizens of Gods kingdom. As citizens we are the ‘subjects’ of the Kingdom of God here on earth. While the church is not solely the kingdom of God, we are Kingdom representatives here on earth. Sort of like the Church are the citizens and the Kingdom is the country that we belong to [this is a major debate in theological circles and I don’t want to get into it here]. When we view it this way it helps us to not ‘see’ ministry as some type of Christian business that we are trying to start. But ministry becomes us functioning in Gods Kingdom. ‘The ministry’ we belong to is the Kingdom of God and we are here to extend it by carrying out the great commission. We should not be side tracked by thinking if I am working a regular job that this is forsaking my calling. You have the freedom [and responsibility] to meet the needs of your family and at the same time being fully alive and operative unto God. Paul says whatever you do, do it unto God and not men and God will reward you. So your time on the job or in the market place is not a distraction ‘to your ministry’ but it is an opportunity to extend Gods Kingdom in the earth! [This actually is an age-old debate in the church. Some early believers viewed the material world as evil and created a ‘secular/Christian’ division. They saw believers as separate from society in a way that was not healthy. The reformers allowed room in their theology for Christians to be ‘fully alive’ and active in society. Today’s mindset of ‘starting a ministry’ feeds into this secular/Christian mindset and creates a division that I feel is not good. We sort of have the ‘Christian world’ and the ‘regular world’ and never do the two seem to meet!]
(54) I was just thinking about the difference in the openness of the 1st century Church compared to today. Paul wrote the Corinthians and told them that some were homosexual and others were openly practicing sexual immorality. No doubt he rebuked them for sin, but the fact remains that there were really no ‘hidden sins’. They all knew each other’s shortcomings. Earlier in this paper I discussed how certain gifted people [Paul Cain and others] struggled with hidden sin for many years. In today’s Church you don’t really have an atmosphere that can openly address sin among leaders. It seems the status quoi is to struggle in secret for as long as you can until your exposed. I feel we harm each other in today’s Church because of this lack of openness about life’s struggles. If you read the Old Testament [Proverbs] the prostitute and ‘whore’ are pictured in a bad way. If a woman struggling in the sex trade of our day were to view Gods opinion of her only from this vantage point, she would have little hope of any real future with God. This mindset pervaded the 1st century religious community [Pharisees]. Women who’s only real contact with men was for pay and pleasure were totally anathema. Jesus allowed these same women to cry on his feet and touch him. This was such a taboo to the religious community. For the first time in these women’s lives they saw hope and acceptance. A real man [Jesus] allowed them to ‘touch’ him in a way that showed they still had hope. To be sure he never justified anyone’s sin, but he allowed for the affection and hope that these women could never find in the religious community. His actions said ‘I know what you have done and where you have been and I still love you’ Wow!
(55) In our writings over the years I’ve tried to express the difference between Christian religion and following Christ. I find it odd that Jesus found himself in the midst of a religious community that ‘attended church [synagogue]’ ‘tithed’ ‘stayed holy’ [separated themselves from the world, even the lost who were in it!] and thought they were doing Gods will when they killed Jesus! [I forgot to say they also prayed and fasted too!] We can often be involved in all types of ‘church’ things and miss the real intent of God. The New Testament describes religion as ‘visiting the fatherless and widows and keeping yourself unspotted from the world’. God puts ‘separation from the world’ hand in hand with outreach. If today’s Christian thinks the fulfilling of all the above religious requirements are pleasing to God, apart from true outreach, then he is kidding himself [I wanted to say ‘deceiving himself’ but I already get too much criticism!]. I feel we as 21st century believers need to re-focus and re-organize our lives around the great commission. God doesn’t only ask of you to give money to your church to support missionaries [a good thing by the way!] but he requires all of us to lay down our lives for the gospel. Be delivered from a religious mindset that sees as its priority to do ‘religious things’ and seems to never have time to touch a lost and dieing world!
(56) A few years ago my uncle passed away. I was up there for the funeral [Jersey] and was invited to speak at his funeral. I don’t believe in ‘preaching to the lost’ at a funeral per se. I remember hearing a preacher say he was at some gang member’s funeral and he preached how the dead guy is in hell right now and how the parents and everyone were upset [no kidding!]. Well anyway I always thought my ‘Italian’ uncle was in some way connected to the Mafia. Don’t know for sure, but it always seemed he had some connection. Well the only living relatives were me, my dad, my sister and my uncle’s daughter and her son. The funeral parlor was packed with a lot of Italians in suits and ties! I simply shared the story of Christ’s resurrection and how this is our hope. I did speak the gospel message and noticed a ‘heavy’ anointing on the words I was speaking. I noticed that someone on the first row was having ‘chills’ at the word! After the ‘message’ some thanked me, some looked uncomfortable. One guy about my age [mid 30’s at the time] was especially thankful and touched by the word. He made it a point to shake my hand. I do feel its possible that some people heard the gospel and believed for the first time. The person that was my age could have been like me [or me like him] if I stayed in New Jersey after high school. It’s funny how the Lord can bring you full circle and on the journey you might even lead a ‘mafia’ guy to the Lord. I don’t know for sure but I hope so!
(57) The other day I was listening to an old time Baptist preacher on the radio. He is a good man who preaches the Gospel. He talked about a Pentecostal woman visiting him and how she was so deceived. He wasn’t being critical, he really believes this. We all have a tendency to ‘see’ God from the paradigm that surrounds us. We as Christians have a tendency to judge others who experience God in a different way then we do. I am not saying that ‘all religions’ lead to God, they certainly don’t! But as Christians we should leave room for those other communities of believers that might have a different history but also embrace the Gospel. This larger community of believers is what I like to call ‘the greater storehouse’. God has tremendous riches to be found in all of these Christian churches. I love studying reformation stuff, but I also like the Catholic fathers. The history of Methodism under Wesley is great, as well as the later Azusa revivals. To be able to see beyond our limited communities and embrace the ‘whole Church’ is a gift that will bring in many rewards, I urge you to partake of the table that the Lord has prepared for us in the midst of our enemies.
(58) Being I have been speaking a little about Catholic/Protestant stuff lately, let me talk on ‘authority and covering’ issues. Recently when certain evangelical leaders fell into sin, others speculated on why this happened. Some Protestants taught that certain Prophets who fell were not ‘under covering’ or under the authority of ‘a local church’. I have spoken at length in our books and thru radio on what the Church is and what it means to ‘be part of the local church’. All I felt like saying here is our Catholic brothers historically view all Protestants as being ‘without covering’ or not under proper biblical authority. I do find it interesting that some who feel they are apostolic in the protestant church start highly independent and entrepreneurial type ministries and then preach that if people are not ‘under one of these apostolic coverings’ then they are in rebellion. Many of these ‘apostles’ have absolutely no covering or connection to the historic church and yet preach a form of authority that seems to begin and end with them! To put it simple, we as Christians are all related and responsible to each other. As New Covenant priests we are directly under the authority of our high priest Jesus. I thank God for all the gifted Apostles and Prophets in the church today, I just think we need to remind ourselves of the basics once again.
(60) Over the years of dealing with various issues facing the American church there have been times where friends who were pastors or in ministry found it difficult to break thru the practical aspects of ‘doing church’ and embrace the bigger picture. There are times in history where God desires to ‘shift’ the face of Christianity and bring her back into alignment with the historic faith. During these times of ‘shift’ or transition it is difficult for pastors or ministry leaders to evaluate the truths that God is bringing forth and rise above the practical implications of where they are presently at. Most responsible pastors will evaluate most things by ‘how will this affect my church’. These men are well meaning, but I believe the question should be more aligned with ‘is this direction that God is bringing forth true or false’. Is it really God? The natural concern of ‘keeping the meetings going’ or ‘fulfilling the goal’ must be secondary to the true revolutionary spirit that dwells in the church. God wants us to boldly embrace truth and expand his Kingdom in the earth. If the criteria we are using is ‘will this disrupt things too much’ then you have placed yourself on the side of those who opt for comfort over revolution!
(61) I was just thinking about how we in the American church have focused on self-preservation and motivation to the point where we lose sight of the sacrifice that the Gospel calls us to. It is common to live the Christian life and to attend church and see all the ‘Christian activities’ as simply ‘self help material’. While its not wrong to improve your life, or to find all the success principles contained in the word [there are many!] yet we seem to lose sight of the bigger picture. Our short time here is for the extending of Gods Kingdom at all costs. True revolution entails a willingness to even die for the cause. A prophet showed Paul ‘all the ways that God has called you to suffer [Acts]’. We get excited when we get a prophecy on ‘this year you will become rich’ and stuff like that. We see and practice Christianity as a self-help science. We memorize all the ‘money’ verses and spend our time focusing on the things that are least important to the Kingdom. If God were to appear to us in a dream at the age of 18, and he gave us the choice to live a full life to 80 and die and go to heaven, or to live till 40 and die a martyr and effect nations by our witness. Which one would you choose? I am not sure I would choose right either. We want to get as much as we can out of life, and any ‘prophetic word’ that would entail suffering we reject as ‘false prophecy’. To be honest I am tired of all the ‘money prophecies’ that are out there floating around, you would think after a while we would all become rich or stop believing them! But then again it simply makes us feel good to think about the possibility of having the lifestyle ‘of the rich and famous’. We just don’t realize that the calling of God is so much more than this!
(62) Those of you who have read some of our stuff may notice a verse I like to quote from the message bible ‘don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this, you are the equipment, keep it simple, no special appeals for funds [ouch!]’. I don’t mean to be offensive in our materials. Sometimes I get the feeling that other ministries who solicit funds get turned off by the implicit message in our writings that ‘we don’t take money’. I realize there are many good ministries that do take money, and they do so in a good and pure way. There are others who abuse scripture and take money in a way that violates the word. My whole point in doing it the way we do it is to show the average believer that we all are responsible to carry out the great commission, and it most certainly doesn’t take a lot of money! In the book of Acts Peter would raise the dead and word spread like wildfire. No budget whatsoever! God has the ability to promote and advance his agenda without our money. The verse I quoted should challenge the way we limit God. Many ‘faith’ preachers teach a doctrine that says ‘how can we ever reach the world unless the wealth of the wicked pours into the church’. I like to tell them ‘just have faith brother, Jesus said no special appeals for funds, you can do it with out a ton of money’. I find it ironic that we preach a ‘faith message’ that has no faith that we can touch the world without becoming rich! If you’re rich, fine. But lets stop limiting Gods ability to touch the world thru us. We are extremely capable of doing this, even in our present condition!
(63) Yesterday I had the chance to do some research on line. I also listened to Christian radio while walking on a treadmill. I found the level of teaching between the Internet and radio interesting. On line I read some stuff on the Kingdom of God and apostolic concerns of seeing the Kingdom in action. On the radio the sermon dealt with the practical concerns of ‘meeting in church’ and how to deal with gossip and the pastor having to ‘run off’ the gossiper and stuff like this. The contrast reminded me of the scriptures I mentioned in these last few pages. ‘I have taken you from following the sheep to the borders of my mountain’ ‘There shall be a handful of grain in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon. And they of the city shall flourish like the grass of the earth’ These verses [psalms] speak to the difference from ‘following the sheep’ to ‘the borders of Gods mountain’. One concern is the order of a church meeting and how to watch for trouble, the other is concerned about seeing the Kingdom extend in the earth. While both are important at times, the danger of ‘following the sheep’ only is you begin to see the goal of God simply to be proper order in the church meeting. Gods chief concern is impacting all nations until the day comes when all nations will flow into Gods nation and bring glory and honor unto him. There is a distinction between ‘following the sheep’ and ‘the borders of Gods Mountain’. Gods ultimate goal is to bring you to a higher place than simply ‘church concerns’. The handful of grain is found ‘on the top of the mountain’. There is a lot of teaching in the church today. Much of it is good, some is not. The Lord has specific words for you ‘on the top of the mountain’. He causes the mountain to ‘shake’ and thru the shaking, grain [seed] falls to the people of the city and they flourish like grass. Be attentive to the grain coming to you from those ‘on the mountain’ [concerned with greater things than their ministries or churches]. There is a lot of grain out there; you must be ‘partial’ to eat that which is precious. Honey is good, but too much will make you sick! [Proverbs]
(64) I was watching a special the other day on cults. They spoke on Jim Jones and others. I have researched cults pretty extensively in the past. One of the most important lessons from Jim Jones is the fact that he started well, and was even on the cutting edge of certain truths for his day. He was sincere, originally preached the Gospel and many of his followers till this day feel like they were truly seeking God. The mass suicide was done as a ‘protest action’. Jim had read this in some of the socialist materials that he studied. He saw their deaths as a protest against society. Well obviously the movement became a cult and they were wrong in the things they did. Today there are many Christian groups who have the same mindset of ‘siege’ and isolationism that Jones temple had. I mentioned earlier about being a part of a Fundamental Baptist Church in the past, while I don’t want to call them a cult, the group had a mindset that saw all other groups [even Baptists] as either heretics or backslidden. They had a mentality of ‘the worlds out to get us’ and we must separate from it at all costs. But the extreme separation they practiced caused them to ‘separate’ from the rest of the body of Christ. You can be part of a big group and still be ‘isolated’ if you see the rest of the world [Christian and lost people] as something you are separating from inside the four walls of your fortress [church or community]. As an elder of this fundamental church I remember how we had a special meeting to decide whether or not we should cut off support from a missionary. The ‘heresy’ he fell into was he became a ‘mid tribber’. He believed the ‘Rapture’ would occur after the first three and a half years of the tribulation as opposed to occurring before the tribulation starts. Well even at that time I expressed my disagreement over cutting someone off for this. The funny thing is I believe now that the ‘Rapture’ and the Second Coming are one event. So we were all ‘heretics’ at the time! The point here is when Christians develop the sectarian mindset that Paul rebuked the Corinthians for, we are in danger. I am not saying we will all commit mass suicide, but we do harm to ourselves and others. Let me add here a little on the ‘Rapture’. Just a few weeks ago I was fellowshipping with a brother and he brought the subject up. I really try to avoid it in general when fellowshipping and witnessing [which we were doing at the time]. Well he wanted to know whether I was ‘pre’ or ‘mid’ trib. I then regretfully confessed that I believe there is only one second coming, I don’t believe the ‘rapture’ is speaking of a different event at all. Well my friend, who was quite knowledgeable in the scriptures, emphatically agreed. He also said he saw only one ‘Second Coming’, but to him the rapture was something else. If you read 1st Thessalonians 4 [the rapture chapter] I can’t see how you can honestly see this as different from the other scriptures that speak of the second coming and the resurrection. I find it a contradiction to read these events as ‘separate’. I am familiar with all the arguments on the trumpets and every other little detail. I just see the overriding text being that of one event. In the discussion with my friend he jumped to all the various ‘proof’ texts to back up his belief. I simply believe the plain reading of these verses show it to be one event. You should interpret the plain meaning first, before going to lengths to defend something else. Well I don’t want to argue about this, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
(65) I just had a dream a few hours ago. I was sitting in a room. I had a thorn bush branch sticking thru my leg. I had a pair of pruners and simply pruned the branch from both sides but had to leave the part stuck inside my leg. I seemed content and recognized that I would still be able to walk and function even though I would have a permanent impediment. I thought of Jacob, how after his encounter with the Lord he had a perpetual limp. Also Paul’s ‘thorn’ in the ‘flesh’ [this thorn branch was literally in my flesh!] how he realized that the Lord permitted things to co exist in his life in order to ‘position’ him to receive great revelation and insight. The thorn allowed him to remain humble though he was seeing at a prophetic level that was unheard of in his day. I simply feel like the Lord is saying we shouldn’t focus so much of our time and attention on making ourselves better [self help mentality] as much as simply getting to a stage where we can hear and function effectively. I am not saying God doesn’t want us totally healed, or to live with bitterness and wounds of the past. I see this more like a willingness to move forward and function without everything having to be just perfect in our lives. God wants us to get the job done. If the only thing you can do is ‘cut the ends off of the branch’ then do it! If you have to live with some scars then that’s o.k. as long as there not open wounds!
(66) Over the years of studying the church and the various communions that exist in the Christian church, it is common for believers to separate over ‘the way we do church’. Many divisions exist both because of doctrine and practice. To be honest any sincere student of church history will see the silliness of many of these debates. I believe the whole ‘church world’ in general would benefit if our paradigm changes from seeing church as ‘something we go to on Sunday’ to a community of people that we belong to. Many of our divisions over ‘church order’ would be resolved if we realize that the bulk of New Testament instruction is given to believers to live out in community, versus a church meeting. Jesus was challenging the premise of temple and religion as being a place and style of worship. He re introduced the original heart of God by showing people that Gods chief concern was that people would worship in Spirit and truth. No longer would the debate be over ‘which mountain’ or ‘whose lineage’ to follow, but the Father would receive anyone that would meet the two requirements of ‘Spirit and Truth’.
(67) The early church were called ‘the way’ during the first century. They carried a specific message that went along with their way of life. The message and the journey were centered on Jesus. They didn’t get lost in all the other things that we make ‘the way’. They were fresh off the reality of God breaking into society thru the great victory of his Son. They were living in a time where you were going to see his works whether you liked it or not! If you remember God told the children of Israel that they ‘saw’ his works for 40 years in the wilderness. God was either going to show them the promised land, or they would see his works in judgment, but one way or another they were going to see his works! The early church had that dynamic working with them. You were going to be confronted with this great Kingdom, whether you like it or not! We have a tendency to lose sight of this great Kingdom of God breaking into society thru Christ. We focus and specialize on the side issues [prosperity, demonology, prayer, etc.]. We need to return back to the central message and reality of the early church, and become known for following him who is called ‘the way’.
(68) In psalms 89:25 it says ‘I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers’ I have used lots of imagery of the rivers, God smiting the rock and waters coming out. Catching fish in the ‘Hudson river’. All these images are symbols. When I read this I felt the Lord saying a few things. First he will give us authority to speak into the church at large [sea] but also have a deeper, purer prophetic stream that will speak into the church. The river to me represents the many individual streams that are flowing into the sea [church] at large. God’s intent isn’t to make the sea a big ‘river’. This would defeat the purpose. But God does want the effect of all the rivers to add to the overall ‘body’ of people/truth. Often times you will have tremendous truth flowing from prophetic sources, the intent of these truths is to bring the church back to a more pure state of existence. Sometimes we fall into the trap of trying to make the truth/revelation the main thing. Even though all the rivers flow into the ocean, they never turn the oceans from salt water to fresh. The intent of the rivers is to add and increase the flow, but not to make the sea one big river!
(69) I was watching a brother on TV who was speaking on covetousness. They are a good church overseas who are quite large. He was defending himself somewhat from criticism of the huge amount of money the church brings in and how he heard someone speak against one of their staff people who regularly fly’s around the world to perform in worship/singing. The overall way we do ministry today seems to take 90 percent of all Christian funds and uses it for the functioning of the ‘church’. Salaries, buildings and the basic upkeep of the business. A brief overview of the New Testament would show about 90 percent of all funds being used for charitable purposes and meeting the actual needs of the Christian community. The few instances where you read about corporate collections they are being used to distribute materially to those in need. The other references to giving in support of elders and those who are ministering in the word speak about a very small percentage of finances compared to the charitable giving. Its things like this that we don’t see when we read scripture through our limited paradigms. I believe the church today should ‘re-balance’ its books to draw more closely to the New Testament model. There are many worthy churches today who are doing great things for God. We overall need to re focus our priorities from the advancement of a few [the above scenario of the pastor defending the large amount of money spent on the few highly gifted ones] to the releasing of the whole body to function. We get into scenarios where we need lots of people to give lots of money to keep the machinery going, we come up with lots of projects to do [even good ones!] and we focus our Sunday meetings on bringing in the money to accomplish all the projects. The average believer is under the impression that to be faithful simply means to keep coming to church on Sunday and giving to meet the budget. This scenario has unconsciously placed the ‘average’ Christian in a position where we don’t really expect them to personally carry out the great commission, but to simply be obedient while funding the few who do the work! We need to re shift our priorities. Church should take 90 percent of its money and use it to build up and send out the whole body, by the way this doesn’t mean the churches need to collect it all on Sunday, it could simply be a releasing of people from a mindset of meeting the budget to them actively giving and spending and doing the work themselves. Government red tape hinders the actual carrying out of projects. So does ‘the business of church’. Release people into the harvest. The harvest is plenteous but the laborers are few [this could be speaking of the few professionals that we expect to function as we finance the budget!].
(70) I read a verse the other day in Psalms that said ‘God will exalt you like the horn of a unicorn’ I know there are myths about the unicorn as being rebellious and other stuff about them actually being a myth. I really don’t know. But what I got from this was there are certain prophetic people who God exalts [not man!] like ‘the horn of a unicorn’. I said earlier in this paper how ‘horns’ represent different things. One of the things they represent are prophetic voices. John the Baptist was a ‘horn/trumpet’ of God who would ‘proclaim’ the appearing of Messiah. John stood alone in his day in the ability to ‘see’ Messiah. It was a ‘singular’ revelation that others would not posses as of yet. John was a loner who came out of the wilderness as an absolute radical. The single horn of a unicorn represents this ‘horn/trumpet’ as being alone for certain seasons. John fulfilled a ‘rebellious’ purpose. He rebelled against the system of his day and was beheaded. The unicorn isn’t around anymore because of rebellion! John represented a type of rebellion that we don’t see anymore either. A prophetic rebellion to behold Christ to the point of death. [Some things from the net on unicorns; 1- They can’t be captured alive 2- Fierce but good 3-Selfless yet solitary 4- Mysterious yet beautiful. All these qualities are seen in Christ and John the Baptist. Tertullian, Ambrose, Jerome and Basil [early church fathers] all saw the unicorn as a symbol of Christ.
(71) I was just outside praying and had a thought. Nothing new, but I felt I should share it. Planting Churches in the New Testament was simply the process of preaching the Gospel to people, and the people who believed became the ‘community of Christ’ in that region. The actual ‘Church’ were the people themselves who corporately made up ‘Christ’s Body’. The things that they did [Lords supper, baptism, etc.] were simply an outgrowth of being the Church. The ‘doing’ of these things did not make them the Church! The fact that they did them was because they were the Church. This truth releases all of us into the world with the potential of being ‘Church planters’. All you really need to ‘start Churches’ is the courage to preach the Gospel to people groups. The harvest is ready; will you be one of the few laborers?
(72) A few years back I heard someone say it takes a minimum of $250,000 dollars to ‘plant a church’. The business world measures success by the amount of income they bring in, as well as the amount of ‘G.D.P.’ that is what they produce and export. The church should not measure success by these guidelines, nor should we limit Gods ability to ‘plant a church’ or spread the Kingdom by limited finances. Those of you who have read all of our stuff will notice I quote a verse out of the message bible a lot. ‘Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this, you are the equipment. No special appeals for funds, keep it simple’ this is Jesus instruction to the disciples as he sends them out. He was giving them a mindset to see the simplicity of carrying out the great commission. He was saying in effect ‘you all individually, as well as corporately, have the potential to change the world’. He purposely has set up his Kingdom to allow for the ‘average Joe’ to have the same potential as the big shots! When we say things like ‘it takes a lot of money to reach the world’ or ‘you cant do this without starting a big ministry’ we unconsciously are telling Jesus ‘we need a lot of extra equipment for this, and we need to make special appeals for funds’. Now do you see what I have been saying? Sometimes it takes a while for truth to sink in. I know there are big ministries who are doing great works and who do make appeals for funds. This is all right as long as they are truly preaching the Gospel. The point I am making here is we all have the potential to touch the world. Don’t simply think that your part is only tithing and giving to fund others. You can be used of God right where you are.
(73) A few years ago it was popular to quote John’s epistle ‘beloved I wish above all things that you would prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospers’ [quick quote from memory, think its Johns 3rd letter?] This verse, like all verses is good. This greeting in the first century would be like saying ‘God bless you’ today. It was a simple form of greeting. Just like Paul ending the book of Romans with a long list of personal greetings. While all scripture is given by inspiration of God, there are differences between greetings, actual doctrine and other forms or styles of speech and literature that you find in scripture. For instance a greeting is not equal to actual doctrinal teaching. The resurrection of Christ is foundational doctrine. The matter of woman wearing hats [coverings] in ‘church’ falls into the cultural context of Corinth at the time of Paul’s writing to the Corinthians. Both teachings are true and have value, but one is obviously relevant for all time, while the other is debatable. The point here is Jesus said the thing that God wants from man above all other things is ‘to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and might. And to love thy neighbor as thyself’. This is Jesus teaching doctrine on what matters most to God. To take Johns greeting in a letter [though scripture!] and to say that this is what God wants more than anything else, is wrong. God does want us to prosper, and you can find other verses stating this. But the point here is when we ‘see’ all verses as equal in authority, without recognizing the various forms of literature and speaking that all people use [even the 1st century apostles] then we create themes that contradict and we violate the mandate of scripture that tells us to ‘think and understand like men’.
(74) The other day I ran into a few ‘homeless’ and ‘addicted’ ‘friends’. I want to emphasize why I say ‘friends’. But first let me tell some stuff. The one friend was the homeless brother that I gave some of our materials to a few weeks ago. I ran into him at Whataburger. He told me that he read our books and liked them. As I was leaving to drop off tapes at the radio station that we broadcast on, I invited this friend to go for the ride. He was glad and surprised to get the invitation. Sort of like ‘why would someone ‘important’ want to simply spend some time with me’. He actually was waiting for someone to pick him up for a day job, but said he would like to have gone to fellowship and ask some questions and stuff. He even described himself as one of the ‘pawns’ on Gods chess table. He said some are ‘kings’ while others are simply ‘pawns’. I reminded him that Jesus said ‘whoever wants to be a king in Gods Kingdom, must become a pawn’. He agreed to this. I also saw one of the girls who used to be a helper in the mission that I go to in order to visit homeless friends. I never really spoke to her, though I remember seeing her over the years serving with her mom at the mission. I heard that she got into ‘meth’ and was strung out on drugs. I felt really bad about this. This was a good girl who lost her way. As a principle I usually don’t try to help the girls ‘one on one’ because it obviously wouldn’t look right for me to be ‘meeting girls’ at the mission. Some are friends because of the friendship I have with their ‘boyfriends’ and the many years of befriending a lot of these guys. But ever since I heard about this girl falling into drugs, I really felt I should speak with her. Well I had the chance to take a few people to the driver’s license office to get new I.D.s [this is a problem with a lot of homeless people, they have a tendency to keep loosing their I.D.s] and asked if she needed to go, which she did. [She just lost her I.D. about a week before!] It took about an hour and I had a real good conversation with her. I shared a lot about the regrets we have when we fall into sin, which she had many. I told her how Jesus ‘violated’ religious protocol in reaching out to ‘the prostitutes’ of his day [I tried to be tactful here, but needed to get this point across]. And she really appreciated the help with the I.D. Before I dropped them off I gave her all of our books and stuff, and she began reading them before leaving the truck. I felt these simple stories capture the ‘lifestyle’ of going out into the byways and ‘compelling’ people to come in to the Kingdom. The mindset of ‘the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few’. When I speak about the requirement for all believers to in some way reach the lost, without simply being a ‘tither who goes to church on Sunday’ this is what I mean. Jesus instructs all of us along the journey to do things like this. Jesus said to ‘count the cost’ before taking on a project. But he also said ‘make no special appeals for funds, you are the equipment’. I think we confuse these two principles. The ‘cost’ of discipleship is living your life for others. Greater love has no man than this, that you would lay down your life for your friends. Who were Jesus ‘friends’? He was accused of being a friend of sinners! I would encourage you to begin giving yourself away for the benefit of others. Seek to become a ‘pawn’ for in doing this you are a ‘king’ in Gods eyes.
(75) I felt I should add this here. One of the ‘costs’ of making it a priority to ‘make disciples/carry out the great commission’ is you make yourself a target of the evil one to a greater degree than if you simply are a ‘church attendee’. ‘I will contend with him who contends with thee, and I will save thy children’[ Bible verse] when you make it a priority to ‘have children’ you put yourself in a position of ‘contention’ with the enemy. This is a real cost that you must understand and your commitment to bringing people to Christ will be severely challenged, but the obedience to the command of Christ to ‘make disciples’ should supersede the ‘cost’ of difficulty and persecution.
(76) ‘David’s rule of desperation’ I was thinking about the process that king David went thru as he learned to trust and depend on God. David’s story is one of passion for Gods heart, as well as personal failure and the result of his sin on his family and future. In Psalms you find passion and a lifestyle of ‘desperation’ for God. Many of the Psalms deal with David’s repentance after his failure with Bathsheba and the resulting effect of this opening up the door to David’s enemies. Many of the Psalms speak about David crying out to God in the midst of his enemies. David learned what it meant to ‘rule in the midst of your enemies’. These ‘enemies’ would have never been as oppressive if David never fell. Yet it was the oppression of these enemies that caused David to write such beautiful poetry. Psalms actually contains more Messianic prophecies then any other Old Testament book [except maybe for Isaiah?]. The rule of David was one of learning to rule out of trust and desperate reliance upon God. David’s son Solomon ruled out of tremendous wisdom. But David was called a King after Gods own heart, not Solomon! We learn from David the difficulty of carrying out Gods purpose despite our own failings and shortcomings. David was punished for his foolishness, but this didn’t let him off the hook from continuing to serve as King! He had to serve with the thorn of shame and open mockery from his enemies because of his sin. No wisdom could have brought him thru this low point in his life, but only a ‘desperate dependence’ on God!
(77) I want to clarify what I see as the ‘biblical parameters’ of ministry. When I speak on the ability that God has given to all of us to spread the Kingdom, as opposed to ‘starting a church/ministry’ what I am trying to express is Gods heart for all of his kids to have direct contact with his purposes in the earth, without setting up ‘go betweens’ that hinder the people of God from functioning. John Wesley, the great founder of the Methodist church, was receiving criticism from the organized church at one time. They questioned his authority to ‘break out’ of the parameters of the Anglican Church in some of the ways he was doing the will of God. John got to a point where he said ‘the world is my field’. He broke out of the limitations of ‘where can I function, and to whom should I speak’ he saw the gospel as the authority to go into all the world. In today’s ministry mindset we often limit ourselves by ‘seeing’ our function as it relates to ‘the Christian ministry that I run’. We might not say it this way, but in many cases this is what we do. I would encourage you to see the ‘world as the field’ and you as a laborer sent from God to ‘harvest the field’!
(78) I watched a show last night on ‘Christian’ TV. It was a good show. The speaker actually shared some things on grace that reminded me to speak on in the future. I believe that grace and our approaching God on the grounds of our acceptance with him, as opposed to our works for him, are foundational in our life with God. I know I have been critical of the whole ‘Christian TV’ scene, and I don’t want to give the impression that none of it is good. Some is. The problem I see with the modern way we do and express ‘ministry’ can be seen thru this medium. The person who spoke was being interviewed. He shared about the meetings that he was presently holding. They sang some songs from Barry Manilow [good songs, ‘I cant live without you’ sang towards God]. This very gifted teacher and singer obviously has a gift to build the church. It also reminded me of tuning in to another brother from New Jersey and seeing him ‘perform’ on the TV. We get lost today in the way we express ministry. Gifted people are placed by God in the church for the purpose of building the saints so they can be released into ministry. Today we see our gifts as the main thing. ‘Ministry’ is focused around the showcasing of our gifts. The average believer sees the fulfilling of his role as ‘going to church’ ‘paying the tithe’ and living vicariously thru the success and giftedness of his Pastor. The main thing in many scenarios is ‘us’ [the gifted leadership]. I believe there needs to be an overall shift in the basic way we do Christianity. It’s not a new doctrine to grasp, or some new conference to go to. It’s going to take some time for us as believers to return back to the simplicity and sincerity of New Testament Christianity. I don’t see myself, or any of us for that matter, as having arrived. But I see hope for us as the people of God to turn towards God once again, and to experience renewal in this season of our lives with him. [Let me note that in these 2 instances there was a sense of performance that I saw. Though I am sure these are good men at heart, we are all victims of the times we live in. The ‘journey’ towards fame and the self-promotion of our gifts and images is a part of modern ministry. In the entertainment world you simply seek success by advancing along these lines. When Gods gifted people [singers, speakers, etc.] follow these same lines they unconsciously create around them an environment that tends to promote their image. The local community around them, or the national supporters of their ministries, simply become enablers for the gifts and images of the leader to advance. The money and resources begin being used to promote the image of one person. This fundamentally violates the character of New Testament leadership that Jesus taught].
(79) In keeping with the above train of thought, I just read a verse ‘Your seed and your name shall remain’. I have learned and seen over the years this process play out. We went thru a time of ‘de promotion’ [demotion] where we actively pursued avenues to not exalt or promote our image or persona. I don’t want to sound ‘humble’ or better than others. It was just the process of seeing the scriptural mandate to not ‘self promote’ [I do send packets out and broadcast radio and stuff, but I try to avoid making contacts or sending stuff out for the purpose of ‘getting our name out’]. During this time I would notice every now and then people would recognize or know the name of our ministry or who we were. This was despite the fact that I stopped using the ministry name in many areas [the radio show still uses it, but in other areas I stopped]. I then made a sign ‘Corpus Christi Outreach Ministries’ to use for a home that was being groomed for a rehab facility. Though I didn’t promote the name, in this instance as well as the radio stuff, it simply was necessary for various reasons. Well I still have the sign [the home didn’t work out, yet!] and the name seems to ‘promote’ even though I actively tried to prevent it. I see in this a scriptural theme. Jesus taught these principles and lived them. John the Baptist certainly was not seeking promotion, but he got it! This seems to me the biblical promotion that comes from God and not man. Jesus actively avoided it when men tried to make him king; though today he sits at the right hand of God. There is almost a sense of you needing to really avoid and not want promotion, even though it will pursue those who avoid it. You don’t avoid it so you will be exalted; it just seems to work out that way. Jesus says the last become first. You begin to recognize the futility of mans honor, and this will inevitably bring you to a place where men want to honor you. Well when God says ‘your seed and your name will remain’ this is a type of legacy that’s permitted. You will generationaly affect the nations.
(80) I just went into my house after writing # 79 above. It’s early, around 4:00 am. I wrote a few days ago on unicorns. They represent a type of honor that comes from God, and not man. After writing it I made a mental note to pick up some type of unicorn figurine for my shelf as a reminder. When I walked in to my house to get some coffee, I looked at a shelf in my kitchen. I don’t know why, but it seemed out of order, this shelf is a collection of about 25 pieces of little trinkets and stuff that I found in a house in Kingsville that was being torn down by the city. The Fire Dept. would go to wet it down before the city truck demolished it. I went in and found a complete collection of all these little figurines in the middle of the house on a shelf. They were sitting there like ‘lambs for the slaughter’. I picked up a five-gallon bucket and ‘rescued’ them. I’ve had them for about 5 years. Well as I went to the shelf in my kitchen to fix the figurines [its 4 in the morning, I am writing, praying and have stuff to do!] I realize there are 2 beautiful unicorns from this collection. I didn’t have to buy them at all. They were precious riches that came from a little insignificant South Texas city [can anything good come from Nazareth?] that I pastored in [‘followed the sheep’]. ‘I will take you from following the sheep to the borders of my mountain’. God promotes those who are not too high minded to give their lives for the ‘least of these’. He will exalt you like ‘the horn of a unicorn’ and give you a rule like King David all for his glory!
(81) After saying all this I am going to ‘brag’ a little. The other day I was forced to give an explanation of the amount of stuff I manage to get done as an individual. I was asked to attend a school for the Fire Dept. that would be a 3-day school in another city outside of the local area. I really couldn’t afford the time for this. The captain wanted a letter explaining why I couldn’t attend. I simply described the time it takes to ‘run’ a regional ministry, do radio, work with addicts, ex-cons and homeless people. And to do it without staff, income or a salary! I had to add this because I wanted to show this time was not being used for another job [which can be a conflict in some cases]. I didn’t want to sound like a martyr or a one-man show, but I had to make it understood that it wasn’t for personal gain. I do believe in the principle of delegation and teamwork. I believe we all have tremendous potential to touch the world. The verse ‘you don’t need a lot of extra equipment for this, you are the equipment’ kind of fits in here. Without showboating too much, we can all accomplish things with just ‘God and you’. God told Moses ‘I will go with you’. There’s a sense of ‘going with God’ that enables all of us to do great things with limited resources. Its not that God doesn’t have the resources [the cattle on a thousand hills] it’s that God IS the resource! As you touch peoples lives God will expand your spiritual heritage thru your seed. This is a type of ‘delegation of authority’ that we all can do, birth people into the kingdom with the gospel and you will touch the world!
(82) Being we are talking about this let me stay on track. If you look at the life and finances of the apostle Paul, you will see enough money to simply meet his needs and help ‘transport’ him to the places where he needed to be. There really was no big budget ministry at all. We have a tendency to take the verses where Paul speaks on finances and interject them into modern ministry budgets. While its not really wrong to do this, the result of doing this takes away from the reality that Paul reached the known world of his day with the gospel without starting a multi million-dollar ministry. He simply went when the Lord told him to go, lived a life of suffering and sacrifice and God increased his influence supernaturally. Its humanistic thinking to say ‘the world will never be reached without billions of dollars’. This simply isn’t so. Now it does take money to send the gospel out to be sure. But we put a spin on it in order to fund huge modern Christian businesses! I want you to simply re-think what I just showed you about Paul’s life. God supernaturally expanded his influence by allowing his letters to go further than normal [Canon of scripture], he allowed the people that he communicated the gospel to, to have a regional influence for Christ. All this was done by the life of one man with a few simple people helping him in the journey. Simply no million-dollar budget to do this! The verses that speak about funding for projects [the Temple] and collecting large amounts of money [to distribute to meet the needs of the poor] are true scriptures. We simply make a mistake when we use these verses to teach that ‘you can’t touch the world on your own, but by chipping in with many other thousands you can only have an effect’. While the principle of joining forces and having exponential increase when there are big numbers is true. Yet we cant miss the point that we can all touch the world. The fact is God can use little old you, if your willing to count the ‘cost’ of a life of prayer, fasting, self sacrifice, risk taking and living for eternal rewards as opposed to material things! This is ‘the cost’ to touch the world, not a bunch of money!
(83) Had a dream a few days ago. In the area where I live in Corpus Christi [Flour Bluff] there are many generations of homeless people that have come thru this area. In the dream I saw ‘ancient houses’ imbedded in the trees and woods. It was like going thru the forest and seeing an old shack that was there so long it would seem camouflaged. There were many structures like this all thru out the woods, but they were easy to overlook and ignore. If you weren’t attentive you would see nothing at all! There was a bride walking on the 2nd story of one of these houses and she fell thru the floor all the way thru the foundation into a seemingly endless pit. I feel the houses represent the generations of hopeless people and families that the enemy has tried to ‘swallow’ over the years. All people are precious to God, some of these are actually believers, which makes them Christ’s bride. How would you feel if your bride was daily living in such bad conditions and she felt like she were in a hopeless situation from which there were no escape?
(84) I felt the Lord saying ‘this is the year where many prophets need to begin to harmonize their gifts with scripture’. There will need to be a humility to accept this fact. This is not to say that the prophetic is false. But I felt the Lord saying many prophecies and words that were not in line with scripture need to be abandoned. There is a prophetic pride that refuses to receive doctrinal correction under the guise of ‘the word of the Lord cant be wrong’. While this is true, we need to be humble enough to receive the fact that prophets sometimes miss the mark and make mistakes. The prophetic will be judged on its ability to receive these course changes and return to a more balanced biblical perspective [this word is spoken in 1-21-07, but receive it as the Lord directs].
(85) One of the subjects I deal with that seems to hit a sore spot is the area of giving. I want to use the tithe as an example of how we should read and interpret scripture. A careful reading of the New Testament shows the tithe mentioned in both the Gospels and the book of Hebrews. The main reason is these books obviously have a heavy Jewish context to whom they are being addressed. This is not to say that gentile believers cant find practical teaching in them. As you read the letters written to Gentile believers [primarily Paul’s] you find specific teaching on how Gentiles are to approach giving. In every case its simple giving without the tithe [I stress every case!]. Paul’s letters actually contain entire sections where the whole theme is that believers are not subject to law or Jewish ordinances [I know there are other debates, but I think I have dealt with those well enough in all our books]. This simple careful study and look at this subject should lead any serious bible student to understand that Gentile Christians are not under the tithe. No big fight, just simple freedom in grace. You’re free to give 10-15 or 20 % of your income, but your not mandated by law! This simple example can be used on any bible subject. You read the epistles in context; you come to a conclusion based on the overall evidence. And you fall on the side of grace versus law every time. I am not condemning those who put themselves under law, you can if you want to. Nor do I advocate being a cheapskate! I just think we should have a mature understanding in all areas of Christian life, and walk in grace in every area, even the area of giving.
(86) Let me say something good about Christian TV. Last night I tuned in to a live service out of Toronto from John Arnotts fellowship. This was one of the significant churches that the Lord used in the renewal movement of the 90s. In the past I have read and studied [and attended!] different things on the movement. For the most part I came down on the side of ‘the Lord was in it’ though there were legitimate concerns from the critics. The main point I wanted to stress is in watching the meeting on TV, I really sensed and entered in to the Lords presence. Some TV ministries simply broadcast the personas of people. In this atmosphere God was being ‘promoted’. It was good. Also one of the speakers reminded me to share something. There are stages in our lives where God brings us past certain milestones. These are specific times and events that set the course for the rest of our lives. These milestones are important to understand. While Paul the apostle said he ‘forgot the things that were behind’, he also recognized the importance of ‘entering into your labors’ [to be specific ‘other peoples labors’]. The dynamic of having accomplished certain things and simply resting in the harvest. This is not to say we don’t continue to press forward, its just a realization that you have passed certain markers on the journey, and in these areas your primary responsibility is to simply give oversight. There are definite seasons of transition in our lives where God simply says ‘I am removing your active involvement in this project/area, you are going to continue to reap rewards for having faithfully completed this part of the mission, but now I am going to change you parameter once again’. I sense this not in a bad way, but in a progression with God. Even the great patriarchs in the bible had specific times of ‘great faith’ and then long seasons of waiting in/on God. Abraham had some great milestones of faith, but there were also times where he simply had to stay in the land and inherit the promise. Well you might be at the ‘moving ahead’ stage, or at the ‘waiting in the land’ stage [by the way these are not mutually exclusive!] but wherever you’re at I encourage you to trust God to complete the things he’s done thru you, and allow the milestones in your life to produce the desired result. You can’t go back and ‘make it happen’ trust God to use your spiritual children to finish the task in these areas. ‘Thru your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Those that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places and make the desolate cities to be inhabited’ [Bible verse].
(87) I just made contact with one of my old friends. This person responded to one of the emails I sent out to old classmates. This person is an atheist, but was very polite in their response. I obviously returned the favor. I also told the person I am glad they contacted me, and I would love to keep in touch, atheist or not! Recently Stephen Hawking [One of the foremost scientists of our day, also an atheist] has been attending a Christian church. When questioned about it, he said something to the effect of ‘I guess I’m looking for something more’. There have been very famous intellectuals over the centuries who have come to embrace the Christian worldview [or Deism] to some degree after many years of searching. The simple fact is, for the scientist who is an atheist; there are too many holes and unanswered questions as time rolls on. Today we know that DNA teaches us that human blood has 30 or more ‘ingredients’ that all must be present and working AT ONE TIME in order for blood to function properly. These are referred to as ‘complex machines or mechanisms’ that must have a coordinated order of function at the initial stage; we didn’t discover these things until we became proficient in DNA [This last decade or so]. These truths of science absolutely debunk the mindset of evolution, which teaches all life started from simple forms and slowly evolved over millions of years. These both cant be true. Blood couldn’t have slowly evolved; it had to have had these ‘machines’ in place and operative at the incipient [beginning] stage. Well the more intellectuals see these developments this challenges there worldview. Though the ‘average’ public school student is never taught these facts, those in the know see the inconsistencies in there thinking. This is simply one of the many problems facing the atheistic scientist today. Believe me, there are many more! I believe the church has a responsibility to answer the atheist’s questions with more than just ‘the bible says so’. They deserve an intellectual answer to their honest questions. I personally believe ‘the bible says so’ philosophy, but that argument doesn’t work with someone who doesn’t believe the bible!
(88) For the sake of my ‘atheist friend’ and any other skeptic that might read this in the future, let me talk a little more in the area of apologetics and defending the faith. One of the most ‘miss informed’ proofs for evolution is actually a ‘proof’ that it’s not true! This is known as ‘fossil evidence’. Basically when Darwin popularized the theory of evolution in the 1800’s there were many questions that would still need to be answered [and would be answered] as science progressed. One of these is the ‘fossil evidence’. Fossils show that ‘things’ [life forms] came into existence at specific periods of time, as opposed to a slow process of evolution over millions of years. We have fossils of all types of living things in COMPLETE FORM [humans, dinosaurs, birds, horses, and on and on]. In all of these cases we not only don’t see a ‘missing link’, but you would need to have whole families of ‘missing links’ between all of these ‘life forms’. The fossil evidence simply shows us that things didn’t slowly evolve, but ‘showed up’ at once [or at least in complete forms]. You would think that scientists would see this, wouldn’t you? Well they have. Some explain it by embracing the Christian worldview, and say ‘God created all things’. Deists [people who believe in God, but don’t claim to be Christian] also embrace the view that God created life. What I want you to see here is these honest scientists have followed scientific facts that led them to these conclusions. The ‘fossil’ evidence falls on the side of ‘things showing up at once’ [complete forms] versus things slowly evolving. You might say that I am biased because I am a Christian; well I must admit I am. But even the atheistic scientist sees the inconsistency in the stuff I just showed you. The scientist who still doesn’t embrace faith, knows there needs to be some type of explanation for what I just told you. Well they have one! They came up with a theory called ‘punctuated equilibria’ [wow!] this theory recognizes the lack of evidence for things slowly evolving over millions of years. This theory basically says ‘evolution happens so fast [as opposed to so slow!] that the ‘fossils’ just didn’t catch it’. What! These guys call themselves intellectuals? This argument is basically a capitulation to the biblical worldview. The evidence doesn’t show things ‘changing’ from one form to another. If the ‘punctuated theory’ brothers want to embrace this silly theory, then they must do so by faith, because the very theory admits the evidence isn’t there! [They admit the fossils missed it!]. Well I don’t want to make enemies out of my friends [or friend] who are atheists, I just want to be able to engage in thoughtful dialogue while giving a defense of the faith.
(89) I just had a dream around 30 minutes ago. It’s 2:30 am right now. It was one of those dreams that after you have, you know it’s ‘more than a dream’. I was sitting on some balcony in a lower class neighborhood. It was Martin Luther King Jr. day. There was a march going on down the street, and we were all waiting for the people to go by [and the band played on!]. As the parade approached I was sitting there with anticipation. I had some sort of a branch on my lap. I didn’t realize that people started standing in respect. It was just an innocent oversight. There were 2 preachers [who I know] that were passing by. One white, the other black. The white brother looked up at me and said something to the effect of ‘you’re to good to stand’ sort of like in a self righteous way. ‘Hey, look at me, I am concerned about black people, cant you see’! The black preacher saw that I didn’t stand right away, but that it was a simple mistake. He actually defended me by saying ‘It’s all right, he doesn’t have to stand, we are in a lower class area, and its OK’. He didn’t come off as condescending; he just meant it’s a ‘real people’ area. Well I of course stood in respect as soon as I realized my fault. As I stood the branch on my lap fell to the ground. I then saw Martin Luther King. He was part of the procession. He looked at me intently and quoted some words from Jesus. I can’t recall the exact words. Then Martin Luther said ‘satan is going to try to change your image one way or another, don’t concern yourself about your own reputation’. The feeling I got from the words from this was the realization of extreme persecution and criticism that will come as a price to pay for all revolutionaries. The ‘falling of the branch’ could represent this process. Scripture calls Jesus and other key prophetic figures branches or trees. ‘The man whose name is the branch’ Jesus and other prophetic people were ‘cut off’ in their prime. [Martin Luther, John the Baptist, etc.] This ‘casting to the ground’ was an inevitable price to be paid for the revolution. Martin Luther King day just passed. I remember hearing how Martin Luther was a communist. He was looked at in a bad way in some of the fundamental Baptist circles that I used to associate with. I held a wrong view of him until I read and heard him speak over the years. Many of his faults [he did have them!] seemed to be a result of the tremendous prophetic mantle that he carried. He truly ‘came to the Kingdom for such a time as this’. I make it a point every year on Martin Luther King Day, to catch a glimpse or broadcast of a part of his great ‘I have a dream’ speech. God took Martin and allowed satan to defame his name, chose him for present day martyrdom, and gave him an indelible voice to society today. Truly Martin is a man who ‘though dead, yet speaketh’ [Hebrews]. I am adding this a few weeks later: I just realized that I have been quoting a verse in prayer for the last few weeks. Its in Psalms ‘Visit this vine, this vineyard and this branch’. Every now and than while reading I just see a verse and naturally incorporate it into intercession. I didn’t realize I was praying for ‘this branch’ and had this dream about a branch during the same few weeks.
(90) I was just outside praying, it’s early and cold. It’s January, and it’s the first clear morning in a few weeks! As this year started I was praying for the Lord to ‘pour buckets of water [spiritually!] on all the ‘seeds’ [books and contacts] that we have planted, and to cause a harvest of people to come in.’ I actually got the image of ‘buckets of water, and the seed coming forth’ from the prophecy of Balaam contained in scripture [I think somewhere in Exodus?] I remember reading it when he prophesied about Israel. The other images of Gods word being like ‘the snow and rain that come down from heaven and water the earth’ are in keeping with this. Well any way it has rained too much in these first few weeks of the New Year! Pools [floods] all over the place! But finally this morning I have a clear sky and can see the stars again. The fact that I haven’t seen them clearly in a few weeks affected my ‘vision’. God seems to ‘grow you’ [enlarge] into the size of the vision he has called you to. Without a vision the people perish! When you dwell in the parameter that God has called you to, it enlarges your ‘fore sight’. You can see further down the road than just the immediate circumstances that surround you. The fact that I haven’t been able to clearly see ‘the heavens’ in a few weeks [overcast sky’s] has limited my perspective. But today I can see far. I would encourage you to look beyond your immediate limitations and shortcomings and ‘see’ into the larger ‘place’ that God has called you to!
(91) Just outside praying and had a football in my hands while praying. The prophetic image I sense while holding the ball is for God to deposit divine wisdom and strategy to rightly place the ball into the hands of gifted and talented receivers. Of course I am speaking of the books and contacts and stuff I send out to different regions. The precious treasure is the gospel stuff we distribute, not some pigskin. Well any way this year I began thinking in ‘quarters’ more [3 month periods of time]. I used to drop tapes off at the radio station every month. Now every 3 months. As I was praying for this first ‘quarter’ it didn’t even dawn on me that I am walking around with a football! I can be pretty dense at times! Well I believe the Lord wants us to think in ‘quarters’ or strategically. The quarterback sees the game in 4 sets of time. The other players play one down at a time. Leadership needs divine wisdom to strategically deposit the ball to the talented guy, who also happens to be ‘hot’ at the time. God doesn’t expect you to scramble [all the time] he wants you to pass it off to the right people. Work smarter, not harder.
(92) Let me go back to our intellectual readers. I talked about Stephen Hawking the other day. Stephen is one of the most famous physicists of the last 20 years. Many other physicists do not see him as the foremost authority. They seem to view him as being responsible to have popularized their field of study, but they do not see him as one of the key movers and shakers of their field. One of the reasons for this is Stephens’s idea on black holes. Well this might be hard, but let me try to explain. Black holes are ‘spaces’ or ‘voids’ in space that are created when a star dies. These holes are thought to suck up anything that comes within its range. If you get too close it will take you in. The line that that you cross, from which there is no return, is called ‘the event horizon’, if you remember this was a title from a movie a few years back. Well there is a question [in the scientific world] over what happens to the things that get sucked into the hole. Stephen said they disappear [or cease to exist is a better way to say it]. This was contrary to the law of Physics that said ‘information’ cannot disappear. It is theorized that the information in the universe cannot ever disappear completely. Most assumed that even though this information was being ‘sucked’ into this whole, it would still exist and possibly resurface at some other time [or in some other place]. Well after spending 30 years defending his belief that information ceased to exist after being swallowed by a black hole, he suddenly changed his theory! Most scientists never agreed to Hawking's first theory anyway. So he comes out at some big conference of Physicists and announces a major new breakthrough. He states a new theory that admits he was wrong for the past 30 years [scientists can be wrong, I mean really wrong!] He admits that information’in a black hole cannot truly disappear [cease to exist], but that it simply goes to another ‘parallel universe’ and exists there. What! This sounds like something from the ‘Bizzaro world’ from a Seinfeld episode! Stephen Hawking sounds more like Stephen King in this scenario. Hawking said that there are many different parallel universes, some have ‘black holes’ and others don’t. All the information lost in the universes with the holes, is later retained in the universes without the holes. When you get to this ‘level’ of theory, you are not really doing true science [in my mind]. This is a type of psuedo science that is more like a scientific philosopher. Most other physicists think this is silly! The average person seeing stuff like this on the science channel simply accepts it as truth, not realizing that the majority of true scientists think its wrong. This is the problem in modern education. The public schools [which all my kids attend] never get around to correcting some of the errors that the kids were taught at a younger age. So the average person goes thru out the rest of his life embracing theories that are not only silly, but at times dead wrong! NOTE: Let me give another example. For years the science books had a moth that they found with spots on it. They found hundreds of these moths with these spots. The books had pictures and actually taught that these spots were proof for evolution. Years later they realized that the spots actually were coming from the pollution that the factories were putting out in the area. You could still find some of the science books with the fake story in them many years later! Kids think they are being taught truth, when they are not!
(93) One of the things I forgot to mention about Hawking is he spent 30 years ‘looking into’ a black hole [these are not my words, this is how others have characterized him]. I find this interesting. I believe there are times, wilderness experiences if you will, that feel like you’re spending a lifetime looking into a black hole! God uses our ‘death’ experiences for his glory. President Lincoln aged 30 yrs [it looked like it] during the years of the civil war. If you look at the pictures of Lincoln at the beginning of his presidency, and then near the end, the contrast is dramatic. The weight of the responsibility caused him to look severely ‘sunken’ and aged. I believe there is a level of brutal honesty with God and man that can only be achieved thru these means. Many of the great biblical characters [Moses, Elijah, Jonah] actually prayed to die. There just seems to be a level of authority that comes thru severe testing. You can’t seem to achieve it any other way. You also cant seem to avoid it, once you start going down that road you simply allow God to bring forth out of you the thing of value. The garden of Gethsemane was a place where you oppressed [I meant to write pressed and the spell check spelt oppressed!] olives. The process of tremendous pressure produced something of value. I just felt like today’s word was this, take it for what its worth. [Next day]. What I wanted to express is the concept of ‘bearing the Cross’ God uses things in our lives that ‘tare’ us. This process ‘opens us up’ [remember the earlier imagery of God smiting the rock and water coming out!] and allows deep truths to come forth. The day Jesus was crucified; scripture says ‘the veil of the temple was rent’. This veil was a covering over a room in the temple [the holy of holies] the rending [tearing] of this cloth represented us having full access into Gods presence thru the Cross. Most of us know this. But Jesus Body is called ‘the veil’ in the book of Hebrews [New Testament]. The ‘rending of the veil’ on the day of the crucifixion was a type of what was presently happening on the Cross that day. The ‘tearing’ [piercing] of Christ allowed there to be a ‘flow’ of Grace and wisdom that were unavailable until that day. The ‘door’ of heaven was opened [Jesus is called the door, his Body was ‘opened’ on the Cross] and this ‘bearing the Cross’ brought forth precious fruit that no other singular event would ever match!
(94) Update; earlier in this paper I shared the story of the ‘tough guy’ I beat up at the carnival. One of my old buddies who got this paper just informed me that he’s in a New Jersey prison for 8-10 years on multiple accounts of robbery, kidnapping and assault. I just sent the prison a request for a mailing address to contact him. Hope to hear from him soon. Pray for this guy, his name is Jimmy [chee chee]. Thanks!
(95) Let me update you guys. I started this paper [Prophecies, dreams, visions] 2 months ago. Its 2-1-07 right now. I didn’t think [or want to!] write this much this soon. I have already made some real good contacts with some old friends. The beginning of this year I sensed an urgency to get on with the task of ‘reaching’ my generation [the friends I grew up with]. I have been praying for you guys for 25 years, on a weekly basis! This year I felt like the Lord said its time. Don’t get me wrong, I have tried to witness to, or simply contact old buddies over the years. Its just I felt like the Lord said don’t wait any longer. Do whatever has to be done at this stage. I have noticed over the years that some of the people I worked with [ex-cons] and their families and friends, would seem to ‘reap’ in an intense way in there 40’s. The most extreme case was a guy from the original group of addicts I worked with in Kingsville. I personally did not know him, but a lot of my friends did. On a coke high he raped and murdered a college girl in our town. This was big news for many years. I remember praying for him as the week of the execution neared [we kill them quick in Texas!]. I simply prayed for him to have the courage to go thru it with grace, and an apology to the family of his victim. I read his statement and it contained these elements, but also a long statement on God and Christ and admitting to all his sins. It was one of the ‘best’ statements from a death row inmate that I have ever read. He was in his 40’s when he was executed. I am 44 as I write this. I pray for my generation, this is a season of reaping for many of us. God bless all of you, and thanks to those of you who have been in touch with me these last few months. I know some of our writings are a little heavy and I realize I take a chance at offending some. But this is a risk that I needed to take! [You might be thinking ‘there not so heavy’ wait till you get to the 300’s].
(96) There are 2 types of movements/ministries that are taking place today. One type is the classical idea of ministry. You are part of a Christian group that does Christian projects and you’re primary involvement is financing these projects. These groups often need thousands [or millions!] of dollars to get the job done. There are other groups of believers that simply function along the lines of volunteerism. Sort of like A.A. meetings. These groups seek to advance the kingdom thru evangelism [that is them doing it!] they often meet from house to house; some are ‘virtual communities’ who meet on line. They expand rapidly thru out whole nations with little or no money. You say how can this be. Well this is the power of the Gospel. Believers sharing their faith, reaching out to the hurting, giving to those in need. All doing this as individual [and corporate] members of Christ’s body. No ‘big ministry’ at all. Simply Christ’s Body functioning and acting like the disciples. They didn’t start their own ministries/movements. They were the movement! [That is the dynamic of Christ’s Spirit working in them]. Faithfulness in the first group is measured primarily by attending Church on Sunday and paying the tithe, faithfulness in the second group is measured by living in community relationships with each other and personally doing evangelism. Without being too critical, I find it interesting that in the judgment scenarios that Jesus gives in the Gospels, you NEVER find him judging people on whether they were faithful to ‘church’ or tithed. You ALWAYS find judgment based on how we treated fellow human beings [relational!]. ‘When I was hungry you fed me, etc.’
(97) I just saw a commercial for the upcoming super bowl. A company contracted with the fans to come up with there own commercials. The fans did it themselves without any help. The commercial I saw was good. It’s one of the few that will run Sunday. It cost a total of $13.00 dollars [this is no type o, thirteen dollars!]. It looked as good as the ones that cost in the millions! The fan said he filmed it with his wife. No other stuff needed. Their camcorder, their car and a few bags of Doritos and a friend to record it for free. This reminds me of that favorite verse you always see me quoting ‘Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this, you are the equipment, no special appeals for funds [13 dollars!] keep it simple’ When you see yourself and all that you have as dedicated to the expanding of the Kingdom, then God will use you. You’re impact can be just as real as a million dollar budget. If a fan from a football team can do it, how much more you!
(98) I wanted to mention something. After first becoming a believer, I realized that I couldn’t afford to attend college. I was 19 yrs old, had my first daughter in my early 20’s, and by my 30’s I had 4 girls! But what I did do is borrow and read tons of books from the public library. I would purchase college level books for half price at ‘half price books’. I basically utilized what was available to gain an education, without paying some professor $100,000 dollars to tell me to read a book! Now I am not demeaning those who have, I just want you to see that you can accomplish things if you want to. [Added later; I want to make a note here, I have bought books from ‘the Christian bookstore’ and from ‘regular bookstores’. The Christian bookstores have a tendency to promote pop Christian culture some of it is good, some not. The theology sections of good bookstores contain better stuff for a Christian education. You would benefit to read the classics and other fields of study that you would get if attending some divinity school from Harvard [or Notre Dame for my Catholic friends!] then to just read the pop psychology stuff being promoted today.
(99) I fell asleep last night around 7-7:30. I am on a 24 hour shift right now [firehouse] and got up around 12:30 or so. I try not to get up before 2:00 am, but we had a few runs and I knew I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. So I just started reviewing some of our writings, going over some stuff. I forgot to tell you guys about a dream I had a while back, I just saw it in my mission statement/journal of prophecies and dreams. In the dream I saw my Italian grandmother who passed away many years ago. She was a great cook and a great person. I called her ‘Nauna’. She was in heaven and simply said ‘your famous up here on TV’ I found this strange being I have no desire to ever be on TV. I also seek to avoid the ‘famous’ mentality that exists in the church today. But what I got out of this was the teaching from Jesus on the last being first, and the least being the greatest. I believe we will be surprised at who is famous and who is not in Gods eyes. I honestly do not see myself as ‘famous’ or a big shot. But I do recognize that God wants to give us favor with God and man for his glory.
(100) Its time to tell a few more stories. Because of some recent contacts with some old friends I am remembering some things. First let me say a few years ago I felt the Lord saying ‘your testimony will be important to old friends and new ones’. I didn’t fully understand why, but I sensed an urgency to contact old friends thru ministry avenues. Well I actually have had some friends tell me ‘John, I am not interested in your Christian books and stuff, but I would like to hear what happened to you down in Texas’ and after giving them some materials they wind up reading the Christian stuff! So anyway I realize that it serves a purpose. Thru one of my old buddies I found out about the friend who is in the N.J. prison. These are both old friends. The one who gave me the Cross on the ‘mesq.’ trip I told you about earlier is one of them. The friend in jail is the guy I beat up at the carnival years ago. Well already the friend in prison is receiving a bunch of stuff from me, I just mailed out a package of stuff to the prison and hope to keep in touch. This is the first person I have had an open door with in a Jersey prison. Sometimes friends in prison are an ‘open door’ to get materials into the hands of other prisoners [books and stuff!]. Well the story I am remembering is when I first got kicked out of the Navy I went back to Jersey for a few months. I hooked up with my buddy who gave me the Cross, and my other good friend who eventually came back to Texas with me and later died of aids. Well he got kicked out of the Army and was already back in Jersey when I showed up. One day we took a drive out to the more rural areas of New Jersey [sort of like where Tony Soprano would live!]. Found some country road and just were partying and drinking and getting high. We saw some nice car parked on the side of this mountain road and decided to ‘push it’ off the mountain with the car we were in. So as we pushing it over the cliff [it was empty!] someone came down from the back area of this mountain road and began smashing the windshield with a bat. Obviously they weren’t happy about our choice of recreation! Well I opened the passenger side window and smashed a beer bottle over the hood to try and get it to break into the guys face. We all got out and realized there were 2 of them. One guy was pretty big. But there were three of us and we managed to scare them pretty bad. I pretended I had a gun in the car [either me or my friend?] and we were saying ‘get the gun, get the gun’ and the guys got scared. We totally destroyed their vehicle. It was just sitting there hanging of the side of this mountain road. We took off and about a mile down the road passed up a trooper vehicle and realized he would be on the scene in about a minute. So we drove over a hundred miles an hour for a long time to get off that mountain. We never got caught. I realize that in a lot of these cases if we were caught we would have been in big trouble! I thank God we never went to jail over this stuff.
(101) Lets get back to some spiritual stuff. Recently both of my older daughters bought homes. One bought a nice ranch with 2.5 acres, and a beautiful modular home. The entire ranch and home was on the market for $120,000 dollars, it was a HUD repo and she got it for $31,000! A real blessing. This is my 19 year old. My other girl got a nice 2 bedroom in Corpus for around $45,000. This is my 21 year old [by the way my other 2 girls are 15 and 16]. Well I really didn’t want them to be buying homes at the same time. I want to help them with everything, but sometimes there’s just too much to do! Its funny, I really wasn’t involved too much in this whole process. One of the homes I didn’t even see until my daughter closed on it. Scripture says ‘first the natural, than the spiritual’. I felt like the Lord was telling me ‘your spiritual seed will grow and posses the land, and you will rest and enjoy the harvest’. I have a tendency to be an ‘over achiever’ [at least I try!]. I know sometimes I push it too much to the limit, and I have to learn to allow our ‘children’ to grow and mature in Gods time. My older girls have good jobs [one is a veterinarians assistant, the other manages the municipal pools for the City] they both attend college [A and M university in C.C.] and are settling in to their new homes. The natural expansion of my kids lives and ‘parameters’ I feel are symbolic of many of you reading this stuff. God wants to use you and expand his ‘influence’ thru you, and I need to learn to sit back and ‘watch’ it happen. I truly believe God wants to use many of you to advance his Kingdom in the earth. No big ministry to join, just learning and growing in Gods time and allowing him to use you in some way to influence your circle of friends as well!
(102) I am watching an HBO special right now. It’s called ‘the friends of God’ its not a real critical look at Christians, but it does portray them as a little goofy/silly. One of the defenses the Christians are giving for their belief in creation versus evolution is ‘I believe the bible’. The person making this documentary [Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, the first woman speaker of the house] obviously isn’t going to interview the multitudes of scientists who also don’t believe in evolution! But some of the Christians do look silly, to be honest. Some of the arguments Christians use to defend the faith are shallow. Do you believe the bible? Do you believe it is scientifically accurate [I do], well when the bible says the ‘sun rises’ do you believe it actually ‘rises’? Not really! Most of you accept the fact that the earth revolves around the sun and rotates at the same time. Scientifically the ‘sun doesn’t rise’. The language used in scripture to describe ‘the sun rising’ isn’t lying, but it is simply using the natural flow of language that people communicate with. There are things like this that believers need to become more familiar with in our defense of the faith, or else we look like people who still believe the earth is flat! NOTE: I personally don’t like the ‘persona’ that is being put forward from some of the more strident evangelical preachers. Though I would agree with them doctrinally on many subjects, it’s just the overall ‘us versus them’ mentality that turns me off.
(103) Just here at work. Got up a few hours ago [around 2:30 am] and was praying. Walking outside I found a football that someone left a few weeks back just lying around. I stuck it in the alley where I pray while at work. I was walking around with the football and was just thinking about the concept of ‘scoring’. The quarterback gets no credit for just getting the ball into the end zone. It has to be ‘delivered’ by a person! Either he hands the ball off to a running back [one on one outreach] or he passes it [radio and other forms of ‘sending’]. Sometimes he runs it in himself! [You Pastors and leaders, don’t neglect personal evangelism. You need to win people to the Lord too!]. God gives us ‘things of value’ gifts and skills [football]. These treasures we posses only count when we successfully ‘hand them off’ to the rest of the team! Don’t hog the ball! [Note- it’s the Monday right after the super bowl, I don’t even know who won yet, the colts or bears?]
(104) Let me fill in some holes on my timeline. After the story of me going U.A from the base in Kingsville, I eventually wound up back on the base in a restriction barracks. This was a place where you were under 24 hour watch, and could leave your room only for meals. Well I found a way to get out at night through a back entrance. Got some civilian clothes and even managed to get some drugs and liquor into our area. One of the drugs was from a friend who was the pharmacist at the dispensary [I was a hospital corpsman/ Medic]. He would give us fake prescriptions and we would get them filled. The stuff he got me was a type of speed [I think it was ephedrine?] One night I took way too much, around 10 to 20 pills. I was up for a few days. For years later one of the after effects was my toes were completely numb. This lasted for a few years and eventually it went away. You can only abuse your system so much before you get lingering effects. One of the nights I snuck out, I went to a local club in town to party. We had no ride back to the base so I asked some navy girls for a ride. They innocently took me back to the base not realizing that they would have gotten into trouble if they got caught transporting someone who was on restriction. Well the next day one of the girls told her friend we were partying the night before. Her friend said ‘no way’ he’s on restriction in the barracks. Well the girl who gave me the ride back to the base eventually became my wife. This was a few weeks from my discharge from the navy. I would find myself back in Jersey for a few months. I remember getting stoned one night and thinking ‘I gotta get the hell out of this town!’ this brought me back to Texas with my buddy who eventually died of aids. Well I just thought I would fill in this part of the timeline for some of my old friends who are now reading this blog. [Note: I have used the imagery of ‘ports’ and stuff in my writings, I have referred to ‘new windows and opportunities’ as ‘ports of call’ the name of the club where I met my wife was called ‘port o call’ it’s still there!]
(105) Let me say a few things. Thank you to all the friends from Jersey who have contacted me. Feel free to ask me any questions or stuff about religion, Christianity or anything! If I don’t know the answer I’ll make one up! [Just kidding]. I am a little hesitant sharing certain ‘prophetic’ type stuff with you guys, many of you don’t even know what ‘prophetic’ means. But let me throw one in anyway. One of the images I had in mind when beginning to contact friends from Jersey was the image of ‘fishing the Hudson’. The New Testament speaks of ‘fishing for men’ meaning winning people to Christ. Making believers out of unbelievers. So the beginning of this year ‘fishing the Hudson’ was an image that came to mind when reaching out to old friends from that area. It dawned on me that the first person from New Jersey that I led to the Lord I actually ‘fished’ out of a Jersey river physically, before I ‘fished’ him spiritually. My old buddy Miguel [who died of aids] and I were racing dirt bikes down off of ‘west side road’ off of Tonnele ave. We were riding some old trails along the river [think it was the Hackensack river] as we were racing around a bend, I was in front and as soon as I turned the corner I came up on a hairpin turn that went off a little bridge that would put you right into the river. Well I couldn’t wait to see my buddy hit the water! Instead of warning him, I just stopped and waited for him to make the turn. Well he did! He flew right off the bridge [about 10 feet or so] and totally submerged body and bike completely under water. I probably should have been worried, but I just thought it looked cool. As he came up for air I said ‘look out for the alligators’ and he freaked out [I know that was bad!] Well I ‘fished’ him out of the water and we pulled his bike out [it was an Indian 100 cc motorcycle]. I pulled it back to his house with a rope and we parked it there. A few weeks later we pulled the plugs, sprayed it with WD 40 and believe it or not it started! Well he later was the first person from Jersey that I led to the Lord; I guess the Lord knew he didn’t have much time left.
(106) Let me talk to the Pastors and leaders who read this blog. There are many changes and things the Lord is doing across the Body of Christ in a dynamic way. Theologians refer to some of these movements as the ‘emerging church’. There are many other names and descriptions as well. I would just like to state the plain fact that God is challenging our mindsets in many areas of Church life. I find many Pastors and leaders who are afraid to even think about the possibility that the present role of ‘Pastor’ is really an unbiblical expression of New Testament leadership. Not saying these guys are bad or evil, just the fact that God has challenged the concept of the Pastor as the Sunday lecturer who is ‘over’ the Local Church. These ideas are changing by Gods design. Many leaders who heard me [and others] say this stuff years ago, thought we were nuts. Now it seems to be an ‘open secret’ that people cant avoid dealing with. I just want to encourage you guys to be bold and courageous, if God changes the way you function and brings you more into alignment with the biblical model of leadership, then this is a good thing! Come out of your shells of fear and timidity men! We have all been wrong and needed correction over the years, don’t see your current role as something that needs to be defended at all costs, God is changing things and I encourage you to go with the flow!
(107) When I spoke a few weeks ago on not being able to attend college, I want to clarify my thoughts on higher education. I believe one of the problems with ‘fundamentalism’ [some types of evangelical preachers] is the lack of a well-balanced education. It’s good to get a university level of education if you can. In the last century there was a movement in the Christian church that was called ‘higher criticism’. Many of the scholars that were influenced by the previous stage of the enlightenment [from Europe] taught a type of bible interpretation that denied many [or all] the supernatural stories in the bible, even the resurrection! As a result many American universities were inundated with a type of teaching that ‘old fashioned’ preachers thought was apostasy [some of it was, but not all of it!]. The American ‘fundamentalists’ reacted by simply saying ‘we believe the bible literally’. The problem with some of the literalists, was they lacked a balanced historical understanding of the times and life of the early church. They seemed to have no time to become educated on the historical aspects of Christianity. So ‘literalism’ said ‘if the bible says it’s going to happen, then it is going to happen’. Not realizing [because of a lack of education] that certain things already happened. One example of this is the present preoccupation with the ‘antichrist’ and the prevailing hobby of trying to find out who he is. Is he alive today? A lot of speculation on a person that the first century church believed to be fulfilled in the emperor Nero. Without teaching this whole subject, the early church taught and understood that there would be a person who would be a great persecutor of Christians. He would even kill those who would not ‘worship his image and bow down to him’ those who would not ‘receive his number 666 couldn’t survive’. The Roman Empire of the 1st century allowed for religious expression. There form of Government actually ‘deified’ their Caesars. You could believe in other Gods [Pantheism] as long as you bowed the knee to its emperors. Well obviously Paul and other early writers could see the writing on the wall. Early Christians were not to sware allegiance to any other ‘god’ but Jesus Christ! As the early church progressed, the apostles understood that there would eventually be a ‘Caesar’ that would demand allegiance to himself. Those who wouldn’t ‘bow’ and say ‘Caesar is Lord’ would eventually be killed. Polycarp and other early Christian leaders met their fate this way. Nero was the worst. He blamed catastrophes and other events [arson!] on the Christians, though its believed that he himself was the arsonist! Nero’s name, along with his title of ‘Caesar’ does spell out to the numerical value of ‘666’. It just made sense for the early church to have believed him to have been the antichrist! There are many other debates on this subject, and I do leave room for the possibility for the ‘antichrist’ to be a future person, but I doubt it. Also during the reformation of the 16th century, many of the reformers [Luther and others] saw the ‘antichrist’ as the pope. The book of revelation speaks of Rome and both a political and religious ‘Babylon’ as coming against the saints. It was easy for the reformers to ‘see’ the marriage of the Catholic Church with the governments of men as the culprit [The Holy Roman empire and stuff like that]. But again this view doesn’t seem to take into account that Rome of the 1st century was religious, and that wasn’t speaking about Catholics! So I believe a basic understanding of world history, along with a literal interpretation of the bible go hand in hand. Those who despise education [calling the seminary the ‘cemetery’] seem to lack this balance.
(108) Let me also say that the current popular ‘end times’ teaching that you see and hear in much of American Evangelicalism sprouted thru the fundamentalist reaction to higher criticism. In the 1800’s there were certain Christian groups in England [the Brethren and others] that took hold of ‘Dispensationalism’. The ‘Rapture’ doctrine and other scenarios of bible interpretation sprung up out of these movements. When the American fundamentalists used the Bible Conference as a tool to counteract the higher criticism being taught in the universities, Dispensationalism sort of tagged along. It became common to think ‘defending the historic faith’ meant defending ‘Dispensational theology’. This was a major mistake. The Historic faith did not teach certain elements of dispensationalism [Rapture]. So today you find many American Christians who are all too willing to embrace certain end time scenarios [Tim Lahaye stuff!] thinking there ‘defending the bible’ not realizing that some of the things there defending are not in the bible! [At least not in the way that they see it]. When you fail to read scripture thru an historical paradigm you fall into the danger of trying to fit current geopolitical events into certain Old Testament prophets, and this is dangerous. You would never want to do world politics with a view of Israel and other nations [Russia- Gog and Magog] as a type of ‘newspaper prophecy’ that speaks to every current world scenario. One of the fears of certain believers is the fact that President Bush [current President as of this writing] holds to a view like this. I remember certain end time preachers disclosing the fact that the Bush administration contacted them early on about certain end time things. I am real uncomfortable about this. Many of these end time preachers do not realize that many of these scenarios concerning Israel and other nations have played out time and again over the last few thousand years. To take these Old Testament prophets and think that they are all speaking about current affairs is misguided!
(109) I just had a dream a few hours ago. I dreamt I was in some type of government area. I was giving our books to Senator Trent Lott. As he began reading the books he became influenced to the point where he started advocating some of the positions we hold. This didn’t sit well with his political advisers. They were like ‘Its good that John is a Christian and he gave you these books, but do you have to become a fanatic too!’ When I woke up I wasn’t too sure about this dream. A verse came to my mind ‘he will teach my senators wisdom’ [I believe it’s a Messianic verse, which is an Old Testament verse speaking about Jesus]. You often find the New Testament writers using these verses interchangeably between both Jesus and The Church. God ‘teaches wisdom’ thru his Spirit speaking out of the Body of Christ. The thing I got from this dream was we were having an effect on certain Kingdom people to the point where they are beginning to advocate some of the things we teach. That’s great! I find it interesting to hear somebody teach something after I give them our stuff, and to realize that they are saying things they learned from us. No bragging, just the joy of Knowing I’m not wasting my time! Some of these men are in there 80’s, that’s interesting. It shows me the younger guys [my age!] are not as open and humble as those who have been around a while. Let me stick this in here. The other day I was at work and just emailing some old friends from the classmate’s site. We had a tractor-trailer carrying a bunch of cars catch fire. We were stuck at that scene for a few hours. When we got back I kind of prayed ‘I’m glad I got these few emails off before the run, but I need to get some better results!’ Feeling a little discouraged I guess. Well I got one return email from the 5 or 6 people I emailed that day. It was an old friend I hadn’t seen in 26 years. He responded and said he was a believer and serving the Lord and would like to even visit the ministry. Also I got a phone call from one of our old friends from Bishop [a nearby city] who I hadn’t seen in around 3 or 4 years. He is the younger brother to the friend I told you about earlier who died from swallowing a bag of cocaine. The younger brother looks a lot like his older brother who died. Well he came by the firehouse to see me. He’s a believer and doing good. He even encouraged me by telling me I was his ‘spiritual father’. I simply felt like the Lord encouraged me this day. Also to all the friends from Jersey that want to get in touch, I have no ‘ministry’ to visit. We own no facilities; have no corporation and no staff! I try to teach and model what we teach. I simply have a bunch of friends in different places that we try to relate to as Christian brothers [sisters]. I would love to get a visit, or visit any of you. It’s just I don’t want to give the impression that there’s some big facility or some thing that I run. There’s nothing [except for people!] But I am looking for friends who are interested in doing home/house church type meetings. Any of you Jersey friends who start a bible group or home fellowship as a result of being in contact with us, I would consider as ‘part of the ministry’ in the sense that I believe this is a step that the Lord has for me on this journey. So lets get together as God leads! God bless.
(110) Let me tell a few jokes for levity. A few years ago I took my truck to Wal Mart for an oil change. I ran into a bunch of homeless friends who hang out in the front of the store. I was in the strange situation of having no money on me while wanting to buy a soda from a 25-cent machine. I naively asked my friends for some change [forgetting they are almost always dead broke!]. Sure enough a few of the guys were more than willing to give me their change. No questions asked. Just friends helping friends. But one of the guys got quiet when I asked for the change. His buddies could tell that he had some change but didn’t want to cough it up. They said this to him in no uncertain terms! Well after I got the change I then reached into my pocket to grab my check book [I had the checkbook on me, but no cash] and then proceeded to lie! I pulled out the checkbook and said ‘Now I am going to tell you guys who I really am’. They all looked a little shocked. I think they thought I was a Narc [undercover cop] and I was going to bust them! I told them ‘did you ever hear of the millionaire Percy Ross’ they didn’t! But anyway I told them this is the guy who anonymously gives away millions of dollars to unsuspecting people. I told them ‘I am him!’ I then went on to explain that I move to different parts of the country on a rotating basis [I wish!] and befriend homeless people. I try to teach them love and generosity for a few years [These guys all knew me for a few years by now, and I have taken them all out to eat lots of times]. I then said ‘and after trying to teach them the lesson of generosity, I simply ask them for some change. And whoever gives me the change proves that he learned the lesson and can be trusted with more. I then make him a homeless millionaire’. Well you can see the look of shock on their faces, they went from thinking they were going to get busted, to one of them becoming rich! Well the brother who had the change but wasn’t willing to give it up couldn’t wait to give me his change now. I then acted like I was writing out the check for the million and confessed I made it all up. Well at least they got some exercise by increasing their heartbeats to over 200 for a few minutes!
(111) One day I picked up 2 black brothers who needed a ride. I was talking to them as I was giving them a ride to some mission. I could tell that they wanted to ‘jump’ me. It was weird; they kind of sensed that I felt ‘comfortable’ being in this position. Sort of like ‘its been a while, but will do what we have to do’. It was strange. Well they didn’t jump me, I told them I was from Jersey [I think they were from New York City]. And they questioned me a little on the geography of the area. I think when they realized I was somewhat of a ‘home boy’ they let me off the hook. I really don’t know why I told this one, I was just sitting outside praying and remembered it.
(112) Just got home from doing some food shopping. On the way back I parked by the bay for a little while. Took a break and read the paper while listening to the radio. I heard a preacher defend the idea of ‘the Pastor’ as the person who ‘runs’ the church. I got upset! He went on to speak about the multimillion dollar ‘church’ that their building in San Antonio, he spoke on the biblical principal of leadership, someone having to make a decision. For example: God makes decisions in the Godhead [Trinity] and things of this nature. Then he spoke on the practical reality of one man needing to ‘make the call’ for the ‘church’ on vital financial decisions and the like. I understood his defense, but it is dead wrong! He basically was making the fundamental mistake of viewing ‘the multimillion dollar building and operation’ as ‘the church’. The Church in the New Testament are all the communities of believers in the various cities and regions where they dwell. The simple fact is there was NEVER a ‘Pastor’ who made the decisions for the whole community. This brother from San Antonio simply was defending the need for one person to make the call in a business environment, but he mistakenly called this ‘the church’. The fact is there was never a single New Testament Church [community of people] who were dependant on ‘a person’ to call the shots! Just cause someone’s on the radio doesn’t always mean that they know what there talking about! [Note; for those of you who think I should have approached him personally before correcting him, I already sent this brother all our books a few years ago, he should have known better by now!] The ‘one man’ who would run the Church in the above scenarios given is JESUS CHRIST! [Next day] Well I cooled down a little bit from yesterday [just a little!]. Let me give you some ‘regional’ history. Back in the late 80’s there were ‘apostles/prophets’ who taught strong ‘apostolic authority’ in the San Antonio area. Many of these brothers are still going strong for God, some I am not sure about. These brothers had a strong influence on the above ‘mega church’. The Pastor of the mega church tried to incorporate ‘plural leadership’ in his ‘church’. They had some difficulties. They were missing the whole point of plural leadership [elders] as being ‘guides and facilitators’ of the community as opposed to leaders who ‘run the church’. The basic mistake was they were ‘seeing’ church as the ‘Christian business’ who meets on Sunday. In this limited perspective it is virtually impossible to incorporate ‘plural leadership’. It’s like ‘who preaches this Sunday’? Or ‘who decides on the color of paint for the church’? Silly stuff like that. I refer to these brothers as being ‘building centric’ as opposed to ‘Christ centric’. Well the Pastor of this San Antonio mega church finally abandoned the whole ‘plural leadership’ mindset in order to simply ‘fulfill my vision’. Which was to have a huge building with lots of people coming to hear him speak. Also during the formative period of all these guys struggling with these issues, a ‘former pastor’ who is now one of the key leaders in the ‘house church movement’ visited San Antonio and spoke on the church as the people, as opposed to ‘the building’. He dealt with plural leadership and the role Apostles play in today’s church. Well eventually the mega church pastor opted out of the idea to do ‘plural leadership’. He needed [or did] embrace a model of ‘one man’ who is highly motivated to get this big building, and no one is going to stop me! The problem with ‘doing church’ this way is that people become assets to another goal. People are ‘expendable’ in these scenarios. The ‘thing’ of importance becomes ‘the building’ as opposed to the harder more long-term goal of ‘the people’. I believe that during the transition stage of this church, the Pastor opted for the easier road of ‘going for the big building’ as opposed to the more difficult road of helping to facilitate a move in the church where ‘plural leaders’ lead people down a road of independence versus being ‘church attendees’. Leaders often choose ‘their vision’ over the overall benefit of the people. God wants leaders to make decisions based on the future of his purpose. Not on ‘what do we want in our lifetime’. Many times Gods higher purpose entails not seeing what you want, for the sake of what he wants! [A few weeks later] I just had a dream [Its 1:22 am as I write this!] about the above San Antonio church. This isn’t the first time I dreamt about this church either. In the dream I was visiting the church, they were very gracious to me. I introduced myself as a visitor who directs ‘Corpus Christi Outreach Ministries’ [I hate relating to ministry people this way, but sometimes I find you have to do this or leaders simply wont give you the time of day!] Well the Pastor, who is a good man, kind of said ‘O this is the Pastor of C.C.O.M.’ and I kind of had to uncomfortably explain ‘well not really the Pastor’. By the way this happens so much in Christian circles, we have a tendency to evaluate people along these lines. ‘What do you do, I am a fire fighter, I do this’ we judge people based on what society believes to be important. Well the dream was all right, the Pastor was nice and well intentioned. I actually plan on visiting this church in the near future. I just felt the San Antonio connection to be important recently. I feel we are going to make some good contacts in this city. Our radio broadcast covers that entire region [as well as Houston and some other major radio markets]. Those of you up there give me an e-mail and lets get in touch.
(113) I want to go back to something I spoke on a few weeks ago. The subject of the anti christ and the destruction of the temple spoken about in the New Testament. I was having a conversation with a friend and he brought up the fact that the bible speaks about the end of the world and the temple being destroyed. I tried to place some things in historical context. I told him, yes its true that Jesus said the temple would be destroyed, and the apostle Paul wrote the Thessalonians concerning a coming judgment and falling away. But I told my friend that the Roman general Titus actually destroyed the temple in A.D. 70 around 2 thousand years ago. I realize that its popular today to believe a future temple must be built in Jerusalem in order for certain evens to be fulfilled. But it’s also possible that both Jesus and Paul were speaking about the immediate events that were to happen in the 1st century. There is a verse where Paul says ‘he that restrains will restrain until he’s taken out of the way’ [Thessalonians]. Without getting too technical for some of my readers, this verse is interpreted in some circles as referring to the Spirit of God dwelling in the church. These brothers then see the ‘taking away’ of the church [believers] in the rapture as the event where the restrainer is ‘taken away’ and then the antichrist appears. Thus developing a theology that says all Christians are removed from the planet before the tribulation occurs. Let me put some context to this. The main debate that the apostle Paul and Jesus dealt with in the 1st century was the reality of God bringing in a New Covenant thru the blood of Jesus. This new covenant would only recognize one sacrifice for the sins of man, the death of Christ! The Jewish community had a sort of ‘probationary’ period where they either would accept the final sacrifice of Christ, or ultimately God would leave their religious system. The reality was for the most part the Jewish nation never accepted the finality of the cross. They did not accept Jesus as their Messiah. During this ‘probationary’ period Gods Spirit was still with them to a degree. The book of Hebrews indicates this. It is quite possible that the ‘restrainer’ who would hold back the coming destruction of the temple and the Jewish system was speaking of the Spirit then resident in the Jewish community. In essence God was saying ‘you have so much time to decide whether or not Jesus is Messiah, if you decide the wrong way, I will leave your community [by the Spirit] and there will be no more restraining influence to keep back Rome and its government from destroying you!’ This view puts everything into context. The main thing you see here is Gods priority on the sacrifice of Christ as mans only hope. The Spirit of God would no longer reside with those who would do ‘despite unto the Spirit of Grace’ [Hebrews]. It’s quite possible that the ‘taking away’ of the restrainer was Gods Spirit leaving first century Judaism as a result of their rejection of Christ. Their probationary period was over and they rejected the chief cornerstone!
(114) Just had a dream a few hours ago. First a little background. The ranch my daughter bought a few months back has 2.5 acres. I found out you can hunt in this county, but under 15 acres you cant use a gun. So I bought a bow. I haven’t hunted yet, but do plan on it. So in the dream I was on the ranch and spotted a big buck. He was fairly close and sure enough I got him! Before he died he turned and made a run for me. He was mad. But he finally died. Without too much speculation let me give a little interpretation. Earlier in this paper I spoke on a dream of ‘catching’ a big fish. I felt like this spoke to having influence with certain key influential people. In this dream I feel the same. The buck had horns, horns represent influence and power. He was closer than I thought he would be when I took the shot. And before succumbing to the arrow he tried to retaliate! I feel some of our teaching is ‘hitting the target’ of some ‘big shots’. They initially don’t realize that there ‘so close’. They even feel like ‘coming after me’ but ultimately the arrow has its effect. Sometimes we have to die to things before we can live! Note; Let me share a funny story. My daughter saw my bow and told me it’s like the one her friends father has. He lives right off of a ranch area and when he gets a chance he shoots a deer. Well my daughter [15 yr old] was with her friend the other day and they have a cute deer that’s been coming around for a few months. His horns are getting big and the dad thought it was time to go for it! Well my daughter’s friend likes the deer. When ‘pops’ goes to get the bow, she sneaks on the other side of the barn and starts throwing rocks. The dad can’t see her. My daughter was with her the other day and she said it was funny. All you can hear is the dad waiting for the shot and then saying ‘darn [yea right] he ran again!’ Thought this was cute.
(115) Had quite a discussion the other day at the mission for homeless people. Spent a good 2 to 3 hours teaching some guys the history of the reformation [16th century] and how both the Catholics and Protestants had certain truths on each side. It got quite technical, but a few of these guys are serious bible students and they were drinking it in! I shared a little on how the ‘continental reformers’ [Luther, Calvin, Zwingli] were producing booklets [Tractarianism] and how these protestant books were ‘smuggled’ into Catholic England and were influencing certain key people in the realm. King Henry was having his own internal dispute with the Pope over getting an annulment, and he found the protestant writings to be to his advantage in the area of the freedom of the ‘nation states’ to worship God without being subject to Rome. The Protestants were wanting religious reform, but Henry was looking for a way to break from the Popes authority without having a religious rebellion on his hands. Well eventually King Henry does break away and starts the ‘Church of England’ the continental reformers have the protestant reformation. The Church of England, also known as the ‘Anglican Church’, was very much Catholic in her doctrine except for the area of being under the Pope [Henry got what he wanted!]. The reformers on the continent had varying degrees of ‘reform’ in the nation states. I find it interesting that certain Catholic scholars believed that the breaking away of these countries from Rome was a rebellion that would lead to world disaster. These Catholic scholars saw the ‘divine right of Kings’ to be the threat. They believed the Protestants were simply replacing the authority of the Pope with the authority of the Kings. That this would eventually lead to world anarchy because the nations could produce any type of theology that they wanted. I don’t necessarily agree with this, but do find it interesting that Germany, Luther’s country, eventually produced a ‘Hitler’ and Hitler actually read some of Martin Luther’s anti Semitic writings. Luther referred to Jews as ‘dogs’ and other derogatory terms in his writings. The Catholic scholars were prophetic in a way by foreseeing certain world events in this way. Well any way I had this discussion for a few hours and it was a good history lesson. These guys hung in and even asked some very intelligent questions. By the way I see all my Catholic friends as Christian! As an evangelical I recognize there are some serious doctrinal differences [Justification by faith] but take the more liberal view of seeing them as my brothers in Christ. I recognize that the Catholic Church has carried the baton in social justice areas when the Protestants were sleeping at the wheel! The Catholics also were doing missionary work for centuries before the Protestants got with it. So the point is we all need humility in this journey that we are on and our goal is towards having Christian unity as much as possible. I still remember a song I learned as young boy in Catholic school ‘they will no we are Christians by our love’. To a great degree the Catholic Church has done her best at being a voice for Christ in the nations, and her witness [along with her faults] can be found in every generation of man for the last 2 thousand years! You can’t say this about any protestant church! Well I hope this added something of value to the debate. God bless all my Catholic and Protestant friends who have made it this far on this site! Note- England continued to struggle between Catholic and Protestant views for quite a while. The rule of Henrys daughters, Queen Elisabeth and Mary [also known as ‘bloody Mary’ for her executing protestants!] both showed the internal struggle that was going on behind the scenes. There were key religious and political figures that were trying to influence the country towards their views. Many of these were sincere believers who truly felt like they were defending the faith. Some were Protestant, others Catholic. There were terrible executions and horrendous acts committed by both sides during this time. You had very dedicated Catholics, as well as Protestants, die for their faith. Obviously this was a tragic result of religion at any price. In the world today you see this in radical Islam. Some believe I shouldn’t say this, but as Christians we must take a stand against any religion that sees its mandate to convert by force or death. I find it interesting how so many social justice groups and women’s groups criticize the United States and Christianity, but wont say a word against radical Islam and how it absolutely subjugates women today. Women must cover their faces like animals, in some of these societies it’s permitted for a father to kill his daughter if she commits adultery! Give me a break, where are the voices crying out against these atrocities?
(116) I want to go back to Germany and the fact that after WW2 the United States brought over from Germany all of the scientists that eventually were the originators of our ‘space program’. The U.S. acted wisely in recognizing that the German scientists had a level of knowledge that exceeded what we had. Einstein actually gave us the technology to build the bomb that eventually ended the war. Einstein is the most well known of these German scientists [though he came over before the war ended]. Einstein truly was a genius. One of the goals he had was called ‘the unified theory’. He believed it was possible to ‘tie’ all the various fields of science together, and see a harmony that would show that everything didn’t just happen by accident, but there had to be some greater overall ‘thing’ that was at work. Though Einstein wasn’t a Christian, he did believe in God. Some of his fellow scientists came up with a theory that said chance and ‘luck’ played a role in how things work. Einstein disagreed and said ‘God doesn’t roll dice’. All of these guys held to the idea that there had to be a beginning point to all things. Today we call this the ‘big bang theory’. A basic scientific reality that things did come into existence at a certain point in time. It has been said that the fact that something exists now is proof that God exists! I know this is simplified, but let me explain. The fact that we have a creation today, sun, moon, stars and the intricacy of our planet earth. The tremendous complexity in the human body. Even the most ‘simple’ cell is now known to be highly ‘complex’. These realities lead us to question ‘how did all this happen’. If the earth were a little closer to the sun we would all burn up, a little further and we would all freeze! As science learned these complex things over the years, she has grappled with the question of ‘how’. Science has racked its brain on the beginning stage. Was there a time where nothing existed at all? And if so then how can anything exist now? If matter is infinite [which some try to leave as a possibility] then this contradicts everything else we know from science! Thermodynamics teaches that all things are ‘decaying’ from the original stage. The sun loses its strength over many years. The earth and the solar system and everything else are resources that deplete themselves. This fact shows us that ‘matter’ or things didn’t always exist. If at the beginning you had a few cells and things floating around that eventually ‘exploded’ into this tremendous organized universe [which in itself takes faith to believe!] then where did these gases and early forms of matter come from? They had to start somewhere. And if you eventually traced it all the way back to the time where this was nothing, then the scientific fact is you would have nothing today! Matter doesn’t just appear, and matter is not eternal. These simple scientific proofs lead us to the conclusion that something [or someone] outside of this present world had to initiate these things. This ‘someone’ also had to have been around forever, if not then you have the whole problem of where did he come from, what was his beginning, and all the same questions would arise. So Einstein and others saw these things. The most brilliant minds of man came to the conclusion that a greater being had to exist in order to get the ball rolling. If you took a sealed room with absolutely nothing in it, and nothing else could get in or leave. And then after a million [or billion!] years you opened it up, nothing would be there! This is a scientific fact! The process of time, in and of itself, does not have the power to create something out of nothing! Well then we wind up at the place we started, the fact that ‘anything’ exists is proof that God exists! [Note: Let me give credit to our Catholic brothers once again. Saint Thomas Aquinas ‘Doctor Angelicas’ wrote heavily on these issues long before the Protestants began looking at them. St. Thomas is considered to be one of the greatest theologians and apologists of the Catholic Church].
(117) I just had 2 thoughts that I felt the Lord wanted me to share. The first is the concept of a ‘pioneer’. God will often choose you to pioneer a thing. Pioneers are cutting a new path where people haven’t walked before. The fact that the path is being cut speaks to the reality that you will get bruised and scarred during this effort. It will take you longer to gain ground than those on the trodden path. You will look like you have been ‘thru hell’. Jesus is the prototypical pioneer. He is the progenitor of a new race of people [the Church!]. He was scarred and wounded more than any man [Isaiah] and he birthed Gods people into reality. The second thought I had was the ‘initial step’ stage. Often times God will use a pioneer to start a new thing. The fact that it is new causes the initial stages of birthing it to be harder and more difficult than picking up where someone else left off. Fear prevents the initial steps, but once a thing is birthed it sustains life by itself. There is tremendous opposition to those who take these paths, but the rewards are well worth it!
(118) I read a verse the other day that struck me ‘wisdom is better than weapons of war’ [Ecclesiastes]. Proverbs says ‘wisdom builds the house, and knowledge fills it with treasure’. I felt like the Lord was showing us the importance to ‘work smarter not harder’. Look at the apostle Paul. We [Pastors and leaders] have a tendency to read scripture and miss vital truths. Paul ‘started churches’ by going to a region, preaching Christ for a set time [sometimes only 2 or 3 times on a Sabbath day to certain Jewish brothers!] and then trusting the Spirit of God in them to carry on the work. This is working smarter not harder! These New Testament churches were self-sustaining from the get go. Paul wasn’t setting up churches that would be dependant on him [or anyone else!] to be the main Pastor that would run the show. These communities had leaders for sure, but they didn’t have clergy like we do today. God wants all of us to work smarter not harder. Wisdom is better than weapons of war. If you build Jesus into people and develop a ‘self sustaining’ mentality among them, then you have released a people that will do more damage than many ‘weapons of war’!
(119) The other day at work I was watching the news with another firefighter. The local news showed a homeless guy who was assaulted. I recognized the guy as a harmless guy I just saw a few days earlier. They then showed the 18 year old who beat him up, he was another kid that I just met and was talking to as well. When they showed the kids mug shot he looked like one of these gang kids, but in reality he seemed like a nice kid when I met him. I realized that the people seeing these guys on TV like this immediately stereotype them as dangerous and hopeless. A few months back I took a few homeless people to a local buffet to eat. One of the guys is around 23 years old. Nice kid. On our way to the restaurant my radio and C.D. player went out. I really needed it to work, I use it a lot! I didn’t have time to deal with it so I simply asked this younger brother to pray for it to work. He began praying and I knew he has prayed before. He asked the Lord to forgive him for his faults and really sought the Lord. Within a few minutes the radio started working. He knew the Lord answered his prayer. I just wanted to share how a lot of these guys are on the edge of life and society. God is eager to intervene in their lives. If you allow him, God will use to touch people that no one else can reach. These same guys you see on the news that have committed horrible crimes [a few years back one of the guys killed another with a hammer!] are real people that are close to the edge, you will have to be willing to go out on the edge with them if you want to bring them back in!
(120) Update- Recently I have been in touch with some old friends that I haven’t seen in 27 years. I realize that a lot of water has gone under the bridge [or something like that?]. Some of my friends are Christian, some not. Some are into the modern motivational type preaching. I realize that for them to read our materials is like a slap in the face. It’s not easy to be part of the ‘modern gospel’ of success and prosperity and then read our stuff [you will see what I mean as you get to the 300’s] I just walked into my study and saw one of the many success books I own and have read over the years. It’s just sitting on a table. I don’t know why its out, maybe one of my kids were reading it? I have read and been into the motivational gospel and understand the good aspects of it. I just believe that a lot of it misses the part of ‘if any man wants to save his life, he must lose it for my sake and the gospel’ [Jesus Christ]. Over the years I have had a fairly good measure of success. We have come pretty far for a high school level of education and a Navy drop out! I am not bragging, but what I want you to see is my focus has not been on ‘saving my life’ or living to be successful. I have tried to lose my life for the gospel as much as possible. I don’t believe I am even 1/100th of where I should be. Still selfish and self-seeking. When the rubber meets the road still willing to choose self-preservation over Gods will. Still have a long way to go! But the point today is I don’t want to offend any old buddies from the old days, and I realize that if some of them are into the prosperity gospel they will be offended. But maybe God allowed me to cross paths with some of you for this very purpose? Who knows, maybe I have come to the kingdom for such a time as this. [You too!]
(121) In keeping with the above, scripture says ‘Jesus was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil’. After the 40 days temptation he returned in the ‘power of the Spirit’. The main ingredient for the authority that was displayed in Jesus teaching ministry was the wilderness experience. Scripture says Jesus taught with authority, not like the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus obtained a level of authority because of his suffering, not despite it! If we spend most of our waking hours on how to avoid and by-pass difficult situations, then we are unknowingly cutting off the main source of possessing authority above that which is common today.
(122) Lets go back to the discussion on ‘motivational/prosperity’ teaching and preaching. In the Church there are different ‘levels’ of understanding and thought. All levels serve a purpose at various stages of Christian growth. The 3rd grade is important as well as high school and college. To stop at the 3rd grade is not good! To miss the 3rd grade is also not good. To explain to someone the importance of ‘elementary level’ teaching, while showing them the need to move on is not easy. Over the years I have dealt a lot with the ‘elementary’ stuff. I try to explain the importance of being motivated and having a positive attitude and good things like that. I then try to transition into the mindset of ‘seeking first the kingdom of God’. There comes a stage with all of us [university level] where God knows we have the basics down and he then calls us to another place. This ‘other’ place is an attitude of forsaking self and the things of this life to attain a higher goal. When Jesus told the disciples he was going to Jerusalem to die, Peter says ‘no way, we wont let this happen!’ and Jesus replies ‘get thee behind me satan, for you are concerned more with the things of man than the things of God’. Jesus [our example] reached a point in his life where he knew the purpose of God was not to be measured by whether ‘I like it or not’. Much motivational preaching uses this at its criteria. ‘Surely God doesn’t want his kids to suffer’ ‘where kings kids’ and things like this. I believe these things are true to a degree, but there at a 3rd grade level! [I don’t want to sound condescending, but I want you to see what I am trying to convey]. Remember, the 3rd grade is good, but not if your 21 years old! Also the university is good, but not if your 9 years old! So everything has its time and purpose. God does command us to ‘think like men’ [Corinthians] and the problem with the Evangelical church is we confuse ‘childlike faith’ with ‘childlike thinking’ [The book ‘the scandal of the evangelical mind’ deals with this]. I believe the more mature aspect of the Christian life is to advance beyond the ‘motivational’ stage to the ‘taking up your cross and following me’ stage. I just saw a verse on this Christian calendar I get from the radio station we broadcast on. It says ‘and the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends’. Its so easy to focus on self and ‘how do I get out of the mess I’m in’ mentality. Job was able to come out of this mindset and pray for others. This denying of self is what turned his situation around.
(123) Believe it or not, but those of you who are reading this paper from the start, it’s been only 3 months since I started writing! I say this for a reason. A few months ago I felt it was time to reach out to old friends from Jersey. As busy as I am I really struggled with making more trips to Jersey or some other avenue of outreach. Well thru this blog site, as well as the classmate’s site and the emailing [and regular mailing as well] I have had some good results. I just mailed the first few letters to a New Jersey prison. My old buddy wrote me back from south woods prison [Jersey] and really appreciated the books I sent and we are keeping in touch. I will probably call his family in the next few weeks. He asked me to call his wife and kids. Its strange because I knew his wife and older boy when we where hanging out as teenagers [he married and had kids young] and its like the friendship picked right up from the early days. He even told me in his letter how he used to tell his kids about me and stuff [probably like ‘that psycho from Jersey is now a preacher in Texas’] but I was glad to be in touch with a buddy I haven’t heard from in around 20 years. The books I sent him are an avenue to the prison he’s in. Books get around, people write and there you have it, a great opportunity to preach the gospel to a whole prison population without starting some ‘Christian ministry’ to do it! I just wanted to model this for you guys.
(124) WARNING: This entry has absolutely no spiritual value. But I thought I would tell the story anyway. A few years back I was visiting a friend of mine who is a wiz a computers. He had a couple of 2 by 10’s [boards] on his front steps leading down to the sidewalk. I guess he had recently moved some furniture? Well my youngest daughter and his youngest boy [around 10 years old] were riding scooters in the front. My friend, who is kind of large, had the great idea of telling them to ride the scooters down this ramp. They were hesitant, and so was I. He then proceeded to ‘show’ them how to do it! He took his sons scooter and mounted the runway. As he began going down the ramp, the front tire got stuck between the 2 boards, he went flying! I mean his hands were by his side and he landed face first on the concrete. At first I thought I might have to begin C.P.R., but it would have been difficult to perform while uncontrollably laughing! My friend was O.K., but I couldn’t stop laughing for weeks. I am laughing right now as I write this. It looked like something Jeff Fox worthy would say about rednecks or something. My friend looked a little like the red neck character from King of the Hill.
(125) I just read a verse in Psalms ‘for he shall stand at the right hand of the poor’. It’s amazing how many promises you find for those who ‘give to the poor’ ‘defend the poor’ ‘speak out on the behalf of the poor’ and so on. Jesus himself uses this language when he describes the final judgment of mankind. Over the years of learning ‘ministry’ and all the stuff that surrounds it, I have gone thru seasons as a young ‘preacher’ where older, well meaning preachers/ministers tried to ‘lead’ me in a path of what they saw to be ‘ministry’. Sort of trying to hook me up with influential people, or trying to steer me into the path of ‘the full time paid minister’. While these men were well meaning for the most part, they ‘saw’ ministry as a profession. They sincerely tried to direct me [and others] down the path of ‘ministry’. Like if I were to show some rookie the ropes of being a fire fighter. I distinctly remember during these times that there would also be opportunities to reach out to poor and hurting people. I would really sense the presence of God when simply helping others. This same ‘presence’ simply was not around when trying to advance in the field of professional ministry. Seeing ministry as a ‘profession’ to which you spend your time and energy to advance in your field misses out on the deeper aspect of being a servant to people. The whole concept of ‘the last being first’ ‘laying down your life for others’ and so on. Like the above verse says ‘God is at the right hand of the poor’ and when you’re with them you sense God because these are the people that he ‘hangs out with’.
(126) ‘Extending your voice beyond the parameter that God has ordained’. This is something that I have meditated on over the years. As ‘ministers’ have learned to ‘professionalize’ ministry, there comes with it a package of trying to get the message out to as many people as possible. Is this in and of itself wrong? No. I do this as well. But the result is today you have national level ministries that should not be national! There are Billy Grahams and others who have a great message and testimony. Then you have a whole host of others who are at the ‘3rd’ grade level that are communicating to the entire community. A few years ago one of the most famous prosperity preachers started a church and extension ministry in our city. This was well after I already dealt with this movement on the radio. I kind of felt like some of the prosperity brothers wanted to ‘strike back’ against the strong stance that we took. I remember actually ‘prophesying’ on the radio that some of these brothers were here to see a more accurate picture of Christ and the church. I was a little harsh in that I mentioned the famous guys name, but I felt I needed to. He was famous for spreading the doctrine that Jesus and the disciples were rich. This was a blatant false teaching that spread like wildfire in certain circles. Well this ministry didn’t last very long in our town. Actually there were a couple of well know prosperity churches in our area [one well known, the other did a lot of advertising]. They are gone now. This wasn’t my intent to run them off. But I felt like there needed to be a season where all of the ‘word of faith/prosperity’ churches needed to re-think and re-examine the whole message that they preach. It is unfortunate that many of these ministries have the concept down of getting lots of funds, and then they use these funds to extend there message ‘beyond the borders’ of their level of teaching. Again I don’t want to judge or sound condescending, but many of these movements are at a very immature level of understanding. It has done damage to the church at large to propagate a materialistic mindset in so many young believers. I pray the Lord would give us all grace and humility to limit our voices when he tells us to, and also allow him to ‘exalt our horn like the horn of a unicorn’ when he so desires.
(127) Let me model something for you guys. After the last entry [126] I ‘embarked’ on one of those difficult days. You know, you need to get things done and you feel like the whole day was wasted with difficulties and trials. Well this lasted until a few hours ago when I woke up. I don’t want to make too much out of my habit of getting up early, but its 3:45 am as I pen this and some days I feel I accomplish more from 2-8 am than the rest of the day! Also as an aside if you go to sleep at 8pm instead of 10, and then get up at 2 or 3 a.m. you can get a full day of study and prayer in before you go to work. You can maximize your output to that of 2 people by simply sacrificing 2 hours of ‘awake’ time from 8 to 10 pm. Not saying you all should do this, but use your time wisely and you will get much done. Now to the other stuff. The last few days I have heard a lot of stuff on ‘speaking your world into existence’ ‘there is a miracle in your mouth’ ‘life and death are in the power of the tongue’ and so on. All good ‘basic’ principles. Jesus did say ‘if you say to this mountain be cast into the sea, it will obey you’. The main problem with the way we apply these things is we seem to get a vision of how we want our life to be and then apply all these principles to making it happen. In the scenario I gave the other day when Jesus told Peter ‘I am going to Jerusalem to die’ you could see this as a bad confession. You could say ‘see Jesus got what he said’. While it is true he got what he said, yet his saying it isn’t why it happened! The will of God for your life is primarily revealed to you by God. Over your life he ‘speaks’ to you thru various means [bible, prophecy, direction from friends, etc.] As you learn to ‘die’ to your own dreams and visions [what I want mentality] you at the same time awaken to Gods greater purpose. This whole process is a result of hearing Gods word over your life. In essence you really don’t create your world by the words you speak, in as much as your ‘world’ being a result of the words that God speaks. Now the principle of a good confession is still true, but your focus now becomes ‘moving the mountains that stand in the way of Gods purpose’. When Jesus said to Peter ‘get thee behind me satan’ he was ‘speaking’ to the mountain of ‘self-will’ that always stands in the way of ‘Gods will’. Do you see what I am saying? This is the difference between ‘3rd grade’ and ‘university’ level. I encourage you today to take the stance of Job who I mentioned a few days ago. In the midst of your trials ‘pray for your friends’, that is make your confession one of unselfishness and the welfare of others, for as you do this you are ‘laying down your life for the gospel’! NOTE; If you remember in the temptation story of Jesus being tempted 40 days in the desert, after Jesus rebukes the devil scripture says ‘the devil departed from him for a season’ this indicating that Jesus knew he would have to confront him again before he completed his mission. This confrontation with Peter is the beginning of that confrontation. Jesus had to rise above the friendship and care of one of his closest disciples and make the difficult decision to recognize the voice of satan thru one of his closest friends. Over the years during our teaching on these issues I would often find Pastors un-willing to ‘see’ or even accept the fact that they might have been influenced in a wrong way thru the ‘word of faith/prosperity’ movement. It is difficult to admit and recognize that good people can make serious errors in judgment. The issue isn’t how ‘nice’ or ‘good’ the prosperity brothers are. The issue is whether or not the ‘voice’ that has come from this camp is legitimate! It’s hard to look at your ‘Peter’ and recognize that what they’re saying isn’t really from God. NOTE: It is interesting that there were set times or seasons of temptation in the life of Jesus. These seasons didn’t last forever. Though temptation is always a reality to deal with in the Christian life, yet there is a sense of ‘task completed’ in the area of severe trial and testing. A sense of ‘assignment completed’ in a way. Scripture says ‘affliction shall not rise up a second time. Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more’ this doesn’t mean you will never go thru hard times again, but a real sense that ‘this thing I have been going thru is finally over, God has brought forth what he wanted and now its time to move on’.
(128) Well I just read in psalms ‘I myself shall awake early’ and it reminded me of something. A few years back when I started this early prayer thing I read a verse one morning where it says ‘in an acceptable time have I heard thee’ and I felt the Lord was saying this time-slot of early prayer he was hearing. My immediate response to the Lord was ‘I sure hope so!’ I kind of was joking with the Lord I guess! It was like ‘Hey, if your not hearing this early prayer, I’ll do the traditional 20-minute deal’. Didn’t want to be irreverent, but kind of thought it was funny.
(129) ‘THE HINDRANCE OF THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT’ over the years I have had the privilege of speaking into the lives of key leaders. Sometimes I only run into them once in 5 years or so. I notice how we [Pastors/Leaders] become victims of the system. Many times in a city you will have ‘competing’ churches [ministries] who are doing there best to accomplish some goal or vision. The leaders often see and view everything thru the paradigm of ‘how do I accomplish this, who can I enlist [or hire] from the local pool of talent that will be a part of us’. Because of the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ there is a sense of ‘every man being out for yourself’ while giving lip service to true oneness and unity. Don’t want to be too mean, but this is true. If we can get beyond the idea of ‘church/ministry’ as the business that we run and begin to see ‘church’ as the community of Christians around us, then we will make headway against the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’. I just get tired of running into leaders whose first question is ‘why haven’t you visited my church?’ This breeds an insecurity in leaders who find their identity in ‘how many people attend my church’. May God help us all; we really have a long way to go!
(130) NOTE: [this is the 3rd attempt of trying to write this entry. I tried 24 hours ago at work and the computer messed up and I lost it! I then decided to re write it and we had a big structure fire. I am now up at 2:06 am and giving it another shot, obviously this is for you! Whoever ‘you’ are!] Let me do an overview of some things. The last few weeks I have mentioned the ‘Word of Faith/Prosperity movement’. In the late 1800’s there was a preacher by the name of E.W.Kenyon. Brother Kenyon is the ‘father’ of the modern ‘word of faith’ movement. Brother Kenyon brought out some good things in his teaching. The 1800-1900s were right after the great awakenings in our country, many churches emphasized the sinfulness of man and mans need to confess his sins. Brother Kenyon took hold of the truths in scripture where we are to confess ‘Jesus as Lord’ instead of always confessing sin! The focus of much of this teaching emphasized the things we do to change our circumstances. If you ‘walk’ in the ‘sense realm’ [5 senses] you are walking by sight, but if you walk by faith you are not living by the senses. The way faith was taught was more like ‘you create your world by the things you speak’ and stuff like that. The focus was on ‘acting right’. If you say wrong things or ever admit to any problems or failure you are not in faith. While many of these things sound good, the result was you become self-conscious and begin seeing yourself as the person who is in charge of ‘changing your world’. If ‘your world’ is messed up, well it’s ‘YOUR’ fault. Biblical faith is based more on the ‘person’ of God. You are not trying to say and think positive all the time, in as much as you are depending on God even in the midst of your problems and failures. While many of the Word of Faith brothers focus on Paul’s teaching in Romans on ‘looking not at the things that are seen, but unseen’ they seem to forget that Abraham was the man of faith that these scriptures reference. Abraham did not say or do everything right! His life is not shown as someone who had this perfect impenetrable faith confession. He blew it many times. But he always had the ability to ‘look to the promise of God’ instead of his own failures. This type of faith works for you right now. You don’t see the answer in you becoming this ‘robot’ type person who can never say something wrong or even admit to failure. You simply tell God in the midst of your trials ‘I can’t make it, but you can!’ Now bother Kenyon had a background in the metaphysical cults/groups. These are the groups that believe you change reality thru thought and meditation [Christian science and others]. They believe that reality is not this material world, but what you say and think create ‘your world’. Many modern word of faith brothers don’t realize that the type of faith they espouse is a lot like these groups. I have bought and read many of brother Kenyon’s books over the years, also many of the modern word of faith brothers as well. There was always a sense of ‘mystical’ or ‘strange’ stuff I would run across. These brothers teach that Jesus was ‘born again’. They take the verse that says Jesus is the first begotten from the dead and they see this as ‘being born again’. Most Christians see this as meaning Jesus was the first to rise from the dead with a resurrection body. While others were raised from the dead before Jesus, they all died again. Not Jesus! So this is kind of a strange way to take scripture and ‘twist’ it into a form of faith that has Christian elements in it, but really doesn’t present the Christianity of the New Testament. I remember sharing with a person who was heavily into this movement. They were struggling financially for years. They were always living under this guilt of ‘creating this poverty world’ and constantly focusing on rebuking the devil and trying to ‘create a prosperous world’. I tried to show this person that they weren’t really living by simple faith and trust, but more like under a legalism that you are responsible for not being wealthy and you must do and say everything right or its your fault! I showed them 1st Timothy chapter 6. It says its O.K. to not be wealthy and not feel bad about it. I showed this person that faith was simply being able to thank God that all your needs [not wants!] are being met and if you live the rest of your life without becoming rich it’s O.K. ‘BE CONTENT WITH WHAT YOU HAVE, DON’T DESIRE TO BE RICH’ these are actual scriptures! Well this person finally saw the legalism and guilt that their understanding of faith brought upon them. They later sent me a message thru a mutual friend that said ‘tell John thank you, I am now free from the legalism that I was living under’. I do believe that brother Kenyon [and all the others] are Christians who mean well. But we need to recognize that some of our teaching has gotten off track and return to the biblical message. I know some of you are uncomfortable with these things, and I am sorry about this. But I felt it was important to drop this in. God bless! NOTE: Let me add that it was a matter of choosing to believe scripture over and above the teaching of this movement. Its fun to see yourself as rich and happy. Even spending your whole life just thinking about it can be addictive! This is what Jesus meant when he said ‘you can not serve God and money’. Affluence becomes ‘your God’ in many of these groups. I used to watch these weekend realtor infomercials because its fun to strategize and think ‘money thoughts’. In the past I have made money by investing in real estate. But there came a time where I laid that aside for a higher purpose. I am not saying you can’t be in real estate, or that you can’t be rich! Just don’t confuse biblical faith with a ‘get all you can’ mentality!
(131) ‘THE REPROACHES OF THOSE THAT REPROACHED THEE FELL UPON ME/ DON’T FEAR THE REPROACH OF MEN’ I find it interesting that when leaders fall [Jimmy Swaggart/Paul Cain/Ted Haggard/Jim Bakker/etc.] The world enjoys ‘reproaching’ them. It is interesting to ask the ‘reproachers’ ‘have you ever done some of the things that they are accused of doing?’ They of course would deny it, but scripture says ‘IF THOU O LORD WOULD KEEP A RECORD OF SIN, WHO WOULD BE ABLE TO STAND’ we know that all of the ‘reproachers’ are guilty of many of the same offenses, if not worse! But they seem to take comfort in the fact that no body knows [yet!]. All men will appear at the judgment, scripture says some people’s sins are found out now [Haggard/Bakker/Swaggart] and others will be found out later. It’s really a futile thing to take comfort in the fact that ‘no body knows yet’. This is what happened with the Pharisees who caught the woman in adultery. The fact that she was exposed and ‘caught in the act’ gave them great delight. The fact that they were just as guilty but not caught yet also gave them great delight. But the reality of being in Jesus presence, especially to bring accusation on another, also brings with it the requirement of you also being exposed. Jesus wrote something in the sand when the Pharisees were in front of him. Many speculate that he wrote the names of all the women [or men!] that they had ‘been with’ too! He might have simply written their worst sin. The point was they were taking joy in the fact that the woman was caught [Swaggarts/Haggards/etc.] not realizing that their day was coming also! All humans can hide their sins/faults for so long, some feel they really have none, but we know that all men are dust and sooner or later this too will be revealed. Thank God that the ‘reproaches of those who would reproach you’ have fallen on Jesus. The Christian has the consolation of knowing that Jesus bore the humiliation, the unbeliever will have to bare it alone!
(132) I read a verse that says ‘the stone that the builders rejected became the head of the corner’ [chief cornerstone]. I find this interesting; we have a tendency to reject those who are prominent in the building. Jesus said ‘a prophet is without honor in his own town and among his own people’. Think of it, Jesus was/is the most prominent person of wisdom and stature in the entire building of God. There would be no greater prophet of value and stature to arise! Yet in his area people not only devalued him, but they saw him as unstable. Their denigration of him got to a level where they actually put him to death for his religious views [claiming to be the Son of God]. Prophetic people are born out of environments of rejection and difficulty. The very process of ‘rejection’ causes the ‘stone to be tried/tested’. I find it interesting that the people who rub you the wrong way might very well be one of ‘the prominent’ stones needed to complete ‘your building’ [that is the things God wants to do in your life]. It is interesting to note that once they spoke against Jesus it was very difficult to be able to receive from him. They sort of had the mindset they wanted him to fail, even if the proof kept piling up that he was legitimate! When people speak against you [not talking about honest criticism] they put themselves in a position where they cut themselves off from any benefit they might gain from you. Its not that the prophetic people want this, it just seems to work out this way. When Jesus wept over Jerusalem he wanted them to benefit from who he was and the mission he was on, it’s just they cut themselves off from any value they might have gained from him. NOTE: Once a person’s character is denigrated by someone [whether right or wrong] it is almost impossible to overcome and receive from the person you denigrate [note: I am not talking about silly gossip and stuff people say about people. We are all guilty of this from time to time!] The fact that Jesus actually raised the dead, a miracle of the highest order, should have been able to silence those who questioned his legitimacy, but it didn’t! This shows you the power of ‘being rejected’ as a process from the Father. It also shows you the vanity of wanting the approval of man. Jesus says in the gospel of John that he doesn’t receive, nor seek the approval of men because ‘he knew what was in man’. What did he know about what was in man? He fully understood the depravity of mans nature from the start of his ministry, man was so depraved that the father sent him on this human journey to redeem man. And what would be the key factor in this redemption? Mans sinful nature was so consistent, that it would be virtually impossible for man to not kill the Son of God!
(133) Just outside praying and had a few thoughts. Many years ago I took a trip to Switzerland with some friends. While there I met a bunch of good brothers. One was the pastor of a church we were visiting. In regular conversation I slipped in a prophetic word. I told him ‘in the past you built your church on the Word and faith, you are now going to focus on Grace, mercy and the love of God’ [these might not be exact, but this was the jist of what I said]. The pastor was a little shocked and he kind of ‘hit’ me in a ‘loving’ way. He basically slapped me fairly hard on the chest, not in anger but in surprise. He said these were the exact words that God had told him about the church. For him to hear the exact words was a confirmation that it was truly God. Another time in the states I had a friend who was a prophet ‘in training’. He no doubt had a gift but I say ‘in training’ because I felt he wasn’t yet being responsible in meeting the needs of his family and stuff. Sort of like knowing he had a prophetic gift and not being able to hold down a job because he felt his job should be in some type of ministry. This happens a lot with well meaning people. Well any way I was talking to him after a church service and I simply said ‘the Lord is going to use your gift, but you have to ‘harness’ your life first’. The word harness was exactly what the Lord had told him before. In both of these scenarios it was ‘being exact’ in the prophesy that made the difference. I just want you to see that it is not dependant on ‘your’ gift or wisdom at all. It is simply a function of hearing and speaking when the Lord tells you to! NOTE: For a few years I subscribed to a monthly prophetic tape from Morningstar ministries [Rick Joyner]. The month I was to leave for Switzerland the tape was called ‘The call to Switzerland’ they obviously had no idea I was going to Switzerland.
(134) Yesterday I went to the homeless mission to see some friends. I ran into one of the original friends I met years ago [around 15 years ago!]. We are good friends. I think he sees me as his ‘best friend’. He is always overjoyed when I run into him. If he’s in the hospital [which happens often!] and I don’t go to see him he gets real offended. Well any way I helped him look for an apartment yesterday. He is handicapped and uses an electric wheelchair. He very rarely showers and if he sits in your vehicle or a chair it really smells bad. Some restaurants actually have told us not to come back because of this. Well when I picked him up at the mission we went inside to drop of his chair so he could hop in the truck with me. On the wall right where he left his chair there was a poster from Exodus that said ‘my presence shall go with you’. It’s what God told Moses. If you remember I just wrote on this a few weeks ago. God ‘being at the right hand of the poor’. Well we went to a few places to look for an apartment. I spent a few hours, was real tired. Didn’t sleep much the night before. One of those nights of getting up at midnight. I really hate to get up that early, but I will do work and stuff and make the most of it. After dropping my friend off my truck really smelt bad. I had the windows open and it stunk! I have even had other homeless friends who have said ‘how can you stand it’. Well as I was driving home I made a mental note to spray a type of fabric cleaner on the seat. I have done it before. I was driving home and thinking ‘you know Lord I don’t even feel upset about having to do this’. No feeling of ‘why should I put up with this’. I remembered the verse I saw earlier where it said ‘My presence shall go with you’. Sort of like the Lord said ‘I came down into the midst of the stench of mans humanity, and I put up with it because of my love for people’. Even as you read this some of you might be thinking ‘boy, I would never do this, have some bum stink up my nice ‘church’ vehicle!’ What if it was your father? Do we really view people the way God does?
(135) Just woke up and had the thought of ‘when the spotlight hits you’. What I remembered was hearing preachers over the years speak about ‘getting in the spotlight’. All well-meaning men who are being affected by the system. In the 2 scenarios that came to mind the brothers shared how in due time you too can be ‘famous’ but you have to be faithful and wait your turn. I also just read an article in the paper about a pastor who has taken his ‘deacon board’ to the state supreme court on a number of occasions in order to ‘keep his church’ [they are trying to fire him, also when I just went thru and did the spell check the option it gave me for ‘save his church’ was ‘circus’ I was tempted to leave it but that would have been a little harsh!] These ways of seeing ‘church’ and ‘ministry’ deeply affect the way we function as Gods people. First, there is a ‘secret’ element in Jesus teachings that speak to leaders in the church as not seeking or becoming ‘famous’. Also by ‘secret’ I mean it’s plainly taught but we don’t seem to ‘see it’ in the way we function. God will bring you to a place where you recognize and develop the character to avoid the ‘idol worship’ mentality that hinders the work of the Spirit. Ministry and ‘church’ are not businesses that we own and operate. They are free gifts that God deposits in his people for the benefit of the whole community. The ‘excitement’ of the New Testament churches wasn’t ‘look at this ministry that God has called us to’ or Paul recruiting people to ‘My Vision’. The excitement was this great reality of Jesus being the Messiah. ‘THE PROMISED ONE IS HERE’. Their time and focus was on the actual person of Christ, not the things that Christ was doing with them! This is why Paul teaches in Corinthians that the gifts are simply tools given by Gods grace, he shows a mentality of ‘why glory in the tools/gifts being they are all freely given?’ if we are simply vessels that God is flowing thru, then why exalt the vessel? The greatest in the Kingdom must seek to be a servant. All of these characteristics are what should mark ministry and leadership today. There are many good men who see and embrace these things. But we sometimes give the wrong impression to young believers. We kind of tell them ‘your day of fame is coming, but for now just glory in what Gods doing with me’. This is not right.
(136) Keeping in mind what I just said, now I want you to ‘see’ how the business of ministry affects all of us. When you go to this blog [as well as many others!] you can read and access all of ‘our’ materials for free. There are some sites that mean well, but they ‘tease’ you with the first few sentences of some teaching and then you have to pay for the rest. Now I am not saying that they are all wrong for doing this, but if your goal is ‘to get the word out’ is this the most effective means possible? If the Apostle Paul did this with the letters he was writing [New Testament] would this help or hurt his cause. When Jesus said ‘freely you have received, now freely give’ would Paul feel right in ‘charging’ for his services or intellectual property? Remember Paul taught that all our gifts belong to God; they are not really ‘our property’ at all! I know there are different views on this, but personally when I go to a Christian site that I enjoy reading from, and then they cut the article off until you subscribe or something. I just go to another site. Remember the goal is to get the gift God has given to us to as many people as possible. If you feel charging for your services are the way to do this, then fine! But your gift is not given to you to make a profit; it is given to build the church!
(137) ‘EVERY HOUSE IS BUILT BY SOME MAN, BUT HE THAT BUILT ALL THINGS IS GOD’ in a lot of our teaching we are trying to change the mindset from ‘building the building/ministry’ to ‘building the people’. There is an inherent nature in man to want to build something. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of building ‘buildings/ministries’ as opposed to building the Church [community of people]. As we see the purpose of God to have a habitation of ‘people’ as opposed to a ‘temple’ we transition our focus from ‘things’ to people. The excitement that the Apostle Paul was experiencing as you read the New Testament was his understanding that he was building these communities of people that would ‘last forever’. In essence he was grasping the eternal purpose of God to live in a ‘city’ whose builder and maker is God! These communities [buildings] survive till this day. You and I are this building. When we fully grasp that we are the Church that the gates of hell cannot prevail against, it is exciting to realize that God himself is dwelling in us as his habitation. In all of our efforts of ministry we need to be mindful that we actually are the ‘City of God’. We are the ‘New Jerusalem that is coming down from God out of heaven’ we are ‘born from above’. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken [the buildings of man] so the things that cannot be shaken [the building of God] may remain!
(138) Let me share 2 strange things that happened in the last few days. The other morning while outside praying I heard a loud rushing wind go over my head. It sounded like a strong gust of wind that I hear going thru the trees while I pray. I thought it strange because it wasn’t windy. I turned around and looked up and saw a flock of birds flying overhead. It amazed me that this noise was coming from them. I have seen lots of birds fly overhead before, but never heard them make a sound like this. This also was the first day that we put our blog site in the Corpus paper for people to read. I was just outside praying and was under a type of ‘pressure’. I wasn’t sure to pray or put on some music that I listen to while interceding. I walked outside and saw a gigantic bird stuck in the tree. It was huge. It was flapping and really strange. After a few minutes it let loose and flew away [it kind of felt a little demonic!] Well scripture says ‘our souls are escaped like a bird out of the snare of the fowler, the snare is broken and we are free’. Felt like the Lord might be saying he has released us from some things and the ‘rushing wind of his Spirit’ is going to flow thru and to us.
(139) A couple of things today. Last night on the discovery channel they aired a special on the ‘lost tomb of Jesus’. Another ‘Davinci code’ criticism of Jesus and the Church. I find it interesting that after 2 thousand years people are still gossiping about Jesus. I wonder if he’s thinking at the right hand of God ‘father you said I would be criticized, but I never thought it would last this long’. I do find the stupidity of the critics entertaining at times. First, if you spend whole lifetimes denying the existence of someone, the last thing you would do is ‘discover his tomb’ [supposedly with his bones in it!]. Second, why spend so much money and effort explaining away something that is supposedly fake. I don’t see any TV specials on denying the existence of ‘Santa Clause’. Me thinks the critics doth protest too much!
Now a word to ‘our critics’. First I want you guys to know I pray for you every day ‘Lord, let judgment come swift and fast!’ [Just kidding!] But honestly sometimes criticism can be good. I have had people tell me that my sharing of the stories of helping people is violating the principle of Jesus to ‘let not your right hand know what your left is doing’. That is don’t boast about your good deeds or else you lose your reward in heaven. This is a good point that I should not dismiss out of hand. Jesus ‘modeled’ things by example, as well as actual teaching. Many years ago I had a prophetic word given to us that said ‘thru my example many would see and understand the works of Jesus’. The whole word spoke on our ‘style’ of ministry as being unique and ‘showing’ thru example the works of Jesus. When I first started sharing stories and stuff I saw it more as the Lord telling me to do it in this way. Jesus told the story of the ‘good Samaritan’; he was speaking of himself in this parable. The main thing Jesus was dealing with when telling the people ‘don’t do things just to be seen’ was the mindset that existed in the religious community of his day. They lived for the public recognition of society around them. Their prayers and fasting were done solely for them to be seen as pious and holy. They had absolutely no intent on actually doing service to God or helping their fellow man. It was in this environment that Jesus said these things. You do find Paul having to ‘boast’ of his accomplishments in order to teach the Corinthians stuff. Well any way I thought I would clear this up. And to all my critics, take comfort in the fact that I am going to pray right now, and you are going to be in my prayers! [Still kidding a little].
(140) A few years back we had the ‘Waco tragedy’ take place in Texas. This was the story of David Korresh and the cult group the ‘Branch Davidians’. Well as a joke the guys at work would call me ‘the Branch Chiarellian’. It was all in fun, I really don’t have time to worry about silly stuff. These are all good guys. But I find it interesting on how many times in this paper I spoke about ‘branches’ and stuff. The Martin Luther King Dream. Verses that say ‘the man whose name is the branch’ [this is Jesus and also the church and prophetic people as an extension of his Body] All in all I like the way ‘prophetic’ people can get people to prophesy to them whether they realize it or not!
(141) ‘Think perennially versus annually’. Where I live in South Texas spring starts early. My yard is already blooming and growing. In my backyard I have tried to use ‘xerscape’ as a means to establish a self-sustaining/ low maintenance yard. I have learned over the years that you can plant ‘perennials or annuals’. When I found out the difference it surprised me that anyone would plant annuals. Annuals are beautiful plants that look great, but die every year and you start from scratch each new year. Perennials look just as good, cost the same and last ‘forever’ [theoretically]. So why choose high maintenance over low? Some people don’t know the difference, others simply like the process of planting new every year. I notice that the ‘new planters’ seem to enjoy the routine of ‘re-planting’. Some don’t really spend a lot of time ‘looking’ and enjoying the plants, they simply like the work! That’s fine. I am the lazy type. Hey if I can by a car that lasts one year, looks, works and costs the same as one I can buy that lasts forever, well you know! I want to challenge you to think ‘perennially’ versus ‘annually’. Seek to implement avenues of ‘ministry’ that require low maintenance. Establish ‘things’ that you can enjoy year after year without having to ‘re-plant’ each year. There are things like our radio programs and this blog site that once their initiated I don’t have to really ‘re-preach’ manually week after week to the same crowd. Now it’s O.K. for you Pastors to preach every week. I am just trying to show the difference between ‘manually’ doing it, and allowing the thing to grow ‘on it’s own’. Many churches print bulletins and send out flyers. Why not package them in such a way that people would save them? You can actually make part of it [or all of it] look like a little book that has permanent qualities [whole portions of scripture like the book of Romans or something?] And even say on the booklet ‘SAVE FOR FUTURE REFERENCE or DON’T THROW THIS OUT’. People are receptive to suggestions. Plus if the people are saving these things then they will always have the ministry information for years to come! Well these are just ideas. What I wanted to emphasize today was to use wisdom in all of these areas. Seek to establish avenues of ministry that don’t require a lot of time and money, but can have a regional influence! NOTE: for those of you who read this blog, you can start one yourself for free. If you don’t feel you have any thing to say then simply send this site to as many people as possible. This is a free avenue that once established can go on indefinitely.
(142) It’s funny how I come up with things to say. I was just outside praying and one of the images I use when I pray is ‘visit this vine, this vineyard and this branch’. I read it in Psalms and incorporated it into intercession. I was just thinking how many times Jesus used ‘vineyard’ and garden imagery in his teaching. He spoke of the owner of the vineyard coming to see how the caretakers were doing. They were not taking care of the vineyard so he gave it to others. God often sees the ‘world’ as the field. We seem to create parameters in ministry that are limited. ‘I will work with our financial partners’ mentality. We develop little childish mindsets that shrink our ‘field of influence’. God sees in ‘world wide’ terms. He ‘plants’ us with generational destiny in mind. He’s not looking at our silly little prerequisites that we deem must be met before ‘my ministry’ spends time and resources on you. Paul said Gods love constrains us. We are ‘debtors’ to the whole world. You and I are responsible to work in this field. Don’t confuse his ‘field’ with your small circle of friends and supporters!
(143) Just saw on the news the other day that the fire dept. went to a brush fire. While putting out the fire they realized that it was a woman who was set on fire. Some guy from their homeless camp is suspected of doing it. They were all homeless. This was in another part of town from where I usually go. But the campsite and all looked like the camps I have visited over the years. They didn’t identify the woman yet; hope its nobody I know. Life can be tragic at times. Do me a favor and pray for all my homeless friends. Actually I would love it if you regularly prayed for this ministry [C.C.O.M.] and all the avenues of outreach the Lord has given us. We really need your prayers, thanks!
(144) Back to something I mentioned a few weeks back. ‘Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good’ Felt like the Lord was saying he gives us specific ‘nuggets’ of wisdom that make the difference between victory or failure. You can’t afford a ‘day of sin’ because you might unknowingly be aborting your key nugget of wisdom that God was going to communicate to you in that day. It’s like the sin of abortion. Some feel you need to practice abortion for the simple reason of population control. They feel the world cant supply the growing population. But it is also possible that you might ‘abort’ the very person who would have come up with the knowledge or technology to solve the problem! So in the same way, when you choose to walk in sin you might be ‘aborting your Lincoln or Einstein’. Walk in wisdom, it is during these times of peace that God will allow you to establish your borders, so when times of difficulty come you will have a place to ‘crash’. Those who have not ‘stored up’ in the summer have no shelter during times of famine and distress! NOTE: Let me add something practical here. Many people confuse the goal of storing up for retirement with MAKING THAT THE GOAL. Don’t confuse the obtaining of resources with the goal. God wants to use you for more than just getting enough money to retire at 70 and live a few more years and die! Think strategically about your ‘retirement’ years. Don’t get lost in the pursuit of making money to the point where the making of it becomes the goal! You still have some good years left in you, even at 62, so allow God to ‘redirect’ your retirement to maximize the rest of your life towards reaping a heavenly reward. All you need is enough money to live on and free you up to go as God leads. Some of you might be there already! NOTE: I talk about the ‘sin of abortion’ because I think the way we abort kids in this country is terrible! If you have had an abortion, God will forgive you and it is not my intent to hurt you!
(145) ‘I called on the Lord when I was in distress and the Lord answered me and set me in a large place/ in my fathers house are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told you’. King David said ‘when I was in distress the Lord enlarged me’. God increases your ‘area’ of influence when you go thru difficult situations. Scripture calls this ‘birth pains’. ‘As soon as Zion travailed she brought forth her children’ ‘a woman when in labor wants it to stop, but after the birth of the child she forgets all the pain’. God gives us ‘manifold’ areas of influence with diverse groups of people. These groups of people are the ‘places’ where God dwells. He will expand your horizon to see further than you have up until this time. Psalms says ‘I will have no rest until I find/build for you a habitation’. You see the heart of Jesus Messianic purpose and destiny contained in this cry of David. Jesus [and those of us representing him here as his body] are on a mission to find ‘a resting place for God’. David came to realize that this wasn’t some earthly temple at all. Jesus was on this mission in planet earth to redeem a bride that would actually become this ‘temple/dwelling place’ of God. He accomplished this thru extreme suffering and difficulty. Hebrews says ‘he endured the cross/ DESPISING the shame and has been seated at the right hand of God’ there was an aspect of the ministry of Jesus that he despised. The identifying with sin and shame was an ‘unpleasant’ reality that came along with the package of finding a habitation for God. I want to encourage you today, if you are feeling like your being ‘despised’ or ‘shamed’. If people gossip about you, or you feel you are being mistreated. Know for sure that God is ‘expanding your borders’ these ‘borders’ are areas of influence with different people groups [many mansions] and God takes pleasure in ‘dwelling in them’. You are literally being used to ‘find an habitation for God’. ‘ENLARGE THE PLACE OF THY TENT AND LET THEM STRETCH FORTH THE CURTAINS OF THY HABITATIONS. SPARE NOT, LENGTHEN THY CORDS AND STRENGTHEN THY STAKES, FOR THOU SHALT BREAK FORTH ON THE RIGHT HAND AND ON THE LEFT AND THY SEED SHALL INHERIT THE GENTILES AND MAKE THE DESOLATE CITIES TO BE INHABITED’ ‘THRU YOUR SEED [THE PEOPLE YOU INFLUENCE AND BRING INTO THE KINGODM] SHALL ALL THE FAMILIES [GROUPS OF PEOPLE] OF THE EARTH BE BLESSED’
(146) ‘Jesus of suburbia’ Last night I watched a dateline special on a ‘leader’ of a church in Puerto Rico. He quite obviously is a cult leader. Claims to be Jesus. He and his followers tattoo ‘666’ on their bodies and other strange stuff. When questioned on his lavish lifestyle of Rolex watches and taking huge amounts of money, he defended himself by saying ‘tradition portrays Jesus as being poor, but he was rich’ then he gave the verse that says Jesus told Peter to go get the money out of the fish mouth to pay taxes. This is a true verse; the problem is this verse obviously doesn’t prove Jesus was rich. If he were rich then why would he be going to a fish to get the money! Just cash in that jumbo C.D.! Its stupid stuff like this that gets me mad. Even the dateline interviewer said Jesus was a carpenter’s son and obviously was not wealthy. It’s sad that the reporter presented a more correct view of Jesus than the cult guy. It’s even sadder that there are very popular teachers in the American church that teach this same silliness! God help us all.
(147) ‘Jesus style’ what we are trying to accomplish is to facilitate the natural growth intended for the Church [people of God] as a living organism. There are prophets and leaders who approach ministry and the discharging of their gift as taking place in a ‘meeting’ hall environment. They schedule and have a regular pool of ‘church houses’ to preach in on a yearly basis and they view this as their profession. If you have enough ‘places to preach’ you are now ‘building your ministry’. We are trying to get away from this model of ministry. Those of you who are gifted prophetically can still function and be used, but we are trying to promote the ‘Jesus style of doing it’ go out into the by-ways and function in the ‘world’. Remember the world is the field, not the ‘church building’!
(148) ‘YOU HAVE CAST MY CROWN TO THE GROUND. YOU HAVE WEAKENED MY STRENGTH. THE DAYS OF MY YOUTH YOU HAVE SHORTENED, AND COVERED ME WITH SHAME’ this is what I like to call ‘the Jesus road to ministry’. The whole process of being exalted and humbled/shamed is from God. These are the exact elements that caused Jesus ministry to be so effective. Recognize that these processes are from God and it will exponentially advance your growth!
(149) ‘That which lasts’ These last few days I have been thinking about the ‘thing’ that endures. Gods word, his ‘seed’ [children] those that you ‘birth’ thru the Gospel. The ‘things’ that last are the people you birth into the Kingdom by the Gospel. Today’s ministry mindset seeks to cause the ‘ministry’ or ‘building’ or simply all the activities that surround what we are doing to last. God wants to re-focus our mindset. He wants us to be more ‘family’ oriented. Though all the other things serve a purpose in their proper place, Gods chief concern is to cause your spiritual offspring to ‘last’. ‘THY SEED AND THY NAME SHALL REMAIN’ ‘HE THAT DOETH THE WILL OF GOD ABIDETH FOREVER’ ‘I WILL RAISE UP ONE FROM YOUR LOINS AND HE SHALL SIT UPON THE THRONE FOREVER [Speaking to King David concerning Christ]. God sees people and ‘dynasty’s’. We see ‘things and ministries’. May God help us to re-focus! NOTE: What got me thinking about this was I recently passed up a ‘church’ [small building in some side street in Kingsville]. Had a friend that was the Pastor. Noticed that they found some friends to ‘take over’. Now the friends are ‘the Pastors’. This type of handing over the ‘church’ or finding someone to ‘Pastor it’ is common among small congregations. I remember having friends in the old days who either rented or bought or built a small building and then when ‘things got rough’ were frantically trying to get someone else to ‘continue the legacy’. The problem is in a lot of these scenarios the Pastor puts tremendous pressure on the people to ‘obey your new Pastor’. The New Testament Churches [In the NEW TESTAMENT!] had absolutely nothing going on along these lines. We must re examine our motivations for doing stuff like this. Lots of times its self-ego that’s behind it. Not every case, but many.
(150) ‘I BROUGHT YOU THRU THE RED SEA, AND CAUSED THE ARMIES OF PHARAOH TO DROWN THERE’ just read this in Psalms the other day. It’s a funny thing, the stuff that we go thru as believers advances us to the next level [hopefully!] This same stuff destroys the unbeliever! The last few weeks I have had a good open door with putting our blog in area papers. The lord has used this as an opportunity to reach out in an exponential way. During this same time I have had a lot of resistance! I had an old drug addict friend, who spent many years in jail tell me ‘Brother John, every time I try to serve the Lord the devil comes after me. It’s easier to just ‘not serve God’. This was the father of some of the brothers I was working with. I met the dad by going to the local Kingsville jails to preach and later became good friends with his sons [many!] that were in my age range. By the way I consider one of his sons to be one of our key people in Kingsville. A few of the brothers from this original group are still witnessing and going strong [or at least ‘going!’]. Well the father is now dead. He died right around the age of 50 or so. Good friend, but too many years down the wrong road. It eventually took a toll. Well the lesson is ‘if you are experiencing severe trials and tests, know for a fact that you are making headway into enemy territory’ sure it makes the devil mad, but scripture says ‘THE GOD OF PEACE SHALL CRUSH satan UNDER YOUR FEET SHORTLY’ NOTE; this computer will fix the word ‘satan’ with a capitol letter during spell check, but it wont do the same for ‘God’. That old devil try’s to get into everything, doesn’t he! NOTE: In the above scenario we have people that see themselves as a ‘part of us’. Though there is no organization to join, no ‘membership’. No ‘partnering with us financially’ type thing. But like the song says ‘friends are friends forever, if the Lords the Lord of them’. The attachment to each other is more along the lines of ‘a band of brothers’. Its not some ‘you are under my ministry, how dare you visit or attend another church’ or commit the worst offense imaginable, GIVE YOUR SACRED TITHE TO ANOTHER CHURCH! All silly stuff that goes on today under the guise of ‘local church’. P.S. This stuff that I just said doesn’t only get the devil mad, but some well meaning preachers too!
(151) I am going to be as honest as I can about this. Last night I tuned in to a fairly new Christian station that I like a lot. They have a lot of prophetic people on who I like. They were doing a money-raising thing. They had one of the prophetic people that I like [Mike Bickle] and right after him another brother. This other brother used to be Muslim and is now Christian. When he was Muslim he made some money in business, but when he became Christian he got a hold of the prosperity message and made ‘boat loads’ of it. He is always talking about money. As a brother I love him, but you cant go on national television and say things like ‘there’s someone watching right now ‘GODS’ telling you to give $100,000 right now [that’s one hundred thousand dollars for those of you that might not be familiar with these appeals!] Be obedient and do it, you will get a million back’. Now is it possible that God is saying this? Sure. But is it responsible to simply say it in a forum [national TV] where anybody can hear and everyone hearing thinks its God talking to them and they ‘obey the word of the Lord’ and do something stupid? There was some military veteran living on fixed income that heard something like this on another Christian station. He donated his meager check [or savings?] and gave a few thousand that he couldn’t afford. Whoever was raising the money made an appeal like the one above. He never got ‘his return’ and contacted the ministry and asked for his money back. They said no. He took it to court in California and the state made the ministry give him his money back. Now this kind of stuff ruins our testimony to the world. We can’t keep doing this. I was feeling let down that the prophetic person that I like was involved with this. May God help us all.
(152) Just outside praying and was finishing a part of intercession where I pray for the nations. I lift up our brothers and sisters in ‘regions of conflict’ [Africa/Middle east/Iraq/etc.] I pray for those on the verge of martyrdom, that God would supernaturally deliver them. Those who were recently martyred, that the Lord would be with their families/wives/children that are left behind. You know I didn’t realize I was going to share this when I just sat down! Maybe the Lord wants to expand your ‘prayer base’? What I wanted to get to was I finished with the Lords prayer [Our Father]. When I got to the point of ‘Thy Kingdom come’ I sensed how God’s ‘Kingdom comes’. I have heard over the years how God set up the local church and how his ‘plan’ to fund it is the tithe. And how the ‘tithe’ is Gods tax for Gods people. I do find it ironic that NO New Testament church tithed [except the Jewish believers at Jerusalem, and it wasn’t like you think either. The Jews had quite an elaborate system of tithing; it wasn’t putting 10% in the offering plate on Sunday!] The ‘rules’ Jesus set up for the church were quite simple. You love each other, help those in need. If you have a brother/elder ministering to you Gods word you take care of his needs [no tithe here when Paul teaches this by the way!]. You are a ‘community/brotherhood’ of people who love God and each other and show it by taking care of each other. This is the simplicity of ‘Gods Kingdom’ being expressed thru his people in planet earth. The ‘tax’ that we ‘owe’ is to love one another. Paul actually uses this language in speaking about being a ‘debtor’ to no man, but Gods love constraining us to act. Well I thought this might help you guys today.
(153) I just put together a packet of books and stuff for one of my homeless friends. I have his booklets listed on our tape catalog. His name is Shelby. He has had an interesting life. At one time he had a bus ministry of hippies that he used to travel around with. Some good stuff. I put the packet together because he now sees us as ‘working together’ in ministry. He hasn’t seen the book/tape catalog with his name and articles listed and he wants a catalog. I made a point of putting an updated one together for him. It might be insignificant to some, but something like this makes a person feel like they are playing a part in Gods greater purpose. He was telling his daughter who was visiting the area about me and he wants to show her his booklets on the catalog. Its little things like this that God deems as important. Remember Jesus talking about receiving the Kingdom as little children. Let God use you to ‘connect’ with people in this relational way, these are the ‘things’ that build the Church! [NOTE: I didn’t get to drop the catalog off this day. I am now at work, the next day, and I just got a message on my answering service from Shelby. Just called to say hi and see where I was and when we were going to get together. I knew the Lord wanted me to encourage him yesterday, feel bad that I didn’t!]
(154) ‘RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE’ A few years back this was a popular rock group. I do like the title, though I don’t think I ever heard their music. A lot of what I have recently written on is ‘raging against the machine’. What I mean by this is in Christian circles we develop ways and modes of functioning that ‘become’ church! Over the years Christians have incorporated ideas into ‘how to do church/ how to be Christian’ and often times the routines or systems that we set in place are necessary practices at the time in order to carry out some Christian function. [501c3/church building/tithing to support clergy/etc.] The problem is when we begin to ‘see’ these functions as the only legitimate expression of church. At that point all the ‘practices/functions’ become ‘the machine’ [the whole system of thought and practice]. Well this is when the revolutionary Spirit of Christ dwelling in the Church rises up [thru prophets and the prophetic Spirit] and ‘rages against the machine’. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN SUFFERETH VIOLENCE AND THE VIOLENT TAKE IT BY FORCE There’s just no getting around this. To be a true pioneer/revolutionary you can’t shrink back in the day of battle. Recently there has been a lot of talk/gossip about us [or should I say me!] Its funny but you learn to purposely ignore and not defend yourself. I actually had some people that were involved in it over a long period of time who ran into other people who were saying how much the Lord has done for them thru our radio ministry. The person testified of how I am reaching out and doing good things for God. The other friend kind of had to tell me how he heard a good testimony about us. But in this scenario I didn’t defend myself [it takes too much time to worry about the critics!] but someone else who I haven’t seen in 15 years defended me [this was an old Navy friend who knew me in the ‘bad days’ and then knew me when I became a Christian]. Well when you ‘rage against the machine’ the machine strikes back, but be assured that by Gods grace you will win. Remember the song from the reformer Martin Luther [not King] ‘THOUGH THIS WORLD WITH DEVILS FILLED SHOULD THREATEN TO UNDO US, WE WILL NOT FEAR FOR GOD HATH WILLED HIS TRUTH TO TRIUMPH THRU US’
(155) ‘LESSONS FROM A SCOTT PACK’ to my firefighter friends who read this blog you know what a Scott mask is, to the others let me explain. In the old days of firefighting the masks that firefighters wore didn’t have ‘positive pressure’. If there was a leak in the mask the toxic gases/smoke could get in the mask and you could get hurt or die from this. The fire service eventually developed a technology that is called ‘positive pressure’. Now if there is a leak in the mask instead of ‘stuff getting in’ ‘stuff gets out!’ The positive air flow coming in to your mask will ‘leak out’ if there is a breach. I feel like the Lord will allow us at times to be under ‘positive pressure’. Sure we all get angry and respond wrong at times [at least I do, maybe some of you super saints don’t, but if you read this blog site this far chances are you’re a lot like me!] When your are under ‘positive pressure’ and you feel like your being pierced, just remember God is allowing good stuff to flow out of you during these seasons. ‘HE CLAVE THE ROCKS IN THE WILDERNESS AND GAVE THEM DRINK OUT OF GREAT DEPTHS, HE BROUGHT STREAMS ALSO OUT OF THE ROCK, AND CAUSED WATER TO RUN DOWN LIKE RIVERS’
(156) A little more about ‘the machine’. I realize that by us having NO INCOME, NO BUILDINGS, NO STAFF, NO SALARIES, NO 501C3 that this is highly offensive to the ‘machine’. The amount of time and money that go into the ‘operation of the machine’ is enormous. The amount of thought and strategizing on how to raise funds for the machine are time consuming. To simply start a revolution of Christian volunteers who give themselves away for the cause for free is a tremendous threat to the machine. I do not see my brothers who function with all the trappings as evil or deceived. I recognize in some cases the ‘things’ of ministry are simply tools that God uses to effect change. I use radio and books and stuff too. The point I want to make is if you change your mindset from building things to building people your efforts will go a lot further and last much longer!
(157) Just remembered a conversation I had with a ministry leader in our city. At the time we were discussing the prosperity gospel. I was telling him the story of how a very popular prosperity preacher wrote in one of his best selling books that he had a vision and went to heaven, and in heaven he saw King David as well as many others. King David told the prosperity preacher that one of the things he regrets was all the negative confessions he made in the book of Psalms. [To be honest stuff like this still gets me mad!] Well I surely thought the ministry leader would be as upset as I about this. Instead he challenged me in defense of the prosperity preacher and said ‘how do you know the vision is fake’? Now I got upset. How do you know Joseph Smith [the prophet of the Mormon church] didn’t find the ‘gold tablets’ in the earth [or even if he found them, how come I know there not from God?] We know by spiritual discernment. Scripture commands us to ‘test the spirits’ and every spirit that is not from God must be rejected. The simple fact that this ministry leader could not discern and willingly reject the prosperity preacher’s vision was appalling. We cannot ever accept a vision that would have a writer of one of the Canonical books basically say he wished he could take something out of the book [in this case Psalms]. The book of Revelation places a curse on those who ‘take away from the Word of God’. I finally answered the question of ‘how do you know the visions fake?’ with the answer GOD TOLD ME! To my surprise the ministry leader accepted it and seemed to submit to this Word. It was almost like this movement casts a spell on people who defend it. Sometimes it takes a prophetic word spoken in authority to break this spell! Paul told the Galatians ‘who hath bewitched you to not obey the truth?’ I have had friends who were Pastors come out and publicly defend this movement because they visited one of their ministry centers and said they ran an efficient operation. Hey, you can visit the Mormon Temple in Utah and you’ll see efficiency! But God help us if this becomes the criteria that we use to judge a thing. I really have struggled with the leaders who were not learned enough to know what they were defending, but would defend it any way. Sort of like ‘hey, I have been attacked before and I didn’t like it, therefore I will defend any one else who gets attacked’. Well I don’t like being attacked either, but leaders need the ability to see things for what they are and try to bring correction in love. I do believe these prosperity guys are fellow believers, but stuff like I just showed you can’t go unchecked. The popularity of some of these things is a direct result of leaders not taking a stand when they should have. I don’t want to offend you guys, but I felt the Lord wanted me to share this.
(158) Went thru my emails yesterday and had an invitation from a church in Africa to speak at a conference. I just prayed for Africa the other day! I didn’t accept the invitation, don’t want to be rude but I don’t ‘do churches’. There are enough people already making the ‘church circuit’. We really don’t need anymore. They can get all our stuff for free on this blog site without me going to ‘manually’ deliver a sermon. What about the offerings? Oh yea we don’t ‘do offerings’ either. Now let me get a little serious. The invitation might have been a scam, who knows? But regardless I wouldn’t have done it either way. Wisdom ‘sends out her servants’ thru the ‘sending’ of words thru Radio, Books and the blog site we are reaching a great area. You remember about ‘working smarter, not harder’. I might do something like this someday, it’s not ‘wicked’ or anything, it’s just that our style is trying to break the mold and show the ‘everyday believer’ that you too can have an effective outreach without being a part of the system!
(159) I have not told you guys this yet. But as I was praying I felt it was time. I know I have ‘strange’ sleeping/eating habits. About 5 or 6 years back [now that I think about it more like 10-12 yrs.] I started eating once a day. It kind of started like a fasting thing. I used to eat regularly and fast 1 day every week or so. The longest was a seven day fast [only water!] But now I just eat once a day. I try to eat around 3 or 4p.m. Sometimes I will have a healthy snack at night [peanuts/fruit] I had a friend tell me he wishes he had a metabolism where he didn’t eat that much. I think he had the impression that I don’t get hungry or something. Some days I feel hungry all the time! Its not about feelings, its learning to maximize your time by putting fuel into your body! I do feel as hungry as anyone who didn’t eat till 3pm. But I have much more energy by doing it this way. I very rarely break this rule. Maybe a few times a year? I am not trying to be a martyr; this ‘style’ seemed to be most effective for me. I do find it funny that John the Baptist ate locusts and wild honey. Maybe having strange eating habits is a prerequisite for ‘prophetic’ ministries? Well felt it was time to share this, maybe you will at least be encouraged to fast some! NOTE: Jesus said they accused John of ‘having a devil’ [being demon possessed] because of his lack of eating and they accused Jesus of being a ‘glutton’ because of his eating with sinners, It just seems like you can never please that old religious crowd!
(160) This entry may be difficult to explain, but let me try. When I first moved to Corpus in 1992, I used to take my kids to a local lake/pond. It is called Lakeview Park. Nice lake with ducks and stuff. I haven’t been there in many years. ‘Bodies of water’ can represent groups of people both in scripture [Revelation] and in prophetic imagery. Well this week they found out that there were two alligators living in secret in this ‘pool’ of water. They don’t know how long they were there but they were just ‘exposed’. A few weeks back I wrote on the God of peace bruising satan under our feet shortly. satan gets his power thru deception; he does things in secret and doesn’t want to be found out. He likes to ‘hide’ in ‘ponds/lakes’ [groups of people who he can influence to carry out his plan/ or simply prevent Gods plan from taking root in these people groups]. I felt like the Lord was saying there were many ‘people/groups’ that he wanted us to reach, but ‘leviathen’ [devil] was hiding underneath the surface preventing Gods plan from coming forth. At this season satan's works are being ‘found out’ and it will be safe to ‘go in the water’ [fish these people groups!]
(161) ‘THE PUFFBALLS’ Let me do another one that’s not too easy to explain. Many years ago I heard an Apostle share on ‘puffballs’, that is the strategy of those weed like flowers that start as a flower and then turn into the puffball that the wind can blow on and 100’s of little parts go flying. Some of these little ‘offspring’ have been known to travel thousands of miles and ‘re-plant’ in another country and then start the process all over again. The brother [Jim Dirkin] shared how this was an ‘Apostolic strategy’ that the Lord had shown him. He had an outreach ministry that worked with many hippies during the Jesus movement, and they would send their people all over the world to establish Gods Kingdom and preach the gospel. I like this imagery. As I write this entry the puffballs are being blown by the wind in my yard right now. As I told you guys a few entries back I don’t mow my back yard, but have created paths that are surrounded by trees and plants. I do pull up any grass that comes up, or weeds. This year I saw the same ‘weeds’ that I pull up every year. But I kind of felt like I should leave them. I was on the verge of pulling them up and then stopped. Well sure enough these turned into those puffballs. It happened in February of 2007, the 20 year anniversary of our ministry. I felt like the Lord said many of our ‘seed’ [people] will grow exponentially this year. The ‘puffballs’ have reached a point of critical mass where they will continue! ‘THY SEED AND THY NAME SHALL REMAIN, THOSE THAT WILL BE OF THEE SHALL BUILD THE OLD WASTE PLACES’ Jesus said in his Parables to be careful when trying to ‘pull out the tares’ from the wheat, you might accidentally damage the real thing. I didn’t realize that I was ‘pulling out’ a weed that was actually a beautiful flower. Be careful when dealing with people, you might damage someone that God intends to be a ‘part of your field!’[if you want to look up the ministry of Jim Dirkin, it was called ‘Gospel Outreach’ they do have a site on line, also ‘Verbo’ or something like that. Jim has gone on to be with the Lord many years ago, but he was a pioneer in what has come to be known as the modern Apostolic movement]
(162) I want to demonstrate something right now. The last few hours I felt the Lord had a prophetic word for you. The word is from Psalms ‘WHEN THE LORD TURNED THE CAPTIVITY OF ZION [PUT YOUR NAME HERE] IT WAS LIKE A DREAM’ I felt like the Lord was saying an appointed time has just come for you. IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO WORK, LORD [PSALMS] A SET TIME HAS COME. I just felt like the Lord wanted to communicate to you that this is a ‘Kairos’ time for you. You have come to the Kingdom for SUCH A TIME AS THIS!
(163) My daughter mentioned the other day how she likes the mesquite tree growing in my yard. I have pruned it over the years to grow around the corner of my house. Mesquites grow both horizontal and vertical. If you prune them right they will grow very wide, almost like the branches become benches that you can sit on. Was just outside praying [during an early morning thunderstorm!] and was standing under an eve next to this tree. I was thinking how Jesus spoke of Gods Kingdom being like a small seed, but after it grows it becomes a large tree where many birds find shelter. I pulled this tree out of the Oso bay around 12 years ago [?] its so big and wide now you couldn’t move it if you tried! Maybe a pro with a truck and stuff, but not like when I pulled it up by hand from the wet sand. Felt like the Lord was saying to plant/transplant some things now, it might seem insignificant but down the road it will be a ‘mainstay’ for many people [birds taking shelter!]. ‘DON’T DESPISE THE DAY OF SMALL BEGINNINGS’.
(164) ‘GOD GIVES MEAT IN DUE SEASON’ Just read this in Psalms, it’s also found in other portions of scripture. Paul told the Corinthians, after he wrote them the first letter, that initially he regretted being so hard on them. But later he changed his mind and was glad he was so hard on them because it produced the desired results. God allows certain truths to go forth at certain times to specific groups of people. I debate whether or not certain people are ready for the stuff we preach. If people are not ‘ready’ [mature] they can use the truths we preach in a destructive way. Some Pastors can’t handle our stuff. I don’t want to sound big headed, but this is true. God not only ‘feeds the right food at the right time’ but he also requires us to do the same. This year [2007] the Lord opened a door to a lot of my old friends from New Jersey. I have tried to contact them before, but ‘it wasn’t time’. I felt like the Lord said ‘it’s now the right time’. Ask God to give you wisdom in when and whom to speak to. Jesus said at his return he will see who is giving out meat in due season. Are you feeding the right meat to the right people?
(165) ‘I AM NOT RICH!’ Let me once again clarify some things. We shouldn’t spend time defending ourselves, unless it serves a purpose. I have mentioned that in the past I have made money in real estate. Some people seem to think I am rich and therefore we have a regional influence because I fund it myself. All the money I made has been spent! I bought a building for the guys I worked with in Kingsville, It didn’t work out so I sold it and used the money for radio and outreach. I do fund all the stuff I do [radio, feeding guys, paying for blog adds, etc.] I also put money in the Church we attend [though its not a tithe]. All this costs me a few hundred dollars a month. I do not claim this as a deduction on my taxes [nothing wrong about claiming it, I prefer not to]. So basically I make around $45,000 dollars a year [2007] and pay for these avenues of ministry out of pocket. The reason I share this is I want you to see that all of us can reach ‘our world’. The main ingredient is seeking to be a servant. We too often see ministry as a business in which we seek advancement for ourselves and the ‘church’. We innocently by-pass the ingredient of servant hood that Jesus said was the key to advancement in Gods kingdom. I am amazed at the amount of people who don’t believe/see the reality of this. Jesus said the gospel is the power. The power of exponential increase in Gods Kingdom is laying down your life for others. I realize some do criticize me for not ‘paying my way’ with the tithe, while enjoying the benefits. I struggle with this too. I take consolation in the fact that many of the Pastors of the churches I have attended over the years have benefited from our teaching ministry for free. Some have learned more from us than any other regional ministry. I am not boasting, but just showing you that things seem to even out. Well I wanted to clarify this, hope it helped. [Also I recommend the church I attend, and its other campuses, to all the people we work with in the region. I in no way teach that our people shouldn’t attend a good church, I just try to expand their mindset to ‘them’ being the church in many different scenarios]. NOTE: I want to radically challenge your mindset right now. Paul the Apostle said ‘HE THAT IS NOT WORKING SHOULD GET A JOB, SO HE CAN HAVE TO GIVE TO HIM THAT NEEDETH’ I simply want you to see the scriptural authority behind the concept of giving directly to meet the needs of people. The church today puts 99[or 100?] percent of the focus on the tithe. Paul does leave room in his theology for giving to meet the needs of Elders [Pastors] but the imperative is always towards the needs of people. Most Christians will read the verse that I just quoted and never give it a second thought. How many of you seriously work to give to him that needeth?
(166) Felt like the Lord had a prophetic word for you ‘I WILL HEAR WHAT THE LORD GOD WILL SPEAK, HE WILL SPEAK PEACE TO HIS PEOPLE AND TO HIS SAINTS, BUT LET THEM NOT TURN AGAIN TO FOLLY’ [somewhere in the bible, not sure where?] I felt like God just said to you that he’s ending things in your life that you have struggled with for years, the ‘test’ is over. It’s now time to begin the journey in a greater way. You are out of the wilderness and are entering the ‘promised land’. Beware, there are still enemies to conquer, but you will be coming after them, as opposed to them coming after you!
(167) Just got back [last night] from spending a few days at my daughters ranch. I took my youngest girl and we helped my daughter [Becky] do some stuff. These last few weeks I have made it a point to pick up area news papers and call to see if they will run our blog. When I call I let them know we are not for profit [I mean really not for profit!] and I do explain that we have no building but simply meet as a brotherhood of people. This can be hard to articulate but most people accept us as a ministry. I say most! I called some paper in the Orange Grove area, the lady sounded a little ‘country’ and was a little rude. As I began to explain our desire to put our blog site in their paper I asked if she knew what a blog was [some people who are not familiar with the word don’t know what I am saying when I ask this and I will spell out the word B L O G] well she simply said ‘I am not stupid sir, I know how to spell. If I were stupid do you think I would be running a newspaper’. To be honest at this point it surprised me that she was running one! Its hard enough to explain the concept of ‘church’ as a community versus a building to most believers, I knew I had my work cut out for me with this person. At one point she asked if we had a ‘church’ building or not. I plainly told her we didn’t. I wasn’t hiding this fact, but she simply was unable to grasp this concept. She finally let it be known that if ‘you’re a church with a building who meets on Sunday’ you can run an ad for free, even if the Pastors salary is a million dollars, you run it free because ‘you’re a church’. But if your a community of people who are in society doing the works of Jesus for free you cant run an ad for free because you don’t have a ‘church building’. This lady finally hung up on me. She kept stating she was not stupid and I took her at her word and tried to explain the Greek word ‘Ecclesia’ as ‘the Church’ and tried to give her a crash course in ecclesiology! I knew she didn’t understand a word I was saying, but frankly I was a little tired of hearing her. Well I never placed the ad, I could have paid for one, but this is a little ‘red neck’ newspaper and I really think I would have been doing them a favor to put our ad in their paper.
(168) Now back to my time at the ranch. I got up early in the morning to pray outside. I walked around for a few hours before sun up. This is the first time I was able to pray in this region. I really sensed how God precedes ‘outreach’ to an area with prayer and fasting. The night before I was at work in Kingsville and prayed at this same time over there. The Lord sees ‘prayer, fasting, sacrifice, persecution and difficulty’ as the ingredients for ministry. We often look at ‘finances, facilities, staff, etc.’ we see ‘things’ God sees character developed under fire. I remember hearing a few years back a particular preacher defend his use of private planes. Hey, if you want to use one fine. In his defense he shared that because the anointing is in him, its so valuable [true] that if he goes to great lengths to ‘pamper’ himself with expensive things he is doing it ‘for the anointing’ not for him. Its funny, but didn’t Jesus have the anointing? If I remember he didn’t spend a lot of time ‘protecting’ it, I think he even went to the cross with it! We get into these mindsets that are hard to break. We had a brother come to our area who normally charges [I think he said a million dollars?] to speak, but because the Lord laid it on his heart he would do it this time for free, thanks a lot. The valuable gifts and ‘anointings’ in us ARE VALUABLE, but they don’t belong to us! They are GIFTS! What do you do with something that you get for free, you share it with others for free! Paul said we have this treasure in earthen vessels; the valuable thing we ‘protect’ is not the vessel. We must change our mindsets from the way the world operates. Sure the world compensates its C.E.O s, but we work on different lines as Gods people. I don’t want to get into this right here [salaries and stuff] but I want you to ‘see’ things differently. We are here to get the message out at all costs, we don’t belong to ourselves, God has purchased us. We are ‘slaves’. He has ownership. We don’t get a salary for doing the things we are required to do. Do you get it? [It’s OK to meet the needs of your Pastor financially, I am talking about the mindset of ‘starting a ministry’ and being compensated before your willing to go out and give your life away]
(169) Many years ago after I first started serving the Lord I took a trip back to Jersey. My dad, a firefighter [retired Captain] got me an invitation to preach at the Chaplains church. He was a good man who was pastoring a ‘Church of God’ church. I simply preached a basic gospel message. Many years later [20?] while back visiting family I thought I would drop by and say hi. I didn’t know if the Pastor was around anymore, he was around 70 when I first met him, he would be close to 90 now. Well I stopped by the church and to my surprise he was still there. I spoke to him for a little while and told him I had preached at his church years ago. He couldn’t remember. After a while he finally remembered. I did look a lot different now. As we were sitting in his nice little apartment located directly behind the church sanctuary, his wife was in the other room mumbling. The old Pastor told me she suffers from Alzheimer’s and to just ignore it. He was polite in saying this. The old pastor was truly enjoying one of the sons [me!] of one of the fire Captains that he was a chaplain to, being able to visit and reminisce. During our conversation he seemed content. He told me though he doesn’t have much materially in this life, he is satisfied that he has built up eternal rewards. He kind of said ‘I don’t know how you feel about the modern prosperity movement, but I feel God doesn’t measure success by outward things’. Well I told him ‘Brother Wilcombs, I kind of wrote a little book on this subject’ and I dropped one off to him before I left Jersey. I received a handwritten note in the mail, he really appreciated the book. I kind of felt like the Lord gave me an opportunity to encourage a man who gave his whole life to the ministry and was feeling ‘defensive’ living in a day that blatantly measures godliness by financial gain. I never saw him again, if he’s still alive he would be nearing 100 years old. I thank God for the elders of the faith who served God so many years with their eyes on eternal rewards versus this present world [I had previously heard that he died and found out later that he was still alive. The book I gave him can be read in it’s entirety on this site]
(170) Over the years I have found it interesting that many Christians live their whole lives believing things that they feel are not true. Not talking about the basic tenets of the faith, but stuff on the ‘rapture’ or the church, or tithing. A lot of the stuff I deal with. It’s funny that Christians live their whole lives embracing things just out of fear. Some times they will admit that what they heard [read] from our ministry was something that they always felt to be true. I kind of feel like saying ‘if you knew this to be true, why would you not embrace it’. The first century believers were getting their heads chopped off for the faith, and we don’t have the courage to believe and preach the simplest things! It’s stuff like this that determines whether or not you will move on to the next level. Many preachers are seeking a national voice, looking to expand their parameters. God first wants boldness to hear and receive truth from him. Why would the Lord expand someone’s forum if they don’t have the basic ability to hear and speak truth? I am not talking about simply ‘regurgitating’ someone else’s revelation. I am talking about hearing and speaking what God is saying. ‘OPEN MY EYES SO I MIGHT BEHOLD THINGS OUT OF YOUR LAW’.
(171) For the purpose of full disclosure let me mention something. All 4 of my daughters have trust funds set up for them. While I am not rich, my kids are set up fairly well. The reason I share this is the other day when I was up early praying at my daughters ranch I felt the Lord saying he was going to expand us ‘thru our seed’ [spiritual children]. While walking around the ranch I saw hundreds of wildflowers and mesquite trees. I have a few in my yard, but these were a lot! I also realized how my daughter [19 yrs old] owns a $125,000 dollar ranch free and clear. She bid $31,000 for it and used part of her trust fund money [it was a HUD repo and no bank would finance a ‘modular home’ on a ranch, though the original owner paid $85,000 just for the house!] The nice mustang she drives is also free and clear [I bought it for $4,000 a few years ago]. I am not bringing this up for no reason. For many years people [friends/family] would tell me ‘instead of helping bums and addicts, you could work a second job [besides being a firefighter] so your kids can have more’. I have found out if you take care of Gods people [kids] he will take care of yours. To be honest, how many 19yr olds own a $125,000 ranch free and clear? See, I know God does bless people financially; I just feel the church today has blurred the lines of Christianity with gain. We as believers have a mandate to not measure ‘Godliness by gain’. Well I believe scripture says ‘first the natural, then the spiritual’ I am looking forward to hearing from you guys on how God is increasing your spiritual borders! NOTE: This is also another benefit of not taking a salary, can you imagine what people would be saying ‘that preacher went and bought his daughter a ranch, and she drives a mustang too!’ [I own a 66 mustang, it’s got a 289 in it for all you car guys] NOTE: I had an old friend in Kingsville, one of our original group, who use to kid me and say ‘for someone who doesn’t believe in the prosperity message, you do pretty good!’ I would answer back ‘I don’t believe it works for you guys, only for me’ of course I was kidding! NOTE: Let me show you guys something. I don’t ‘think money thoughts’ all the time. I don’t ‘confess money scriptures’ all day. I basically don’t believe in the main tenets of the prosperity gospel, but yet I have prospered! Why? I believe if you give your life away for others, practice giving and being generous, be EMPLOYED for most of your life, simply be a responsible person and even invest wisely. These are the things that ‘produce’ prosperity, not some tricks and gimmicks. I know God blesses his people; its just money shouldn’t be the focus! NOTE: I do find it strange that there are many Christians who are ALWAYS talking, thinking and focusing on material wealth. If I were to tell them ‘you have spent 35 years speaking, thinking and developing your entire Christian experience around money. Many of your teachers teach that Jesus was a millionaire; you have actually changed the image of God into one of your own desires. Many of the sermons you have heard thru out your life have been about money. Don’t you think it strange that someone like myself, who outright rejects and preaches against the movement is blessed’ Many of them would respond by saying ‘well, at least I died with a good confession’ No you didn’t, you died spending your whole life focusing on the things that Jesus said were not the true riches! Thanks to your preachers you spent a lifetime doing what Jesus said not to do! He said seek FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND ALL THINGS WILL BE ADDED TO YOU you my friend were seeking THE THINGS!
(172) A few years back a popular preacher in our region [Houston] was speaking about a guy who got stuck in a freezer [walk in!] He shared how even though the freezer was not plugged in, they found the guy dead in the morning. The brother said he believed the guy froze to death, because in his ‘mind’ he believed the freezer was on. I do like this preacher [Joel Osteen] but this is a type of ‘metaphysical’ belief. The groups ‘Christian Science’ and others hold to these views. The biblical view of ‘renewing the mind’ and meditating on Gods Word is a profitable thing. This type of belief [the freezer guy!] is really not biblical. We don’t ‘create reality’ with our thoughts or words. While it is good to keep a positive confession and to ‘set your mind on things above’ yet these practices don’t actually create reality! They can have an effect on our circumstances and help us in our walk with God, but in and of themselves these are simply ‘window dressing’. The basic tenets of Christian belief put the emphasis on character, faith, trusting in God, being diligent and overall ‘root’ issues. The modern focus on words and thoughts are a superficial approach. Though there is some biblical truth to them, they are not the deep issues of walking with God. What about the brother in the freezer? Well it’s possible he died of a heart attack or something, but he didn’t ‘create’ an environment with his mind that caused him to freeze to death.
(173) In the early church of the first couple of centuries there was a group of ‘Christians’ who were called Gnostics. These people believed in ‘special knowledge’. They felt that God revealed things to them thru spiritual means that the average Christians didn’t access. Today you have the equivalent of this in ‘revelation knowledge’. This is a type of belief among Christians that sometimes contradicts scripture, but slips in as ‘special revelation’. While it is true that God does give us prophetic insight and allows us to see things thru dreams and visions and other means, yet all of these ‘things’ are subservient to biblical authority! When things slip in under the title of ‘revelation knowledge’ we must judge it by scripture. If scripture contradicts the ‘revelation knowledge’ then we go with the Word!
(174) A few years ago we had an Apostle visit our area. He is fairly well known in ‘prophetic’ circles and does have a worldwide ministry. I do like him and his teaching. He was going to hold some meetings in Texas and I called his office to get directions. A few days later he called back at an inopportune time. If I am busy I will not answer my phone unless I recognize the number. I thought I would answer it this day anyway. Sure enough it was this national minister personally calling me. He didn’t know me at all! I think the Lord told him to call. I spoke only a few minutes and shared a prophetic word. I quoted ‘FOR THY SAKE WE ARE KILLED ALL THE DAY LONG’ he simply said ‘O MY’. I never got in touch with him again. I did send them our books and I feel we might be a little to ‘strong’ for this brother. Many ‘Apostles/Prophets’ are really affected by the prosperity gospel and modern concepts of ‘spiritual warfare’ and I think our teachings in these areas turned them off. I do feel the Lord allowed me to speak this word to him as a precursor to sending our books. It’s like God confirmed ‘the word with signs following [or should I say ‘preceding!’]
(175) Many years ago I had a Pastor friend who pastored a church in Corpus Christi that was called the ‘Lambs Fold’. His name was Tom Reedy, his wife was Kathy. He was going to leave Corpus and was looking for confirmation on whether or not to leave. He visited one of the most accurate Prophets of our generation [Paul Cain]. He never told me what happened, but I eventually got the tape series of the meetings from someone else and I heard Paul prophesy ‘there is someone here named Tom and your wife is Kathy [I think he even said the name ‘Reedy’] it has something to do with the Lambs Fold on a coastal city’. Its things like this that convince you that the prophetic is real. Paul Cain has gone thru some very difficult times these last few years and he has struggled with homosexuality and other things. I hesitate to use Paul’s name but I felt we needed to give credit to the many thousands of accurate prophecies that Paul has given over the years.
(176) I spoke on fasting a few entries back. I remember hearing one of the most prominent leaders of the prosperity movement [he has since gone on to be with the Lord] say that he didn’t fast anymore, but God told him instead to live a ‘fasted life’. This brother was overweight and had heart problems earlier in his life. I felt it strange that he didn’t fast anymore, and the ‘fasted life’ seemed to not truly limit his eating. I don’t want to be mean, I used to listen to this brother in the early years of my Christian experience, but I felt this to be a sign. Covetousness and the more extreme cases of it that were found in this brothers teaching is a form of lust and addiction. Jesus spoke on the power of ‘mammon’ as the only other addiction that directly competes with the kingdom of God for mans affections. ‘YOU CAN NOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON’ I felt the inability to break from the spirit of mammon was seen in this brothers inability to control his eating. Eventually instead of losing the weight, he seemed to develop a ‘belief’ thru a ‘Rhema word’ [God told me not to fast but to live a fasted life] that justified the appetites of the flesh. This same scenario flowed over into the more extreme elements of the prosperity gospel. Visions of Jesus appearing to these brothers telling them ‘YOU CAN WRITE YOUR OWN TICKET WITH GOD’ teachings on commanding Angels to ‘GO FORTH AND BRING TO ME MONEY’ things that I look at now and am amazed that so many Christians cant break from this stuff. I love the brother who I just used as the example, but our allegiance must be to God first and I felt he wanted me to share this.
(177) I remember sharing some of these things with ‘leaders’ of the church in Corpus Christi and they would say ‘oh that criticism is the same stuff that Hank Hanegraaff preaches’ [this brother wrote a critical book on the prosperity movement]. The inability of this particular leader to see the true deception of this movement would later limit his voice. The brother who said this to me went on the radio station that I broadcast on. I do like the brother, I kind of had the feeling he felt like ‘I will show John some things about radio’ sort of like he was going to ‘teach us a lesson’. He lasted a few weeks on the radio [we’ve been on 11 years as of 2007] I don’t want to boast or sound competitive, I simply believe God gives voice to those who are willing to see beyond there own personal survival and speak the truth. This ministry leader was trying to build a financial support base at the time of our discussion and I felt he dismissed out of hand what God was trying to show him [thru me!] because it simply didn’t fit in with the goal of ‘bringing in the money’. If we are truly in ministry to speak what God is saying, then the ‘goal of bringing in the funds’ must be secondary to the prophetic word. We must speak truth, regardless of how it affects our income base. Well I believe the ministry leader lasted a few weeks on the radio because he had his priorities wrong, what about you! NOTE: This is the same ministry leader I spoke on earlier who defended the prosperity preacher. During our conversation he was showing me things the Lord showed him out of the bible. Okay stuff from the Old Testament, little stories about unity and stuff. I found it strange that he would spend time on finding interesting stories from the bible and yet not see all the plain scriptures in the New Testament dealing with the issues of money DON’T DESIRE TO BE RICH, BE CONTENT WITH WHAT YOU HAVE, TEACHERS WILL ARISE IN THE LAST DAYS WHO WILL TEACH GAIN IS GODLINESS FROM SUCH TURN AWAY, THE LOVE OF MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL THOSE WHO HAVE GONE AFTER IT HAVE TURNED AWAY FROM THE FAITH [shall I go on?] I just think we ‘strain at gnats’ while we don’t realize we are ‘swallowing the camel whole’!
(178) I read an article from Christianity today the other day. It was on Prophets and their role in the Church! It was an excellent article; it kind of surprised me that it was in Christianity today. Out of all the Christian magazines in circulation this is the best. I don’t say this only because of this article. I have subscribed to Charisma and Christianity today and a few others for many years. I don’t subscribe to any write now, but I read from some on line. I canceled the Charisma magazine many years before Christianity today. I felt that Charisma was making an honest effort, but the only valuable stuff seemed to be coming from Lee Grady. He only wrote a brief editorial. The bulk of the magazine was messages by popular preachers, and a lot of them on ‘you can have what you say’ and stuff like that. I actually said to myself one day ‘how many messages does it take on ‘you can achieve some goal, or get what you want’ before they move on to the ‘university level’. Well I feel Christianity today is at the ‘university level’. In the past the majority of preachers/teachers that taught on Apostles and Prophets were the charismatic brothers. I do credit Brother Hagin for re introducing this teaching to the church. I am really excited that more of the mainline Christians seem to be more open to these gifts. It’s hard for believers to distinguish between the reality that some things can be good from a preacher, while other things can be bad. I have seen so many brothers leave the Baptist faith and become Charismatic [OK] but then they view their Baptist heritage in a negative way. They seem to think the future of the church is Charismatic. The future of the church is CHRIST! All charismatics and Baptists and Catholics and every one else who names the name of Christ plays a role in this thing. The message of the church is the Cross of Christ. We are to carry the ‘evangelical’ gospel as the primary voice of the church. If you used to be some denomination and are now another, that’s fine, but don’t think that now the message is ‘the Spirit’ or ‘the anything else’. The message stays the same. Now I believe we should teach and embrace the working of the Holy Spirit, it’s just some brothers have actually said stuff like ‘when I was Baptist I focused on the Cross, when I became charismatic I now focus on the resurrection and the Spirit’ one brother even said the Cross was only for a few hours, leaving the impression that those ‘few hours’ are now over and we move on to other things. This brother is an Apostle out of San Antonio who is a true elder in the church. He has done many good things and I have received from him in many ways. He made this statement at a conference in Corpus Christi and I felt I needed to correct it on radio. I did! Paul told the Corinthians that when he was with them he knew nothing ‘but Christ crucified’. This message doesn’t mean we don’t ‘move on in growth’ it simply means the growth God is looking for is the Body to grow ‘into him’. God’s goal is for us to be mature ‘in him’. Growing is not a matter of moving away from him [or the cross!] Paul told the Galatians ‘MY LITTLE CHILDREN WHOM I TRAVAIL IN BIRTH AGAIN UNTIL CHRIST BE FORMED IN YOU’ Ephesians says we are to grow up into the full stature of Christ and allow his headship over us to fully function as we develop more into being the Body of Christ. All these images show us that the goal of Christian growth is not moving to some other belief, but moving more ‘into him’.
(179) I called the Houston Chronicle and asked them if I can run our blog in the church section, as of now I am still waiting for a response. I was up praying yesterday and heard [not audibly!] ‘Houston, we’ve got a problem’ so I began praying for the brother that I spoke to and also for divine favor. I recognize that if someone who works for these papers attends a prosperity church that they will not want to run the ad. There are obstacles in moving forward, I have given you guys an example on how one person can do great things in God, but there will be tremendous resistance. I gave you the example of my friend being on the radio for a few weeks. Though it doesn’t take a lot of money to impact regions, it does take spiritual courage. We wrestle not against flesh and blood; the adversary will come after you. Don’t want to intimidate you, just want to give you the facts. Also today we come out in the San Antonio paper, my daughter had a friend from high school that moved to San Antonio while they were still in school. He was a boyfriend/friend. I used to drive her midway and the boy’s mom would meet us and we would pick the boy up for a visit in Corpus. I gave the kid one of our books on the prosperity movement. A few weeks later the boy said his mom really liked it and wanted him to tell me. This was a nice Hispanic family. They were from a broken home, the boys ‘mom’ was really his grandmother. She was a nice woman. I kind of got the feeling that she was one of the many who hear the prosperity gospel for many years and feel a sense of guilt about struggling financially. The message has a tendency to say ‘just keep confessing and believing, surely God doesn’t want his kids to suffer and be broke. Look at us we are all rich’ [the preachers!] Many preachers don’t realize the damage their doing to the poor in our midst. James said ‘YOU ARE DESPISING THE POOR AND TREATING THE RICH WITH FAVOR, HATH NOT GOD CHOSEN THE POOR OF THIS WORLD RICH IN FAITH AND HEIRS TO THE KINGDOM WHICH HE HATH PROMISED, WOE TO THE RICH IN THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT, THEIR RICHES WILL DECAY AND HAVE NO EFFECT IN THAT DAY’ Many of the prosperity brothers simply don’t see the overall effect that the message has on people who are poor. James didn’t preach to the poor that if they believe long enough things will turn around. Paul didn’t tell the saints that they can be rich if they believe, he told them YOU CAME INTO THE WORLD WITH NOTHING, WHEN YOU LEAVE YOU WILL LEAVE WITH NOTHING, THEREFORE BE CONTENT TO HAVE YOUR NEEDS MET Now I realize that there are basic principles of believing the Lord for resources to touch the world. George Mueller was a great man of faith who started an orphanage and had miraculous stories of God providing. It’s that we just are blurring the lines too much. Scripture commands us to not show contempt to the poor. How do you think they feel when we say from our pulpits ‘Well our people are doing well, look at all the expensive cars in the parking lot’ now what do you suppose will happen to that innocent grandma raising her grandson for many years, who took the bus to church today? We don’t realize how much damage we have done. Some of you would have benefited to have listened to me 15 years ago when I started preaching this stuff, instead of telling every body ‘Oh that preacher is against the prosperity movement’ No I am FOR THE POOR GRANDMAS THAT JAMES TOLD US NOT TO DESPISE! NOTE: Many of the brothers I have spoken to over the years teach that there needs to be a return of ‘strong Apostolic authority’ like the early church had. It’s funny because when they here or read the stuff we are writing its ‘too strong’ for them! NOTE: Let me add that the preacher who made the statement about all the people doing well because they had nice cars in the parking lot, meant well. He was trying to express the fact that he wasn’t the only one doing well. This preacher is a very humble man in our city. He is more humble than me, and I don’t say this in a demeaning way. I consider him a true friend. Till this day I pray for the church he pastors as well as other area churches [the one I attend!] I consider him an innocent victim of the deception from certain elements of the prosperity movement. He did not realize that he was directly violating the scripture that says ‘DO NOT MEASURE GODLINESS BY GAIN’ Scripture plainly says you are not to use material things as a measure of ones faith. If the people were all poor and had ‘crappy’ cars, they still could have had ‘been doing well’ [spiritually] according to scripture. This innocent statement made by a good man is just one of the casualties of this teaching! Paul warned Timothy that those who would teach that gain was godliness and would make money the focus would ‘swerve from the faith’ that is they would UNCONCIOUSLY make statements and judgments that were outside of biblical parameters. The logic and reasoning of the above statement came from a good man who today realizes many of the things I am showing you, but at the time did not see how he was being affected by those who were ‘swerving from the faith’. We flippantly say things like ‘THE BIBLE DOESN’T SAY MONEY IS EVIL, BUT THE LOVE OF IT IS’ where does it say this? In TIMOTHY, the same book that I have been quoting all these verses from. People don’t realize that to make being rich your goal is forbidden in scripture. Now I didn’t say you can’t be rich, nor did I say you cant try to become rich. But scripture says that those who DESIRE to be rich fall into temptation and a snare. Scripture forbids the desire to be rich to be the motivational force in your life! BUT THOU O MAN OF GOD FLEE THESE THINGS don’t be duped into this stuff, it will cause you to swerve from the faith and God will limit your voice if you do!
(180) I have another confession to make. When I drive the regional route from C.C. to Kingsville I pray while going thru the area cities. I feel ‘constrained’ when I wear the seatbelt, so I never wear it. I know some of you will backslide over something like this, but if you have made it this far on this blog you are more than able to handle this! Sure enough the other day I was driving past the airport on the highway doing about 70 and I hit this bump and spun the truck around in the middle of the highway and did a few turns but didn’t flip over or get hit by another vehicle. I wasn’t scared at all, it was a peaceful feeling, I must admit I continued to drive without the belt. I am not bragging, I just felt like there is a sense of ‘you will not die until you finish the course’. It was a little surreal.
(181) I felt the Lord wants me to stay on this for a little while. Many sincere ‘word of faith/prosperity believers’ honestly believe that tradition has portrayed Jesus and the disciples as being poor, and they were really rich. These honest believers are already ‘swerving’ from the faith at this point without realizing it. This journey often leads them to a point where they ‘see’ the answer to world evangelism as being ‘if we return to the truth of Jesus being rich, and we become like him as scripture demands, then we will have enough money to finance the end time harvest’. So good Christians at this point don’t realize that they are violating all the other verses I went over in these last few entries. Deception is powerful. I do blame the preachers who continue on this road despite the fact that they have been reproved over and again. It’s difficult to realize you might have spent your life as a false prophet. Few make the break after achieving prominence! Jim Bakker made the break. I remember Jim saying in his book how after the Lord started showing him his faults, that it dawned on him that he was preaching for Christians to become rich. This became his message. A few months back I tuned in to one of the famous prosperity brothers as I was flipping thru the channels. I stopped, not to be critical! I haven’t tuned him in for years. I thought I would give it a shot, maybe he’s preaching the gospel now? You never know. I clicked my remote and could only leave it on for about a minute. He was talking all about money again! The sad thing is that many of the more sincere young believers, who grasp this teaching thinking it will promote end time evangelism, don’t realize that the fact that the message has become money in and of itself is hindering evangelism! If most of the money going to support the prosperity brothers [they do get a lot!] is simply propagating a self help ‘you can be rich’ infomercial type gospel, then this in and of itself is hindering the message. You could be feeding the poor, giving the money to ‘Billy Grahams’ or Larry Jones. The lust for wealth has taken the money and made ‘money’ its God. Jesus said out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. If all your talking and preaching is money, to the point where you doctrine officially has changed the image of Jesus Christ into a contemporary prosperity preacher, then you my friend are in very dangerous territory! I just felt like today there needed to be a ‘strong’ reproof for some of you on the edge of this stuff. Sort of like God saying ‘beware’. Jesus said to ‘BEWARE OF COVETOUSNESS, FOR A MANS LIFE CONSISTETH NOT IN THE ABUNDANCE OF THE THINGS THAT HE POSSESSES’ we sometimes need to ‘BE WARE’!
(182) Paul, in dealing with false teachers in the Church said ‘WHOSE MOUTHS MUST BE STOPPED, TEACHING THINGS THAT THEY OUGHT NOT FOR GAIN’ I know of good men who feel that addressing this issue head on is not walking in love. Over the years what bothered me was the lack of good preachers who refused to deal with these issues. Paul straight-out recognized that the teachers who were doing harm to the church had to be silenced. Not by passing some law, or thru physical restraint. But by dealing head on with the issue thru scripture! This is primarily the way ‘spiritual warfare’ is carried out. CASTING DOWN IMAGINATIONS AND EVERY HIGH THING THAT EXALTS ITSELF AGIANST THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, AND BRINGING INTO CAPTIVITY EVERY THOUGHT TO THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST It is the accurate presenting of Christ as well as the true knowing of him in Spirit that wars against the false images of him that are presented by the false prophets. There comes a time in the Christian preachers experience where he is commanded to reprove things, with all longsuffering. I hold out hope for the innocent victims of doctrines like this, but I sure am mad against the brothers whose ‘mouths must be stopped!’
(183) Now I want you to see how we are doing battle right now against mindsets. The verse I just showed you is scripture. THOSE THAT DESIRE TO BE RICH WILL FALL INTO A SNARE. Many believers do not realize that scripture commands us to not have this desire. If you were to tell them this, they would say ‘well you believe tradition, and I’ll believe the Word’ not realizing that this is ‘the Word’. But didn’t Jesus come to give us abundant life? Yes he did. And ‘abundant life’ is not measured by material wealth according to scripture! The heroes of the FAITH in Hebrews chapter 11 all had great faith. They were stoned, cut in half, as well as receiving the dead raised again and subduing kingdoms. Well I thought faith meant you always get the desired result. The desired result is the purpose of God. If that purpose happens to be a cross or martyrdom, then you fulfilled your purpose. The fulfilling of your purpose IS ABUNDANT LIFE! I know it takes some time for us to see these things, but for some of you it’s really time! Your SET TIME HAS COME in a way that you weren’t expecting! NOTE: One of the ways the enemy ‘steals’ from us is by convincing us into thinking that life consists ‘of the abundance of the things we possess’. In essence many people have been robbed from the ‘abundant life’ by living their lives for ‘things’ while they missed the true destiny of God.
(184) I am listening right now to a brother preaching a prosperity message. He is quoting James words on the power of the tongue. He is using this as an example to always maintain a positive confession [for wealth, victory, etc.] He is alluding to the fact that the ‘nay sayers’ who don’t believe we should all be rich are not using their ‘tongues’ right. Despite the fact that James will go on to say things like ‘God has chosen the poor of this world rich in faith’ ‘the rich despise you and use Gods name in vain’ ‘the rich will have a day of judgment where their riches will be of no value to them’. This brother really doesn’t see the abuse of the Word that this reasoning leads to. If James is teaching in this letter to maintain a positive ‘money confession’ then James himself is failing to live up to his own standard by what he is saying in the rest of the letter! This can be maddening at times! I like the brother who is sharing these things on TV right now, but we seriously need an overhaul in our understanding of scripture.
(185) The book of Numbers says ‘DON’T DEFILE THE LAND THAT YOU ARE GOING IN TO INHERIT, BECAUSE I DWELL THERE!’ Felt like the Lord was saying there were many things he allowed you to go thru. If you will ‘death experiences’. These things are now over. He is bringing you to a new place of inheritance; you cannot bring these old things over into the new land. The power of resurrection only has an effect after one has died. Many of the former things are now dead; a new man is coming forth for a new land! IF ANY MAN IS IN CHRIST HE IS A NEW CREATURE, THE FORMER THINGS ARE PASSED AWAY, BEHOLD ALL THINGS ARE BECOME NEW – REMEMBER NOT THE FORMER THINGS, NEITHER CONSIDER THE THINGS OF OLD, FOR I AM DOING A NEW THING. SHALL YE KNOW IT? I WILL EVEN MAKE A WAY IN THE WILDERNESS AND RIVERS IN THE DESERT![Bible verses]
(186) Recently we posted our blog site in large regional cities. Some of these cities host huge churches with famous Pastors. Some of these Pastors have received our books over the years. Some of their people might have heard our radio programs in the past [our broadcast reaches very far. It does go into Mexico and people from Louisiana have been known to hear the station we are on] What’s the point? I feel there was a sense of leaders/Pastors who have heard us over the years, and would dismiss what we are saying, whether it was right or wrong. They seemed to simply measure our words by the criteria of ‘how will this affect me, what will this teaching do to my income base’ or ‘Whether or not this guys right doesn’t make a difference to me, I have a goal to achieve something and his teaching doesn’t fit in with my vision’. These criteria show us how present day leadership in the Church is not really ready for revolution. Now there are some who are ready, but for the most part they are still ‘out for themselves’ [their vision, to be successful, etc.] The true revolution of a William Wallace [braveheart] has to be grasped by these men before the Lord can truly move in the earth. Many of these examples show you how we are still ruled by self-survival instead of a spirit of laying down our lives for the cause. God will eventually bring the challenge to the door/gates [of your church!] by allowing the revolutionary spirit to reach your city. When he does this survival will be dependant on your willingness to die to your goals and vision. Who knows, maybe you have COME TO THE KINGDOM FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS!
(187) Got a response back from the Houston Chronicle on putting our blog in their paper. They gave me the OK, but I have to work out some details. They even offered to run a story on my testimony and the ministry, I know they meant well, but I avoid stuff like this as the plague! It’s one thing to try and get our blog out for people to read, but the promotion of self can be deadly! I am thinking of the time in the bible [Gospel of John] where they came up to Jesus and said ‘no one does these great ministry things that you claim to be doing, and stays hidden, if your really such a big shot go SHOW YOURSELF TO THE WORLD!’ He didn’t do it. Self-promotion is different than God promotion, these two cannot co-exist. I rather have the one that comes from God. I remember many years ago I had a Minster friend who just started going to the jails to preach. I had been going for many years at the point that my friend got into it. Not too long after they were reading a letter that they got from one of the inmates, sort of like a public testimony for the church. I got the sense that they were viewing the jail ministry as a promotional tool for their ministry. I thought it funny, as to the fact that I had received 100’s by this time, and probably close to around 500 or so over all the years of writing friends in jail and Huntsville [prison]. I had a good buddy that I met here in Corpus about 10 years ago. ‘New York’ Tony is his name. I thought it cool to have been working with someone from New York. I even have met a few Jersey brothers as well. Tony has been a cocaine addict for many years. He finally gets off the cocaine by doing ‘ice’ [meth]. He thinks it’s good to get off the coke, but he’s worse on the meth! I would take Tony with me on various errands. I have had him stay over my house a bunch of times. He has never stolen from me, though he has stolen tons of stuff from Home Depot and stuff like that. These guys go into the store, walk the isles and pick up thousands of dollars of building supplies/tools and stuff. Then they go right to the customer service desk and tell the store they lost the receipt and are bringing the stuff back! Instant cash. Well when Tony got on the meth I would stop for gas or go in to a store and he was getting ready to shoplift right there, with me as the ride! I told him ‘brother, you cant be stealing with me right here’ I knew he was getting worse, he never did this before. I prayed for him one day ‘Lord, do something with Tony, I have been helping him out for years, I need some results’ Not too long after he wound up in jail for a year. He is one of my buddies that hasn’t made the prison circuit like my veteran friends from Kingsville. The Kingsville guys have done 10-15 years in Prison each. These Corpus guys are rookies at it. Well Tony started writing me and it’s been years since I wrote the brothers in jail. But I started writing anyway. He wrote me one day and was testifying of how the Lord was really using the books I sent [just realized I wrote this story somewhere else on the blog, oh well I don’t have time to review everything anymore]. I basically wanted to show that ministry is not something you do to ‘promote your image’. It is simply a function of Christ’s Spirit in you. Jesus is still the good shepherd going after the one sheep that’s lost. Leaving the 99 [church attendees] to go after the 1 doesn’t get the same applause, but it’s where Gods heart is at.
(188) Just walking in my yard and I noticed the Mesquite tree I told you about before. It’s just producing really green leaves, today is the first day of spring. It has this green fungus/moss all over it. Being I live so close to the bay, the moisture does this to the tree. I thought of the verse ‘I WILL BE LIKE A GREEN OLIVE TREE IN THE HOUSE OF GOD’ [PSALMS]. I also thought of ‘THE MAN WHOSE NAME IS THE BRANCH, HE WILL GROW OUT OF HIS PLACE [small parameter] AND BUILD THE TEMPLE OF THE LORD’ the many teachings we have done over the years have tried to show the people of God that THEY ARE THE TEMPLE! I know it gets repetitive, but God wants teachers/preachers to build the temple as opposed to building ‘a temple’. God’s people are this awesome dwelling place. If you focus your time and efforts on releasing people into their God given destiny, then YOU WILL GROW OUT OF YOUR SMALL AREA OF INFLUENCE. If you seek to increase your area of influence at the expense of the people [seeing them as tools or a financial base for goals] then you are fighting an uphill battle. [Or should I say downhill]
(189) Let me share 2 statements that stuck in my mind over the years, said to me by friends who were addicts. I was with ‘New York Tony’ one day and we were driving on some errand and he forgot his new sunglasses [nice ones] on the roof of my car. He remembered later and tried to find them. In his frustration he said of himself ‘what a @#@# waste of life’. I had another old friend from Kingsville who one day told me ‘John, when normal people get under stress they curse or get mad. When I get stressed I stick needles in my arms’. Most people view these friends of mine as total wastes that got what they deserve. Sure that’s possible. I just wanted you to get a picture of the few moments of clarity in their lives when they see themselves the same way. [I think the Kingsville friend died a few years back. He moved to another state but I read an obituary and it had his name, but no picture]
(190) A few entries back I mentioned an article from Christianity today. Part of the article spoke on the clergy’s dependence on the offerings from the people being a hindrance to the prophetic ministry. The article even spoke on the modern phenomena of Pastors/Elders being bi-vocational. That is the trend of certain leaders choosing to work a regular job and not be supported by the church. I know what the New Testament teaches on meeting the needs of those who supply spiritual food. Paul, who said this, also said that he chose to not use this right with the Corinthians. He even said by not using it he was preaching the gospel free of charge, and that was a commendable thing. So obviously there are various ways to approach this. The thing we did not see in the New Testament churches was ‘hired clergy’. This is blatantly obvious. Sure it makes us feel uncomfortable to admit this, especially if you are one of them! But the point is we need to recognize that many modern scenarios of Pastors feeling pressured to speak on topics in order to keep the salary money coming in was absent in the first century church. Much of what we do is out of peer pressure and self-survival. I want to challenge you, try doing it for free! Paul said you can, he also said those who got paid didn’t have the same joy of knowing that they were truly doing it from the heart. It’s OK to receive support, but it’s not OK to see yourself as a ‘hired hand’ who is employed by a congregation to provide services [weddings, funerals, etc.]
(191) CHANGE YOUR MINDSET Over the years as I have learned new things and ways to function in Gods kingdom, I would always think along terms of ‘how do we make this happen, who are the group[s] of people that we are to release the gifts in’ I also have read many other ministry ideas and concepts. Often what we are trying to do is produce some biblical ministry in a limited paradigm. For example, when people began learning about the 5-fold ministry [Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers] they tried to ‘make it happen in their church’ the reason it didn’t ‘happen in their church’ is because their paradigm of ‘church’ was limited. They saw ‘church’ as the meeting of believers in the ‘church building’ on Sunday. Though the belief on the 5 fold was correct, it was the limited understanding of ‘church’ that hindered what God wanted to do. I felt like the Lord was saying to many of us ‘why are you always trying to re-produce that which I show you in some building, my gifts are to function freely in society/community and you are always trying to make it happen in some building environment’. So in essence the changing of the wineskin from seeing ‘church’ as the Sunday meeting to seeing ‘church’ as the functioning community of people was the missing ingredient. Many ‘Apostles’ and ‘Prophets’ were struggling on how to get their gift to work in ‘the church’ and they were missing the great excitement of bringing the gospel to the lost world. How did the Apostle Paul’s gift operate? Do you see him going around to ‘New Testament churches’ trying to set up ‘5 day meetings’? He primarily is going into the world preaching the gospel to the lost, and these ‘become’ the churches [communities of people] that he later builds as an Apostle. We need to ‘re-focus’ our mindset from ‘building’ to people. Get your mind off of ‘trying to build your ministry’ and realize that all of our days are limited. Sell out for the cause, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature! Quit trying to ‘find your place in the church!’
(192) Just got back from seeing one of the homeless friends I met many years ago. He has had lots of struggles with drugs, but usually pot. He was what we would refer to as a ‘weed head’ in the old days. I feel kinda bad. Just talked with him for a few hours. He is so strung out on ‘ice’ that you would think he is loosing his mind. I feel bad because I really haven’t spent time with him the last 6 months or so. He is a good friend, but I try to ‘share’ the time with different friends. I gave him this blog site, he is going out of state for a while. He has listened to me on the radio before. He just gave someone else the station that we are on. I was surprised he knew it by heart [time and station # and all]. Maybe he listens a lot more than I thought? There was an older friend of mine [70 or so] that was called ‘one eyed Tony’ not to be confused with ‘New York Tony’. He was sleeping under a local overpass a few years back and some local gang kids beat him up and poked his eye out. I haven’t seen him in a few years. He used to listen to the radio show and articulate it back to me in a very intelligent manner when I saw him. He was an engineer who made a good living and was smart. Story goes he was drunk one night in Florida and accidentally killed some one in a car crash. I think it might have been a family member. He wound up living on the streets of Corpus. You wouldn’t believe that some of these homeless people were just like many of you at one time. Pray for my friends. Thanks.
(193) The other day I was with some guys and they were talking about a ‘gang/drug dealing’ family here in south TX. The name is well known. These guys were talking all about the history of this family. Shootings and all sorts of stuff. I told them how one of my buddies ‘beat the crap’ out of one of them years ago. My friend was also known from coming from a rival family. There are a few well-known names that the local ‘gangsters’ all know. My friend was the one I told you about earlier who swallowed the bag of cocaine and died [who shot the cops in the back when he was a kid]. I remember when he got out of prison I would pick him up for church. He came to the first meetings we ever held in an old rented hospital. One morning when I picked him up he looked real apprehensive. I knew something was wrong. He admitted to me that he had ‘bumped’ for the first time since getting out of prison. He hadn’t shot up for a while, and it was like he knew that he just opened a door that would be hard to close. He died not too long after.
(194) Just outside walking/praying in my yard early in the morning. It’s the 2nd day of spring. The reason I just walked inside to write is as I was walking by my rose bushes [Josephs coat of many colors that I told you about earlier] I was praying and inviting Gods presence to come into the garden and enjoy the smell of the Roses. I felt him say ‘I can only smell them thru you’. So I ‘smelled’ them vicariously for the Lord. It’s like God is telling us he can only manifest and experience his world ‘thru us’. We are the living organic Body of Christ on planet earth. He reaches people thru us; Jesus sings praises to the Father thru us. Scripture says he is in the midst of the congregation singing praise to God [Hebrews]. God interacts with society thru us. We show our love for God thru the way we treat people. HOW CAN ANYONE SAY HE LOVES GOD, WHO HE HAS NOT SEEN, IF HE CAN’T LOVE HIS BROTHER WHO HE HAS SEEN 1st John. Just felt like the Lord wanted to communicate this to you.
(195) Let me share a few things. A few years back I remember watching a ‘share a thon’ on a Christian TV station. The brother was using the verses from the Gospel of John on Jesus multiplying the loaves and fish and feeding the multitude. He shared how the station also needed to bring in lots of money, just like Jesus multiplied lots of fish, in order to feed the people. Well enough. What I get from the story is that Jesus really didn’t need a lot of ‘stuff’ before he could ‘reach/feed’ the people. In fact I think the story is more in line with what I teach. That you can ‘touch/feed’ the multitudes with very little! That is you simply bring to the table the mindset of ‘my little portion in the hands of the master can go a long way’. It’s just a matter of perspective. The brother from the share a thon saw this verse out of his paradigm. When you view ministry as the need to raise millions, then that’s what you will see when you read scripture. It’s not like the brother was a heretic or something, he was just seeing everything thru his train of thought. I believe Jesus can use a little boy’s lunch to reach the masses, what about you?
(196) It’s 3-21-07 I just read an interesting prophecy/word from the Elijah list. It spoke of the date 7-7-07 as being a significant date this year. The prophetic brother also shared how he felt it had something to do with the overthrowing of ‘Baal’ in this country. I sent him this blog site. My birthday falls on 7-17-07 this year. I think we do a pretty good job at ‘taking the heads off [removing their authority] of the ‘prophets of Baal’! NOTE: There are a lot of great prophetic people that do not like our stuff. I understand that. My strong stance against the prosperity gospel is not popular! I feel in instances like this, where the Lord actually gives a prophetic sign prior to someone reading our site, is needed to ‘wake up’ certain prophets to the need to return to a more biblical view of the church! I remember reading the date 7-17 in scripture; I think it has something to do with the story of Noah’s Ark?
(197) Just watching the news as I read and work on this blog. 2 girls were kidnapped in Texas a few days ago. Today they were freed. They were ‘loosed’ in MESQUITE TX. I have had a few more ‘mesquite tree’ signs that I haven’t even shared yet. Suffice it to say I feel many ‘2 witnesses’ [apostles/prophets- Revelation 11] will find a ‘release’ from things that have held them captive. The Lord has used the image of a Mesquite tree for this blog. I pray many of you will find release in ‘MESQUITE’.
(198) Today I have been reading a lot of prophetic brothers. I cant help but feel the Lord saying THE PROPHETIC CAN NOT THRIVE IN A DAY WHERE I AM PRESENTED IN A WRONG WAY BY THE IMAGES THAT MEN HAVE OF ME, THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT MUST SPEAK OUT PLAINLY AGIANST THESE ABUSES IN MY CHURCH I do not want to be melodramatic, but we do live in a day where it is common for people to teach that Jesus was, and is, a materially focused individual. Many innocent people are wrongfully embracing this image because the PROPHETS ARE FACILITATING IT! We must speak out for true righteousness if we seek to have a true prophetic voice.
(199) Let me try to be nice. Over the tears of seeing a lot of the abuse in the church I recognized that a lot of it existed because good men [prophetic people and others] refused to deal with the issue. Then you had ‘heresy hunters’ deal with it in a way that totally turned off the church. The prophetic people out of defense against the ‘heresy hunters’ would reject any possibility that the ‘money focus’ in the church was getting off track. So on one side you had the old time ‘defenders of the faith’ warring against the ‘prosperity movement’ and the prophets fell on the side of defending the ‘prosperity movement’. Well this whole thing is a mess. The simple fact that it is common to see a Christian preacher, wearing expensive jewelry, telling people that Jesus and the disciples lived extravagant lifestyles. Talking about dreams and visions of Jesus appearing to them and telling them ‘you can have all the money you want’ [though God can use dreams, they need to be tested like prophetic words!]. Guys having dreams/visions of biblical characters telling them things that contradict scripture, and then the prophets in the church actually lining up on the side of this movement is a tremendous hindrance to the prophetic. We shouldn’t be attack dogs, I agree! But at some point Gods prophets must be willing to address these issues. The fact that the prophets have not dealt with it [for the most part] has opened the door for the ‘heresy hunters’ to paint all of us with the same brush. I appeal to you guys [prophets] take a look at what we are doing. Are we letting the true image of Jesus fall to the ground out of fear and being defensive? How can we not see that many of the fathers of this movement [prosperity] have fallen into the category of 1st Timothy 6. Paul said there would be a time when teachers would teach that financial gain is godliness, from such turn away. I too enjoyed the faith brothers for a while. It’s just there came a time where I had to admit that the stuff coming from their camp could not be accepted anymore. I know and believe that the Father wants us to prosper and has a great future for us. But this is different from seeing Jesus the way these brothers present him. This issue must come to the forefront in the prophetic movement or else God will not allow our voices to continue in today’s church. NOTE: Let me also say that scripture tells us to ‘reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine’ Jeremiah speaks of ‘casting up, removing the stones [hindrances], tearing down and building up’. We are supposed to focus on Jesus for sure. There are times where we also bring correction in love. If leaders don’t do this, then many young believers go down a long road of finding these things out on their own. Eventually they will see the shallowness of this movement, but they could have saved a lot of time if their Pastors dealt with it in the beginning. NOTE: In the book of Acts you see Paul receiving prophecies on ‘how much you will suffer for my cause’. You find the apostles praising God that they were counted worthy to suffer beatings and persecution for the name of Christ. You see the prophetic centered around the sacrificial lifestyle that the Gospel calls us to. In today’s prophetic circles it is all to common to hear prophecies on becoming debt free, receiving financial windfalls, money will fall into your hands this year and stuff like this. Sure it’s possible that God is saying a few of these things, but the modern prophetic movement almost has no voice for the prophecies you see given in scripture. The prophetic must come into re-alignment with scripture if she wants her voice to be relevant today.
(200) I just share these things as they come to me I HAVE MADE YOU A NEW SHARP THRESHING INSTRUMENT HAVING TEETH, YOU WILL THRESH THE MOUNTAINS AND BEAT THEM SMALL AND THE WIND SHALL CARRY THEM AWAY. I have quoted this before on this blog, but while reviewing it felt it spoke to this blog site. Though I have claimed this verse for many years and we have had avenues of ministry going on for quite some time, yet I just felt like the Lord said THIS [BLOG] IS THE NEW SHARP THRESHING INSTRUMENT [in our personal case, not the actual fulfillment of this verse!]. Also I just realized I am writing this at entry 200 which is a milestone for this blog. Another verse I felt I should share is WRITE THE VISION AND MAKE IT PLAIN UPON TABLES SO HE WHO READS IT CAN RUN WITH IT. THE VISION IS FOR AN APPOINTED TIME, THOUGH IT TARRY, WAIT FOR IT. IT WILL SURELY COME Felt like many of you have made it this far on this site for a prophetic destiny to be fulfilled. There are things that you needed to learn before the vision God had for you can be fully implemented. You have just learned a lot of these things, it is now time to run with it!
(201) Just had a bunch of thoughts run thru my head. In the Old Testament the cities were surrounded by walls for protection. On these walls were ‘lookouts’ who would stand guard day and night to ‘see’ things coming. These ‘seers’ were the first to recognize danger, or even an ally coming to help. They would ‘see’ it long before anyone else. This did not make them better than the rest of the community; it simply was their job [gift]. Some seers were higher on the wall than others. You had some actually posted on the wall, while others were in ‘stands’ built off of the wall. This group of lookouts were really seeing far. It was a matter of faith for the community to prepare themselves for what the seers were seeing. Ezekiel speaks of ‘watchman on the wall’ and he says if the watchman see a threat and don’t sound the alarm, then they will be responsible for the results. If they sound the alarm and no one listens, they are not held responsible, but the ones who don’t take action will still suffer. Recently I have been able to ‘speak into’ certain prophetic groups. Many of these brothers do have real gifts, it’s just I feel that a lot of them are not ‘sounding’ the warnings along with the ‘good stuff’. To a degree they also are ‘victims’ of the materialistic mindset that has imbedded itself within the current evangelical church. Many of these prophets immediately reject any talk of correction and re alignment with the central message of the Gospel. They seem to be inundated with the concept of the ‘wealth of the wicked coming to the church’ [which is a true scripture!] to the point of not being able to ‘see’ [which is the prophets main objective!] the writing on the wall. I find it interesting that many of these prophets are on the Elijah list [a prophetic website]. I really like the Elijah list, just not enough balance. Elijah was a prophet in the midst of ‘prophets’. As a singular voice [or so he thought!] he was not in the ‘majority opinion’ of his day. This didn’t mean he was wrong, only that the rest of Gods people weren’t ‘seeing’ as far as he was. I feel there needs to be a re alignment with the current prophetic movement. Too much of it is in alignment with the materialistic gospel. How can God use the ‘watchman’ if they for the most part refuse to ever sound the alarm? Many will not sound it out of self-preservation. Like I have told you before, if ministries are trying to build a support base, there will be a natural tendency to reject any correction along these lines. Unknowingly many prophets simply say ‘I don’t see that’ in the area of all that I have been saying, because without realizing it they are being influenced by a natural desire to ‘bring in the wealth for the end time harvest’. They too have become infected with mammon. I believe the church has a glorious future. I do not hold to an end time fatalistic eschatology, but the future of the church and Gods Kingdom being expressed in the earth is vitally connected to a spiritual people who are not controlled by the materialistic mindset of the day. The prophets must make a break from these things. There is no way the Lord will permit the prophetic to have a greater impact until she learns to distinguish between that which is pure and that which is unclean I remember hearing Paul Cain speak on the 3 dangers to the prophetic ‘GOLD, GIRLS AND GLORY’. He saw the aspect of money as a danger to the movement. The kings of the Old Testament would enlist ‘Eunuchs’ to watch over their bride[s] when they were not around. The Eunuch was ‘unable’ to take advantage of the bride for his own procreation. He could be ‘trusted’ because there was nothing ‘in him’ that could lead to the procreation of his own mind and agenda [thru his seed/offspring]. Many prophets have not passed this test because they are still seeing ‘their future’. This leads them to prophesy abundant wealth year after year to the groups they are speaking into. It is an unconscious ‘self procreation’ [of their dreams and future] that are causing them to do this. I pray the Lord would help all of us [including me!] to put the concerns of the bride before ours!
(202) TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING I have been wanting to use this illustration for a long time. The time is here! I was just taking a bath. When I reached for the shampoo I had a familiar occurrence. I found myself surrounded by many bottles of conditioner, and one bottle of shampoo. There have been many times where I have had 6-8 bottles of conditioner and NO shampoo. I do have 4 daughters and 1 wife. This should explain it. There are times where you can have too much of a good thing. Many times we get inundated as Christians with the message of wealth and happiness to the point where there is no room for the shampoo. The conditioner feels good, it serves a purpose, but sometimes we just need to get clean! There are a lot of great principles of motivation and success in Gods Word. The book of Proverbs has to be the greatest business book ever written. The point is all these things come with the underlying theme of the gospel being the foundation. Simple truths of living for eternal rewards versus temporary stuff. Stories like Jesus talking about the rich man building greater barns, and that night he died. Jesus saying WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN IF HE GAIN THE WHOLE WORLD AND LOSE HIS SOUL. We HAVE LOST SIGHT OF THESE THINGS WHILE reaching for the conditioner! We want to feel good, which is all right, but we really need some shampoo every once in a while!
(203) To our San Antonio ‘Ecclesia’. I want to show you guys something. If you read this blog from #1 to this entry [only 4 months of writing] you can actually see prophecy fulfilled that I didn’t even realize. The stories about me being in San Antonio and watching the Johnny Cash movie. ‘I took the train to San Antone’. If you go back and read some of these things you will see that the Lord was telling me that ‘we would be taking the train to San Antone’ the train imagery also spoke of ministry. The blog posting in the San Antonio paper has given us a tremendous open door to your city. I had no idea we would be posting our blog in regional papers. It was something the Lord put on my heart a few months back. I had no idea I would be writing so much stuff on this blog! These were all prophetic signs showing that we would have an open door to your city. I just wanted you to see how prophetic things work, often times the signs are not fully understood until they are fulfilled. I WILL SHOW YOU THINGS TO COME, BEFORE THEY HAPPEN I WILL TELL YOU OF THEM, SO WHEN THEY COME TO PASS YOU WILL KNOW THAT I DID IT [Isaiah].
(204) This is kind of an interruption, but I need to share this. The interruption is I am outside enjoying this prayer time and I had to come in and do this. If you remember in the beginning of this blog I shared ‘signs’ from the stars. One of the signs was that of a ‘trumpet’. This is a formation of stars that sort of looks like a trumpet. Well I was just seeing it a few minutes ago. Something that I didn’t realize until a few weeks ago is the formation fits all the area cities that we put the blog site in. C.C./Kingsville/Alice/San Antonio/Houston/[yet to come]Laredo/Valley area. I realized if you put a circle around all these cities it would pretty much ‘map out’ the same star pattern that I have seen. Felt like this was prophetic, sort of like the Lord was saying ‘I will give you voice [trumpet] in these regions’. Also God ‘makes his tent/tabernacle in the stars’ speaks of Gods ‘perimeter’. I WILL SET YOUR FEET IN A LARGE PLACE/IN MY FATHERS HOUSE [tabernacle] ARE MANY MANSIONS [people groups/oikos]. NOTE: If you remember, Chuck Pierce, A Prophet out of Denton, TX. Prophesied that God would be giving ‘signs in the stars’ this year. NOTE: The names of these regional cities are ‘Corpus Christi’ [Body of Christ] ‘Kingsville’ [Vila of the King] San Antonio is a ‘mission’ city. Scripture says God names the stars. Many of these ‘stars’ I have seen represented these area cities, truly many of these cities have significant names. God even told Abraham ‘look at the stars, so shall thy seed be’. The inheriting of ‘regions’ is thru your offspring. ‘THOSE THAT SHALL BE OF THEE SHALL INHERIT THE LAND AND MAKE THE DESOLATE CITIES TO BE INHABITED/ THRU THY SEED SHALL ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH BE BLESSED’ God often uses imagery in scripture to depict a ‘family’ or lineage of people. God used both stars and the ‘sand which is by the sea’ to describe Abraham’s kids. Some think the sand speaks of ‘natural seed’ [Israel] while the stars speak of ‘heavenly’ [the church/ spiritual Israel].
(205) Outside in Kingsville praying over the ‘southern district’ [the area from Kingsville over to Laredo, down to the valley]. Felt like I heard the Lord say ‘the Gospel is my divine ability to transition and interact in the affairs of men in their time and culture’. God becoming man in the 1st century Jewish context was an act of divine interruption. God is calling us to adapt and change with the culture of the time. I AM NOT SAYING WE CHANGE THE FOUNDATIONAL MESSAGE OF THE GOSPEL it’s just having the ability to identify with the culture. Don’t confuse ‘the old time religion’ with the ‘old time culture’. Many of us would be much more effective if we would lay down our peculiar styles and impacted society head on, like a train wreck!
(206) I read a while back ‘MY WORD IS LIKE THE EAST WIND THAT BLOWS AGAINST THE SHIPS OF TARSHISH AND BREAKS THEM APART’ I am paraphrasing. I felt like the Lord was saying ‘to many of you I have ‘dismantled’ many of the ‘ships’ that you were trusting in. You have felt a sense of vulnerability which is good. During this season learn me and my ways again, like the early days, and I will do a work in your day that if it were told you, you would not believe it’.
(207) Look at the prophetic ministry of Jesus in the 1st century context. He claims to be showing the people the true Kingdom of God as opposed to organized religion. He gathers a group of followers who he teaches generosity and love expressed thru deeds. He teaches that the religious commands [Sabbath] were given to benefit men, as opposed to condemning him. He constantly is butting heads with the most intellectual religious leaders of the day. They all, with few exceptions, agree that his ministry is not only illegitimate, but that he is mentally unbalanced and demon possessed. When they finally decide it would be best to ‘put him out of his misery’ he finds even his closest friends dissociating from him out of fear. He is finally killed, rises from the dead. Surely they will accept me now? NOT! And you want to have a prophetic ministry like Jesus?
(208) I was just thinking about the book of James, I haven’t read it in a few years [?] but sometimes the Lord just brings things to your remembrance. James says that GOD IS THE FATHER OF LIGHTS, EVERY GOOD AND PERFECT GIFT COMES DOWN FROM HIM, HE IS NOT PARTIAL BUT TREATS ALL HIS KIDS EQUALLY This is all in context with the fact that James is one of the lead Apostles in the Jerusalem church. [Not the Pastor!] James had spiritual oversight to a large group of POOR believers. These were the same Christians that Paul was taking up the offering for in the Corinthian church. James actually defends these poor believers all thru out the book of James. Yet he makes these statements of God loving all his kids equally. He says God gives good gifts to his children. He also says many of Gods kids are POOR [hath not God counted the poor of this world rich in faith]. These statements in no way contradict the theme of James. James fully understands that the love of God for these Jerusalem saints is not to be measured by THINGS. The New Testament Apostles had a clear understanding of this. They got this understanding directly from Jesus ministry. There is an underlying theme in the New Testament that THINGS are not the way we form Gods opinion of us. You and I measure Gods love and acceptance for us based on the fact that God LOVED THE WORLD SO MUCH THAT HE GAVE US HIS ONLY SON! Paul does say if God gave his son for us, will he not give us freely all things? The implied answer is YES [Romans]. But then Paul ALSO TEACHES HE LEARNED TO BE CONTENT WITH BOTH ABUNDANCE AND LACK. This contentment came from the fact that God already proved his love for us by the work of the cross. There is no other thing that could show you your acceptance with God than this simple fact. So James can confidently say ALL GOOD GIFTS COME DOWN FROM THE FATHER OF LIGHTS, IN WHOM THERE IS NO VARIABLENESS OR SHADOW OF TURNING knowing full well that many of his ‘parishioners’ were dead broke! The father of lights gave us his SON; there could be no question of his acceptance of us based on this reality!
(209) xxx
(210) Something that has made me uncomfortable for some time is the dynamic of speaking a strong prophetic word/teaching and then realizing the aftermath. For instance the ‘judiazers’ of the first century were teaching a form of Christianity that embraced legalism. They were doing well for a season until God allowed Paul to ‘blast it’ out of the water. Once the Apostolic authority of Paul exposed the heresy, it was difficult for the Judiazers to continue. They sure tried, but Gods authority was now working against their doctrine. I recognize that there are certain truths that we teach that are contrary to the normal tradition of ‘church’. I do not teach them simply for this reason, in as much as I feel it’s time for certain things to be dealt with [like the judiazers]. After these things are dealt with, many good Pastors will continue to embrace what they have known and are familiar with. This creates a tension in the community. Many of their ‘parishioners’ will embrace the truths they have learned from us and Gods authority always falls on the side of truth. Many of the authority structures that are presently functioning in the church are not really biblical. When you have believers moving in grace in certain areas, and church authorities coming down on the wrong [incorrect] view of the subject, you then have a dynamic where Gods authority is falling on the side of the ‘parishioners’ and not on the side of the clergy. This dynamic was also seen in Jesus ministry with the disciples. It was unthinkable for the 1st century clergy to admit that Gods authority was being expressed thru this rag tag team of unlearned men, as opposed to their theological doctorates! I feel uncomfortable when this happens with us. I used to Pastor, and I do not like people who come to a community just to start trouble and cause division. But sometimes we mistake a true prophetic challenge to the status quoi, as being rebellion [Martin Luther and the Catholic Church of the 16rh century!]
(211) Just got back from an ‘incident command’ lecture. We do these every so often at the Fire Dept. It got me to thinking in terms of organizational structure and command. I think it would help to review some things I have taught over the years. First, the reason I don’t believe the New Testament teaches ‘the end time transfer of wealth’ the way many people are teaching today is because any ‘windfall’ infusion of wealth INTO THE PRESENT SYSTEM would not fundamentally change the way things are. If you poured billions of dollars into the present ‘wineskin’ it would not enable, or release into function the ‘Body of Christ’. For the most part any increase of funds would just perpetuate the current system. God wants a CHANGE in the current system. God wants to ‘release’ the army of people who are sitting in the pews on Sunday. Our current mindset has the army sitting in the barracks once a week, and thinking that this is their main function! Second, the present stage of the Church takes the few instances of Paul [and others] speaking in public forums [in Acts] and tries to duplicate this model, seeming to think that the primary way the church functions in society is by ‘sitting in church on Sunday and listening to sermons’. This is NOT the New Testament model of the first century church. The best ‘view’ of ‘church’ in the New Testament is seen in Corinthians [I did not say they were the best church, it was BECAUSE of their flaws that we are able to read about the way the church should meet!] In the Corinthian model ‘church’ is an interactive experience where Christians come together and share the love of Christ. It is plain to see that the current understanding of church today is not as interactive or ‘corporate’ as the New Testament had. So Jesus model of ‘tasking’ voluntary disciples to GO INTO ALL THE WORLD AND PREACH THE GOSPEL is now relegated to the ‘clergy’ at the expense of the church and the lost world. This limited mindset hurts all the way around. God will take the ‘small’ seeds of influence from the ‘volunteer’ model and cause the seed to exponentially increase. CAST YOUR SEED/BREAD UPON THE WATER, FOR IN MANY DAYS IT WILL COME BACK TO YOU I just watched the movie ‘pay it forward’ and it gives a good concept of one person inspiring others to ‘pass it on’. This basic principle of all believers living in such a way as to inspire others to voluntarily give their lives away is the Jesus model. All the ‘transference of the worlds money’ will not fundamentally change the limited paradigm in which we function today! NOTE; I was having a discussion with some one along these lines. They innocently said ‘but you have to have somewhere to put all the people [church building]’ It is interesting to see that this concern never came up in the New Testament churches. They all knew that they needed to ‘sleep somewhere’ and ‘eat somewhere’ and ‘meet somewhere’ [houses!] but today’s mindset of ‘I have 1000 people as ‘church members’ where will I put them all?’ This concern is absent in The New Testament. The simple fact that the spreading of the gospel in the first 3 centuries was more of a revolutionary movement in the hearts and minds of people explains this reality. They weren’t looking for ‘places to put people’ they were revolutionizing society!
(212) Recently Pope Benedict [formerly Cardinal Ratzinger, defender of the ‘doctrine of the faith’ for the Catholic church] moved against an influential Priest for his teaching in the area of Liberation Theology. This is a popular view with certain south/central American countries. Many political leaders [Daniel Ortega] embraced this view as a part of their Socialist revolution. This view focuses on the radical aspect of Jesus ministry in the area of social justice and his identification with the poor. Most Christians feel that Liberation Theology is too closely aligned with Marxist views and therefore reject it. I simply want to note the New Testament teaching in the area of social justice and how many ‘white conservative Protestants’ dismiss out of hand certain aspects of the gospel. No form of human government is ‘inherently just’. Capitalism, in and of itself is not ‘just’. As a form of government it provides freedom in the marketplace for the free flow of ideas. It works better than most other govts. on the planet, but it in and of itself is not ‘just’. Justice is only found in any earthly govt. to the degree that that govt. is being influenced and ‘infected’ by the ‘just one’ [God] and his ‘justified ones’ [the church]. As human govts. ‘make room’ for the people of God and godly institutions, then there is a degree of justice released into that society thru the church. The book of James talks about ‘just wages’. A doctrine that capitalists don’t fully embrace. Most capitalists argue ‘whatever the market place pays is right’. They feel that the idea of free competition in and of itself is just. If you can get someone to do a days work for $5.00 and that’s the going rate, well they feel that’s OK. The New and Old Testaments don’t agree! God has lots of instruction on fair wages and the treatment of the poor that govt. should comply with. Now I am not advocating socialism, which robs people of hope and independent thought. But I want to show you how no earthly govt., even the best forms of them, are equal to the Kingdom [govt.] of God. I for the most part agree with Pope Benedict and his statement on liberation theology, but I must admit there is a part of the radical revolutionary in me that finds aspects of it to be exciting! NOTE: I would like to note that the Catholic Church has been great in the area of social justice through out the entire history of the church. During the ‘dark ages’ the church actually became the institution that nations appealed to as the highest authority in the land. Our Catholic brothers were speaking out in defense of the unborn long before the Protestants. I just wanted the critics of the Catholics to give credit where credit is due!
(213) One of my good friends who was part of the original group of brothers called me up at work last night. He asked if I could help him with some money [around $60.00] I told him no problem. I will be getting with him in a few hours when I get off of work. It’s around 4 am, this is one of those days where I woke up at 12:30 am and couldn’t sleep! I was thinking about the reality of this friend [and others] who see themselves ‘connected’ to us in ministry. Even though we don’t have ‘connections’ in the way you would be a ‘member of a church’. If you think about it, I have probably given away thousands of dollars over the years to friends. Feeding guys, doing charity and just helping with bills. I do not see this as ‘paying staff’ but these brothers are faithful communicators of the vision the Lord has given us. No matter how many churches or Pastors they have encountered in the journey, they see themselves as loyal to ‘us’. I find this interesting as to the fact that we really don’t care if people are loyal to us! Our attitude has been ‘if you got blessed thru us in the past, then go bless others’ this mindset that exists in today’s form of ‘local church’ is a type of dysfunctional insecurity. Many good Pastors try to develop criteria to ensure the loyalty of people. We read the book of Acts and try to come up with ‘rules for the church’ that would cause people to be ‘faithful to the vision of this house’. Many times the leaders are well meaning, but this type of trying to teach ‘commitment’ is really not a function in the New Testament churches. They were ‘loyal’ to the gospel and to Jesus. They were to ‘obey’ those over them in the Lord as it pertained to these basic truths. You don’t find Paul setting up ‘systems’ of loyalty that you see today. When you truly reach people for Christ and give your self away, they will be loyal like a son to a father. There will be no need to ‘check up’ on whether they have been faithful to the church and stuff like that.
(214) Let me throw some practical functional stuff in here. Over the years of studying and reading books on the cell/house church movement and Apostolic movements I see the way we are all growing in our understanding as God changes the ‘wineskin’. It was common to transition from ‘seeing’ the church building as ‘the church’ to seeing the ‘house/home group’ as the church. Some brothers simply replaced one structure with another. The true New Testament paradigm was ‘seeing’ the community of people as ‘the church’. Now, I do believe it is more practical to utilize the homes of believers as primary meeting places. If you’re a ‘volunteer’ army of people, you are not trying to raise money for the building and stuff. So practically you use the resources of the ‘soldiers’ being recruited. It’s just that the ‘soldiers’ themselves are the functioning unit that the commander is living in! I know these are not new concepts; it’s just that I feel the people we relate to need to keep this in mind. I do encourage all of our blog readers/radio listeners to sponsor a home group as God directs. Just keep in mind that this is only one aspect of ‘church’ expression. The ‘home group meeting’ is not the church, you are!
(215) A few years ago we had a ‘word of faith/prosperity church’ that used to broadcast from our city. I actually liked the program and would tune in from time to time. I remember one week they announced that they were going to have a rich Christian come in and share his faith and how money and riches do not interfere with serving God. The person who sponsored the program then did the interview with this wealthy believer. During the interview it ‘slipped out’ that this rich Christian tried to get out of doing the program because the day before they had some bad weather in their area of Texas and needed to take care of the cattle and couldn’t do the ministry thing. Well the announcer admitted that they twisted his arm to come. It reminded me of the parable of Jesus. How some people couldn’t attend the wedding supper because they had other priorities. Some had to ‘go see their land’ and couldn’t come. Even though this radio program intended to show how riches and other areas of wealth don’t hinder Gods work, they inadvertently showed the opposite. I also remember this broadcaster share at the time that God would never call someone to be a missionary and suffer on the foreign field if they didn’t want to do it. That in essence Gods will is to make us happy, and if we don’t feel we would be happy then God is not going to ask us to do things contrary to our desires. A few weeks later I had the privilege of hearing a missionary family give their testimony. They were on vacation from some 3rd world country and speaking in Corpus. The wife shared all the physical trials that they and their kids suffered. How the medical care is not good where they’re at. She went on and shared that even though in the natural her flesh says ‘why should I suffer’, that when she sees the results of souls saved that the sacrifice is worth it! It’s stuff like this that I have seen over the years that causes me to speak out on these issues.
(216) Was talking to some homeless friends the other day and was asking them if they saw Tim recently. Tim [carpenter Tim] was one of the first friends I met years ago. Tim worked regularly, refused govt. help and would avoid eating the free meals at the mission. He felt it was irresponsible to take stuff for free. Tim often invited me to his camp for coffee and fellowship. He had this ‘mangy’ dog that he really loved. She must have had at least 7 litters of puppies since the time I knew her. I would find Tim treating the dogs for fleas in a 5-gallon bucket. He was preparing them for free give away in front of H.E.B. he spent money on these animals and took good care of them. Tim was very responsible, he would get up before sun up and walk to the park to fill up a bucket with fresh water for the camp. He would try to finish his chores early so he wouldn’t be seen as some bum walking around in the middle of the day with no direction. He would often go to whataburger early in the morning to drink coffee. The retired guys would see him and give him the job section of the paper. Sort of like saying ‘get a job you bum’. They didn’t realize that Tim regularly worked. It’s just that he was homeless. He liked responding by saying ‘I am working on my career right now, my singing and dancing career!’ He figured he’d get them mad by saying this. One time Tim’s parents from out of state were coming to Corpus to see Tim. He told them they would find him in the ‘Bluff’ [where I live also]. It was funny; when they got into town they came to the bluff and were asking some homeless people if they knew where Tim was. The homeless brother didn’t know they were looking for carpenter Tim, so they said ‘sure we know your son, he goes by the name of drunk Tim’ [another Tim]. Old Tim thought this was funny. Tim had a good sense of humor. I took him and a few guys to ‘Golden Corral buffet’ for dinner. We were reading the paper while eating. Tim was telling me the story of how modern technology was a threat to the modern workforce. These new breed of ‘robots’ could put the people out of work. He joked that pretty soon they will take the place of homeless guys in the bluff. I responded ‘don’t worry brother, it wont be long before you see them holding up signs in front of H.E.B. saying ‘batteries low, need money for a charge’. He started cracking up. When Tim’s dog died he took it real hard. He literally cried for a few days. I haven’t seen Tim in a few years. Hopefully I will see him again some day and let him read this blog, he will get a kick out of it.
CONCLUSION Let me end with a final note. Jesus said that a wicked and evil generation seeks after a sign and no sign will be given to them but the sign of the prophet Jonah [in essence Jesus was telling the Jews that until they believe in the most important sign of all, the resurrection of Christ, that they will not be able to ‘see’ any of the multitude of ‘signs’ that God has done thru Christ up until this day!]. The above scenarios took place when I was simply praying, seeking God or sleeping! I don’t feel that we should ‘seek’ after these types of experiences, but we should recognize that God is sovereign and if he desires to communicate to his children then who are we to tell him no. The apostle Paul told Timothy to ‘war a good fight by the prophecies that were given over you’. There are many believers who write down and catalog the prophecies and visions they have received from the Lord, this helps to be able to look back and see a pattern of Gods direction in your life. We should not build our lives or doctrine on these types of things, that area belongs to scripture! But we should be able to discern Gods voice over a period of time and ‘fight a good fight by way of the prophecies that have gone on over our lives’. God bless you guys!
P.S. Let me also add that there are many prophetic people that I am in contact with in some way. I feel that a lot of them agree with me on prophetic stuff, but get offended by the strong stance we take in other areas of teaching. I realize that just because a person experiences prophetic things, that this doesn’t mean he is correct in everything! It is common to hear things like ‘the end time transfer of wealth’ and themes like this from highly prophetic people. We just assume because someone is prophetic that their doctrine is correct. I really don’t want to teach here, but let me share this. The scripture does speak about the wealth of the sinner being stored up for the righteous and God ‘gives’ it to the righteous. Also the story of the children of Israel leaving Egypt and how God gave them the wealth of the Egyptians. These verses do not teach some type of windfall that simply falls into the hands of Christians. As church history progressed thru time more and more people in the marketplace and other areas of wealth and influence have become believers. As the church age progresses this phenomenon increases. Today the ‘wealth of the wicked’ has much more become ‘the wealth of the righteous’, not thru some windfall inheritance, but thru the process of God redeeming planet earth! ‘Seeing’ it this way does not violate the principles of scripture that over and over speak about the diligent being blessed and the lazy coming to ruin/poverty. There are many believers who are living in disobedience by not working who cling on to doctrines like ‘the end time transfer of wealth’ and wrongly believe that they are going to get money while violating biblical standards. Things like this need to be understood and articulated thru prophetic people before God can entrust us with more. I actually feel that the prophetic movements ‘marriage’ to the prosperity gospel has voided certain things that God wanted to do thru the movement. Balaam was a prophetic person who actually heard from God and spoke Gods words, but scripture says his lust for wealth made him a false prophet [who loved the wages of unrighteousness]. If prophets can’t receive correction from each other then God will never let them ‘correct’ [speak into] the church at large. I feel one of the pitfalls of the prophetic is to think that the goal is to ‘simply be prophetic’. I have met brothers who simply wanted to attend church and stand up and speak. God’s chief concern for all of his people [even prophets] is to carry out the great commission, to be salt and light to a lost and dying world!
John Chiarello
[#’s 217-420] TEACHINGS PART 2
(217) There are a few different dynamics at work with us at this season. The Lord has given the ‘words’ going out from us ‘free course’. Scripture speaks of Gods word ‘running swiftly’ Jesus ‘sent his word and healed them’ and many other symbols like this. These things speak of God supernaturally promoting the words that are coming forth from you for his purpose [Chris Tucker tells Jackie Chan ‘do you understand the words comin out of my mouth’]. A common mistake that people make at this stage of God ‘exalting you’ is thinking that ‘its all about you!’ When God does these things, be assured IT’S ALL ABOUT HIM also many ministries and ministry leaders who are affected by the ‘corrective word’ become offended. Some fall into the snare of wanting the down fall and defeat of the ‘vessel’ bringing forth the word. Sometimes they cant understand why the vessel hasn’t ‘broken’ yet. They seem to not understand that It is not the ‘spirituality or holiness’ of the vessel that God is using. It is simply the providence of God. God wants people to put his concerns first, and theirs second. Too many ministries are trying to create a ‘public’ ‘national personsa’. God is simply not going to facilitate this desire. He will give great favor to those who are not seeking these things, but he won’t facilitate the desire in man ‘to make a name for himself’. I just felt like we are at a stage where God is giving influence thru the things he is saying thru ‘US’ at this season. I see all you guys as part of the US in the sense that many of you are sharing and spreading the things you have learned from the ministry this year. I want to encourage you guys to avoid the competitive spirit that the enemy wants to use to hinder Gods voice. Don’t tell people ‘look what God is doing with brother so and so’ or ‘look at the great access that God has given us’. Simply allow the word to go forth without a lot of fanfare and self-promotion. Sure we want this door to remain open, but our goal is not recognition, its effectiveness!
(218) Let me remind you guys of a few things. Often we want the results without paying the price ‘everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody is willing to die’. I shared how ‘the Lord’ woke me up at midnight the other day. I really do not enjoy getting up and praying and writing all night. Sometimes it’s enjoyable to get up at 3 or 4am and sense Gods presence. But many times it’s a feeling of ‘O, I guess I will be praying tonight’. It’s more of a ‘count the cost’ type thing. Many people want the open doors that we are currently experiencing, but they really don’t want to do stuff like ‘all night prayer’. That’s fine, just count the cost. You eventually decide the amount of influence you will have. I want to encourage you guys to be radical for the cause. Don’t be attention seekers, but be sensitive to the avenues God is opening up to you.
(217) Let me give a small example of Gods truth versus an exasperated clergy. One small area of truth that we deal with is the second coming. We teach the historical majority view. There is only ONE second coming spoken about in the New Testament. The scriptures commonly used to teach the ‘rapture’ as a different event are really talking about the 2nd coming. Now this one area [not to mention all the other stuff!] is enough to make us permanent enemies to some renown preachers in this area. Some churches call us heretics for this alone! I know this and really don’t care to be honest. It’s funny, because all the railing that they would do against us in this one area is wasted time. God’s truth is Gods truth. No matter how much time is wasted defending a so-called ‘fundamental’ of the faith, it’s wasted time for the defenders if they are defending something that is basically wrong. It’s hard for preachers to admit their wrong in any area. I know this is true with me too. I just find it funny that those who go to great lengths to defend a thing will eventually find out the truth. No big deal, just make sure your spending your time and energy on stuff that will make a real difference. Don’t waste it on stuff that’s fake!
(218) Let me talk a little on radical speech. I know many people believe I am a little too harsh in my teaching. There are some sites that make us look pretty ‘dovish’. I want to mention a strange phenomena. In the writings of Paul [in the bible!] Paul uses terms like ‘castration’ in speaking against enemies of the Gospel. The bible uses ‘dung’ [crap] in certain scenarios. Yet Paul also speaks on using good speech and not letting corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. If you read the writings of Martin Luther and other reformers you will find it shocking to see some of the language they used. I feel there are times where people are so off track that when he raises up ‘reformers’ its hard for them to separate the spirit of radical reform from the ‘lovey’ language of the clergy. It’s almost like the prophetic takes on a ‘vulgar’ aggressiveness in order to uproot the deep seated error of the time. I don’t want to make excuses for bad language; I just wanted you to see the theme of this being a reality all thru the church age.
(219) DON’T QUIT! I have noticed over the years that one of the key elements of successful ministry is refusing to quit. I have met ‘ministry’ leaders who had a poor track record of employment thru out their lives. Yet they are trying to raise support for ‘their’ ministry. Most times it doesn’t work. Why? Because they never mastered the simple requirement to ‘not quit’. They have learned ‘how to quit’ time and time again in the job market, and they are comfortable with it. Does this mean they will never be used? No. But they usually wont be. Why? Because God is still trying to teach them the importance of being faithful to a job, and they don’t want to hear this. I have heard good people on radio over the years. Some that were not ‘quitters’ in their lives. But they were on radio, off radio, back on again, and well you get it! They learned to ‘quit’ in this one area. Will God forgive them? Sure. The point is God wants to entrust important tasks to us. He wants us to follow thru on the task. If you quit before, God will forgive you. His mercy is new every morning. Maybe the thing holding your ministry back is something as basic as this. Don’t look for the extravagant ‘missing ingredient’. I haven’t confessed right, I will meditate more. Usually you have confessed too much [all talk and no ACTION] the missing ingredient is learning dependability and responsibility. All great men of faith have spent many years ‘plugging away in obscurity!’
(220) Been up since 3 AM praying for you guys as well as a few other things. Was thinking about a conversation I had a few years ago with a ministry leader in our city. He was trying to raise money for his ministry. He attends a great church that I used to attend. The Pastor is a good friend of mine. The ministry leader was asking where I attend church. I told him the church. He then criticized the church for spending money on certain things he thought could be used for other things. I just ignored it. This leader wanted to raise money to build a prayer center building. I guess it’s a worthy cause? Without boasting too much, I have been praying from 2-3 am [sometimes midnight] till around 7- 8 am for more than a few years now. I really didn’t need some ministry building to do this! In my mind the money for so many of our projects is a waste! It seems like we are too often building things to satisfy men’s egos more than anything else. God’s people are called ‘A HOUSE OF PRAYER’. God sees the corporate community of saints [all Christians, Catholics, Protestants, etc.] as a ‘building’ of prayer. Once again there might be a scenario or two where God is calling people to build these types of prayer centers, but most times he simply calls his people to prayer. He wakes you up and you pray! Where? Wherever you happen to be at the time. Religion has ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ divisions that say this is the place to perform ‘religious activity’ and this is the place for ‘secular stuff’. These divisions are contrary to the Kingdom that Jesus preached [I am not advocating a theocracy!] Jesus simply taught that the true worshipers of God would worship [pray] in ‘SPIRIT AND TRUTH’. There is this tremendous liberating aspect to the Kingdom of God that allows it to function everywhere. The church is always looking to start some 501 c 3 that can be the ‘Christian enterprise’ that takes all our time and money when God is simply looking for people to PRAY!
(221) Let me use the above example to show you a few things. As I was talking to this ministry leader we did have a fairly good fellowship. During this day of fellowship I shared many of the thoughts on the church as community versus ‘a church building’. He seemed a ‘little’ familiar with this. He said ‘O I know people who believe that way’. Which showed me the Lord has tried to show him this before! He had difficulty grasping many of the concepts, though they were true! It was later on where he got offended and actually yelled at me. He basically said to me ‘your wrong!’ I nicely told him, well I understand you think I am wrong, but I believe I am right. [I know it’s hard to believe I was calm during this exchange, but I was]. It shows how his later frustration of not being able to raise money for ‘the ministry center’ and things of this nature were an outgrowth of seeing ministry as ‘this thing I need to raise money for so I can run it’. If this person learned the lesson of not seeing it in this limited way, he would not have been so frustrated. It’s like the answer wasn’t ‘a transference of wealth’ in as much as a ‘change of thought’. He needed to see the new ‘wineskin/paradigm’ that God is trying to bring forth. These truths are being seen and practiced on a worldwide basis as I write this! Wolfgang Simpson says ‘God is not trying to start lecture halls across the world’ This seems to be the current understanding of ‘planting churches’. We seem to think ‘setting up buildings where people come and listen to bible words being spoken’ is the local church! We really need to be delivered from this mindset!
(222) Being I have been speaking on ‘prayer centers’ and stuff, let me share some stuff on prayer. A lot of the ‘prayer centers’ focus on a type of prayer that I feel is really not biblically based. If you read the New Testament you see stories of casting out demons and stuff. You also see where the disciples are praying to God on many occasions. You NEVER see any person casting ‘demons’ or ‘territorial spirits’ out of the sky. There are certain passages of scripture where modern advocates of ‘spiritual warfare’ use to justify this practice, I just feel based upon what I just showed you that prayer is fundamentally focused on God. You do find Jesus rebuking the devil, and like I said you see the Apostles casting out demons. It’s just the demons are IN PEOPLE, there not taking up residence in the sky! I know this is another one of those hotly debated subjects, but if we can just stay focused on God we can make much headway. James said a lot of times we are not receiving because we are not asking in faith, or we are asking selfishly. It’s not so much that we haven’t mastered certain elements of spiritual warfare, it’s that we haven’t mastered UNSELFISH PRAYER!
(223) ALL THAT WAR WITH YOU SHALL COME TO NOTHING/ I WILL GIVE THEM AS STUBBLE TO YOUR BOW I was reading this in Isaiah and felt like I should share this. When I first moved to Corpus and went on the radio I knew there were prosperity preachers that were offended at us. I liked a particular prosperity ministry and even attended their events [Valentine Banquet]. I regularly encouraged my wife to attend a women’s fellowship that they held monthly in our city [Women by Design]. I tried to not allow the strong word coming from us to become personal. I was very familiar with this church and even visited when they had a national Minister come [Jerry Savelle]. I never desire the failure of another brother in the Lord. If God gives you a mandate to speak a certain word, and you don’t, then your are in trouble! This church obviously eventually knew that there was a preacher on the radio going ‘against’ the main tenets of their church. This was never my intent. Though this church was a fairly well known regional ministry in our area, with very influential connections with national ministers, they eventually folded and left town. I did not rejoice over this. I liked going to the banquets and never threw out the invitations they sent regularly to my wife. I think I even sent the women’s thing a small offering of support? When God chooses to speak a prophetic word at a certain season, it’s not a matter of individuals or personalities. It’s a matter of truth. As much as I love Bro. Hagin and others, there were just too many obvious things that couldn’t go unchecked. Blatant visions and dreams that were highly offensive to Christ’s image. Portraying Jesus as saying things that he wasn’t saying. Many of the advocates of these national leaders simply defended these things irregardless of any spiritual discernment. When any one [even me!] begins to defend the images of people over the image of Christ, God ultimately reduces your voice. I pray this ministry is doing well today. They did move to Houston, but I wanted you to see that these issues go much deeper than personalities and loyalties to friends and culture. God will speak a word and sometimes its like ‘STUBBLE AGAINST A BOW’. Eventually the stubble will come to nothing! [I WILL BEND JUDAH LIKE A BOW the prophetic isn’t always fun, God often ‘bends’ you so you can deliver the word with pinpoint accuracy! Bowstrings are under great pressure all the time. Divine tension!]
(224) WHERE ARE WE GOING WITH THIS? those of you who have read all our stuff will remember that the first book I wrote [which you will find on this blog] dealt with Jesus and the moneychangers. I felt his making the whip and ‘cleansing the temple’ spoke prophetically to a time period in the church where he would once again ‘cleanse the temple from mammon’. The simple fact that all of this stuff we have dealt with was so engrained into the leadership of our day, was in and of itself a tremendous hindrance to the work of the Spirit. Many leaders [Prophets included] refused to deal with these issues out of pride. They truly felt that the ‘preaching against mammon’ was a traditional deception of the ‘orthodox’ church that was hindering the gospel. They saw any attempt to ‘cleanse the temple from the moneychangers’ as a traditional push back against the new move of God. We are at a point where God is simply radically re organizing our mindsets. You [Christian] do not exist for the purpose of being told what is right or wrong by some man. The Spirit of God in you will bear witness to truth. Many of you are doing well on this journey. You will be used as a witness of what it means to ‘take up your cross and follow Jesus’. There needs to be a radical re focusing on the basic elements of the gospel. We need to overhaul all the ‘dung’ [I’ll be nice!] and get back to scripture. If leadership is so ‘self consumed’ where they cant see beyond their own desires to be happy and have a successful career, then God will by pass them and work directly thru his body. Many are still defending a ‘rich Jesus’ who gives them dreams that deny scripture. I urge you to be faithful to the Jesus of the New Testament. You will know him in Spirit and truth, but he is the same historical person who MADE A WHIP AND DROVE OUT THE MONEY CHANGERS!
(225) IS THIS ACCUSING THE BRETHREN? Paul the Apostle dealt harshly with the Judaizers of the 1st century. He said very strong things against them. He said ‘whose mouths MUST be stopped’. The Judaizers did believe in Jesus! But they added other unbiblical doctrines that were contrary to the gospel. One of the definitions of satan is ‘the accuser of the brethren’. Scripture says ‘God casts him down’. I want you to see a subtle thing. satan is very ‘subtle’. Many of the doctrines that we have exposed actually ‘accused the brethren’ unwittingly. Many poor and struggling saints have been told ‘surely God doesn’t want his kids to suffer’ ‘how can a father not give good gifts to his kids’ and in the more extreme cases I have even heard it taught that the parents of children who have died did something wrong in applying their faith, that the ‘fault’ was on the side of the parents, not God. These forms of doctrine are the most extreme cases of accusation that can ever occur. Especially the last one! What we are actually doing thru our teaching is ‘casting down the accuser of the saints’. God defends THE POOR and needy. Both Jesus and the Apostles were very hard on the religious leaders, yet very merciful on people who were struggling. I simply wanted to show you that one of the functions of the prophetic is to ‘open eyes’ I hope you see what I just told you. NOTE: by the way we do believe in spiritual warfare, I think what I just showed you about ‘casting down’ the accuser is a good example of it. We accomplish it thru prophetic teaching and preaching, not thru yelling into the sky!
(226) In Isaiah 41 it speaks of ‘God raising up the righteous man from the east and giving nations to him, coming upon princes like mortar, the coastlands shall wait for his law’ [paraphrasing from memory]. Then it says ‘the islands feared and every man strengthened themselves and propped up each others idols’. There have been other significant seasons in the Body of Christ where the Lord dealt with many of these issues. The natural response was for the larger national ministries who propagate these doctrines to ‘prop each other up’. To simply use the tremendous financial store [which they do have!] to defend each other. This was not only a wrong defense of people out of ‘self preservation’ but much of the money that was used to ‘push back’ the reproof actually came from Christians who give sacrificially to these ministries. I couldn’t give in clear conscience to a ministry whose main leaders are making around $500,000 to a million a year from the offerings of many low-income people. But the point is there is a natural response to ‘join hands and strengthen each others idols’ because you know you are all ‘in the same boat’. This response is unfortunate, but it does happen!
(227) Let me try and do this. I just kind of had an ‘overview’ of old testament history and the ‘history of the church’ run thru my mind in a few minutes. A lot of the stuff I am going to share is from many years of memory. So bear with me with the little details! In the Old Testament Gods people were represented by the nation of Israel. During the journey of Israel from captivity in Egypt to the Promised Land God deposited certain ‘sacred/religious’ rituals into their society for the ultimate purpose of revealing the gospel and reality of Christ’s sacrifice for all people. During this journey Israel ‘divides’ over certain issues. Israel has a northern tribe [Israel] and southern one [Judah] The northern part develops a separate priesthood under Jeroboam, and the southern keeps the original priesthood under Reheboam. The inheritance being divided during the possessing of the Promised Land becomes a theological issue for Jewish orthodoxy. The ‘jeroboam’ group identifies with the altar of worship deemed ‘unorthodox’ while the southern group has the ‘true’ place of worship. By the way this was the issue seen in the gospel of John chapter 4, when Jesus speaks to the woman at the well. She was a Samaritan, part of the ‘unorthodox group’ and was asking this exact question! So the history of natural Israel is one of division and ‘who has the real priesthood’ [sound familiar?] It is interesting to note, that though theologically the southern tribes are more ‘correct’ God later reproves them for their ‘correctness’. The prophets will eventually address Judah and say ‘thus saith the Lord, you pride yourself on being more faithful than your sister [northern tribe] and yet you are worse!’ So already God is dealing with the aspect of pride that comes along with theological correctness. Today the church historically is divided. Most evangelicals think of the 16th century reformation as the ‘dividing point’ but historically it’s the division of the 11th century between our Catholic and Orthodox brothers that is seen as the ‘great schism’. Either way you have the Catholics/Orthodox representing historic orthodoxy and the protestants/evangelicals on the others side. The debate rages on who has the more pure form of orthodoxy. We are like the woman at the well, we are asking Jesus ‘who’s right?’ and Jesus simply tells the woman ‘I am not here to take sides in your theological arguments, I am here to call you to repentance and lead you into true worship with God’. So we find ourselves in a place in history where truth does matter [at least to me!] but where Gods prophetic voice is calling all of his people back to true worship. Sort of like the Sienfeld episode where George is going to convert to the Orthodox religion so he can date some girl. The orthodox priests are questioning George on his reason for conversion and George replies ‘I like the hats’ to the dismay of the priests who were wearing these religious looking hats! We try to come up with reasons to why we associate in our divided groups, and sometimes it’s as silly as the hats! Well I know I got a little theological with you guys today, but I felt the Lord wanted to get you to thinking on these things. God wants unity, and all sides have to display ‘humility of mind’ in the process!
(228) Just got this thought, it must be for you! I talked about not quitting a few entries ago, I got the sense that some of you are under condemnation for quitting. When a person ‘fails’ [Peter] it is often a precursor to great things. During the failure you learn the inadequacy of yourself and others. You see the shallowness of mans glory. You learn that living for the approval of men is a vain enterprise. You also learn the reality of ‘doing ministry’ for God alone. Everybody remembered great Peter’s denial of Christ, even in the midst of Peters ‘ministry’ of raising the dead! At that stage you realize what your in it for. If raising the dead cant ‘overcome’ the denials [in the minds of people] then you might as well give up on impressing people! God takes ‘quitters’ and restores them to usefulness. It’s true that the areas of ‘quitting’ are not Gods purpose, but God has this strange way of ‘working all things for good to them who love him and are called according to his purpose’ [I think I read this somewhere?][Just kidding, it’s in Romans]
(229) Xxx
(230) THE MEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH. REALLY! Over the years of preaching and being involved in ministry, you notice the ‘stages’ and fads that the church goes thru. I feel the Lord often has a purpose for these ‘fads’ even though they sometimes are unbalanced. One of these areas is spiritual warfare. I was recently looking at an Apostolic website out of San Antonio, I couldn’t help but notice the teachings on ‘we are warriors’ ‘destroying strongholds’ and stuff like that [hey, I’m just trying to get thru to God!] I also saw a conference being held somewhere that was called ‘a gathering of champions’. I remember seeing one years ago called ‘a gathering of strong and mighty men’. All these images are biblical to a degree. The New Testament does speak of us being children of God and overcomers and stuff like that. The biblical witness ‘couches’ these truths to be contained in humble broken people. Jesus taught us to be radical, but warned the disciples to not glory in their ability to cast out demons [spiritual warfare] but rather to glory in the fact that their names were written in heaven. I just thought it was worth reminding you that the MEEK INHERIT THE EARTH not the strong and mighty warriors!
(231) I thought I saw an ad for a pre season football game last night, it seems early? The other day I watched ‘invincible’ the true story of Vince Pappale, who played for the Eagles in the 70’s. The new coach of the eagles had open tryouts for anyone who wanted to try out. Out of 70 or so people, Pappale made the team! He was a bartender in South Philly and never played college ball, just ‘sandlot’. I loved playing street football in Jersey. Full tackle without gear. The problem was we liked to ‘hurt’ the other team. Well the movie is a great movie. Pappale plays a few seasons with the Eagles and does make history. The scenes of the street games remind me a lot of my youth days. Even the scenery of south Philly looks like Jersey. Pappale lives in Jersey today. There are times when you run with the ball, and times when you pass it. When running with it you become the focus of attention. Everyone wants to get you. At that time your only goal is to ‘not lose the ball’ and either run, pass or hand off. You are at certain seasons required to run with it! A lot of people will be coming after you, don’t take it personal, it’s not you their looking for, they want that ball [the thing of value]! NOTE; I do remember another time playing a game, someone on the opposing team did something [?] and the next chance I got, during the game, I ‘jabbed him’ about 5 times in a row with a ‘left jab’. Which means a direct punch in the face without gloves on. We played the type of street ball that incorporated many sports at once!
(232) EMBRACING A RADICAL PROPHET Most of us today are not willing to hear and see on the university level [spiritually speaking] we seem to forget the radical departure that the early followers of Christ had to make in order to embrace him. The concept of Jesus being Gods son, making himself equal to God was a drastic step of heresy for the 1st century Jew. Even today most people don’t realize that many Messianic congregations are not comfortable with the historic language of the Trinity. To embrace Jesus was a very radical theological departure from the norm! Now I am not advocating that we ‘depart from the norm’ today. In the sense that we have been handed down the historic faith that scripture says ‘has once been delivered to the saints’. But we often mistake our own peculiar convictions for ‘the historic faith’. God is calling us today to radical revolution. We live in a day where Christians are being killed for the faith! Most western believers don’t seem to understand this. We need to at least be radical enough to forsake the world and its creature comforts for the gospel. I am not advocating ‘self martyrdom’ but can we at least be willing to walk in a way that might seem contrary to the norm!
(233) A few months back a prominent prophet, who I have tried to ‘correct’ in some ways, gave a dream he had. Part of the dream spoke of a creature with a ‘TV’ as a head. He said how he felt the ‘creature’ was trying to ‘suck him in’. Though this strange creature was pathetic [made you want to stay out of sympathy] yet he knew it was something to be avoided at all costs. I forget the interpretation he gave. I like this one; many of the abuses I have dealt with are prominent in much of today’s Christian TV circles. Many of the proponents have advanced their cause thru this means. Many ‘have been seduced/sucked in’ thru sympathetic pleas and figures. A key strategy of the enemy is to get you to embrace deception out of a ‘soul felt’ friendship or actually ‘feeling sympathy for someone’. While sympathy is a God given quality, true sympathy loves someone enough to speak the truth. I do find it interesting that this brother has in some ways been influenced, sympathetically, to embrace these ‘TV’ type personalities. I feel the Lord was telling him thru this dream to ‘run from the creature!’
(234) Just reading Isaiah 42, it says God anointed Jesus [and the Body of Christ] to bring forth judgment. He shall not cry nor cause his voice to be heard [self promotion]. He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He will open blind eyes and show people aspects of truth that they have never seen before. The ‘coastlands’ shall wait to hear the word the Lord will speak. They will be ‘fascinated’ by the Spirits ministry. The Lord will go forth ‘like a mighty man, he will shout like a woman in labor’. For a long time he held his peace, but finally said ‘it is enough, I cant sit by silently and let this go on’. Those that trust in graven images [idolatry- the old testament equal to covetousness] will be greatly ashamed and distressed. They will see themselves being reproved and corrected like never before. God’s people are like prey, they were ‘preyed upon’ and used as guinea pigs in the laboratories of men’s doctrines. None delivered, none said RESTORE! God will dry up their pools [the polluted sources that were making them sick. The ministries and avenues of ministry that were hurting them] God does all these things with the purpose of restoring and bringing us back to the Cross. God says I will not give my glory to graven images [men’s hearts rejoicing in materialism] but thru this whole process you will feel disoriented. Many of the leaders and sources of the past ‘will dry up’. God will begin to feed you again like the early days. You will hear his voice again, like at the beginning! NOTE: This chapter also says the Lord will roar like a Lion. I have spoken a lot on this blog about the imagery of the ‘Lion of Judah’ there are prophecies I have read this last year that spoke of the Lord roaring, disintegrating obstacles. I feel the ‘roar of the Lion’ can be the prophetic ‘roar’ coming forth from the prophets at this season in the Church.
(235) While reviewing my mission statement I came across a dream that I forgot to mention. In 8-06 I had a dream that I was in a ‘composite’ type city. I wrote ‘Houston/San Antonio/Dallas’ as the cities that I saw. I also saw many friends from different areas and times in life. I saw Navy buddies, New Jersey friends and friends from Texas. I felt this spoke to God giving us open doors to many different people groups. God calls his people ‘the New Jerusalem’ we are called ‘the City of God’ we are the City [that is the people of God] whose builder and maker is God. I thought it was important to share this. I had no idea we would have such an open door to many of you in these cities. The Lord ‘shows you what’s going to happen before it happens’.
(236) A while back I mentioned how the prophet Jeremiah [and others] spoke about ‘tearing down, removing obstacles and building up’. I have been in the ‘demolition stage’ for a while and want to do some ‘building up’. I spoke on the extreme forms of ‘renewing the mind’, things like focusing all your thoughts on money verses, quoting scriptures that seem to focus on what you want out of life. These types of ‘mind renewing’ are not primarily what the New Testament is talking about when it speaks of renewing your mind. Paul the Apostle, who most frequently uses this image, had a basic thrust to his theology JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH Paul was a radical Apostle with a message of God accepting us freely as we believe in his son. Paul knew the terror of legalism and trying to keep Gods commands in order to be saved. The entire Old Testament Jewish law was a complete drain on the human psyche. Man over and over again would attempt to ‘live up to the standard’ to no avail. God allowed the sacrificial system of animals to temporarily ‘cover’ their sins as a future sign of the one sacrifice that would pay for all of mans sin. The Apostle Paul lived under this condemnation for most of his professional life. Paul was a Pharisee who taught Jewish law and was enmeshed deeply into this system. The revelation of being ‘saved’ thru simply believing in the single sacrifice of Christ was a tremendous ‘paradigm’ shift from legalism to grace. It was hard for someone of the Jewish faith to make this transition. It was almost as in if it were too good to be true! This is why Paul says things like ‘If there were a law given that good have made us right with God, then we would be made right by it. But being there is no such law, God has chosen to justify us by faith’. You find this singular theme repeated over and over again in Paul’s writings. Faith in Jesus is not only the way we get into the Kingdom, but it’s also the way we grow and mature once we get in! ‘HAVING BEGUN IN THE SPIRIT ARE WE NOW MADE PERFECT BY THE FLESH [LAW]?’ Galatians. Now with this underlying theme of grace, always warring against the mindset of law, Paul speaks of ‘renewing the mind’. It was a battle to keep at the forefront of the early believers this central reality of the gospel. Paul was continually warring against other religious leaders [Judaizers] who did not walk in grace. This is primarily what the New Testament is speaking about in the area of renewing the mind. Some actually teach the renewing of the mind in a legalistic way. They make you think that you have to change your circumstances and ‘world around you’ by some type of mental gymnastics. You fall into this type of ‘mind renewing’ that puts the pressure on you to change things. This is not the biblical image of renewing the mind! The biblical image is seeing all the great things that God has done for us thru the Cross, and living our lives out of this radical gratitude that causes us to lay down all of our agendas for Gods agenda! The fact that this legalistic mindset of trying to live up to some religious standard is now over, this releases us into a radical way of life that makes Gods Kingdom the priority. As Paul teaches this radical good news, he clearly says ‘you are not saved or accepted with God based on your performance. You are accepted because Christ died for you’. Many people in society today don’t know this! They see the ‘church’ as a bunch of ‘moral hypocrites’. They don’t realize that God is not holding things against them. The account has been paid. God is not requiring them to join some church, or convert to some religion. He is simply trying to get this message to them. Why isn’t it getting to them? O that’s right, when they tune in to our TV shows they see us talking about money! [I forgot, I wasn’t going to tear down today]. You see, the thing that should be compelling us to go into all the world with an urgency to preach Christ is a gratitude for what he’s done for us. We don’t have the right anymore to live for ourselves; we have been bought with a price THEREFORE GLORIFY GOD IN YOUR BODY AND IN YOUR SPIRIT, WHICH BELONG TO GOD.
(237) I want to share a few more ‘funny’ stories, but I also have a lot of serious stuff to get to. The last entry is the heart of the gospel message. The radical ‘reconciliation’ of man back to God thru the Cross is the message. The reality of knowing that you, personally, are forgiven and totally accepted is radical. I have friends who read this site who are not Christian. Some are offended at me because of the strong Christian message that we proclaim. We openly say ‘you can only be saved thru Jesus’. I teach that all Jewish people, all Muslim people, all people every where can only be saved thru Christ. This does offend the modern liberal mind, to which some of our blog reader’s posses. The message is as simple as ‘all men need the sun to live’. Well how could you be so arrogant John. There are many opinions on this. Who do you think you are in making such a statement. How could a so called ‘just’ God require all humans to receive ‘sunlight’ to live. Be open-minded! The fact is God has made his sun [Son] available to all humanity. Some live their whole lives under it’s benefits, without ever giving it a second thought. It is not ‘bigoted’ or close-minded to accept the fact that Jesus Christ is the savior of all mankind. God has reconciled the world back to himself thru his Son. This central message is available for all men to receive. There are things in life that all people need to survive [food water, etc.] the simple fact is all men need Jesus. Don’t get mad over this. You don’t have to become a religious conservative [I’m not!]. You can even look like a radical hippie from the 70’s [I do!]. It’s just a matter of truth that you have been forgiven, why wont you accept this!
(238) Now to the funny stories THE CRACK PIPE AND THE LAPTOP I have my office set up like those basements in the 70’s where teens would hang out and get high. A bunch of ‘doors’ and Beatles posters. Lava lamps [in the living room] a throwback to the 70’s [sort of like the afro looking guy with the leisure suit in ‘that 70’s show’ I crack up just seeing him]. One day I saw one of those corncob pipes they used to sell in the candy stores up north, I thought ‘I need to get one for the study’. Sure enough I am driving my daughter home and I see this head shop [place where you buy bongs and stuff to get high] I thought I will stop real quick and make this Christian purchase. I go in and innocently ask this high school kid working the counter if they had this pipe. He’s sitting there studying for school, trying to make a buck by servicing all the local crack heads needs. He looks at me with disgust and points to the jar filled with pipes on the counter. In ignorant joy I am happy to have located this addition to my office. I do have long hair, look raggedy and am sometimes mistaken for a homeless guy. As I make the purchase I tell the kid ‘I am not going to smoke crack or anything, I just want it for my room’ to which he simply gives me the look ‘yea right’. I went to buy a laptop a while back. While looking at the different ones the young salesmen [another kid looking like he’s working his way thru school] is helping me choose one. I finally get one and am asking him if it’s ready to go online and all. He asks me what kind of Internet connection I use. I reply ‘wal mart’, which was true. We used a service for 10 bucks a month that came from wal mart. The kid asks again in dismay thinking ‘surely this guy doesn’t use wal mart’ I re assured him that it was true, wal mart does carry this. He kind of had a look on his face like ‘wait till I tell my buddies this one’. After the purchase this innocent kid goes thru the whole sales pitch to sell me a case and all the other accessories and stuff, he wants commission! I then simply tell him ‘kid, your looking at someone who uses wal mart dial up, what are your chances your gonna sell me all this others stuff’ to which he replied ‘yea, your right’ with a look of resignation on his face.
(239) I heard a couple of sermons [TV] from good Pastors who were actually teaching some stuff like I teach. One has received from our ministry and I think his teaching it was a direct result of hearing us. In these scenarios the message was focused on the limited perspective of ‘church’ and Christians thinking that ‘going to church’ was their only responsibility. One of the preachers [national guy] is a good Baptist preacher out of Houston. His message contained many good elements, and after ‘raking’ the people over the coals for thinking ‘coming to church’ is what God wants from them, he then dismissed the congregation and all things return back to the present system. The people are still required to work secular jobs and tithe. The Pastor and staff will spend the week running the church, and after all is said and done, nothing really changes. It’s difficult to ‘change the system’ from the inside out. Many reformers in church history found this out. It does take time to truly reform things, especially on a large scale. I don’t advocate total ‘destruction’ of the present system, and I am glad to see some stable Pastors teach along these lines, it’s just that we [Pastors/Leaders] have to realize that most people are still too dependant on us to make the break on their own. Leaders have to lead by example, some are called to radically change the way they function and operate. To simply preach reform from the present system/pulpit is not really adequate. Leaders themselves have to change.
(240) Let me share something, a few months back I took a ride to one of the fishing piers where I live. Brought the paper, tuned in to the radio. I was able to pick up a San Antonio church that I like [Eagles Nest/ Rick Godwin]. Some of the things from the message kind of stirred me up [got me a little angry]. I shared this earlier on this blog. A few weeks later some of the things I wrote about it on the blog became widely available to the entire city of San Antonio on a huge scale. At the time of writing the entry I had no desire or inclination of reaching so many people with the blog, it just happened. It was like the ‘prophetic Spirit’ rises up at set times to speak into the church, if you are faithful to a few [small area] God will then launch you to a lot [large area]. At the time of me responding to what I heard from San Antonio, I wasn’t mad at Rick. I was angry at the limited perspective of church that he was embracing in the sermon. Nothing personal, just God wants change. Don’t look for a national voice; be faithful in the small things. If God desires he will promote you, don’t do it yourself!
(241) Now a little overview. The idea of ‘church’ as the place where we ‘put all the believers’. I mentioned how in the New Testament, no matter how many people were coming to the Lord, the Apostles never thought along these lines. ‘O my God, all Galatia is turning to Christ, where will we put them all?’ NOWHERE! I am thinking of the verse ‘THE SEED IS YET IN THE BARN’ Gods people are the seed. We are always trying to build bigger barns to ‘put them in’. We need to understand it is not the responsibility of leadership to ‘find places to put all the people’ it is the responsibility of leadership to FIND A PLACE TO ‘PUT GOD’ [that is to win people to Christ and these people become the HABITATION OF GOD]
(242) Doing THE FOOTBALL THING again [in the yard praying, walking around with the football]. Got the image of ‘screen pass’. A while back I read a prophecy from Patricia King [extreme prophetic] about the image of water balloons, or some type of ‘bomb’ landing in areas. An image of words and ministries ‘hitting’ areas and having great influence. I had already seen this myself. One of the ‘prayer’ images I use is ‘throwing the football’. I kind of see the Lord ‘launching’ the radio/blog into large regional areas and ‘hitting the ground’ with great influence. I ‘see’ the ball landing in large influential cities and having a wide impact. But I just got the sense of the ‘screen pass’ as well. Sometimes you get so caught up in the ‘hail Mary pass’ [our Catholic friends will like this one!] that you forget to throw the short screen pass. Sometimes you have done all you can do in launching the ‘bomb’ and as you wait for the results you might as well gain a few yards here and there!
(243) A lot of the stuff on this site is ‘prophetic’. That means if you go back and re read you will continue to find new and relevant things that didn’t make sense the first time around. I have quoted the verse THE MAN WHOSE NAME IS THE BRANCH, HE WILL BRANCH OUT OF HIS PLACE [small area of influence] AND BUILD THE TEMPLE OF THE LORD These verses speak of ‘building Gods temple’, literally ‘a place where God can dwell’. In the book of Acts it says ‘God doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands’ [I believe Stephen said this in Acts: 7?] This is a quote from King David in the book of Psalms. David is prophesying the heart of the Father to ‘dwell in humans as the temple’ as opposed to man made ones. The early church had the underlying theme of NOT BUILDING HUMAN TEMPLES This is why you don’t see any ‘church building projects’ until the 4th century of church history. Knowledge can be dangerous, some enlightened people who have seen these truths then used it in a wrong way to condemn all Christians who meet in ‘church buildings’. Buildings are neutral, they are simply tools. You are not deceived to meet in or build a ‘church building’. It’s just that we need a radical re organization in thought and function at this time in church history!
(244) I remember many years ago I was in a large church service; the Pastor is a friend of mine. At the end of the service he asked me and some elders of the church to come up and pray for peoples needs. I was about 29 years old at the time. Well any way the guy I was going to pray for was around 50. He was a smart ‘alec’ [cant curse!] I guess he thought it was beneath him to have some ‘rookie kid’ pray for him. So when I asked what he would like to pray for, he said ‘I want you to pray that I will have a million dollars and become 6 feet tall’. I felt like ‘slaying him in the spirit’ right there! Well I began praying ‘father, bless this man and let him know that he is valuable in your eyes, worth more than a million dollars. Teach him that he has great stature in your Kingdom, that which cannot be measured in physical height’. I went on for a few minutes. I did feel the anointing. When I was done he looked shaken and pale. I guess the Lord shook him up for me!
(245) Being I mentioned Eagles Nest in San Antonio, let me say a few things about another worldwide ministry out of San Antonio. I wont say the church, but they are one of the biggest in the City. This church is a good old time Pentecostal gospel preaching church. Every now and than you can catch the Pastor on his TV show teaching on Armageddon being right around the corner [hey, how many times can it be right around the corner?]. This brother thinks its heresy to not believe the rapture as being a separate event from the second coming [even though most Christians thru out history have not believed the rapture, and the majority of believers today do not hold to this view!]. The whole end time scenario of ‘scare tactics’ that this church preaches is not my cup of tea. Is Jesus coming again? Yes! Will there be an end of the world some day? Yes! Do I know when? No. But neither do you! The whole point is when we become isolated in our understanding from the rest of the historic church, we are then in danger of missing the ‘whole counsel of God’. It amazes me to hear preachers who are just beginning to reject the rapture publicly. Some who have heard me speak it are now becoming more comfortable about ‘coming out of the closet’ with their own doubts about this doctrine. But when they come out with it, they sound as if they are going against the world. I feel like saying ‘brother, most Christians today know how silly the doctrine is, it’s only the isolated camps that are not aware of the doubtfulness of this doctrine’. Now I am not saying all Christians who believe the rapture are isolated or ignorant. They certainly are not! But some believers think that the probability of ‘the rapture’ as being fake is a secret that only a few know about. Hey, most Christians and theologians worldwide are familiar with the majority of believers not embracing this doctrine. But if all of your education is coming from a good Pastor, who does preach the gospel, but holds to less than ideal views of the end time. Then you are in danger of believing things out of a lack of getting ‘the whole counsel of God’. You cannot access the ‘whole counsel of God’ unless you know what the ‘whole church believes, and has believed for the last 2 thousand years’. God expressly manifests his mind thru the church. We are the ‘Body of Christ’ we possess the mind of Christ as his representatives on earth. Is the majority report always right? No. But if you don’t even realize that there exists a ‘majority report’ then you will be in danger of living your whole Christian experience with the small perspective of some preachers ‘end time charts’. NOTE: I have tried to explain in a lot of our teaching why I don’t believe in the rapture [that is that Jesus comes back in the air to secretly take us to heaven, then comes back later, 7 years for most, 3.5 for others, in another event called the 2nd coming] without getting to technical let me leave you with this thought. In the gospel of John, chapter 17 Jesus says ‘FATHER, I AM NOT PRAYING FOR YOU TO TAKE THEM OUT OF THE WORLD [rapture!] BUT FOR YOU TO KEEP THEM FROM THE EVIL THAT IS IN THE WORLD This one statement alone shows you the purpose of God for the church. We are salt and light to the world. The salt does no good if it’s not on the table!
(246) Woke up this morning and was thinking of a verse YOU HAVE NOT CHOSEN ME, BUT I HAVE CHOSEN YOU AND ORDAINED YOU TO BE A PROPHET TO THE NATIONS [the ‘prophetic voice’ applies to all of us] Then got into the bath tub and put the Christian music station on the radio. Sure enough that was the verse ‘for the day’ [the verse on the radio was from Johns gospel ‘you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you’ the verse I heard was a composite of John and Jeremiah]. I want to share some stuff that might be hard to explain? This year 2006/2007 brought together a 10-12-and 14 year ‘set’ of times for me and the ministry [a ‘set’ time has come, Kairos]. I moved to C.C. in 1992-14 yrs. The 10 and 12 represent trials and things we went thru during the process of ‘being in the desert’ [I literally live on a sand bluff, right off an Island!] The past few years I would notice the number 8:44 a lot. I kind of didn’t like this sign. Without even reading it I knew John 8:44 said ‘you are of your father the devil’. Its kind of one of those signs that you try to avoid! I heard a prophet in 2006 share how the Lord had said ‘14 years is enough’ and another who said God brought him out of a 12 year wilderness. Luke 8:44 says that a woman who had an infirmity of bleeding was healed by Jesus, she was sick 12 years. Felt like this was the 8:44 significance. The angel appeared to the Virgin Mary and told her words that caused her to ‘birth a Divine Son’. Some scholars believe Mary was around 14 yrs old at the time [some as young as 12!] Well if you put all of it together it’s like the Lord was saying a ‘set time has come’ [literally a set of times all meeting at once] That the Lord has chosen you for special things. His word to you is causing a ceasing of the ‘hemorrhaging’ that has been going on for quite some time. He is ‘closing up the breach’. His word to you is going to cause you to ‘birth a divine thing at this season’. You simply must believe his Word! NOTE: Yesterday I was going to mow my yard and first had to drop my daughter off at school. On the way the sky was turning real dark and you can see a strong storm moving in. I didn’t think I would get to cut the yard. I hurried and managed to cut it. The sky was black and stormy both to the north and south. It rained very little at my house. While watching the news that night it flooded Houston and Kingsville [our ‘perimeter’ cities] The rain collapsed a roof on one of the buildings we use for the Fire Dept. The ‘recycling center’. Felt like the Lord was saying he is going to pour out on these areas and the ‘structures of men’ will be unable to contain what he is going to do. His ‘rain’ will break thru ‘ceilings’ [limits] that men have put on my people and they will ‘flow out of the buildings and flood the streets!’ He is going to ‘recycle’ [restore and put back into service] many of you.
(247) Let me give a little example. The fact that the Lord has permitted us [me] to actually have a ‘footprint’ [spiritually speaking] in a large area has baffled some ‘clergy’. Some sincere men have spent many thousands of dollars to try and create a ‘presence’ in other areas. I just want to share something to help you guys. I try not to think of ministry as holding a church meeting and getting as many people to come and support the growth of ‘the church’. I feel this mindset is limited. If you see ‘blog sites’ or ‘radio’ or any other means of communication as simply a forum to advertise ‘church meetings’ then you are cutting your influence off without realizing it. I have gone to ministry web sites that I wanted to read and study from. Some are simply set up to offer products for sale, or to invite you to attend ‘church’. Say if the primary means of communicating the gospel in the 1st century were taking this approach. The letters of Paul and the oral preaching were used to directly get the word out to groups of people. Say if you received a letter from Paul, or got the New Testament canon in the 4th century and opened it up to find an ad from some Apostle inviting you to a service. Or you read the 1st chapter of Romans and then it said ‘to read the rest of this article send 15 dollars to Apostle Paul outreach ministries in Rome’. Now I am not trying to be critical, I am trying to show you how we limit our own effectiveness by seeing ‘church’ as the Christian business that we run. I have gone to some web sites of old Baptist friends to see what’s going on. Some have the ad for their church, a picture of the building [maybe can hold 200 people?] and an invitation to ‘come to church’. Now these sites have the potential of reaching the entire world. Why would you make such a limited invitation? Utilize the thing to get the gospel out brother! Well I just wanted to help my ‘fellow ministers’ to see how its possible to have a large regional influence. Don’t use the tools to simply invite people to your church meeting, use the tools to start a revolution! NOTE; another ingredient in having a ‘large footprint’ is not desiring to have a ‘large footprint’.
(248) I was just thinking about this, even though I haven’t read these books in a while. If you go to the ‘restoration’ books of the Old Testament [Nehemiah, Ezra] and the Prophets who prophesied during this period [Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel] you will find the interesting story of Israel and Gods judgment on them, the destruction and desecration of the temple, and finally the restoration of Israel back to their land and the rebuilt temple. The rebuilding of the city walls and the temple are a beautiful picture of Gods restoration. In the New Testament the Church is called ‘the city of God’ and ‘the Temple of God’. In the Old Testament temple you had the ‘cornerstone’ as the part of the foundation that the whole building was measured on, and you had the ‘capstone/headstone’ that was the finishing stone at the top of the building. Jesus is called the ‘cornerstone’ in the New Testament; he is also the ‘headstone’ the head of the Church who derives authority thru his death for us. A ‘headstone’ is the marker showing that one has truly died. All the New Testament Church are measured and built from the cornerstone Jesus. He is the foundation of the Church. Jesus is also the head stone, finishing stone. He is not only the ‘beginning’ of our faith, but also the ‘finisher’ [Hebrews calls Jesus the author and finisher of the faith]. This shows us that Gods ultimate purpose is to have a mature completed Temple that shows the fullness of Christ to all the universe [Ephesians]. As we develop and grow in [to] him, we don’t grow ‘away from him’ [as some teach when they speak of moving on from the Cross] but we grow more ‘into him’ that is becoming more fully developed as the Body of Christ in the earth. Our headstone derived his authority thru his death and resurrection, so like wise the whole building will derive its authority as we die to ourselves and become more alive unto him and his purposes in the earth.
(249) I, EVEN I, AM HE THAT BLOTTETH OUT THY TRANSGRESSIONS FOR MY OWN SAKE, AND WILL NOT REMEMBER THY SINS The Lord says there are past faults that are holding you back, he forgives you and will not remember these. Not as some favor to you, BUT FOR HIS OWN SAKE! He has created you with a purpose in mind, and he needs you to fulfill it!
(250) Just woke up, I am at work. It’s real early and I felt like we should overview some things. In the old days when I pastored I would get a thought/idea and then research it and develop it over a 2-4 day period and then preach it on a Sunday [OK]. To just wake up and start writing from scratch allows me to cover a lot of territory, but also risk missing a fact or two. Nothing major, just maybe a side detail. So to my critics, hunt and you will find. To my friends I hope we are breaking thru. A few days ago I spoke on Paul and the underlying theme of our acceptance with God by faith. As a religious teacher of the Jews, Paul was well instructed on the life of Abraham. The Jewish people looked to him as ‘the father of the faith’. In Genesis chapters 12 and 15 you find stories that become the basis of Paul’s theological argument for Justification by faith. Even though Paul and the other Pharisees knew about these stories, it never ‘dawned’ on them until the Spirit of God revealed it to them. Paul will go to these time and again. The books of Romans [4] Galatians [2-3] and to the surprise of some, even Hebrews [11] are actually ‘justification by faith’ arguments. [I will develop the Hebrews argument at another time, but it ‘dawned’ on me one day that this was Paul’s ‘open letter’ to the Jews of his day. This is why it’s unsigned. The Jews would not read something from Paul after all the slander he received by the Judaizers. Hebrews ‘theologically’ bridges the gap between the book of James and Paul’s epistles, a lot can be taught right here] Paul lays out for the Jews the simple fact that God counted Abraham righteous [accepted and just] when Abraham ‘believed in God’. It was AFTER he believed in God that he then was circumcised. The law of Moses [10 commandments] weren’t even around yet! This simple truth showed the religious community of the 1st century that acceptance with God was not a cultural [circumcision] or religious/legalistic [10 commandments] thing. God was already receiving people based on their belief in Him years earlier. Now Paul does some tremendous ‘brainwork’ on revealing things from The Old Testament and showing how they were ‘precursors’ to Christ. But I want you to see this simple truth today. One of the main teachings of the New Testament is that God accepts you when you believe in his Son. This is no excuse to go out and sin, but your living different is a result of your free acceptance with God. It is not the CAUSE of it. I find it interesting that the bible actually says that no person can ever be saved by trying to live good, go to church, obey the commandments and all the other things we put on people. Paul actually makes the statement [Galatians] IF A PERSON CAN BE MADE RIGHT WITH GOD BY DOING SOMETHING, THEN CHRIST DIED IN VAIN. Think about that. If there were some other way to ‘get saved’ and go to heaven [now God wants a lot more than this!]Then why would he have given his Son to die? If you owed 100 dollars on some debt and the creditors were calling. Would you say ‘well I guess I will go and die for the payment’. Not if you could get out of it by paying the 100 dollars! So this is one of the arguments that Paul uses. He then goes on to explain ‘why did God give us the 10 commandments’. He teaches that God gave us the law to REVEAL MANS SIN TO HIMSELF. Some believers are not as clear as they should be on this. Even if we could get all the 10 commandments posted in all the schools of the world, this still would not fundamentally change the way kids act. I would rather post John 3:16! I am being a little sarcastic. The point is God gave man the law [10 commandments] so after a few thousand years of ‘trying to be good’ he would come to a point of utter failure. The law did its job; it showed man his need for a savior. This is the New Testament argument. Today I want all my readers that are not really Christian to see this. I can argue all the merits of Gods existence and all the proofs from natural law and every other angle there is. But I want you to see that Christ died for you. God is not telling you to become a religious conservative. He is telling you you’re forgiven and accepted, IF YOU WILL ONLY BELIEVE. [Read Hebrews: 11 commentary on this site!]
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(252) LOYAL TO WHAT? I remember hearing Brother Roloff say that you had all these preachers being faithful to this thing or some cause. He said it in a way like ‘we are trying to be faithful to all these things, and God wants us to be faithful to him’. I want to share this for practical reasons. We are beginning to re connect with many friends and brothers from the past. God says I WILL BRING YOUR SEED FROM THE EAST, I WILL GATHER YOU FROM THE WEST. I WILL SAY TO THE NORTH GIVE UP, CALL YOUR SONS FROM THE SOUTH. As the Lord brings people ‘our way’ we are not seeking to get them to ‘commit to us’. If God is hooking you up to us relationally, great! Maybe you will sponsor a home group? Maybe you will start a local jail outreach? We [I] will try to get together with you on a monthly/bi monthly or annual basis. I am not trying to recruit people! We want to start a revolution in the Church [Body of Christ]. God has called all of you to much more than living vicariously thru your Pastor[s]. As a believer you are to experience this adventure with God, and Christian leadership exists to help you get on course. The leaders give you ‘kayaking instructions’ but you are not to spend the rest of your life taking the instruction course, you are supposed to eventually launch! I look forward to meeting those of you who are being ‘revolutionized’. I want to be open to those who desire to sponsor home groups in your cities/states [NATIONS]. Most of all I want you to be loyal to the call of Christian growth and responsibility that you are learning at this time. I am not asking you to support me, I am asking you to ‘imitate me as I imitate Christ’. Join the revolution!
(253) THE HIGHLY MOTIVATED LEADER IS NOT THE PATTERN I was reading from a church site [you can learn a lot by just reading the actual teaching catalog, at least from ours you can!] and the majority of the messages were on ‘overcoming obstacles’ ‘taking your mountain’ ‘destroying obstacles’ ‘crushing the devil’ and stuff like that. We too often present a model of Christian leadership that would be next to impossible for everyone to live up to. I know we don’t mean this, but it happens. In today’s highly motivated mega church environment we often present the highly motivated Pastor in a way that most average believers could never attain too. I think of the grandma who attends the ‘composite’ church that I referenced above [a group of all the highly motivated preachers all rolled into one]. After going thru all the devil crushing, mountain moving, unceasing unrelenting sermons from the above average high achieving mega church Pastors. I think grandma would be ready for the nursing home! Now, I believe and know there are great mega churches out there, doing great things for God. We also need to be aware of that part of the gospel that says ‘my yoke is easy and my burden is light’. I too fall into the category of ‘non stop’ at times. I am just as guilty as the rest! We need to re evaluate the picture that we are painting for the disciple of Christ. The revolution that I want you to join is the simple reality that we can all effectively live the journey. Not just a few exceptional leaders, but all of us!
(254) BRINGING MANY SONS UNTO GLORY The intent of the ministry of Jesus is to bring many sons to a place of interdependence and maturity. The language Jesus uses in the gospel of John is striking. He tells the disciples ‘I don’t call you servants, but friends, brothers’ ‘you have come to me, but now you can go directly to the Father yourself and ask him’. The present development of the role of Pastor has been understood to not be the ideal in Christian community. It is becoming common knowledge among a broad base of believers that the role of Pastor, as the singular voice of the congregation who is looked at as the hired minister, is not found in the New Testament. Does this mean we are all in rebellion? No. Does this mean that all churches must now close and start from scratch? No. But it does mean that as fellow believers we begin to maturely address these issues of form and function as God directs. The fact that the word ‘Pastor’ is found one time in the New Testament [Ephesians] but yet other words are found a lot [Apostle, Elder, Brethren, etc.] shows us that somewhere along the line we introduced a role that wasn’t the original intent of God. We have a tendency to take biblical words and attach our own definitions to them [Bishop, Pastor, etc.] As we see the progression of language in the New Testament itself, we begin to grasp the heart of God. John’s letters are some of the latest written in the New Testament. In John’s epistles you find the language of children and brothers more than elders and Leaders. This showing that as the early church matured she moved away from authoritarian titles, and moved closer to family terms. In Gods desire to ‘bring many sons unto glory’ there is a necessity of top-heavy leadership models to come down. Jesus washing the disciple’s feet and images like this. Blatantly telling the disciples that in the world leadership is based on being in charge, but in the church it is based on not being in charge. Being a servant who grasps the admonition of John the Baptist HE MUST INCREASE AND I MUST DECREASE. As the church progresses down this path the natural result will be for the ‘many sons to come to maturity’. I am sure it felt strange for Jesus to tell the disciples ‘you came to me before, but now you go to the Father yourself’. This is a true act of biblical leadership. People in the beginning depend on leaders a lot; it is incumbent on Godly leadership to let them come directly to the Father.
(255) Lets go back to an original thought. I want to throw this out to our intellectual readers. The whole idea that Paul wrote Hebrews, and specifically chapter 11 as a way to bring the truth of Justification by faith to the Jewish church is what I want to propose. If you read Romans and Galatians you see Paul’s entire argument for justification by faith as seen in the Genesis 12, 15 story of Abraham. When James teaches Abraham in the book of James, he is primarily seeing the view from the story of Abraham offering Isaac on the altar [Gen 22?] James is seeing ‘actual, experiential justification’ Paul is seeing ‘judicial, declarative justification’. Paul says ‘God declares you righteous at the moment of faith, before you ever see it actually working out in the life of the person.’ James doesn’t contradict this, but James says ‘look at Abraham, when God declared him righteous [Gen 15] he eventually became what God declared! [Gen 22 Actually doing right things, offering up his son]. Now where most Christians [including theologians] miss it is when they try to bring these 2 truths together. They usually say ‘what James is saying is active faith saves you, not works’ If you read James carefully he is not saying that! He actually says ‘see how a man is saved by works, not only faith’. I believe the truth is James is seeing God declaring a person righteous when he actually does a righteous thing. Now this can get hard, but in Paul’s view Abraham became justified in Gen 15, true. And in James view when Abraham actually did the work of obedience, God also said ‘well done, you did good!’ In essence God has the sovereignty to declare you ‘right’ whenever he wants. Now we know the only reason a person can ever get to the point of ‘doing right’ is because he already passed the point of ‘being declared right’ [Gen:15 versus Gen:22]. It’s just that the Jewish church was emphasizing the ‘actually righteous’ part, where as the gentile churches were focusing on the ‘believing and being justified’ part. No contradiction, just seeing at a different timeline. This is also one of the main areas of division between the Protestants and Catholics. Luther was seeing the Gentile view [Romans/Galatians] the Catholics were seeing the ‘actual’ view [James]. The Catholics actually called Luther’s [and Paul’s!] view ‘a legal fiction’ they said Luther taught a man can be legally Justified without ever showing it. Luther really didn’t teach that, but he did say once God justifies you, it’s not up to your works to save you. Many don’t realize that Luther also strongly believed in predestination. All the major reformers did as well! Now you read Hebrews 11 with this in mind. All thru the chapter Paul is saying ‘look, all these heroes of faith acted by faith. They actually did works of righteousness by faith. They ALL obtained a GOOD REPORT [declared right!] by faith’. Read this chapter with this in mind and you will now see the whole point of the chapter. It’s Paul’s treatise of ‘justification by faith’ written anonymously to the Jewish nation. Here my friends is the solution to the problem. This view bridges for the first time [I believe] the whole problem of the book of James and the epistles of Paul. It also helps bridge one of the major divisions in the church today. Take this and run with it! NOTE; Luther called the book of James ‘a straw letter’ and at one point thought it should not have been added to the canon, though later he did include it in his bible versions! Also Paul includes Rahab the harlot as someone that was justified by faith, showing it didn’t matter how many sins you have committed in the past, if you believe you too will be justified. [see Hebrews 11 on this site]
(256) I am up early at my daughters ranch, walking outside and praying/prophesying. I do realize if someone hears me they will think I am crazy, it wont be the first time! It’s the Saturday right after Good Friday. I will celebrate Easter today. I am working tomorrow. Just remembered something, the religious leaders were always condemning Jesus for ‘working on the Sabbath’. In death he finally shut them up. Can you imagine what they would have said if he rose on the Sabbath day! Well I wanted to share this. There are at this season many Apostles and Prophets who are thoroughly mad at me. I realize why, let me explain. Over the years there have been many ‘cessationists’ that later on saw the truth of the gifts of the Spirit and the ‘5 fold’ ministry. A lot of these brothers cant grasp the fact that even though the Lord has used them to prophesy and even do great miracles [by the Spirit] that he is also tremendously ‘jealous’ for the gospel. God will even allow ‘cessationists’ [I am not one myself] to reprove the more extreme elements of the Charismatic/word of faith movements. It’s like the Prophets feel like ‘hey, I have spoken great words. The Lord has used me to do mighty deeds. Who do you think you are in bringing correction to me’? I don’t care who you are, to be frank about it. Neither does God! Don’t mean to be mean, God is no respecter of persons. When anyone permits really off the wall stuff to slip in to the church, and then not only refuses to ‘prophesy’ against it, but actually defends it. Then at this point God will raise up anybody who is willing to come against it. Listen to the radical contemporary Christian rock of our day. They say things like ‘don’t live for the stuff of this world’ ‘don’t fall for the American dream’. God is using these young kids to prophesy what I have been preaching. Look at the ‘emerging church’ today. The same thing. God is not concerned about defending your Apostolic/Prophetic ministry. If you guys refuse to speak truth, then it will come from another direction. I just wanted to speak this. The Prophetic/Apostolic pride is preventing the Word of the Lord to have free course.
(257) Now that I’m getting into it, let me discuss the role of Apostles and Prophets and how they fit into the Church. During the restoration of Apostles/Prophets in the last quarter of the 20th century there were a lot of mistakes made in the area of ‘function’. It was common for Apostles to see the list of ‘5 fold’ that Paul gives ‘first Apostles, then Prophets, etc’ and to read it in an authoritarian way. Apostles would try to form ‘relationships’ with various Pastors and teach a submission that was not biblical. It kind of went like ‘I am now the Apostle who ‘covers’ your Pastor, Your Pastor covers you and the people are under all these levels of ‘covering’ and the view to God was getting ‘cloudy’. Paul wrote the list of Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists Pastors and teachers. Paul did say ‘first Apostles, secondarily Prophets’ some feel this is simply stating the order in which they appeared. First God brought in Apostles, Then Prophets [New Testament ones!] etc. This view has truth to it. But even if you took it the other way, Paul later says God has counted the Apostles last. He tells the Corinthians this. Well how can they be first and last! Surely Jesus never taught any thing like this? Here we go again. Lets just say in general all Gods gifted 5 fold ministers exist to bring you to maturity as Gods people. Any view that has all these authority structures is really not the intent. Some of these brothers don’t even realize the ‘Pastors’ who they think they are covering are not even a biblical position in the way they function today. So Apostles and Prophets and all these gifts do exist [at least in my mind!] but they exist to release you into your full inheritance in Christ [Not talking money here!] As these gifts are restored and recognized, lets keep in mind that Jesus taught the first would be last and the last first!
(258) THESE ARE THE PEOPLE IN THE SYSTEM, WE ARE HERE TO FREE THEM FROM THE SYSTEM. THEY ARE UNAWARE THAT THEY ARE IN THE SYSTEM, THEY ARE SO DEPENDANT ON THE SYSTEM THAT THEY WILL EVEN FIGHT TO DEFEND IT Morpheus said this to Neo in the movie the Matrix. Good Stuff! This applies to the lost as well as to the saved [even the Leaders!]
(259) Recently a good preacher died. Bishop Patterson, he was a real good black preacher. I liked him. I remember when I wrote the first book against the prosperity gospel [HOUSE OF PRAYER OR DEN OF THIEVES which you can read in its entirety on this site] I used an example of another black preacher [who I don’t like, but have to love as a brother!] Leroy Thompson. The example was he started preaching for Christians to say ‘MONEY COMING TO ME’ and I remember hearing friends of mine from a local Assembly of God church going around doing this [at least I remember they were confessing money a lot] I don’t know if the Pastor fell for it or what? But when I wrote the book I had to deal with it because it was such an obvious abuse of the Word. Well anyway I later heard Bishop Patterson say the same thing that I said. He had the guts to publicly say ‘you have all these Christians going around saying ‘money coming to me’ and this is wrong’. Kudos to brother Patterson for breaking cultural lines in order to be faithful to the Lord! NOTE: To ‘not like’ bro. Thompson means I do not like the way he distorts the gospel, our confession is supposed to be JESUS not MONEY!
(260) It’s Easter morning, it’s early and I will be driving to work in a little while. Felt like I needed to say some stuff. First: I thought I heard the Lord say to you A JUST MAN FALLS SEVEN TIMES AND GETS UP AGAIN, A WICKED PERSON FALLS ONCE AND STAYS THERE The word to you is “you have experienced a ‘perfect’ [7 times] season of ‘falling’ [failure]”. It was in my plan to allow you to “be in the grave [yesterday was the Sabbath before Easter]. I am now going to ‘perfect’ [7] that which I have destined you for”. Scripture says MANY WITH UNDERSTANDING, WHO INSTRUCT MANY, SHALL FALL FOR MANY DAYS [Daniel?] The amount of ‘down time’ that you have experienced is directly related to the amount [area] of people you will instruct [many]. There was a season where you were alone [one] and when one is alone, if he falls he has no one to help him up. You have been there many times and have learned to get up on your own, though it was difficult. Where 2 are, one can help the other up and a 3-fold cord is not easily broken, be open to the ‘3 fold cords’ godly connections in ministry and relationships that I am bringing your way. Just as it was difficult to ‘break’ ungodly alliances, so will it be difficult to break the thing I am going to do thru you. The Divine 3 fold cords are not easily broken.
(261) I want to be careful in sharing this. I had a friend who was either ordained or sponsored by a large regional church [Houston]. Over a period of years I taught this person some of the things I have shown you guys thru this blog. It was difficult for this person to choose scripture over the strong word of faith background that they had. This person even told me ‘well you and Paul [Apostle] can believe your way, I’LL believe mine’. They said this after I simply read 1st Timothy chapter 6 and showed them how the mindset of the New Testament was directly opposed to the peculiar style of belief they were taught. At one point this person began to forsake many of the doctrines they previously held. Then I could tell they went back to their old beliefs and were telling others that I was a false prophet. I do find it strange that someone who preaches a radical message of forsaking all for Christ is a false prophet, but many of the teachers this person listened to routinely distorted the image of Jesus and taught that Jesus and the disciples were some of the wealthiest people of the first century. A total and complete distortion of the New Testament record. Well I am sad to say this person died soon after this. They were in there 40’s and I was not glad to have heard this. I am not saying they died as a direct result of calling me a false prophet. I do believe God allows certain abuses to go on for so long [like the teachings of this movement] before he says ‘enough is enough’ [FOR A LONG TIME I HAVE HELD MY PEACE AND BEEN SILENT, NOW I WILL ROAR LIKE A WOMAN IN TRAVAIL-Isaiah] There was a time where the Lord ‘overlooked men’s ignorance’ and then says ‘I cant let this go on any longer’. I felt the Lord wanted me to share this. The primary job for the preacher of the gospel is to present Jesus, when you blatantly present ‘another Jesus’ [Galatians] God will eventually deal with you. NOTE: I find it amazing that one of these preachers used to regularly come on T.B.N. wearing very expensive jewelry and teach how Jesus was just like this. You can’t be so obviously wrong and spread this stuff to hundreds of thousands of young believers. It’s the devastating effect that these guys have on the new believers that is tragic. This brother eventually tried to start a branch ‘church’ in Corpus Christi. I actually called him out publicly, by name, on radio. I know this was strong, but the amount of blatant heresy had to be confronted. Their church, as far as I know, never made it. NOTE: In the early days I had Pastor friends who heard the stuff we were preaching and without fully realizing the heresy these guys were spreading, would defend them from the pulpit. This directly limited the intended growth of their churches. God is much more concerned with the accurate preaching of his Son, than with the size of a church. Many of these brothers would directly reject our message because they were believing for lots of money at the time. It’s OK to trust God for great resources, the problem was they were believing for the resources and defending the false teachers at the same time. You can believe God for money without defending heretics! NOTE: I remember showing some of these truths to a Pastor in Corpus. He then said ‘the bible speaks of God blessing us financially’ which of course is true. The inability of this leader to be able to distinguish between being blessed and ‘those that teach gain is godliness have swerved from the faith, avoid them’ is a problem in leadership today. The level of discernment is severely lacking.
(262) I saw a good message from Rick Warren, he was speaking at a Hillsong conference in Australia. He basically preached what I preach on money [of course not as strong!] He was quoting Jesus on ‘A MANS LIFE CONSISTS NOT IN THE ABUNDANCE OF THE THINGS THAT HE POSSESSES ’ It was interesting, as they panned thru the front row they showed a major prosperity preacher listening. The message was a great message, but you can tell it didn’t fit in with the usual fare. It’s like you could see that the prosperity crowd would not really ‘draw’ from this message. You kind of get ‘programmed’ to want to ‘receive stuff’ when your in the movement. When someone comes along and preaches the real gospel, it’s ‘strange’ to the prosperity brothers.
(263) PETER CAST THE NET AT JESUS WORD AND BROUGHT IN MORE IN ONE CAST THAN THE ENTIRE NIGHT I haven’t read this story in a while, but I remember that in the King James Version Jesus tells Peter to let down the nets, and Peter only lets down ‘the net’. You get the sense that Peter was up all night trying to catch fish, he cleaned the nets already and he figured ‘poor Jesus means well, but he just didn’t understand that fishing is poor right now’. Well old Peter didn’t understand the difference between fishing in the flesh and fishing in the Spirit! It was his patronizing attitude that caused him to let down ‘one net’. Jesus said ‘put them all out son’. When the Lord tells you to cast, CAST! You will bring in more in one shot than all the nights you spent in your own efforts!
(264) A few years ago I did a radio series on the book of Exodus. One of the things we brought out was the story of the children of Israel giving freely of their riches and wealth in order to make the calf. The calf represents idolatry/covetousness. I was trying to show how certain forms of ‘giving’ are actually idolatry! For years giving was taught in a way that focused on ‘the act of giving’ as opposed to the ‘actual need being met’. People were only excited about giving, like being excited about investing in a stock or 401 K. The motive for giving was covetousness. There are many people today who ‘give’ willingly to an investment. The excitement is watching it grow. This is not New Testament giving. This is investing. It’s not wrong per se, but it’s not giving out of love. Even though the children of Israel ‘gave’ it wasn’t glorifying God! I remember many years ago being in a restaurant with some friends, preachers and stuff. One of the brothers was a prosperity preacher, he had just finished preaching and we were out fellowshipping. He was so excited about ‘giving’ that at one point he took off an expensive watch and ‘gave’ it to my friend [a prophet]. My friend accepted it, but you could tell the preacher then started regretting that he did it. This is a type of ‘giving’ that glorifies the ‘giving’ part, without actually meeting the true need of a person out of compassion. The New Testament model of giving is based on compassion for your fellow man, not on some investment scheme! NOTE: Just felt like I heard someone say ‘so what’s the point’? The point is when Gods people get free from idolatry [covetousness] we can then move on from our ‘golden calves’ to the true worship of God! NOTE: The prophet friend was one of those types who would ‘butt heads’ with Pastors and leaders. I was challenged this night by him in some way [?] I remember responding, like not letting it get to me and answering whatever challenge he gave me with wisdom. He was familiar with ‘pushing the buttons’ of Pastors and making them feel uneasy and stuff. By this time I had already been thru so much stuff, his little ‘attack’ didn’t produce the desired results. He kind of looked at me and said ‘you’ve been thru this before’ which was correct. NOTE: the ‘calf’ was made out of GOLD and they worshipped it as a god. This is the heart of idolatry, to ‘re fashion’ the image of God into the image of what men desire [Romans 1-2]. Eventually if a person insists on ‘seeing’ the ‘Jesus’ of his own imagination [rich, etc.] then God will ‘give them over’ to that image. In essence their ‘god’ will become a ‘golden calf’ an image of wealth that does disgrace to the true image of Christ! [OUCH!]
(265) A few months back I had a dream. I dreamt I was leaving a church service and met the Pastor in the parking lot. He asked where I was going and invited me to go with him to the new church building they were constructing at the time. He asked if I needed some wood for ‘my structure’ and he told me they had extra to give me. As I was getting in his car there wasn’t enough room so he said ‘take your truck’. Vehicles represent ‘ministries’ in prophetic imagery. They ‘carry’ you to the place of destiny. Wood represents the ‘people’ you build. Scripture says ‘go up to the mountain [intercession] and bring down wood for my building’ [the church made up of people]. The significance of the Pastor telling me he had plenty of ‘wood’ and to get it in my ‘vehicle’ shows me that the Lord has given us an open door to build many of his people in our [your] city. These people don’t have to hear me speak in some church building [the Pastors vehicle] it would be ‘too small’ any way. But these people will be freely built thru the open course the Lord has given us thru Radio, Blog, etc. THE WORD OF THE LORD HAS FREE COURSE. I was listening on line to an old Pastor friend who Pastors a great church in our city. I haven’t heard him in a while. The last 2-3 sermons I heard him give focused on the Kingdom of God and how it was not about material wealth at all. I cant help but believe that some of his people [wood] have been listening/reading our stuff and it has influenced him in a good way.
(266) I remember hearing a famous prosperity preacher say how he was overseas [England?] and he was approached by many believers who sincerely told him ‘your preaching on money is so extreme, you have fallen into the category where Jesus warned ‘the love/lust of the things of this world would prevent the seed from growing’ [this by the way is the correct reading of the parable of the sower]. I heard this preacher, on T.B.N. tell the story. He then went on to explain how these Christians who were warning him were the one’s who were deceived. He went thru some tortured explanation of the parable of the sower and when he was finished he had the parable talking all about money. The hosts of T.B.N. were all awed and in agreement with this ‘new revelation’ and it was communicated to the worldwide audience who tuned in. The deception was so obvious it wasn’t funny. The fact that all these believers from another country, with one voice [which I call ‘the whole counsel of God’] were sincerely telling this man that he was absolutely twisting Jesus words was a rebuke from the Body of Christ to that which is not of Christ. It’s natural for the ‘Body’ to ‘expel’ harmful agents. The fact that this man in his rebellion would not receive this correction, and the fact that the worldwide audience of T.B.N. were also fed this lie is appalling. God is going to ‘dry up’ the resources of major Christian networks if they do not deal with stuff like this! [YES, THIS IS A PROPHETIC WORD!]
(267) Let me exhort you guys to become a student of the bible. “Brother I read the bible” that’s not what I said. Jesus often rebuked the religious leaders for knowing the words of scripture, without understanding the intent! In many of the things you guys are learning from this blog, you ‘knew’ these verses, it’s just you are seeing them in a different way, the CORRECT way. To be a student demands that you know the history and context of scripture. Read good books on church history. Read the classics. Don’t waste all your time reading much of the popular motivational stuff of our day. Some is OK, but a lot isn’t. I have a prophetic way I learn; before I go to bed I find a great book from my study. I put it under my pillow, and when I wake up in the morning I have absorbed all of its contents. NOT! It takes work brothers STUDY TO SHOW THYSELF APPROVED, A WORKMAN THAT DOESN’T NEED TO BE ASHAMED if you do this you wont make some of the ‘shameful’ interpretations of scripture like the last few entries exposed.
(268) To my Pastor friends who read this site, I know I have been rough on you guys. I felt the Lord had a word for you right now BEHOLD MY SERVANT WHOM I UPHOLD, MINE ELECT IN WHOM MY SOUL DELIGHTS God delights in you. If you have a church of 500 members and wanted 1000, God delights in you. If you have a church of 10,000 and were only expecting 8,000, God delights in you. God simply delights in you. It’s not about the numbers! I HAVE KNOWN YOUR SOUL IN ADVERSITY, I HAVE SEEN YOU IN THE DESERT. I WILL MAKE A WAY IN THE WILDERNESS AND RIVERS IN THE DESERT, I WILL NOT LEAVE YOUR SOUL IN HELL, NOR SUFFER MY HOLY ONE TO SEE CORRUPTION don’t despise your desert; I have called my Son out of it! [Jesus came out of the desert in the POWER of the Spirit. You now have POWER that comes from God. A SPECIAL WORD TO ALL OUR Corpus Christi leaders, guys we live right off an island [desert conditions] God brought forth great revelation from John when he was on the ‘island’ of Patmos. God is putting Corpus Christi on the ‘map’ rejoice! NOTE: The island we live off of is ‘Padre [Father] Island’, that’s more prophetic than Patmos!
(269) Xxx
(270) I forgot to mention that during the restoration of the walls and the Temple, Nehemiah was a type of an Apostle. He had great organizational wisdom The Prophets Haggai and Zechariah prophesied strength into the hands of the builders. This is a great picture of all the 5-fold working together to build the ‘City of God’. The book of Acts says ‘the heavens must hold Jesus until the times of the restoration of all things spoken by the Prophets’. The job of Prophets is to speak the word of the Lord.
(271) Another thing from the movie the Matrix. Morpheus tells Neo ‘you have been looking for me for a few years, I have been searching for you my whole life’. It says of John the Baptist ‘he was filled with the Spirit from his mothers womb’ Prophetic people have a destiny from birth. God picked you, knowing full well all the stuff you were going to go thru. Don’t ‘reject’ yourself because of failure and sin; God picked you knowing all this stuff from the start!
(272) Xxx
(273) Let me speak on abortion. I mentioned earlier on this blog about the Catholic and Protestant divide in the 16th century. One of the fears the Catholic Church had was the fear of the divine right of Kings. That if nation states ‘broke away’ from Rome that eventually the states would do whatever they wanted. Some look at the atrocities of Hitler and point to this as a proof. I personally don’t hold to this view, but I do find it interesting that Hitler came along after Darwin and Eugenics. Eugenics is the science that teaches certain races are more ‘pure’ and others are less pure. It taught a type of ethics that said if you get rid of the weaker ones in society that eventually you would have a healthier, purer race. You saw this mindset in Hitler’s attempt to have an ‘Aryan race’. The man who came up with this ‘science’ was a relative of Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin was the ‘popularizer’ of Evolution. If someone truly believes that all Humans are simply an accident of evolution; there is really no moral grounds to value life. If we are all simply blobs on this experimental earth, then why not eliminate the weaker ones for the benefit of the whole race? After all we know this to be true, science teaches it! There you have it, a slippery slope down a course that ultimately leads to a time in our country where we actually allow, by law, a woman to come to a clinic/hospital. Walk in at 7 months of pregnancy, get an appointment with a Doctor and get a ‘partial birth’ abortion. This procedure allows for the actual baby, living and feeling safe in the mother’s womb to be ‘partially’ delivered, leaving ‘part’ of the baby inside the mother. The other ‘part’ sticking out and the Doctor kills the baby. By law it’s not murder, the baby still has a ‘part’ in the mom. The only difference between this child, and others who are born and live a wonderful life, is a few inches. The procedure is defended by politicians who say ‘I personally am against abortion, but I am for a woman’s right’ What about the right of that beautiful little baby girl who you just destroyed in a manner equal to Hitler’s holocaust? This little girl has rights too. Some of our Politicians couldn’t care less about the ‘right’ of the woman; they allow murder for the political expediency of their constituents! Thank you Pontius Pilate. I recently saw on the news a state that is trying to pass a law that would require the mother to see a sonogram of her baby before she gets the abortion, they are persuaded that if a woman ‘looks at the baby’ that she will of her own free will decide to not kill it. They then had the opponents/proponents give both sides. Those against it said things like ‘ we don’t require a person to look at a tumor before its removed’ babies are not ‘tumors’ or any other type of ‘matter’ that you dispose of at will. I once had actual pictures of ‘buckets full of babies’ that were taken outside of some abortion clinic back in the 70’s. These buckets were filled to overflow with burned, chopped up, mutilated little babies. Just sitting there waiting for some dump truck to haul them to the local incinerator. Now we have cleaned up our act, we ‘burn’ them before they get a chance to be spotted by the public eye. God forbid that we would force society to look at ‘these tumors’. May God help us all. NOTE; a few years back there was an abortion doctor who took an actual sonogram of an abortion procedure. They later made a video. The picture was front page on one of the national magazines of our country. It was called ‘silent scream’ it showed the baby actually grasping hold of the instrument that was inserted into the mother’s womb, and the baby was trying to keep it from stabbing it. The babies face could clearly be seen screaming bloody murder. This doctor, who was not a Christian, could not continue performing this procedure no matter how many politicians call this ‘a woman’s right to choose’! UPDATE ON PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION # 305
(274) As believers we need to look at our role in society as it relates to abortion. Paul Hill, a protestant Minster, became infamous for his killing of an abortion doctor. Paul saw himself as a modern day deliverer who would give his life for something equal to the attempt to assassinate Hitler. As I watched the trial and group of radical Christians who were a part of this group, there was a real sense of seeing the abortion doctors as murderers. Just like seeing someone kill a baby. Well most preachers, and others who gave commentary on this program, divided between how much civil disobedience was warranted to stop abortion. Operation Rescue with Terry Randall practiced a form of it that other believer’s thought was wrong. No one defended the killing of the doctors involved, and some preachers actually said no civil disobedience was warranted at all because abortion is the law of the land. I do want to submit this, if the killing of 1 hour old new borns was the ‘law of the land’ would we do nothing? Then 6 month olds, or all the way to 5 yr olds being taken right out of a pre school and being executed in public? If these were really the law of the land, what would you do? I certainly am not advocating the murder of Doctors or anyone else, but if these preachers who were being interviewed for the story really believed that abortion was murder, equal to all other types of murder, then I think civil disobedience would be warranted. The people surrounding Paul Hill came to their extreme positions as logical deductions based on these facts. They did wrong in killing for sure, but if you yourself were standing by as someone was discriminately killing babies from a hospital nursery, then I would wonder about the sincerity of your belief system.
(275) In scripture there are 2 recorded ‘mass killings’ of babies. The first is the story of Moses in Egypt. The children of Israel were multiplying so rapidly that Pharaoh decided to wipe out all the little baby boys in order to slow down the rate of Israel’s growth. It was a demonically inspired attack, legitimized through law, to kill a whole generation of people. God knew that there was a Moses in this group, a great man of destiny who would come forth and be a great deliverer of Gods people. The enemy knew this as well. Also in the New Testament during the time of Christ you had the mass killing of young children, once again ordained by law [King] in order to wipe out the Messiah. In this instance as well it was a demonically inspired political expediency that allowed it to happen. The King was feeling his position and authority were threatened by this ‘King of the Jews’ so he simply decided to wipe them all out. Our generation has seen the ‘blood lust’ attack to go out and destroy with abandon a whole generation of youth. God has a tremendous destiny for this generation, the enemy knows this and he’s trying to wipe them out, it’s a shame that once again political expediency is giving cover to one of the greatest ‘genocides’ on the history of the planet! NOTE: Scripture speaks of the blood of innocent murdered people ‘crying out from the ground’ [Cain and Abel] God ‘hears’ the cries of innocent people who were wrongfully killed. God judges nations and societies based on their treatment of the widows and children. The present state of ‘politics’ today [2007] is unbelievably childish and irresponsible. You have national leaders of one party going to do their own diplomacy, with terrorist nations like Syria, over the objections of the President in order to show their own political weight, even at the expense of national policy. Sorry, I don’t care if it’s a Democrat or Republican. When you get to the point of your party leaders deciding they will have their own shadow presidency, that’s bad. Now I say this for a reason, the BLOOD of innocent children cries out from the ground. A society will not continue to exist as it ‘builds a foundation’ upon the blood of innocents. The political division that is leading to real trouble for this nation is a judgment of God upon the same political system that time and again gave it’s voice to allow for the murder of innocent babies. This system cannot continue to stand with all the ‘blood’ that it has spilled on the ground! NOTE; you must see that we are not simply speaking about a woman’s right to choose or some medical procedure. We are dealing with an entire generation of little children that we are wiping out at a tremendous rate. More minorities than whites. What more of a racist act can occur than the systematic destruction of your culture and heritage by the wholesale murder of your babies? Whenever you had a time in history where a whole group of people were being killed or enslaved by another group, you eventually had enough voices ‘from the other groups’ of society that would hear the atrocities from the victims themselves. The Holocaust survivors and the slave trade of this nation. The ‘voices’ of desperate pleas for help would eventually leak out into society and humanity would come to the defense of the oppressed. In the case of abortion it is the inability of the child to speak that has allowed this genocide to continue for so long. It is incumbent upon humanity [not just the church!] to see this atrocity and to speak for those who have no voice. We speak out on the murder of seals and animals, we even show the endangered eggs and embryos of animals, but yet the actual ‘embryos’ of humans are treated like trash. Atrocious acts of violence need explicit language to fully show the horror of it all. NOTE: during the debate on the floor of congress a few years ago, they were debating the ban on partial birth abortion. During the debate someone had a baby in the building. In the midst of the debate you could hear the baby crying. The floor went silent for a second. This was the one time where the ‘voice’ of a potential victim was heard!
(276) The last 3 entries on abortion [275-277] were just written from 2:30 am to now, 5:40 am. I woke up this morning with no thought of any subject. As far as I knew I was not going to write anything today. I will be going to work in about an hour and had no plans to speak. I did ask the Lord during prayer and waking up if he had anything to say today, and I wrote the last 3 entries off the top of my head. God wants us to speak when he tells us to. He is not concerned with simply giving us a voice and forum so people can ‘hear us speak’. To a great degree the church has made the ‘public speaker’ a position of performance to titillate the audience. We ‘worship’ preachers like the world worships rock stars. God simply wants to have people give voice to his concerns; he is not looking for ‘superstars’. NOTE: I just walked back outside to finish praying and saw the sky a strange color of red/orange. I don’t remember seeing it quite like this before. I immediately thought of the verse ‘the moon shall turn to blood before the judgment of the Lord’ and others like this. Couldn’t help but see this as a sign of the things I have been writing the last few hours. Sort of like God was saying ‘these things are reaching a ‘full cup’ stage and my judgment is near’ don’t want to sound melodramatic, but thought I should tell you this. NOTE; the violence of this act is unbelievable. The deception of those Senators and supreme court justices who allow for the actual dismembering of 5-8 month old babies in the womb under the guise of a ‘woman’s right’ is appalling. The infamous Dredd Scott decision by the Supreme Court was a wrong decision that allowed for the discrimination of our black brothers. The decision of Roe V Wade allows for the mass extermination, by tortuous dismemberment, of an entire generation of babies. Surely every Politician and Jurist that has given voice to this atrocity will give an account to God. NOTE: Let me show you how deception works. The political landscape of our country has the ‘right wing conservatives’ with their patriarchal suits and ties defending the unborn. The political left has the ‘open minded, right for a woman to choose’ defending the freedoms of all people as they hunt down these babies in the womb with abandon. Many of the women fight for years for this so called right, only to arrive at the day where they are on the operating table destroying their beautiful baby. This whole process must have satan laughing with all his heart. There have also been proponents of abortion who will testify that after they had aborted their first child, no matter how many people aligned with them politically, they could never forget or escape the maternal love and guilt over what they did. They were told over and again ‘don’t let that conservative bunch make you feel guilty’ finally coming to the place where they were alone in some apartment and simply realized that they allowed the framing of this whole argument lead to the atrocious murder of her little baby. They realized that ‘winning’ was not really defined as a woman’s right to choose, but it was defined as actually killing the baby. The mindset of the so-called ‘right to choose’ crowd was really looking for the kill. Most women who were counseled by the Planned Parenthood counselors really felt an environment that made you feel inferior if you didn’t ‘choose to abort’. If you were thinking of actually having the child, the mindset of the right to choose people would turn against you. This showing that its more of a political game of which side will win, its just a shame that the way they keep score is by counting the dead bodies of babies!
(277) A while back I sent a packet of books and stuff to a fairly major prophet in the U.S. I have done this a lot over the years. Many of you wouldn’t recognize the name, some might. In ‘prophetic circles’ he is widely known and has a worldwide ministry. I later found out that he and his wife were battling cancer, I didn’t know this when I sent the stuff, but sent another note and have prayed for them to be healed. This particular prophet never wrote me back [that’s OK] but others have, thanking me for the books and stuff. [Now that I think about it Eagles Nest sent me a nice thank you note a while back after I sent them some stuff] But anyway I felt like sharing something from this. As this brother and his wife battle cancer, I have gone to their site from time to time to see how they are doing. The brother is a good man; they are really fighting hard, lots of warfare imagery. Confessions that this could never be Gods will and sincere things to get healed. I kind of feel bad that this brother has been warring and ‘not believing’ the bad reports and all sorts of strenuous warfare to get healed. I don’t mean to be critical; I love the brother and have prayed for them on more than a few occasions. I simply felt there was a type of ‘spiritual warfare legalism’ that causes us to lose our rest in Christ. The healings of Jesus in the New Testament were primarily gracious acts of healing that the Lord ‘carried the burden for’. A sense of God taking the warfare himself. I know there is credence to confessing scripture and claiming the healing verses, I have done this myself and it does work. I just felt sometimes our battle is simply learning to rest and trust in God, without a whole bunch of ‘spiritual energy’ being displayed on our part. I remember reading the stories of other believers who might not be as charismatic or ‘prophetically’ inclined as this brother. They seemed to live their final days simply writing and speaking of Gods grace and simply recognizing the shortness of life. I am not saying we should accept with resignation our mortality and die before our days. I am just showing you there is an overall theme of the shortness of our days spoken about in scripture, sometimes it is a tremendous testimony to watch a believer ‘finish his days’ with grace and rest. Sometimes God miraculously heals. I don’t fault anyone for doing all they can to see them or their loved ones healed. It’s just sometimes we don’t see all that we want, and to finish gracefully can be a ‘seed’ that will go on and produce fruit for many years after we are gone.
(278) Scripture actually speaks of ‘speaking out on behalf of the poor and oppressed’. There is a fundamental principle of speaking up for social justice issues and defending the innocent. This is why it was a prophetic ministry when Martin Luther King led the civil rights movement. There were many ‘southern denominations’ that did not grasp this reality. The church doesn’t just exist to ‘get people saved’ she exists also as a voice for justice in the earth. Today one of the ‘unseen’ forms of institutional racism is economic oppression. For various reasons you have entire groups of people that have been ‘left behind’ as society around them progressed. This is also why you have certain black preachers who honestly preach the prosperity message, thinking they are speaking economic justice into the black community. They mean well, but preaching materialism isn’t the answer, preaching biblical responsibility and racial equality is. Today you have some black leaders, like Bill Cosby, who are taking a real stand by coming against the ‘victim mentality’ that certain leaders embrace. Cosby says it’s time to teach responsibility and ethics to the young generation of black kids coming up. I do agree. I believe it fundamentally hurts racial reconciliation to teach affirmative action. To simply look at 2 black kids, and one white. And to flat out say ‘these 2 get 5 points on their application for their gene pool, and you, the white kid do not get the points because you are white’ is racist at it’s core. I do understand the tortured reasoning that leads people to do this. They feel this is the answer to undoing the years of institutional racism that has locked the door to many blacks in the past. Some feel that the opportunities were closed for so long, that to be neutral now still doesn’t open the door. The main problem is to give anyone ‘extra points based on genes’ is racist. Even if you think it is for a good cause. Racism is racism no matter what. Doing ‘reverse racism’ leads to the growth of white supremacists and others. They see the obvious racism of what I just told you. They see the politicians unwilling to admit it, and this leads to an extreme response. You have ‘the black congressional caucus’ in congress. You would never get away with a white one. All representatives should represent all people. If a white guy said I am elected to look out for the rights of white people, this would be wrong. In the fire service you have the ‘Hispanic firefighters union’ of course you couldn’t have a white one. These things are unequal. Some believe we should be ‘unequal’ in order to even the playing field, but this simply discriminates against one race for the benefit of another, which my friend is what I call ‘racism’. NOTE: I also am aware of the black leaders who teach it is impossible for a black person to be racist because he doesn’t have the institutional superiority to affect it. All you have to do is listen to a Farrakhan or many of the past comments of Al Sharpton to see that racism isn’t a sin evident only in the white community.
(279) Lets jump out of character a little. During a discussion I had with a ministry leader in our City, I shared the function of the church at Corinth and showed him how during their gatherings they all shared and functioned. I showed him this to explain that I felt the Lord is changing the practice of church from an environment of people who come and listen to a Pastor preach, to an environment of all Gods people sharing together. This doesn’t mean there will never be an instructional time where a Pastor or Apostle or another gifted person can share or preach a sermon, but it shows that the original intent of God for the church was one of interactive involvement of all it’s members. My ministry friend disagreed and said that Paul was just dealing with the ‘home group’ here, and the ‘regular church’ was another thing/place. The mistake my friend made was ‘seeing’ scripture thru the paradigm of church as we practice it today. He sincerely took scripture that addressed the ‘church at Corinth’ [all the believers at Corinth] and read his own mindset into it. The scriptures in Corinthians that deal with how the believers were meeting IS THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. There was not ‘the home groups’ and ‘the main sanctuary meetings’ now if your church has this distinction, fine. The point I was making to my friend was Paul was addressing THE CHURCH when he gave them instructions on how to meet practically. When believers meet anywhere and share the love of Christ and mutually build each other up, that is church in its most simple form. To read Corinthians and ‘see’ another sanctuary service ‘down the road’ is a good example of how we read scripture thru the lens of our own understanding. Let me also say it’s a common mistake among modern cell church movements to read the meetings of the Church at Jerusalem at the Temple [actually they ‘held’ services in Solomon’s Porch, which was an outside courtyard!] and to read into this that the early Christians had ‘sanctuary’ services and ‘home meetings’. This isn’t so. The only Christians that had ‘temple’ services were those at Jerusalem. All the gentile churches [Ephesians, Corinth, etc.] met in homes. This is a fact that doesn’t change. Does this mean all gentiles must only meet in homes? No. I am just showing you there was no pattern of ‘temple’ and ‘home’ groups. Also some advocates of radical reform see Paul’s warning to the Ephesian elders in the book of acts as a warning against the modern clergy system. Paul told the Ephesus church that AFTER MY DEPARTURE, WOLVES WILL RISE UP FROM AMONG YOU [from the believers] and will draw away disciples after themselves. Some see the rise of the ‘singular Pastor’ as a fulfillment of this scripture [I don’t necessarily hold to this view, but I do see some credence to this speaking of the strong personality worship that exists in the church today] Others also use 3rd John and the example of Diotrophes as one who ‘loved to have the preeminence’ and would not receive the brothers. Some see in these examples a strong warning from the early Apostles to avoid strong singular authorities who are looked to as the authority of a local church. I do believe there is some truth to these insights. My goal today is to simply challenge your present understanding of ‘going to church on Sunday’ to seeing yourself as the actual ‘temple of God’ that moves and interacts in the world around them. God brought his presence out of a Temple made with hands and put it in his people, we must not lose sight of this great reality! NOTE: In the book of revelation it says the ‘City of God’ is ‘as a bride adorned for her husband’. We also know that the New Testament calls us ‘the New Jerusalem, the Zion of God’ basically John is writing prophetic imagery in Revelation. It also says ‘there was no temple in it, God himself and the Lamb are the temple’ [we dwell in God] but it also says the Lamb is the light of the City. The only logical way to fit all these images without contradicting is to see the City/Temple being the Church of the living God. As the ‘body of Christ’ we are a real extension of ‘the Lamb’ so the Lamb can be the City, the Temple or the Light of the Temple. Jesus is the light of the Church, he illuminates us by the Spirit. It’s important to grasp this major change of thought from the earthly Jewish Temple, to the heavenly spiritual one. If you don’t rightly see this you will not interpret scripture properly! [By the way I do believe in a literal heaven!] NOTE: A common mistake amongst Apostolic ministries is thinking that it is a biblical mandate to have ‘a spiritual Father’ [and Mother]. I was reading from an apostles site and it gave some testimonies from Pastors Who said the reason they now have a spiritual Father and Mother [speaking of the Apostle and his wife] was because the bible teaches we have natural ones, therefore we should have spiritual ones. The ‘spiritual’ father is God and the mother is the ‘church’ according to Paul. He says ‘THE NEW JERUSALEM IS THE MOTHER OF US ALL’. Paul does tell the Corinthians that he is their spiritual father. But he is basically saying ‘I birthed you guys into the Kingdom; you are the fruit of my Apostolic ministry. Listen to me for correction, not all these others who are trying to bring you under their authority’. Paul was not advocating for people to go out and find Apostles and make them and their wives their ‘spiritual father and mother’.
(280) Reading Isaiah 44. The Lord says the people made idols out of that which God provided for their sustenance, that is Gods resource to them [trees in Isaiah, money and Gods provision now]. They ‘deck it with gold’ [in Jeremiah?] they worship that which God gave as provision and made it their God. They ‘prayed to it’ and saw it as the answer to their dilemma [if we just had this transference of wealth we could accomplish our mission!] They became just like that which they worshipped. Their idols were blind and deaf and dumb. They became blind [unable to perceive] deaf [unable to hear reproof] and dumb [God took away their voice from society, the church at large]. Because of their worship of the idols they ‘became foolish in their understanding and were ashamed’ their foolishness was seen by all [many even from the secular media have said ‘how can you think Jesus was this money focused mega star, he was a carpenters son!’ Even Larry King, a Jewish talk show host said this about the modern money preachers] HE FEEDETH ON ASHES, A DECIEVED HEART HATH TURNED HIM ASIDE The fact that they ‘fed’ off of their own shallow belief system, caused them to become shallow in their understanding of scripture, unable to see the most obvious things! GOD FRUSTRATED THOSE WHO WERE LYING AND TURNED THESE WISE MEN BACKWARD AND MADE THEIR KNOWLEDGE FOOLISH and at the end God forgave those who were willing to repent and he restored them. First comes strong rebuke, but then a true restoration to the original purpose of God. NOTE: It says they fell down and worshipped THE STOCK OF A TREE paper money is made from the ‘stock of a tree’ the way you worship something is by seeing that thing as your goal, confession, desire. Just thinking about it gives you great satisfaction. You spend a great amount of your thought life strategizing and dreaming about making more of it. It’s a deadly pursuit. Jesus says you don’t have time for God and mammon, the worship of mammon consumes too much time! NOTE It also says that a judgment on those who are held captive by idolatry/covetousness is they are unable to see the most obvious things in scripture. One of the strangest things I have seen from the more extreme prosperity brothers is the inability to read the passages of scripture that PLAINLY deal with covetousness and to SEE what these passages are saying. I heard a brother teach on 1st Timothy 6 [both a local brother and 2 national ones] I guess they were getting some heat from guys like me who tell people that 1st Timothy 6 totally deconstructs the modern prosperity gospel. When they were done trying to teach the chapter they were making it say the exact opposite of the plain meaning of Paul’s words. Paul in Timothy warns Timothy about a ‘coming’ group of preachers who will teach that gain is godliness. At one point Paul says FLEE THESE THINGS AND INSTEAD LAY HOLD ON ETERNAL LIFE. The context of this passage was explained by a prosperity guy to mean Paul was telling Timothy to ‘lay hold of abundant material wealth’ he exegetes the word ‘eternal life’ and showed that one of the definitions speaks of ‘wealth in every area’ he then made the conclusion that Paul told Timothy to ‘lay hold of wealth’ This brother didn’t see that when you exegete [study the meaning] of a word you can find many different definitions that apply at different times [Jesus says ‘save a sheep’ or a coin in his parables. This is the same word for ‘save a soul’ in salvation. The text shows you that Jesus isn’t saying ‘save’ in the same way when he talks about sheep and humans] this basic mistake caused the prosperity guy to take the actual warnings in scripture that deal with covetousness and made it teach covetousness. I have seen this twisted interpretation over and over again from many of these guys. This is a judgment from God on those who choose to preach a wealthy Jesus. God says those who distort his Sons image are committing idolatry. One of the judgments on those who commit idolatry is that there wisdom becomes foolishness; they are held captive by their own distorted views. I do pray that these brothers would repent from this stuff. I have personally sent them books and things over the years. It’s just it got to a point where they refuse reproof and we are now at a stage where we are trying to keep a whole new generation of believers from going down this path.
(281) Lets overview a few things. We have covered verses that said ‘the people go out and cut down a tree a make it into the form of a man, they also cover the tree/idol with gold, they worship the image of their mind’ idolatry is forming a ‘man’ into the image that you desire, and blatantly ‘decking him with wealth’ OUCH! [Remember we mentioned in Galatians Paul said some were preaching another Jesus, this ‘other’ Jesus that some preach today is ‘an image of a man’ that is adorned/decked with expensive jewelry and wealth!] Also the image in my mind this morning [its 2:37 am at the fire house] is that of dismembered baby parts all thru out this country. Understand many of these dismemberings took place on the ‘altar of convenience’ i.e.: ‘we can’t AFFORD this child right now’ God have mercy on us as a people. A few scriptures that are coming to mind. I WILL POUR WATER UPON HIM THAT IS THIRSTY [you Pastors and leaders specifically] AND FLOODS UPON THE DRY GROUND. I WILL POUR MY SPIRIT ON YOUR SEED AND MY BLESSING UPON YOUR OFFSRPING Some of our readers have known us forever, and you guys are still getting ‘poured on’ Great! But I want you to start POURING ON OTHERS. God is going to ‘pour’ on key Pastors/Leaders and allow for you to attain great influence and open doors in the nations. Many of the things these teachings are going to rapidly advance thru the land. GOD IS GOING TO FLOOD THE DRY GROUND There is an individual ‘pouring’ on ‘him’ that is thirsty. You thirsty leaders are drinking much from this place/site, but God is also ‘pouring’ regionally. Some who have heard us in the past have thought ‘thank God this brother doesn’t have a lot of influence’ well the Lord seems to have changed that. Not for personalities sake, for his purpose. Be a part of pouring the stuff out that he has poured into you! God pours on individuals that are thirsty, so they can be rejuvenated to help pour out on the seed [corporate community] God pours ‘buckets of water’ on the dry ground. One person can only haul so many buckets. 2 can haul more, but a 3-fold cord is not easily broken. Once a ‘grouping’ of Prophetic/Apostolic brothers start disseminating new/fresh revelation, it becomes very hard to stop it at that point THY SEED AND THY NAME SHALL REMAIN. THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH YOU, MY WORDS THAT I HAVE PUT IN THY MOUTH SHALL NOT DEPART OUT OF THY MOUTH, NOR OUT OF THE MOUTH OF THY SEED FROM THIS TIME FORTH AND FOREVER MORE. Many of our leader friends and ‘regular’ friends for many years, run with the things the Lord has showed you. I have been running myself for a long time with these things, take the baton! BE STRONG AND OF A GOOD COURAGE, BE NOT AFRAID, NIETHER BE THOU DISMAYED, FOR THE LORD THY GOD IS WITH THEE WITHERSOEVER THOU GOEST Go somewhere! GET OUT OF THE CITY AND DWELL IN THE FIELDS, EVEN BABYLON. THERE I WILL BE WITH YOU AND THERE I WILL DELIVER YOU FROM THE HAND OF THE ENEMY you have to be in enemy territory to be delivered from enemies! THE GATES OF HELL SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST THE CHURCH [ecclesia]. We too often read church as the stagnant place. But read it as ecclesia, the mobile force and community of God. When we ‘mobilize’ and ‘set up camp’ in enemy territory it becomes an outpost for God. We are the ambassadors representing the Kingdom in that place. Before too long the inhabitants of ‘that place’ become citizens of the Kingdom we represent and we have taken ground for the kingdom. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN SUFFERETH VIOLENCE AND THE VIOLENT TAKE IT BY FORCE The concept of one nation taking up residence in another land and then influencing that society for God is seen strongly in the Old Testament nation of Israel. God allowed for ‘proselytes’ and foreigners to come in and be part of Gods society. This is voiced in Ephesians by Paul. Speaking of us being strangers to the covenant, and now thru Christ being adopted in. Also in the book of Acts it speaks of ‘God Fearers’ this wasn’t a reference to people who just ‘feared God’ it was speaking of outsiders who were embracing Judaism but were not fully converted yet. So we see the intent of God to first reveal himself to a group/nation of people. But that nation is not supposed to ‘contain’ him, but reveal him to all the surrounding nations. The light under a bushel and not being on the candlestick were images that Jesus used to reprove the Jews of the 1st century. They took Gods glory that was specifically given to them to share, and they became ‘self righteous’. They chose to ‘separate’ from society in a legalistic way that said ‘we are better than you, stay away’. Jesus would rebuke this mindset over and over again in the parables. Many Christians today, in certain isolated forms of church, practice this kind of legalism. They view ‘church’ as a place to go and stay clean from the world. They miss the original intent of God, which was to influence the world. Get that light out from under the cover; get that salt out into society. It wasn’t given to us so we could ‘dig a whole and bury it in the ground’ [I think I heard a popular speaker say this once?]
(282) I remember being at work one day and a friend of mine was on the phone with his bank. I could hear him arguing about the fact that they messed up his account balance. He was supposed to have around $20.00 dollars, instead it was showing his normal balance of $1.oo. After he hung up I told him I also had problems with this bank before. I threatened to take my money and do business with another bank. I told him I would have advised you to make the same threat, but I don’t know if it would have much clout, considering the average balance you run in your account! Yesterday they fired the radio guy [Don Imus] that I mentioned the other day. One of the reasons is Al Sharpton and others convinced the sponsors to pull the ads from the show. I said earlier [before others were saying it!] that I thought he should be fired because of his racist remarks. Well now you have both sides [black and white] arguing over race. I do believe Sharpton is a major hypocrite as trying to be the voice in this. He, till this day, oppresses innocent people publicly over the Tawanna Brawley case. Not only did a grand jury clear these white men who he accused of raping a black girl, but the jury said it was all made up. There’s a big difference between being found not guilty, and a jury saying the charges are proved to be false. Not only does Sharpton not apologize for ruining these white guys lives who he racially accused, he still says he believes one of the guys is guilty. This isn’t an O.J. Simpson ‘not guilty’ verdict. This is a real obvious persecution of this white guy. Jesse Jackson refused to get involved in this case at the beginning because all the local ‘in the know’ leaders, even the black ones, knew this was a fake charge made by a scared girl who spent the night out with a boyfriend and made the story up. I really don’t blame the girl; I blame Sharpton for building a civil rights persona at the expense of falsely accusing a white guy. He is obviously a racist. Now, to admit that there are racists on both sides allows there to be reconciliation. To deny it perpetuates the problem. The money story about my friend shows how if you can effect an organization, because you have the money to do it, then they will listen. If you don’t, then they will not [most times]. These organizations [C.B.S. and N.B.C.] who only fired someone because of the money are certainly not moral authorities, don’t fool yourself.
(283) A few years ago I read the autobiography of Bob Dylan ‘Chronicles’. It got great reviews and I am an old rock and roll fan. I love going to the rock stores in the malls and checking out the stuff. Recently Brad Delp committed suicide; he was the lead singer for ‘Boston’. I read a statement from a family member. It said ‘he gave all he could give and was tired’. Others said he was the nicest guy in rock and roll. He was one of the few who didn’t party or drink. He was health conscious, his lyrics were uplifting, a lot of old rockers wont admit that the group was good, it’s sort of being wimpy to like a group who isn’t radical. Its like ozzy Osborne said to his wife when he walked in to the auditorium where they were giving the concert that night. His wife Sharon had fixed up the special effects where some machine was blowing out bubbles. Ozzy says ‘I cant have this Sharon, I’m supposed to be the ‘bleep, bleep’ prince of darkness, and you have bubbles blowing out’ [I saw this on their reality show on MTV]. I have a John Lennon poster hanging on my wall. I read an article on Lennon how in the 70’s he was watching a famous T.V. evangelist and accepted the Lord. He was actually going around for a few months witnessing for Jesus. His wife Yoko, who isn’t Christian, revolted against this. She convinced him of all the ‘horrors’ of Christianity and he eventually walked away [thanks again Yoko!] He even wrote a song about this, how his wife ‘opened his eyes’ to the wrong path he was going down. Dylan also accepted the Lord and even made a Christian album, Slow Train Coming [you know I like train imagery!] I found it interesting to know that Lennon was actually preaching for the Lord in 1977 in New York City, while I was getting stoned about a half mile away on the other side of the Hudson River listening to his music! In the Dylan book he talks about coming to New York and having some friends who he would just ‘crash’ at their houses and live this nomadic existence as he was learning about life. A lot of the underground music scene was thriving in the City at the time. One of his buddies had a great collection of all sorts of philosophers and historical books. Dylan spent hours reading all these ideas and concepts and reasons for society. It was like having a ‘Google’ in written form. I have spent years reading and buying books. Accessing the Library and becoming a student this way. The last 3 years I have done a ton of research on line. You can’t beat Google for an exhaustive search on any subject being right at your fingertips. But the many years of manual study adds a depth to your understanding that doesn’t come with a Google search. I felt like the death of Delp [Boston] was prophetic for me. I used to play an old Boston C.D. when I first moved to Corpus. I hadn’t played it in a long time and just recently started listening to it. Then Delp died. This is 2007, a year where I felt the Lord said we would ‘die’ to many old things and familiar surroundings [things that we rely on] and we would ‘come alive’ to other things. I still love ‘More Than a Feeling, Long Time’ and a few other Boston hits. Sorry Ozzy.
(284) When God wants to do a reform/revolution he does it at many levels at the same time. The difficult thing for the reformer[s] is you get those ‘being challenged’ all mad at you at one time! It does take ‘guts’ to be a pioneer. One time when Jesus was rebuking one group, the other group said ‘don’t you know you are offending us too’ [Pharisees and Lawyers] Jesus said he didn’t care. Let them get offended. Every plant that the Father didn’t plant will be uprooted. It’s funny because we have a lot of Apostles/Prophets upset with us. Though we all believe and function in these gifts together. Then we have the whole crowd of old time churches who simply think we are heretics because we believe in Apostles! It can be funny at times [or if you don’t have boldness you could describe it like the Governor of California says ‘girly men’ it wont be ‘funny’ you will be scared! I would attempt to spell Arnolds name but I don’t have time to spell it right!] So lets do a little ‘reforming’. Recently those who are feeling challenged in the whole area of ‘going to church’ have resorted to the classic verses to defend ‘going to church’ FORSAKE NOT THE GATHERING OF OURSELVES TOGETHER AS SOME. HE THAT SEPARATES HIMSELF SEEKS HIS OWN DESIRE lets put some context. Those in the radical ‘out of the church building on Sunday’ movement for the most part practice the ‘assembling of themselves together’ in a more scriptural way than ‘Sunday church’. Also Paul wrote this to the Hebrews, the Jews had a custom of meeting on Sabbath; Paul is simply saying when you transition into this New Covenant keep getting together! You are forsaking old sacrificial ways and law, but keep assembling. This is also why you find the ‘congregation’ and assembly mentioned in James. The Jewish context of those being addressed required them to deal with ‘assembling’ because they already ‘assembled’ as Jews. Also to use these verses to ‘push back’ against the Body of Christ finding freedom and maturity is simply a result of Pastors responding to reform out of insecurity. You can ‘go to church every Sunday for the rest of your life’ and still be ‘separating yourself’ from the purpose of God. When old time preachers do this kind of defense, I know they are sincere, but we must be willing to change!
(285) I had a friend who was investing in some real estate. He kind of asked for advice. Didn’t want to be obvious about it, but he knew I had done this in the past and wanted input. I gave him some, he didn’t listen and I think he is suffering for it, oh well. During the conversation he was telling me about the houses he will keep, and the ones he will flip in about 15 years. The others he will pay on for the full 30-year mortgage and pay them off. He was around 50 years old at the time of this discussion. I told him that one of the other mistakes people make when investing is to not count their own mortality into the scenario. You very well might be dead in 30 years! I am even bold with financial advice! I wasn’t really rude, but you could tell that my friend who was all consumed with having a few million for retirement, strategizing on more money, taking courses and studying on investment schemes. He wasn’t calculating in his own mortality. He doesn’t have kids. All you need is enough money to last for a few years, sorry if you don’t like to hear this, but it’s true. Financial advisors will tell you that people often make this mistake. They calculate in the million dollars they need at age 70. They look at how much interest they need to generate off the account, and they do not calculate the eventual need to withdraw the principal over a measured period of time in a responsible manner. Why? Because there is a natural tendency in man to avoid the fact that you will die! Be smart in investing and build a nest egg, that’s all right. Just don’t be buying houses at 50 and think you might flip it in 30 years. You might not be around to ‘do the flipping’! NOTE: as you see I live in a world of extremes, one day my friends are thinking like this, the next day I am working with the guy who runs the $1.oo balance in his account! [He does run more I am sure, I just caught him at a bad time]
(286) My daughter who works for the Vet. brought home a blind dog the other day. The owners were moving to Iraq and couldn’t take her. So they dropped it off to be put to sleep. Sad. Well now she lives with me [2 dogs 10 cats] she is old and cute. Her eyes are ‘cloudy’ like when it says in the book of Acts that Paul had ‘scales’ on his eyes. I left her in my yard for a few minutes and went inside. Came out and she was all wet. She obviously baptized herself in my pond! A strange thing happened. Her cloudy eyes were completely clear accept for the pupils. I have no idea if this was do to the adrenaline rush or what. This pond is fixed up to look like the Hudson River area where I grew up. When praying in my yard I pray for all my friends up north while walking past this ‘pool’. Pools and basins of water do represent healings and cleansings in scripture GO WASH IN THE POOL OF SILOAM and the LAVERS surrounding the Tabernacle in the Old Testament. And yes, the Baptism of John in the Jordan! I like the symbol of this new dog to the family. She was ‘at our table’ for a few days and got a ‘baptism’ that caused the ‘scales’ to fall from her eyes. Isaiah said the Spirit of the Lord was on Jesus to OPEN BLIND EYES I trust you new additions to our ‘family’ are getting your eyes opened, it can be scary [the dog was terrified after falling in] but it’s a new day for many of you!
(287) Reading Isaiah again, some stuff from chapter 45. God says his anointing subdues nations [large regions] looses Kings [leaders] from captivity [things that they didn’t even know were holding them back]. God goes before his anointed and breaks in pieces the gates and bars that people trusted would protect their borders [territory]. WOE TO THOSE WHO STRIVE WITH THEIR MAKER some will fight back against what God is doing and it will be harmful to them. Pride will cause them to see the reproof as ‘Oh, it's those critics again’ not realizing that this time certain things have come full circle and the Lord will not let certain things stand anymore. Those whom God anoints will LET GO THE CAPTIVES, NOT FOR PRICE OR REWARD there only motivation is to free the people and finish the purpose of God. THEY SHALL GO TO CONFUSION TOGETHER THAT ARE MAKERS OF IDOLS In the past when they were reproved they were able to ‘whether out the storm’ but not this time. They go into confusion together this time; the only hope is to finally truly address these same rebukes they have heard thru out their lives. I HAVE NOT SPOKEN IN SECRET, OR IN A DARK PLACE God says I have made these things plain, the only thing preventing many from changing is spiritual pride. LOOK UNTO ME ALL THE ENDS OF THE EARTH/ EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW AND EVERY TONGUE CONFESS all people involved will find harmony and peace when there is mutual submission to the Lord ship of Christ. All will bow! MEN OF STATURE SHALL COME OVER TO THEE AND THEY SHALL BE THINE Some influential Kingdom leaders will be persuaded this time around. They themselves have questioned many of these things but this time they know for sure which path to take.
(288) I am up early at work. I want to share a little on ‘territorial expansion’. Since 2004 I have been doing early prayer. Sometimes getting up at midnight, other times around 2:30 AM [like this morning] it’s been 3 years now and I believe this is a permanent thing for me now. This preceded the Lord giving us regional expansion. As a ministry who has no income [I pay for the stuff I do, others volunteer as family] the Lord has given us a lot of area. I have been praying over an area that covers our radio audience for a while. That’s from Houston over to San Antonio, down to Laredo thru the Valley and back up to Corpus. I kind of was happy with ‘staying’ in this perimeter [plus New York area]. I kind of felt the Lord saying ‘go to Dallas, Fort Worth’ but I really felt comfortable with the area we are in. I finally incorporated Dallas/Fort Worth in. While our program doesn’t reach Dallas, I do want to advertise this blog site there. It’s sort of like when I wrote about Jesus telling Peter to ‘cast the nets’ he was telling Peter ‘this is a time of multiple castings you will need to multi task at this season. If I say ‘nets’ don’t think ‘net’. I just felt like there are times when God opens many doors at once, in our fear and lack of faith we have a tendency to want ‘survival’ when God is speaking ‘expansion’! NOTE: While I was at work debating whether or not to add Dallas to our ‘perimeter’ I also had a list of some of our key people opened, I was just starting a new page in my address book that will list all the cities and people who are sponsoring a home group. Just as I started writing the list one of our key people showed up at work. He is one of the original drug addicts that we reached out to 20 years ago. He has been clean for a long time. He is just getting ready to graduate with a degree from A&M University. Today we will be getting together and this week we will launch a group in Kingsville, our original city. This all happened while debating whether or not to reach Dallas. Remember; when God is speaking ‘nets’ [multiple] don’t think ‘net’. Also I want to remind you of a verse REMEMBER THE WORD WHICH MOSES THE SERVANT OF THE LORD COMMANDED YOU, SAYING THE LORD YOUR GOD HAS GIVEN YOU REST, AND HAS GIVEN YOU THIS LAND. YOUR WIVES AND LITTLE ONES SHALL REMAIN IN THE LAND THAT THE LORD GAVE YOU ON THIS SIDE OF JORDAN, BUT YOU SHALL GO BEFORE YOUR BRETHREN ARMED, ALL THE MIGHTY MEN OF VALOUR AND HELP THEM UNTIL THE LORD HAS GIVEN THEM REST LIKE YOU God permits you to have a ‘home base’ of security and stability, so you will branch out and help others expand the kingdom. Don’t stay comfortable in the land, if you ‘store up too much Manna’ it will rot!
(289) As I have been reading sites from other areas where we are reaching out to, I recognize some of the names of people. Around 15 years ago we had a good brother come to corpus to preach at a conference. I remember him saying how he was ‘seeing’ all the deceptions of the prosperity movement and he had to back down because of mercy and love. You got the feeling that he was seeing some stuff, and for young guys it’s hard to believe that so much teaching can be so wrong. I could tell that he was seeing a lot of the stuff you see from this site, but out of fear couldn’t make the leap. He was around my age at the time [30]. Later on during a dinner with some of the preachers, I was invited. I didn’t ‘reprove’ or argue. I was just fellowshipping. Some how the prosperity gospel came up. I told him I just spent a year making radio tapes exposing the flaws of the movement. You could see that he was a little shaken. Sort of like realizing all the things he really wanted to say, but didn’t, were right! He also argued a little with me over some of the money verses. THOUGH JESUS WAS RICH, HE BECAME POOR SO WE COULD BE RICH he made an honest effort to say ‘it might be talking about money’ I just said ‘no it’s not’. Paul is the same guy who wrote all these other verses you see me teach on, there is NO WAY Paul is telling the Corinthians that Jesus died to increase their portfolio! Being we were both the same age and all, and being he himself knew I was right, it kind of shook him up that he didn’t preach this stuff at the conference, you could tell it. By the way you can take the verse I just quoted and make it say MONEY if you want. But you would have to go thru the same distorted way to interpret that I have showed you before on this site. Just about every cult in the world has bible verses, this doesn’t mean they are right! NOTE: to our critics, I was recording tapes for our radio program on KCTA prior to launching the show. I was also broadcasting on smaller venues already. NOTE during the phase a few years back when a lot of this stuff was first being dealt with, there were a lot of sincere brothers who didn’t want to face these issues. There is almost a sense of ‘if this stuff is as deceptive as it looks, it’s too bad to even admit it’ I remember hearing a national minister say at the time ‘ a lot of people are criticizing the prosperity movement, the lord told me when you get to heaven and see all the souls that were won by the money they brought in they will have great rewards’ [p.s. he has since changed his stance]. The problem with this reasoning is Paul and Jesus warned over and over again about the dangers of materialism. The leaders needed to speak with a clear voice many of the things I was saying. This cloudy view was making it difficult for those involved to break free.
(290) Let s go thru some stuff. I woke up yesterday at 3:00 am, felt like I needed to do some specific prayer. Some times I include about an hour and a half of specific intercession while doing ‘all night’ prayer. This list of things has grown and evolved over the last 20 years, but it has kept the basic structure for the most part, Family, Nations, Fellow believers and even old friends from Jersey. I have actually been praying specifically for you guys, often by name, for over 20 years! Well I didn’t get to do the ‘specific set’ yesterday, so I am now up at 2:45 am, been up since 1, and will make a second attempt soon. First lets do some stuff. I recently read an overview of the first book the Pope put out since becoming Pope. I will get it when it comes out in English. He wrote exactly what I have been speaking on the last month or so. He speaks on the dangers of Marxism [communism] as a form of govt. that pushed out God, though it had noble designs in its attempt to have all people ‘equal’ in society. He spoke on the dangers of capitalism as a type of govt. that can fall to the temptation of materialism. He spoke on materialism as an enemy of the church and how western society has fallen into this sin without realizing it. These themes are almost exactly what I have taught! It’s humbling to see God speak the same thing to an insignificant preacher on the gulf coast, as he is speaking to the Pope in Rome! During the time of slavery in this country there were many southern preachers who defended slavery from scripture. Many of these men were sincere, some were not. The sincere ones even had reputations as Christians that their own slaves vouched for. Some slave holders were cruel and abusive, some were actually good to their slaves [as good as you can be considering you have a slave!] The Christian slave holders read the actual verses in the New Testament where Paul writes to slaves and says SLAVES BE OBEDIENT TO YOUR MASTERS IN EVERY WAY, SO YOU DON’T GIVE THE GOSPEL A BAD REPUTATION the slave holders who were truly Christian read the other part that said MASTERS, TREAT YOUR SLAVES WITH LOVE AND RESPECT, KNOWING THAT YOU ALL ARE FELLOW BELIEVERS OF GODS GRACE. Now to read these real verses during the Civil war caused many sincere preachers to say that slavery should not be ‘undone’ because God addressed both the slaves and the masters this way. To be real honest, many of you who hold to a literalist view of scripture [I hold to a literalist view to a great extent] would see these verses the same way. It is the overriding purpose of the Gospel that causes one to fight for freedom despite the ‘verses’. Jesus primary goal in redemption was to set slaves free [spiritually] for this spiritual redemption to follow thru to a ‘physical’ one was only logical. To form your views at the time based on the overriding ACT OF REDEMPTION would trump any specific direction given, even in scripture, to a 1st century slave holder. Context tells us that Paul was addressing slaves under a different time and economy of societal rule. These 1st century slaves were governed by many Old Testament decrees that God allowed, for a multiple of reasons, to exist. It was easy for the ‘literalist’ preachers to say THE BIBLE SAYS SO in defense of keeping slaves; it was proper and just to free them as an extension of Gods purpose in Redemption! It takes courage and boldness to stand against a particular reading of scripture, that is popular at the time, in order to see and move down the bigger road of Gods overall purpose. Many today can’t follow this theme. Its possible to go to Old Testament scripture and find verses on putting to death kids who curse their parents, women who have cheated on their husbands and even those who live the Gay lifestyle. While none of these practices are considered good, even amongst most Christians today, yet to kill them is not an option! [Except maybe for that Westboro Baptist Church bunch of nuts who are going around picketing dead servicemen at their funerals!]. Christian’s today practice tithing under the same reading of scripture, many of them don’t know this, but its true. You can read the verse on robbing God in Malachi and scare people, just like if you read the verses on putting Gays to death. If you read that verse over and over every Sunday you could be persuaded of it. If you read Malachi and tithing as you read other Old Testament verses [with a spiritual truth behind the verse] then you would err on the side of grace. The old testament teaching on tithing shows us that God not only wants the ‘10 %’ of a persons income, but he wants the whole firstfruit. Spiritually we ARE the first fruits unto God. He wants ALL of us, we are his tithe! Simple, isn’t it. Now if you give 10% to your church on Sunday, fine. You shouldn’t read Malachi and tell New Testament Christians their under a curse if they don’t put 10 % in the bucket. The way people ‘rob God’ according to Jesus is by not meeting the actual needs of society WHEN I WAS HUNGRY YOU DIDN’T FEED ME, NAKED AND YOU DIDN’T CLOTHE ME, etc. Robbing God is not done by ‘not tithing’ it is done by not obeying the New Testament mandate given over our treatment of ‘our neighbor’. Now this is supposed to ‘leak’ over into society at large. That’s also why you see certain elements of catholic teaching that harbor illegal aliens [the sanctuary movement] they are responding out of this basic concept of ‘treating your neighbor well’. Neighbor in the 1st century context also meant ‘alien’ those who were living ‘in the land’ but were not really part of Gods covenant. God had specific instructions on how to treat ‘illegals’ and it was WITH GRACE. Sorry Sean Hannity! Well any way I felt the Lord had this word for you guys, hopefully I will get thru this prayer thing without coming back to write, many times I will write in spurts while right in the middle of prayer. Could it be that this is why the Lord allows these ‘words’ to have a big impact? Prayer is more important than ‘pulpit performance’ seek to speak what God is saying and the Lord will give you an audience. NOTE: When Paul was addressing the early believers and basically telling the slaves to ‘submit’ this was a practical reality that Paul was trying to instill in the new revolutionary movement called ‘church’. There were other messianic groups in the first century, some of these were called ‘zealots’ these people practiced a radical type of reform. A type of civil disobedience that Paul didn’t want the new believers to be associated with. Paul wanted the early believers to be seen as good citizens in society, not zealots. This explains the practical instruction on slaves being obedient. Paul wasn’t justifying slavery for all time!
(291) Well I didn’t make it too long. The other day I was fellowshipping with an old friend. He is one of our ‘first fruits’ unto God. Many years in Prison, doing drugs, robbing places. One of the ‘veterans’ of the Prison group. These guys have been with me from the start. They have seen us go thru transition and all types of changes and things over the years. I was reading the Saturday papers that our blog comes out in. He showed up at work and I gave him all the blog pages from these Texas papers to hang up as a prayer reminder. By the way if you guys see our listing in your city paper, do the same! I was sharing with my friend about some new cities we are going to reach out to. New territories and ideas, always thinking strategically. After talking a few minutes he was feeling a little apprehensive. He was telling me about his brother, also an old friend of mine, and how he’s back on ‘the stuff’ all strung out living in Robstown. I was like ‘yea, I will pick him up for the home group on my way to Kingsville’ my buddy was around when I went thru a lot of hard times in the past. He was like ‘ slow down brother, you know the devil starts coming after us when we try to reach out and all’. These guys have been shot at, shot at others. Been involved in the ‘Mexican Mafia’ in prison. Done all types of crazy stuff, and yet the devil still has them scared to reach out. I do understand what my friend was saying, I even remember his dad tell me this 20 years ago, the devil wants to intimidate us [and you!] Hey, we are all gonna die some day, might as well ‘go out in a blaze of glory’.
(292) Still praying [last 2 entries] and felt I should share this. I am at the point of prayer where I pray for all of you. Part of this prayer has me INVOKING THE BLOOD OF JESUS on all of you. I usually feel the anointing at this point [also when praying for the martyrs families and abortion I sense this feeling] Just now I prayed I INVOKE THE ETERNAL BLOOD OF THE UNIVERSE OVER ALL THESE PEOPLE and was looking straight up at the stars and there was this awesome gust of cool wind and a sense of God cleansing us. Add this to you’re prayer list!
(293) Many years ago while visiting Jesrey I would look up old friends and try to visit and tell them about what the Lord was doing. The first few years I would still find old buddies living in the same houses where they grew up. One time I found an old friend, Tom Roming. Another friend told me how he became a heroin addict [Revelation speaks of a rider on a horse whose name is death, some think the reference to heroin as ‘horse’ applies.] I found him staying at his mom’s house. I guess we were around 25 years old at the time. In the last 5-7 years out of high school I covered a lot of territory, it was sad to see that some of my buddies spent that whole time at the end of a needle. Tom was surprised to see me, the way he introduced me to his mom was ‘this is chiarello, he was one of those guys who was always beating some one up’. I thought about this later, how even in high school I had a buddy; frank Romano, who would hang out with me. One time a jock had punched him out. He knew he had to make it right. He didn’t have the same ‘ability’ to just walk up to someone and ‘whack the hell out of em’. The key to this strategy is you hit someone on the first shot with all your might and if you don’t knock him out, you already have a great advantage. Well Frank knew he had to do something. So I ‘coached’ him for the big day. I do remember being upstairs in North Bergen High School and meeting Frank. I was his ‘moral support’. When the Jock came out of the class, I told Frank ‘go for it’. He walked up and punched this guy in the face. It was quite wimpy! They fought and it was over. A few weeks later he saw some of these guys at some school function [without me around] and he told me he felt bad because he had purposely ran away. I said don’t feel bad Frank, you whacked him already. He said ‘yea, but you were there, and all those jocks know you would ‘kick their #$@#$ if they did something’. I never realized that I was viewed that way. Well one of our other ‘friends’ made fun of my friend when he first got whacked by the jock. He kept telling Frank ‘you saw the stars’ the other day. Not long after, right in class I told this guy ‘as soon as the bell rings, I am gonna whack the $^%# out of you right here. I am giving you fair warning’. I remember the bell ringing and I calmly stood up and ‘whacked’ him so hard I smashed his glasses into his face. He really got knocked out on fell on the floor [this was the only time someone actually got knocked out]. The Puerto Ricans in the class were always scared of me after this. It’s like you had Italians and Puerto Ricans and Cubans. Well Frank was able to tell this guy who I hit ‘I heard you saw stars too!’ Actually I see the name of this guy who I hit on the classmates site. I do want to email him and apologize and invite him to the site. I am not sure if I should. Well my drug friend Tom Roming invited me in and we had a good talk. I shared scripture with him and really had a good time. A few years later he was dead. I hope he accepted the Lord. NOTE: The class I was in was New Jersey History with Mr. Norris as my teacher. The teacher found out that I actually knocked him out after everybody left the room. The next day he really didn’t say anything, he actually looked scared! I found out my friend Frank had actually told him something like ‘John will kick your #%$@ too’. I wouldn’t have, but thought this was funny!
(294) GOD HAS THE ABILITY TO MOBOLIZE AND EXPAND ON ALL FRONTS AT ONCE!
(295) I have a captain friend at the firehouse who is a liberal Democrat. One day we were talking and the secretary pages the Captain to pick up the phone. I forget how she said it, but it was in a way that we knew it was Dick Cheney’s office calling to set up our ambulance service to provide for a local hunting trip that Cheney makes every year. He kinda said ‘damn, what’s Cheney want now!’ I thought it was funny. This Captain was rooting for Kerry to win the election against Bush a few years back. There were a bunch of guys hanging out and he was challenging the ‘non Kerry’ guys. I stuck my hand out and bet him $50 bucks that Bush would win. He went for it. Sure enough I won the 50 and he paid up. He was mad that Kerry lost, and he was taking it out verbally on the union guys who voted for Bush. He said ‘I cant understand how you labor guys could vote for a Republican, there out for the rich, what money has Bush ever gotten you?’ I answered ‘Well, he just made me 50 bucks’ this didn’t improve my Captains mood too much! NOTE: I am not a Republican or Democrat. I initially was against the Iraq war. I voiced my fear that we were trying to do too much and we were going to spread ourselves too thin. I said this from the start. Just thought I would mention this. Also many people don’t realize that Saddam was ‘friendly’ to Christians. Being he was a ‘secular’ Muslim, and not a radical one like Iran’s Ayatollahs, Christian evangelism and other aspects of Christianity had more of an open door than in Iran. I am not defending Saddam, he was a tyrant! Just thought you should know this.
(296) Let me overview some history from the Fundamental Independent Baptist Church and its beliefs. I used to attend a good one that did preach the gospel. I do want to share in love some examples from this peculiar type of Christianity. The church I attended had a sign that said FUNDAMENTAL, INDEPENDENT, PREMELLINIAL, PRETRIBULATIONAL BAPTIST CHURCH This ‘sign’ was in itself a sign of the danger that Christians fall into when they isolate themselves from the rest of the Body of Christ. While I understand this view and style of belief, I also see a type of theology [eschatology] that can develop when you truncate yourself from the mainstream churches. There are so many things that you can put on a ‘church sign’ why clutter it up with certain end time views [which in my view are actually incorrect!] You can put THE BLOOD OF JESUS WASHES AWAY SIN or John 3:16 or some other way to define your belief system, but this type of Church sees itself as THE ONLY truly Christian church today. Some are not this extreme, but even those have a ‘cultic’ spirit that sees everyone else as ‘straying from the faith’ while they are the true carriers of the faith. I was with a friend at work who is a Christian. I recently recommended the church I attend in Corpus [a great mega church] to him. They have a ‘branch’ church in Kingsville where I work. One day while I was reading the bible during lunch a city inspector came by to take care of business. He noticed I was reading the bible and started talking. I found out that he is a good Christian who attends a fundamental Baptist Church. I gave him some of the books I wrote and told him I am a little ‘radical’ but hoped he would get blessed [to be honest for a Fundamental Baptist to read this entire site would probably give him a heart attack]. It was good fellowship. He shared with me and the other fire fighter how he and his wife travel about 4 towns over [50 miles] to attend a Fundamental Baptist Church. It’s probably a small Church with around 50 people [OK] my friend later thought it strange for someone to do that. After all there are so many good Christian churches right here! I explained to him a little of the legalism that causes this. To see your ‘peculiar style’ of belief as the only ones you can truly worship with. Many Christians suffer from this. Some are more extreme than others. By the way my fire fighter friend did start attending the church I recommended, and he loves it. One day at work we were watching the history channel and they were doing a thing on the Mormon Church, my friend said ‘wow, I would never be a Mormon’ I looked at him with a real serious face and said ‘what do you mean’ he said ‘look at all the stuff they believe, I could never believe that’ I said ‘[my friends name] we are MORMONS! Bay Area Fellowship is Mormon!’ He was shocked, then I told him I was just kidding. I thought it was funny at the time.
(297) Some things from Isaiah 46. THE IDOLS WERE UPON THE BEASTS, THEY ARE A BURDEN TO THE BEAST Idols wear you down, they put the responsibility on you to change your world. Sooner or later they will weigh you down. I HAVE MADE AND I WILL CARRY YOU AND DELIVER YOU True Christianity puts the ‘burden’ on God to pull us thru. HIS YOKE IS EASY AND BURDEN LIGHT THEY TAKE GOLD OUT OF THE BAG, AND WEIGH SILVER IN THE BALANCE. THEY HIRE A GOLDSMITH AND HE MAKES IT INTO A GOD God will not let this stand CALLING A RAVENOUS BIRD FROM THE EAST, THE MAN THAT EXECUTETH MY COUNSEL FROM A FAR COUNTRY. I HAVE SPOKEN IT AND I WILL BRING IT TO PASS. I HAVE PURPOSED IT AND I WILL DO IT HEARKEN UNTO ME YE STUBBORN OF HEART God says this time around I will perform my purpose to bring true reform. Many times you have been reproved and shown the error of idolatry, you have for the most part ignored it and have not allowed for true reformation. This will not stand any longer. The people are tired of the burden it brings and they will flee to God so he can ‘carry them’. NOTE: I have memorized the ‘ravenous bird from the east’ for over 20 yrs. I always took it personal. Coming from the east and all. ‘Blinded by the light’ song says ‘preacher from the east’. American Pie from Don McLean says ‘the 3 Men I admire most, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, they took the last train for the coast’ you have the train imagery and the coast. And the image from the gospel of John on ‘in my fathers house are many mansions’ speaks of people groups. Well Springstein says ‘ every body’s out on the road tonight in a last chance power drive, took highway nine to the mansions of glory’ I have driven highway 9, as you can tell I still like the old songs!
(298) I AM BRINGING IN A TRAIN FROM HEAVEN, IT IS COMING WITH POWER I forgot that chuck Pierce prophesied this around a month ago, I like the train stuff!
(299) Was just thinking about a show I saw a while back. Larry King had a bunch of preachers and Priests on his talk show. One preacher was a ‘fundamentalist’ he was doctrinally correct on a lot of stuff, but you could sense an arrogance. Another brother was a well-known Christian author, I liked him the most. He stood strong for salvation being thru Christ, but was humble and real. The Priest was a little to ‘liberal’ for me. He kind of had the mindset that all people who believe in ‘a’ god are all right [not all Priests are liberal!]. He even had a famous guy who is very popular today, he teaches ‘eastern mysticism’ though they really don’t call it that. It’s easy to fall into categories. I believe true Christianity should be ‘served’ with humility and grace. This doesn’t mean that we give in to extreme liberal views on salvation ‘all roads lead to heaven’ type stuff. One road leads to heaven, his name is Jesus. You can be Catholic, Protestant or any other group, but you must believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Gods Son. God is not asking people to change their cultural heritage, but he is compelling you to ‘get in the lifeboat’ [Ark!]
(300) A WHEEL WITHIN A WHEEL [bible verse- Ezekiel’s vision of God] A few years ago I flew to Jersey. At the airport I went to a gift shop to get some stuff for my kids. I saw a shop from the Smithsonian institute. They had all sorts of stuff that I remember seeing as a boy taking field trips to Philadelphia and stuff. I picked up a gyroscope. It’s like a ‘wheel within a wheel’ type thing. They function like a top. I know this isn’t what the above verse is referring to [to my Jersey friends, the wheel thing is in the bible in Ezekiel. Also Philadelphia is a word from the book of Revelation describing one of the 7 churches. It means ‘city of brotherly love’] but I like the image. As you wrap the string around the Gyroscope and spin it, it stays in ‘motion’ and doesn’t fall as long as it’s moving. This represents a ‘Divine gravity’ a ‘staying up’ as a result of moving in the Spirit with the Lord, stay in motion! [WALK IN THE SPIRIT AND YOU WILL NOT FULFILL THE LUSTS OF THE FLESH]
(301) Was just praying while listening to ‘Fleetwood Mac’ [yes it’s possible!] and had an image go thru my mind ‘Son of man, thrust in your sickle and reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe’ [Revelation] Also Jesus words on the ‘harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few, pray to the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers into the harvest’. This prayer can be dangerous, like praying for patience! God just might send you! Why don’t you Christians sell out while there’s still time? Jesus said walk in the day while there is still light, but a time of darkness is coming in which no man can work. God gives you seasons of grace and opportunity, if we are always living for ourselves we will miss these open doors. You will later on change your mind and say ‘Now that I have lived MY life I am willing to do Gods will’ but it will be too late. The time is now; no man can pull it off if he misses his season. The goal is not self-preservation or longevity; it is completion of the Divine mandate! Note: Just went back out to pray with this home made C.D. heard ‘when September ends’ by Green day. 7 years has come and past, wake me up when September ends. 20 years has come and past, wake me up when September ends. Thought it fit in pretty well.
(302) I had a couple of thoughts that ran thru my mind. Jesus was being praised by the people at one time in the gospels. The religious leaders were jealous and said ‘tell them to stop’ Jesus responded ‘if I stop them, the rocks themselves would cry out’. This response was primarily to the 1st century religious Jew. Their whole destiny was at a critical point in history. They were created for the sole purpose of revealing God [and ultimately Messiah] to all the ‘rock’ nations around them. Scripture uses images like ‘precious stone’ ‘wood, hay, stubble’ and things like this to denote value and worth. The religious Jew of the 1st century saw themselves as ‘precious stones’ they derived this from their Old testament books [Isaiah, etc.] The prophets referred to Israel as ‘special and precious’. Jesus response to them by saying ‘if these don’t praise me, the rocks will cry out’ was a prophetic image. He was in essence saying ‘Israel, if you withhold the rightful praise due me as the true Messiah, there will rise up another Temple made of all these gentile stones, they will give to me the honor that I deserve’. Also I was thinking of the judgment verse where Jesus says ‘when you didn’t feed me, clothe me, visit me, etc’ and the people said ‘when did we not treat you well’ and Jesus responds ‘when you didn’t do it to the least of these, you didn’t do it to me, depart from me, I never knew you’. We often read that to mean Jesus is in heaven, we are here on earth and these outcasts of society are number 3 on the list. When Jesus says ‘I never had a friendship/relationship with you’ he is saying this to those who ‘prophesied’ and did many wonderful religious works. He is speaking to those whose experience of God is truncated from social justice issues. Those who ‘see’ God and their Christian responsibility as a separate culture that is to be enjoyed ‘outside’ of society. Jesus response wasn’t saying ‘I didn’t know you because you didn’t help others’ he is saying ‘the only way you could have truly known me was THRU these people; I was represented in society in these outcasts. You had a whole lifetime to have in some way reached out and gotten to know me, you never did, therefore I NEVER KNEW YOU’. This should change our mindset of church and ministry, it should compel us to come out of our safe cultural environments and touch the world, for in doing this you touch God.
(303) Today is 4-19-2007. I wrote the entries on abortion [277-278] a few days ago. I never wrote on abortion until that day. Within the next few days major events happened that I was not aware of. First; The Supreme Court just upheld the Bush administration and congresses law against partial birth abortion. This is the first major ruling affecting abortion since roe v wade. It was like the morning I woke up and wrote on the horrors of abortion, I didn’t realize it was like a prophetic intercession [along with many others!] crying out to stop this atrocity. The other acts are still being performed [the murder of babies!] but at least the partial birth ones are not. Second; When I wrote on the atrocity of this act, there was a real sense of violence and murder associated with this act that I couldn’t really express. I wrote about Moses and how this same violence was released in the land during his time. The last 2 days the news has been focused on the worst mass murder in U.S. history. The murder of more than 30 people at Virginia Tech University. The news is full of the horrendous violence of this act. Many questions on how things like this could happen. When I wrote on abortion, I was trying to show how we are ‘de sensitized’ by the violence of this act. About an hour ago I saw the video that the killer made. He said he saw himself as a modern day ‘Moses’ who was striking back at what society has done to the harmless and vulnerable that are in it. In no way do I justify, or see what this disturbed kid did as an act of God. I do find it prophetic that it happened so close to the entries that I penned on this subject. NOTE; I see this more like letting down the ‘natural barrier’ in society that exists against violent acts towards humanity. When society gets to a point where the act of murder against unborn children becomes not only accepted, but looked upon as ‘progressive minded’ then you have lowered the inherent barrier that exists in most societies and this opens the door to horrendous acts all thru the spectrum.
(304) The other day I was listening to a good preacher on the radio. Sort of a ‘reformed’ thinker who frequently calls the church back to the Puritan days. I love Puritan history and writing. Many of these brothers would agree with some of the stuff I teach in the area of the church being self centered and materially minded, but they would absolutely reject our prophetic stuff. God’s intent for the church is more than ‘the church’. Jesus spoke on the Kingdom over and over again, very little on the church. The reason we exist as ‘the church’ is to invade and impact all areas of society until Christ returns. There are certain ‘old time’ defenders of the faith who cant get past ‘church’ being ‘the old time model’. They stumble over the current mega church expression. Many have gone after Rick Warren and his purpose driven church model. Our radical teaching on the church being the actual mobile community of God ‘journeying’ thru every generation till now, leaves room for the unique expressions of meeting that would go from the simple ‘home based model’ all the way to the ‘mega church’ and even to the Catholic brothers! Our purpose isn’t to meet and argue over the many ways to meet, our purpose is to advance and communicate the gospel of the Kingdom into every arena of man. Some confuse my strong preaching against materialism with a call to come out of the market place. Nothing could be further from the truth! When Christians are able to live above the concerns of the unbeliever, and to do it in a way where they are so intricately involved in society, this itself is a testimony to them. Over the years I have had Christian friends try to tell me ‘why don’t you leave the Fire Dept. and get a building and be faithful to your calling’. I see now that some of them were saying this out of self-guilt. Many of the other Christians in the market place were feeling ‘threatened’ that a so-called ‘preacher’ [to which I hold no claim] would be working and holding a job like them. Sort of ‘well if this guy can do it, then I am responsible to be more than just a fire fighter’. Then you would have those in ‘full time ministry’ who would get offended that we didn’t take offerings or money. After all they would make the ‘offering time’ 25% of the Sunday meeting. The fact that we weren’t even doing it was offensive [we did take offerings at one time, but I never took a salary from day one]. These examples show you that society is comfortable with secular/holy divisions ‘just keep the church in the church’ and they will be happy. Now to the point of the believer being highly involved in all aspects of society, even economically. It is most definitely Gods will for believers to excel in the stock market, real estate world and all other avenues of finance and influence. Its just we need to distinguish between a message of ‘the Kingdom invading society’ and making the Kingdom about money. This is a real distinction that needs to be taught and understood. Many prophetic people who advocate these things are not yet able to articulate this distinction in an effective way. They will read so far on this blog and think that we are against being progressive, which is not the case. Jesus instituted the Church so the Church would be the key vehicle for expressing the Kingdom in the earth [as well as the whole universe!] We are about much more than which particular style of church or meeting we should have. The style or methods are really un important in my mind. The goal is to harvest enough people who we can then turn out into society to affect it for Christ. The Kingdom starts as a little seed [our small church mentality!] and eventually moves out to cover the earth!
(305) I was watching a prophetic TV show last night. The sponsor of the show, who also has a prophetic web site, was interviewing another prophetic person. I have sent our stuff to both of these brothers over the last year. Whether they read this site or not I don’t know. I found it interesting that as the host was interviewing the prophet; he said how the prosperity movement not only was unbalanced, but possibly not of God at all! The prophet kind of looked a little uncomfortable. I can’t help but think that the host has read our stuff. Their web site would never express this point of view before. I have sent this blog to many of the prophets on the site. I don’t want to be conceited, thinking that I am the only one who might have had an influence on this brother, but I think we did! NOTE: I find it interesting that I have sent our stuff to a lot of the prophets on this web site. I only got a good response from one of them [never got a bad response, just none!] But the fact that the brother who runs the site actually is ‘seeing things our way’ is the key. I sort of get the feeling that a lot of the ‘prophets’ just ignored us, but the sponsor of the site didn’t!
(306) Just remembered something that I wanted to share. I heard a brother speaking on Revelation. One of the rebukes to the 7 churches is they held to the ‘doctrine of the Nicolatians’. There have been different ideas about who they were. Most commentators agree that it speaks of ‘those who would rise above the saints’ or the rise of both early ecclesiastical offices [Bishop, Priests, etc] as well as later protestant titles [Pastor]. Some feel that the unscriptural foundation for the way these offices function are what this ‘doctrine of the Nicolatians’ is about. You can interpret many of the passages that deal with authority in either ‘family’ terms or ‘authoritarian’ terms. A famous, well respected evangelical scholar [reformed] actually did a whole book on the King James translation and how they chose to interpret many of the words in authoritarian language as opposed to family language. OBEY THOSE WHO HAVE THE RULE OVER YOU and other scriptures that could have said FOLLOW THE GUIDANCE OF SPIRITUAL ELDERS IN YOUR MIDST. Some feel the reason the most popular version today [King James] opted for this way of translating was for political necessity. The Church of England chose to use this terminology to reinforce the mindset of ‘submission to authority’ that is the authority of England and it’s ‘church’ as they were blatantly moving out from under the ‘authority’ of Rome. Sort of ‘you can have your cake and eat it too’ type deal. The historical background to the political motivation of this is no secret. I usually don’t approach it from this angle because it challenges the strong ‘King James only’ crowd a little too much. I believe exposing the simple fact of the New Testament not showing the modern role of ‘Pastor’ as we practice it today is enough to cause us to re think the ‘ruling’ offices in the church. I do believe the Lord has Elders/leaders that function in the Body of Christ, but I also see truth to the fact that many modern offices have been developed outside of the original intent of the Spirit of God.
(307) ISAIAH 47 Here this, thou that are given to pleasures [who see Christianity as a means to self indulgence, getting more and more] You who say ‘I shall never suffer the loss of children’ [those who have followed our belief system will always remain faithful to us] Thy wisdom and thy knowledge have perverted thee [the intricate systems of teaching and the lengths that you have gone to in order to get around plain scripture] stand now with all the formulas and gimmicks that you have performed from your early days, see if they will replace true repentance and open turning back towards the truth. Thus shall be all those who you have merchandised with from your youth, every one shall wander to his quarter [try to find refuge in abiding only in those groups who agree with the distorted views that have been perpetrated on the saints] none shall save thee [you will find that all the assurances of the past will no longer work. The obvious error that has been passed down from the leaders who have gone off course will be very plain to the new generation of believers that God is raising up. Many of the ‘children’ with love and respect for their ‘fore fathers’ will choose faithfulness to the Lord over carrying the ‘torch’ for the fathers of their movements. God will save the day!]
(308) Recently I heard 2 people speak on the hill of Caleb. Caleb and Joshua are the 2 spies that believed they could take the Promised Land. Caleb waited 44 years before he finally possessed his ‘hill’. Hills or mountains in scripture represent things that stand in the way, they represent territory or Kingdoms that are competing. Scripture says the Lords ‘mountain’ will be on top of all other mountains. We are called ‘mount Zion’ in the book of Hebrews. Don’t overlook this. In the Old Testament it was an actual dirt thing, today it is the Church! For the past 4 years I have been driving past this ‘hill’ on the way to work. Here in south Texas you have no mountains. But there is this little dirt hill that I pass on highway ‘44’. A few weeks back I took a picture from my camera phone of a train passing the hill while driving to work. I haven’t snapped a train picture in a long time. I do have a few that I use as the background on my phone. When I got to work I went to a prophetic web site and saw a prophecy on 2 trains colliding. It spoke about a season of faith and favor coming together. The hill represents the promises and the obstacles. Often times we see the obstacle as the hindrance to the promise, God sees it as the actual process that we go thru to inherit the land. Its like running with ankle weights, when you finally take them off at the real competition, you fly! Caleb took his hill after 44 years of waiting; I drive past this hill on highway 44. I will be 45 in 7 –17-07 [a few months] Holy field who is 44 years old just fought in Corpus. Feel like the lord is going to bring forth some fruit from his ‘Holy field’ at this season. The time is ripe for many of you to take your hill. You have been running into it for a long time, but you are about to ‘thresh’ that thing into dust and the wind will blow it away. The Divine Favor of God is going to impact that thing like a train wreck and you will come forth on the other side ready to fly! NOTE: Typing this right now I here the train whistle blasting in the background. Prophesy to that mountain, it will turn to dust! NOTE: The church I attend used an outline that I liked in the Sunday message. It quoted the verse ‘The little foxes spoil the vine’ but it was a modern translation that said ‘during the time when the field is blooming the foxes can eat the harvest’. I like this. It’s like the Lord is saying there are dangers that are inherent to the harvest. I want the harvest, I would prefer you to take a chance and plunge yourself into the harvest, but be ware that this is the time when the enemy wants to ‘eat the blooms’. Don’t fear, just realize he is feeling threatened and he knows once the harvest comes in it’s all over for him. He knoweth that his time is short.
(309) I am up early at work. I thought of a few funny things. One morning as I was praying early, one of the other guys woke up later and confessed that he was dreaming of God and stuff. He didn’t describe everything but I got the sense that he was having prophetic dreams. He was quite shocked. Another friend told me he was dreaming that he had gotten stuck in the bathroom and was banging on the wall for me to come help, but I just ignored him. I told him ‘this, my friend, is one of those prophetic dreams that speaks much truth!’ thought it was funny. NOTE: Even though this was funny, it actually is prophetic! This speaks of my friend feeling ‘bound/captive’ and calling out to me for help. I rarely witness or preach to the guys at work. Every now and than I can tell that someone wants to spark up a conversation or is really searching. I have prophesied specific stuff to a few and they have said it was right on, but I kinda take the position that ‘you do what you gotta do, and I’ll do what I gotta do’. I realize that people know that I have been known to be on the verge of ‘fighting’ and stuff, I don’t hide it. There have been times over 25 years as a firefighter that I have been close to ‘getting into it’ with a few guys. So I don’t try to come off as some ‘holy preacher’ or anything. But some times people are really searching for answers, and they see this psycho up praying all night. Maybe this affects them? I don’t know, really I don’t care.
(310) Talked about my blind dog a few days ago. Scripture says ‘who is blind like my servant’ Jesus told the religious leaders ‘if you were blind, I could help you, but because you say ‘we can see’ your sin remains’. The dog has learned to walk the paths in my yard. The first few days she simply had to follow the voice of my daughter to learn the way to go. God leads people who are humble and vulnerable. People who recognize that they ‘cant see’. You will eventually find your ‘sea legs’ under you once again, but you will know that is was the grace of God that brought you here. NOTE: I used imagery earlier on this blog about the Lord opening channels and waterways in this area. One of the channels is called ‘HUMBLE CHANNEL’ The Lord flows thru those who have been thru this process. Some believe the Apostle Paul was almost blind. He without a doubt was bringing forth some of the greatest revelation of his day, yet he himself could not see!
(311) A strange thing happened. We just started speaking into San Antonio in a strong way. Our broadcast has been going there for over 10 years, but recently we have had greater authority for that City. I noticed one of the most influential churches who we kinda ‘corrected’ over the air is no longer on the radio. I know they are doing well. They are in the process of building a huge sanctuary downtown [even though I like where they are at now]. I don’t feel they went off the air because of us. I feel the Lord will allow certain voices to speak at certain seasons, and will allow others time to ‘re group’. When God corrects things it is for the purpose of restoration, not destruction! I actually feel a little bad about them going off the air. They have been on the radio in San Antonio for a long time [years], I did enjoy the show. I believe they will be back with a clearer voice and vision for what God wants to do in his Church.
(312) CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP DOES NOT EXIST FOR THE PURPOSE OF SELF ADVANCEMENT AND UPWARD MOBLITY AT THE EXPENSE OF THE ‘LAITY’ we need to re think our function in this area. Paul and Jesus were not going around promoting what God was doing thru them, nor were they recruiting ‘financial partners’ to simply experience the Kingdom vicariously thru the gifted leader. They were depositing into the people and releasing them to function on their own. You find Paul and Jesus receiving financial support to send them and help them in their traveling ministry, but today’s mindset of the Leader being ‘sent’ all over the world while the saints sit back and wait to hear all the stories was not the normal mode. Paul did share what God was doing, don’t get me wrong. But today’s mindset sees the people as promoters of the leaders lifestyle and gift. This is why you have well meaning Ministry leaders who live in multi million dollar homes while the average supporter of the ministry lives in a $100,ooo dollar one [or rents an apartment]. It’s OK to live in a million dollar home, but it’s hard to appeal to supporters who are on fixed income, and to ask them to give out of their lack while doing this. The leaders have simply become victims of the western mindset of ministry that pools 90 % of the funds from the average person. While many of the leaders do use the majority of the funds for good things [Christian TV] they seem to justify a lifestyle of wealth and happiness at the expense of the sacrificial giver by their reading of the prosperity scriptures. ‘If God wants me to have wealth, then it’s OK’. They truly don’t see the rebukes in scripture to the ‘shepherds’ who have become wealthy at the expense of the sheep. Being wealthy is OK, you are not allowed to do it from the overall aggregate giving of many average income people. Scripture does forbid this in many places. NOTE: If the leaders salary is equal to those who are sending in support then it’s OK. If the leader is more frugal, a better investor and manages thru time to buy a million dollar home then that’s fine. I am speaking of those who run large ministries and their ‘salary’ including all the perks is in the millions. They often have their family members on the payroll at large salaries [500 thousand] while they really don’t do that much. These leaders look at the average CEO of a large company who makes millions more and justifies it this way. The reason you shouldn’t do this is because the non-profit ministry is really not ‘producing a product’ or commodity. The way they are bringing in millions [or billions] is thru outright giving. This is different than a for profit business. So the way to measure salary shouldn’t be thru the abusive CEO pay, but thru what I just showed you. Paul was reaching the entire known world of his day, pretty much single handedly. He found himself making tents at times to support himself. He traveled like the average person and lived in a lifestyle commensurate with those he was reaching. Jesus also. This is why you read Peter saying ‘desire to be an elder, not for filthy lucre’s sake, but of a ready mind’. This is why it is so important for us to have a good understanding of scripture. A friend of mine was attending a local word of faith church. And right from the start the preacher was confessing ‘you wait and see, my faith is going to produce a Cadillac by the end of this year’. Well this brother means well, he just doesn’t see all the things I just showed you. And when you try to correct this stuff, they will not listen! NOTE: What bugs the ‘hell’ out of me is the inability for prophetic people to see this. It’s like when you try to show a ‘prophet’ something he dismisses all the verses and warnings about this because he knows the other verses on prosperity. Heck [Ill’ be nice] I know them too!
(313) Jesus suffered irreconcilable loss. The tragedy of Judas betrayal and damnation caused more pain to Jesus than to Judas. Judas went to the place where he was destined to go. Jesus knew from the beginning that he could ‘keep’ him for so long. Jesus called Judas friend. Jesus wasn’t lying. He knew that his relationship with Judas was only for a short time. Why would you let him get so close and be your friend? I guess he just couldn’t help it. He lost his friend forever.
(314) A few years back a prophet gave a public prophecy on a Christian TV station. Basically it was a major thing that didn’t happen. I do like this brother and just believe he missed it. The problem was he couldn’t admit it. He went thru all types of excuses to get around the obvious ‘miss’. Then you had the ‘apologists’ come after him. So you had the prophetic people, being supported by a lot of the TV guys who are messing up in the money stuff, and this got the prophets siding with the prosperity guys against the apologists. The problem was the prophet missed it. OK so have I. The Lord is out for truth. Whether you’re the apologist guy [who is an attack dog] or the prophet group. Ultimately we need to align up with what the Lord is saying. It’s stuff like this that confuses the issue. I hope we can get past this.
(315) THE LAWNMOWER MAN many years ago I used to watch a famous prosperity preacher out of the Fort Worth area. At the time I liked his teaching and was attracted to it. I regularly watched him and listened to others as well. One time on their daily TV show they showed a testimony. The story was about someone who got saved and began winning people to the Lord. It showed how this brother spent a few years after his conversion giving his life away for the gospel. It then showed how one day he heard this preachers teaching and it ‘lured’ his interest. He then became a supporter and believer in the prosperity gospel. He started a very successful lawnmower business, made lots of money and that’s it! I thought the story would end with the guy using all this money to reach more people, or some kind of ‘spiritual’ point at all. Nope, That was it! Paul the Apostle made an interesting statement when reproving false prophets, he said ‘they testify themselves that they are false, and their testimony is true’. Over the years of myself and others sincerely writing and confronting these brothers in love, you would think that there would have been some attempt at change, even a little. But over a period of time everything about this message stays the same. You try to be patient and love and forgive, but then you have to seriously ask yourself ‘if these brothers refuse to stop doing this stuff, then it’s our responsibility to tell people ‘beware’. I don’t understand the motives of this anymore. I know that pride and rebellion are at the heart of unrepentance. I just see the age of some of these men, they have been ‘steeped’ in this for so long they cant seem to see their way out. I really am trying to change the course of the younger generation of believers coming up. These preachers who continue teaching people to live for finances instead of spiritual riches will give an account some day. The TV stations that broadcast these shows out of love and a real feeling of friendship towards these people will also give an account. I know many well-meaning people. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witness and many others. They do good things. The Masons are wonderful people who help burned children. I take my kids to their Circus to support them. The children’s ministry that they do is great. But I can’t allow the obvious goodness of many of these groups to take precedence over biblical truth. The simple fact that many of the prosperity preachers cause believers to live for wealth is really wrong. I know these brothers are Christians, but this has to stop. NOTE; A few years back a lot of these teachers were dealt with the first time around. I remember hearing one of them give a defense by saying ‘some people accuse me of being a money preacher. Well that’s right, I am a money preacher’ Now he said this in a way where he thought he was doing right by saying it. Sort of like saying ‘that’s right, I do believe all the stuff we teach is new revelation’. He didn’t realize he was actually fulfilling the verse where Paul says the false prophets testify themselves that they are false. In the actual statement ‘I am a money preacher’ you are actually saying ‘my God is money, I preach it. I confess it. My Jesus was a 1st century Donald Trump.’ They don’t realize that this is what they’re doing, but they are fulfilling Paul’s prophecy in the bible!
(316) Was just outside praying and kinda prayed ‘Lord, disrupt and deconstruct all the structures that are in place that are hindering your ‘structure’. Have mercy on all those who run these structures [ministries] deal in love and grace with them and their families, they didn’t know what they were really doing, but the time is now come for these ‘structures’ to come down’. We often defend ‘our ministries’ as the way a CEO would strategize and defend his company. God is concerned for his people; he is not defending ‘Christian businesses’!
(317) The enemy uses systems and structures of speech and thought that are closely related to godly avenues in order to sidetrack people. When the serpent came to Eve in the garden, he is using speech [confession] scripture [the words God spoke, though distorted] and the form of communication that God initially established for his purpose [by the way, those involved in Christian TV networks, many of you do broadcast very good stuff. I was just watching God TV last night and enjoyed a Rick Joyner meeting, also I like the I.H.O.P. meetings with Mike Bickle and many other good prophetic ministries. It is the enemies strategy to ‘mix’ the good stuff with the ‘bad’ wheat/tares strategy] The fact that the enemy uses the means of communication that God initiates should cause us to be more selective in discerning that which is holy [good] from that which is not! Pastor[s] can feel like I am ‘threatening’ their livelihood. I understand this. This is a direct result of the modern day phenomena of the ‘full time minister’. Paul and the other New Testament leaders were not trying to ‘defend their jobs’ they were laying their lives down for truth. Sometimes literally! True reform is difficult. People are happy and comfortable with a steady income stream. Regular supporters who are really blessed by other ministries who might broadcast thru the station. All the natural feelings of being threatened and losing that sense of security are involved with reform. Many Catholic Priests were shaken during the reformation. It was a time in history where God said ‘I am going to change some things permanently in the history of the Church’. I am not saying everything the reformers did was right. But the time had come for a shift to happen. Shifts are very uncomfortable. They cause you to re evaluate all that you have known and held onto in the past. Shifts are necessary. No chastening at the present time seems to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless afterward it produces right things as well as peace. To some it brings destruction. That’s not the purpose of chastening, but some are steeped in rebellion to the point where they have staked their lives on it. NOTE: Let me try to help some of you who are sincerely worried. The reality of God being our provider. The truth behind all the scriptures of God wanting to prosper us and God being a good God and all of these things are true. They were true for Paul who said ‘Preachers will rise in the last days, preaching that gain is godliness. From such turn away’ they were true for Jesus who said ‘be ware of covetousness, a mans life doesn’t consist in the amount of things he owns’. These scriptures of God being our provider teach us that God is good and will most definitely meet our needs. This is a far cry from the other stuff I am trying to ‘root out’. God being our provider is one thing. Making the entire gospel and kingdom about money is something forbidden in scripture! Discern this guys. Especially you Pastors and Leaders, you cannot keep getting away with letting this slip thru to your people. Ideas and wrong teachings have long lasting results. Don’t let your people go down this road! Teach them about the goodness of God, but don’t let them get ruined by this stuff! NOTE: The serpent actually accomplished his goal thru the speaking of Gods word in a distorted version. He ‘marred’ the image of God that was in man. Man continued to exist, but his ‘image’ was not the complete original intent of the Father. This is what I showed you earlier about idolatry. Many in this movement ‘believe’ in Jesus, but the true image of Christ is ‘marred’ by the distorted view of scripture!
(318) DON’T BE AFRAID! God has a great future ahead for you guys [and gals]. A lot of leaders are seeing all the stuff we have spoken on, many know it all to be true. Some are scared. Don’t be. Simply acknowledge that the church went thru a stage where we fulfilled aspects of 1st Timothy 6. Paul said if you rebuke false prophets sharply they will turn to truth. OK now lets move on with the great future ahead. Some of the more notable brothers will not deal with any of this stuff out of fear. Fine. I love them. We showed them what the Lord said. If they don’t listen that’s their problem. Will everything be smoothed over? NO! But they will give an account to God like everyone else. At least you guys who were sending in your ‘seed’ to the TV stations and ministries who were promoting this stuff have gotten wise. Give your money to ‘feed the children’ or Billy Graham or the church you attend [if their not a prosperity one!]. Time rolls on, we have a destiny to fulfill. Get on with It!
(319) AFFLICTION SHALL NOT RISE UP A SECOND TIME, THOUGH I HAVE AFFLICTED THEE, I WILL AFFLICT THEE NO MORE Over the years I remember discussing many of these issues with national ministers who have come to Corpus. I remember at one event there were many ‘word of faith’ people who attended and would absolutely be against the stuff I preach. They really enjoyed the meeting that the minister spoke at. Afterward I had a chance to fellowship with him. I was honest with him about the issues that I deal with thru our ministry. He told me he could sense the ‘word of faith/prosperity’ type teachings as being a real stumbling block to what he felt the Lord was trying to do at the meeting. I have often seen examples of leaders who were beginning to see a lot of this stuff, and I could tell they didn’t know how to deal with it. I remember hearing one of the Fathers of the movement begin backtracking on stuff that he knew was wrong, it was a sense of trying to undo some of the stuff. It was a good effort, but way too late. He has since died. His son now heads up the ministry and I remember hearing his son [a major word of faith figure] telling the people ‘you have all these people going around afraid to make a bad confession, thinking any bad statement will change their world for the worse. It’s a little legalistic’ [in so many words]. Another very famous black prosperity guy said ‘you have those in the ‘ultra faith’ camps’ and he went on and tried to say that he wasn’t one of them. He is one of the WORST! But it was stuff like this that shows me there is a ‘behind the scenes’ reality of the falseness of this whole movement. Many key leaders know this. The ‘laity’ at large do not realize this! Don’t have faith in men and movements, they will fail. Trust in God! For many of you having to re evaluate all this again has been painful. God is saying deal with it this time around and AFFLICTION WILL NOT RISE UP A SECOND TIME.
(320) I am trying to hear God right now. Felt this is for someone. Many people use as a defense ‘well, I know it works brother [prosperity gospel] because it has turned my life around financially’. This very well might be true. Napoleon Hill, one of the original ‘think and grow rich’ teachers taught a highly successful method of making money. I have read and listened to a tape of him speak [I do have a classic cassette tape from him!] I used to be into studying lots of motivational stuff. The things Mr. Hill taught definitely worked. He taught a type of meditation that said if you think money thoughts all the time, eventually you create an atmosphere around you that brings in wealth. This does work. The only problem is many who try to ‘christianize’ this teaching are violating the teachings of Jesus who plainly said ‘seek first [think on] the Kingdom of God and all these other things [money and stuff] will be added unto you’. So the defense that says ‘well you got what you confessed, and I got what I confessed’ isn’t a real defense. You might well have gotten a lot of money by following this movement. Getting a lot of money is not the criteria you use to judge whether a thing is right or wrong. You judge it by Gods Word! NOTE: Felt like the Lord just freed someone from this movement. Sort of like the straw that broke the camels back. Those of you who are not familiar with Napoleon Hill, he was a very successful turn of the century [1800-1900] motivational teacher. Many in the Word of Faith movement know that Mr. Hill was cultic. Mr. Hill had ‘spirit guides’ who brought these ‘teachings’ and stuff to him. Though many of the prosperity brothers will deny that they have his influence in their teachings, they do have many disturbing aspects of it. E.W. Kenyon also has influenced the main Father of the word of faith movement, Kenneth Hagin. Brother Hagin often would deny this. I do think brother Hagin was a good man who became a victim of deception. I never studied any of these guys out of trying to find fault. I was really into this movement at one time and studied it as a student [I know this statement offends people. I don’t know how else I can say that the visions brother Hagin wrote about are false. Did he really see ‘Jesus’ in these visions where Jesus says ‘you can write your own ticket with God’ Brother Hagin might have thought it? He might have seen ‘someone’? But for me or any other ‘preacher’ to not be able to flatly say ‘this was not Jesus Christ’ is being unfaithful to our calling!] It bothers me to hear Pastors that I like quoting ‘I am creating an atmosphere of money around me with my words’. I feel for these guys, I know their headed down a path that is not good. NOTE: If you read this whole passage from Jesus he plainly teaches the disciples to ‘not think money thoughts’. He says ‘the gentiles are always THINKING/WORRYING about the things of life’. Food, Clothes and money/material goods. Jesus says the Christians aren’t supposed to have these things at the forefront of their thoughts and meditations. Now I do realize that Jesus isn’t teaching irresponsibility. It’s fine to invest and have a financial plan. But he is going against the strong prosperity teaching that causes material things to be meditated on all the time. I had a Pastor friend who would come out and defend these guys at the same time the Lord was trying to undo this stuff. He would make statements in defense that would make it hard to undo. I realize they now see a lot of this stuff. At the time they weren’t ‘studied up’ like I was in all of the verses and stuff. To be frank about it, I work full time, do a lot of actual charity work on the streets, don’t take a salary [or even offerings!] and these brothers are like ‘we didn’t have time to study these verses like you’ What! You guys are in ‘full time ministry’ your main job is TO STUDY. Don’t want to be mean, but give me a break. Also if you use the argument that ‘you got what you confessed, and I got what I confessed’ look at Paul. He preached directly against this doctrine [1st Timothy 6] he was not wealthy at all. He suffered a lot. It would be easy to say Paul got what he confessed. The point is Christianity is not about ‘thinking money thoughts’ all the time. Creating some type of ‘financial vacuum’ around yourself. It’s giving your life for eternal rewards. I heard a Pastor say he was being reproved by someone on the dangers of the prosperity gospel, and later the person needed money for bus fare. Therefore the reproof must have been wrong because this person didn’t have money. I guess you could have said this about Paul and the other New Testament Apostles. Peter made a bad confession when he told the cripple guy ‘silver and gold have I none’ but still God used Peter mightily and performed a miracle. This miracle brought as much ‘advertisement’ as a million dollars of ad space! We need to stop judging people or ministries based on the amount of money they have, this is not the criterion!
(321) I have recently noticed some good prophetic people becoming more aware of some of the things we are saying. Some have seemed to respond in a way that might be like ‘we have secretly known of these major problems for years. We have ‘quietly prayed’ and tried to address these concerns. Don’t be so hard’. No one has specifically told me this [actually now that I think about it someone has!]. Let me say, I don’t want to ‘start a war’ among the ‘prophets’. I like the brothers and really receive direction from a few. The main problem with ‘not going public’ and trying to deal with it quietly is the fact that so many new believers are slipping right past the ‘quiet correctors’ and spending 40 years in the wilderness needlessly. Most of the ‘quiet correctors’ never warned any body away from this movement. There are a variety of reasons, and I can’t judge their motives. Suffice it to say that scripture COMMANDS us to confront these things publicly. Paul said WHOSE MOUTHS MUST BE STOPPED, THEY DECIEVE ENTIRE HOUSEHOLDS while speaking of the false teachers who were doing it for financial gain. I understand the feelings of the ‘behind the scenes’ reformers. It’s just the ‘reform’ never seems to take place under this strategy!
(322) ISAIAH 48 ‘ hear this O house of Jacob [my people listen] which sware by my name, but not in truth [you say JESUS IS LORD but are denying my image constantly] I have declared these things before, these things went forth out of my mouth many times over your life. I knew you were stubborn and would not listen the first time I warned you. I have now once again showed you ‘hidden things’. I knew you would deal deceitfully, and were called a transgressor from the start. For my sake I will hold back my anger and give you another chance to make it right. I have chosen to correct you in the furnace of affliction. I know it’s hard, but how can I continue to let my name be polluted. [You use my name and say ‘Jesus is Lord’ and I have no idea who this image belongs to that you confess!] I have raised up the ‘spirit of prophecy’ [thru many, not just one voice!] I will make HIS WAY PROSPEROUS. I am the Lord thy God which TEACHETH THEE TO PROFIT [godliness with contentment is very profitable, but they that seek wealth come to confusion] O that thou hast listened to me before, your peace would have been like a river. There is no peace saith God to the wicked [wicked is a word that denotes a ‘twisting’ {wicker} when you twist scripture and the truth of Jesus Christ there is no peace. God knew from the beginning that many would take this path. He chooses to call them to repentance so they will now have peace like a river. True peace in God.] NOTE: I remember when I used to regularly watch the brother from the Forth Worth area. He did a whole week or so on finances, and he would end the prayer by praying to ‘our great Lord and financier’ I thought of the verses where the brothers are fighting over their inheritance and they ask Jesus to settle their financial dispute. Jesus says ‘who made me a judge over you in these matters’. Jesus was saying ‘who taught you to come to me in this way and view me as your financier; I am not here to settle your financial disputes. I am hear to fulfill the purpose of my Father’. No mountain will stand in the way this time, even one who calls himself ‘eagle mountain’. THOU HAST HEARD, SEE ALL THIS. AND WILL NOT YE DECLARE IT. I HAVE CALLED YOU, I HAVE SPOKEN THRU YOU AND I SHALL MAKE YOUR WAY PROSPEROUS.
(323) At work right now. Getting ready to pray. Was reading some verses from my mission statement and remembered something. I recently dreamed I was blowing a trumpet. There were a few different styles and I was enjoying the ‘blowing’ of these trumpets. I just read the verse ‘I will bend Judah like a bow, and raise your sons o Zion [I like to put ‘John’ for Zion and make it personal] against thy sons o Greece, and make you as the sword of a mighty man. His arrow shall go forth like lightning [I have had both ‘bow’ and ‘arrow’ and ‘lightning’ images as signs these past few years. Also ‘JUDAH’] and the Lord God shall blow the TRUMPET and shall go with the whirlwinds of the south’ Zechariah 9 13-14. I am seeing the Lord do things thru those who are being ‘birthed’ thru our blog site. Many people know all the things we are saying are true, but there was an ‘intimidation factor’ holding them back. It’s like a feeling of ‘who do you think you are, these preachers have been around a long time. The stuff they are preaching must be true. How dare you speak against it’. Now that many of you guys [gals] have seen us deal with it, you are like ‘arrows of lightning being shot out of a bow’ you are like ‘trumpets’ that God is going to blow thru. You have been stirred up from this site that has blown like whirlwinds out of the southern gulf coast and you will be like the sons of Zion coming against the sons of Greece [worldly wisdom and philosophies of men, men’s systems of thought and ‘theology’ that directly contradict the clear meaning of scripture]. NOTE: God blowing thru the ‘trumpet’ speaks not only of a prophetic voice, but also of ‘prophetic offspring’. I have shared images of ‘lightning’ and arrows. The Lord seeming to refer to us as ‘sons of thunder’ and the name Judah. I felt like these things referred to having special authority to do certain things. Ministry is not a tool for self promotion. In this scripture it speaks of ‘sons’ being like lightning, I see the people as the ‘trumpet’. All these images speak of you guys being empowered and released to do tremendous things. These images are not speaking of me as an individual who will be the one ‘sent forth’ as you watch and wait. But we are all being ‘sent forth’ at this season. I really urge you guys that are from my generation [mid 40’s] to get past the ‘mid life crisis’ and the stage of feeling like ‘you missed the boat’. You didn’t miss it yet. God still has a great purpose for you. The boat is launching, take a risk and jump on that thing now. There’s still time! Kansas [the rock group] says ‘ looking for men to show the way and leave today, how long till the point of no return’. NOTE: During the period between Malachi in the Old Testament and the Gospels there is a 400 year ‘gap’ where there was no prophetic word given The Catholic bibles have the apocrypha in this place. One of the books of the Apocrypha is ‘Maccabees’. The Maccabees was a revolt from the Jewish nation against the rulers that occupied them at the time [Many of whom were products of Greek wisdom]. This Maccabean revolt is the ‘sons of Zion rising up against the sons of Greece’ historically. It was a time in Jewish history where Gods people were under bondage to a ruling empire that was known for its worldly wisdom and philosophy. Many of the great philosophers came from this time period. Later in the New Testament book of Colossians the Apostle Paul warns against the early believers coming under the influence of the philosophies of men. I find the Spirit of God rising up at different times in history to ‘cast off’ the ‘thought structures’ of men that come against the wisdom of God. These ‘systems of thought’ are not shallow. Many intelligent men are truly taken captive by the close relationship to truth that they espouse. It takes a ‘prophetic revolt’ to break off the ruling influence that these false systems hold over the people of God. Till this day the Jewish people still honor the Maccabean revolt as an important holiday in their tradition. The name Maccabees comes from the family who led the revolt. The dads name was JUDAH! [I actually read his name ‘Judah’ in an article. I also read his name to be ‘Judas’. So if the ‘Judah’ article got it wrong, it was still prophetic! The feast the Jews celebrate to this day is Hanukah. This feast commemorates the revolt against the Syrian king who tried to force Hellenization on the Jews. Trying to force Greek language and culture on the Jewish nation]
(324) Two things I want to say. There are many ‘prophets’ and other ministry leaders who’s chief concern is the functioning and success of their ministry. They view all other things from this paradigm. They sincerely have a prophetic gift, no doubt about it. It is the mindset of seeing and acting out of the view that the success and financial income of their ministry takes precedence over what God is trying to do in the corporate people that is causing them to come against what the Spirit of the Lord is trying to do. Many are acting and responding out of a desire to ‘survive’ first, before any other thing. Many are good men who do not hold to the errors that we are trying to uproot at this season. It is their friendship for these other groups that is causing them to hinder the work of the Spirit. The Old Testament has a story of a young prophet going and giving a word. After he gives the word the Lord says ‘go straight home and don’t stop for anyone’. On the way home he runs into an older Prophet who says ‘come back with me’. The young prophet says ‘the Lord told me not to’. The old guy says ‘I am a prophet too, and the Lord says come eat [fellowship] with me’. Sure enough the Lord judges the young prophet for this. The current prophetic movement in our country started in the late 80’s. Many who are now truly gifted are really the ‘younger generation’. Many of the prosperity guys are from the older ‘prophetic group’. The young guys are feeling ‘I like these older ‘prophetic’ guys. They were truly at the forefront of certain prophetic things. I want to sit at ‘their table’ and enjoy their fellowship’. God is saying NO MORE! The other thing I want to share is an example of the intricate systems of thought that have gone into the defense of the false prophets. One of the key chapters that I and others use to root out this doctrine is Hebrews 11. This chapter shows how people of FAITH have not only been described as those who were overcoming and getting what they wanted, but it also shows many people of faith who suffered and went thru hard things. I heard the Fort Worth teacher explain that the people of faith in Hebrews 11 that suffered were still part of the group that was Old Testament. He even used verses from Hebrews to show that these people were not ‘perfected’ yet until the Cross. This is true. He then ‘crossed the line’ and taught that the ‘perfection’ was financial and material well being at all times. He basically used an excellent biblical reasoning to explain away the plain meaning of the chapter. The fact is Paul would later go on in the New Testament and teach that many believers who are ‘perfected’ under the New Covenant would also suffer many things. But the false teacher taught it in a way that would ‘catch you’. I have come to believe there has to be a degree of demonic deception going on with these guys. They have ways to explain away every single verse in the bible to teach what they want. That’s why I understand how the ‘average level’ preacher [don’t want to be rude] can fall for this stuff. That’s also why the ‘quiet correction’ approach isn’t going to work anymore with these guys.
(325) There are a lot of things that I want to share. The other day I was quite strong in a particular ‘prophetic word’. I mentioned ‘Eagle Mountain’ as a mountain that will not be able to stand against Gods ‘mountain’ [purpose at this season]. I am uncomfortable with the whole ‘persona’ and time period that I am in at this season. This ‘eagle’s mountain’ is actually the physical location of one of the major prosperity churches in the country [here in Texas]. Those in ‘the know’ knew what I meant when I said this. This area is also right around Denton where I have felt certain ‘prophetic correction’ going into that area. Sometimes when I speak a strong word towards a certain area I will notice a ‘weather’ event happening right after I speak the word. The ‘word’ towards eagle mountain/Denton area was a little strong. Yesterday I was watching the Texas news and one of the worst Tornadoes ever hit a region called ‘Eagle Pass’ [Located on the border of Texas/ Mexico]. The Tornado was 4 miles wide and it caused tremendous destruction, 9 people dead. Devastating [the warning alert system did not sound, this left the people vulnerable to what was coming. Much like the watchman in Ezekiel who refused to speak out on the dangers that were coming] I know God isn’t to blame for the loss of life. There are times where certain religious movements are devastating towards the people of God. When God says ‘no mountain can stand in the way’ he has the potential to ‘clean house’ [I felt it a little significant that the town was Eagle Pass. Sort of like God saying ‘the Eagle is coming into judgment’]. Let me say a few things about the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The last time I was there I was partying in Fort Worth, drunk and pulling off the road puking [throwing up] on the side of the road [20 yrs ago], I also remember being in Milwaukee after boot camp and drinking around 12 shots of Rum at some bar. Walking out to the street and passing out. I remember some navy guys picking me up [I was in uniform] and bringing me back to Great Lakes [Illinois]. I was thinking of the verse that says ‘I will save you out of all the places where you have sinned, and I will cleanse you’. I am very uncomfortable with the present ‘place’ where I am at. There are times where you journey to different levels and places in life. As you ‘proceed’ to the next place it often entails great death. We seem to think that if we can just master our lives and get it all together, then we can present this image to people and we have succeeded. I see it more like you are called to go thru things, often the things you go thru are very difficult. It is in the crucible of Crucifixion where you bring forth much fruit. ‘Except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it will bring forth much fruit’ [Jesus]. One of the most accurate Prophets of our day is still living [he has been sick and some think he will die soon]. His name is Paul Cain. I remember hearing Paul on tape share a story of how he was approached by a nice looking gentlemen when he was younger. This man was offering Paul a career and fame in ministry. Sort of telling him he would promote his image [death to any prophet!] After a while Paul asked him to confess Jesus as Lord. He would not. Paul at that moment recognized it was satan. I remember having this happen one time in my life. It was early on as a Christian and we were going to see a friend who got caught up in a cult. They called themselves ‘Gods Angels’ and were traveling around in robes and sandals. We went to visit a friend who joined the group. The main leader was there and after a while I asked if he could say ‘Jesus is Lord’. He gave the same response that the person in Paul’s story gave. I then felt a demonic presence hit me and I felt like I was having an acid trip. I lost all sense of where I was and it felt just like a ‘mesq’ flashback. I find it interesting that today we know that this person in Paul Cain’s experience came back time and again thru out his life. Paul never told us this, but we now know it. When Jesus was seeing this same person in his life he knew that there would be a tremendous cost involved with the completion of his mission, that’s why I don’t understand the lust and desire for fame and success. God often withholds true prophetic ministry for the sake of the individual. He realizes that there is a severe cost involved, and those who are really enjoying their lives don’t realize what the calling will carry with it. NOTE: I do realize that this stuff makes people very uncomfortable. The reason why ‘Eagle Mountain’ needs to come down [either close or repent and become a tool of deliverance in Gods hand] is the fact they disseminate so much of the heresy that I have exposed on this blog [thru books, tapes, TV, etc.]. You cant keep doing disgrace to the image of Christ no matter how well spoken and good hearted you are. No matter how much money you give to missions, no matter how many good works you do! NOTE: Crucifixion is an event where you have no say or control over what’s happening with you physically, it is the process of saying ‘God, if its possible for this cup to pass, please help me come out of this’ and then arriving at the point of saying ‘whatever you want, I will go thru it’ and it concludes with ‘MY GOD, MY GOD WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME’ in today’s terms ‘I cant believe the desolation I am feeling at this time in my life’. NOTE: I just went outside to continue praying; I kind of felt that presence of the evil one. Sort of like ‘how dare you expose me like this’. NOTE; I just spoke to one of our original ‘ex con/addict’ friends in Kingsville. He is one of our key men. I told him about the Eagle word and the Tornado. He told me that a day or two right before the tornado he dreamed of 2 devastating tornadoes coming towards him and his family. He woke up and told his wife of the dream. Within the next day or so the tornado hit. This is one of our ‘prophetic’ people who have often had dreams and impressions that were significant over the years.
(326) BE STRONG AND OF A GOOD COURAGE, FOR TODAY [RIGHT NOW] I WILL BRING YOU IN AND YOU WILL INHERIT THE PROMISE I read a statement form a prisoner being put to death here in Texas. He said ‘lets rock and roll’. I think we need to thank God for his mercy and move on. Don’t keep debating stuff he is clearly saying. God forgives all of us. LETS ROCK AND ROLL.
(327) Let me make another note. About 6 months or so when I pray early [every day] I began ‘seeing’ myself in Prayer with the Denton brothers [glory of Zion] as well as the other churches who are regionally praying during the 4th watch [3-6 am]. I believe my ‘joining with them in prophetic intercession’ gave me authority to prophesy into the land. Prophets don’t just give prophetic words, they intercede. I believe it says of Abraham ‘he is a prophet and he will pray for you’ I know it says this about one of the patriarchs.
(328) Understand that Jesus is the lion of the tribe of JUDAH. Any prophetic expression of Judah is actually the Spirit of God thru the prophets rising up in rebellion to cast off the wisdom of men that comes against the true knowledge of God in Christ. These last 50 years the enemy has laughed at how he was able to mock the true image of Christ thru these false systems. The purpose of the prophetic was to lead a ‘revolt’ against the ‘occupiers’. Revelation says ‘the Lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed’ he ‘opens seals/ opens the book’. It is the ‘opening’ of Gods word that does war against the wisdom of men. This is primarily a prophetic act. The wisdom of men cannot accomplish this. When the Lion of the tribe of Judah begins this process thru the prophetic, the enemy no longer laughs, because his day has finally come.
(329) Many years ago in Texas I used to watch a good preacher out of the Rockwall area. I did like his ministry. I felt a little uncomfortable about the type of ‘spiritual warfare’ that a lot of us were espousing at the time. I remember watching this brother during a message. He was walking back and forth on the stage of a large auditorium [now that I think of it, he was at a James Robison bible conference in Fort Worth] as he was walking back and forth he was into the whole image of ‘look at this, I am a spiritual warrior’ he kind of was so into it that he was almost falling off the stage. It was normal fare for the time. Later ‘prime time’ news magazine did an expose on him, nothing really scandalous, but showing him to have been less than honest on some money appeals. The fact that we want the spotlight opens us up for attacks. True warfare is usually done behind the scenes with humble people. When we ‘strut’ and boast and openly ‘mock the enemy’ he laughs. He knows he’s setting us up with the glory of men. The same temptation he used on Jesus. When we give in to the lie of ‘it’s all about me, look at me, look at the great thing God is doing thru me’ he has us hooked and we don’t even know it. [Watch the end of the movie ‘the devils advocate’ with Al Pacino. It really brings this out well. Also they play the song ‘sympathy for the devil’ from the stones. It’s amazing how Jagger describes the craftiness of satan in this song]. NOTE; I went back and read some stuff on this brother. His wife said when Dianne Sawyer first contacted them to do the show, they tricked him by saying ‘we want to interview you. You are said to be the next Billy Graham. Can we do this interview?’ The network new the lure of fame and recognition would get him on the show. I do think these networks are really hypocrites themselves. This show [primetime] has been caught lying about stories [planting explosives in vehicles and having them rear-ended to make it look like it blew up easily. Then trying to defend doing it!]. The real point is they knew if they appealed to his ego he would do it.
(330) Man was ‘built’ with the inherent desire to ‘storehouse’. This is a need for man to ‘build up, store up, increase wealth’. This desire was originally intended to manifest itself thru the ‘saving’ of eternal rewards. When God made man in his image, this desire was originally sanctified and was to coincide with Gods original intention to give man dominion over all the earth. Man would ‘collect’ if you will, all created things under his dominion, man would corral these things and provide safety and a hedge around these things for the glory of God. In essence the same mindset is seen in the New Testament with the stories that Jesus tells about God giving his ‘vineyard’ to people to take care of and things like this. It is inherent for man to want to storehouse and build the resources of things. This is why Jesus warned against the strong draw that ‘mammon’ [lust for financial increase] would present to the purpose of God in the church. There are verses in the Old Testament that say men build up their financial fortunes and say to themselves ‘when I die I will pass this legacy on to my kids, and MY NAME will endure thru the heritage of this financial legacy that will continue to operate after I am gone’ [King Ranch]. Now scripture says a good man leaves an inheritance to his kids, so this concept is not wrong in and of itself. It’s just that Jesus knew how strong this pursuit of wealth can become and he chose to teach that it is the singular most competitive threat to the purpose of the Kingdom. Many fall into this trap by seeing the purpose of God to invade all areas of society, even financial institutions. They see the ‘surface’ level of teaching on finances in scripture, and then go headlong into this twisted interpretation of scripture that finds ‘proof texts’ that eventually leads them to preach a wealthy Jesus who fits the image of the modern day televangelist. You then find people [like us] who try to bring back into alignment the distorted view that many of these brothers espouse, but those ‘taken captive’ by this insatiable desire for wealth cannot see beyond this strong inherent desire that God originally put in man. You can present plain scripture to them, and they will even argue that Paul and Jesus were not really saying what they said. This is caused by the lure of covetousness that has replaced the original intent of God to ‘storehouse’ with the less noble desire of ‘building wealth’. NOTE; this same mindset can be seen in the desire to ‘build’ a ministry. You begin focusing your energies on using your faith to bring in the finances to operate. You ‘see’ the increase of income as the answer to the noble intention of carrying out Gods purpose. But when this desire begins to take precedence over the actual preaching of the gospel [by distorting the image of Christ to fit into the mindset of bringing in the wealth] then the enemy has tricked you into preventing the original purpose of God to manifest thru you. At the end of the day you might bring in the desired income stream, and with this a sense of ‘mission accomplished’ you might even reject guys like me out of hand because of this desire to ‘bring in the resources at all costs’ but when all is said and done, if your not really preaching the biblical gospel, the enemy wins, even if you funded the ministry! NOTE; over the years people have confronted the leaders of Christian TV stations. There are a bunch of brothers who regularly preach covetousness to an extreme. Most of the presidents of these stations are not ‘full blown’ money preachers. But they have seen God work in areas of finances, and they have seen the uprightness of many of the prosperity brothers. Some [like the Fort Worth brother] are very good people. They do not ‘splurge’ in outwardly fancy lifestyles. It’s just that somewhere down the line they got ‘hooked’ by the lure of these things. The leaders of the networks have seen how the apologists went after these guys, and out of sympathy the network presidents for the most part decided to air their programs. These presidents are going all over the world, trying to start stations in many countries. Doing noble things for the cause of the gospel. Some of the wives of these great stations actually graduated from Rhema [a major word of faith college]. All these people are good people. The TV leaders see the good heart of those who they have known in the past that were ‘prosperity/word of faith’ teachers. It’s a matter of real humility to see the things that I am trying to say, and to fall on the side of ‘truth in love’. I do believe if these stations continue to run these programs, the Lord will do something about it. But those stations who actually ‘make the hard decisions’ in love, will remain and be much stronger for the gospel.
(331) When Jesus overthrew the moneychangers in the Temple, it was a violent prophetic act. When Paul warned against false prophets he was ‘negative’. When Jude [a bible book in the New Testament] warned against false prophets he spent time dealing with a problem. Some [prophets] believe the way to deal with all the problems in the church is thru praise. That if you simply always say positive things and praise God, that the weapon of praise and a positive confession will correct everything. The New Testament disagrees.
(332) Lets tell some stories. I remember one day at work we were doing a mutual training thing with the Corpus Fire Dept. [though I live in Corpus, I work for the Kingsville Fire Dept.] We had a couple of Corpus Firefighters sitting on the bumper of the ladder truck. The ladder truck has a button for the horn on the floor right under the seat. The guys were always accidentally stepping on the thing. I remember one time we were driving to the park for some function and the guy who was driving kept stepping on it not realizing it was there. Every few blocks he would stop to get out and the horn would stop blowing, he couldn’t figure out why! Well I accidentally blew the thing with these other guys on the bumper. It scared the ‘Hades’ out of them. It was an accident. I got out and truly told the brothers I was sorry. I might have had a little smirk on my face, it was funny! The one guy was a Corpus Captain who was originally from New York City. He was mad. I kinda said I was sorry, what else can I do. He indicated ‘lets rock and roll’ [don’t you just hate these Yankees who are always looking to fight!] He said it in a way that I knew he was serious, but I could tell that most guys usually don’t take him up on the offer. His friend was familiar with his Captains character. I didn’t get mad, but it was one of those offers I just couldn’t refuse. I kinda laughed a little and said ‘brother, if that’s what’s gonna do it for you, then OK’. Well his friend saw I was OK with it and got in the way. It was funny to me, running into one of those Yankees who are always looking for trouble.
(333) Was just listening to ‘simple man’ by Skynard. ‘Momma told me when I was young … forget your lust for the rich mans gold, all that you need is in your soul…don’t forget there is someone up above…all that I want for you my son is to be satisfied…don’t you worry you’ll find yourself…you can do this if you try…be a simple kind of man, wont you do this for me son if you can’. It’s sad that Skynard is more prophetic than many of the prophets.
(334) A few years ago I was dealing with these issues [money gospel] and I particularly took issue with a brother out of Louisiana, I like the brother. Many years ago I took our church to see him speak in Corpus Christi when I was living in Kingsville. He is the brother who wrote in his book about going to heaven and king David telling him he regretted the negative confessions that he made in Psalms [ouch]. I have openly rebuked this, not by using his name. The year I came out fairly strong on him was the same time period that one of the gulf coast hurricanes, either Katrina or Rita, hit the gulf coast. I later found out that his ministry ‘headquarters’ was hit. He was on TV asking people to help support the ministry. He still is active, and I don’t want to give the impression that he got wiped out. This was just another ‘weather event’ that coincided with a strong prophetic word. I remember studying the Azusa street revivals years ago [the early 1900’s] and how there were some prophetic words of judgment and certain earthquakes and things happened that were major. There were brothers who took the position that these events had nothing to do with God. They were clearly the work of the devil. Others produced tracts [small booklets] showing all the verses in the bible that speak of God acting thru these events. There are a lot of them, particularly in Psalms. Frank Bartleman, a very well respected brother who was a journalist during the revivals documented this. I remember reading in his book ‘another wave roles in’ [an excellent book] the scriptural proofs given for weather events to have been from God. The argument was made fairly conclusively. I am not saying Katrina or the deaths of innocent people are an act of God. I am saying that there were many scriptures that were brought out at this time that seemed to show Gods hand in weather events that coincided with the things he was doing at the time. Before Katrina hit the gulf coast and wiped out New Orleans, a prophet in the US, Kim Clement, prophesied of it. I do not endorse everything Kim says, but he did prophesy this event. Many in the Body of Christ were quick to come out with articles on how ‘God was not in this’ ‘it was a demonic thing’ and all sorts of stuff saying there is no way God would ever bring judgment in this way. The ‘pastoral’ part of me says the same thing; the ‘prophetic’ part of me differs. I dreamt yesterday that I was going to see my prophetic friend [the ex addict who is prophetic] and as I was leaving his block I was running to the corner, I don’t know if I was feeling attacked by the enemy or what. I dropped the cassette tapes on the street [the ones I drop off at the radio station] and some vehicle ran over them. I tried to salvage them but couldn’t. I felt this was a prophetic dream telling me that the enemy is ‘coming after’ me because of the ‘seed/word’ that the Lord has deposited in me at this season. The experience of feeling attacked the other day was quite severe. It was the same feeling of ‘loosing my mind’ that I felt many years earlier when confronting the ‘cult guy’ [gods angels group, by the way scripture says the devil disguises himself as an ‘angel of light’] When this happened the first time I was rocked. This time I managed to pray thru and simply stand ground and say ‘get behind me satan, I rebuke you’. This comes from years of experiencing Cross experiences. Arriving at a place in your life where the goal isn’t to live, but to get the word of God out as much as possible before you ‘depart’. A sense of ‘at least I posted this stuff on the blog, now if you try to kill me at least the word got out’. In the world I believe you would describe some of these ‘emotional’ ups and downs as depression, nervous breakdown and stuff like that. Then you wind up getting medicated and you abort the process of discovering the true hidden secrets of the Kingdom that come to those who have ‘descended low into the pit’. There is an actual truth to identifying with Christ in severe trials that allows you to go so low that you can ‘retrieve treasures’ that are only found in that place. An identifying with Jesus in his actual descent into hell. It was there that he ‘took the keys’ and led a troop of captives out of captivity. You must go to ‘that place’ in order to set captives free. NOTE: I want to stress the prophetic image of Jesus being in Hell and taking the keys of death from the devil. To me this experience shows me that there will be times where you will have to be face to face with the enemy. These experiences are not ‘flashy warfare experiences’. You could describe them as ‘terrifying’ but that’s what the enemy wants us to feel at those times. The best way to describe this is God wants to bring us to a place where we don’t fear death. [Don’t fear the reaper-Blue Oyster Cult] The main ‘button’ of fear is death. When you have settled this issue it enables you to have these ‘times’ where by necessity you will have to go to a ‘low’ point and stand face to face with the devil. You will not glory in your spiritual authority at this point. You will be vulnerable and understand that it is Jesus who is ultimately doing battle at this point. When I first got saved I remember having experiences in prayer that I thought were normal. I would sit on the bed early and just pray. I experienced a sense of ‘being out of my body’ and kinda going into space. It was quite surreal. I knew if I wasn’t a believer it would be too much too handle. There was a total loss of control. You might well have been dead and not even realized it. This is what it felt like. These were not demonic things; these were experiences with God that caused you to ‘fall on your face as one that is dead’ [it says John did this in the book of Revelation]. It takes years of walking with God and experiencing severe ups and downs that enable you to go thru these things without fear. I read how the brother from Rock Wall that I spoke on earlier went thru a lot of this stuff after the ‘prime time live’ show ‘mugged’ him. Even though he divorced his wife and suffered severe depression/bi-polar disorder, his wife still spoke well of him. She testified that even when all was lost in his life, even his mind, that he still prayed regularly. I identified so much with this. God brings us full circle and we get to a point where we are not concerning ourselves with ‘looking good’ or presenting a ‘package’ to people. You at that point say ‘if I can just finish the course I will be happy’. NOTE; I know I have mentioned a lot of prophets on this site. Let me say I do not endorse everyone I mention. I like Bill Yount, John Paul Jackson, Patricia King, Bobby Conner and a few others. I like them all, but some are putting stuff out right now that isn’t for a worldwide [or national] audience. They might be OK words, but they are meant for the local church only. Others are too quick to say ‘I heard an audible voice from God’ while this is possible, it is extremely rare. The purpose for prophetic insights and gifting is for God to communicate with us thru his Spirit to the whole Body. The ‘audible voice’ is a form of communication that is not primarily ‘spirit’ it is by definition ‘physical’. I know these things have happened in scripture, I just am a little uncomfortable with the level of the brothers who are saying this to a national audience at this time. NOTE; The principle of going ‘so low’ and ‘so high’ emotionally is called bi-polar. Some feel that true genius is associated with those who have had the ability to ‘obsessively compulse’ on things. Einstein, Luther and others had things like this. The great mind in math, John Nash [beautiful mind] suffered from severe schizophrenia thru out his life. Lincoln was a manic-depressive. I am not saying I am a genius, but I remember as a boy memorizing all the license plates on the block as I walked to school. Also having ‘ticks’ where I would have to turn my head and stuff like that. Years later my family [wife and kids] would see the shows on TV and say ‘that’s dad’ I know it is, I kinda joke about it. I have these stupid ticks with my hands. I will be ‘extending and twisting my fingers all the time’ I do joke about it. I was pruning the roses and actually cut my finger. My kids thought it was funny. It was the stupid tick that made me stick the finger out and cut it. I feel for the turrets guys [I actually think I have some of this to be real honest, I don’t like being this honest] who have this uncontrollable urge to use racial slurs when they are around black people. It would be hard to live in Newark with this one! NOTE: In the story of John Nash you find him avoiding medication because it not only dulled the ‘other voices’ he was hearing, but it also ‘dulled’ his ability to think critically and hear ingenious’things. When people are diagnosed with certain things and they also have great ability to understand, they choose to deal with the ‘other stuff’ so they can continue to hear God in a special way. It’s like one of the strategies of the devil is to speak to you so much that you will choose to medicate out so you wont hear anything. Jesus said the sheep ‘hear’ and know the voice of the Father, they will not listen to the enemy. But inherent in the ability to discern which voice is which, is the fact that when you start hearing from God at a higher level the enemy will also speak louder! [If you are diagnosed with a disorder I am not telling you not to take medication, that is between you and God].
(335) I was talking to a friend the other day and we were discussing certain end time things. I showed him how the first century Christians had their heads chopped off, were burned at the stake, eaten by lions and all sorts of stuff. How our black Christian brothers in southern Sudan are being wiped out by the oppressive northern Muslim regime. How Christians have gone thru these things and will go thru them till the end. I told him this in answer to the question ‘do you believe Christians will go thru the tribulation’. I said it must look funny to all our brothers who are in heaven looking down, thinking ‘these American 21st century Christians are the only ones who will escape this stuff, that sure doesn’t seem fair’!
(336) Picture if you were playing some board game. The game lasted one hour. The object of the game was to collect as many rewards as possible within the hour. During the game you and others learn certain ‘secrets’ along the way. One of the secrets is, at the end of the game the only rewards you get to keep are the ones you didn’t show off during the game. The temptation to ‘show them off’ was strong, but if you wanted credit after the hour you just had to ‘hide’ yourself until the hour was up. Many others who had collected wonderful treasures assured those who were waiting ‘don’t worry about it, we all show our treasures now, it feels really good, we all do it’. Most of us today don’t realize we are not ‘waiting the hour’. NOTE; just walked outside and heard the verse ‘could you not wait for me for one hour’. Jesus said this to the disciples right before the Cross. Note; scripture says Jesus descended lower than any man, and then ascended higher than any man. It is the actual experience of being in the lowest pit that qualifies you for great revelation. The New Testament says Eve was deceived when she ate of the fruit, not Adam. Some see this to be chauvinistic. I believe it is prophetic. Scripture calls Jesus the last Adam. The first Adam willingly chose to cut himself off from the presence of God so he could be with his wife. Jesus endured the cross for the joy of knowing we would be with him. In essence Jesus walked willingly away from the presence of the Father so he could be with his wife! [All Christians are called ‘the bride of Christ’].
(337) Lets try to undo some stuff. One of the other areas where Christians have been ‘taught wrong’ is the area of suffering and difficulty. I remember the elaborate explanations that the Word of Faith/prosperity preachers would go thru to contradict the plain meaning of verses. I don’t want to harp on this, but thanks to the worldwide voice that these brothers have had thru Christian TV there are lots of people who are taught wrong. First; There is a verse in Corinthians that says ‘I sought the Lord 3 times to take this away from me and the Lord said ‘my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness’. The old time churches teach that Paul was sick and God wouldn’t heal him. Of course the prosperity guys would never go for this so they taught that God was telling Paul ‘I have given you the authority, you rebuke it and make it go away’. First, whatever it was that Paul was asking God to take away, if you read the whole passage you will see that the lesson Paul learned was God was allowing this thing to co exist for the purpose of humility. God was bringing great revelation from Paul and the fact that God would not remove the problem was what happened here. Like I said before, it is almost ‘demonic’ how the word of faith preachers get around every single verse like this. It is amazing. Now what do I think the ‘thorn’ in the flesh was. Paul said he asked God to remove the ‘messenger of satan that was sent to disturb him’ it is possible that the ‘messenger’ was an actual person [maybe the main Pharisee out of the Jerusalem church who was going around infecting Paul’s churches with legalism?] It is possible that an actual ‘messenger’ was really what Paul was talking about. To interpret this passage by saying God was telling Paul to remove the problem ‘with his own faith’ is false. Just wish the Christian networks weren’t letting so much stuff like this ‘slip thru’. The word of faith group also teaches that the Lord would never use actual sickness to chasten ‘discipline’ his children. For the most part I kinda agree with this. The old time churches used to have the attitude ‘if I am sick then God is trying to teach me something’ so the prosperity guys go to the other extreme and say ‘if you are sick, somehow it is your fault. Sooner or later you will see you did something wrong, didn’t have enough faith, etc’ There is an interesting verse in Corinthians that says ‘for this cause many are weak and sick among you, and some have died’ and then ‘if we would judge ourselves we would not be judged, but when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord so we will not be condemned with the world’. Believe me I am familiar with all the arguments around these verses. To be honest, in this context the word ‘sick’ and God ‘chastening’ go hand in hand. Can I explain how this is true along with the truth that God heals and the enemy kills. I can go thru a few pages on it, but for now simply go check these scriptures out. I am not saying Christians should sit idly by and accept sickness. God’s word says ‘by his stripes I am healed’ and I believe that. I am just saying we don’t have to go thru the bible and find ways to explain away everything that we don’t like or understand. And finally ‘Is it ever Gods will to suffer’ well the word of faith preachers teach no. They say all suffering, chastening and discipline that God does is limited to ‘the word’. To be honest once again they have a real intricate system of ‘theology’ that seems to explain away all the plain verses on suffering. They will take you to the suffering/discipline verses and say ‘the suffering spoken of here is the ‘pain’ you experience when Gods word shows you that you are wrong’ [I guess sort of like what we have been doing!] and then they also extend the ‘suffering’ to the idea that when all Christians are wealthy and healthy and every thing is full and good, that when others talk about them, that in essence this is the ‘persecution’ that arose ‘because of the word’. That is because they have appropriated the word to arrive at this level of ‘fullness in all areas’ that any one who disagrees is actually fulfilling the suffering verse. Well it does get tiring after a while. First, Peter says [in the bible] that Jesus suffered and left us an example on how to suffer also. Did Jesus suffer by everything going well and people just talking about him? I mean heresy is deceitful because it can be believable. I think it was Hitler who said if you tell a lie long enough people will begin to believe it as truth. The New Testament teaches there are Christians who in Gods will suffer. These prosperity guys even explained away the martyrdom of Stephen in the book of Acts. Cant go thru the whole thing, but they taught basically that it was Stephens choice to believe for deliverance or go thru martyrdom. He chose martyrdom. I guess you can say we all choose whether we will be obedient to Gods call or not. And in some cases people do choose to ‘opt out’ of the suffering. But this is not Gods will. Many of these preachers who preach this have actually ‘opted out of Gods will’ by choosing to embrace these things. They have managed to get around the ‘cross experiences’ thru these elaborate schemes and will have to answer to God for teaching this to so many people. So today we learned that sometimes we are called to go thru hard times. We don’t accept everything that happens to us with a fatalistic mindset ‘whatever will be will be’ like the Calvinist who stubbed his toe real bad and said ‘sure glad that’s over’. But we do understand that sometimes the will of God is ‘my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness’.
(338) There are so many things to say right now, I really wanted to take a break. I read an article from a book on business and fulfilling life’s goals. It wasn’t a Christian book, but I liked the principle. The author shared how she learned that one of the major obstacles to doing what matters in life is YOU! That is we have a tendency to become ‘stagnant’ and live our lives in the parameters that we are familiar with, in the same ‘scenery’ we have been looking at for years. When we decide to step out in faith and ‘remove’ ourselves from familiar surroundings, this act in and of itself creates the new ‘route’ and way to see beyond the present [actually a lot of this wasn’t in the article]. Biblically God calls us at times to ‘Abrahamic’ faith. ‘Get out of your country and from your kindred and from your fathers house and I will make of thee a great nation’ this last year my children moved out and bought homes and ‘resettled’ in new land. If you were to ask me at the beginning of the year to have helped them ‘re camp’ and move out and everything, I would have said ‘no way’ you guys are working full time, attending college and stuff, you are biting off more than you can chew! But now I actually enjoy going to my daughters ranch and spending the night. It’s ‘new territory’ that my ‘seed/offspring’ walked into and I am in a sense entering in to their harvest. I read online some stuff on the prosperity brothers. I really cant ‘stay there’ too long. I know you guys think I am hard on them, but there a lot of critics who really personally attack them with name calling. We look ‘tame’ compared to them. I feel like the reason I am not a ‘theologian’ or even a ‘suit and tie’ preacher is because the Lord wants us to reach a lot of the younger generation of kids who are ‘lost’ in this movement. Most people that finally meet me after hearing us for years don’t realize I really look like some throwback ‘hippie’ from the 70’s. I am not purposely doing it; I just am more comfortable with jeans and raggedy clothes then with the whole ‘ I am a preacher’ type look. I feel many of the kids in these movements have not been effectively reached because the ‘reproovers’ have been the old type guys, and some have been way to personal. I was watching an old show from some businessmen who were Christians. The whole time period and persona of these brothers was another time and place. They were sharing on their experiences of coming to faith in Christ. Very successful and well-known business guys. As one of them was sharing on what the Lord showed him in the parable of the sower, he made an off the cuff remark that the parable wasn’t about money ‘30-60-100 fold’ but about spiritual truths. I thought how sad, that this brother is right, but this false interpretation has been going around for so long that it even reached these brothers from ‘another time and place’. I recently read a vision that a prophet had, part of it dealt with God doing a mighty deliverance among his people. There were some other personal things that led me to see our role in this. I pray for you ‘young guys’ God is asking you to step out and re position yourselves spiritually, you are required to ‘leave your fathers house’ [the old stuff you were taught from men you respected] and move to another place.
(339) THE MAN WHOSE NAME IS THE BRANCH, HE WILL BRANCH OUT FROM HIS PLACE AND BUILD THE TEMPLE OF THE LORD Was just praying and seeing Gods purpose. A tree will ‘reach’ out to certain areas/spaces. The tree will drop acorns/pecans etc. the seed has the potential for another tree. God wants you guys to be trees, not just ‘seeds’. We often view our selves as simple ‘little parts’ in a big plan. Modern churches/ministries often tell you this ‘what can you do on your own? But if you join your little part with this big ministry then you can touch the world’ I am here to tell you that you CAN touch the world with your little part. I don’t want to ‘re produce’ other ‘corrective’ ministries. I want to ‘re produce’ Jesus followers who are willing to lay down everything for the gospel. I don’t want you guys coming to this site for interest only, sell out too! Join the revolution!
(340) I read a prophecy a while back that spoke of 7-7-07 being a significant time. I emailed the brother and told him my birthday falls on 7-17-07 this year. [Who knows, maybe he missed it by 10 days?] Also 10 days represents a time of intense trial and difficulty. ‘The devil will cast some of you into prison for 10 days, be faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life’. While studying on line, I noticed that the major prosperity church here in Texas started their ministry in 1962, the year I was born. God in his mercy knew that there were things that would be taught in Texas that would do damage to the Body of Christ. He knew that one of the major propagators of this ‘doctrine from Balaam’ would arise in Texas in 1962. Maybe the Lord had a person ‘of violence’ born that year from the North [I was born in Hoboken, Frank Sinatra’s turf. A ‘voice’ that would touch a generation] that would eventually come down to ‘root it out’ [I will raise up one from the north, he will come upon princes as mortar, and the coastlands shall wait for his law] maybe the year 7-17-2007 was a time appointed by God, maybe we have come to the Kingdom for such a time as this? Just maybe. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN SUFFERETH VIOLENCE, AND THE VIOLENT TAKE IT BY FORCE. I HAVE RAISED UP ONE FROM THE NORTH, FROM THE RISING OF THE SUN SHALL HE CALL UPON MY NAME [early prayer] HE SHALL COME UPON PRINCES AS MORTAR AND THE COASTLANDS SHALL WAIT FOR HIS LAW. [Isaiah] NOTE: Some of the brothers speaking on the date ‘7-7-07’ are saying this date will not happen again for 1000 years. I understand what they mean, but they are actually saying ‘7-7-07’ will not happen until 1000 years. Well it will happen 10 more times in this period. 7-7-[21] 07, 7-7-[22] 07, etc. I don’t want to just be critical, but the problem of Christians not thinking things thru when they say them makes us look silly to the world.
(341) The western church [you and me] plays a major role in the purpose of God at this time. We are extremely immature in our thinking. We are extremely materialistic in our view of the churches role in society [read the Popes recent book-2007] we see ‘the answer’ to world evangelism as bringing in more money. God sees the actual people as the ‘riches’ of the nations. ‘Ask of me and I will give you the heathen for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession. Your sons shall come from far and your daughters from the ends of the earth’ Many truly do not see what we have done in the American church for the last 50 years. Jesus is prophetically ‘turning the tables of the money changers over’ he is entering a time period in the western church where he is dealing with and judging ‘our god’. One of the major tools that he raises up to use for tasks like this are prophets. It was a crafty strategy of the enemy to cause the prophets to ‘worship gods of gold’. In doing this the enemy for the most part removed the key tool that our Father wanted to use for this work. This work of dealing with idolatry in the western church is a major [if not the major] prophetic work that needs to be done in order for the nations to say ‘Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’. Jesus wasn’t just dealing with 1st century moneychangers. He was signifying the future ‘cleansing’ of his people from this mindset. Right now the Spirit of God is doing a ‘violent’ work in many key prophets thru out our country. Many were not dealing with these issues out of pride. They put their ministries and the success of their personas at the forefront of their concerns. They saw any reproof in this area as wrong. They were not humble enough to realize that the Spirit of God shows no partiality. God commands all men everywhere to repent. He does not come to take sides in arguments. He comes in power so he can reap the riches of the earth. We must be free from the riches of the world in order for him to do this.
(342) There are tremendous worldwide movements taking place right now in the earth. China is being brought to Christ at a tremendous rate. Some estimate 1200 people an hour are coming to Jesus. I remember hearing a testimony from some Pastor from an overseas country. Many of the Pastors in this country [it was a 3rd world country, I cant remember what one] were looking at the money gospel that we were pumping into their country. They all with one voice joined in an outright rejection and rebuke of these American heretics. They plainly saw all the things I have shown you on this site and flat out rejected it. There is a mindset that comes from these ministries that sees the ‘doctrine’ that they are putting out as ‘deep truths, the meat of the word’ they have deceived themselves into thinking that all of these obvious errors are really the true mysteries of God. Pride is very destructive. It was really humbling to see instances where sincere leaders and believers from the world over have at times openly rebuked the obvious error of these things. The instances I recall were like the people were saying ‘cant you see how deceived you American preachers are’. I realize that all American preachers are not like this. But these worldwide Christians see a regular dose of this kind of Christianity from the Christian networks. I see this as the Spirit of the Lord rising up within his people to correct the Body. I do remember watching the Fort Worth brother teach a series on Hebrews and teach that the meat of the word of God was being able to ‘rule your senses’ to a point where you only hear the promises of abundance and become rich. Any one who can’t ‘rule his senses’ and listens to the ‘nay sayers’ has weak faith and therefore is not financially rich. The amount of deception that was broadcast worldwide form this program is unbelievably harmful to the church. These verses from Hebrews were saying nothing even remotely close to this. It was so obvious to the average believer. But the leaders of this movement are so steeped in this stuff they simply cant see it. NOTE; I have written to some of these networks, as others have done. At times I feel like saying ‘I can’t believe you guys are allowing this to go worldwide’ but I guess they feel like they should. NOTE; Many of these verses that they use to do this are either taken from chapters or books of the New Testament that are actually warning against covetousness. Sometimes the actual verse says something like ‘avoid materialism, seek spiritual riches’ and these guys will take that verse and say ‘the word for ‘riches’ speaks of abundance in every area. Therefore God is telling us to seek wealth and money’ the amount of deception is quite unbelievable. [That’s why I can’t understand how my ‘prophetic’ friends do not only remain silent on this stuff, but they often perpetuate it. This takes the tool that God wants to use to up root this [the Prophets] and actually causes it to line up in agreement. This cannot stand any more.] NOTE; When these guys do this stuff, it’s like the bible and the true person of Jesus are tools to do what they want with. To say ‘Jesus is Lord’ after doing all this makes you think of the verse ‘why do you call me Lord and not do/say the things that I am saying’. This same preacher also taught that Hebrews says ‘Jesus is the Apostle and high priest of our confession/profession’ he actually taught that this meant ‘Jesus is the SERVANT of what we say, if we confess ‘car/money/etc.’ then Jesus as the priest of our confession goes and says ‘yes sir, I will now go to the father and cause the things you spoke to manifest’ This has Jesus ‘being Lord/High Priest’ turned completely around. The verse means we obey him. As our high priest he mediates for us. Because we have entered into covenant with him, we are debtors to him. We lay our lives down for him. To be honest the way this preacher actually showed Jesus in a way that made him look like a servant was truly offensive. He kind of showed Jesus as a slave to our desires. You guys defending this stuff, times up, don’t defend this anymore.
(343) Just ran our blog ad in the Dallas Morning News. Thought about the event that put Dallas on the map. The killing of President Kennedy. John Kennedy was killed in 1963. Right around the dates I have been discussing. It’s like a demonic spirit was coming against ‘John’ as the enemy was ‘planting’ a work of deception that would do harm to the person of Christ for generations to come.
(344) I am up early right now, there is this tremendous wind/lightning storm going on in my area. Usually I have to get wet when this happens. Being outside praying during a thunderstorm is surreal. This time the rain is limited to the gulf, so I can walk without getting wet. The view of the lightning is great. I am typing this without power right now. Working on batteries because the storm knocked out power. I have a lot to say so I hope I get power back soon. We should have our blog posted in the Dallas Morning News this Saturday. At first I had no intention of ‘biting off more than I could chew’ but I felt the Lord gave me some signs to go to Dallas. This area houses a lot of worldwide ministries. Some of the leaders are seeing the things we speak on. There actually is a type of spiritual warfare going on in the ‘intellectual community’ of charismatic/evangelical ministries. I put ‘intellectual’ in quotes because I hesitate to use this word. The normal level of study and thinking among these ministries is really shallow. All the obvious things we have dealt with could have been avoided if key leaders simply new how to read and interpret scripture. A few years ago I spoke to a national ‘level’ prophet. He actually had opportunity to personally witness to Saddam Hussein before the war. I share this not to brag, but to show that God wants the prophets and the church to see and think on a level that we are not at yet. Most American ministries are simply Christian businesses that are set up to teach their peculiar view/style of Christianity to a passive audience. The intent of the prophetic voice of the church is to speak into society at large and influence it with the reality of God. Some of the silly end time scenarios you see espoused on Christian TV are not only wrong, but also dangerous. All the governments of men [even Israel] that operate outside of Christ’s rule are simply the governments of the world. While God has great plans for Israel, this does not supercede what I just told you. The fact that we have well known evangelists siding to the point of military action from one side towards another is blurring the lines. While I in no way support the Hammas groups of Palestine, to actually advocate military violence towards any group is wrong. I recognize the right of all nations to defend themselves against terrorism, yet Gods Kingdom operates on a different level. These end time preachers really think you can open up the books of Daniel and Revelation and read the newspaper as commentary. This level of ‘thought’ is not only shallow, but deadly. The Christian preacher should never place him self on the side of any human govt. against another group of people that actually has Christians living in the country. If you advocate violence thru the reading of these prophetic books, you don’t realize that you might have joined sides with a govt., no matter how ‘good’, that rejects Christ and actually kills Christians as collateral damage. Now am I saying we should have no voice in world affairs? NO! But the churches voice loses credibility when it does not see these distinctions. The former Soviet Union was an oppressive form of govt. the people were ‘robots’ that functioned as tools of a greater purpose. The problem was no one developed into independent people/thinkers under this model. Though the original designs were noble to a degree, the fact is this type of govt. was repressive. The church in general has functioned this way for generations. Most modern forms of church tell people that their job is to be an audience and be passive and bring your money and GOD FORBID THAT YOU WOULD THINK ON YOUR OWN. Then you have the radicals like me who challenge the system and at times have succeeded in a small way. But the people, just like the Russians, were co dependant for so long that they cant really function well when true liberty is given them. Many had high hopes for the former Soviet Union [The Beatles actually wanted to get back to the USSR, you don’t know how lucky you are] the reality is the people could not function well in a Capitalistic form of govt. because they were ‘held captive’ for so long. God wants the prophetic voice to bring his people to an ‘Exodus’ from limited mindsets and practices. The problem seems to be that they have been ‘held captive’ for so long, they really don’t know how to deal with it. NOTE; the simple fact that the transition from natural land [Israel] to spiritual land [the church] as one of the major ‘shifts’ in the minds of the first century JEWISH APOSTLES should cause us to question the strong GENTILE EVANGELISTS emphasis on natural Israel. This development of end time views revolves around specific scripture. The disciples asked Jesus one time ‘are you going to restore the Kingdom to Israel now’ and Jesus says ‘it is not for you to know the times and seasons that the Father has put in his hand’. The future return of Jesus and the fact that scripture speaks of Christ’s return to this land [natural Israel] is significant. You cant ‘spiritualize’ everything about natural Israel. The fact also is that Gods chief concern and purpose for humanity is located in ‘the true Israel of God’ this is a Bible reference from the Apostle Paul speaking about the Christian Church. Paul made a division between Gods natural purpose for natural Israel and Gods eternal purpose for spiritual Israel. Paul also spoke of a day when all Israel will fall down in repentance and acknowledgement of Christ [book of Romans]. The Old Testament prophets speak of a day of great humiliation when Israel will ‘look upon him who they have pierced’ they will say ‘how did you get these wounds’ and he will answer ‘in the house of my friends’. The biblical characterization of Christ appearing to natural Israel is not one of militaristic vindication. It is one of national ‘rebirth’. At this time in the future when this happens, it will not be a vindicating of Israel over the church. It will be a humiliation and repentance as she is added unto the church. At this moment in history she will at one time have fulfilled her long awaited destiny, which was to present Messiah to humanity. She will be fulfilling this event as spiritual Israel, not natural! This level of understanding is not common today; we need to attain to these things long before Christ’s return. He will not return in a way that would seem to justify the American evangelists repression of other believers thru their distorted view of natural Israel. To put it bluntly [as I have been known to do] it would rock these American end time preachers for Jesus to come back and blow away the image and mindset that they have espoused. To a degree some of them have unknowingly sided with the kingdoms of men against the Kingdom of God. All natural govts, outside of Christ, are the Kingdoms of men. All believers on the planet are in the Kingdom of God. Some of these evangelists have given voice, thru their interpretation of scripture, to the kingdom of man coming against the Kingdom of God. It would be devastating to some of these preachers to think that Jesus is coming back to lead a military campaign in the natural, only to realize that they have sided with a human govt that has actually killed a fellow believer [possibly Palestinian] and in so doing have fulfilled the verse that says ‘I have received these wounds in the house of my friends’. Many evangelists don’t realize that the actual killing of another believer is the worst ‘wounding’ you can inflict upon Christ’s Body. To have done this thru a distorted view of scripture would be too much to handle for these guys. God in his mercy is not returning just yet. NOTE; scripture says a time is coming when those who kill Christians will think that they are doing Gods service, most don’t realize how true this can be!
(345) Let me deal with certain things that inevitably come up when you discus these things. Jesus said in the gospel ‘destroy this Temple and in 3 days I will raise it up’. The mistake that caused the hearers to later accuse him [the Body of Christ] was thinking that he was speaking about/ concerned with the natural Temple. The leaders would later bring this up at his unjust trial. The fact that they were unable to discern between Gods purpose for the spiritual temple [the Church/Body of Christ] with the natural temple was one of the ‘hinges’ that would cause them to side with human govt. [Rome] against Gods govt. [the govt. shall be upon his shoulders]. Today we make the same mistake when we view the natural temple [yet to be built] as the ‘hinge’ of end time events. I have heard the most elaborate scenarios of things that will happen and the temple being the key factor. The key factor for Christ’s return is the condition of the spiritual temple, not the natural one. Scripture clearly says that Christ will return for a glorious temple without spot or wrinkle. This is speaking of us, the true Body of Christ. Those who have focused on the natural temple have unwittingly missed the key element of Christ’s return, which of course is the condition of the spiritual Body of Christ. When Christian leadership in the church is able to ‘rightfully divide’ the word of truth, then we will have come a lot further towards the return of Christ. God loves all nations. Muslim ones, Jewish ones, Gentile ones, etc. His chief concern since the Cross is to bring all tribes of humanity into this one new nation called ‘the Church’. His kingdom is not of this world, or else we would be fighting and crusading against the ‘infidels’. But because his kingdoms boundaries are spiritual, we fight with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. We ‘take dominion’ and inherit the earth thru acts of love and charity. These radical Muslim nations who want to kill us, see us feeding their children at the risk of our lives, while we bomb the hell out of them from the air. Which strategy fits in more with Christ? These Palestinians and Israelis see our charity workers risking their lives on the field while our American evangelists are advocating violence and expound on ‘smart bombs and patriot missiles’, which do you think is representing Christ’s concerns? We have not done justice to our King who said ‘if my Kingdom were of this world my servants would fight’ If you look at the mindset of ‘his servants’ it makes you wonder. NOTE; I am not a pacifist. I do believe in the historic Christian doctrine of ‘just war’. There are times where it is noble for human govts to war against other govts for the purpose of justice [WW2]. The point I am making is the ‘line’ between the Church and the ‘warring nations’ should be clearly seen. The tremendous damage that is done when a radical Islamic Nation is able to portray their terroristic advances as ‘Muslim against Christian’ is helped when American evangelists don’t rightfully distinguish between the two. It also doesn’t help when the American President actually uses the word ‘crusade’ when describing what we are doing!
(346) Let me note that these last 2 entries were written right after one of the ‘worst’ days I have had in a long time. When you go ‘low’ you can get the ‘keys’ from the adversary that will unlock many doors.
(347) Just felt like I heard the Lord say ‘I am coming at this season to remove certain things that have embedded themselves within the church, align with my purpose. I am the Plumb line’. Felt this especially for the Prophets.
(348) There were certain prophetic people whom God raised up at specific times. The history of Gods Old Testament people showed that they time and again were not recognizing the significance of what God was saying thru them at the time. This is what scripture means when it speaks of Israel saying ‘they rejected the chief corner stone’. Lets be real. I am not saying ‘our voice’ is the singular fulfillment to these things. Many prophetic people have gone really off course by viewing themselves as the 2 witnesses of the book of Revelation. I fall on the side that sees these types of verses as speaking of ‘companies of people’ the restoration of offices ‘Apostles/Prophets’ more so than specific people. In saying this I also see that God has real destiny for each of us. There are ‘prophetic’ voices that he does use to speak at set times. Martin Luther King and others. What I felt the Lord saying is ‘don’t despise the people that I set in your midst’. We are often looking for ‘prophets’ and prophetic words from ‘far away’ ‘I went to this Prophets meeting and he said this’. That’s fine, but the scripture shows us that we have a tendency to ‘reject’ the prophetic voices from our home turf. Jesus said a prophet has honor except in his hometown. Now I don’t want to be too self-serving to all my ‘hometown brothers’, just wanted to say in general that we miss important things because of the ‘familiarity’ of prophetic people. ‘Oh I know him, he said or did this. Can you believe it’. Jesus ‘offended’ people by his familiarity. ‘This is the carpenters son. I had that kid fix my back porch 15 years ago. I brought him iced tea for [his name!] sake! If I want a prophetic word, it wont be from him’. Know no man after the flesh. Look at what God is saying. John the Baptist ‘knew’ Jesus as a cousin his whole life. Yet when it came time to officially recognize him and present him to Israel at his baptism, scripture says that John ‘knew’ him by the Spirits testimony. He did not act out of familiarity, he knew he had a destiny to fulfill, and true humility enabled him to do this.
(349) The rise of the Islamic religion came as a direct result of the Christian churches idolatry. 1400 years ago the prophet Muhammad saw the actual idolatry of the church in having statues and Christians actually bowing down in front of them during ‘church’ services. Muhammad led an iconoclastic revolt [image smashing] and felt that God was using him to judge idolatry in the church. In essence ‘radical Islam’ is sort of a type of ‘Babylonian’ judgment that God allows to come against the church when she becomes idolatrous/materialistic. Today radical Islam looks at all the TV and entertainment that is being produced from ‘western’ Christianity, and sees herself once again as an instrument in Gods hand to ‘judge’ idolatry/materialism. The western church doesn’t yet realize the significance of not being materialistic. Many of the mindsets say ‘this is what Christianity is all about, God is a good God [true] and therefore we are all bout ‘accumulating stuff’ [false]. This ‘idolatry’ of things has once again opened a ‘spiritual portal’ that allows ‘pagan’ nations to judge Gods people. In essence God uses wicked govt. and religions to come in and attack the ‘secure’ feeling of those who find security in ‘things’. The significance of the worlds 3 great religions [Christianity/Islam/Jew] at this time in world history is at a critical point. The reason why ‘spiritual Israel’ [all believers] will be the ‘body of people’ that Christ will return to and vindicate is because these have been the servants of all these other nations during these conflicts. Jesus said the last will be first. These humble believers who have been risking their lives reaching out to all these communities and trying to feed and help these nations are the ones that Christ returns to and ‘shows’ himself. In essence the humble church do inherit the earth. Natural Israel could not do this. The Israel of today is a govt. built and established on Old Testament truths. They still have embedded in their minds the concept of ‘animal sacrifice’ and obedience to law as the nationalistic ‘glue’ that holds the fabric of their society together. The return of Jesus will be an event where all nations will see and fall down and confess Jesus as Lord. It will be humbling to realize that at this moment God is not vindicating the thoughts or religions of men, but instead he will be vindicating the Lamb and his followers. Judgment will be given over to the Lamb and the humble ones who have been following him for 2 thousand years. The world will be relieved to see judgment in the hands of those who truly loved and gave themselves for them. Paul said we shall judge the world. Jesus said whosever’s sins you forgive will be forgiven. There is an aspect to the final judgment that is given to the Saints. This will not be an arrogant thing. Jesus is waiting for the saints to be mature enough to return and entrust this to them. You wouldn’t give your car to your 10 year old. But when they are mature enough you will entrust it to them. So a major aspect of Christ’s return is for his people to be mature enough to not want to judge and condemn, but who will be willing to ‘suffer these other nations to come unto him’. After all redemption was his purpose from the start. [I am not advocating universalism, I am showing you that at Christ’s return he wants his people to be able to handle in grace and mercy the role we will play in the judgment of the nations].
(350) I was watching a prophet the other day on TV. He seemed to be really enjoying the limelight. Just basking in Gods presence while ‘broadcasting’ his image worldwide. At one point he quotes a major money preacher. He quotes him in a way that justifies and aligns himself with this man. This is the same brother I have spoken about who routinely abuses Christ’s image and people. There was a sense of this prophet really enjoying God during this encounter, without truly putting the concerns of Gods people first. To have used this worldwide medium [TV] in a way that will eventually have to be undone was offensive to me. The arrogance of ‘self enjoyment’ ‘my ministry is going well, I have a worldwide persona, I regularly broadcast much revelation to the world, and oh yes, I just endorsed a person who does harm to the image of Christ’ We must put our ministries and our personas away [or at least far behind!] it’s having wrong priorities that causes these things to happen. First priority should be, if God gives you a worldwide audience, how can I best advance the cause of Christ? Maybe you are not called to be as radical as me in these areas. But at least stop endorsing these terrible views to a worldwide audience! Stop it now! NOTE; the quote was something like ‘so and so says ‘faith is the absence of fear’ True. There is a strange thing that happens with these brothers. They see simple truths, they focus intently on them. They proclaim them as tremendously deep revelation. They then go right past the entire plain body of truth taught thru out the entire Word of God. It is an amazing ‘deception’ to strain at nats while swallowing camel’s whole!
(351) While outside praying, I was praying for the area where our radio program broadcasts. The southern part of Texas as well as up and down the gulf Coast. I also was praying for the ‘blog’ cities where we post. From Texas all the way to the New York area. There is an ‘overlapping’ area where both ‘trumpets’ blow. I sensed the Lord saying ‘I am going to do some overlapping things, some manifold things at one time. A wheel within a wheel. A territorial advance that will be unstoppable’. I have for a long time ‘seen’ the image of ‘3 fold cords’ not being easily broken. This year I kind of see it like the Radio [spoken word] Blog[written/virtual word] and People/Ecclesia [living epistles]. Felt like you guys are to play a major role in this thing. Let God use you to extend the Kingdom. Break the limited mindset of ‘getting people to support my ministry/come to my church’ type thing. Enter into a ‘brave heart/Patton’ mentality. ‘I will risk my life to be at the fore front of this revolution’.
(352) ‘What did you expect to find, was it something you left behind? Don’t you remember any thing I said when I said ‘don’t fall away and leave me to myself, don’t leave love bleeding in my hands, in my hands again. Love lies bleeding. Don’t you remember? But I do, you never even tried’ [Jesus says we are marked in his hands]. The song Hemorrhage from the group ‘fuel’. You can also find this in scripture! We are so plastic in the eyes of the world. The limelight sucks the anointing out of Gods Prophets. In 2 thousand years we went from Jesus instruction on church leadership as washing each other’s feet [servant hood] to today’s mindset that has the singular most important piece of ‘church furniture’ as being the stage. God help us. I feel so tired right now, totally drained.
(353) Let me ramble a little. I was watching the Republican Presidential debate last night. One of the candidates said of abortion ‘I am against it personally, but it is a woman’s choice. She has a right to her own conscience’. Was it the ‘slaveholders choice’ to do what he wanted? Were you personally against slavery, but respected the ‘free choice’ of the slaveholder? Bunch of lying hypocrites. Choice ends at the line of another human beings right to live. No person has the ‘choice’ to dismember a baby’s body inside a womb. I heard the reading of one of the transcripts from the recent Supreme Court ruling against partial birth abortion. The Judge was asking one of the Doctors who gave testimony to describe the procedure. The Doctor is saying ‘we pull the babies legs out’ the judge asks ‘are the legs kicking’ ‘yes’. We insert the ‘tongs’ type instrument and place it over the babies skull. ‘Are the legs still kicking’ ‘yes’. We squeeze the instrument and crush the skull. ‘The legs are not kicking anymore’. You call this a woman’s right? I don’t care which political side you fall on, how dare anybody be so blind to call this a woman’s right, and to approve of this for someone’s vote. To want power and position so bad, that you would do it at the cost of giving voice to the singular most horrendous act of ‘infanticide’ that has taken place in 2 thousand years. Never has there been a time in history where the amount of babies that have been killed can equal what we have done. The wonderful Democrats are right now trying to undo what the Supreme Court has banned. They have certain things they feel they can do legislatively. Thanks so much. I actually like one of the Democrats who is running at this time. He is a Black American, well spoken. His favorite philosopher is Reinhold Niebuhr. A great Christian Theologian. His son [Ralph- I think it’s his son?] is on the cutting edge of Christian thought in our day in the area of ‘Ecclesiology’. A lot of the stuff you read on this site in the area of church form and structure are things he would agree with. I think it’s great for a Black Democrat to have his father as one of his favorite thinkers. Could I vote for him? No. Why not? He believes the murder of little babies is a woman’s choice. Would you vote for someone who believed slavery was the slaveholder’s choice? Don’t vote for people who believe the life or control of another person is in the hands of those with the power to take their life. The fact that this is being done is wrong. Don’t side with it. [Also, as we speak out for the unborn. Lets do what we can to save the hundreds of thousands of little black children dying in Africa and other parts of the world].
(354) Just thought of Isaiah. Haven’t read it in years [at least the first 39 chapters, I do read chapters 39 to the end regularly]. God appears to him and gives him this wonderful prophetic ministry. God ‘touches’ his lips with fire [a prophetic image from Revelation that says ‘fire proceeds from their mouths’ not real fire, Gods voice. God is a consuming fire.] Isaiah then sees his own life as being undone. He sees himself and the time period he is living in as ‘unclean’ [out for their own pleasures and concerns]. There is this ‘realization’ that just about everyone involved, including himself, are so far behind. He ascends to this place of ‘seeing’ the Lord. At the same time he is at the lowest emotional and spiritual point in his life. The fact that God has given him this door to speak, brings with it this ‘prison’ of going high and low. An aspect of Jesus ministry, who ascended higher than any man, but also lower than any man. Isaiah begins to see the vanity of everyone involved. I read something from John Paul Jackson. It was either a dream or vision. God showed John the present state of leadership in the church. There were 4 levels. One of the levels was very shallow. No one from that ‘time’ was actually mature. They were all victimized by pride and showmanship. They meant well, they just couldn’t truly see the condition of themselves as well as the church. God told John that this was the present level. Isaiah thought they were at the 1st level, until God opened his eyes. It was hard to swallow what he was ‘seeing’. NOTE; Bible says ‘eat the book/words’. In your mouth it will be sweet [prophetic flow will be life giving] but in your belly bitter [it will be required to ‘ingest’ stuff that wont taste good. Things that are ‘hard’ to swallow. It says this of the prophet John in the book of Revelation]
(355) I kinda see it like this. Say if we were all in the 3rd grade [lets stick to our earlier analogy] but we didn’t realize it. We were all doing ‘stage plays’ and assignments and regular school activities. Some of us were smarter than others. But we were all still at the 3rd grade level. The real achievers among us, those who really stood out, were very well known. All the others classmates knew how smart they were. But the truth was they might have been at the 4th grade level, maybe 5th. But in the overall scheme of things everybody is still immature. Then one day the Lord reaches out to little Tommy. He tells him ‘Little Tommy, I am going to reveal to you university level stuff, but first I am going to show you how everyone is really in elementary school though they don’t know it’. God then pulls back the curtain and shows little Tommy the vanity of it all. Tommy realizes that though the Father loves them, they are all little kids acting like adults. The fact that God decided to show Tommy these things doesn’t really change Tommy’s level of maturity. Tommy is just like everybody else [I am a man of unclean lips in the midst of unclean people] the only difference is God chose Tommy for this task. The problem is because they are all still immature, even Tommy, this will lead to the other classmates saying ‘did you see Tommy’s scores the other day? He is really smart; lets make Tommy the most likely to succeed. Lets make him class president’. The only problem is along with the ‘ability’ to see more than his classmates, comes with it the obvious vanity of the whole thing. It’s sort of like Tommy realizes he might very well be the most influential kid in the class. But a time is coming [maybe after Tommy and all his classmates are gone] that all the other students are going to realize that Tommy and all of his contemporaries were only at the 3rd grade level. This causes Tommy to feel like ‘why even waste all this time in the 3rd grade?’ [Paul said he had a desire to depart, which would be much better, instant university level, but to stay with the 3rd graders was needful. Remember with the gift that Tommy had came also the realization that he too was in the 3rd grade] Even though Tommy’s friends ‘idolized’ his ability to see down the road, Tommy realized that this fleeting moment of glory was an absolute waste of time. Tommy even wrote in his letters about the vanity of the whole thing, but the other students would keep exalting Tommy, even though he wrote that we shouldn’t do this. There finally comes a day when Tommy will have to leave. All his friends will go their ways. Eventually Tommy will see them again, at that time everyone will realize that what Tommy was saying and seeing didn’t make him better in any way. They will realize that they were all childish. That even though they now see that Tommy knew a lot of this before them, yet somehow this doesn’t matter anymore. They all see everything at the same level now. Tommy knew all along that this future re union was coming, a day when everyone would all see at the highest level. At that time they will realize that to glory in each other’s knowledge and wisdom was just a childish game that they all played at a former time. This is why Tommy could never ‘get on with the program’ the same ability to see a little further than his classmates also brought with it the futility to glory in men. IT IS SWEET IN YOUR MOUTH, BUT BITTER IN YOUR BELLY. NOTE; One of the worst things that came along with Tommy’s gift was every once in a while some of the students would pretend to have very deep truths. They would tell the others students ‘this is university level stuff’. Out of pride the others students would learn these basic teachings and spread them to the whole school. It was easy for Tommy to recognize that this teaching wasn’t really university level. Tommy could see this because of the gift, not because he was smarter. It was really hard on Tommy because when he would warn the other students of the obvious 3rd grade level of their teaching, they would take it very personal and say ‘who does Tommy think he is, he’s just a carpenters son [a ‘secular’ un ordained laborer] I think maybe we should even kill him’ this made Tommy really tired of the whole thing and would cause him to want to graduate real fast. NOTE; Sometimes Tommy would feel like the whole thing was a big game. He knew it was wrong to feel this way, as being God chose him to see at a higher level. Tommy would feel bad about being cynical at times. He sometimes thought that maybe this was part of the price. Maybe God allowed Tommy to feel this way as part of the gift. Tommy knew there was a man named Paul who used to pray that certain things would go away and God told Paul I am allowing this thing to remain because of the gift. This made Tommy wonder why so many of the 3rd graders wanted to be on stage so badly, Tommy knew that to really be ‘on stage’ was something different than they thought. Tommy knew that the piece of furniture that God uses is called the Cross. That to be ‘lifted higher’ meant something different. The 3rd graders used to sing a song ‘lift Jesus higher, lift Jesus higher’ they took the words from the bible, but being they were only in the 3rd grade they didn’t realize that this spoke of crucifixion, not fame. Tommy felt this to be a prophetic sign that spoke to the level of maturity that they were all at. NOTE; The rock opera ‘Tommy’ by the Who spoke of a blind kid [who is blind like my servant] who kept hitting the pinball just right. I have a cat named ‘Tommy’. We thought she was a boy at first, then she had babies! We had to get her leg amputated when she started coming around. She got hit by a car. Poor thing, she had 3 kittens [more are the children of the afflicted!] and spends a lot of time by her self. Sometimes it’s like she’s waiting to ‘depart’. The cool thing about prophetic things is they are so prophetic! [3 kittens/3 legs] 3 fold cords are not easily broken!
(356) Lets line up with scripture. God is going to allow us to ‘posses the land’. God has tremendous Abrahamic fulfillments that he wants to do thru you. The first century Apostles lived in a time where the actual inheriting and purchasing of land was a very real biblical act. Yet not one single New Testament Apostle raised money to purchase land or property. Funny thing? All the verses dealing with the purchase of land in the Old testament [I stress all!] were ‘spiritualized’ by Paul to mean ‘people groups’. Not once, not twice, every time! You think this would affect the mindset of the modern minister. God wants you and me to begin ‘possessing land’. If you do it the way Paul and Jesus did it, you will ‘run rapidly thru the land’. If you refuse to ‘transition your mind’ and attempt to fulfill these promises in the natural, it will not only slow you down, but you will be spending too much time with the cares of this life ‘I have bought land and I need to go see it’. Build the way EVERY New Testament Apostle did. Not a single appeal for money to buy ministry property or land. The only ‘land’ transaction you see taking place is the actual selling of it to meet the needs of the saints [Acts]. There was a very real sense of ‘inheriting the land’ that the Apostles took to mean the people who lived in these regions [Ephesus, Galatia, etc.] NOTE; To the ‘local’ Pastors who read this site, I don’t have you guys in mind right now, if it fits, fine. But I was reading some stuff on line and kind of felt like this was for some not in this area!
(357) Just woke up at work. Was dreaming I was in Jersey. This means God is doing a work with some of my generation, the old friends who I ‘re attached’ to this year. I had the sense that God was saying ‘all things are in place, I have ‘manipulated’ the environment to be favorable towards you. All you really need to do is stay on the board [game board] and you will begin hitting boardwalk/park place’. Guess I cant get away from board games right now. Did you ever feel like you were ‘in the game’ but not really? Your rolling the dice, your going around the board, but you just can’t seem to hit the favorable ‘real estate’. I felt like God was saying you are going to start hitting the ‘good land’. It’s always been there, but certain things prevented you from possessing it. You are about to start hitting the good spots. Don’t think ‘linear’ think ‘buffet table’. At the risk of going a little too deep, let me share some stuff. Some theologians feel that when the bible was interpreted from Greek/Hebrew to English that we lost something. Greek and Hebrew thought carried with it a type of learning that was like a buffet table. You would communicate many things at one time. These truths were not meant to be ‘put in a row’. You were not supposed to read them ‘in a line’. For instance you can read the book of Revelation as ‘consecutive’ events that happen one after another. Or you can see it as ‘concurrent’, that is a broad overview of many things, some are happening as we speak. This is a very debatable subject in the field of theology. Clark Pinnock, a contemporary theologian, actually says theology is like a buffet table. The more reformed thinkers reject this out of hand. They feel this is heresy. So without going to deep, lets say there is an aspect in God where he ‘spreads out the table before us’. Everything we need is really there [don’t think materialistic here!] the only thing that has been keeping us from ‘possessing the land’ is we have not been walking in divine favor. We haven’t been landing right. We are so used to ‘missing’ park place, that we are not even expecting to hit it anymore. We are happy to build motels on Baltic! God’s favor is the ‘transition’ stage that causes you to start landing on favorable real estate. You will begin to ‘inherit the nations’. God will allow you to influence people groups with the gospel. Don’t forget, to ‘inherit’ the nations is to bring in the harvest. In Jesus teaching those who were actually buying land [just developing material wealth] were actually disqualifying themselves from laboring in the real harvest. Don’t get too caught up with the acquisition of stuff. Be free to labor in the fields, they are ripe and ready to harvest [if you will, the buffet table has always been there].
(358) I was up praying early. I was actually saying to myself ‘you can go so low in the pit to retrieve treasures, that it becomes dangerous’. I had a sense of a Hollywood schema that would have the ‘hero’ saying ‘I will go and risk my life to save the damsel [or some other corny thing]’ and the others standing by and pleading with him not to take the risk. Sort of like Peter telling Jesus ‘don’t go to the Cross’. As I was actually ‘muttering’ the words about ‘a very low pit’ I heard on the radio the days verse ‘he reached down and took me out of the most horrible pit’ it was a contemporary version from Psalms. Lets share some treasures that were just mined from a low place. On this blog I discuss a lot of controversial things. One is the end times. I don’t hold to a lot of the popular end time scenarios. For instance I recently showed you why Christ’s return will not vindicate natural Israel. The answer was Jesus could not ‘vindicate’ any system outside of the true gospel. So the ‘key’ to seeing this is actually the Cross! You will find this to be the key to everything. All truths must ‘filter’ thru the Cross. You will not rightly divide scripture until you master this. One of the controversial ideas I have espoused is Nero being the ‘beast’ of Revelation. Many evangelicals disagree. Lets open a door using the ‘key’. One of the New Testament books that Paul wrote speaks of Jesus ‘destroying the antichrist’ at his coming. With a total destruction. Some who believe Nero was the beast say this ‘coming of Jesus to destroy’ was a ‘coming’ in judgment in AD 70. They ‘spiritualize’ the 2nd coming to make it fit. The modern evangelical who holds to the Tim Lahaye stuff sees this as an excuse to prove a point. They say ‘see, if Jesus totally destroys antichrist at the 2nd coming, then obviously Nero wasn’t him!’ I do want to note that early historians will tell you that one of the ‘nick names’ for Nero was ‘the beast’. Here’s a ‘key’. In Revelation you see many things happening at different times. You also see many spiritual truths that are concurrent [remember what I showed you the other day]. There are images that show the beast and the antichrist being bound for a period of time. I also showed you on this blog that Hebrews says ‘Jesus destroyed him that had the power of death thru dieing himself’. This ‘key’ of Christ’s death teaches us that the devil is already destroyed by the Cross. It’s not ‘really’ a future event. The 2nd coming is a ‘culmination’ and ‘crowning’ of the Cross’s work. So the image in Revelation of the antichrist being ‘bound’ might very well be speaking of what happened at the Cross. In all the generations of man, since the Cross there has been more light and freedom than at any other time. The enemy, as well as the antichrist, can very well be described as ‘bound’. Now you also have images in Revelation that show this ‘binding’ as being a ‘waiting stage’ for ultimate destruction. The ‘contents’ of death and hell are finally ‘poured’ into the lake of fire. Peter in the New Testament gives images of rebellious angels being ‘held in chains’ until the final ‘destruction’. So with all this in mind, here’s a key. Nero is being ‘held’ right now, with Hitler and every other wicked despot that has ever lived. They are waiting for the 2nd coming. At the real 2nd coming [not AD 70!] he will really be ‘destroyed with total destruction by the presence of the Lord’. This my friends is the key, Jesus and his Cross.
(359) I was ‘seeing’ some people from Jersey again. I saw myself going thru the Tunnel in the Fairview cemetery that I wrote about earlier in this blog. I kinda saw a light at the end of the tunnel. I was hoping I was finally getting there. Then I realized I was at the midway point! Ouch!! In the middle of this tunnel in Jersey we found a ‘smoke stack’ that was huge. I guess it was a midway point to let steam out? We would look up and see sky. We wondered where it came out. One day walking in Fairview we found the stack shooting up a few hundred feet in some ones yard. It was huge. From inside the tunnel it was hard to ‘see’ where you were at on the terrain. From outside your perspective changes. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel for you [3rd day, a Christian group. I do listen to all types of music, even Christian!]
(360) Let me clarify some things. To ‘exalt’ people because of their gifts is a sickness that the church suffers from. This is imbedded in the current level of maturity that we are at. It will take time for us to out grow this. To ‘recognize’ the gifted ones in our midst is also an act of humility. While we live in a time of exalting men’s images, we also live in a time of ‘not receiving’ the prophets. To ‘receive them’ means to simply recognize and accept the things they are saying by the Spirit, while at the same time seeing them as ‘equals’ in the Body of Christ. To understand that the priesthood of all believers supersedes the gifts. Gifts are free ‘presents’ that God gives us for everyone’s benefit. The fact they are gifts should cause the ‘gifted ones’ to be humble about it. It should also cause the others receiving the benefits to understand that they are all sharing from a gift that no one has earned. To understand the difference between the exalting of men and the receiving of gifted ones is a level that we are not at yet as a Body of people. Now some things about John the Baptist. John had this incredible singular ability to ‘see Christ’. He was humble enough to recognize as Christ increased, he would decrease. John also had this ‘knack’ for offending people in authority. Poor John just couldn’t stick with the positive confession! John preached against the Kings marriage to his brother’s wife. He spoke out against an obvious sin that others had come to accept. The kings wife eventually would have John beheaded. The beheading of John was accomplished by the wife manipulating the Kings authority to come against the prophet. She had her daughter dance a sensual dance for the King, The King said he would give her anything she asked. The mother told the daughter ‘I want Johns head’ she got it! The story of Jezebel in the Old Testament carries the same theme. The prophet Elijah [whom Jesus compared John to] was attacked by the King of Israel’s authority being used by his wife. Jezebel had ‘power’ to come against Elijah because of her position to the King. The book of Revelation speaks of the spirit of Jezebel. God warns one of the churches that ‘she was allowing Jezebel to seduce her people’. In the charismatic world whole books and conferences revolve around this theme. A problem with the church, we take stuff and blow it out of proportion. I see this ‘Jezebel’ as the power of the enemy to manipulate authority to come against Christ’s Kingdom. The crucifying of Jesus. It was accomplished thru political manipulation. Pilate and others using govt. and their place in it to position themselves. Being so caught up in trying to gain the approval of their constituents that they allow an ‘innocent man’ to slip thru and be put to death unlawfully. The enemy knew that an outright attempt to take innocent life would never fly, but thru these manipulative means, he could use secular authority to come against Gods people [Both John the Baptist and Elijah]. So today we have the act of abortion. It is accomplished because human govt has been manipulated by those who want position. The leaders were more concerned with power than justice. The enemy manipulated leaders to a point where the supreme court put its stamp of approval on infanticide, could a human being on his own go around killing babies? No. But the ‘voice’ of govt. behind the scenes allows this to happen on a broad scale. Jezebel [the manipulating of power] rears her ugly head. The fact that John spoke out against the wicked lifestyle of the King [authority] brought with it the inherent danger of Jezebel. John graduated early! NOTE; I feel like ‘to suffer that woman Jezebel to seduce Gods servants’ speaks more of a rebuke towards the church getting to a stage where she is so comfortable in society that she loses her prophetic voice of justice. When believers are under the ‘spell’ of Jezebel, it is not so much a demonic thing to me, as much as a ‘seduction of silence’. Things are going well for our ministries, we are experiencing joy, fame and growth. God is a good God, we are ‘changing our world with our words’ [which means we are creating the lifestyles that we want, while never truly impacting society] in a nutshell ‘we are suffering jezebel to seduce us’ while we sit around quietly as the King blatantly struts around with his brothers wife. Everyone knows it’s wrong, but there is this ‘conspiracy of silence’. That is until old John comes along. You know he’s got this great prophetic ability to ‘see Messiah’ the Old Testament prophets actually spoke of John, they said he would be someone who ‘came in the power and spirit of Elijah’. You know what he went and did? Old John had to go open his mouth one too many times. He felt like ‘the Lord’ wanted him to speak out on the obvious sins of the time. Poor old John went and got himself killed. We are still around to enjoy the benefits of Roman society; we are very ‘posh’. Just don’t talk too much about our King, he is an embarrassment that we are willing to put up with for now! [Old Jezebel had a good run in 1st century Rome]
(361) I was parked down by the bay/gulf the other day. I was listening to Christian radio out of San Antonio. I heard a church from the area. The Pastor was real nice, kinda reminded me of our early days. A little ‘too nice’. A good word, but very apologetic. Sort of like ‘we have a very nice church, very loving people. Our childrens worker is really nice. We have a very loving family’ all of it was good and true. It sounded like the early tapes I recorded the first few years of ministry. I remember going thru them years later and throwing them out. A lot of the stuff was OK, but there was a lot of ‘word of faith’ mixture that I was uncomfortable with [I used to actually say ‘we now know it’s Gods will for us to all be rich’. Ughh!] There was also a lot of ‘good morning everybody, I hope you had a very, very wonderful week. We are going to have so much fun today’. Ughh again! This just reminded me of how we have lost our prophetic voice. We do sound like wimps to the world at times.
(362) When I was a kid I had a chance to see Pink Floyd at the Jersey shore [Springsteins turf]. I missed the concert. It was ‘the wall’ concert. ‘All in all were just another brick in the wall’. Just had an impression of running and hitting and doing damage to a ‘wall’. It’s like others have ‘hit’ it before, but there was a sense of going so far and being a little scared. Like you reach a point where for a season you find yourself all the way up the wall, and you look back and realize you’re in trouble. I remember going to the Jersey shore with a friend. We were about 16 yrs old. He ‘hired’ me to go with him as protection. Me and one other guy. We went because he was going to beat up the guy his girlfriend was seeing. We got to town in this Chevy Nova. I asked my friend where he got the car. He ‘found it’ with the keys in it and running! We wound up at dusk in some baseball field asking for the guy. Some kid shows up and offers to smoke some free pot. Sure, why not? Now we are totally wasted in some strange town looking to ‘kick someone’s @$#@’ Sure enough the kid that got us high starts walking back to around 30 kids making their way across the field. He was just ‘prepping’ us for the kill. This is how I just ‘saw’ the wall image. I feel like there are certain ‘walls’ that have needed to be dealt with for some time. Dealing with them can be dangerous. You feel like you’re in the middle of some strange town and outnumbered. This is why scripture says ‘those who did not love their lives unto death received a reward’. We must advance beyond the point of security and self-preservation. The ‘wall’ is high; you will at times be by yourself way up the wall. At that point you might as well go all the way.
(363) ‘To obey is better than sacrifice’ at this stage in what we are doing, some people have truly questioned the whole concept of what they have been preaching and believing for years. Some times when we question these things there is a tendency to use as a cover ‘my ministry has done good things, we might not be as pure as we should be in the gospel, but we have done good things’. This is thinking to ‘sacrifice’ is better than obedience. I do understand the difficulty that ministries go thru when they do an inventory and realize that 99% of their teaching was ‘missing the gospel’. I heard a testimony from a word of faith/prosperity preacher. He was/is pastoring a church. For many years he focused on the prosperity gospel. He was convicted over a period of years by seeing the many things I have shown you. He realized that his library was consumed with the teachers of the movement. That most of his focus was not really the true gospel. It was not easy to admit this to himself. He finally threw out his entire library and got back to focusing on the Bible. Jim Bakker went thru this same thing. A realization of ‘what have I been teaching and preaching’. The point is God is happy when we ‘sacrifice’. Do good things. Give money to Christian things. But all the sacrificing doesn’t trump obedience. Get back to the gospel of Jesus, and continue doing ‘the sacrifice’.
(364) The New Testament teaches believers to ‘defend the faith that has once been given to the church’. This ‘one time deposit of faith’ is not speaking about ‘guarding your personal faith in Jesus’ [as I have heard it taught]. It is speaking of guarding the basic Christian doctrine of God and the Gospel of Christ. Basically God calls us to ‘remain in the truth’. This ‘truth’ is the simple reality of us being saved thru Christ. It is the message of the gospel. It includes the basic tenets of the faith [things that you would find in the Apostles creed] and the basic ‘stuff’ of foundational Christianity. Often times you will find believers identifying with peculiar beliefs or offshoots of Christianity [I know some think we do that!]. Many legalistic groups have this mindset. They will view ‘leaving their style of belief’ with apostasy. God requires us to be faithful to the gospel. Not to some group that sees itself with ‘special knowledge’ that the church at large doesn’t posses. For centuries the parable of the sower ‘30-60-100 fold’ was easily seen to be speaking about Christian truth bringing forth fruit in a persons life. You then had a movement who taught that this really wasn’t what it meant, but it really meant bringing in a ‘100 fold’ of money. This is a direct departure from what it clearly said, as well as what all Christians seemed to understand for centuries. When ‘being faithful’ to the ‘faith’ that was once delivered to the saints, you have to basically know what was once delivered!
(365) Isaiah 49- ‘The Lord called me from birth, he made mention of my name from my mothers womb. He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me’ God combines ‘hiding’ with authority. Elijah not only had a strong prophetic ministry, he also had the ability to go in hiding for 3.5 years. ‘Then said I, I have labored in vain’ in context this is speaking of Israel’s national re birth at the 2nd coming. She says ‘I labored in vain’ in the context of ‘laboring under law’. At the appearing of Christ she will realize she spent thousands of years trying to legalistically gain Gods approval when all the ‘work/labor’ had already been done. ‘Your warfare is accomplished and sin forgiven’ [we will read this later on in Isaiah]. ‘Thus saith the Lord to him whom men despise, nations hate and a servant to rulers. Kings [leaders] shall see new things and rise. Princes also shall worship’ I see this as a type of God giving authority to those who have felt rejection. If you want authority to influence ‘kings’ then you will experience rejection on a large scale. ‘I will contend with him who contends with thee and save your children’ the fact that you are being ‘contended with’ is a sure sign that you are ‘birthing children’ winning people to the true cause of Christ.
(366) While praying I had a thought. The purpose of the Trumpet [all the various aspects of preaching and declaring Gods Word/Prophetic voice] is to ‘alarm’ the people to action. The Trumpet exists to cause the people to rise up as Gods mobile prophetic community and to advance thru society as his witnesses. This requires a willingness to ‘die to self’. The word for martyr means witness. Today we organize all the people around the ‘Trumpet’. We polish it, we come to look at it, every now and than we let the laity ‘blow’ it. But the focus is really the trumpet [gift/ministry]. Remember, the purpose of the ministry is to so enable you with a revolutionary mindset, that you would in turn revolutionize the world.
(367) About 4 months ago I consciously stopped making radio tapes. I was in the middle of teaching the book of Hebrews and was over 2 years ahead of actually broadcasting the tapes. I usually don’t prepare anything; I just read the bible and share as God leads. I stopped because I was only half way thru Hebrews and I was seeing a lot of stuff. I wanted to put ‘speaking’ on hold [remember Elijah had the ability to ‘not preach’ for 3.5 years]. I am not Elijah, but I didn’t want my ‘identity’ to be preaching. The month I consciously stopped preaching I started reading Isaiah as devotional material. Sort of like putting things on hold. Then we started this blog and I have been ‘speaking’ ever since! I share this to let you know I really am not looking for avenues to speak, I kinda feel like when Paul told Timothy ‘in doing this [preaching] you will save yourself and those who hear thee’ It’s a necessity. I just heard on the radio a preacher talk on ‘the name that is given to us that no man knows, but he who gives it’. This is in the book of Revelation. He innocently gave the ‘common’ commentary on ‘I wonder what my name will be, the bible says no one knows’. I kinda think it would make us feel uncomfortable to wake up in heaven and to find out my new name is ‘Youseff’ or ‘Zerubabael’ or some other weird thing. Maybe all the northeast liberals will be given ‘bubba’ type names, all the southerners wake up with the name ‘Al Sharpton’! We can be stupid at times. Lets use the key. What did I say the key to everything was? Jesus and his Cross. The book of Corinthians tells us that no man can say Jesus is Lord but by the Spirit. Also no man can ‘know’ the name Jesus [intimately] unless he is in ‘the Body of Christ’. Only God ‘knows’ this name, and only those whom God chooses to reveal it to. We are presently called ‘the Body of Christ’. We right now bear the name ‘Jesus Christ’. No body truly knows this name but those to whom it is revealed [all Christians]. We truly have a name that no man knows, but he who gave it! NOTE You can still go around wondering what this new mysterious name is, but if this didn’t ‘turn the lights on’ then you deserve to wake up with the name ‘Al Sharpton’.
(368) Just had a dream. I was at some type of flea market. Lots of salesman trying to get you to their stand. A doctor was running one of the stands. As people were walking around and engaging in ‘market type’ activities, I saw someone from the past. I don’t really recognize this person, I just no he looks familiar. His mom brought him to the Doctors stand. He was supposed to ‘work’ for the doctor. I got the sense that the mom was trying to get her son a job. He is getting older and kinda lives in fear. As I was looking at the trinkets and stuff the doctor was selling, I saw the mom make excuses for the son to not work. ‘Doctor he says his foot hurts, I can’t risk him getting an infection’ [he cant work hurt!] At the same time the mom is berating the son. ‘Your foot will sure be OK later to go visit your friends’. She was both rebuking him and enabling him at the same time. The doctor is a doctor. He looks briefly at the foot and kinda sees there is nothing wrong with it. The ‘enabling’ worked and the kid got out of ‘the doctors harvest field’. As I was going thru the doctor’s stuff to see if I wanted to buy something, another ‘stand owner’ was interrupting. Trying to get me to go to his stand. I finally refused and kept shopping. I found a little bag of jewelry. In the bag I spotted a little trumpet. I knew this was what I had come for. I bought the trumpet and walked away. I had previously injured my foot, and was walking with a bad limp. The act of walking with the limp was in and of itself an indictment on the other son who got out of the market with his excuse. I simply felt like the Lord was saying there are many things trying to prevent you from ‘finding your trumpet’ [voice and purpose in life]. We often eliminate ourselves by creating false disqualifiers ‘how can I work while hurting, it wouldn’t be right’. You will never find the perfect atmosphere to labor in! There will be other ‘tradesmen’ who will try to ‘sell you their wares’ in order to distract you from the trumpet/purpose of God. Don’t get side tracked! Eventually you will find that ‘item of value’ from the great Physicians stand. You might have to walk into the ‘market’ with a limp [Jacob/Paul] but that’s all right. All you need to do is get in the right place and blow that trumpet [I just went back to edit this site. I read a dream I had earlier. I dreamt of me having a thorn bush branch sticking in my leg. I had totally forgotten about this. It’s like the prophecies and dreams are a separate world of reality unto themselves. Sort of like a series of events that fit in, whether I remember them or not!] NOTE; To those of you waiting for the right environment before you will work in Gods field, even as I type this the last thing I feel like doing in my life right now is THIS! God wants to bring us to a place where we function thru difficulty. I do not want ‘hurt’ people to ‘hurt’ other people. I am showing you that the purpose of God is not always the exciting vision or dream of ‘ministry’ that you have in mind. Often it is the faithfulness to finish the task in the midst of personal turmoil. I think we used to call this ‘the Cross’. NOTE; Paul said ‘I desire to DEPART and be with Christ which is far better’. Moses and Elijah and Jonah all expressed feelings of ‘now go ahead Lord, take my life I am ready to depart’. These were real feelings of wanting to leave. I am not saying suicidal feelings are from God. It’s just important to understand true ministry is not necessarily your long-term existence on this planet. It is a mindset that struggles with wanting to ‘wrap this thing up’ while at the same time realizing you need to finish the course. Most of us don’t realize the reality of this. You [and I!] don’t decide when ‘to wrap it up’ God does. Sometimes you really feel like its time to depart, and it can be a struggle to realize your only half way thru the tunnel! NOTE; Me and a friend at work get a kick out of a story of one of these fakers who pretend they are hurt to scam the Social Security system. The guy pretended he got hurt some how [no one we know, this was on TV] The ‘injury’ caused him to act like a big baby [prophetic!] he would go around for years talking baby talk and acting just like a 30 year old baby. They finally busted him on tape. The cop car is driving him to the police station and he is in the back of this car pretending he is a baby again. He is being taped. The wife finally says to him ‘O shut up you big baby, the gig is up!’ You kinda got the feeling that the wife was tired of his whining and was glad he finally got busted.
(369) I just heard a word from God ‘don’t define me by your experience of me, I knew you and had a purpose for you before you even knew me’. I felt like God was saying ‘I chose you even when you were not following me, even as you were in active rebellion. Your religious experience which some of you now despise [previous church affiliation] I was with you thru all that. Don’t despise others who are still there. Your whole experience of me is very limited. Don’t judge me or others based on this experience, even if you call it ‘born again’ for I knew you before you were born’.
(370) A few entries back I spoke of the King that John the Baptist ‘exposed’. His name was King Herod. I don’t think I have ever written on him before. I am sure I have mentioned him on radio. The next day [or the same day?] I was watching the news. For the first time in 2 thousand years they found King Herods tomb. Prophetic things work like this. The significance of finding the tomb holds a spiritual truth. The ‘exposing’ of Herod was a prophetic act that said ‘you can’t continue to manipulate and hide behind authority to accomplish your agenda’. The last few weeks the Supreme Court upheld the law banning partial birth abortion. For a long time it was the manipulation of this system [Supreme court and human govt.] that allowed for this act of murder to take place. This act was openly described in testimony before the court in such a way that just reading the transcript would offend you. Its like time was up and ‘the King’ was exposed.
(371) Was reading in Isaiah ‘is anything too hard for me? I am God. I created everything. I can do anything’ I have heard it taught that God saves us, but basically that doesn’t change us. That we are really still the same. Our minds and everything else about us are still ‘unredeemed’. After getting ‘saved’ we are now beginning this long process of renewing our minds and bringing our bodies under control. It is biblical to renew the mind and it is also biblical to ‘bring the body under control’. It’s just we need to keep in perspective that the ‘act of redemption’ itself was God changing us at the basic ‘DNA’ level in such a way that all the other ‘trimmings’ could never accomplish. We don’t want to turn ‘redemption/salvation’ into an act that basically doesn’t do anything. It does a lot! God has acted on our behalf to accomplish changes in us that could not have been done any other way. The whole attempt of man ‘changing himself’ was tried under the law. He would ‘renew his mind’ he would ‘bring his body under’. The law was man saying ‘God has given me these tools, and now it’s basically up to me to implement them’. Man tried this for thousands of years until the Cross. At the Cross God said ‘I am God, I can do anything. Nothing is too hard for me. I will do for you what you could never accomplish thru your efforts’. Renew your mind, fast and bring your body under. It’s all good. Most of all understand that God has saved you. He has done stuff for you that all the disciplines in the world could never accomplish! NOTE: ‘and you who were enemies and alienated in your minds by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled thru the Body of his flesh by death [New Testament]’ See this. The act of the Cross has already ‘reconciled’ your mind. There truly has been a fundamental change in your mind. You shall know this truth, and this truth shall set you free!
(372) I am up praying early at the firehouse. I walk outside and pray silently! Don’t want you to really think I am too crazy. I am working off a street called ‘Armstrong’. It’s the first [or 2nd] place I lived when first moving to Kingsville. A few blocks away my friend Miguel lived right down the block. Actually it was off of this street 25 years ago that I led Miguel to the Lord [my first convert from new jersey]. Right around the corner one of my Kingsville friends lives. Just praying and thinking about him and his boys. Many years ago I used to preach to his dad at the jails. I eventually met him and his brothers. All my age. Actually I backslid pretty bad with these guys years ago. They all have these reputations as ‘bad guys’. I remember having to ‘show them’ what ‘bad’ was when I backslid. I actually beat one of the brothers up. The other one [my good friend] I would ‘box’ in fun [no gloves] and I could tell that he tried to avoid me when I was drinking. It’s all in the past now. It was something in me that had to say ‘I don’t care how tough of an ex convict you are, I’ll kick your %$@#.’ All stupid stuff. Not too smart either. I was a ‘lone ranger’ and these families have lots of brothers and fellow drug/gang friends in these towns. As I was praying for these friends and their sons and realizing I am just a few blocks from where all these many experiences took place, it felt surreal to realize thru it all God has worked. Now many years later some are doing well, some are dead. I am even praying for the Jersey friends I contacted this past year. ‘I will bring your sons from far, your daughters from the ends of the earth’ [Isaiah]. It’s like you can be in touch with all types of people groups thru prayer. Now this blog enables me to communicate within a few days time. The radio ministry is good. But some times I would say something important and depending on the timeline it might take over a year before the tape gets played. Thru the blog I can actually write and post to all of you in minutes. I felt like God ‘shortened’ the delay. Hopefully eventually I will get with you guys in a bible study environment and there will be no delay! Well just felt like I needed to communicate this to you. Pray for all of the people who are part of this ‘on line’ community. Read the bible on your own. Seek the Lord. I don’t want to offend any of my old friends by thinking ‘who does John think he is by saying he’s trying to reach out to us, he’s got problems too!’ This surely is true. Pray for me too. Lets all see what Gods got in store. Thanks.
(373) Woke up with thinking I had nothing to say. Then had a thought. The book of Hebrews [bible] says that the era of Christ’s 1st century appearing is called ‘the times of reformation’ this obviously is not speaking of the 16th century movement. This is speaking of Gods ‘reformation’ from Old Testament patterns to the actual reality of Christ. This ‘time’ is described by the angels as a time of ‘peace towards men and good will’. Yet Jesus will later say ‘don’t suppose that I have come to bring peace, but a sword. My ‘coming’ at this time [1st century] is revolutionary. Many upheavals will take place’. And yet later in the New Testament the scripture clearly teaches that we have peace with God thru Jesus Christ. Like Doug Heffernen would say on the King of Queens ‘huhh!’ The process of God reforming and bringing in a new era under the New Covenant was a wonderful event. God was forever changing the economy of Gods Kingdom from one of ‘self righteousness’ and legalism, to one of Fullness and Grace. This singular time period would forever change the history of man. The benefits of this ‘reformation’ are unbelievably great compared to the law. The conflict and difficulty in making the initial transition was not fun. Many followers of God who were faithful for centuries were being told ‘now its time to leave all the doctrines and beliefs that have become your cultural identity. All the great fathers/leaders of your religion served a purpose. You can no longer ‘dwell’ in their heritage’. This was the ‘sword’ part. Peace would later come to those who would accept the ‘sword’ in cutting off religious heritage and moving on into the New Covenant. God will even allow those who leave their old heritage to embrace a new one [the faith once delivered to the Saints] but first the sword! Those who would be willing to die to all the old mindsets and ways of seeing things would be on the cutting edge of this new movement called ‘the Church’. First the Sword! I feel God is challenging the church today in this way. He is not asking us to leave the fundamental faith that has been given to the church. He is asking us to lay down old models and systems of thought that are ‘passing away’. We too often confuse ‘faithfulness’ with standing true to the ‘faith of our fathers’ but we think the ‘faith of our fathers’ is either some cultural thing, or some peculiar belief that old ‘poppa daddy’ passed down to us. Hey, let the sword of the Spirit [Gods Word] sever that old stuff. It will be uncomfortable to go thru this ‘spiritual circumcision’ but that which you produce from your seed/heritage will be a genealogy that is on the cutting edge of a new millennium.
(374) Many years ago a preacher visited Corpus. He was speaking here locally. I enjoyed him; you could see that he was going thru difficulty. He even questioned some of his beliefs in an open and honest way. He shared from the book of Romans [bible; p.s. to our Christian friends, you know these are bible books. I realized that a lot of my old friends don’t know this. They already think I am a little ‘unhinged’ by the prophetic things I share on this blog, I don’t need them thinking I am quoting things out of ancient books that nobody knows about!] He spoke on the verse ‘all things work together for good to them that love God’ and he openly challenged his ‘word of faith/prosperity’ roots by saying ‘I know we often teach this to mean that ‘all’ things are not really working for our good [the bad stuff] but I am tired of trying to ‘get around’ all the verses that say stuff like this’ [I am paraphrasing]. His church is ‘covenant church’ in Carrolton, TX. He is a good man, and I don’t think he would describe himself as ‘word of faith’ its just I could tell he has been influenced by this teaching. Anyway this first time he spoke there was a realness about him. A ‘prophetic’ cutting edge that comes along with difficulty and trials [you could tell he was really struggling in his life]. A few years later he came back. Still preached well. But he was different. He even looked ‘sufficient’. Sort of like ‘I am now back to the believers authority and this self sufficiency that you didn’t see last time’. He was not arrogant, it was just you could tell that his ‘return’ to the classic word of faith/prosperity type system drained the ‘reality’ he had the last time he was here. He sort of went back to the interpretation of ‘all things work for good’ doesn’t mean the bad stuff. If I remember right I think he even said this? This just was a lesson to me on how God speaks from our reality and difficulty. When we embrace doctrines that reject these aspects of Christianity we lose the ‘cutting edge’. The brother held a few meetings. He did all right. He never came back to Corpus. I think he was on the verge of ‘reformation’ the first time I heard him. Then when he came back you could kind of sense that he never really made the transition.
(375) A few entries back I spoke on not judging God or others based on our own experiences. I have noticed over the years how a lot of believers who might have had a Catholic background became very ‘anti catholic’ after being ‘born again’. I do believe in the New Birth. I believe all who believe in Jesus Christ are Born Again. In 1st John it does say ‘whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God’. Some times we associate ‘being born again’ with our own evangelical experience. ‘Have you asked Jesus into your heart?’ If not, then you’re not BORN AGAIN! This is what you would call ‘reductionism’ reducing everything to a simple ‘me and Jesus’ format. You know none of the Apostles ‘asked Jesus into their heart’ [the original 12]. It would sure seem like an awkward thing. ‘Jesus’ ‘yes Peter’ ‘would you come into my heart’ ‘I have been with you from the start, you will soon believe in my death and resurrection. You will be one of the key figures in the founding of my church’ ‘I know all this Jesus, but if I don’t get saved I cant go to heaven’. The point is simply, all the Apostles and every other believer since has had one thing in common. They have all believed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They believe ‘he is the Son of God’. Don’t use your own personal experience to exclude others who might not have come to the Cross the same way. We all come by faith, the peculiar aspects surrounding the event are not what saved you, it was Jesus who saved you. Also it is a common hobby for the more extreme fundamentalists to question whether or not ‘you are really saved’. They often use verses like ‘you should know whether you are in the faith or not’ [Corinthians]. But they use them in a way that’s not really in context. Paul uses these verses to question Christians who were doubting the physical resurrection. He is not using these verses to ‘micro examine’ every little detail of their conversion experience! God gave his son to save the world; it would sure be strange to find out that the majority of people who believe in Jesus didn’t make it because of some technicality! God wants to save people, people need Jesus to be saved. Don’t make it harder than this! NOTE; Now that I mentioned ‘reductionism’ let me say a few things. In the world of theology reductionism refers to the ‘reducing’ of Gods greater corporate and societal purposes [the Kingdom of God] to the simple act of ‘getting saved’. There are whole churches and movements whose entire ‘thought life’ is centered on ‘am I saved’? If so I will find a church that tells me this every Sunday, and often these same churches will convince the ‘saved’ that they really didn’t get it the first time. And there you have it ‘they get saved for real this time’ and then the whole cycle repeats. The more ‘communal’ churches see salvation in a broader way. They often quote St. Augustine’s famous words ‘there is no salvation outside of the church’. Many good theologians hold to this. I believe this is true to a degree. In Paul’s teachings ‘the church’ are all the communities of people who have come to Christ. Paul does teach a form of corporate salvation. That is ‘if you’re in the church you are saved’. It’s just there is a tendency [Augustine] to see ‘church’ in an evolving way that restricts ‘church’ to the specific community that YOU personally relate to. So in Augustine’s mind [as well as other great Catholic theologians] to be ‘church’ is to be Catholic. Now after Vatican 2 [1962-65; The year I was born] the Catholic Church officially acknowledged the Protestants as ‘separated brethren’. A big step for them to have made. Some more liberal Catholic thinkers see ‘all religions’ [Muslims included] as being ‘saved’ thru the grace that is resident in society thru the Catholic Church. Sort of like ‘Gods grace to reveal God to people is activated by Gods Son. The only ‘true’ church that is ‘transmitting this grace’ is the Catholic Church. The fact that all Muslims are believers in God is a divine sacramental act that is taking place in society thru the Catholic Church. Therefore the fact that Muslims [or any one else] are truly in communion with God is a real work of grace that has been generated thru the one true church’. Now I don’t hold to this. All Catholics don’t either. This is to show you the broad range from ‘me and Jesus’ to that which borders on universalism [the doctrine that says eventually everyone gets saved. Some very intelligent church fathers believed this. Origen was one of them. Though Origen is not considered ‘Orthodox’. He was a very influential teacher and figure in the early church. He actually taught that satan would ultimately be saved. He was a real Universalist. Some Universalists don’t deny the blood of Jesus, contrary to popular opinion. They actually believe the blood is so powerful, that it will ultimately ‘save all people’. There are very smart Christians who do believe this. I personally do not believe this. But I find it interesting that modern evangelicals do not for the most part see ‘universalists’ as other Christians. There are different types of them, the ones who believe in Jesus are Christians, even if they believe all people will ultimately be saved. The other types who reject Jesus are not Christians] NOTE; I remember hearing a story about one of these evangelists that preached one of these ‘you think you are saved, I’ll show you you are not!’ type sermons. The sermon was so ‘convicting’ at the end of the meeting he went down to the altar and had the Pastor ‘lead him to the Lord’, that’s strange. If his own sermon that he preached got him ‘saved’ then that means he ‘got saved’ from a lost mans message. That would mean ‘he’s not really saved’ wouldn’t it? This stuff gets ridiculous after a while.
(376) Let me give a little example of the ‘overriding act of redemption’ trumping any little verse or experience. Paul actually tells the Corinthians ‘if the dead are not raised, then why are you baptizing people in ‘proxy’ for the dead?’ This is tough stuff. Let me give you one way to see this. The ‘baptism for the dead’ seems to have been a real cultural thing that took place in a specific time and setting [like the slavery verses I mentioned earlier]. There seems to have been a concern specifically to the 1st century church that said ‘this new doctrine of Jesus is great, but being its only been around a few years, and you are telling us [Paul] that you must embrace it to be saved. Then we have a problem. A lot of our loved ones never got a chance to hear. How do you expect us to quell these concerns?’ And it’s possible that the ‘baptism’ by proxy [like a father or son getting baptized in the place of the loved one who died] was a 1st century cultural thing that grew out of this. The fact that they were doing this does not mean that Paul the Apostle was condoning it. Paul was simply saying ‘if you guys really don’t believe in life after death, then why are you bothering with this rite?’ Its like Paul was using their own cultural thing to show them the inconsistency of their thinking. He wasn’t really teaching the baptism for the dead. [This is my view, Mormons believe different. They do practice this today and they use this verse as justification].
(377) I went to sleep at around 7 pm [early] woke up at around 10 pm and was mad. I felt like I was going to get up and do another all nighter. I have to work today and frankly I was telling the Lord ‘this is ridiculous, if I had some sleeping pills to take I would’. I was complaining and feeling like God is asking too much from me. Not that I am some great one-man show. Just that I felt 2-3 hours of sleep cant cut it. Getting up at 2 am seems to be the norm. I really am fine with that. Before midnight is a total drain on me. Well anyway I fell asleep and woke up around 2:30 and had a dream. I was in some type of ‘portable/temporary’ building. It was like a combination church/counseling facility. I saw some friends from the past. Christians who I haven’t seen in years. I said hi and they ignored me. I stopped them to see if they recognized me or what. They seemed to, but they have gone thru so much disillusionment that they didn’t care anymore. I saw some staff people from the church I attend. Some were doing well, others seemed to be ‘trying to fit in’ and all, but they seemed to be ‘punching the time clock’. Nothing bad, just a sense of ‘I am a Christian, I am on staff at a great church. I should be happy and fulfilled. There’s something missing’. I also was doing some counseling and ministry stuff. I saw a kid named ‘Tommy’ [I originally just ‘picked’ this name out of the blue when I told the story the other day. It now seems to have been prophetic]. He was a nice kid, sort of roaming the halls. We went into one of the study rooms and were both studying. He was very isolated and withdrawn. I told him I was a lot like him. I managed to have a good friendship with him. Later I went to another room where there were 3 kids who I was going to counsel. Tommy was there again. I don’t remember asking for the other kids names [or I don’t remember what their names were] but I must have asked Tommy 2 or 3 times. It was embarrassing to keep forgetting his name [identity struggle]. It’s like I should have known him by now ‘get on with the program John, how long will it take you to come out of this feeling of isolation and identity crisis’ type thing. I woke up and realized that I was probably ‘Tommy’. Its kinda hard to admit stuff like this on the blog. I realize that the Lord wanted this blog to be real. I would have NEVER been this real a few years ago. I just am at a point in life where I felt this is what God wanted and I do have a lot of struggles so what the ‘heck’ [Ill be nice!] I don’t think I need to explain this dream too much, you should be able to ‘find yourself’ somewhere in it. Just apply what you feel fits. NOTE The Cross experience in Christ’s life was one of going thru things for the benefit of others. Though these things were a direct result of Gods redemptive purpose for these people, they would say ‘look at you, you claim to be from God and have this great calling. It doesn’t seem to be working for you, you are a major hypocrite. Even our religious leaders have said you are way off’. They judged him by the reality of his difficulty. They seemed to not perceive that his ‘difficulty’ was for their benefit. The things he was publicly going thru were for them. The fact that they judged him by these difficulties was part of the Cross. The Cross was public humiliation on a major scale. His family and friends were watching him go thru this very open humiliation. This was no time of ‘me and my successful ministry’. Now you do have the vindication at the resurrection. The problem is Paul wrote in one of his letters ‘we have struggles now, while our persecutors have it easy. This is just a sign, our temporary affliction will bring forth great vindication and glory in due season, AT THE APPEARING OF CHRIST’! The time of our vindication is at the resurrection! [Ouch!]
(378) ‘Truth trumps authority’ [or actually ‘truth and authority co exist’] Many years ago when I attended a Fundamental Baptist Church they viewed the ‘Assembly of God’ church down the block as a cult. They had speakers come in and give revivals and they would say that the ‘tongues talkers’ are a cult. They would give examples of people who were speaking in tongues and some one who knew the language actually said they were cursing God [by the way this is possible. There very well might have been a ‘demonic’ infiltration like this. There are incidents of possession that have had a type of demonic thing like this happen. The problem is you can’t paint all ‘tongues speaking’ with this brush. Many ‘tongues speaking’ people are the ones who brought these things out] the point is when I eventually left this church, they were a little ‘cultic’ in their mindset. They challenged leaving their group. But when the Pastor [a really good man who I respect today!] saw that I was going to leave to start a church, he also knew I couldn’t go along with the ‘anti charismatic’ stuff anymore. He then appealed to ‘authority structures’ to challenge my decision. He basically said ‘well if you are leaving to become a preacher, and you think the charismatics are OK, then even they agree with us that you must follow the guidelines of bible school and ordination and all these things. You cant just go and preach!’ I found this interesting, though they viewed the ‘assembly of God’ as a cult, they then resorted to the mutual agreement that they all had that said ‘how dare you try to function outside of the standard norms of authority’. They all saw authority as a process you go thru to gain legitimacy. The simple act of being equipped with truth and declaring that truth [The Gospel] wasn’t really sufficient, unless you ‘jumped thru the hoops’. In scripture you do find ‘lines of authority’ biblical mandates to ‘obey those who care for you’ and things like this. Paul himself taught stuff like this. Paul also challenged the ‘normal lines of authority’. Paul became an Apostle after the original 12. The early church had a hard time with accepting his authority. The Jerusalem leadership actually had the mindset of ‘we were in this before you. You don’t have the legitimacy to preach this gospel to gentiles. You have gone ‘outside’ of the accepted norms to be ‘ordained’ and recognized as one who has authority.’ You read this in Acts chapter 15 as well as Galatians chapter 1. Paul eventually says ‘I don’t care who these guys think they are. It doesn’t matter to me. I am sent to preach the gospel, and if their ‘authority structures’ have been by passed, then the ‘authority of truth’ trumps them’. This is the same reformation spirit you see in Luther in the 16th century. Basically we all have times of growth and development where we learn to respect Elders and those whom God has been using. They have truly earned biblical respect. It’s when these guidelines of authority and leadership try to ‘trump’ truth that truth trumps the ‘structures’ [both the protestant reformation going over Rome’s head, as well as what Paul did in the 1st century]. Paul will actually rebuke Peter face to face in the whole area of Gentile acceptance by faith. The fact that Paul was right in doctrine, made him right in authority. The challenge from the Fundamental Pastor sounded good, but it was fundamentally flawed [note: he meant well, I am sure he realized how young and immature I was at the time and simply tried to steer me towards a path that he thought would help]. He basically tried to say ‘even if we view the other church as a cult, we all agree that you cant preach/ start a church without going thru the accepted structural procedures’. Basically if you are called of God and are walking in truth you have authority. If you ‘depart’ from truth along the way, you lose authority. Though Gods giftings and callings are permanent, when you step out of truth you are ‘temporarily’ setting aside your authority. I feel this is important for those who feel like they have really learned truth from us this past year. Don’t stay faithful to systems of thought and belief that are operating on the ‘fringes of truth’. You have the right to walk away from that stuff. Keep loving the people, they are good people [Jerusalem church] but you have a mandate from God, walk in it!
(379) The most amazing thing about the ministry of Jesus. God chooses him to bring in this great reality of the Kingdom ‘the Kingdom of God is here’. He gives him the message of the Kingdom on forgiveness, leadership, the last being first. All these great truths that seem to go against the grain of society. Even their religious understanding said ‘en eye for en eye’ but Jesus says no more. The central ‘ingredient’ to the establishing of the Kingdom will be the Cross ‘except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it remains alone, but if it dies it will bring forth much fruit’. The only problem is this message will become ‘fleshed out’ thru the key preacher of this new Kingdom. That’s the tuff part. I wish we could just have this great message and simply proclaim it and go home and enjoy everything. Jesus understood that he had come to the Kingdom for such a time as this. There were many shameful things that he despised [Hebrews] there was stuff that he ‘endured’ but he recognized that the simple ‘indoctrination’ about this new Kingdom wouldn’t suffice, it had to be ‘nailed down’ at the Cross. The only problem was he would be at the receiving end of the nails.
(380) In the writings of Paul [New Testament] you see him fighting against the Judaizers [trying to convert Christians to half law/grace] he describes them as ‘enemies of the Cross’ he actually says they ‘preach another Jesus’ and that even if an angel appears and brings this new ‘Jesus’ that you are to reject it. Paul was strong for the gospel. It’s perfectly possible for believers to develop an experience with God thru Jesus that leaves out the crucial elements of the Cross. When people ‘choose’ to focus on the other aspects of Christianity that are on the fringes of the gospel, they choose to opt out of the Cross. I have said before, you do ‘get’ what you focus on. This is a true principle that works whether you are a believer or not. If people choose a form of Christianity that says ‘we focus on comfort and happiness’ they for the most part will get that. If challenged by the message of the Cross [which includes both redemption and the call to self sacrifice] they can actually choose to reject it based on self-preservation. The choice of thinking ‘I do not want to hear the possibility of me suffering and going thru difficulty. The old time churches taught this and our current teachers showed us they got what they confessed’. So you begin to believe in a ‘Cross less’ gospel, and you justify it by the actual fact that you are materially doing better than the old time Christians ‘our teachers must be correct, look at how much better we are doing materially than they were’. The fact that all of this might very well be true does not mean it’s the biblical gospel. Inherent in our call as believers is the fundamental ‘counting the cost’ mindset. The cost of radical revolution is to put self and the concerns of ‘creature comforts’ away. The many learned men who have seen much truth in the areas of wealth and finances have ‘crossed the line’ in not rightfully submitting these truths to the superiority of the Cross. The many sayings of Jesus on ‘you can’t serve God and money’ are seen as ‘old school’. You then have someone like myself that comes along and preaches the Cross. I am then seen as an ‘enemy’ to this peculiar belief system. The ‘system’ becomes that which you defend, as opposed to the true message of the Cross. Paul nailed it down fairly well when he said ‘even if an angel comes and declares a different Jesus to you, let him be accursed’. Paul knew the stakes were high. Jesus went thru too much for the church to sit idly by as the parade of new teachers slowly erases away his central message.
(381) When I was a Pastor I had a friend who was a ‘word of faith’ preacher. He would attend some of our services. I also let him preach every now and then. I spoke on prayer once. I used the verse from the book of James that says ‘we ask and do not receive, because we ask amiss that we would consume the things we want out of lust’ [paraphrase]. Basically the verse is saying selfish prayers are not answered. My friend tried to explain to me that this was not what it was saying. He was taught this verse in a way that said ‘the reason you are not obtaining the wealth and things you desire is because your are not aiming your prayers in the right direction’ he told me it was saying to ‘aim’ at the proper trajectory and you will get all you want. This was another one of those examples of how we take verses and make them say the complete opposite of what they are saying. Jesus did say ‘when you pray, believe that the things you are saying will happen, and you will have what you say’ I do believe this verse to be true. You will find Jesus and Paul ‘saying’ things this way. Jesus said to the fig tree ‘dry up and die’ it happened. Paul would say to the person who was possessed ‘you are a hindrance to the gospel, be blind’ and it happened. Basically this teaching from Jesus is to fit in with the whole counsel of God. Paul used this truth to spread the gospel. You never found Paul or Jesus using these things ‘to get what they wanted’ in a self serving way. They ‘had what they said’ because they said things in the will of God, not to ‘consume stuff upon their desires’. Jesus would say ‘I am going to go to Jerusalem to be killed’ Peter didn’t like this confession. It didn’t line up with what Peter wanted. Jesus didn’t ‘get what he said’ simply because he said this. He said this out of the reality of fulfilling Gods purpose. He ‘got what he said’ because what he said was the unselfish will of God concerning the Cross. We as believers need to be at a higher level than where we are currently operating. It’s like I could go thru all these types of verses and debate the real meaning of them. Others will stick with the ‘fake’ meaning. You can spend years trying to undo all this stuff. Until we get to ‘another place’ of putting our lives at the foot of the Cross, we will never really see these things. God will give you good things, don’t get me wrong. Just allow all these truths to be filtered thru the Cross.
(382) ‘You have been faithful over a little, I will now give you authority over 10 cities’ Jesus says this to the disciples. Sometimes in our minds we picture the Apostles as ‘city managers’ over future cities. Remember in Jesus teaching authority was not ‘being over people’. We know Jesus taught stuff like this, yet we read him saying stuff about authority and we see it as ‘being in charge’. How did the apostles ‘have authority over cities’? By bringing the gospel to these regions and the people who believed became their ‘spiritual children’. Paul told the Corinthians that he had apostolic authority ‘over’ them because he birthed them thru the gospel. Being ‘faithful’ over a little. What’s this? Many of you who have made it this far on this blog have read things that you personally knew to be true before you heard me say it. Yet until you heard me say it you never really were able to truly make the break. It’s like we go thru a process of hearing and seeing before we are ‘faithful’ to what God said. Some of the things I have shown you guys are obvious mistakes that even a child could see was wrong. Yet the peer pressure of being in an environment where others hold to certain things, though obviously wrong, is hard to break. Once you learn to ‘be faithful in the little areas of hearing and obeying’ then God allows you to ‘have authority’ over 10 cities. That is he gives you influence in his Kingdom for his purpose. Many times we seek to have a voice/forum in the Kingdom. We do things to ‘make our voice heard’ but God is primarily looking for people who will speak truth when they see it. Learn to be faithful to the things God is plainly showing you, then he will ‘put your feet in a large place’ [of influence]. NOTE: In my own life I have gone thru stages where the Lord will increase my area of influence from the present one to ‘another place’. When these events happen I can tell before hand. It’s sort of like the excitement from the present region ‘wanes’ a feeling of ‘this present parameter is too small, don’t despise the ‘day of small things’ but I am bringing you to a larger place’. When this happens with me it’s like a feeling of ‘the people we are presently reaching are still valuable, but you are moving to another place. That which I have done thru you and for you are ‘seeds’ that will continue to bear fruit long after you’re gone. You have been faithful over this little area and now move on’. Even if the area’seemed big a few years ago, when I sense this type of transition, it seems ‘small’. I also make it a conscious point to NOT DESPISE or think condescending towards the previous land marks. I feel this in itself enables me to gain authority in a larger region. Also the amount of ‘pain’ associated with the larger area of influence [for as MANY as were astonished at thee, so shall you touch MANY nations] keeps you from lusting after the influence. Scripture says Jesus ‘despised the shame’ associated with the Cross [Hebrews] but endured it realizing that the ‘regional impact’ would be directly related to his suffering. The MANY who were astonished equals the MANY who you will have influence with! Also in Isaiah it says the children that you will have, after you have lost the other will say to you ‘this place is too small for me’ and you will respond ‘who birthed all these children, I was in captivity, I was going back and forth, I was suffering. How in the world did I gain such a following?’ It’s almost like the fact of the extreme difficulty was actually producing the children/converts. This is an amazing thing that you will see thru out scripture. ‘More are the children of the desolate, than of the married wife’. Look at the covenant women in scripture, they are for the most part barren [forsaken] and yet give birth to these tremendous prophetic people [Samuels mother, John the Baptist, Sarah].
(383) A few things from Isaiah ‘I have seen your ways and will heal you, I will restore comforts unto you and to your mourners’ I spoke on the Cross a few entries back. One of the hard things was Jesus would say to the disciples ‘you must also take up the cross and follow me’. A central area of identifying with Christ was going thru the Cross. This is a difficult thing. There are times in life where all seems to be going well. You have your life organized and happy. The ‘dose’ of Christianity that you have embraced is just strong enough to insure that all your needs will be met. You have the verses down and all. Then there comes some ‘strange’ preacher you never heard of before. He seems to be a little different. He is speaking the same language and all, it’s just different ‘Jesus spoke with authority, not like the scribes’. The average people could really identify with him. He rubbed the elite class the wrong way. One of the main parts of his teaching was those who were ‘well off’ now, would pay later. Yet the poor would inherit the earth. This didn’t sit well with the ‘well to do’. The religious leaders were getting tired of him. Every time he opened his mouth it seemed like he was teaching stuff that was right on, and it often reproved the systems of belief that the average preacher was ‘hawking’ at the time. Then the day comes where his zealous followers are going to prove to everybody that Jesus is the Messiah, they have been waiting for a few years to be vindicated. Peter was this zealot type reformer who was tired of the oppression of Rome. Being treated as some type of ‘illegal alien’. ‘You wait and see Rome, our Messiah has finally arrived. It was even prophesied that he would deliver the Jews from Rome’s oppression. Our day is here’. Then a funny thing happened. The road to Jerusalem is nearing, our vindication day. All the prophets spoke of the triumphal entry of the Jewish King to take David’s throne. This obviously will be fulfilled in Jerusalem, the city of the great King [David]. Well as the day approached, Jesus started talking about death and leaving us. We couldn’t grasp what he was saying. We gave everything to him; we looked like fools following him against the opinions of the preachers of our day. Jesus doesn’t seem to understand we can’t have him dieing now. It will ruin our ‘day of getting even’ with all those who spoke against us. If he dies now we will feel like we have allowed the enemies to win. We want to win! Then they remember the teachings of Jesus. He told them the Cross was not just something he would experience. He told them a day was coming where they too would identify with him in this process. A day of humiliation and defeat. Those who would experience it would be different on the other side. Peter swallows hard and readies himself. “Though all the others forsake you, I wont’’ He even cuts off the ear of one of the company who come to take Jesus. A very brave thing to do, knowing your out numbered and all. I guess he really wanted to show that he was willing to die this day. But this wasn’t his day to die. Then the hour comes. Jesus begged the Father if there was another way please help me find it. He determines to allow the Cross to take full course. He sees Peter cursing and denying him. Peter tastes it too. They drive the nails thru his hands and prop him up over this hillside. It looks like something out of Hollywood ‘the place of the skull’. Something strange happens. The sky turns dark. It’s eerie, the people were just making fun of him and now they are terrified. One of the others being crucified that day decides to ask Jesus if he could be with him in Paradise. Jesus has so much on his plate right now. The ‘weight of the world’ and yet has time to pray for him. ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’ still putting others first. As the sky darkens the earth shakes. Later we find out that the tombs of believers broke open from this event and after the resurrection many saints rose from the dead and were seen witnessing in the area! A Roman guard is seeing all this, he sees this strange religious leader cry out to his God ‘O my God why did it come to this. You have forsaken me. Into your hands I commit my spirit’ the soldier simply says ‘truly this man was the Son of God’. He is taken down and put in a tomb. Others will come who will teach that Jesus was part of the ‘aristocracy’ that he was from the ‘rich class’. They put him in a ‘rich mans tomb’ but it had to be donated! His followers are distraught. Especially Peter. Peter was thinking ‘what have I done, I cant believe the weakness of my flesh. All that I worked for in this revolution is now lost. I will be remembered as the one who failed. My image is forever stained’. Jesus appears to the women who were his followers after the resurrection. A strange thing for sure. If someone were writing this story and it was all made up, you wouldn’t have Jesus going first to the women. It would take away from the ‘believability’ of the story. 1st century Rome was a bit patriarchal you know. The women are amazed. Jesus did it. ‘Go tell the disciples I am alive. Especially Peter. I know he gave it all he could to not deny me. But it had to happen. It was part of his Cross’. They go and tell the others. The disciples will go on and found the greatest religious movement known to man. Peter will gain his boldness back. History even tells us that when they crucified him he asked to be killed upside down, because he wasn’t worthy to die like his King. They finished well. God restored comforts unto Jesus and to his mourners. But first the Cross. NOTE: The martyrdom of Peter. Jesus tells Peter one time ‘where I am going [the Cross] you cannot follow me at this time. Later you will follow me, but your time has not come yet’. Jesus knew it was necessary for Peter’s denial to still take place. Peter had an ‘appointment’ with failure. Peters desire was to be a martyr for the cause. He was a ‘zealot’ a political activist of his day who would have been willing to die for freedom. He tried to show this at the point when they came to take Jesus. The act of cutting off the ear of a Roman soldier is something that you get executed for. The 1st century means of execution was the Cross. Peter actually took a step towards martyrdom with this act. Jesus interrupted the process by miraculously putting the guys ear back on! Its like Peter wanted death, but Jesus already told him it wasn’t yet time. You find Peter after Pentecost preaching to the Jews in such a way that it seemed like he was back to the ‘martyrdom complex’. He says things that could very well get him killed. It’s like he can’t wait to pass thru the ‘tunnel’. When the day finally comes he does get crucified upside down. He never really overcame the guilt of his initial denial. He still felt unworthy over what he did. The early church had a movement where Christians were wanting to get martyred. They read verses like the one in Hebrews 11 that says ‘those who are martyred receive a better resurrection’ so this group of ‘Christian zealots’ were actually doing things to get executed for the faith. The early church fathers/Bishops had to put a stop to it. These guys were like Peter after the resurrection! There was a real sense of ‘I want to get killed for the faith’ that some of these brothers had. What a contrast to today’s gospel. We appeal to people by telling them your gonna get rich if you follow Christ. Things will be great. We seem to appeal to the flesh of people. The early followers knew if they embraced the faith that there was a chance that you might get killed.
(384) A few things. I was reading the verses in Isaiah and ‘saw’ the theme of ‘I have put my words in your mouth’ ‘I have made you a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth, you will thresh the mountains and beat them small and the wind shall carry them away’ ‘I have hidden you in my hand’ [this hidden part comes after both the above verses]. I felt like the Lord was saying there are seasons where he speaks thru people. It’s important for those people to understand the principle of ‘being hidden’. I feel this ‘being hidden’ is a voluntary act where Christians [prophetic people] follow the example of Jesus in the gospel. When they came to ‘make him King’ [exalt him in their way] that he refused! I believe Jesus was showing us that when God chooses people to carry certain prophetic messages at reformation times, that there is a temptation to allow people to ‘make them Kings’. Often times well meaning humble men fall into this snare. It is not always pride that leads to self-exaltation. Sometimes it is humility! A feeling of ‘I really don’t want to be exalted, but the people really want this, so what the heck’. Scripture gives us examples on how to deal with this. FLEE! I also just addressed an envelope to a Texas jail. Got the letter yesterday from one of the sons of one of the addicts/ex cons who has been a friend of mine for 20 years. I remember this son coming to our church meetings as a little boy. I haven’t seen him in years. I knew he was doing bad. Into drugs and all. Kinda happy to get the letter. Sad that he’s in prison. I will send him some books and stuff in a few days. Something about the Cross experience. It must have been hard on Jesus to realize that his friends and disciples were ‘experiencing’ the cross because of him. If Peter and Judas and all these guys never met or knew Jesus, then the whole drama of agony and defeat [and damnation!] would have played no central role in their lives. I am not saying it’s our fault when things happen to people. It’s the reality of knowing that those who are ‘recruited’ into the game by you, if they get ‘hurt’ during the game, it’s you who recruited them! This part of the cross is difficult for me to swallow. I do struggle with self-guilt when things like this happen. NOTE: I just read the letter, my friend is seeking God and getting restored. The main question that he asked me about was how to deal with all the ‘self guilt’ and depression that he is experiencing at this time in his life. I will print this blog for him and send it!
(385) ‘You think the people exist to provide you with possessions, I think the possessions exist to provide the people with freedom’ William Wallace [braveheart] to the tribal elders of Scotland! The people [Christians] do not exist for the welfare/benefit of the clergy/ministries/churches; these things exist to release Gods people to walk in freedom!
(386) I was talking to some friends the other day. They brought up evolution. Some were against it, others for it. I mentioned how science today has advanced to the point where evolution has been disproven. There are some die hards who won’t admit this, but there are entire schools of science that do not hold to this theory any more. Many of these scientists are not Christian. They simply see the level of scientific truth and cannot truly hold to the immature level of thinking that Darwin espoused in the 19th century. Darwin was a good man, his wife was a very active Christian who did many works of charity. By all accounts they were very good people. In the discussion I mentioned how in Darwin’s day they did not know things we now know in the area of DNA testing. Today we know that the function of human blood has 30 or more ‘complex machines’ that must be present at the start for blood to function. The idea that people could have evolved slowly over millions of years cannot scientifically be true because of this. This is not a ‘religious’ belief. This is not ‘faith’. This is science. So any honest scientist seeing this fact has to reject the concept of human blood slowly evolving. However man appeared, we scientifically know that his blood had to have ‘showed up’ in a complex form, not a simple one. Evolution loses based on scientific truth. Sorry to all you intellectuals that are wrong. Now one of the guys said ‘but it’s still possible that chance did this’. No its not. If you flip a coin ‘chances are’ it will land on heads or tails. What are the chances that it will land on ‘feet’? Absolutely none. The point is ‘chance’ cannot go against fact. In the area of science certain things are fact, others theory. The ‘facts’ have to shape the theories, not the other way around. Darwin held to a level of scientific understanding that was OK for his day. The level he was at was highly ‘immature’ compared to where we are at today. If you will ‘science has evolved to the point where evolution is no longer viable’ [threw that in for all the smart alecs]. Darwin believed that life ‘appeared’ by random acts of chance. The maggots that would ‘show up’ in something rotting and the appearance of fish in bodies of water that pooled after a hard rain were thought to be processes of ‘evolution’ that proved that things [life forms] can just show up without any creative cause behind it. Today every scientist in existence knows this to not be true. The birds would carry ‘larvae’ and eggs by transmission into the pools. The bacteria and transmitted ‘debris’ from flies and other things landing on the dead bodies of animal’s accounts for the maggots. To continue to hold onto Darwin’s beliefs in these areas is ridiculous. He was an honest man operating at the level of science for his day. I heard a priest [who I like] defend evolution [they are called theistic evolutionists]. These believers honestly view evolution as fact and they feel the church is behind the times like in the days of Galileo. They make an honest effort to teach that God started the ball rolling and he used evolution as a means to create. The only problem with this theory is that evolution is scientifically false! This Priest used the ‘commonality’ of present life forms to prove his point. He said if you look at monkeys and other created animals you will see that they have similar ‘structures’ to humans. Therefore all humans came from monkeys! That’s a big ‘therefore’. The fact that animals and humans share common traits [eyes and ears and stuff] prove a common creator, not that they all came forth by evolution. Actually these ‘common traits’ disprove the theory. Evolutionists can’t explain why the eye of a fish, a dinosaur a monkey an insect and a human are all alike [for the most part] yet everything else about them is so different. Why didn’t the ‘common traits’ evolve like everything else? The creationist uses this argument to prove the idea of a ‘common creator’ the concept of one being making everything and choosing to use the same structures for some parts while the other ‘parts’ being unique. Well any way I thought it was worth throwing this entry in today. NOTE: True science is the practice of ‘looking’ at things and observing them and seeing how things work and then basing conclusions on these facts. Theory is a part of scientific study, but the theories must come from the facts. In all ‘observable’ data, there is not a single incident of one species ‘evolving’ into another. Not one! All observable data show that complex things come from design, not chance. All things that are complex in our industrial world were designed and created by a higher form of intelligence [watches, cars, etc.] The enormous complexity of man, the Solar system, the planet earth and the amazing intricacies of living things all show a level of design that is absolutely incomprehensible. For all of these things to have come from a point in history when there was nothing in existence, accept a few unexplainable gases floating around for eons of time. And then without any pre thought or design, over billions of years thru some unexplainable explosion, to have then produced this unbelievable amount of intricate design is scientifically impossible. Why? Because science [the observing of things] never shows us any thing like this. The Christian worldview teaches ‘something’ from outside of the natural dimension, that always existed [God] acted upon creation and brought into existence all things. A true scientist would have to come to this conclusion eventually. Because all other observable complex things have had prior forethought and design. This is why when believers debate evolution, they should not do it from the standpoint of faith, they should debate it from the standpoint of scientific fact!
(387) Let me jump back to a small group of our readers who are from the ‘fundamentalist’ background. A lot of the issues on the Rapture and end times and ‘getting saved for real’ that I deal with is helpful to this part of our ‘on line’ community. One of the other areas that I saw when I was attending a fundamental Baptist Church was the inability to see or accept the fact that some of the heroes of the faith were not like them. Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield and other great revival leaders who were part of the historical great awakenings of this country were presented in ways that were intellectually dishonest. The Pastors didn’t mean to be dishonest, it was simply a result of the sectarian mindset that works within this group. The church I attended described classic Calvinism as ‘hyper Calvinism’. The above preachers all believed in classic Calvinism. They honestly held to the historic doctrine of predestination as taught by the Apostle Paul. Now the groups who do not hold to ‘predestination’ in the classic way are called ‘Arminians’. Most of the Evangelical church in America fall into this group. The point is when the Fundamental Baptists spoke on these historical preachers they taught that they were all like them. They would say ‘some are trying to teach that Edwards was a hyper Calvinist, we no better than to believe this’. The fact is Edwards was actually a ‘hyper Calvinist’. The point I am making isn’t to debate the different positions of the fathers of the faith. Whatever side you fall on is up to you. But no matter how you believe, this doesn’t give you the right to distort or misrepresent history. To some of the brothers the simple reality that there were great heroes of the faith who actually believed in ‘hyper Calvinism’ was too much for them to handle. This grows out of being insecure and sectarian in your faith. In order for believers to be able to embrace the other parts of the church that they are unfamiliar with, there needs to be a basic security of accepting the fact that others are not like you. You can still teach about them and the historic movements that they were a part of, but to deny the reality of what they taught and believed does a disservice to true Christian learning.
(388) I watched Brave Heart the other day. People need something to die for. Would you die for stuff? Would you die for doctrine? Would you die for someone who died for you? We have lost our soul and passion. We have sold our selves for ‘nought’ [Isaiah].
(389) ‘As many as were astonished at you, so shall you sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at you. They will see things they have never seen before. They will consider things that they never considered before’ rough quote from Isaiah. Chapter 50 something? I felt like God was saying he is going to produce things from the shattering of our lives. The ‘broken pot’ imagery. He will bring forth things from the act of ‘crucifixion’ that could not be produced in a thousand years of our own intellectual capacity. Our gifts and talents don’t produce. The ‘grain’ of wheat must fall into the ground and die. They said of Jesus once ‘this is a hard saying, who can receive it’ I guess those for whom it is meant.
(390) I spoke a while back on the Pastor friend that used to attend the church I Pastored years ago. Let me share a few things from this experience that serve to illustrate a point. One time this friend was struggling financially [actually all the time] I used to advise him to get a job until he felt like ‘the ministry’ would support him. He seemed to fall into the mistake that sees ‘ministry’ as a trade, and therefore getting a job would be wrong. He would get offended when I told him stuff like this. One time he had put some pens he had made with scripture on them into the offering. He later told me he had no money to give, but by putting the pen in, with scripture on it, he was ‘exalting’ the Word and God would see this ‘seed’ he planted and give him a return. All of this was symptomatic of the way the Word of faith movement would approach scripture. In this case my friend was violating all the verses that speak of being diligent, working and stuff like this. He then felt ‘honoring the Word’ was doing what he did. Many in this movement teach that to be a ‘doer of the Word’ means to ‘speak the Word’. Speaking the Word is a good thing, but being a ‘doer’ is contrasted with being a ‘hearer/speaker’. This actual teaching comes from the book of James and James is saying ‘don’t be a hearer only, but be a doer’. ‘doing’ in this context is not ‘speaking’ it is ‘doing’. James says if someone comes to your door and is in need and you say [confess] ‘be warmed and filled’ but you don’t actually meet the need, then you are only a ‘confessor’ and not a ‘doer’. It’s another one of those strange interpretations where these brothers found a way to teach that ‘doing the word’ means ‘saying the word’ even though ‘saying the word’ is what is being contrasted with ‘doing the word’. Jesus did say ‘say unto this mountain’ and the Word of God teaches the principles of confession and speaking truth, the problem is these things are simply tools to help us along the road. They are not to become the road! To simply learn and put into effect all the biblical ‘techniques’ and watch them work does not mean you are in the will of God. Many people have excelled in finances thru the use of biblical principles. Some of them were called to other things and instead chose to become wealthy. They might have even attained the wealth thru ‘diligence’ [a biblical principal] but if that truly was not Gods purpose for them, they failed. I find the focus on techniques and ‘windfall’ inheritances less than profitable. Many who hold to the ideas that my friend held to will see the truth of God giving the ‘wealth of the heathen/Egyptians into the hands of Israel’ and will use this to justify a lazy lifestyle. The above friend believed that God was going to ‘give him the wealth of the heathen’. Does scripture say the ‘wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous’ you bet! But it continues to say ‘and God will give it into the hands of those who are upright in his sight’. Is being lazy upright? Is sitting around spending your life waiting for some windfall upright? God gave the children of Israel the wealth of Egypt because the children of Israel labored for years as slaves, they were not being compensated justly for their work. They got paid for their work by leaving Egypt with their wealth. God did not give an inheritance to his people who weren’t working! Well the point today is don’t use scripture as a ‘technique book’ that if you master you will get more than the next guy. Scripture is a book that brings us the truth of the gospel. We enter into covenant with God thru this gospel. We become ‘debtors’ to this great God and Father. We seek to serve him all our days. We are not looking for schemes to ‘get rich quick’. NOTE: In Jesus teaching he says ‘why do people confess me as Lord, but do not do what I say’ ‘many people will come to me and say ‘Lord, Lord’ and I will say ‘I never knew you’. I am not saying these brothers are not Christians, they are. I just want you to see that Jesus really put the emphasis on ‘doing the works’ more so than on ‘what you say’. The ‘saying of things’ is a part of it. But this is not the ‘heart of the matter’.
(391) I felt like the Lord wanted me to share some things, I do not ‘feel’ like doing this at all. These last few days have been real difficult for me. This is an example of ‘doing what God says despite your feelings’. I want to speak on the Kingdom of God. The Christian church has had various ways to ‘see’ the Kingdom of God. For many centuries [19 of them to be exact!] the church for the most part taught ‘amillennialism’ a type of view that saw the work of the Cross as the significant event that ‘triggered’ Gods Kingdom. In effect believers saw the fact that Jesus died and was resurrected to be seated at Gods right hand as Gods Kingdom already being in effect thru this event. The giving of the Spirit to the church was Gods ‘program’ of expanding the Kingdom in the earth thru the growth of Christianity down thru the centuries. Some who held to this view [which for the most part I agree with] also ‘spiritualized’ all the verses of God dealing with Israel and the event of the second coming in a way that denied the literal return of Jesus to David’s throne. During the 20th century you had the rise of ‘fundamentalism’ and dispensational theology that saw the truth of the real second coming and Jesus actual return to Israel to be seated on David’s throne [John R Rice and other fundamentalist preachers brought out much truth in these areas. These brothers would come to be seen as ‘premelliannial’ in the sense that Jesus must first return and take David’s throne in Jerusalem before the ‘millennial’ rule of Christ can come] The divisions between these ways of seeing Christ return are strong. Some from the latter camp began to hold to a view of the Kingdom that said ‘man cannot bring Gods rule in, only Jesus. Therefore until he comes back all the church can do is win souls’. The other camp said ‘ we are here as Christians to initiate Gods rule. We are salt and light and therefore we have Christ’s Spirit in us to bring Gods rule in’. Both of these groups have truth. The fundamentalist for the most part rejected the reality of God initiating his rule thru Christ the King who is already seated at Gods right hand [the position of rule] and is working thru his subjects [the church] right now. In reality man cant change the world, but the church thru the present ministry of Jesus at Gods right hand does have the ‘ability’ thru Gods Spirit to bring in Gods rule. The idea that the second coming is the ‘event’ that God will use to bring about world change denies the reality of Christ’s rule right now. The American president is the president right now. He has certain abilities to effect change by this fact. He is ‘seated’ in the nations capital, you might never actually see him in person, but the fact of his authority is a real thing. The fact that Jesus rose from the grave and is seated at Gods right hand is the event that gave us the authority to affect the world thru the church. This is Gods idea, not mans. It is also true that Jesus will come back and literally return to Jerusalem. But the seat of authority that he now holds at Gods right hand is much greater than David’s throne. There are actually scriptures that show that Jesus has already ‘inherited’ the throne of David by virtue of the fact that he ‘sits on top of the mountain that trumps all other thrones’. The dispensational brothers will look to the world wars and other major events and say ‘see, this is proof that man cant change the world. Until Jesus comes back things will get worse’. The Bible says those in darkness will continue to get worse, those in the light will get brighter and brighter. The Idea is as Gods ‘citizenship’ increases [thru evangelism] more people become children of light. So even though the world is getting darker, the church isn’t. The more people who become ‘members’ of the church will become ‘brighter’. This obviously will affect the world for good. So man in and of himself cant bring in ‘Gods rule’ but the fact that Jesus is presently reigning [though you don’t physically see him] is where the real power of ‘world change’ is located. So for people like myself, I would answer the strong dispensationalist with this fact. Now to the Parables of Jesus. The strong dispensationalists have a ‘strange’ way they interpret some of the Parables. The one on ‘the kingdom of Heaven is like unto leaven that someone took and hid in 3 measures of meal until the whole loaf was leavened’ this Parable, as well as many others show the concept of Gods kingdom invading the planet in a small way at the start [Jesus and the 12] and eventually effecting all the earth. The dispensationalist’s teach that Leaven is always a sign of something unclean and because the ‘law of first things’ [the first time a certain theme is used in scripture will define it for the rest of scripture] that therefore the leaven here is wickedness, and that the Kingdom of Heaven is different than the Kingdom of God [they are the same by the way!] that what Jesus is actually teaching is that wickedness will eventually invade all of the ‘church world’ [which they say is the Kingdom of heaven-silly] and therefore when Jesus returns he will fix everything. To me this would be a failure of what Jesus is trying to do. He left all authority on earth to the disciples by saying ‘go into all the world’ after he said ‘all authority is given to me’. He commissioned the church to ‘invade the world’. If the evil in the world wins until Christ’s return that would basically be a big failure on the part of the church, which represents Christ Kingdom now! The first century religious mind had a view of religion that was based on Old Testament ideas. In the Old Testament, if a Priest who was ceremonially clean, touched something unclean, then the priest would become defiled. The ‘transmission’ of holiness to unholy things didn’t work. But the ‘transmission’ of unclean things to holy things did! This is why the Pharisees had such a hard time with Jesus ‘contact’ with sinners and prostitutes. The Pharisees saw the ‘church’ as an institutional fortress ‘flee into Gods community and be separate from society’. Now the New Testament gives a mandate for believers to ‘come out from the world’ but this is speaking about not partaking of the sins of the world while being salt and light in the world. Jesus instituted a type of Priesthood that transmitted ‘holiness to unclean things’. A better priesthood [Hebrews]. Scripture says ‘light came into the world and the darkness couldn’t overcome it’ [John] So in Jesus rule you find the ‘Priests’ [all believers] having Christ’s Spirit in them for the purpose of affecting the world with righteousness. Now the church has too often grasped a mindset like the Pharisees. You see this in the strong conservative elements of Christianity ‘the moral majority’ ‘the center for moral clarity’ and all these other silly institutions. These guys mean well, but they are dividing society into ‘sides’ that has the gay lobby and others fighting against the ‘moral crusaders’. In essence this is a return to the ‘Pharisee mindset’. But there is also a movement in American Christianity [by the way we are only a small part of world Christianity!] that is appealing to the other side of the political spectrum Sort of like liberal ‘yuppie’ type Christians who might vote democrat or republican. They don’t hold to the ‘religious right’ persona. They are concerned with environmental issues and stuff [they might even still go to rock concerts, amen!]. I see this movement as great. God can recruit from all sides of the political spectrum. This is Gods ‘leaven’ affecting the whole lump. [By the way, leaven can represent something that starts small and invades everything. Sin can be described this way, or Gods Kingdom. Leaven is simply a ‘material’ that God can use in symbol any way he wants. Just cause it was used for an ‘unclean thing’ doesn’t mean Jesus cant ‘re use’ it for a clean thing. This actually can be a sign in and of itself. Jesus took a natural thing that was ‘sinful’ in scripture [man/leaven] and turned it around into something clean!] Basically what I am trying to get across today is Gods kingdom was not ‘postponed’ in its entirety. Certain aspects of its ‘revealing’ in regard to natural Israel are ‘hidden’ right now. At the second coming all Israel will see that Jesus has been ruling and reigning for thousands of years already. He will appear to natural Israel some day, but remember its not always the way we think!
(392) I took my kids to the beach yesterday. It’s the beginning of summer vacation and we live about 2 miles from the gulf. Growing up in Jersey I loved the shore. My kids don’t always realize what a blessing it is to be so close to the ocean. One of them [my oldest] does go regularly, she surfs and all. Well this was the first time I had a chance to swim at the Packery Channel, since they opened it up. It has these 2 huge jetties strutting out into the gulf. It was sort of strange, a huge storm blew in, a cold front and all. I don’t remember seeing something like this since first moving to Corpus. That is while actually swimming in the ocean! It felt surreal. I kinda felt it to be a little significant. I spoke earlier on this blog about this channel having significance to me. I also read in Isaiah where God says ‘this is my servant, I will open up before you the 2 leaved gates that no one will be able to shut. You will crush the bronze gates to dust’ Sort of like God saying ‘I have opened up a door for you that no man can shut’ [John in the book of Revelation]. We had a huge flash flood from the storm. When I got home I realized that my study roof wasn’t leaking any more. I have tried to fix it for years! I actually tore off the roof twice and re did the whole thing with role roof [twice! I do have a tendency to overreact at times.]. I couldn’t fix that ‘darn’ leak for years. Finally one day I resorted to the ‘last resort’ you Christians know what this is. Prayer! I don’t know why we do stuff like this. You think it would have been easier to have prayed first before re rolling the whole roof twice! [It’s only a 200 sq. foot section] Well even after prayer I felt it wasn’t yet fixed. Sure enough it rained one day and it was still leaking. But I kinda felt that something did happen when I prayed. One day I got up on the roof to trim some branches [pruning] and noticed 2 small wet spots. It wasn’t raining, but the sun wasn’t out and this created an environment where any small hidden wet spots would be exposed. I have checked for holes and leaks many times, never could find anything. It’s just this time the Lord supernaturally gave me an environment where I would clearly be able to ‘see’ the leaks/breaches and be able to ‘seal up the breach’. Well when I got home yesterday from the beach the flash flooding was enough rain to check for the leak. I got home and realized for the first time that the leak was fixed. Over a period of a few years! Felt like God was saying he will open up ‘breaches/leaved gates’ that we were unable to open before. And that he will also ‘close up’ areas where we have been leaking for years. It was the ‘rain’ that allowed me to finally ‘see’ that the breach was fixed. It actually was really fixed when I sealed up these 2 little holes a few months back, but it took a period of patient waiting to see if it really worked. Be sensitive to the Lords timing. Don’t expect him to do ‘all the leg work’ in the sense that you prayed and just sat idly by. Remember faith without works is dead. In my scenario I prayed and ‘accidentally’ found the leaks by God creating a type of atmosphere that allowed me to see what I couldn’t perceive before. It still required 2 little dabs of roof tar, but these dabs were nothing compared to all the re roofing efforts I had done in the flesh. When God changes your environment to see things differently, your labor will go a lot further. Be open to these signs. NOTE scripture says when Gods people were in rebellion that they brought home their paychecks and it was like putting money in a bag with holes in it. It’s like the bag had leaks. When you align yourself with Gods purpose the bag ‘stops leaking’.
(393) While watching Brave Heart the other day, there is a scene where Mel Gibson steps back onto the land of his heritage. It shows Gibson/Wallace standing on the land and breathing in the air. Sort of like ‘this is the place of my destiny’. I am reminded of the verse that says ‘stand and feed in the strength of the almighty’ ‘I will raise up one from the tribe of Judah and he shall inherit my holy mountain’. God has planted within us the DNA to ‘inherit the land’. This is not some real estate inheritance; this is entering in and ‘breathing’ in the environment of your destiny. There are times when we are surrounded by the ‘practices’ of life. We go thru the motions. We pray [I hope so!] we seek God, do evangelism and all the other stuff. Then there’s that thing in us [or at least me] that says ‘risk it all again’. Jump into the ocean. The big leaps of faith aren’t finished yet. STAND AND FEED IN THE STRENGTH OF THE ALMIGHTY once again. I just sense that God has destined us for more than having enough money to retire on. There are times where we are surrounded by the mundane things of life, during these times the only way out is ‘jump’. God does tell us to ‘go all the way into the river until it goes over your head’ [Ezekiel?]. It’s time for some of you to ‘go over your head’.
(394) Some things from Isaiah 53. ‘He is despised and rejected of men, we hid our faces from him’. Funny thing, never did or said a single wrong thing. Theologically correct 100 % of the time. How did we view him? We HID from him when we saw him coming. The gossip was so bad about him we couldn’t even face him. ‘We esteemed him not’. We said ‘I don’t care who he thinks he is, do you know what I heard’? ‘He was wounded for us, bruised for us. The price to obtain the things that would bring us peace was on him’ all the things that caused us to look down upon him were actually part of the price he had to pay for our benefit! ‘He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, he was like a silent lamb being killed’ I don’t have what it takes to be silent when I am being talked about. There was a sort of oppression that kept coming against Jesus. It was like men will keep doing whatever it takes to ‘get to him’. Pilate says ‘don’t you know I might actually have you put to death’ they kept pushing all the buttons. What was it again that they found wrong with him? O yes, he said ‘I am the Son of God’ in so many words. That’s right, now I remember. The great crime that led us to this point of killing him was HE TOLD US THE TRUTH! ‘He did no violence, nor was there ever any deceit in his mouth’ I cant say the same about me. ‘Yet it pleased the Father to bruise him, HE HATH DONE THIS TO HIM’ it’s so hard to comprehend this. You are not only allowing these things, but actually doing them by your great purpose! I thought any thing like this was the work of the devil. I thought I was suffering because of something I did wrong. I have been trying to get out of this difficulty. Everyone today preaches ‘if he were from God surely this wouldn’t be happening’. ‘He will see of the pain in my soul, by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many’ the things I will bring forth from your pain will ‘justify’ [bring into alignment] many. The pain first! ‘I will divide him a portion with the great [he will share the fruits with many well known people, those who thrive on fame]. He will divide the goods with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death. He bear the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors’ in the midst of this personal turmoil he was faithful to continue interceding for others. He did like Job who ‘prayed for his friends’ and then the Lord turned his captivity around. He learned to be faithful in intercession even when his life was being poured out. Who can live up to this? Jesus is the perfect man. NOTE this chapter starts with ‘who hath believed our report’ I was just ‘worrying’ about how many people are accepting/believing the things on this blog. A feeling of like ‘am I crazy, is nobody getting reached in a lasting way?’ Then I read the part of ‘our report’. I felt like the Lord was saying don’t worry about whether or not you are accepted. If you speak the things I am saying, then it’s ‘our’ report. Sort of like when scripture says to the prophets ‘they have not rejected you, they have rejected me’. I don’t want to come off as everything I say is right. I just felt like the Lord was saying when you speak in his will, it’s up to him to deal with the problem of whether or not the ‘report’ is being believed. Sometimes it’s in his purpose for reports to ‘not be believed’ so he can get to the next step.
(395) I saw a ministry out of Texas [We sure seem to have a lot of em!] who again preaches money all the time. I have read and listened to tapes from him before. He does have a tremendous amount of wisdom and Knowledge in areas of business and finance. His teachings were some of the best I have ever heard in these areas. He himself testified of how when he became a believer he later began to be ‘fascinated to an extreme’ with rich people. He studied and researched and could not get and consume enough information on these rich and wealthy people. The way he described it sounded like an unbelievable obsession with wealth. He used this description to explain how he became so knowledgeable in these areas. I saw it more of falling into the danger that Jesus warned against ‘Beware of covetousness, for a mans like doesn’t consist of the abundance of the things that he possesses’. I like this teacher, he does have great wisdom. It’s just he advocates so many of the things I have shown you to be wrong on this site. He would never admit it, he is brilliant. Scripture says ‘thy knowledge hath perverted thee’ it is possible to learn the most intricate truths of success from scripture. To apply them in such a way that you become highly successful and wealthy. It is possible to teach this system to others with a PURE HEART, that is you truly are not trying to take advantage of people. All of this in and of itself does not justify the obsession with wealth that these types of teachers promote. Their ‘wisdom’ has truly perverted them. NOTE: Many of these brothers are not ‘crooked’ fakes. They are sincere and honest in their dealings. They give extreme amounts of money to missions. Because of this they do not see themselves like the obvious fakes. There have been blatant deceivers who have robbed people; these brothers do not fall into this category. Because of this they cant see that they have fallen into the snare of desiring to become wealthy, which scripture forbids [1st Timothy 6- go read it!]. This is what makes it so difficult when you try to uproot this teaching from the church. NOTE: Let me show you how humility and truth trump wisdom. Though the above teacher is extremely wise, he also uses the ‘proof texts’ to teach that Jesus was also rich. The many verses I have shown you on this site. You can honestly show these brothers that these ‘proof texts’ do not trump the overall character of Jesus that comes to us from the testimony of the gospels. The gospels plainly show us an itinerant preacher who gathered a rag tag team of disciples and led a radical life. Sure they had a ‘bag’ [treasury] and Jesus wore an expensive coat [more than likely donated!] but these verses do not teach a wealthy Jesus! It is next to impossible for these guys to ‘see’ this. Knowledge can pervert you. These guys have seen real truth [knowledge] in areas of finances that the historic church has overlooked. They see how they know more than the traditional church in these areas. The fact that they posses true knowledge is a stumbling block to trying to show them these other areas of false teaching. They seem to think that all critics are traditional thinkers who do not have revelation knowledge. Deception is deceitful, that means you don’t know you are being deceived! NOTE: I know I have ‘harped’ on this a lot. I do over emphasize this area of correction because there have been so many leaders who have refused to deal with it over the years. Many innocent Pastors who are not familiar with the extreme elements of some of these teachings have inadvertently taught or condoned these teachers by mentioning their names or teaching a small aspect of their doctrine, like Jesus being rich because he had an expensive coat, or the teaching that the parable of the sower is speaking about finances [it is not!]. So in general this area has affected a lot of innocent Christians who are truly not aware of these things.
(396) Been studying some ‘apostolic movements’ [ministries that re produce many off shoot churches]. Some of the groups are very anti college. They feel that the Bible teaches a form of learning that is opposed to the university format. As someone who has never been to college myself, I can identify with this. But I don’t fully agree. The ‘Bible’ itself is a product of ‘formal education’. Jesus himself never penned a book, there is no epistle written by Jesus. Yet we do have the gospels that record his teachings. I guess you could argue that because Jesus himself never wrote a book, then all ‘book learnin’ is ‘un biblical’. The point is it’s all right to use formal means of education. There are definitely colleges that do harm to Christians. There were many liberal Christian universities that taught in a way that absolutely undermined Christian faith. I remember studying on how the 4 gospels were all written from 1 source. The ‘theologians’ surmised if you looked at all the differences and similarities in the gospels that the only logical conclusion was they all were written from another book. They called this single source ‘Q’. They taught this in a way that denied the writers accounts of actually being eyewitnesses to the things that they wrote about. A sort of ‘undermining’ of the trustworthiness of the gospels. Were all the gospels taken from one source? Yes. His name is Jesus. It is possible to be too smart for your own good!
(397) In the Bible you find stories of Jesus healing people. He casts unclean spirits out of people. In some of these scenarios you see the person who is healed respond violently. He will fall or give some type of indication that the ‘unclean thing’ that is ‘lodged’ in him doesn’t want to go. Its sort of like the enemy has strategized for years to ‘hook’ people. He has spent an enormous amount of ‘thought time’ coming up with schemes to entangle you. In some of these instances he has tricked you into allowing him to snare you. Sort of like you voluntarily opened the door, and in a way he had ‘a legal right’ to ensnare you. Then Jesus comes along and ‘un does’ in a moment that which the enemy took years to build. Jesus does this despite any legal right or ‘generational curse’ or any other thing that claims a right to attach itself to you. Its like the enemy gets mad because he thinks he earned the authority to have beaten you over this 9-inning game. He has worked hard to develop the series of attacks thru out your life. He feels his team [of demons!] has played hard and its only fair that he wins. Then this Jesus comes along and simply manipulates the environment to be favorable towards you. Don’t get me wrong, Jesus isn’t cheating. He has all the authority to rightfully do this because of the Cross. It’s just the enemy feels cheated in a way. This is why you see the violent responses when Jesus is casting these things out. Its like Jesus shows up and the other team is saying ‘man, this guys gonna ruin it for us again!’ [Too bad Jesus couldn’t show up to the Dallas games more often!]
(398) ‘Its not the perpetuation of our personas that we are looking for, it’s the impartation of the gift, in order to bring to maturity the Body of Christ’. A crucial aspect of this is the season of recognizing that you have effectively planted the seed. Then to purposefully withdraw your image and ‘preoccupation’ that people will have towards your gift, and to allow Christ to increase as you decrease HE MUST INCREASE, AND I MUST DECREASE [John the Baptist speaking of Christ]. As Jesus ‘increases’ into maturity thru the Church becoming more self sufficient, we must decrease in proportion. If we don’t properly make this adjustment then the people of God will never fully develop. This means ‘Christ didn’t increase’ [as being fully formed thru his people] as a direct result of our not ‘decreasing’. NOTE; There are many modern scenarios where the Pastor is totally frustrated with the inability of his people to grow. They fall into a trap where they see this year after year and this develops a ‘dysfunctional family’ where the well-meaning Pastor begins to berate the ‘children’ for never rightfully transitioning into adulthood. The saints ‘come to church’ and the ‘Pastor’ basically yells at them for not growing. They don’t seem to see that the reason they are not growing is because the system depends on them to stay the same. The system [modern church] needs them to be faithful tithers in order to fund the system. Before there can ever be any real change, there has to come a paradigm shift of what ‘being the church’ really means.
(399) One of the hindrances to the development of the Body of Christ is the present mindset of ministry. Most good men who feel God has called them into service usually wind up in a scenario where the main thrust of their life is preparing messages to preach on Sunday. All good men, I too have been there. There are many prophetic people who have had the same types of experiences that you have read on this site. Many leaders who have seen greater things than me. Why aren’t you as familiar with these brothers as me? Why aren’t you growing thru their gift as was intended? For the most part it’s because the average Pastor is consumed with the functioning of his ‘church’ [Christian business]. He sees his responsibility as primarily servicing the people. Marrying, burying, getting the message ready. Stuff like this. Nothing really wrong about it, its just too much time is spent with these things and he never sees himself primarily as a vision implanter into people. Now some Pastors have written books and have done some long term planting. But for the most part the average Christian Pastor falls into this role of ‘full time minister’ that is to be found nowhere in the New Testament! Think long term my friends. If God is revealing things to you, write them down. Give time and attention to the specific areas of revelation that he has shown you. You don’t have to come up with something new to preach every week. Just allow the Spirit of God to use you to shape people into what God has for them. Try to break out of the mold of the modern Pastor who for the most part spends his entire life speaking to the ‘laity’, while spending 1% of his life hearing them. This is not a biblical model! Well that’s all for now, felt this word was for someone [I have no one in specific in mind]. NOTE: As this blog becomes known, I kinda sense the feeling from some Pastors who hear about us thru their ‘parishioners’ that they feel ‘we have a web site too’. Sort of in a defensive way. ‘Why don’t you go to our site?’ type thing. I don’t get into this type of competition stuff; I want all people to go to all web sites and every other thing the Lord is using in the church. The reason why some of these ‘church web sites’ are not popular is because many of them are geared to either promote a book [I am thinking of an out of town site that I went to and they simply showed the picture of a book for sale, if they actually published it on line many people would be able to tread it!] or to invite people to ‘church’. People are hurting and starving for real truth. See your web site as a radical means to get the message out. If all you are doing is advertising for church meetings, people are looking for more. This might be the reason that some Pastors are wondering why their sites aren’t as popular as they want.
(400) Let me clarify something. It is hard to fight too many battles at once. There are financial planners and other good Christians who absolutely disagree with me on tithing. Some misunderstand what I am saying. Also as humbly as I can put this. The ‘teaching authority’ that God has placed in various ‘elders’ [Apostles/ Prophets] absolutely trumps the best intentions of Christian counselors. I know some are mad, o well? Many well meaning Christian counselors say ‘it’s too late to convince me that tithing doesn’t work, I have been counseling people for years as a responsible financial planner, it works!’ Without rebuking you guys too much, here’s what you are wrong about. First, the ‘tithing’ as taught in the bible is not what you guys are teaching in the first place. So when you appeal to Malachi [the Old Testament book that says Gods people are robbing him by not tithing] you are not even speaking of the same thing. Go do an Old Testament study for ‘crying out loud’ and realize you are not teaching Christians tithing! Number 2, what you do teach works because YOU ARE TEACHING GIVING! Giving always works. The simple fact that you guys [Pastors and financial guys] are teaching Christians to give of their first fruits unto God works. Now if you give a lot [more generous] God returns a lot. If you give a little [cheapskate] then you get a little. Got it? In no way, shape or form is this the biblical doctrine of tithing. This is giving! It works not because you are teaching tithing, but because you are teaching giving! Well brother we teach it has to be 10% or you are under the curse. Well you asked for it. You guys are 100% wrong on this. Good theology trumps financial planners authority, sorry. There is NOTHING a believer can do to actually ‘get cursed’. Theologically impossible. Go read Galatians. Now its possible to go back to the mindset of law, and bring upon yourself the judgment of legalism. Feeling guilty and condemned if you don’t live up to certain standards. But this is what the so called TITHE does, not giving! In general all Christians should give. If its 8-10 or 20 percent, that’s between you and God. But for sure you are free from the curse because of Christ. Well to all my Pastors friends and Christian financial planner friends, sorry to have ‘trumped’ your authority on this one, I know it hurts. NOTE: Many preachers use this verse in Malachi to teach if you don’t put 10% of your income into the offering plate on Sunday that you are ‘robbing God’. Remember Jesus taught in his judgment scenarios that when you didn’t feed the poor, or visit those in jail, or clothe the naked. That this was how you were ‘robbing’ God. So in effect the way a person ‘robs God’ is by not ‘giving’ to meet the needs of society/brothers in need. This is also what Paul was doing in 1st Corinthians 16 when telling the Church to ‘take up a collection on the first day of the week’. This collection was to meet the needs of the poor saints at Jerusalem. So to ‘rob God’ is to not give to people [who are the New Testament Temple]. NOTE; there is a very popular Christian financial counselor on Radio today. I like him, most of you would know him. He is basically OK. I have a real problem when he says ‘this program is about making gobs of money’. He also uses language like me! He says ‘crap’ on the air. I kinda put his statement on ‘gobs of money’ in this ‘crap’ category. I actually think that some of his financial advice is wrong. Not even talking scripture here, just basic financial advice. The point is there are lots of experts in many fields who are Christian and for the most part do a good job. As believers we all have the right to question and come up with our own ideas on how to approach subjects. Take what’s good from these guys, and leave the rest alone.
(401) Might as well go a little more, being some guys [Pastors] are already mad. The area of the Second Coming. If there is any doctrine in the New Testament. The Cross. The Second Coming. Any major theme that is specifically defined as ‘an event’. For example; the ‘event’ of the Cross. The ‘event’ of Christ coming ONE more time. When you have something defined this way. No matter how many other end time scenarios you come up with, it has to stay faithful to the event. There are different ‘looks’ at the Cross in the gospels. There are different views of certain major miracles. There are different words that describe the Kingdom of God [One writer says ‘Kingdom of Heaven’]. When you read the different ‘angles’ you are seeing the same event from different perspectives. If one writer shows the events surrounding the Cross in a little different light, you don’t say there were 2 Cross events! That’s just plain common sense. If Jesus says to Peter in one gospel ‘you will deny me 3 times before the rooster crows’ and then in another gospel ‘you will deny me 3 times before the rooster crows twice’ are there 2 separate events when Peter did this? NO. One writer is just giving a little more detail about the event. So when you see in the New Testament various ‘angles’ to the second coming, no matter what, you don’t have the option of turning it into ‘2 more second comings’. Those who teach this say ‘we believe in one second coming. It’s just in 2 stages’ come on man! If I told you I am coming to visit you. I come. Then I say I will be back ONE more time for dinner. You don’t know when it will be. But watch, because I am coming back ONE more time. 5 years later I show up, I take care of business. I do some stuff. You would assume I came back for the last time. If I left and showed up again after 7 more years and said ‘this is the second part of the last coming’ this would be a little confusing. If there’s a ‘second part’ then that means I came back 2 more times. So you would have the first visit, the second time and then number 3! If you tried to tell me the last 2 times were one event split by 7 [or 3.5] years I would say ‘then why don’t you call all 3 of your comings 3 separate parts of ONE COMING’. We are silly at times! Jesus is coming back again. All the saints will meet him in the air. 1st Thessalonians says this. Will they ‘disappear’ for 7 years? NO. We meet him, the great inauguration day, the wedding supper. What ever you want to call it. We then return to the earth [that’s why you see images of Jesus coming back with his saints] not 7 years later, the same day! A lot of stuff happens for sure. But you cant turn this major historical belief into 2 separate events because it seems to fit better into your end time prophecy charts. Jesus will come back ONE more time according to the New Testament. It will be a great day for sure. He is not coming back 2 more times. That would make it the ‘third’ coming of Christ, not the ‘Second’. NOTE: To all my ‘regular’ readers. Many Christians teach that Jesus will come back again 2 more times. They call the next time ‘the Rapture’ which comes from the phrase ‘to catch away/ caught up’ found in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4. They then teach Jesus takes all the Christians away for 7 [or 3.5] years and comes back for a 3rd time at the ‘revelation’ [that is ‘his revealing]. There are many reasons why this teaching developed in the church. It’s not really heresy; I refer to it more as ‘silly’ [I would say stupid, but Christians are not supposed to use that type of language!] NOTE; I do find it a little ironic that many of the fundamental churches who believe this doctrine don’t seem to realize that more than likely it originated from a prophecy that a woman gave in a ‘brethren’ church back in the 19th century [this comes from some exhaustive research on this doctrine] it became popularized by some good men, gained a ‘foothold’ in the fundamentalist/bible conference movement of the 20th century and is taught today in some good bible schools [Dallas theological Seminary is one]. The point is some of these churches who embrace this would be the last ones to accept the ‘prophetic’ movement, and they would be apoplectic if they knew that one of their major ‘doctrines of the faith’ came from a woman’s prophecy! God does have a sense of humor! NOTE; Some teach that Jesus comes back ‘secretly’ at the event seen in 1st Thessalonians 4, they teach that Jesus comes all the way back to earth but just stops short [his feet not touching the ground] and is hidden and takes all the Christians away. They see the ‘taking away’ of Elijah and Enoch in the Old Testament as a ‘type’ of this. If God wanted to ‘take away’ all the Christians out of the planet, why would he have to come all the way back and stop short? To truly follow the model of Elijah and Enoch he could just take all the Christians while remaining seated at Gods right hand. I really don’t see why he would have to come all the way back and stop short in heaven [the air] to do this. The simple fact is when he returns we will be ‘caught up’ to meet him in the air and will from that moment forward forever be with him. This event as described in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 is without a doubt the resurrection. There is no ‘secret’ resurrection spoken of in scripture.
(402) In 2005 Indonesia put 3 Sunday school teachers in PRISON for converting Muslims to Christians. The parents of the children willingly permitted their kids to attend the Christian church, but these wonderfully tolerant Muslims put the Christians in PRISON. You often hear of the tragedies of the Christian church. The inquisitions, that of course were wrong. How many people were killed again? Do you remember? Was it around 6 million? O no that was the Holocaust, that’s right. It was less than 3 thousand! [some say 30 thousand, either way it was small in comparison to the holocaust]. Any loss of life is wrong to be sure, but it sure seems strange that historians would make you think it was something equal to the Holocaust. Saddam took this many people out in a day! Now this wonderful Muslim religion, you know, this tolerant group of fanatics, they took out 3,ooo in one day also. I think it happened somewhere up North? Do you hear all these rights groups speak on the fact that this religion is still killing and imprisoning people TODAY? No, what you see is the UN blaming the US as one of the worst human rights violators on the planet. Where are the voices speaking out against the actual Muslim countries killing and imprisoning Christians right now [Like the northern oppressive Muslim regime who are committing genocide right now against our black Christian brothers in the south of the Sudan!] I just find it strange that the liberal groups want to blame the US for the events of 911, while they still uphold the inquisitions as the worst human rights violation in history. O that’s right, I forgot. How many Irish Catholics were on the Planes that killed 3,ooo people? How many Protestants? How many Christians? These wonderful 19 hijackers all worshipped Allah and thought that they were following the dictates of the prophet Muhammad. It’s funny, these human rights groups never seem to want to discuss ‘current events’. NOTE: All Muslims are not terrorists. The point is if you had right wing Christians all on a plane, crashing into buildings while believing they were doing it for God, and then you had a Christian country regularly imprison and kill Muslims, these human rights groups would be the first ones to make the connection of their religion with their fanaticism. But they want to treat the radical Muslim as if his religion has nothing to do with his radicalism.
(403) Isaiah 54 ‘sing O barren, thou that didst not bear, break forth into singing. For more are the children of the desolate than of the married wife’ God says those who are empty and feeling ‘numb’ are reproducing spiritual children in abundance. We recently read how God ‘saw’ the pain in Jesus soul and was satisfied. How those in bondage and captivity brought forth children and said ‘where did these come from, I was in pain and affliction’. God seems to bring forth fruit from our lives during seasons of weakness and failure. Paul saw this and learned to ‘glory in his weakness’ because when he was humanly weak and incapable of the task, God would then step in and do for him what he was not able to perform. ‘Enlarge the place of thy tent and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations. Spare not, lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes’ the ‘them’ are the promised offspring that are coming. God says ‘make preparations’ you will have many spiritual kids. The Lord also says ‘lengthen your cords’ and then ‘strengthen the tent posts’ we usually want to strengthen first, sort of have everything pre prepared before we ‘expand’. The order here is different. God says ‘go for the growth first, and then I will strengthen what needs to be stronger’. I am not saying don’t make preparations, but sometimes we spend our whole lives ‘preparing’ and we never grow! ‘For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left and your seed shall inherit the gentiles’ ‘for a small moment have you felt forsaken, but with great mercies will I gather you. In a little wrath I hid my face from you for a moment, but with never ending kindness will I have mercy on you’ The ‘down’ times in your life seem forever, but compared to the fruit and grace that are coming, they will seem like small moments of history in my overall plan. ‘For this is like the waters of Noah to me, just like I swore that I would never flood the earth again, so I promise I will never be angry with you again’ the Cross removes any future wrath and anger from God, all future dealings will be as a father who disciplines a son. Can you imagine an earthly father truly hating or refusing to stop spanking his son? [I know some who have been abused can imagine this, but God is different!] How much more is God willing to correct you and let you move ahead? Quit beating yourself over the head because of your failures, God is not holding this stuff against you anymore! ‘The mountains shall depart and the hills be removed. But my kindness shall remain’ God is going to change your ‘scenery’ the things you have been ‘seeing’ and the obstacles obstructing your view are coming down. The mountains and hills in your way are being ‘threshed’ and God is going to restore to you ‘fore sight’ an ability to see down the road. Without vision [prophetic insight] people perish [have no controlling destiny, have no reason to be restrained and disciplined]. God is removing the things that were blurring your vision and you will see clearly again! ‘Thou shall be far from oppression, for you will not have fear, and from terror, it shall not come near you’ ‘whoever comes against you will fall for your sake’ In another place it says ‘I will give men for thee’ God favors you to the point of ‘manipulating’ the environment to be favorable towards you. You don’t deserve this to be sure! But he is doing it for his own glory, you already bear his name! NOTE: The verse ‘more are the children of the desolate’ Paul uses this in Galatians to show Gods promised children are the ‘spiritual Jerusalem’ all those [both Jew and gentile] that would receive the promised Spirit by faith. He basically says ‘the mother’ [heavenly Jerusalem-the church] that has no ‘physical children’ [desolate] will have more offspring/seed [all the spiritual children] than the nation/mother [natural Jerusalem] who has many offspring! NOTE: For those of you who have made it this far on this blog, if you keep reading into the later 400’s you will find that I have become very sick. I won’t go thru it all here. But I want you to see something prophetic. This chapter [Isaiah 54] has been one of the key chapters for me for over 20 years. As a matter of fact from Isaiah 42 thru the end of Isaiah have been the most prophetic words the Lord has given me about our ministry. Part of the sickness I am going thru is numbness to my right leg and extreme dizziness/vertigo. The only time I don’t feel dizzy is when I am looking far away. Like my habit of praying outside and looking to the stars, or even during the day looking at a distance feels fine. Being in the house and other confined spaces feels very disorienting. In this chapter, which I wrote about a month or two before getting sick, it says ‘blessed are those who are numb’ [right leg]. That God is going to ‘change our scenery’ [that which we see]. That God is going to remove things that are blurring your vision [vertigo/dizziness]. I even said ‘God is going to restore to you fore sight, an ability to see down the road [seeing ‘down the road’ long distances, is the only ‘seeing’ that doesn’t get me dizzy!] I find the prophetic word interesting, especially when you prophesy about yourself and don’t even know it!
(404) We all have a tendency to ‘take refuge’ in a ‘completed’ belief system. We want to have every answer down pat. We decide to believe one way or another on certain doctrines [not talking about the basic truths of the gospel!] and then we move ahead in the journey. Whether we are right or wrong doesn’t seem to matter. We have already decided, we have preached it to others, and there is no way I can admit that I have been wrong. It’s funny because many who act like this are the same ones who will criticize the Catholics for holding on to tradition. These guys are worse! God is calling us to take refuge in him. For him to be the ‘rock of defense’ the ‘fortress and one who never changes’ our stability should be in him, not some system of doctrine that has come to us from men. Now the faith that was once and for all given to the church is not what I am talking about, but the other silly stuff we find ‘refuge’ in. Am I pre trib, mid trib or post? Well if there is only one second coming [and there is only one] then you don’t have a lot of choices, do you? ‘But I have been taught this historic doctrine from the great men of faith of days gone by’ no you haven’t, you believe in something silly that is not true. ‘Well I will believe my way, and you will believe yours’ I know that already, but the point is you guys are the same ones that get apoplectic over the Catholics! Just thought I would show you what a bunch of hypocrites you are. NOTE; Let me show you what I mean. If you read the passages in the gospels when Jesus is speaking on his second coming and the end of the world. He says ‘there will be tribulation like never before’ he talks about the obvious events of the great tribulation. He then says ‘after these things you will see the sign of the coming of the son of Man’ the pre tribulation brothers call this ‘the revelation’ part of the second coming. The ‘second part’. You then also have Jesus say ‘then one shall be taken and the other left’. Now he specifically says this ‘one taken and the other left’ is after the tribulation, at his second coming. This seems to make it real simple. Jesus will come and ‘take some and leave others’ at this event, which happens at the ‘second coming’ and his return. The Rapture guys say this is not the event of 1st Thessalonians chapter 4. Even though if you read that chapter Paul says when Christ returns some will be taken and others will be left [the unbelievers]. The rapture guys say this is a ‘different’ taking of people at a ‘different’ second coming. Well I think I could accept the doctrine of Peter being the first Pope before you could convince me of this one!
(405) Been studying an apostolic movement. I am familiar with this church. They have a few of them in our area. A lot of stuff on line says they are a cult. They really are not one in doctrine. The leader of the movement has a legalistic background from an old time Pentecostal church [four square] and it seems to me that the movement, though Christian, has embraced a lot of the mistakes from the ‘Shepherding/Discipling’ movement. I am not studying what the so called ‘cult researchers’ are saying about them. I am reading from their actual story on line. It really is a great story. One of the limitations of these movements are the limited way they see ‘church’. For the most part these groups see church as sending someone to a city, either renting, buying or building a building [too many of us still cant get past this building centric mindset- none of the disciples or New Testament Apostles EVER did this!] They then set up ‘a Pastor’ to ‘run’ this ‘New Testament Church’. And then the strong authoritarian types will basically teach a strong doctrine of submission to this ‘New Testament order’ and anyone who questions this very limited/unbiblical view of ‘Local Church’ is ‘out of order’ and seen to be ‘departing from the faith’. We need to get back to the biblical model of Jesus and the Apostles. Jesus sent them out ‘2 by 2’ to go and bring this message [the gospel] to the cities and towns where they were sent. Later you see Paul doing this same thing. The ‘planting of churches’ was the actual speaking the gospel to people groups. Those who would believe and get baptized became ‘the church’. These believers were encouraged to get together, have fellowship meals [the original pattern of the ‘Lords Supper’] and to basically be ‘Gods Ecclesia’ in their town. They were seen to be Gods ‘dwelling place’. There was no ‘church’ that they were going to on ‘Sunday’. Paul told the Corinthians that when they got together on the 1st day of the week they were to take up an offering. We take stuff like this and turn it into a commandment. We teach Sunday as some type of New Testament Sabbath [it is not!] and we say ‘go to church on Sunday, obey your Pastor [singular] and put in a tithe’. This is permitted to a degree, but in no way is this some type of mandated New Testament order. That’s why those Pastors who lean towards grace and liberality are seeing growth. They are operating in this system while not teaching that this system ‘is church’ to the same legalistic degree as the other guys. Now when you take this limited way of seeing church, and you put it into the hands of strong authoritarian types. Then you have the ingredients of a ‘cult like’ culture within the group. You find well-meaning Pastors telling Christians ‘how dare you challenge my biblical authority, you are under me’ well this is an abuse of the grace of God. These well meaning guys have taken a pattern of ‘church’ that is common for our day, and have turned it into THE MEASURE of a person’s faith. Any question from the parishioners is seen as rebelling against ‘Gods Man’. Well just remember Paul was not teaching this strong Sunday church, tithing to the church, obey your Pastor mindset. Paul actually teaches [Romans] that the weaker Christians [in faith] will observe certain days and foods and stuff as clean or unclean. He then teaches those who are stronger [more mature] in the faith don’t do this. So for believers to meet on Sunday and to give offerings and to share in Gods grace is a good thing. But to teach that a limited system where you are under ‘a Pastor’ for the rest of your life can become ‘cult like’ in its expression, especially if you have a legalistic background to begin with. [The movement I am studying is known as ‘the door’ or the ‘Potters House’, not to be confused with T.D. Jakes]. NOTE: A few things that I want you to see about the biblical mindset of every believer having the potential to go and evangelize the world. When a believer goes forth with the gospel and brings the good news of Gods forgiveness and acceptance thru Christ. Others want this. To simply see ‘church planting’ as a natural outgrowth of evangelism allows for there to be a rapid increase of the gospel thru out a region. Everybody can ‘pass it on’ to everyone else. You are not viewing ‘church planting’ as going somewhere to start an organization that will need lots of money to function; you are simply preaching the gospel. Those who believe get together, there will be elders [more mature ones] that will have special ability to ground these new believers. But for the most part the only ‘finances’ needed to do this is enough money to get you to the place of ‘sending’. You then teach these new believers to share of their resources with the less fortunate. This is actually the biblical model of church planting. This is why Paul could evangelize large territories in his day. The modern idea sees the need to raise tons of money to support ‘other pros’ who are doing it for a living [missionaries]. They see church planting/evangelism as the ‘job’ of those in ‘full time ministry’. The average believer is told ‘your primary responsibility is to work in the secular world and bring in the finances for the ‘church’ [Christian business] to have enough money to pay the pros’. We have effectively ‘de clawed’ the average believer from the divine mandate to go and preach the gospel to all nations. That’s why when the well intentioned Pastors get mad at me for preaching against tithing, they really can not see how the ‘law of the tithe’ has actually put people back under bondage. The average believer is under the bondage of seeing himself as the ‘resource pool’ that brings the money in for others to do the ‘ministry’. This is actually a form of legalism that puts believers under bondage. Every so often you get a radical believer who breaks the mold of simply being a ‘funder’ and then he goes off and enters ‘full time ministry’. He is then taught all the above and the cycle repeats! The Pastor feels like he is doing right because he now is so fulfilled [it cant be wrong if it feels so right]. But he doesn’t realize the fulfillment he is experiencing is to a large degree the sense of well being that God intended for all the saints to experience as they express themselves and give themselves away for the gospel. In essence the Pastor had the courage to break the mold and step into the journey, but where we have failed is to then take that person and make him into a propagator of the current system. God wants a change in the current system. God wants all his kids to see that we all have this freedom to run the race and be active. It is not limited to the ‘full time clergy’! NOTE: When the well meaning Pastor in the current system looks at the statistics ‘only so many percent of all Christians tithe, therefore we are not reaching the world’ he is seeing ‘reaching the world’ from his limited paradigm. This type of Pastor truly believes it is the lack of tithing that is hindering the gospel. It is not the lack of tithing that is doing this, it is the above system that is limiting the gospel! NOTE; The other day I was trying to open some bag of lunchmeat or something. I remember how hard it was to get the bag open. So of course I thanked the Lord for this obstacle and praised him as I looked for a pair of scissors [I am lying]. I did think to myself ‘what a wonderful product. I am sure it will taste good. I am sure the producers went out of their way to produce the product. Much thought went into the marketing of it. They only forgot a very small thing, they made it next to impossible to actually access the thing!’ This is what we do in modern church. The most valuable asset are the People of God. They can do unbelievable things in the area of reaching the world. We have made it next to impossible to ‘get the product out of the package’.
(406) NOTE: The reason you see me quoting old movies on this blog is because when I spend a few days at my daughter’s ranch [Jim Wells county for all you local guys!] she has no cable or Internet. I do get up early to pray, but during the day we put on all the old movies we have. Lots of DVD’s and VHS tapes. LION KING The father Lion tells the son when he is in hiding ‘YOU ARE MORE THAN WHAT YOU HAVE BECOME, YOU ARE MY SON’ the dad Lion is dead and he tells his son this in a vision. The son returns to his ‘land’ of destiny and fulfills his purpose. The son was anointed king as a baby cub, he enters his true destiny after much failure and fear. The father also told the son that the stars in the sky represent past kings who have gone on [I know this isn’t Christian, but let me use it]. In Hebrews it says the heroes of the faith have gone on before us and they are looking down from the bleachers cheering us on to finish this great destiny. I want to encourage you to realize ‘you are more than what you have become. You are your Fathers son’ God chose you for destiny when you were a child, its time to overcome your fears and stop living in obscurity. Fulfill your destiny while there is still time.
(407) Didn’t get a chance to ‘go to church’ Sunday, so I made a point to catch a brother out of Dallas [you all probably know him] that I like to catch on TV every so often. He usually has a real prophetic word that you can tell is being produced out of trials and stuff. This week he was at some ‘preacher conference’ and he was using Romans 12 as a text. He then proceeded to go from chapter 1 thru chapter 12 by memory, hitting the high points from each chapter. I have a pretty good memory, I actually memorized large portions of Romans in the past. I kinda saw that he was going to do this. It felt more like a performance than the usual real word that he speaks. As he began going to chapter 2, then 3, etc. I jumped ahead in my mind and could almost quote the entirety of the rest of the book as I was ‘testing’ my memory. I found out I could do as good as him in this mental exercise. It didn’t mean anything, because I could sense it was sort of showing off at this conference. I changed it to Fox news.
(408) I want to talk about the reality of gifted Prophetic/Apostolic people in church history who had real gifts, but embraced false doctrine. This is an area of stumbling for those who are trying to break away from false movements. The Mormons are good people, whenever they come to my house I have real good talks with them [a little too good, after a few visits they go back to their elders with questions and they never come back!] I actually become real friends with them. I honestly discuss their movement’s history and I give an honest evaluation of the Prophet Joseph Smith [the founder of their church]. I do not demean them in any way. I simply acknowledge that the giftings of Joseph Smith were tremendous in the area of pioneering a religious movement. I also challenge the belief that Joseph was the prophet that the Lord chose to restore the true church. I find agreement that the true church are all those who have come to embrace the sacrifice of Christ [which they believe in] and then I explain how Jesus said the gates of hell would never totally prevail against the church. If Jesus words were true [they were!] then there never was a time since the 1st century that the church didn’t exist in some form. The gates never prevailed against her. Therefore Josephs teaching on him being the restorer of the church to the degree that God supposedly told him there was no true church left, has to be wrong. I do make headway with the younger guys. Once you honestly become true friends with people, you can have influence. My position on all the extra biblical doctrines and visions and other so called supernatural things [finding gold plates in the ground!] I simply ‘compromise’ to the point of saying ‘it is possible that Joseph [or any other leader of any other movement] had visions or experiences that they felt were true. They might have actually saw someone/something’. But we go back to the reality of Jesus being the way to God, and we put these other things at the foot of the Cross. The history of the pioneering Mormons is tremendous. The people are all good people [for the most part] there are strides being made right now to influence certain key leaders of this movement and to bring them back into alignment with historic Christianity [like what happened with the seventh day Adventists on the west coast. A few years back some evangelicals established relationships with key leaders and certain seventh day groups came back to the historic church- The worldwide church of God group [not the Pentecostal church of God] had a total reformation from the top down!] The point is, it is possible for certain religious groups to experience great success. In some strange way the fact that there is a small degree of the gospel present within the system [remember the leaven affecting the whole lump?] enables a certain degree of success until the time comes for true reformation. This approach can be seen with the more extreme word of faith/ prosperity teachers. Many were good men who did good things. We should not allow this to be an open door for the other doctrines and stuff that are wrong. Acknowledge the good, and honestly face up to the things that went off track. God requires all of us to do this at certain times. NOTE: After a few talks with these Mormons they see that I am a Christian; I know the bible and am even aware of their history. I use this fact as an example of God revealing himself to people without them joining or identifying with some religious group or organization. One of their beliefs is God has a true real church in society [true] and therefore which one is it? I try to show them that I too believe there is ‘one true church’ and that this church [society of people- not an organization or denomination] is actually made up of all those who have come to the reality of God thru Christ. They will challenge this view [as do some Christians!] and say that it is wrong. That how could people just come to a true knowledge of God unless they are in the true church [which to them is Mormon] I then bring them back to the fact that we have spent hours discussing and sharing many truths about Jesus. We all know many of the same verses [to be honest I usually know more by memory than them] and we have been discussing all these truths of God and his purposes and redemption thru Christ. And yet I have never met you before. I am not Mormon. How did God break thru to me and show me all these things that we have been sharing? It wasn’t thru some organization; it was the fact that God is revealing himself to mankind thru Christ. All who have come to this reality ARE THE TRUE CHURCH. Therefore everyone who worships the Father thru the Son are the true church. This leaves room for them and all others. I don’t whitewash the many wrong teachings of Mormonism, I simply try to bring them to the reality that even if Joseph Smith never existed that the reality of all of us [I include them] right now believing in God and the sacrifice of his son would qualify us as the ‘true church’ you don’t need Joseph Smith for this!
(409) I watched the second Republican debate for 2007 last night. It was interesting. One of the questions [from Wolf Blitzer] was to Rudy Giuliani. Wolf asked him to respond to the recent comment from A Catholic Bishop that compared his abortion stance to what Pilate did in betraying Christ. Basically Pilate allowed Christ to be crucified, even tough he was ‘personally against it’ Pilate knew Christ was innocent but permitted his execution to appease a political constituency. As Rudy responded it began to lightning, this caused his mic to go out and you couldn’t hear a word thru the TV. Rudy joked about it. Sort of like ‘I guess God is trying to tell me something’. A few other candidates kidded also. As Rudy talked the lightning kept cutting out his remarks. Everyone just took it as a joke. The ‘funny’ thing was as the other 9 candidates spoke [all pro life!] this ‘interruption’ didn’t happen. As soon as the mic went back to Rudy it started again. You could almost see in everyone’s faces that this wasn’t a joke! Rudy is the only ‘pro choice’ candidate in the Republican field. Also this debate took place in Hew Hampshire at a Catholic University ‘Saint Anselm’. the moderator harped on asking a few of the Christian candidates their view on evolution [which should have nothing to do with whether or not you make a good President!] It was asked in a way to make these guys look like idiots. One of the candidates answered wisely. He basically said he doesn’t know if God created the world in a literal 6-day period or longer, he affirmed the scientific reality that all creation could not have simply come by mere chance. He gave an intelligent response to the question. He also challenged the question. He believed it really shouldn’t be in a Presidential discussion. Though he defended himself well. Wolf Blitzer wanted to make these guys look like idiots. So after the answer he says ‘you were asked whether or not you believed in a literal 6 day creation, you dodged the question, answer it’. The candidate told Wolf ‘I did not dodge the question, I told you that I don’t know if the literal account in Genesis is speaking about periods of time or 24 hr days’. Wolf looked like the idiot! The point is they were so obsessed with getting a certain response that Wolf didn’t ‘hear’ the answer. When it’s your main job [moderator] to ‘hear’ the answer, and you don’t hear it, you look stupid. The ‘after’ show that discussed the debate brought up ‘why are all these candidates injecting God into it’ and then ridiculing them for various reasons. Even though it was obvious that these candidates were not bringing the ‘God issue’ up on their own, they were annoyed to be getting these questions. The Democrats actually are bringing it up more on their own because they are trying to appeal to the Christian vote in a greater way [which is fine]. I think Rudy is a good man, I like him. I am an Italian that grew up where he was mayor. I don’t think God was necessarily ‘judging him’ by the lightning. I felt it more to be a prophetic sign that said ‘If you refuse to speak up for those who have no voice in society [the unborn] I in turn will remove your voice from society’. NOTE: The obvious bias of the media is seen clearly in these types of things. It would be like me asking you ‘do you believe in Hitler and the oppression of Jews’. And you would respond by saying no, and then begin to explain the atrocities of Nazi Germany. Then later I had a discussion with a panel and said ‘can you believe they were even discussing Hitler? I know, what a bunch of racist bigots!’ For the media to do this is an insult to the average American. These elitists truly think that Christians are ignorant idiots. They then show their blatant bias by doing this. NOTE: God takes men and turns them into fools when they willingly reject him. These people who look at creationists as ‘back water’ idiots, believe that at one point in time there was nothing. From nothing gases ‘showed up’ one day [this is a scientific impossibility!] these unexplainable gases had an unexplainable explosion. From this all creation came into existence. Now science does show us that there was a point in history where all the worlds ‘mass’ or matter was at a beginning point. And that from this point thru an unbelievable event all creation came. This is scientifically accurate. But for this to have occurred from nothing is scientifically impossible. There had to be something from outside of the material realm that had the ability to act upon the material realm in order to make this happen. Whether you believe this something is God or not is irrelevant to this argument. The FACT is all created things could not have come from nothing! For the unbeliever to hold to this obviously childlike explanation of all things is absolutely foolish. But they see their belief in this as being intellectual. God has truly changed their wisdom into total foolishness. If you had a point in time where nothing existed, it is scientifically impossible to have matter now. The only scientific explanation is something else had to act upon this ‘void’ in order to bring about matter. This is not religious belief, this is scientific fact!
(410) A few years back before 9-11-2001 I was at work at the firehouse and noticed a Muslim walking thru the truck stalls. He was dressed in full fashion. You could tell he was a Muslim! I went out to see what he wanted and he said he was just doing research for the University on ‘fire houses’. This station is right across the street from a University and there are lots of exchange students. He did look suspicious. I began talking with him. We did get into ‘religion’ and the way Muslims view Western society. He shared how all the Muslim world sees the United States as Christian hypocrites. I then explained how all westerners are not Christians in reality. I am aware that the Muslim world doesn’t make these distinctions. I then ‘taught’ a 30-45 minute overview of the history of Abraham and his sons [Arabs claim their genealogy from Ishmael the son of Abraham, while Jews trace their lineage to Isaac]. I went thru the historic development of these groups and shared how though Jesus was a descendant from Israel, that it was Gods design to redeem all heritages thru Christ. That God has a great purpose for ‘Ishmaels’ descendants and Jesus transcends all of these ethnic stereotypes and makes all nations ‘one new heritage’ in Christ. I was surprised to see this Muslim was not aware of this. He looked like he was glad to really hear the truth of the gospel. You could tell he never really heard the story of redemption in this way. The world is so caught up on taking sides for political reasons, that this central message and appeal to people’s real need is being overlooked. He left that day seeming grateful to have heard this truth. Not long after 9-11 happened. We were then warned by the F.B.I. to take extra precautions in securing our truck bays, because intelligence came down that showed certain radical groups were going to try to ‘car jack’ fire trucks and use them for terrorist purposes! NOTE: The 2 sons of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac, were to be used as a sign of strife that would arise for many generations to come. Many evangelicals use this to point to the strife between Israel and the Arab world. This is true to a degree. Paul in the book of Galatians uses this to speak of the strife between Law and Grace. In essence Paul says the Jews who are fighting against the believers are what Ishmael and Isaac represent. He did not see it like we do today! In reality it is possible for natural Israel to persecute a believing Arab, and in this context Israel would be ‘Ishmael’ and the Arab would be ‘Isaac’ the ‘spiritual’ offspring. Remember, Paul says the ‘children of the promise’ are counted as the kids, not the children of the law. The point being all who are Gods kids by faith [both Jews, Arabs and every other group] are Gods kids. So any other group who are not ‘in Christ’ [even natural Israel] are not counted as ‘the seed’. Seeing these things thru the ‘lens’ of the Cross overcomes racism. It’s wrong for any ethnicity to war against another. God is no respecter of persons. When Christians use scripture to take sides in actual warfare, this does harm to the true intent of God.
(411) I had a friend years ago who worked with me at the Fire Dept. He was ‘sort of’ an Atheist. He did ridicule Christians a lot. He would challenge them on all sorts of stuff. I remember discussing something with him one day. Some type of challenge. In the middle of the argument I simply said ‘if all of this you are saying is true, then why do you believe in God’. He was shocked. He couldn’t answer back. It was like the Lord knew he always held to a secret belief in God but never revealed it. I guess he never thought anyone would ‘see this secret of his heart’ [prophecy].
(412) I was just wasting time today. Too much TV and being unfocused. I hate these days! I was watching ‘mad TV’ and flipping the channels. I also was thinking about a mayor from a small town directly on the other side of the Corpus bay from where I live. I live in Flour Bluff and he lived in Ingleside. I have no idea why I was thinking about him. He was convicted of murder about 9 years ago and has been in prison. As I had enough of Mo Collins and Will Sasso, I flipped to A and E and saw City Confidential. I pressed info on my remote controller and saw that they were doing a show on Mark Crawford, the Mayor who I was just ‘thinking’ about. This ‘thinking’ was actually ‘seeing’ the mental image of the crime he committed. He gassed some guy and buried him in the ground [he actually had an accomplice do it]. The show talked about Marks life. He grew up in a dysfunctional family. Joined the Army and eventually wound up in this area. In 1988 he woke up one day and made a decision to change. He quit his job and ran for Mayor. About the same time I was living in Kingsville and ‘quit’ the church I was going to in order to start one of my own. Mark became very involved with the Baptist church and led the youth group. I was reaching out to addicts and ex cons [I also was the youth leader at my Baptist church]. Mark went astray and got into business and got involved in some shady dealings. Mark became well known and eventually everything fell thru when in 1996 they found a dead body buried in a deep whole in his yard [remember the dream I had about digging a deep whole and putting a body in it?]. In 1996 I started our radio ministry out of Corpus, Mark might have been listening during the year he ‘buried this body’. At the end of the show I wasn’t too sure why I was watching, I knew I was supposed to. Maybe I will write Mark and see if he wants to be used for outreach in prison. I know he claims to be innocent, and you have to be careful because some ‘brothers’ want to use their contacts with someone ‘famous’ or who has influence in order to try and get out. I believe it’s possible for Mark to have done this crime and yet for the Lord to use him. I am not in the camp who always defends the Christians and thinks they can do no wrong. I know better! I feel Mark was a lot like me. Willing to take too many chances in order to break the monotony of life. Striving for something more. Not being content with just ‘going to church’. I believe God has a destiny for each of us, even those who have gone off the deep end. P.S. Mark, if you ever read this [by me sending this to you, or someone from the area who knows you sends you this blog] you made some bad choices my friend, the only excitement left in the journey is to radically sell out for the Lord one more time. NOTE: I also read David Berkowitz’s testimony on line [the son of Sam] he has some story. Google his name and see if you can find it [just looked it up, its ‘www.forgivenforlife.com’]. God uses the worst of us. I do not see myself any more worthy than any of these guys. NOTE; If you follow the ‘self image’ that the Apostle Paul had of himself you will see something interesting. Paul ‘sees’ himself as an Apostle, then as the least of the Apostles. He then sees himself as a sinner, then near the end of his writings he sees himself as the ‘worst of all sinners’. I do not see this as ‘false humility’ it is more of an understanding of the sovereignty of God. All people are capable of all things at one time or another. Also when I wrote on Peter. I always felt he carried the self-guilt of his denials of Christ. When you see Peter in the Book of acts confronting Christians who lied about selling their property and saying they gave all the money to the Lord. Peter had the choice to ‘meet out’ strong discipline or not. He was the key Apostle at the time carrying the prophetic authority of the Kingdom. If he chose to forgive and ‘let it slide’ he could have. This is where you see the teaching of Jesus come into play when he said ‘whoever’s sins you forgive, they are forgiven. Whoever’s you don’t forgive will not be forgiven’ in this area of Peter dealing with these believers he chose to NOT FORGIVE. He says to these Christians ‘you have lied to God and his Spirit’ and they fall down and die as the judgment for what they did. Why was Peter so hard? I think he saw that part of himself in them that causes us to lie and present a false image to people. He was reminded of his duplicity and released judgment instead of forgiveness.
(413) I want to talk a little about ‘Local Church’. As I am reading on movements who ‘plant’ Local Churches, it is reminding me of some things. First, nowhere in the New Testament is the command given to ‘go and plant New Testament churches’. Now I don’t want to be picky here. I want you to see why this is so. Protestantism has developed an understanding of ‘Local Church’ that is really unbiblical. I recently read about a movement that ‘sends out churches’ to cities as opposed to ‘sending out missionaries/evangelists’. They see the sending of a person to get a building and preach on Sunday and get the tithe and for people to be ‘faithful’ to the ‘local church’ as the right way to evangelize because ‘this is Gods plan’. Then another group says ‘we are a ‘local church’ with a worldwide vision’. The more extreme brothers will teach ‘you are not in right relationship with God until you submit to his plan, which is ‘the Local Church’. All these brothers mean well. They are just expressing views that are un biblical. The ‘local churches’ in scripture were all the believers living in a ‘locality’. In these ‘communities of believers’ there were gifted men who God placed there for the growth of ‘the local church’ [all the Christians]. Today’s idea of every city having 100 to 200 local churches, all with the office of ‘Pastor’ who is the authority over that specific group is no where to be found in scripture. Now all the brothers doing these things are not heretics [notice I said ‘not all’]. But when you take this limited view that sees ‘the local church’ as the separate organization that you start in your area. And then you teach a form of ‘being in submission’ as tithing to that thing, you are in essence usurping Gods authority that is being released thru a wide diversity of gifts in your area. God sees ‘the local church’ and its ‘members’ as those who are called out of the world unto Christ who reside ‘locally’. So you are ‘part of the local church/group of Christians in your area’ by virtue of the fact that you are all ‘partaking spiritually of the Body of Christ’. The outward sign of this is the Lords Supper. So for you to view your ‘membership’ with a particular group [among 100’s] and then to say ‘I am faithful to ‘my local church’ [the Sunday meeting I attend] and to not see the reality that all the believers in your area are ‘local church’ actually harms the church. Most Protestants do not realize how this limited view ‘colors’ the way they read scripture. In the book of Revelation you find the letters to the 7 churches. These ‘churches’ are once again all the believers living in different locals. God is speaking to the ‘Angels’ of these churches in this book. ‘To the Angel of the Church of so and so’ the word for angel is ‘messenger’. You have the majority of Protestants teaching these angels are the ‘Pastors’ of these ‘churches’. There was NEVER a Pastor over all the believers in these locations. Sardis, Ephesus, Thyatira, etc. When I do the radio ministry. It is not a ministry ‘to the radio’. When I speak into the cassette recorder, I am not ‘speaking to the recorder’. In scripture Angels are messengers. They receive and transmit the message from God. These ‘angels’ of these 7 churches were simply that! God is speaking to the ‘messengers’ and saying ‘if you don’t repent I will remove your candlestick’. These are not messages to Pastors over churches [see how your view colors this!] these are Gods words spoken to his ‘transmitters’ and therefore he is saying it ‘to the angels’ just like I preach ‘into the radio’. Now all of this is for the purpose to show you that God doesn’t send people or movements to go and ‘plant churches’ per se. He sends people to preach the gospel to people groups [Gods idea of ‘churches/ communities’]. These ‘groups’ of people who believe become the ‘local churches’ of the New Testament. When Paul writes to these ‘churches’ he is addressing ‘all the believers’ in the locality. If there were an office of Pastor like we practice it today, there would be no way that these letters would not contain strong instructions and rebukes ‘for the Pastor’ [by name if they were singular authorities]. For the ‘churches’ in the book of Revelation to have had ‘Pastors’ over these entire regions, and for us to not know their names is unthinkable! All the major figures [Paul, Peter, John, etc] were well known leaders in the first century church. To have had ‘Pastors’ as the singular authorities of entire regions, and for them to have remained anonymous till this day would have been impossible! So in essence you are not going around setting up some type of organization that people need to submit to in order to be in ‘proper order’. Gods ‘proper order’ is to be ‘under Christ’. This does carry with it the humility to accept and receive the gifts that God has placed in our communities. The Pastors and Prophets and all the other gifts. These are gifts to the entire community to build the people up. When you have ‘church planters’ who are going around [with a good intent] teaching believers that they must ‘submit to the local church, because this is Gods program for reaching the world’ they are seeing ‘local church’ in a way that is really unbiblical. God is sending all of us out into the harvest field to preach the gospel. I don’t see all the ‘Sunday Local Churches’ as wrong or in rebellion. I see that overall we are all Gods kids who are doing our best to please God. When we deal in grace with each other God works. When we use limited forms of church to the degree of seeing those who don’t fully operate in that mindset as being in rebellion, then we are not truly building each other up in love. NOTE: One of the faults with these strong authoritarian church planting movements is they use verses like ‘follow me as I follow Christ’. They use this to push back against their critics who say they are too authoritarian. ‘Hey, Paul told people to follow him’. Yes he did ‘as I follow Christ’. How did Paul ‘follow Christ’ well he certainly wasn’t setting up ‘local churches’ with Pastors ‘over the people’! NOTE; The first 3 centuries of Christianity you didn’t have ‘church’ as the place you go to on Sunday for religious worship. This mindset developed over time. Our Catholic friends developed a way of doing church that saw the ‘priest’ as the ‘minister’ empowered by Christ’s grace to ‘oversee’ the Mass where the Eucharist becomes the means of grace whereby God ‘infuses’ grace into the souls of the faithful. Basically the Catholic chapter for their belief is centered around John chapter 6 ‘unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood you have no life in you’. While I do not hold to the doctrine of transubstantiation I do not see my Catholic brothers as wicked devil worshippers for this. I see it more as an historic belief that did develop out of an ‘infancy stage’ of Christianity. Holding to Jesus words literally [which Luther himself held to in this area of disagreement with Zwingli, the Swiss reformer!] with a childlike belief that many Christians embraced. During the reformation of the 16th century you had many doctrines questioned, but for the most part the Protestants simply changed the office of the priest with the office of ‘the Pastor’ as the ‘clergy person’ who will administer this ‘protestant office’. This ‘office’ does not exist in the New Testament! So today we are seeing the Lord move in an area of ‘reformation’ [a process, not a one time event] concerning church form. Something that really wasn’t adequately dealt with in the 16th century movement. So we move on to maturity as we accept the good things of the church Fathers [even the Catholic ones!] and we ‘move away’ from forms and styles that are not mandated in scripture. We should not be ‘anti Sunday church/Pastor’ as much as we should be ‘pro Body of Christ’. Wanting to see the people of God fully functional under the headship of Christ. NOTE: This causes us to deal in grace with our fellow Christians. I have heard Protestant preachers say ‘the Catholics teach for doctrine the commandments of men’ while all the while they are declaring a ‘form of local church’ as THE SINGULAR TOOL OF GOD TO CHANGE THE WORLD that is nowhere to be found in scripture! NOTE; ‘Enlarge the place of thy tent and LET THEM stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations’ I spoke on this verse from Isaiah a few entries back. The LET THEM speaks of releasing your spiritual offspring to continue the growth of the spiritual lineage that God permits us to ‘birth’ into the Kingdom. This ‘letting them’ is a voluntary act of leadership releasing people to continue the journey on their own with Jesus becoming their ‘Chief Pastor/Shepherd’. In today’s ‘Local Church’ environment we do not practice the ‘letting go’ part well. NOTE; I have taught the term Ecclesia in our books. Let me mention that the way we view ‘Local Church’ rides heavily on how you interpret this word. The word ‘ecclesia’ is the Greek word in the New Testament for Church. In the early centuries we see how the believers understood this to mean a ‘called out community of people’, not necessarily ‘those called to the building on Sunday’. Later Christians [and theologians] began to develop a type of ‘ecclesiology’ [church form] that fit into the limited mindset of Church being the place where Christians go on Sunday. While it is true that the word ‘Ecclesia’ can describe a ‘city council meeting’ or other types of public assemblies. The true intent behind the ‘called out people’ are those who have been called out of society [separated in the biblical sense] and have become citizens of another country/Kingdom. So to limit the ‘church’ to the actual place of meeting is really not scriptural. The term for church was simply the best word to use at the time. Words are limited. It takes the Spirit of God to truly convey the meaning of them. We do not contradict the words that are used in scripture to make up our own definitions [which is a common hobby today] but we allow the Spirit of God to reveal to us things that the ‘surface reading’ can’t fully show us. NOTE; You never had a scenario where Paul would address the ‘church of Corinth’ or another area and say ‘and to you who live in Corinth, but are actually members of the church at Ephesus, because you have chosen to have membership there’ You were part of the church at Corinth by virtue of the fact that you lived in Corinth and were a believer. You didn’t have the idea of joining a separate entity [group] like the ‘Elks’ lodge or something of this nature. We have developed a way of seeing church that seems to tell believers you must join a specific ‘church’ in your city, out of the 100’s of ‘churches’ that exist there. While it is fine to ‘go to a church on Sunday’ we must not see them as actual ‘local churches’ in and of themselves, this cause’s a division to the Body of Christ that is not seen in scripture.
(414) Let’s talk about divine healing. Over the years I have heard different ‘angles’ on this. I absolutely believe God can and does heal. If you do an in depth study of scripture there is no question about it. ‘He is the God who healeth thee’. The problem, like anything else, is we have a tendency to go to ‘extreme views’ on this. Recently in some of the movements I have been studying I have seen the idea surface that ‘if you did not act by faith in the healing, it’s your fault’. These sincere people get to the point where they teach if someone is in a wheel chair, and you say to them ‘arise and walk’ and if they don’t do it, they didn’t obey [act upon the word] and it’s their fault. Surely it can’t be Gods? Well you then develop a healing theology of condemnation. You begin teaching ‘if you are not healed you have done something wrong’. All redemptive purposes are in Gods plan. The most obvious one is to redeem man from actual death. 'O death where is your victory’. Jesus is the resurrection and the life right now. He said this to Lazarus sisters. ‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God’. It was not Gods will to heal him during these 3 days. In Gods sovereign plan he chose to allow death to happen so he would be glorified in raising him. So even though healing and the defeat of death are parts of God purpose in redemption, we do not understand why all of the aspects of it are not fully revealed now. We should not develop a teaching that says to the person in the wheel chair ‘if you don’t ‘get up’ when I say ‘get up’ then you didn’t obey the word!’ This has been done more times than you know, in various scenarios. I have used the comparison that if it’s always something the person is doing wrong, then what about raising the dead? Jesus taught healing in the great commission just like raising the dead. He said those who believe would even raise the dead. Raising the dead has happened and does actually happen. Why don’t we go and raise all the dead all the time? I actually heard a brother on the radio who was defending the teaching that every time someone isn’t healed there’s something wrong. And he defended the idea that the person being healed is not believing right or else they would be healed. He then gave an example on ‘well why then are not all people raised from the dead?’ He actually taught an experience he, or someone else had, where the Lord showed them that when a dead person is told ‘rise from the dead’ that the spirit of the person hears it, and if they don’t ‘obey’ well there you have it. As you can see, when preachers want to be extreme, they are like kids. They will come up with the most elaborate schemes to make themselves right. Lets just say all of Gods purposes are not fully revealed yet. Even the promise of ‘never dieing’ does not mean we will ‘never die’. It just means that we will win at the end. I believe God is the healer; all of our doctrines and teachings are for the benefit of man. If you turn them into something that condemns man, then you have defeated the main purpose of God. Like what the Pharisees did with the Sabbath. Jesus said the Sabbath was given for man, not man for the Sabbath. We worship our doctrines and put them on pedestals and we make man fit into them. If we can’t find a satisfactory explanation, we then make it mans fault, surely it couldn’t be Gods?
(415) Being I just discussed healing, lets talk about the ‘baptism of the Spirit’. When attending a Baptist church they taught the Baptism of the Spirit occurred at the new birth. When you are born again you ‘got it’. Every believer most certainly has the Holy Spirit. The Assembly of God friends taught ‘you got saved, but you didn’t get the Baptism until a separate experience’. This too can be found in scripture. If you look at the book of acts [which I haven’t read in years!] you see in chapter 10 the Gentile converts. The fact is ‘they got it all at the same time’. Sorry to my Pentecostal friends. But you can look at Acts 19 and see Paul saying ‘have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed’ to some disciples. They tell Paul ‘we haven’t even heard of the Spirit’. Now I do want to stress that many Pentecostals do read this to show its possible to believe and ‘not have the Spirit’. Actually if you read this passage you will see that they were ‘baptized with Johns baptism’ they were only disciples in as much as they received the initial message of repentance that John the Baptist preached. Paul tells them ‘he preached about someone who was to come later [not the Spirit, but Jesus!] and then after they heard this’ [not the message of the baptism of the Spirit, but the gospel] then they were baptized and Paul laid hands on them and they prophesied and spoke in tongues. The point is these believers were not believing in Christ yet. They didn’t hear the ‘rest of the story’ until Paul preached it. I am not siding today with either side. I am showing that the book of Acts is ‘Gods diary’ if you will, it is a compilation of the ‘experiences of God with men’. It certainly is doctrinally sound, don’t get me wrong. But it shows Gods primary purpose of redemption and how he is sovereign. If he chooses to ‘give it all at once’ in chapter 10. Or to ‘give it thru the laying on of hands’ in chapter 19. He has the right to do whatever he wants. He is God! It is perfectly biblical to have both ways of operation in existence. It’s possible that the Pentecostals are right and the Baptists! You mean God actually might have been experienced in different ways by different groups? Yes! Scripture shows that this is possible. Now I want to make my self clear. I believe in the gifts and operations of the Spirit. You can actually develop a doctrine of ‘multiple baptisms’, times where the Spirit shook and ‘baptized’ groups on more than one occasion. God is God, be open to his reality. Don’t take one part of a chapter and try to make it fit for everyone. Both sides are guilty of this. The Spirit of God is alive and active. John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit from his mother’s womb! You mean before he got saved? Now go and rack your brains on this one.
(416) There were a couple of things I felt like sharing, but I was waiting until I cover the book of Hebrews. I hope to overview it on this blog. But I just had a prophetic dream and it dealt with sharing it. The dream was I was on a roof with a friend of mine from the Fire Dept. This friend has learned stuff from me over the years. He wouldn’t be what you would call ‘a real active Christian’. Just a friend who has been kind of interested in all the stuff I do. Well while we were on the roof [sort of like a roof you might be on to ventilate during a fire] there was an authority figure [a military guard] that was keeping him on the roof. Not like he was breaking the law or being in a judgment type situation. Just the sense that the ‘authority’ figure was not permitting him to leave this post yet. I shared a few things and repelled down with a rope. I then was teaching some stuff [the stuff I was going to wait till I got to Hebrews to share] to one of the younger firefighters. He was sort of a rookie and was just beginning to learn some stuff. He had to go and I was not able to finish the teaching. I told my friend [who was now on the ground] to finish teaching him. He was not the type of person who would normally share his faith. But he knew exactly what I was teaching the other guy, and sort of said ‘yea, I’ll tell him John. I know what you mean’. Well let me share the stuff and maybe get back to the dream. The other day I spoke on the concept of ‘Sunday church’ and how we get this from Paul telling the Corinthians ‘upon the 1st day of the week take up a collection’ [1st Cor. 16] The early church began to practice meeting on the first day [as well as every day!] in memory of the resurrection of Jesus. Nothing wrong about this. As the church ‘lost’ her family/community mindset and digressed into a ‘Sunday church building’ mindset, it just became natural to develop ‘Sunday as the New Covenant’ Sabbath. This is not a biblical doctrine. There is no ‘New Testament Sabbath’ in this way. Now there is tremendous truth to what God wants to teach believers thru the Sabbath, but when we simply teach that God changed one religious day to another [Saturday to Sunday] we lose the truth. The mature believer does not ‘hold’ one day above another. It’s fine to ‘go to church on Sunday’ but to see Sunday as the old covenant Sabbath, and all the blue laws and stuff associated with it, is to not ‘see’ the truth behind the shadow. All people who are in Christ, who are new covenant believers have entered into a ‘place of rest’ where they have ceased from their own works [efforts to make themselves righteous before God]. This ‘place’ is the ‘Sabbath’ rest of God. It is not a day, or a mode of religious worship. It is an eternal ‘age’ of rest that comes to all those who are in Grace. Now Paul actually teaches this in Hebrews. I can’t do it now, but scroll down to the tape/book catalog on this site and read the descriptions on Hebrews. I cover some of it in there. Paul teaches that God created all things in 6 days, and rested on the 7th. He tells the 1st century Jewish community ‘you must cease from your own works too [the law, and trying to please God legalistically] and come by faith to the Cross’ Paul teaches it in a way where he says ‘if God rested on the Sabbath, so you must enter into this rest’. He does do a lot of spiritualizing of scripture. But it must be right, it is inspired! So basically the ‘Sabbath rest’ is entering into the New Covenant. The ‘age of Grace’. But as the church lost the family mindset, it just became easy to teach that Sunday is now the new day for religious things, as opposed to Saturday. You then have all the 7th day groups [7th day Adventists and others- there are whole regions in this country where the Baptists are 7th day Baptists. They hold to Baptist belief in every area, but they believe the same way the 7th day Adventists believe. That the Catholics changed the ‘Sabbath’ to Sunday, and that in so many words this is the ‘mark of the beast’] using scripture to prove that Saturday is the Sabbath and not Sunday. Now Saturday has always been the Sabbath Day. This has not changed [It’s just that in Christ the law has been fulfilled and we are not under any legal requirements in this way. We are in grace and not under law]. The issue isn’t ‘what day is church day’, the issue is once you enter into Gods grace and rest [the Sabbath] you are fulfilling the Sabbath by resting in him. In essence you have found Gods rest. This isn’t saying ‘church day’ is Saturday, or Sunday. ‘Church’ day was every day in the 1st century church. But you see how easy it is when you function out of the ‘going to church on what day’ paradigm, it becomes natural to go thru the bible and try to find ‘the right church day’. We do this with the tithe and all sorts of stuff. Well in the dream I felt like the Lord was saying that many of my friends over the years, even the ones that usually don’t view themselves as ‘preachers’ are going to be used to pass along some of these truths that they have learned from me. The ‘authority figure’ was simply God saying to these friends ‘you are to remain here [at the fire dept?] after John leaves and you are going to be responsible to pass along these things’. I also felt like some of my buddies at the dept have felt like the lord wanted to use them in a greater way, but maybe they felt constrained to be working there. To these friends, let the Lord use you by doing the things you have seen me do in ministry over the years. Use this blog. I share some stuff on the Kingsville fire dept. this will give a sense of purpose for the guys who feel ‘stuck’ at a menial job. The older brothers can use this blog and any other tools to pass stuff along to the new guys. In essence you haven’t missed your chance to have an impact in the Kingdom, maybe the Lord left you there by Divine appointment! NOTE; The 7th day brothers will make some arguments like ‘as believers we keep all the commandments, why not Saturday?’ They also point to the fact that one of the Catholic fathers actually taught that the proof that the Catholic Church has the authority to change ‘laws’ and establish new ‘commands’ was the fact that they changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. This is a true argument that a Catholic scholar has made. So this re enforces in the mind of the 7th day brothers that they must be right. Look at all this proof! Well to be honest, if the issue was ‘what day is church day’ as far as what day has God ordained as ‘the special day’ I think the 7th day guys would win. But I believe the truth on this is in the new covenant there is no ‘special day’ because ‘church’ isn’t a ritual at all. Paul actually told the Colossians that the Sabbath day[s] were shadows of truths that were seen fully in Christ. Sort of like what I just told you. The 7th day brothers say Paul was talking about ‘days’ not ‘day’. The point is when you are resting in Christ you don’t kill, steal, and all the other stuff mentioned in the commandments. Well what about the Sabbath? If Christians are ‘keeping’ all 9 commandments, how do you justify not keeping this one? We are keeping it! When you are in Christ you have ceased from all the religious works of the law and are being made righteous by faith. You are keeping the Sabbath like all the other laws. It is a natural outgrowth of your new nature In Christ. It is not ‘going to church on Sabbath day’ you silly Christians! It is daily walking in Gods free grace, being in right relationship with him by faith. You are in essence ‘keeping Sabbath’ because you have ceased from you own works. It is not some type of ceremonial thing you do on Saturday! NOTE: To all my radical readers [Apostles, Pastors, etc] I too believe that the kingdom involves radical continuous action. There are times where we are ‘non stop’. There are others [not like us!] who lay back and experience their Christian life by really not doing anything. They sort of justify it by ‘entering the Sabbath rest’; they think God requires no action. Let me put some perspective. When God entered into the 7th day of rest in creation, it was a time where he initiated 6 days of tremendous SELF SUSTAINING life and then allowed that creation to reproduce as he ‘sat back’ and enjoyed his heritage. So Gods ‘rest’ is not a ceasing of activity, in as much as it is a period of watching the things you ‘planted’ grow. So for you radicals, lets operate in grace and see the things we are planting ‘grow on their own’. Don’t think you need to be involved in all the ‘re producing’. Jesus said faith in the Kingdom was like planting seed and as you sleep and rise the seed is growing, but you DON’T KNOW HOW THIS IS HAPPENING. So be faithful to plant, and let God nurture and sustain and cause to grow [Paul said some plant, others water but only God can cause actual growth]. NOTE: Let me say a few things on cults. Most true Christians see the major cults as the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witness groups. I must admit I too see them as cults. The Jehovah’s primarily because of their denial of the deity of Christ. Their bible translation purposefully misinterprets the passage in John chapter one that says ‘in the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the word was God’ they change it to say ‘the Word was a god’ a big no no! Simply put, this puts you on the ‘cult list’. The Mormons [Latter Day Saints] are a little more difficult. Their main reason why they make the list is because of the extra biblical book [book of Mormon] as well as the unbelievable amount of extra biblical doctrine that can only fit into the characterization of ‘fantasy’. A lot of Christians do not realize the amount of truly weird stuff they teach. They teach God was like us at one time. He basically ‘evolved’ to where he is now, and we are on this journey. Eventually we will be gods populating our own universe with the many wives [therefore plural marriage was originally part of the plan, but not any more! The only ones who still embrace plural marriage are the fundamentalist Mormon groups who believe the church ‘apostatized’ when it officially rejected this doctrine]. So besides all the other historically un true stuff [the whole so called civilization that Jesus appeared to in the Americas] the group has way too much extra biblical stuff to fall into the class ‘Christian’. The one caveat is they do believe in the sacrifice of Christ for man, it’s just how do you balance that with all this other stuff? Sorry, I do call them a cult. Now, I like Mormons and Jehovah's Witness as people. I do not personally demean them! But the facts are there. What about the 7th day Adventists? Too many evangelical friends of mine have classified them as a cult too quickly. I am aware of the few strange teachings they hold to. Nothing even close to the Mormons. I am concerned about the credence they give to certain past ‘founders’ and stuff. Overall I see them as Christian, though they fall into legalism with the classic belief that they are the true church because of the 7th day observance. They say all others who ‘go to church on Sunday’ have received the mark of the beast. Basically I do have disagreements with them, but I do not see them as a ‘classical cult’ the way I see the other groups. I find it troubling that I have had evangelical friends who classified groups as ‘cults’ because they didn’t believe in the Rapture. They don’t even realize that the ‘Rapture’ is basically false! At least the way they teach it. So you can see that it is easy to label groups as ‘cults’. I don’t want to judge any of these groups, I just needed to be honest about these groups and try and share this stuff in love. I am grateful for all the Mormons and any other groups who read this site. I don’t want to lose you guys! God bless you all.
(417) Lets do one of no spiritual value. I got up the other morning and began my routine. I started with my first cup of coffee, I do drink 3 cups or so every morning. I also have a habit of losing the cup I am working on and going to start a second. You think you would need to be a little more organized to run the ministry, but I do stuff like this all the time. I was eating on the couch last night, watching TV and lost my fork! Well as I finished my first cup I started on another cup [a new cup, not just a second drink!] I then went into the living room to put the radio on the Christian channel as I get ready to go outside and pray [which I am going to do in a minute]. I then go back to the kitchen and forget where I put cup number 2. I then see a cup on the stove and realize this must be it. But it’s empty. Oh well let me get a clean one anyway. So I grab another cup from the cabinet and fill it up and put it in the microwave for a quick nuking. As it’s being warmed I think to myself, wasn’t I just doing this with another cup a minute a go [not the one on the stove]. Sure enough I look on the kitchen table and there it is! Cup number 4 is full and waiting to get nuked. O well at least it will be ready when I finish cup 3, that is if I remember where I put it.
(420) ‘Avoiding extreme forms of isolation’ my background with the Fundamental Baptist church allowed me to see how pride and sectarianism affect true corporate unity. There was always a sense of mockery when it came to any type of unity. It was truly deemed ‘part of the one world church that the antichrist is setting up’. Regardless of your views on this, the simple fact is Jesus prayed in John 17 that all believers would be one. If you were to study the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation and were looking for all the times where scripture speaks of ‘one Kingdom’ and ‘unity’ you will see that Gods purpose for this ‘one Kingdom under God/Christ’ and the unity of the church would far out number the times compared to the ‘one world church’ idea. Now there are a few instances where scripture speaks of the unity of lost men and how lost man does come up with religious ways to appease his conscience [tower of Babel]. But the overall truth is God speaks of ‘one Kingdom’ in a right way many more times. So this preoccupation with these isolated Christian groups is simply a sign of extreme immaturity. I remember stopping one time at some highway shop to purchase some lawn ornaments. I talked to the brother who was selling the stuff. I noticed he was listening to cassette tapes of some Old Testament book [Leviticus?]. We fellowshipped a little while. I kind of got the sense that he was one of these brothers who will spend hours listening to bible tapes, but would never partake of anything the Lord is presently doing in the church. Many of these groups wont even study church history or any other Christian writings. This causes there to be a total lack of understanding on how Gods Kingdom has been operating for the past 2 thousand years. Jesus never intended the doctrine of the completed cannon to cause us to not partake of all the great things God has been doing in society for the past 2 thousand years. Well I felt the Lord wanted us to be challenged to come out of our religious shells. Don’t be so consumed with the ‘one world church’ that you never partake of Gods ‘one world Church’!
[#’s 421-585] TEACHINGS PART 3
(421) Isaiah 55 ‘I have given him [you] for a witness to the people, a leader and a commander to the people. You will call a nation that you do not know. And nations that do not know you will come to you. This will happen because of my choice, I have exalted you’ God chose you to have great influence in the Kingdom. There will be large people groups [nations] that you will influence and you won’t even know of the impact you are making until the coming of the Lord. For the most part you will remain ‘faceless’ [you will not know them and they will not know you] but the gift I have put in you will have great influence. NOTE: these verses are primarily speaking of Jesus calling gentile nations, and gentile nations coming to him. We are called the ‘body of Christ’ so allow these verses to speak to you as an extension of Jesus Body in the earth today. ‘For as the rain and snow come down [remember the vision I had about ‘bolts of snow coming down’? It is on this site] and water the earth and cause it to bud’. So shall it be with my words, the things I am specifically communicating to you at this season of your life. These words shall accomplish my purpose in you. I have sent these words out to you, they will prosper in the areas that I desire. ‘This shall be for a sign that shall not be cut off’ I have given you signs this past year. You have seen me work before, but many times you later forgot what I said. Sort of like the signs and things were real but you couldn’t ‘retain’ the awesome things I was showing you. Not this time. This year I have given you signs that will last for the rest of the journey, just like at the start.
(422) watched a special last night on the gang ‘MS 13’. I have seen it before and felt like the lord wanted me to speak on it. I do realize that there are things that I have spoken on that are not safe. I advertise this blog in North Bergen, N.J. This area is full of Muslim radicals. The type of ‘brothers’ who would kill you for speaking against Islam. I basically have taught that Allah is a false god. And Muhammad is his prophet. I have to be careful if I get an invitation to do a ‘cell’ group in this area. It might be a Muslim cell wanting to ‘fellowship’ with me! I also have mentioned the ‘Mexican Mafia/Texas Syndicate’ on this site. I had a good friend who was a member [he is dead]. This ‘gang’ is one of the most serious gangs in the prison system in Texas. They make these ‘kid gangs’ look like punks. So speaking on these groups is dangerous. The show I saw last night showed how the gang MS 13 started in L.A. as an innocent young gang. It expanded from L.A. to other parts of the country [Texas] and when the prison system deported a bunch of them back to El Salvador, it spread like wildfire. Gangs are the enemies’ imitation of what the Ecclesia was supposed to be. A group/family of people [brotherhood] who would find identity as a family. Many gang kids see their membership ties in a stronger way than they see their family. The gang is their family. The rapid spread of these gangs is an organic thing that is out of the control of their founders. The church was intended to spread this way. They have no ‘gang houses’ that they call ‘the gang’ [Christians call the ‘church’ building the ‘church’]. Their strength is in their identifying as a family. When we first started our ministry in 1987 I had some of the original group of friends [addicts] that wanted to extend the ministry with ‘outreaches’. We were grappling with the way the Victory Outreach does it. We actually bought an old lumberyard building and were going to set up a drug/outreach type thing. All good stuff. I feel one of the reasons these things never got off the ground was because the Lord was going to change my understanding of church to the family/brotherhood mindset. I was too ‘building centric’. Trying to start programs instead of seeing our guys as a brotherhood. It’s OK to start these types of things, but as the lead vision implanter I felt the Lord wanted to transition my vision into one of rapidly spreading the Kingdom by influencing people as a brotherhood. Today I have friends who see themselves as a ‘part of us’ even though we don’t identify around any particular building or ‘church meeting’ environment. If you study movements like ‘the local church’ which is an apostolic movement started by Watchman Nee, you see some good stuff. Watchman Nee was a Chinese Apostle who got a hold of many of the things you see me write on. He spread the ‘local church’ movement thru out China as an underground church. No official denomination or recognition of ‘clergy’ but a movement that was persecuted by the communists. They spread worldwide and have many churches in the U.S. today. They also erred [in my opinion] on the side of strong authoritarianism and began to see themselves as ‘the Local Church’, that is they viewed their group as the true restoration of the Local Church. While I do not view them as a cult [like other cult watchers do] I do see the mistake as seeing their group as the true group, as opposed to all the other ‘groups/churches’ in a city. The sectarian mindset. The true power behind these apostolic movements is the instilling of vision into people. People see the church as a brotherhood [like the gangs] and they are not identifying with programs that their ‘church building/business’ is doing. They are identifying along the lines of a ‘gang/brotherhood’ in a noble way. The same thing that the Victory Outreach or the Door does. Things that I see as good. Recruiting people into a brotherhood mentality. The danger is becoming ‘cult like’ in your view of seeing your group as ‘thee group’. These underground churches cannot be stopped thru persecution or the ‘closing down of their churches’ like other denominations have experienced. Communist govts. have been able to oppose the organized church because all they had to do is shut down the church building and remove the Pastor/Priest and the functioning would stop. You can’t do this with a brotherhood. Just like the gangs. They will thrive whether you put them in prison, shut down their ‘meeting houses’ or anything else. Their secret of survival is in their brotherhood mentality. Jesus obviously knew the power of this, that’s why he said ‘the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against the church’. He knew the movement that he was founding would have the allegiance of a brotherhood. It would not simply be a social club. When human govts came against the 1st century church, it couldn’t stop them. Rome even said that as they spilled the blood of the early believers, it was like seed falling into the ground [a bit prophetic, Jesus did say that martyrdom was like planting seed ‘Except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and DIES it abides alone, but if it dies it will produce much fruit’] so man could not stop a true movement of people. Man can stop a denomination who needs the ‘church building’ and the clergy to function!
(423) I want all my evangelical friends to listen closely. There are many radical and unpopular things I teach on this site. Everything we teach has to be seen thru the Cross. I am listening to a radio message. I stopped to do this. Often times Evangelicals go to great lengths in their defense of natural Israel. The things that I have said on this site concerning Israel has made us deadly enemies in certain camps. The message on the radio is dealing with Esther and how God will go to great lengths in order to preserve Israel. Many of these types of sermons speak against people like myself, who teach that Israel’s only hope is to find her identity in Christ. This type of message that I am hearing is OK. They simply need to understand that God HAS gone to GREAT LENGTHS to preserve Israel. He gave his Son for this purpose. The only way any nation [Jew, Muslim, ‘Christian’] can ever be preserved is in Christ. The promise of everlasting preservation is in Him. Those who defend natural Israel to the point of teaching that God has a covenant with Israel APART from Christ are doing harm to her preservation. Scripture says ‘he that doeth the will of God shall abide forever’ [1st John] it also says ‘this is the will of God, that you would believe on him that God has sent’ [the gospel of John]. John [the disciple/not the Baptist] was a Jew. He knew Israel and her customs well. John knew that the only way to preserve her was thru her Messiah. All the other Apostles died for this belief. John was the only one to escape martyrdom. He lived to around 90 years old. He got stuck on some island called ‘Patmos’. They tried to kill the guy by boiling him in oil [so the story goes]. As an old man he gets one last chance to speak to Israel. He writes this tremendous prophecy [Revelation] and he presents Jesus as the Lamb who is sitting on the throne. John knew the truth.
(424) I WILL MAKE THY WINDOWS OF AGATES, THY GATES OF CARBUNKLES, AND ALL THY BORDERS OF PRECIOUS STONES [Isaiah] Windows speak of ‘portals of sending’ [like this blog! Or radio and stuff like this]. I felt like the Lord was saying he is going to bless your ‘portals’ of sending. ‘Cast your seed upon the water, for in many days it will come back to you’ [message in a bottle- the Police]. God is going to increase you. He will expand your borders. He will not only ‘bless your gates/borders’ but he will ‘bless your windows’. Windows let light out of a house. They allow the ‘brightness’ to go out into the dark. They also allow light to come in and lighten up a room in a way that no ‘man made’ light could do. God is going to bless ‘your windows’. You will see things that you have never seen before, and you will reach places that are far away with the light that is ‘in your house’. ‘I have given you an open window that no man can shut’ God to John in the book of Revelation.
(425) The other day I heard one of the few [only?] prosperity preachers in our city say ‘we don’t have the right to talk about any other preachers’. I got the sense that word has gotten out that we are uprooting this stuff from the church. This level of discernment that teaches we shouldn’t deal with false prophets is extremely lacking in wisdom. I can say this about any cult. Joseph Smith [Mormon] did good things. It would be absolutely irresponsible to say ‘you don’t have the right to deal with Mormonism’. All false doctrine and teachers need to be dealt with by Christian leadership. This doesn’t give anyone the right to be a ‘self proclaimed’ judge of other believers. It’s just a basic guideline that when teachers go way off track [teaching that Jesus was a millionaire, he died to get money to you, and these same preachers seeing their goal as to reap lots of money!] then we as leaders MUST come against this. I didn’t realize how many of these ministries are in Texas. I would say Texas is the main propagator of this stuff. The Lord is dealing with Texas at this time. Corpus Christi bears the name of Christ. I just think it’s prophetic that the Lord would use our city as one of the major places where he will ‘regain’ his image back in the church. Those in this area who do not line up with Gods agenda will have no future in what he is doing at this time. You guys teaching this stuff still. God will remove your candlestick if you don’t stop it. NOTE: Remember what I said about the prophetic ministry of John the Baptist? He not only had the ability to recognize Jesus in a way that others couldn’t see yet. But he also could not remain silent on the obvious ‘sins’ of the day. He spoke out on the King and his adulterous marriage. Many ‘believers’ of his day grew comfortable with an obvious abuse of leadership. They knew in their hearts that what leadership [King] was doing was wrong, but they had other things on their agenda. To deal with the Kings abuse of his authority would bring difficulty and affliction. John simply felt this to be a carrying out of his Prophetic ministry. To John it was like ‘how can we not speak out against this’. John also paid a severe cost. Note: If you use as a ‘measuring rule’ to be ‘how do I feel’ or ‘does this doctrine benefit me financially’ then you have lost your prophetic edge. I have seen many of these obvious abuses go on with the Christian TV networks. Some of these networks are good, some are not. Why the good ones will permit these abuses to be on is beyond me. They either feel that these brothers are paying well, or they feel like they bring in lots of money during the ‘sharathon’. These brothers are using a measuring line that says ‘if it brings in money, then I don’t care whether or not they preach that Jesus was a millionaire who died to make people rich’ they seem to see the bottom line as the criteria of whether or not to allow them to have influence. This IS NOT THE CRITERIA! Jesus is the ‘plumb line’ if things don’t measure up to him they must be abandoned!
(426) I was just thinking of the verse that says to the Virgin Mary ‘this child is set for the rising and falling of many in Israel, a sword shall pierce thru your own heart also that the thoughts of many hearts can be revealed’ [I don’t know where it is, a rough quote from memory]. Jesus prophetic aspect caused many to question and wonder about their own beliefs. He also caused people to be honest with each other and sometimes this honesty caused division. There ‘possibly’ have been scenarios where preacher friends or ‘church attendees’ have gone to their Pastors and said ‘can you believe what John is preaching now, he doesn’t believe the rapture!’ and for the first time the Pastor has to admit that he doesn’t believe it either! So what the ‘well meaning’ person thought was going to happen ‘talk about John’ really didn’t happen. Instead the ‘thoughts’ of his Pastors heart were revealed. I like stuff like that. Many of you guys are going to have ‘a sword pierce thru your heart’ in the sense that there will be things that you questioned earlier as a believer and learned to ‘silence’ the questions. At this season a lot of the prophetic preaching is ‘re opening’ these old wounds. They were never meant to become ‘wounds’. God showed you a lot of this stuff at the beginning of your journey. The ‘sword of the Spirit’ has opened these questions up again, and the thoughts of your heart are being revealed. This is reformation my friends. We often pray for it, but when it shows up it looks different than what we expected. Sort of like Jesus appearing to the 1st century Jew. It wasn’t what they expected!
(427) It is common in the modern world of ‘church’ to have a scenario where certain people [deacon boards and stuff like this] rise up and come against ‘the Pastor’. You then have a dynamic where the ‘Pastor’ is in a struggle for ‘control over his church’. Then the fight rages on. All of this is absent from the New Testament. Paul fought against the false teachers who were trying to influence the ‘churches’ [communities of people] with false doctrine, but this power struggle over the ‘control of my church’ [501c3 Christian business who meets on Sunday] did not exist. Recently I have heard/seen a few scenarios along these lines. There actually are scenarios where those who are fighting the Pastor are like what you would find in an abusive relationship. A type of manipulation that says ‘if you don’t say stuff that makes me mad, I will behave’. Then the Pastor feels like ‘I stood up against the opposition and God was with me’. Even though the whole ‘atmosphere’ of stuff like this is unscriptural. This type of stuff is what you see in the world of corporate takeover. The rising up of stockholders and stuff who are ‘dethroning’ the CEO’s who are making millions while the stock is falling. I just want you to see that when we view and function in limited paradigms; this affects the way we carry on with the journey. Jesus taught a type of ‘prophetic preaching’ that said ‘if people don’t receive the gift, go to the next house/city’ I am not saying all Pastors should leave their churches when strife arises. I am saying that the whole scenario is really not of God. Even the part where the well meaning Pastor ‘fights for the control of the church’ [Christian business]. Being the true New Testament Churches were communities of people, as opposed to ‘501 c 3’s’ you never had these types of situations. NOTE: I really don’t blame the Pastors for functioning out of this limited mindset. We send guys to College and they are taught all types of stuff under the guise of ‘Pastoral’ administration. We basically teach them that this means running and administrating a business. We teach a form of ‘deacon board’ and all other types of stuff that are simply bible names given to 501c3 corporations and their boards [Roberts’s rules of order!] The New Testament shows all these ‘gifts’ [Pastor, Deacon, etc.] as gifts that function in a community environment. The modern Pastor is taught in a way that he simply replaces the idea of ‘board of directors’ with ‘Deacon board’. If you try to show these brothers that they are simply putting bible names on an American corporation, they will tell you ‘well brother, the bible speaks of deacons’. True, but the bible speaks of Bishops and Pastor and we think that justifies us putting our own definitions to them. God has placed gifted individuals in the ‘church’ [community of believers]. These gifts are primarily given to build up people. If in this process you need a building, or a ‘501c3’ or a ‘radio/blog ministry’ that’s fine! But your gift is not primarily given to administrate the tool [the whole business and stuff that arises out of modern ideas of church] but the gift is primarily given to facilitate growth in the community of people. Because we don’t really see and function this way, we inadvertently accuse the saints. We say ‘if you don’t put the tithe in on Sunday, you are cursed because you are not submitting to the Local church. Which after all is Gods plan to change the world’. Well it is Gods purpose to function thru the ‘Local Church’ but once again this simply means ‘all the believers residing locally’. It does not mean the whole 501c3 organization that functions in the building on Sunday. You see how easy it is to read the verses on ‘bring all the tithes into the storehouse’ and then to mistake the ‘storehouse’ for the 501 c 3 that owns the ‘church building’. The storehouse are the corporate people. Jesus said ‘my house shall be called a house of prayer’. We are his house! We are a ‘corporate house of Prayer’. Well I have taught all this stuff before, just felt like you needed a reminder. NOTE: I have heard over the year’s well meaning Pastors say things like ‘I don’t believe in Bible college, that’s the job of the ‘Local Church’ or others who might denigrate a ministry because ‘it is not under a local church covering’. The mistake these brothers are making is once again ‘seeing’ the ‘local church’ as the building and all the operations surrounding it. What do they mean when they say ‘it’s the job of the local church’? They seem to be implying that the actual instruction should take place ‘on the grounds of the 501c3 organization’ or in the actual building where the Christians meet on Sunday, after all ‘it is the Local church!’ UGGH! They don’t seem to realize that if the college or other ministry that they are talking about is something that was a God ordained thing, and that ‘thing’ is being administrated or ‘run’ by ‘local believers’ then it is part of ‘the local church’ [community]. But when you ‘see’ local church as the 501c3 building/organization that Christians meet in on Sunday, then you inadvertently ‘accuse’ the brethren by saying ‘you are not under the local church’. God does not vest authority/legitimacy in a ‘501c3’ corp. He vests authority in his people by his Spirit. When you do not see this you accuse the ‘local church’ [the local believers] by thinking that ‘the local church’ is something that its not! Let me also add that I have had friends over the years who ran ‘Para church’ organizations [a misnomer!] some of these brothers have jumped thru all sorts of hoops to gain legitimacy with the ‘local churches’ [organizations] when these brothers see that I am ‘functioning’ as a believer with Gods authority, they do get offended. Sort of like ‘I have jumped thru these hoops for years. Tithing to my ‘church’ and all sorts of things to be in proper order. How dare you come along and challenge the legitimacy of ‘the local church’. The point is God wants all of his kids to function freely under his headship/authority. It’s OK if your ‘Para church’ ministry is working along side a ‘local church organization’ but to then try to make everyone fit into this limited paradigm is out of order. If Jesus taught us anything on authority, he taught that servants gain authority in Gods Kingdom. If you want authority my friends, then serve! Don’t think it comes from being ‘under the covering’ of some man made organization. NOTE: If the Kingdom is not about ‘being over people’ as Jesus taught, then why even ‘have authority’? Those who are being used in the Kingdom to build up the Body of Christ realize that there is no greater joy than to actually ‘wash the feet of Jesus [serving him]’ by building up the Body of Christ [the Local church/community of people]. You build so far and then you need more ‘skills’ to complete the ‘building’. At that stage ‘more authority’ is given for this purpose. The ‘minister’ is rejoicing because God has given him more adequate tools to complete the mission. Further ability to serve! Paul told the believers that God gave him this authority to build them up, not to ‘rule over them’. In today’s environment of success and trying to feel legitimate, people unconsciously fight for this recognition [authority] thinking it will bring them some sort of fulfillment. In the more extreme cases this can lead to ‘authoritarianism’. An ongoing battle between the ‘congregation’ and the ‘Pastor’ for control. So here you see how the limited paradigm affects everything else. In the New Testament churches you did not have scenarios where ‘Pastors’ were trying to be over the people for long periods of time. The shepherding process [discipling] was done over a short time until the new believers were mature enough to be ‘launched out on their own’ [under Christ’s headship]. When you have unnatural environments where men are fighting for control or authority simply for the purpose of ‘having authority’ then this causes an abusive situation for the people of God. Not all Pastors do this, but the unnatural environment lends to this happening more often than it should. The giving of ‘more authority’ is primarily for the continued function of servant hood, to continue to build the people up. It is a violation of biblical authority to see your position as one of singular authority over the people of God [see Diotrephes mentioned in the 3rd letter of John].
(428) I kind of am hesitant to do this, but I felt it was time. I have had a radio listener who is a prosperity guy. He has written me ‘re proofs’ for years. I am surprised he still listens! He recently sent me a few more letters. He actually liked what I was teaching and did thank me. But he usually sends pages of stuff to teach that Jesus was a millionaire [actually the richest man who ever lived]. He basically has been taught an exhaustive doctrine [that goes on forever!] that traces Jesus roots thru King David to Abraham and goes thru these pages of explaining how Jesus was the natural heir of David and therefore truly owned all the wealth of Jerusalem. He has been taught [or taught himself] an intricate bible system that is absolutely consumed with mammon. The simple fact that Jesus was a carpenter’s son and lived that way escapes these guys. The fact that Paul taught ‘you came into the world without material wealth, when you die you will not be able to take wealth with you. Therefore be happy with your needs being met’ [1st Timothy 6]. Why didn’t Paul teach Timothy that he needed to believe for all this wealth so he could reach the Roman world? These poor brothers who are so consumed with wealth have gone to extremes to search the scriptures and come up with unbelievable teachings that are consumed with mammon. I have come to believe these guys are under a ‘spell’ [Paul says this in Galatians- ‘who hath bewitched you’]. I am glad this guy still listens to the program, maybe he will get free someday? Also for the sake of this brothers argument. Jesus was from the line of King David. The fact that he was ‘conceived’ by the Spirit, a major Christian doctrine, shows that Jesus ‘in the natural’ did not come from the line of natural David [the actual ‘seed’ of David, don’t want to get to explicit here!] because of this Jesus would teach things like ‘my Kingdom is not from this world’. Jesus showed us that his actual lineage [really] was from the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit caused Mary to conceive! This isn’t a problem for most Christians, but this guy has sent me these arguments for years and for his sake I thought I would do this. NOTE: this note is for the last 2 entries. Both the idea that the ‘church’ is the actual 501c3 corp. who meets in a building on Sunday, as well as the teaching on lots of money go hand in hand. It is only natural for the Pastor/CEO mindset to fall into the snare of seeing how ‘if we just had more money’ if Gods people were not disobedient in bringing the tithe to the ‘storehouse’ then we could accomplish ‘the ministry’. These well meaning Pastors get allured by this need for money, they then fall into the extremes of the prosperity gospel. They truly feel unless tons of money comes into the ‘local church coffers’ [which they see as the 501c3 machine!] then the world will never be evangelized. Its easy to look to the examples in the New Testament where Paul is receiving support, or where all the believers gave sacrificially and brought the money and laid it at the Apostles feet. In these scenarios you had the concept of communal sacrifice and giving that ‘equaled the playing field’ and fulfilled the Old Testament type of Manna. Those who gathered what was enough for their families [be content with having your needs met] were provided for. Those that gathered much for the greater need had enough. Those that gathered little for their need had enough. God specifically rebuked hoarding and a covetous mindset by showing that those who took too much, the Manna ‘bred worms’. So in these examples of extravagant giving in the book of Acts, we are seeing Gods family voluntarily [no tithe!] give of their wealth to meet the needs of their brothers and sisters. When the modern minister uses these verses to either teach a doctrine of becoming rich, or to bring in ‘the tithes to the storehouse’ he is not rightly dividing the Word! NOTE: Just read an article in the paper on someone starting a ministry. They showed the facility. Talked about the renovations needed. The eventual staff. The need to obtain I.R.S. status. This is typical of the way we ‘see’ ministry. Our mindsets see a project, a facility and the functioning of some type of a ‘service’ that we will provide. The New Testament mindset was taking the message of the Kingdom and simply proclaiming it to people groups. The fact that the message of the gospel has within it the inherent power to change society caused there to be a mindset that said ‘if I can just plant this Word in the hearts of people, I will have been faithful to the task’. You don’t see Paul going to cities and setting up anything! He is presenting the gospel, and the actual act of the gospel being believed becomes the completed task. The communities of people who believe become the ‘Local church’ that is the ‘outpost’ of God in that region. The people are the ‘facility’ that God takes up residence in by his Spirit and this is the work of the Apostle or believer carrying out the great commission. We focus too much on ‘starting something’ instead of ‘declaring him’! NOTE: It is also a common mistake for Christians to ‘attend church’ and debate the fact that ‘everything our church does is scriptural’. They will mistake the function of someone ‘preaching’ bible words [either the Pastor or Evangelist] as ‘being biblical’ even if the entire mindset of ‘the church I am attending’ is absolutely no where to be found in scripture! Now I don’t want to be too ‘iconoclastic’ [a destroyer of idols] here, but I want you to see that many Christians see ‘being scriptural’ as simply ‘speaking from scripture’. To be truly ‘scriptural’ is to function as the New Testament churches [communities of people] functioned. They lived lifestyles of community that did not view the ‘Sunday service’ as the ‘place I attend and put in my tithe’. When we as Christians view ‘church’ in this limited way, we are being UNSCRIPTURAL, even if we preach from scripture while doing it!
(429) I will do one of no spiritual value. I had a homeless friend who visited me one day. I had the news on. They were talking about some type of government entitlement program. My friend asked what they were talking about. I told him they are thinking of giving a free check to everyone who is homeless. They will simply get a free check every month. No food stamps or stuff. He told me that this was great, he has been waiting for something like this for years [I knew this, he used to tell me this. That’s why I came up with the story]. I then told him I was kidding. Well they then started talking about the death penalty, he asks ‘what are they discussing now?’ [You think he would have learned not to ask me this]. I then proceeded to tell him That Texas is trying to extend the death penalty to include all those who are ‘unemployed’ for more than a year. That the state is going to keep records, and if it shows you haven’t been working for a year or more you get put on a ‘death row list’. Well you could see the look of worry on his face. I told him I was just kidding again. This poor brother went from getting a free check for the rest of his life, to thinking the state was going to execute him if he didn’t find a job! I thought it was funny at the time.
(430) Let’s review a few things. In Isaiah it says ‘my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways’. A lot of the stuff I have been showing you on ‘Local Church’ is simply a process of changing our thoughts [ways of seeing things] to Gods thoughts. As you see this stuff you begin to see that ‘knowing scripture’ is different than just memorizing verses, or being familiar with the text. It means having a general understanding of the whole flow of what God means. As you simply ‘see’ Gods thoughts on ‘Local church’ it allows for there to be a ‘grid’ that puts everything else in context. When Jesus debated the Pharisees, they had this ‘obsessive’ ability to memorize scripture. They actually had a ‘profession’ that copied the Old Testament to the tee [scribes]. These ‘brothers’ were obsessed with the technicality of the Word! Yet Jesus would rebuke them for not truly grasping the meaning of the ‘text’. Sort of like not being able to see the forest because of the trees. This ultimately led them to crucifying their Messiah. They couldn’t ‘see the Body of Christ’. So today when we don’t ‘see’ Christ’s Body properly [thru the Church] we also do harm to it. Let God replace your thoughts for his. NOTE: I don’t mean to be picky here. But when we don’t ‘discern’ the ‘Body of Christ’ [the church] we do unconsciously accuse her. Paul writes ‘I have shown you these things so you would know how to behave in the house of God, the pillar and ground of the truth’. We read ‘how to behave in the church building on Sunday’ [our thoughts] when what it is really saying is ‘how to behave in the family of God’. We say things to believers who are ‘functioning locally’ ‘you need to be under a covering, you need to be in submission to ‘a local church’. We often are using a ‘form’ of local church that isn’t to be found in scripture when we say this. In essence we are doing ‘damage to the Body of Christ’ when we do not properly discern her.
(431) Isaiah 56 ‘Keep judgment and do justice, for my salvation is near and my righteousness is ready to be revealed’ God says he is about to do some major things. He wants you to ‘judge right’ actually stand strong in discernment with mercy. It’s easy to give up on the things God has shown you and to fall into the status quo. God says stay true to what I showed you because it’s for a purpose. ‘Blessed is the man that doesn’t pollute my Sabbath and keeps his hand from evil’. Remember what we recently said about the Sabbath? God says ‘blessed are those who remain in my rest. Those who abide in me and allow me to bring forth the fruit’ this is the only way we can keep our selves from ‘doing evil’. In Gods grace! ‘These are the ones I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in MY HOUSE OF PRAYER’ we also just discussed Gods house of prayer. God will gather all those who are in grace and make them ‘joyful’ as they join in intercession for the nations. You are a ‘house of Prayer’ you will only be fulfilled when you are doing what you were created to do! Remember, we are corporately his facility, our ‘use’ is to be a habitation thru whom God intercedes. ‘His watchman are blind, they cant see. They are greedy, they can never have enough wealth. They are all out for personal gain, they look for it to come to their areas. They say ‘tomorrow will be much more abundant’. Here God rebukes the leadership for always wanting more finances. They live day by day with the goal of ‘great material abundance’. They have usurped Gods purpose for his ‘house’ and made it into a den of thieves! [These are the leaders who teach it obsessively, they have made the goal ‘material wealth’ not so much the Pastors who are raising money for unselfish things! Also see the specific rebuke to those who say ‘tomorrow we will have more wealth’ the actual confession and excitement of seeing more wealth as the goal is being rebuked here!]
(432) I am continuing to study on apostolic movements. I read a book years ago on these movements [reinventing American Protestantism-Donald Miller] and have read lots of stuff over the years. I just looked at the ‘Calvary Chapel’ with Chuck Smith and the ‘Vineyard’ with the late John Wimber. I also looked at the Victory Outreach and the Door. I would have to say the Calvary Chapels and the Vineyard are ‘more mature’ in their understanding of what God is doing with them. The ‘door’ is a little too ‘sectarian’ in their mindset. They actually expressed things on their site that seem to say they see ‘their movement’ as ‘thee’ restoration of ‘the’ Local Church. This type of stuff is dangerous. But overall these movements are great. The book I read from Donald Miller referred to these churches as ‘new paradigm’ churches. I don’t really see them as ‘new paradigm’ they still function out of the ‘paradigm’ of local church being the Sunday 501c3 corp. but they are ‘new’ in the sense of the way they branched out thru outreaches. I commend these works and these men, both Wimber and Chuck Smith are good men whom I respect. A lot of the critics don’t see them this way, but I see them as truly being used of God. I think we are at a stage in the Body of Christ where God wants to ‘join’ the dimension of rapidly expanding thru ‘church planting’ with the whole concept of the church as ‘family’ as opposed to ‘the building we meet at’. What this ‘new paradigm’ will do is release all the Body of Christ into seeing themselves as ‘church planters’. Everyone has the ability to speak the gospel to people groups in various locations and settings. Too many of the older type movements were looking for ‘church sites’ ‘what property should we purchase?’ And stuff like this. The ‘new paradigm’ will be looking to ‘people groups’. ‘Shall I go to Macedonia today?’ ‘I wonder if the Lord will send me to Galatia?’ Things like this. Instead of ‘seeing’ the setting up of an organization, you will be ‘seeing’ the open doors to reach people groups. ‘Where will we have church than?’ everywhere! You can meet in a park, home, whataburger, even in a CHURCH BUILDING! The point is God will provide many ‘places’ to get together. Quit being so focused on ‘the place’. Didn’t you have friends growing up? You had a ‘bunch of people’ that were your ‘clique’. You played ball, went places, did things. Were you always looking for the ‘building’ to meet in? NO! You were a group of people with a common identity. You gathered around mutual interests. So begin to see this ‘new paradigm’ and operate along these lines. This reduces the current need for great finances, and allows for the simple expansion of the Kingdom thru simple disciples carrying the great message of Christ. NOTE: it is common for the average Pastor to fight against this way of seeing ‘church’. You will often hear the verse in Hebrews ‘forsake not the assembling of yourselves together’. This verse cant be used to defend a form of ‘Local Church’ that is no where to be found in the New Testament! If you stopped ‘getting together’ with your friends in the above scenario, your parents might say ‘what’s wrong with you Johnny? You are becoming too isolated. Don’t STOP GETTING TOGETHER WITH YOUR FRIENDS’. In essence this is what the writer of Hebrews is saying. Don’t use stuff like this to justify ‘going to church on Sunday’.
(433) GO WASH IN THE POOL OF SILOAM [Jesus said this] this summer [2007] I have taken my kids to the beach a lot. I usually can’t get them to go. It’s one of those things like you live so close, you never take advantage of it! Like growing up by New York City, a lot of my friends never went to the Empire state building! Well the area where I have been taking my kids is right next to the north jetty of the Packery Channel. This is the channel that the state opened up after 50 years of it being closed. I have shared lots of stuff on this site about it. If you remember when it first opened I shared how one day I took a walk [south jetty] and walked the beach to the jetty. I burned my feet that day. Well this summer I walked the north jetty for the first time. Its beautiful and provides an ‘atmosphere/environment’ where you can walk out and see a view of the coast that you never saw before. The ‘jetty’ is like a highway that has been created by an opening of an ancient waterway. I felt like God was saying he has opened up new ‘waterways’ for you. These new channels will provide a ‘highway’ for you to go places and see things that you have never seen before. These new openings/highways will also create a ‘pool’ environment that will allow your ‘children’ to enjoy for many years. When God opens up new opportunities for you [highways] it is your responsibility to ‘go for it’. Sometimes you walk out on the wall, other times you ‘jump in’. But either way you must take advantage of the opportunities when they are there. Don’t be like the friends who never went to the Empire state building. It’s those who are ‘closest’ to the kingdom that have the greatest risk of not entering in! ‘The children of the kingdom were cast out’ Jesus said this to the Jewish nation as they were on the verge of rejecting him. This new ‘wall/highway’ will also ‘cut off’ access to the old desert that got you burned in the past! The channel actually creates a waterway that ‘cuts off’ the old section of island/desert. When God opened up the Red Sea for the children of Israel it gave them a way out of Egypt, but it also cut off access back. There are things that you will never get ‘clean’ from until you ‘wash in the POOL of Siloam’ [plunge into the purpose of God]!
(434) I woke up today with nothing to say. I actually thought I would take a break. I made the mistake of asking the Lord if he wanted me to speak, and here we go! A few years back I had a Pastor friend who was an ex addict/convict. We ran in the same group of guys. He was ‘solo Jesus’ [Jesus only]. All these brothers are Christian! Let me talk a little about this way of seeing the Trinity. In the gospels Jesus says ‘go and baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost’. If you look at the actual baptisms in scripture [Acts] you will see that every time they mention the ‘name’ as they baptize, that it is ‘in the name of Jesus’. So what you get from this is when Jesus said ‘baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit’ he was actually saying that there is only one proper name given in the New Testament for any of the Godhead. Father, Son and Spirit are not names, they are titles. So the reason why the Apostles baptized in Jesus name was because of this. Now the ‘Jesus only’ groups got hold of this as well as other truths and are identified as ‘Jesus only’. I believe in the doctrine of the Trinity as stated in the ancient creeds. I am not a ‘Jesus only’. But this shouldn’t prevent us from seeing truth. Basically the Jesus only groups teach that in heaven you will see ‘Jesus only’ on the throne. God is a Spirit, is he a different Spirit than the ‘Holy Spirit’? Jesus is the only person in the Godhead with a Body. Does Jesus have a spirit? Well if God is a Spirit and all the fullness of God is in Jesus bodily, then they teach you will not see God in heaven as a ‘disembodied Sprit’ that you will see Jesus on the throne, and he will be the express image of God. This is surely interesting. Do I totally hold to this? No. But I wouldn’t classify someone as a heretic for this. I believe there is truth that God gives us from many camps. The problem is as the church developed thru the centuries they had debates over the nature of Jesus and the creeds came down on a certain side. I agree with the creeds, but they had a tendency to say ‘take one side, if not you’re a heretic’ so some of the early fathers had no choice to express other views on these things. I mentioned the ‘Local church’ movement that started under watchman Nee. His disciple that carried the torch after Nee died was ‘witness Lee’ this brother has been fighting the old time apologists for years over this issue. Witness Lee sees some of this stuff. He actually was called a heretic by the apologists for saying ‘Jesus is the Father’. The apologists say ‘you are rejecting the historic Trinity’ the apologists argued with him over the verse in Isaiah that says ‘His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God the Everlasting Father’ this verse is no doubt speaking of Jesus. Lee says ‘see, Jesus is the Father here’ I agree! The strong Trinity guys [of which I am one myself] say that in this verse ‘the Father’ is not God the Father, but a reference to Jesus as the Father of a new race. Lee shoots back and says ‘then you believe in 2 Fathers’. I fall on Lee’s side here. The ‘Father’ reference is speaking of God. The fact is Jesus is the revelation of the Father to us. Scripture says ‘all the fullness of God is in Christ’. Jesus told Phillip ‘if you have seen me, you have seen the Father’. I just think we take revelations from God, like the Trinity, and we cant fully comprehend all there is in it. And then we come to limited human understandings that get us into trouble. It is obvious to me that the strong apologists who are fighting Lee in this one verse are wrong. They are trying to make it fit. It’s hard to make God ‘fit’. God has revealed great truths to the church thru the centuries. I don’t advocate ‘undoing’ the creeds. But we have to be open for further insight into things that we don’t fully comprehend. I remember telling some friends this once. I explained that it isn’t real easy to understand all this. I shared how God is a Spirit, and how the Holy Spirit is God. And God is one. Are there 2 different Spirits? As you can see it’s not easy. So for all my Jesus only brothers, they do have truth. For all those like me [classic Trinitarian] we also have truth. But I also am able to see the truth about all the references in the book of Acts on being baptized ‘in the name of Jesus’. They actually did do this! The strong Trinitarians say ‘that’s right, because Jesus is God, so we should say ‘Father, Son and Spirit’. The point is, because Jesus is God, that’s why they all said ‘Jesus’ at the actual baptism! It’s like if I told you ‘go and cash this check [baptize] in the name of my father, my son and my spirit’. And you went down to the bank and put ‘my father, my son and my spirit’ on the check. They would look at you funny. You would understand that I meant the name ‘Chiarello’ not the title’s ‘my Father, Son and Spirit’. I really don’t see why Christians kill each other over this stuff. I am not advocating re baptizing everyone who did it the historic way. I also think it is more scriptural to say ‘Jesus’ when doing it. Frank Barltleman, who I mentioned earlier on this blog, was one of the smartest Christians at the turn of the last century. He documented the Azusa street revivals and wrote the book ‘another wave rolls in’. He actually saw a lot of this and became identified as a ‘Jesus only’ and lost a lot of influence in the church because of it. I think its good to see it like this. ‘Jesus is the only revealed proper name given to any of the Trinity in the New Testament. He is the singular revelation of God to humanity. All that we ‘see’ and know about who God is and how he reacts is seen thru the incarnate God/man Jesus Christ. When he told the disciples ‘go and baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost’ he was once again speaking of himself in the 3rd person [like in John chapter 3, Jesus says ‘God so loved the world that he gave his son’ He didn’t say ‘that he gave me’ he spoke of himself in the 3rd person because it is the work of the Spirit to actually reveal Christ to man. Jesus was letting the Spirit reveal him, he wasn’t doing it thru self proclamation] The reality of the baptisms being done in the book of Acts under the name ‘Jesus’ is a revelation to us that Jesus is the only revealed name of the Father, Son and Spirit given to us in the New Testament, he is the express image of God to man’. So instead of labeling everyone a heretic, we need to see Jesus more fully! P.S. I believe 100 % in the Trinity! NOTE: It’s OK to say ‘Jehovah’ or ‘Yahweh’ or other names of God. But it’s important to see that because Jesus is the revelation of God given to man, that in the New Testament the name ‘Jesus’ is the only proper name given to describe any of the Godhead. This doesn’t mean that there is no Trinity, it just shows us that all of God was in Christ. Not just one third! Also to be a little technical, Jesus said ‘baptize in the NAME’ not NAMES. The Jesus only groups will tell you that Jesus was speaking of a singular name here. The fact that all the baptisms in Acts that give you the reference to the name being used, it’s always the name ‘Jesus’ it never shows an example of them saying ‘in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit’ when they are baptizing someone. The churches that do use this formula will say ‘well, we know they must have said it, because Jesus told us to say it’ he really didn’t tell us to say it, he did tell us to use the NAME of the Father, Son and Spirit, so the fact that they said ‘Jesus’ when they baptized shows us that he told them to use his name, he obviously was referring to himself in the 3rd person. There really isn’t a better explanation for this. It just seems to me that this is a truth that you can’t get around.
(435) This fits in with the last entry. It is important for Christians to form their view of God thru Christ. You often hear good reformed theologians [whom I like] focus on the holiness and transcendent nature of God. Some will even teach that the reason the church is in a ‘worldly’ state is because we preach the Gospel without the Law. They seem to be saying if we preach God in an Old Testament way, and we preach the law, that this will bring the church back into holiness. The message of God thru Christ was one of reconciliation. There is no doubt that Jesus was against sin. The times he taught that if you looked upon a woman with lust you were just as guilty as committing adultery. These statements were intended to show mans inability to reform himself. Many of the law keepers were counting on their ability to not commit outward acts of sin, even though in their hearts they were just as lost as the prostitute and drunkard. Jesus was not ‘exalting’ law here. He was showing those who trusted in their own righteousness that they didn’t have a chance at being accepted this way. He then of course would die for mans sin and man would receive this ransom freely. This is why you see the Apostle Paul stress justification by faith. I feel we do damage when we believe the answer to ‘worldliness’ is to preach more law. The preaching of law has a tendency to appeal to mans sinful nature. It actually stirs up in man a feeing of ‘I will now go and do what I was told not to’. When you mix this in with an Old Testament revelation of God [one of wrath] this doesn’t produce the desired result of holiness. It is the unconditional message of grace that people need. Not an ‘easy believism’ type thing, but a radical view of Gods mercy as seen thru the incarnation of Jesus. The way Jesus treated sinners and unbelievers gave them an avenue to approach God. His ‘exalting’ of the law was for the purpose of bringing man to him, in some of the reformed circles they think that if you exalt the law it will bring a degree of ‘self restraint’ to the church. I do not see this as a New Covenant function. Once you are in Christ it is the ability to rest in him that brings ‘holiness’. If people aren’t ‘holy enough’ the preaching of the law and the focus on Gods holiness will only increase the level of condemnation. All righteousness comes by faith in Christ, we are to form our ideas about the way God sees us thru the actual way Jesus lived. This is the revelation of God to us. Jesus did not condone sin, but he functioned in such a way that sinners did not see God as far away and ‘transcendent’ they saw God as close and accessible to meet man where he was at.
(436) Let’s go back to the ‘Jesus only’ stuff. The Jesus only brothers will take the verses that say ‘Jesus is God’ and combine them with the verse that says ‘Jesus name is the Everlasting father’ and come to the conclusion that ‘Jesus is God’ well he is! They will then say ‘when you go to heaven, you will see ‘Jesus only’ because God the Father is a Spirit, and this Sprit lives in Jesus’! Now on the other end of the spectrum you have whole groups of Christians that say ‘Jesus is the Son of God [true] but not God [untrue]’. Even in the first 3 centuries of the church this became a debate. Some priests and Bishops said ‘Jesus is Gods Son, but God is the only God. God is 1, not many [3]’ These brothers will show you how Paul addresses the Christians in his letters and says ‘God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’ but Paul never says ‘Jesus, the God of the Father’. So they simply say ‘Jesus is Gods Son, but the Father is God’. Now there is truth to some of these things, but not all. Then in the 4th century under the Emperor Constantine, he calls a worldwide Council of Bishops and they come to the conclusion of the historic Trinity and the Divine nature of Jesus. Those who disagree will show you that Constantine did this for political reasons [calling the council] and therefore will see the ‘Trinitarian formula’ as a false doctrine from ‘Rome’. There are whole groups of Baptists that also believe this! I had a friend of mine who joined the Air force, he attended the Fundamental Baptist Church I went to. He got stationed somewhere and found some ‘Independent Baptist churches’. They were just like the one we attended, except that they all taught that the Trinity was a false doctrine that was invented by the Catholic Church, and that all the other Baptists that believed it were in apostasy! Now these brothers will point to all the scriptures that say ‘God is one’ and tell you the language for the Trinity ‘God in 3 Persons’ is unscriptural. The Jesus only brothers will do this too! So as you can see it’s not easy to explain this stuff. The New Testament tells us ‘God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen on by men, received up into glory’ Jesus is God. We know this. But it is easy to see how when you look at certain ‘angles’ of truth, that it’s also easy to fall into categories where you make the other side a heretic. Let me say also, the reason why we form our view of God thru Christ is because God chose to reveal himself to us in this way. I do believe the ‘God of the Old Testament’ is God. The reason he is seen as wrathful and ‘transcendent’ is because this is how God is, apart from the Cross. In the Old Testament you see God dealing with man based on mans attempt at making himself righteous. Man couldn’t come close, so you ‘see’ God as wrathful and far away. In the New Testament you see God relating to man on the basis of the Cross. God’s wrath and anger are appeased and he is seen as someone who is not ‘far away’ anymore. Some historical Christians actually taught that the God of the Old Testament was a different God. One guy even came out with the first ‘cannon’ of scripture. It basically left out the Old Testament and contained only Paul’s letters, I think his name was ‘Marcion’ if I am remembering right? There are not 2 different Gods, the God of Israel is the same God as ‘the God’ of the Christians, it’s just you cant ‘have him’ without having his Son! Jesus did teach this. Now what about ‘Allah’, isn’t he also the same God with a different name. No he is not! This is why when we try to strive for unity and pluralism in society [all Muslims should have the right to worship as they please!] we also should be able to discern between Christian and Muslim belief. Allah is the ‘god’ of Islam, this is not the same God of Israel or Christians. NOTE: I have a friend of mine who is a Christian, but not real active in ‘churchy’ type things [sort of like Nacho Libre/Jack Black ‘a real religious man I am’!] and he says to me ‘What about those Mormons [we had a mutual friend who was Mormon] they believe in some God called ‘Yahweh’. I told him ‘this is not only the Mormon God, but ours too!’ Yahweh is the Name of God in scripture! Thought this was funny.
(437) About 15 years ago I hurt my back at work, we were lifting a football player from A and I university [A and M is now the name]. I slipped a disk or something. It was bad, couldn’t walk for a few weeks. Over the years this same area of my back has had a ‘reoccurring’ feeling of pain. I am irresponsible in the area of doctors. I haven’t done doctors check ups and stuff like you should. Recently its been killing me, I usually wait it out and eventually it gets better, it got so bad the other day that I went to the Emergency room [couldn’t wait till morning] and had to get something for the pain. They gave me some Valium and a direct shot of something into the lower spine area. After 30 minutes the pain never went away, it was that bad. Well I am off of work for a few days and the pain med’s along with the other prescribed meds seem to be helping. In the past guys with this type of injury would take months off, I plan on going back in a few days. Not bragging, just have too much to do to take months of down time. So this got me thinking about ‘healing’ again. I was thinking of the scenario in the Old Testament when the Israelites were in the wilderness and God sent snakes [fiery serpents-King James] to bite the people for their rebellion. As the people were being bitten they are dieing. God tells Moses to make this brass/bronze statue of a snake and put it in a poll. Whoever looks to the pole after they are bitten will get healed. Later on in Israel’s history you read an insignificant verse [I forget where it is, you can look it up in a concordance] where this statue had to be destroyed because the children of Israel went and idolized the thing. Now Jesus in John chapter 3 describes this story to Nicodemus. He basically says ‘as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up, so whosoever looks to him will be saved’ The reason Jesus would describe himself as a ‘serpent’ was because in Gods eyes Jesus became ‘accursed’ for us. The serpent in the Garden of Eden story is a cursed thing. Satan is called a serpent. When people are in need, they look to Jesus to get healed and forgiven. He was cursed on a pole [Cross] for us and we look to him for eternal life. Those who fastened their eyes on the serpent lived. Those who look to Jesus live. He is THE LIFE. God didn’t give you an experience that gave you eternal life, God gave you his Son so you would forever ‘look’ to him [an ongoing relationship versus a ‘1’ time deal!] and live forever. The verse in Hebrews says Jesus lives forever and because of this he is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God by him. Many times preachers say this means ‘guttermost’ or that Jesus saves people who are at the worst end of the scale [uttermost]. While this is true, this is not what this verse means. This verse is saying all who are in Christ have a never-ending Priesthood of intercession that Jesus forever carries out on our behalf. The ‘uttermost’ is referring to Christ’s present intercession for us that will last FOREVER; this is why he saves us to the uttermost [never ending]. Now the reason why the serpent on the pole had to be destroyed was because people take the things that God uses as examples or as tools and we make idols out of them. We do this with Pastors, Prophets and all the other gifted servants in the church. We seem to forget that we are just ‘objects/tools’ that God chooses to use as a means of getting people to Christ. We are just ‘Poles’ that are lifting Jesus up. After a while we have a tendency to ‘exalt the pole’ or worship the ‘statue’. Now we are to worship Jesus, but God doesn’t want us to make idols out of the means of communication that he uses. It’s hard to put this in, but let me try. Even the cannon of scripture is a tool to bring us to the reality of Christ. Some Christians would have you think that the tool is more important than Christ! I know I will get criticism for this, but I want you to see that it’s possible to have the tool, memorize the tool, even prop it up on some ‘pole’ but if you don’t have an ongoing relationship with God thru Christ, then this ‘tool’ can become your idol!
(438) This last week I have had an old injury from work ‘re surface’. I hurt my back years ago while on duty and it has been an on and off problem ever since. Recently it’s been causing severe pain. I finally went to the E.R. because the pain was so severe. They gave me Valium and a direct shot of painkiller into my lower spine. After about 30 minutes I got a rush, but it did nothing for the pain! I have been on some meds since [a few days] and the pain got better but I am left with a severe limp! I guess I did some damage to the nerves in my right leg, it feels totally numb. I thought this to be interesting, I had a dream a few weeks ago that I injured my leg and was walking with a limp! This reminds me of Jacob. After Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord all night, he later had a permanent limp. This was not so much a sign of judgment as it was a sign of Jacobs’s determination. Jacobs name gets changed to Israel and he is someone who prevails with both God and men. If you will Jacob had ‘war wounds’ that went on his ‘resume’. Sometimes in the Kingdom we see talented people, that’s good. But often times you don’t see determination. Much of the modern church is built on ‘performance talent’ and personality. People want to look good! Jesus rebuked the religious leaders of his day because they loved the acclaim that came along with religious position. The Kingdom needs people who will persevere [by Gods grace] whether they look good or not! I like the story of Jacob. I know he did some crafty things [supplanter] but this didn’t seem to bother the Lord as much as it bothers us. God is not looking for perfect people in as much as he is looking for ‘persevering people’. Let me exhort you to finish the race and endure by Gods grace to the end of your mission!
(439) Just opened up my newspaper. First thing I saw was ‘man dies swimming at Packery channel’. A 23 year old drowned right at the site that I have been swimming at the last few weeks. It is the first reported drowning this year off of our coast. I do not want to take lightly, or use the death of someone lightly. I want to show you that this channel, which I have spoken on a lot, represents ‘dieing to old things, and a coming alive to something new’. I felt like the Lord was telling me that the old person is passing away for many of us. The old ‘patterns/routines’ are being left behind only as you move ahead to new territory. You must access the ‘channel/highway’ that God is opening at this time, it will mean ‘death’ to the old man. Go and wash in this new open door I am giving you [Siloam/sent] your ‘sending’ will provide a cleansing avenue that will be found no where else!
(440) I was listening to a preacher on the radio; he is a great grace preacher. He is also a ‘cessationist’ someone who believes that the gifts of the Spirit and the 5 fold ministries passed away [the 5 fold refers to Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers]. We know there are no more Apostles in the sense of the ‘12 Apostles of the Lamb’ these are a category unto themselves. But scripture says ‘after Jesus ascended on high, he gave gifts unto men; Apostles, Prophets, etc.’ so this category of ‘Apostles and Prophets’ never even existed until after the ascension! Also this is speaking of Prophets that were made after Jesus ascended. So the original 12 and all the Old Testament Prophets are not even in this category. Also some teach that when Paul said ‘Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers’ and then he says ‘God gave them to the church until that which is perfect is come’ [Corinthians, Ephesians] some say ‘that which is perfect’ is the completed canon [the Bible] and since we now have the bible we don’t need Apostles and Prophets. Well simple grammar tells you no matter how you interpret this verse, that all 5 of these gifts are clumped together. If you don’t have Prophets, then you don’t have Teachers either! This verse is actually speaking of the perfection of the Bride of Christ that will take place at the second coming ‘for when we see him we will be like him, for we will see him as he is’. So to me ‘that which is perfect’ is not the bible or the second coming, but it is speaking of the Body of Christ coming to maturity [perfection is used in this way in scripture, and this will happen at the second coming, but the ‘perfect’ part is speaking of the bodies maturity at that event. John says ‘when we see him we will be like him’ 1st John]. Also to those who believe the gifts passed away. Peter quotes Joel in the book of Acts and says ‘In the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy’ This verse specifically says ‘people will prophesy in the last days’. I know some say ‘this is simple preaching’. But if you continue thru the book of Acts, which Peter describes as ‘the last days’ you will find examples of Prophets ‘prophesying’ and it isn’t simple preaching or exhortation, it is ‘predictive/prophetic’ speaking. The Prophet Agabus takes Paul’s ‘girdle’ [clothing] and says ‘whoever owns this coat will be bound and taken captive’. The Prophet says this as he is ‘Prophetically’ wrapping it around him. Now this isn’t simple preaching or exhortation. I know the critics say ‘this is before the bible is finished’ the point I am making is this defines the actual type of prophecy that Peter spoke of. And it wasn’t PREACHING!
(441) I am going to share a dream, but first this. The main reason the 1st century religious leaders did not receive the prophetic ministry of Jesus was because of their understanding of THE PROPHETS. They truly prided themselves in the fact that they were the keepers of the Old Testament, and that they possessed singular wisdom from the prophets that no one else could see. The great irony was that Jesus was the GREATEST prophet ever, all the Prophets pointed to him! Yet in their religious pride the Pharisees could not see ‘him’. Often times God will use people at certain periods in church history. These ‘prophetic voices’ are not meant to be worshipped or revered [only Jesus] but you will find the most ‘enlightened’ leaders of the day rejecting what they are saying because of their understanding of ‘the prophets’ [Word of God]. Often times these are the biggest obstacles to what God is doing. Jesus said the ‘sinners’ were much more open and willing to receive him than the religious leaders. All these people looking for spirituality in the New Age movement and psychics and stuff. Many of them are really open to the prophetic things of God. I am not saying these ‘spiritual counterfeits’ are prophetic, but people are looking for something real. They don’t find it in these ‘quasi movements’ they find it in Jesus. The woman at the well [John 4] said ‘come see a man that told me my whole life’. The fact that Jesus ‘saw into her heart’ caused her to go and testify of him. A woman who was steeped in sin. The Pharisees avoided and condemned her thru out her life. She was even from the wrong side of the religious world [Samaritan] yet in one prophetic encounter with Jesus she gets converted! Something all the Law and religion of the day could not do! Something that even the religious leaders were unable to receive. They had their views formed by their interpretation of the ‘prophets’ and nothing was going to change that, not even the greatest prophet who ever lived! Moses said ‘the Lord is going to raise up a prophet like unto me, those who will not hear him will be destroyed’. In the book of Acts Jesus is identified as ‘this prophet’. Moses brought the people on a spiritual journey that at first seemed exciting, then it seemed to ‘off the wall’. They found themselves living in the wilderness dependant on this ‘bread’ [Manna] that is coming down from heaven. The name ‘Manna’ means ‘what is it’ they survived on food that was strange to them. The disciples followed Jesus for 3 years and many said ‘who in the world is this guy’ [Manna- ‘what is this?’] Jesus had the audacity to say ‘I am the bread that comes down from heaven, whoever eats of me will never die’ this was too much for the leaders to hear. They would eventually kill him. DREAM; I just dreamt I was in a store. I had a complaint about something and went to tell the manager. The manager said ‘don’t you know that I can call the police on you’ she seemed like she knew the complaint was legitimate, but so what, what can you do to right this wrong. I said I too can call the law. It seemed like a confrontation with ‘Jezebel’. I called on my phone and she called on hers. She seemed like she was used to this challenge to her authority, this time was different. A few minutes after I called the sky started getting dark. It was a warm day, but a storm began to blow in. Everyone started getting scared. As the storm approached it began to snow [I have had snow before in dreams] and it became like hurricane conditions. Everyone began running for their lives. I too was running, but I wasn’t scared. It felt like when I pray outside during a thunderstorm. I was comfortable with it. I did have to avoid things blowing around and all, but it was like calling in ‘friendly fire’ during a war. You ask your own army to bombard your area. You know you might get hit too, but there are so many enemies surrounding you, that you go for it. As the winds and snow and storm got severe, a flash flood came in and covered the ground. I had to climb up a wall. I felt like the woman who challenged me by calling the authorities was like Jezebel. She has been seducing the people of God for so long that the church and its leadership got to a point where they would ignore her. In the past whenever some so-called ‘prophet’ would challenge her, she was able to ‘make them run’. She didn’t count on me ‘calling in friendly fire’ this time it was every man for himself, even her! There were some other parts to the dream that I don’t recall as clearly, but I think they dealt with a warning for those who are seeing stuff from our site [sight!] I felt the Lord said to be careful in dealing with ‘the weeds’ because you might accidentally pull up ‘the wheat’. It is easy for people to see real truth from this site, the intent is for reformation, not destruction. Sometimes ‘Jezebel’ is so rooted in the church that it takes a violent act to root her out. Jehu drove furiously, but he had a job to do! I want all our readers to be careful as you try to ‘root out Jezebel’ in your area [cities/states] she has been ‘welcomed’ for a very long season, she will not leave politely! Revelation- ‘I have something against you, you have suffered that woman jezebel to seduce my servants and commit fornication’ Jesus said this to one of the churches. James says ‘don’t you know that your love of the world is like committing adultery, your heart and desires are in things where God doesn’t dwell’ paraphrase. We suffer ‘Jezebel’ by truly loving the things of the world; we make pleasure and success our god. NOTE: Isaiah says ‘as the snow comes down from heaven and waters the earth, so is my word that goes out of my mouth. It will water the earth and make it bring forth. It will accomplish the purpose for why it was sent’! NOTE: Too often in the church we have labeled women as ‘jezebel’. Sometimes we put this label on women struggling in the ‘sex trades’. Remember, Jesus did not approach the Samaritan woman in this way, he gave her hope and forgiveness! Jezebel to me is more of a ‘seducing spirit’ she [and others] know she is ‘seducing’ the saints, but they allow her [suffer her] to continue! NOTE: The ‘snow’ images I have seen and shared on this blog speak to me of God covering areas with his prophetic word. A few years back it snowed in Corpus. I have pictures of this area covered with snow. I also saw an aerial view and it covered this entire southern coast and spread inland. In the above dream I feel the snow represents God permitting a prophetic word [words] to come from this area and to affect the state, nation and the world! Only God can cause the ‘snow’ [word/seed] to ‘cause the earth to bud’. There are seasons where God desires to bring ‘adjustment’ to the Body of Christ, these times are usually not comfortable! Also a few entries back I spoke on the strong ‘apologist’ movements who seem to only be looking for fault in the church. This has caused good men to go to the other extreme and to never bring correction or reproof at all. This is why you have many good Pastors today who are ‘shaken’ when true correction comes. Its not that they are all ‘wimps’ it’s just the present level of corrective reproof in the church is very low. When children have not been disciplined in a long time, they react violently when you try to correct them. I don’t want to sound demeaning, I am just trying to show you that ‘when it snows’ those who are unfamiliar with it have a hard time. When it snowed in Jersey, the street workers were out and the streets were clean and ready to drive. Not here in Corpus! We were not ‘used to’ snow. Hebrews says when people are ‘chastened’ [disciplined] it does not feel good at the beginning, but afterward it produces righteousness in those who accept it. Let the ‘summer snow’ do its work, it can be refreshing if you receive it in the right spirit. Also I used to have some music from Keith Green [I still love his music, but I gave the CD’s away to a friend!] he sang a song called ‘summer snow’ this verse is somewhere in the bible [Proverbs?] I kinda remember it saying something like ‘as snow to someone in summer’ speaking of a refreshing surprise visitation that ‘feels good’ and refreshing. Keith sang it to show the ‘surprise’ return of the Lord, that people wouldn’t be ready or expecting it. You usually get ready for the winter months while living up north. You don’t get all the snow gear in stores and stuff during the summer! So Jesus return will take many by surprise. A few years ago I took a drive to Jersey. I know it’s long [1800 miles!] but I am one of those road warriors that drives 1100-1200 miles in day one, and then finishes the rest on day 2. [I am also one who will drive wrong for 100 miles before I will ask for directions!] While there [February] we got a severe snowstorm, I loved it. I took a bunch of pictures of my truck being in a few feet of snow [vehicles represent ministries in prophetic imagery] I developed the pictures when I got back to Texas and lost them! They were missing for a few years. As I looked for them on many occasions I realized it was going to be a sign. Sometimes this will happen with me loosing things, when they show up later I know it was for a reason. Well after looking for them for a few weeks, I told the Lord ‘I know they will show up some day, for now I will let it go’ [not by might, nor power, but by my Spirit says the Lord] after a year or 2 [?] one day I walked into my study and they were laying out in plain view on a desk. I never asked who put them there or anything. I took it as a sign from the Lord. The year I found them was 2007, the same year the Lord allowed us to ‘snow’ on the North East. This year was the first year our blog and radio program reached Jersey. The radio station we are on broadcasts on line, so all my old buddies can read the blog and hear our program for the first time. Remember ‘snow’ is an image of Gods word ‘blanketing’ an area! Note: The last few months I debated on what towns we would post our blog. It is a little expensive and I do pay for this stuff out of pocket. I finally decided to ‘skip’ the Dallas/Fort Worth area. They wanted $170.00 for 1 day a month! The area we blog/ broadcast finally ended up being from the valley area, over to Laredo, back over thru the San Antonio/Corpus area, and instead of Dallas we just ‘shoot’ straight over to Houston and even hit Louisiana on a clear day. Plus we blog the New York area. I have this area ‘posted’ on all the maps and stuff that I use as ‘prayer reminders’. I just found the ‘aerial’ shot of the snow in 2004, it is an exact picture of the areas I show on the maps [except for the New York area] I forgot how accurate prophetic things can be! Also I forgot to mention that it snowed on Christmas day. Christmas was a sign of sending for me a few years ago, I saw the ‘tree’ in a dream and in a star pattern that year. So this would signify God ‘sending us out’ thru the various avenues of speaking/prophesying the word. As I just re read the details on the snow of 2004, it was the most snowfall ever recorded for this area. Claim these promises for yourself as God directs, his purpose is for all the Body of Christ to be actively involved with spreading the word! NOTE: see entry 454 as the fulfillment of the dream of flash floods.
(442) I am going to speak this as I just ‘heard’ it. God is requiring some of you to take action like a ‘Samson’. I felt like the Lord was saying that some of you have been preparing for ministry for years. You seem to be stuck at a place where you need to find one more answer, or settle just 1 more issue before you take the plunge. Some of you feel like you need a ‘track’ record of good days before you will act. Samson reached a point in his life where he was reaping what he sowed. His reputation and personal future was beyond repair. He was being mocked regularly while he struggled with ‘bondage issues’. One day he saw an opportunity to commit a single act of bravery that would mean martyrdom for him, but he knew it would be his last chance to ‘make history’. He could have never done what he was going to do. If ‘survival’ and existence was the measuring rule, he would have just been happy by living day to day as the but of the enemies jokes. The court jester if you will. He got tired of that existence. One day as he is being mocked he ‘positions’ himself in a strategic place, it almost looks like a ‘Cross’. His arms are placed from one pillar to another and he ‘goes for it’. Everything comes down, even on him [friendly fire!] but scripture says he killed more of the enemy in his death, than in his entire life [a bit prophetic, don’t you think?] Hebrews 11 records him as one of the heroes of the faith. That’s funny, God didn’t ‘remember’ his bad track record, God saw his act of faith! What are you waiting for? NOTE: I am going to share this as I just ‘heard it’. ‘Your whole life, in Gods eyes is as a single day. God’s mercies are new every morning. If you woke up today and found out that every failure you have ever committed, every wrong thing you have ever done. All the mistakes you might have made in ministry, the friendships that have parted, possibly because you were the one at fault. Your own personal failures and weaknesses. Those of you who have been divorced, had abortions and have done the most horrendous things imaginable. If you just woke up and realized that it was all a dream. That as a matter of fact this is the first day of your life. You were like the guy in ‘it’s a wonderful life’ and you really had a bran new start today. This is how God sees you. Your whole life, all the successes and failures, every single thing that has happened up until now has only been a ‘blip’ on Gods radar screen. Your whole life is like a single day in the mind of God. If your kid woke up today and disobeyed you, you might punish him and send him to his room. By the evening he forgot all about it and wants to throw the football or ride his bike. How do you view him? Do you really hold that ‘one day mistake’ against him? This is how God sees you right now, in his mind none of this ever happened. He really sees you as the little boy/girl who made a ‘one day mistake’ and he wants you to finish the day with him. The night is almost here and you will be sleeping soon, have some fun.
(443) Jesus never used his tremendous wisdom to ‘trick’ or baffle the average person. But he did do this with the religious leaders who were proud. It is easy to fall into the category of ‘wanting to win the argument’. God wants us to be right, but the end goal is to ‘win the person’. I like studying intellectuals and the current trends in theology, I think most Pastors/Leaders are too lacking in these areas. I will notice sometimes that ‘theologians’ will fall into the trap of speaking for hours with such intellectual language that when they are done you have no idea of what they were saying. I have read books like this. They seem to see that as a badge of honor. Jesus only did stuff like this when dealing with the proud ‘preachers’ of his day. ‘Who is the Messiah? Is he the Son of David? Then if this is so, why does David call him his Lord in the Psalms?’ The Pharisees were baffled. The answer is common today. Jesus was before David [John 1:1] and he became ‘incarnate’ after David. It is a theological answer to be sure, but none of the Theologians knew it. But later Jesus will plainly reveal the Love and Mercy of God to man. I do think there are times to be ‘intellectual’, but mostly when dealing with religious leadership who is steeped in their knowledge, they often need to be ‘out trumped’ before they will change. The main message of the Cross is meant to be simple and relevant. Paul had the opportunity to ‘dazzle’ the Corinthians, but he said he stuck with the message of the Cross so their faith wouldn’t be in some intricate system of thought, but in Christ! NOTE: Let me show you how easy it is to ‘not see’ the obvious. The New Testament speaks specifically about the area of giving of finances. If you go to all the direct portions of scripture that deal with it [not simply to the few verses that mention the tithe that are found in the gospels and the book of Hebrews, when the ‘tithe’ is mentioned in these verses it is not speaking on giving in the New Testament church] you will find Paul teaching giving in a ‘non compulsory’ way. Why did Paul actually say ‘ give, not by compulsion, but of a willing heart’? Because the first century Jew knew of only one way to give, and that was by compulsion. The Tithe was by compulsion, no way around it. The teaching in Malachi says to the Jew ‘if you don’t tithe, you are under a curse and are robbing God’ this my friends is compulsion. Now when we in the church teach people ‘if you don’t tithe God will get it from you one way or the other. Either your kids will get sick or you will pay it out at the hospital’ this is also compulsion! So to be contrary to this mindset that was imbedded in the law, Paul purposely teaches the opposite. The fact that the New Testament teaches to give not by compulsion is just like saying ‘don’t give with the tithe mentality’. It actually is very clear! Just like it was clear to Jesus [and to us today] that Messiah was not only the Son of David, but also David’s Lord. Things become obvious when you are taught them by God. Now the New Testament gives a lot of instructions on how Christians should give, this is not a secret! But like anything else we read scripture with preconceived ideas and then we make scripture fit. We are all guilty of this, I just wanted you to see how we are just like the Pharisees in many ways. Thank God that he is a God of mercy. NOTE: It is not our intent to get Christians to stop supporting the ‘church’ they are currently attending, if you dedicated a certain amount of giving then keep doing it. If the church you attend has made certain budget decisions based on what you said you would give, then out of simple integrity to your word try and fulfill these promises. I even believe that certain Pastors can still encourage the people to give 10% without using the ‘tithe’ as the ‘trigger’. Just appeal based on grace. If you as a believer are currently learning these new truths from us, but you don’t effectively share financially thru avenues the Lord has shown you, then continue to support the church you are attending. Truth and reformation are processes that take time. Even though I believe the church is not under the tithe, yet it is not Gods purpose to ‘undercut’ the budget of well meaning Pastors/churches by you seeing this new truth. Let God lead, I don’t want to be the one who gives Christians excuses not to give.
(444) Today its June 25th, 2007. It’s been 6 months since I started this blog. Today is the day the Supreme Court outlawed prayer in Public Schools, this day in 1962 [the year I was born]. Yesterday I took my youngest daughter to church. My wife and other kids were busy, 2 of my daughters went on their own. After church I took my girl to see ‘Evan Almighty’ a good movie that does a spoof on the story of Noah’s Ark, but it is good. I told you guys once about my study, it is set up like a throw back to the 70’s. I have a lot of old stuff. One thing I have is the original ‘Gumby’ rubber man. I saw it once in a store and bought it as a collector’s thing. This week for some reason I was thinking of taking it out of the plastic that it’s in. I have no idea why I would be thinking of Gumby. Yesterday [the day I went to see the movie] I also was looking in the paper and saw some Dell Laptops, this week I have been thinking of getting one. They had a flyer on them in the paper so I was looking at the prices. Last but not least, as I am praying in my study I keep noticing this poster of John Lennon, it is a real charcoal drawing that someone had made. My wife found it in an abandoned apartment that she manages. I have had it for a few years. I was thinking of maybe taking it down, because as I am praying it kind of was distracting me, it’s got these real looking eyes that seem to pierce your soul. Well how in the world can any of this make sense? As I go to the movie I am looking for some signs or stuff the lord wants to say. The God character [Morgan Freeman] has the first conversation with the ‘Noah’ character [Steve Carell- ‘the 40 year old virgin’] and God convinces ‘Noah’ that it is him speaking to him by bringing up a childhood memory, he mentions ‘Gumby’. As the story moves ahead Noah grows hair and a beard, the son calls him ‘John Lennon’ and they play some Lennon music as well. Steve Carrel is doing all his work on a ‘Dell computer’ [a form of communication, like what I am doing on my laptop right now!] I did feel like the Lord showed me a few things. I have seen in the past certain things from Lennon and Dylan. Lennon was shocked by the effect that his words were having on a generation, Dylan was real uncomfortable about being a ‘prophet’ to his generation. If you read or watch stories on these figures, it was like the Lord was giving exponential ‘influence’ by the simple words they were speaking. On one MTV/VH1 special I saw Lennon confront a fan from an old video. Lennon was trying to tell this fan who was obsessed with the words from his songs ‘I am just a man, I am just writing my thoughts in my songs, don’t be so enamored with it’ it was like the Lord allowed certain ‘prophetic/rock’ voices to have tremendous influence, whether or not the ‘prophet’ wanted this attention or not. In the movie Steve Carell builds the Ark and is waiting for the rain, it rains a little, but the flood comes form a broken damn instead. This didn’t really fit in with the prophetic stuff I have been ‘seeing’ recently. I just dreamed of a huge storm the other day, where’s the storm? As we left the theatre my daughter says ‘look at the sky dad, a huge storm is moving in’ on the way home it was one of those flash flood storms that covers the sky and looks eerie. I got home and started writing this stuff on my mission statement, it was pouring at the time. NOTE: The reason God shows up is that Evan becomes a congressman and promises to ‘change the world’ God teaches him that you can change the world by ‘one random act of kindness at a time’ this fits in with my philosophy on the church and ministry. The biblical idea of church is for all believers everywhere to see themselves as the actual ‘fire starters’ of this Jesus revolution. It’s not the multimillion dollar ‘church organizations’ that are always appealing for money that will change the world, its all the ‘simple believers’ who have been told their whole lives ‘you cant have any influence yourself, send your money to us’ that are going to do it!
(445) A while back I read a vision from a prophet. It spoke of a huge wave that was leaving the coast, as it left it exposed the sins and shortcomings of Gods people. The wave ‘covered’ them for a while, but when it left, the people were exposed and suffered shame. Many who were on the ‘coast’ [beach] left out of fear and shame. A few remained and sure enough the wave came back. As it came back it then flooded the entire coastal region. There are verses in the Old Testament prophets that speak of stages where God dealt with the sins of his people. There are specific references to those who ‘fled’ the city [place of destiny]. It speaks of a ‘remnant’ that didn’t flee in the face of their own failure and fear. These were the ones the Lord would use to bring in the harvest. I don’t want to say that everyone who ‘leaves Corpus’ [or your city] is guilty of this, in scripture ‘here we have no continuing city’ the city imagery speaks of your purpose in the Kingdom. God is saying ‘those who stay in the destiny that I have called them to, despite the shame and failures that they have gone thru, will be the ones who will usher in and partake of my wave’.
(446) A few years ago I had a Pastor friend who kind of competed with me in ‘getting’ the addicts/ex-cons to ‘go to his church’. I knew this brother for years. He got saved in his 50’s [?] and started preaching at the jails when I was going in my 20’s. Eventually he left the Pentecostal church he attended and ‘started his own church’. I knew he would talk about me every now and then, and to tell you the truth, it really didn’t bother me. It’s like when you go thru rumors that your are having a gay relationship with an ‘ordained minister/sorcerer’ who started the rumors himself, you kind of don’t mind about the regular normal gossip. I chalked it up to his immaturity in the Lord. Even though he was a good 25 years older than me, he meant well and was going thru the silly games preachers play when they first start out. He did invite me to preach at his church once, and we had a good service. But being he would gossip to me about the Pastor and church he had formally attended, I knew it was only a matter of time before he would get to me! I never even confronted him or anything, I just let it slide. One day he saw me at a restaurant with a brother [ex-con/addict] you could tell he was a little jealous that the brother was with me and not him. I don’t even ‘have a church’ but in his mind he was at the childish stage of ‘why don’t you come to my church’ type thing. This Pastor read my first book ‘house of prayer or den of thieves’ and I think it might have been a little strong. I never gave him my 2nd book, and as we went to the parking lot to get it, he started gossiping about the ex- addict brother who we just left to go into the parking lot! Well I gave him my 2nd book, which challenges the whole concept of ‘local church’ and the role of ‘Pastor’. I knew it wouldn’t be long before he would read it, and more than likely I would become the talk of the town by this Pastor in his 60’s who would probably call me a heretic. I just didn’t worry about it, I figured I would give him the book and just leave it at that. We did have a mutual Christian friend and I finally asked him how Pastor ‘so and so’ was doing. In a nice way, I kinda figured the Pastor might have already gotten to my friend and told him what a heretic I was. My friend said the last time he saw him he was in the hospital and it looked like he was going to die. I don’t think it was because he more than likely talked about me, it was just something that happened. I later thought about it, how so many of us [Pastors/leaders] see people as simple tools in a big game. To try to challenge the present mindset of ‘Pastor’ and ‘church’ is a difficult thing. To be sure all Pastors don’t fall into the category of my friend, but the system itself has a way to bring this type of stuff out of us, even the best of us. NOTE; he died a few months back, the same day I read of his death we had a strange phenomenon in the gulf where I live. We had a real clear ‘water spout’ that the local channels picked up. It was a perfect ‘tunnel’ type spout that showed the water going right up to ‘heaven’ thru this tube. I took it as a beautiful sign of my friend’s home going. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints!
(447) It is difficult for the American church/Pastor to ‘reform’ his understanding of church from one of ‘the 501c3 organization that raises funds to do projects and support ministries’ to that of a free community of people whom Christ’s Spirit dwells in to ‘reform and effect’ society around them. I remember hearing defenses of the ‘Local church’ from the fundamental Baptists that said ‘some people speak of the ‘invisible church/universal church’ well the bible never speaks of a church ‘you cant see’. While there is some truth to this, what these brothers were saying is ‘the local church is this ‘church building’ and all the functions that surround it’! God has his people strategically located all over the earth. When the Bible speaks of ‘local believers’ versus ‘the universal church’ it is not speaking of 2 different things. It is speaking of Christians who reside locally and to the believers who reside ‘universally’. They are the same thing, just in different locations. We have a tendency as Pastors and leaders to want to do some project, complete some goal. This is good. But it becomes ‘not good’ when we view Gods people at large as the primary ‘funders’ of the ‘big project’. This ‘projects’ a mindset into the people of God that is contrary to the function of the church. Moses, Paul and all the other biblical leaders were men with vision and destiny. Moses did ‘collect funds’ for certain godly purposes [the Tabernacle] while leading the people, but the primary thing they were doing, their ‘vision and destiny’ if you will, was bringing the people of God along a journey that led them to a place of self sufficiency/rule under the headship of God [Christ] that released them into a functioning society of people. You never see Paul or the other Apostles primarily relating to the people along the lines of ‘God has given me this vision, if you Galatians, Ephesians, etc. were simply obedient to fund it, then it would happen’ the vision was not some project or thing apart from their own function and growth. They were not following Paul’s leadership to accomplish something apart from them. What Paul [Moses] were doing was bringing them into the reality that God wants to express himself and who he is thru a people that bear his name. The fact that Israel [or the church] were being governed by God and representing him in the earth gave God ‘opportunities’ to act and show himself strong on their behalf. Society around them were not going to be influenced by the great things they were to build [Babel mindset] but they were to be influenced by who they were and their real relationship with God as a nation. So when we ‘see’ the church as ‘this visible 501c3 organization’ and the people as ‘taxpayers’ [tithers] to the projects and goals of the organization, this causes both the Pastors and the people to fall into roles that are not the primary expression of what God really wants. The people are faced, week after week, month after month, year after year, with leadership saying ‘you are not obedient enough in the area of raising funds’ and the primary challenge to the average saint in the pew is ‘I will give more diligently this time’ and his whole function is measured by this rule. Then leadership reinforces the ‘scriptural mandate’ of this dynamic by appealing to the few areas in Paul’s writings that speak on giving. Though Paul was not primarily dealing with it in the same way. We truly ‘see’ the function of the motivated minister to set goals and somehow inspire people to fund these well meaning goals. This is a very small part of what New Testament leadership was doing. In the very verses we use to justify ‘giving on Sunday’ in a legalistic way, Paul actually says ‘take up the collection before I get there [Corinth] because when I get there we have real important things to do, I don’t want to waste time dealing with the money stuff [1 Corinthians 16]’ so we take these verses that are teaching the small role that finances play in the functioning of the church [to support laboring elders/Pastors and to meet the needs of the less fortunate] and we turn these verses around and teach them in a way that giving becomes thee number 1 measurement of a persons faith. We give the mindset to the average believer that his main function is to ‘attend church and give money’ and he measures his faithfulness this way. And he is taught ‘God highly values the ‘local church’ if he loves it so much that he gave his life for it, how much more should you value the local church in your life and give it priority’ But we seem to be telling the poor people that the ‘it/local church’ is the organization and all that surrounds its ‘corporations life’ [versus corporate life]. Yes God does love the 'local church’ [community of believers] and he did give his life for it [them and you!] and this is why you see biblical leadership so unfocused on some ‘vision to accomplish something’ and so focused on ‘seeing the people of God come to maturity’. They were giving their lives for the thing of value, which were the people of God [the LOCAL CHURCH!] NOTE: This is why you can see Paul in prison, writing letters to the churches and being totally fulfilled while doing this. His purpose was not to be in such a ‘state’ of outward self sufficiency and having all the money to accomplish some goal, he was actually doing the purpose of God by building the church, even though his outward man [and all of its expressions] were ‘passing away’. NOTE: the materialistic mindset in the church, along with the confusion on what [who] the church is, causes us to be unable to grasp how Paul could be ‘fulfilled’ even though he was not ‘building’ a ‘ministry or organization’. Paul was the one who said ‘we look not at the things which are seen, but unseen’ also ‘Abraham believed that the things that God said would come true’. We use these verses to bring us to a point of ‘making things seen’ or building outward stuff. In these verses God was defining faith as actually living in such a way that you knew after your departure that your ‘seed/lineage’ of spiritual children would ‘inherit’ the land. In essence ‘faith’ in these stories is the ability to die without actually seeing or possessing the physical promise in this life. The patriarchs are defined this way in Hebrews 11. They died as they blessed their offspring, believing that God would make a great ‘family/dynasty’ from their offspring. So Paul in prison is ‘unstoppable’ because he knew the Word of the Lord would have free course. He knew ‘by faith’ that these outward things were not really where the Kingdom was at. He knew by faith that after his death the ‘everlasting gospel’ would prevail and that by Gods grace his ‘spiritual seed’ would go on forever. That’s why I am writing about him now, and you are listening!
(448) I read an article the other day that illustrates this stuff. It was about a ‘bi-vocational Pastor’ who was ‘Pastoring’ 3 churches at a time, because the churches were too small to ‘afford a fulltime Pastor’ and there was a need for someone to ‘administrate the ordinances’ so what else could they do? The well-meaning Pastor was in his fifties and was a fulltime military man. And it showed a picture of him innocently ‘manning the pulpit’ as he fulfills this ‘office’ every Sunday for these 3 churches. It showed how much our present mindset of ‘church’ and the protestant office of ‘The Pastor’ is really an unbiblical role. I know this sounds ‘mean’ but for heavens sake lets move on with the program. God has been dealing with the Body of Christ for quite some time. He wants to release/empower us to ‘be the church’ [the mobile community of God functioning and flowing in all areas of society] if we can’t get past ‘how can our church function unless someone is pastoring it?’ then we still have a long way to go! NOTE: My ‘spell check’ is prophetic. When I wrote the word ‘unbiblical’ above, it actually fixed it on it’s own to say ‘umbilical [cord]’ we cant seem to ‘break’ the ‘childish’ connections that we have towards these ‘lifelong ties’ to a ‘Pastor’. God never intended any of his gifted ones to be the ‘lifelong’ overseer of anybody. These gifts [Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers] were all given to play a role at various times in your development to bring you to maturity, none of them were to fulfill the co-dependant role that the protestant office of ‘the Pastor’ has become! I think ‘umbilical cord’ was probably the right word! [Sorry, but I just couldn’t help it!]
(449) ‘recognize, don’t organize’ Chee Ann said this [a Pastor/Apostle]. I like this. In business you are taught to set ‘long term goals’ a good thing. Often time’s people in ministry find it helpful to do this. OK. But God has more to give you than just a ‘10’ or ‘20’ year plan. God reveals his ways and purposes to us thru out our lives. If you try to really seek God at the early stage of your walk, he will reveal himself to you. But he will not give you a ‘20’-year plan in full form. Why? Because much of what he wants to do thru you, and show to you is a process of you becoming like him. It is not simply information! If your 5 year old asks you about life and what he should be when he grows up, you will give him basic desires and hopes to shoot for. ‘I want to be a fireman’ or whatever. But if he took the broad overview of what you said, and refused to ‘adjust’ along the way, he would be in trouble. You realize that you are revealing to him basic goals, but that he is really not ‘grown’ enough to fully understand or receive all that you want to show him. God works like this with us. He shows us things by bringing us to different levels of growth. When you reach these different ‘places’ in him, you begin to see and function on a ‘higher’ plane. It’s not so much ‘more information’ in as much as it is ‘more formation’. Set goals, this is good. But be moldable and shapeable along the way. It’s not being unfaithful to adjust as you grow in him. He really wants us to grow into his image along the way; it’s not so much just a task that he wants us to perform.
(450) I was listening to a preacher telling his testimony. I have seen and read his writings before, but never heard him speak. The opinion I had from seeing/reading him was one of a very motivated professional minister. Nothing wrong, just the ‘jet set’ highly mobile successful mega church image. An image that often times is hard for the average person to relate to, though they are still very successful and accomplishing good things in the kingdom. As I finally heard him speak he sounded so much like me. He shared how he grew up in the 70’s, got high, listened to rock music and went to ‘deep purple’ concerts; it was a very real sounding testimony. You almost had the feeling of the voice not fitting the person [I know people feel this way when they see me too. I do not look, or come off as someone who teaches on radio and writes books and stuff]. The point I am making is sometimes the ‘environment’ of professional ministry hinders the ‘realness’ that God intended for the gospel to have. Jesus was very real and human in his lifestyle. Very different from the image/persona of religious leadership. There was no sense of ‘watch what you say, the Pastor is here’ type thing. I think it would do us good if we can be real people with real struggles with real friends. The unbelieving world has so many questions, but the ‘church world’ is so unapproachable that they look elsewhere for the answers. NOTE; In the early church Christianity was not a separate field or vocation like it is today. Today Christianity is a ‘world/business’ unto itself. While God did intend the church to influence all areas of society, he didn’t intend the church to have its own ‘culture’ of Christian things [Christian restaurants, Christian mechanics, Christian bookstores, and on and on] while these types of things are well intentioned, we unconsciously create a separate culture when we do this. The early believers lived and functioned as real people in society, even the Apostles! [Tent makers]. We sort of have developed a society within the church that has young believers seeing ‘the ministry’ as a profession. ‘God has called me to start a [some Christian function] ministry’ and then you have an entire sector of society whose profession and identity becomes defined by ‘full time Christian service’. The New Testament teaches whatever a person is doing as a vocation, he is serving Christ. It does a disservice to the testimony of believers when we make these secular/holy divisions. Christians are to discern between what is evil and what is good, but this does not mean we withdraw from the marketplace of influence, it also does not mean that we influence the market place by ‘Christian stuff’ [holding huge Christian festivals that draw millions of dollars, trying to show the world that we have influence. This really isn’t influence. Though millions are being spent, it is money basically generated by a ‘vacation/tourism’ mentality. While it is beneficial for believers to have times of refreshing, this type of economic impact is not the same as believers actually being owners of the motels and the other establishments that are benefiting from the festival type atmosphere]. I hope you can see what I am saying. It’s OK for a T.D. Jakes to do a ‘mega fest’ but this is not primarily what the scriptures are referring to when it speaks of believers affecting the world by ‘remaining in it’. We affect it by actually being the ‘prime movers’ and shakers in all areas. We carry the Spirit of God within us, we speak the gospel of hope to those around us, and we interact successfully with society, we don’t ‘withdraw’ into some ‘full time ministry’ mentality that causes the church to always appeal for funds [when I say church, I mean believers] because we feel like God has called us to not be employed and instead to make our living by offerings, this really is not a viable Christian testimony.
(451) I want to put some perspective and balance in here. Many people can’t understand my last entry, and how I also can preach so strongly against materialism. I believe there is a big difference between materialism and responsible Christians in the market place. I wont ‘re preach’ it all, but if you read all the stuff on this site you will see what I mean. I also do struggle with the fact that I have made other believers uncomfortable by my dealing with it, I ‘feel’ for the preachers and their kids, I know that because of certain aspects of my calling these individuals have experienced difficulty. I also believe preachers in general have let certain abuses go on for so long, that the Lord allowed our ‘voice’ to be so strong. I like the movie ‘a river runs thru it’ I catch it every now and then. At the end it shows one of the sons who outlived everyone else. His parents have died, his brother is gone and his wife as well. It shows him old and at the end of the journey. He is back home fly-fishing and he is all alone. It puts into perspective the un importance of material things. We will all depart some day, I hope and pray that I will have truly preached eternal things versus temporary stuff. I heard the late J Vernon Magee [sp?] say ‘Now that I have cancer, stuff doesn’t mean so much to me. I have a new reel for my fishing pole that I bought before I found out about the cancer. I was excited about it. Couldn’t wait to use it. Now I look at it and it doesn’t mean anything anymore’ [I am paraphrasing somewhat]. Jesus taught often about the brevity of life. He spoke of the rich man who pulled down his barns to build greater storehouses and have much goods for many days. The mindset of the rich man was his security was in things. Jesus said he would die that night and who then will get his stuff? His family will probably fight over it in probate court. Jesus often pointed to things like this. The Bible teaches financial responsibility and being involved in financial matters, its just Jesus put it all in perspective. I also have heard preachers say ‘the bible speaks more about money than salvation’ [or some other important subject] and the inference is ‘therefore lets make money our top priority’ well if you use this logic, the bible also speaks more on hell [judgment] than heaven, but that doesn’t mean God wants us all to go there! Well anyway I pray that if I outlive my family and friends and make it to a hundred, that if I find myself standing on the end of the North Jetty [Packery channel] that I will have done more then packed away ‘gobs of cash’. P.S. I haven’t been feeling well lately, not only the leg injury. I just saw the x-ray yesterday, one of the discs in my spine is almost completely gone. I was a little surprised to have seen it was really that bad. As of today I think I will have to retire with 25 years as a firefighter. I will be 45 next month, but I didn’t plan on retiring just yet. I really don’t look bad [I hope!] I mean I still look in shape and athletic, but the limp has been giving me away. I also tried to run and realized I cant anymore. I kinda felt a little depressed about that. If I knew that I wouldn’t run again I probably would have done as much as possible this last year. I would appreciate you guy’s prayers, thanks! NOTE: I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, I want to be real with you and get you to pray for me! Because of the way we ‘do church’ it is common to have scenarios where the main leader [Pastor] is overburdened with ‘the pressures of a big ministry/organization’ and the people see this and feel for him. In some more severe situations [where it looks like the Pastor is on the verge of a nervous breakdown!] you can develop really unhealthy environments where week after week the ‘stresses’ are so obvious, and the peoples main relationship with the Pastor is one of ‘I really am trying to do all I can to support you’ even if it means ‘enabling’ situations that are not good. This is an outgrowth of the unnatural environment of the position of ‘the Pastor’ that is not really seen in the New Testament. You did have scenarios of believers [leaders and others] who were struggling and needed prayer. But because there really was no office of a ‘Pastor’ that was the primary speaker [Sunday after Sunday for 30 years in a row] of the local church, therefore you didn’t develop these long scenarios of ‘enabling’ someone and also the co dependency that sometimes can surround the situation. To be sure not all Pastors fall into this category, but I wanted to show how the present model of the Local Church is more prone to allow these things to go on.
(452) Let me give you a little example of how ‘so not in control’ I am. I have been trying to post this blog site in the Bergen Record for a few months. As far as I know they have posted it a few times already [at least I know they deducted the payment from my checking!] Well I finally got a hold of the person who does the church ads, she is a nice lady. But I was kinda concerned because I didn’t get any ‘hard copy’ of the ad, and you cant find it on the papers web site. So after weeks of trying to get this straightened out, I finally got her to send me a page of the paper thru the mail. I was looking for it for a week or so and it never showed up. Then my wife finds it last night in a stack of junk mail [by the way ‘junk mail’ is the name I use to refer to all types of stuff. Critical prosperity brothers who send me rebukes, bills and all sorts of stuff!] I am happy to realize it made it to my house; they did have the wrong zip code on it. I was tempted to open it up while sitting on the couch trying to recuperate from some hard days I have been having. I already have learned to not open mail unless you are prepared to deal with whatever problem might arise. It’s like just picking up the phone when it rings. I NEVER answer my house phone [maybe one time out of 500 hundred]. I will be sitting right next to it, reading the paper or eating. It can ring 50 times [my wife and daughters friends must have the same genetic problem that causes someone to do this!] and I refuse to even look at the caller I.D. I always carry my cell phone and my family knows if they need me to call me on it. Sometimes my kids will see me sitting there as the house phone rings 20 times, they will be in the restroom or something. They will be upset that I didn’t even care to look at the caller I.D. Well anyway the principle is if you allow any interruption to hit you at any time, you will not accomplish much. So even though I was excited to finally have a chance to actually look at our ad that has been running for a few months, I figured let me wait until the morning before I open the envelope, my wife cant do stuff like this! So anyway I just opened it, the religion section looks great. I haven’t read a ‘hard copy’ from a Jersey Paper in a while. I enjoyed seeing all the church ad’s and stuff. I am kinda expecting our ad to be wrong, which would mean I have been paying for a wrong ad for months. It wasn’t wrong at all. As a matter of fact it wasn’t even there! O well, I knew I wasn’t supposed to look at it last night. NOTE: At least all you tithers can now say ‘we told you the Lord was gonna get it from you one way or another!’ NOTE: I know some of you think it’s irreverent to even kid like this. In the New Testament ‘the tithe’ wasn’t the main ‘standard’ of spirituality as it has become today. The main standard was the Sabbath. The Sabbath became the key tool of measurement that the Pharisees would use to judge Jesus. You could have said that Jesus actually ‘was in their face’ on this issue. Jesus purposefully would heal on the Sabbath. In today’s mindset you could have thought ‘well, we know the Pharisees were wrong in the way they elevated the Sabbath to something that it wasn’t, but we do live in a pluralistic society, and in keeping with the respect for all religions, Jesus could have simply avoided healing on the Sabbath. He still could have healed as many as he wished and he would have also been making the gospel more ‘acceptable’ to the religious mindset of the day’ Jesus would have none of it! Why? Because one of the major barriers that would stand in the way of the fledgling church would be legalism. Jesus wanted to be the ‘first’ prophetic sledgehammer that would open the way for the other ‘grace preachers’ who would come after him. In essence Jesus HAD TO HAVE DONE THESE THINGS ON THE SABBATH or else it would not have offended the religious mind enough to provoke it into reformation!
(453) I have recently been thinking on the shortness of life. Not only do the toys we have rust [like my 66 Mustang] but our bodies ‘die daily’. I feel sad for some of the teachings in the church that really are obviously wrong. I really don’t know what else I can do to bring to our attention the need to live above ‘stuff’. As I was just outside praying, not feeling too well, I thought of the time I heard it taught that when Jesus said ‘Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven where moth doth not corrupt, or thieves break thru and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also’. I know you guys are tired of hearing me, I am tired too. I really am not in ‘a rebuking’ mode at all right now. I am physically and emotionally drained and tired of the whole thing. It was taught once by the prosperity teaching that this meant ‘when you give by faith, you are actually building up an account in heaven [sort of like a bank book/ledger] and this is what it means to store up treasure in heaven. And then when you have built up a huge account, by faith you can make withdrawals on it here. Your faith is ‘causing the things that are not seen [the account in heaven] to manifest the into things that are seen’. I really feel at times I am at the end of my rope explaining these things. You will be surprised how many intelligent influential people cannot see this as wrong. Do I really need to tell you that this is obviously not what Jesus is teaching. Why do all my prophetic friends not deal with this? Why do you brothers/sisters not give me some help in trying to bring this thing back on track? I don’t think these types of interpretations are funny at all anymore. A lot of my prophetic/pastoral friends will ‘wince’ at stuff like this in private. But in public say things like ‘well, God is happy with all the people who have been won to the Lord thru all the money that the prosperity gospel has brought in’. Just give me some help guys, stuff like what I just showed you is taught en masse thru out this country today [and the world]. I do not want to be an alarmist, I just feel like we need to really build up treasure in heaven, lets not live for this world anymore.
(454) I haven’t Picked up the San Antonio paper in about a week, I got it today on my way to the spine doctor, the headlines were ‘CENTRAL TEXAS GETS DRENCHED’ We have had more flooding this month [6-2007 for those who read this stuff in 10 years from now!] in certain parts of Texas than since 1970. The state is getting ‘poured on’. I told you guys earlier this year that the Lord led me to pray ‘pour out water upon him that is thirsty and FLOODS upon the dry ground’. I also felt like we started ‘flooding’ the dry ground this year more than any other year since we started the ministry. Actually the image I have had while praying outside in the mornings [3 am type mornings!] is God ‘blog spotting’ the state. Pouring out thru the various means that he has given us [you also!] thru his Word like rain and snow. I just quoted the other day in a dream the scripture in Isaiah ‘As the rain and snow come down and water the earth and make it to bud, so is the word that goes forth out of my mouth, it accomplishes the thing for which I sent it’ I just felt like the Lord is really pouring out this year on Texas, especially San Antonio for those of you in our ‘range’. NOTE: I really try to ‘not exaggerate’ when writing, I just heard on the radio, the City of Austin [our Capitol] has had more rain this week that at any other time since the state has kept records [1870]. One city had 19 inches in one day. NOTE: read entry 441, I had a dream of flooding a few weeks ago. These recent floods have been on the news and in the papers. I have been seeing images of entire roadways and regions flooded in ways that I have never seen before in Texas. I have been here for 27 years and have never seen it like this.
(455) I felt like God just had a prophetic word for you ‘There are times in my will where your scenery [that which you see] is going to change. These are transition times. When this happens it is your responsibility to recognize it and allow the scenery to change. You don’t ‘change’ it by any thing you do, you just recognize that things are changing and allow it to happen’. If you don’t transition when these seasons are upon you, then the world will provide a destiny for you [Larry Randolph].
(456) Recently I have been struggling a lot with nervousness and depression. I know leaders are not supposed to say this, but I want to be honest with you, also I need your prayers! I read a story in the paper the other day on some guy who started some Christian paper in California. It works with needy people and all. The story was great. He had suffered the loss of three children thru various mishaps and was mad at God for years. One day he read a verse in Corinthians from the message bible, I don’t have it in front of me, but it’s the verse that says ‘When we go thru struggles God comes and comforts us, so when others struggle we can comfort them with the same comfort God has given to us’ It says ‘God comes along side us’ this is the name of the Holy Spirit, he is called the comforter. During my recent struggles I have felt really desperate. All the verses on Peace that I have memorized over the years are really helpful to me at this time. This is why David says in Psalms ‘thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee’ Also Jesus says to the disciples ‘the Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance all the things that I have told you’. Wow, I didn’t even realize as I just sat down to write, that I was going to even say this. As you look at it this is one of the ways the Holy Spirit comforts us, by bringing to our remembrance these words of Jesus on Peace ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid’ ‘Do the things that make for peace’ ‘he is our peace’. One of the things I am re learning is the importance of thinking and meditating on the Lord. The Christian music channel is on 24 hours a day in my home. A few nights I have just prayed all night, many times the songs are actually psalms of intercession that I simply agree with in prayer. These next few weeks I will try to share things to comfort you as God comforts me. I have had times in the past where I have battled these types of things, it helps me to be more merciful towards others when I go thru this. I realize I have been hard at times, if I have offended any of you guys [needlessly] then I ask for your forgiveness. Thanks, John. ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee’ ‘trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto thy own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths’. Christianity isn’t always about climbing the next mountain, sometimes it’s learning to trust him in the valley. ‘thou shalt be far from oppression, for thou shalt not fear. And from terror, for it shall not come near thee’ ‘be not afraid of sudden fear, for the Lord shall be thy confidence and shall keep thy foot from being taken’ ‘this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God’.
(457) Some of this feeling of disorientation that I am going thru is due to the fact that I haven’t been doing my normal routine that I have been doing for the last 24 years! I have been off of work for a few weeks, and I haven’t been driving thru the towns and praying in that way [though I am still praying]. This is a sense of ‘spatial disorientation’ [I don’t even think this is a word!]. I kind of feel disorientated because of change. This sometimes happens with believers. During times of personal transition as well as corporate [reformation] there is a feeling of unease and upheaval that comes along with change, even if it is God ordained! The natural tendency of the flesh is to rebel against this. Sometimes we mistake the feeling of ‘uneasiness’ as a sign of God not wanting the change. I think it’s more that we often don’t feel comfortable in new environments. That’s why I do understand when certain individuals feel fearful and uneasy about transitioning in the area of moving on with God. I still feel a sense of ‘comfort’ and peace when I visit a Catholic church. It reminds me of my boyhood and provides a sense of ‘attachment’ to my roots. Does this mean I should become Catholic? No. But it shows how in man he identifies his experience with God thru the external environment that he was brought up in. When God ‘changes’ that environment we often measure what we will do based on comfort. If this ‘truth’ [whatever area God is dealing with] makes me uncomfortable there is a natural tendency to return to the ‘environment’ that we are familiar with. We identify it with God. I do not fault people for this, it’s just when God leads us to ‘move on’ we need to take the steps he shows us and trust him along the way, it truly can be scary.
(458) The other day I was feeling so disoriented that I went to a doctor clinic to see if they could give me a temporary sedative, something that could help at this time. Years ago I had gotten a shot of something and it helped. The doctor checked me out and prescribed some medication for anxiety that she said ‘once you get on it, you can not stop taking it’. In essence ‘we will give you something to make you an addict’ gee thanks. I took it for 2 days [2 pills] and looked on line for natural sedatives. I do take around 7-8 supplements every day. Vitamins, natural oils [fish, flax seed] and the other basic good supplements that I have read on. I do believe the ‘leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations’ [bible]. I saw the 2 top natural remedies that were agreed on by most people. They were ‘St. Johns Wort’ a combination of herbs made from a ‘yellow flower’. And ‘Valerian’ another plant that is used widely in Europe. I was going to go with Valerian, I am trying to hear God on this. This last year I have had signs about the ‘yellow sunflowers’ they are the ones in my yard that turn into the ‘puffballs’ and I have had signs about them this year. As soon as I read that St. Johns Wort was made from yellow flowers, I knew that was the way to go. To show you how ‘dense’ I can be, it never dawned on me that my name is John and one of the supplements is ‘St. John’ it’s like God can hit you over the head with a sign and you don’t even see it! Now let me give some spiritual stuff. I just quoted a verse ‘the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations’. God speaks of people as trees. Your life and mine are to ‘take root’ and ‘spread out’. God wants to flow thru you as an extension of his Son in the earth. Jesus is called ‘the branch/vine’ also the old testament has a verse speaking of a person who God has called, it says ‘the man whose name is the branch, he will branch out of his place and build the temple of the Lord’. The tree itself is not ‘for the touching of the nations’ in these images. The tree will produce fruit/leaves/acorns that drop down and others partake of the ‘leaves’ and they are the direct contact points to the nations. God wants our lives to touch others, and thru these ‘leaves’ [people/disciples] he will touch/contact the nations. Our lives and ministries are not for the purpose of us individually [us meaning key leaders] to do all the ‘touching/impacting’ but we do ‘touch/impact’ a key group of people [Jesus had 12] and they in turn go and touch others, and so on. These are the ‘leaves’ of the tree. Let the Lord use you to be a consistent ‘tree’ [mainstay of wisdom] in the lives of key people, and they will carry on the purpose that God has ordained for your life.
(459) ‘ISAIAH 57’ ‘the righteous perisheth and no man takes it to heart, none considers that he is taken away from the evil to come’ God has/is removing some of you from familiar territory. This ‘land’ has been a source of provision in the past, he is now moving you away from it. You seem confused as to why others can receive income/resource from this land, but you cannot. God is saying ‘I am removing you from these sources because they will not be their for ever, they will dry up. Others put their trust in them, they will fear when the source dries up’. ‘He that putteth his trust in me shall posses the land and shall inherit my holy mountain, and shall say cast up, cast up, prepare the way, take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people’ those who trust in the Lord as opposed to their own wisdom will be used to remove the things that have been causing Gods people to stumble. Don’t rejoice in the fact that you see it when others don’t. You only see these stumbling blocks because of Gods grace, a man can receive no ministry unless it was given to him as a free gift from God. ‘I dwell with him that is humble and contrite, I will revive them’ ‘I will not contend forever, nor always be wroth’ God says there are things he wants to remove and change in us. The things he has shown us should produce humility and a contrite spirit. Don’t ‘kick against the pricks’ don’t rebel against the things God has shown you to change. Don’t blame the prophets, they are just seeing/saying the words of God. ‘For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him. I hid [stopped correcting him for a season] and he went on forwardly in the way of his heart [this part of the Body excelled and went forward in the ways that they chose, even though the Lord had previously said no more] I have seen his ways and will heal him and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners’ Many who have become renown in the area of ‘covetousness’ will be healed. They will see how off track they have been and God will forgive and restore and continue to use them [Jim Bakker] but first there will be a humbling. NOTE: All true ministry is really not about us ‘fulfilling our dreams’ or ‘achieving our goals’ it’s about being faithful to God. Saying and doing the things he wants. You will be fulfilled by doing this, but this is a result, not the goal.
(460) I have my original King James Bible that my wife bought me when we were first saved. I gave it to my friend Miguel [the friend who came to Texas with me from New Jersey] and he used it for a year or two. He eventually got a new one and returned it. He later would die of aids. Many years later as I looked thru this ‘keepsake’ I saw the notes he wrote in it. He would underline stuff and write ‘ask John about this’ and stuff like that. I felt the Lord allowed me to have a reminder of our ‘first fruits’ from Jersey. Miguel was the first Jersey friend I led to the Lord. These types of things are where the true riches are found. Don’t worry about who will run the ministry/church/501c3 corporation after you are gone. This isn’t the legacy at all. The legacy is the children of God that you will meet on the other side, this will be a great family reunion for sure. Have you sent any treasures on to the others side?
(461) Felt like I just heard the Lord for Pastors/leaders. Don’t struggle for the success of your ministry/church/organization, but look for the opportunities to simply impact people. Paul rejoiced when God gave him an open door to preach the gospel to various people groups. The New Testament apostles weren’t rejoicing over the success of ‘their ministries’. Don’t spend all your time and focus on the function of the organization, simply build into the people.
(462) Let me share a key with you guys. Over the years there have been times where I have gone thru drastic upheaval and difficulty. Thru out these times I also have consistently prayed a regular intercessory type prayer time for others. Just now I finished a few hour intercession time that goes thru a variety of things. During this time I will quote lots of scriptures that come to memory every time I do this. I have also noticed recently that when you go thru periods of anxiety/depression that it is very hard to focus on things. Watching TV and other things is difficult. At least in my case I find it hard to maintain a long lasting rest. But when I do the regular prayer that includes a continual routine of scripture quotes and intercession, its like the practice of disciplining the mind for over 20 years has benefits. How many people live their lives with no mental discipline? When they go thru a time of testing in the area of the mind, they do not have a ‘stronghold’ of many years of ‘prayer’ practice. This time of a few hours [sometimes more] is a focused time of thought where there is no external media giving you a message. It is also not a desperate cry for help [which is OK by the way!] but it is a consistent act of mental integrity that has been engrained in the mind of the intercessor that makes it easy/routine to have no other thoughts but God during this prayer time. If you haven’t already developed this practice years before, you will not be able to master it when the trials hit. God will still hear you when you pray, don’t get me wrong. But the actual mental discipline of a few hours of focused consistent prayer over a 20 year period provides a ‘marathon’ of mental focus that comes as routine for those who have partaken of it thru out their lives. If you don’t presently do this, then start now! Scripture says that in the end time’s men’s hearts will fail them for fear, today’s # 1 prescribed drug [if I remember right] has to do with rest and overcoming anxiety. Learn this discipline now, cause when anxious times come, it will be impossible to train your mind at that time. NOTE: scripture says the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends. People don’t pray for others during times of severe trial unless they see it as a function of their responsibilities before God. Job didn’t all of a sudden pray for his friends during his trials, Job had a lifestyle of prayer for others that he saw as a responsibility before God. He prayed for others because during your most trying times you still try your best to do the basic requirements of life, the things you see as necessity. The intercessor naturally sees his time of prayer as one of these basic necessities. He doesn’t view prayer as a religious function. As he lives up to this responsibility before God he unconsciously will continue to pray for others as has been his custom, the turning of the intercessors captivity is a ‘side’ effect of his prayer. He doesn’t realize that as he begins interceding for others that God is actually using this as a tool for his own deliverance, he just realizes it afterwards. Only a true intercessor will find himself in this position. Jesus said it is more blessed to give than receive. The intercessor finds true deliverance as he gives himself away in prayer for others, God comes along side those who stand in the gap for the world. The ‘comforter’ will come when you least expect him [that is for your own benefit].
(463) Let me remind you guys of something. I just had the dream of Jezebel and the friendly fire incident the other day. Within a week all hell broke loose. I just thought I would remind you.
(464) I was just hearing the Lord on transition and change. When God sent Moses to deliver the people from Egypt, this was done out of an answer to their prayers. God said he heard the cry of his people who were in bondage and he raised up Moses. What was one of the bondages they were under? They were forced to build bricks for the ‘buildings of men’ [I don’t relate this to ‘church buildings’ in as much as to modern ministry mindsets that see the people as producers/suppliers to build ministries and other things. We often see Gods people as simply funders of Christian projects]. So God answers their prayers, great! This must mean things get better. O really! One of the results of Moses ministry is Pharaoh makes the children of Israel work twice as hard, and he doesn’t even give them the supplies to do it. Basically the initial result of the answered prayer is difficulty. It just seemed like things got worse. Thanks a lot Moses. Who do you think you are any way, coming to us with this great vision? We think it’s your fault. Moses was thinking ‘hey, you guys have been whining [praying] for help. God took me away from my ranch and comfortable lifestyle as a result of your prayers and now you guys are blaming me!’ You will see this scenario play out time and again with Moses and the people. I see prophetic ministry [the book of Acts calls Moses a prophet] as one of upheaval and transition. Often times we as Christians settle into comfortable places in God. We ‘exist’. We think this is Gods purpose. But we also know there is something more, some destiny in God that he wants for us. We pray for change, we ask God ‘do something’ and then he shakes things up. How do we respond, we want to kill the messenger! Moses was a type of Christ. Jesus showed the high cost of change. He introduced a tremendous transition from old law to new. The message of God accepting us freely based upon Christ’s death and resurrection is a wonderful message. The transition was so great that it instigated the death of the Son of God. Let’s be careful when God uses individuals to shake things up, it might just be an answer to our prayers!
(465) A few years ago I had a knock on the door. I was sleeping on the couch in the middle of the day and got up to get the door. Sure enough it was some Jehovas Witnesses or Mormons [I forget]. I usually do have good talks with them. I also have been rude at times. One time I told a salesman that whatever he was selling was against my religion, and he left. This day I answered the door and saw the surprised look on the face of the brothers. I just knew I must have looked like Moses coming down from the mount when his face was shining. Or maybe it was the strong prophetic anointing on me? Well after a few minutes they left, seemingly without a fight. As I walked back to my living room I caught a glimpse of myself in the hallway mirror. My 2 little girls had put beautiful bows in my hair as I was sleeping. Gosh darnet, I thought it was the anointing!
(466) A few years back I visited my mom in Jersey. She has a good Christian friend [Catholic] that she has told about me over the years. You never know what people think ‘my sons a preacher in Texas’. People think ‘cult/Waco’ and all sorts of stuff. I finally met this nice lady [Joan] and we did have some good fellowship. She had some questions and there were even some prophetic things that happened. I answered a few questions before she asked them. She would say ‘how did you know I was going to ask that?’ I like it when people are not familiar with prophetic things and just respond in childlike faith! Well I do kid a lot. She finally is feeling comfortable with me and asks something about Oprah Winfrey. She then says ‘you do like Oprah don’t you’ and I said ‘we teach that Oprah is the anti christ’ she simply looks at me and says something like ‘o you do’. I of course told her that I was kidding. Thought it funny that she was willing to go along with my doctrine for a few seconds!
(467) Many years ago one of the first friends I met was a drug addict who lived with his aunt. I met him while going to the local jails and preaching to the inmates. He became a good friend of mine and was one of the original guys I worked with. He is dead now, he died while serving the Lord, but reaped many years of physical abuse of his body. He died of liver problems, something addicts deal with. This is not the friend I told you about earlier who also was an addict and became a preacher and later died as well, his name was Elias, this brother’s name was Emmett. He had a son [Emmett Jr.] who is still a good friend of mine till this day. The aunt who raised these boys was a wonderful woman. She was an older Catholic lady in her 70’s and I got to know her as I would pick up her nephews for our home meetings we used to hold. She became a very faithful attendee to our little church. She would tell me stuff like ‘brother John, my Catholic friends ask me “why do you go to brother Johns little church, you are Catholic” and she would say “ I learn more from brother John than from the Mass” now I love the Catholic people and am definitely not what you would call ‘anti Catholic’. I found it interesting that this older woman, who I called ‘Aunt Bee’ was a schoolteacher for many years. She taught famous people from our state as they were growing up. She had Senator Carlos Truan and Representative Irma Rangel as her former students, key influential people who came from a small town in Texas [Kingsville]. It’s funny how the Lord would allow a teacher of leaders to learn from a little insignificant preacher who was doing his best to reach out to addicts. God works in strange ways. He will often open doors of influence to you when you are not looking for them. I have found the friendships made along the journey are the things that really matter. The connections with people as you are ‘doing ministry’ become the thing of value down the road. The ‘act/function’ of ministry is often the side detail, while the valuable things are the friends who are on this road with us. I had someone recently tell me that they heard some of my old cassette tapes that I made years ago [during this time of doing home meetings]. I have had others tell me this before. These old tapes are not at the ‘level’ of thought and understanding that we currently teach at. I actually have told people ‘o, don’t listen to those old tapes, they were at an immature stage of teaching’. But then I stopped saying this because I realized that God speaks to people at the level of where they are at at the time. I don’t want to sound condescending, but God uses us, he is not primarily concerned about whether we look good, or are at our best. He simply desires functional fruit. If a simple tape from days gone by is what he chooses, than that’s fine with me. They don’t have to hear my ‘best’ stuff, that’s not what’s important. Well I find it interesting to realize that God will allow you to be a teacher of ‘teachers’ if you will humble yourself and become a servant of men.
(468) ISAIAH 58 ‘Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins’ When prophets go thru difficulty, the first thing they question is ‘have I been too hard on your people?’ God is going to deal with this in this chapter. He starts by first of all telling Isaiah ‘I have called you to reveal to my people their sins, it is my calling for you to show them the areas they don’t fully see yet. Their ‘sins’ of ignorance. They often ask for me. I am going to show them things about church and the way they worship me that are limited. Showing them ‘their sins’ is not a function of judgment, it is a necessary ‘uprooting’ that they need in order for their prayers to be answered.’ God is basically telling Isaiah ‘when things are hard and difficult, don’t question my basic revelatory ministry thru you. You don’t have the right to stop speaking what I am saying!’ ‘Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, they ask of me the ordinances of justice and take delight in approaching me’ we as believers take the act of seeking and asking and learning, and we turn it into ‘doing what God wants’. In essence we have developed a mindset that says ‘I go to church, I learn all the bible tricks on how to have a happy and prosperous life. If I am ever confronted with teaching that doesn’t appeal to me, or requires sacrifice, I have already learned to ignore it, you cant fly with eagles if you think like a turkey’ we basically have bypassed the instructions on self sacrifice and giving our lives away for the Kingdom. We simply think the ‘acts’ of going and learning from bible truths, even if it is all based on self, that this in itself is pleasing to God. God says why do my people by pass all my instructions and then delight that they are going to approach me? It’s because our ‘approaching God’ in the present mindset of the western church is simply for self-fulfillment. We approach him like a cosmic Santa Clause and this delights us. God says I want to show you things that I require from you and I want you to do them. Don’t simply think that you are pleasing me by ‘approaching me’ I want the action/obedience to be the fruit of your ‘approaching/church going’. [NOTE: It is not totally wrong to seek God for self help/improvement. It’s just many of us in today’s church have made this the priority. When people watch the ‘get rich and famous’ infomercials on the weekends, there is a feeling of ‘hope and self fulfillment’ that simply comes from surrounding yourself in an environment of ‘maybe that can be me someday’. Its OK to hope, but scripture does teach us [1st Timothy 6] to ‘not desire to become rich’ as well as Jesus many other warnings in the gospels. So I just want to warn you to not fall into the trap of making ‘church/approaching God’ a format for self help. It might ‘feel good’ to see Christianity thru this materialistic lens, but in the end it can be dangerous] ‘Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free, that you break every yoke. Is it not to feed your food to the hungry, that you bring the poor to YOUR house. You should clothe the naked, and help your own natural family. If you do these things you will get healed, your goodness will shine like the morning sun. You will call to me and I will hear. Take away from you the bondages, the blaming of others and speaking vanity. Draw out your soul to the hungry, feed them and satisfy them [even with your ministry/teaching] and your light shall rise in obscurity and your darkness will be like day’ you find all the elements of Jesus earthly ministry contained here. The Pharisees lived for religious ritual. They fasted and afflicted themselves [and others] Jesus reached out in love and poured his soul out for the needy, Isaiah is prophesying the heart of Jesus here. God accepts a lifestyle of giving your life away for others. Jesus would teach that this type of love is the greatest commandment. Here we see the heart of ministry. I want to challenge everyone [especially leaders] to re examine your ‘ministry’ does it contain these most fundamental elements? Do we carry out ministry in a way that simply tells the world ‘hey, look at us, we are a highly motivated business and we can compete with any other organization in our area’. Do we view ministry this way? Jesus values the souls of those who lay their lives down for others, don’t fall into the trap of establishing religious functions for the purpose of impressing men. This is what 1st century religion digressed to, even though one of their own prophets [Isaiah] warned against it centuries before! ‘thou shalt be like a spring of water who’s waters fail not. They that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places and make the desolate cities to be inhabited [I added this last part from another place, I am so used to saying it like this] Thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in’ God is saying when you give yourself away for others, when you obey him. When you show compassion. When you do not view ‘ministry’ as trying to attain some degree of respect in the ‘corporate world’ when you approach it like Jesus, then the Lord will allow your influence to go far. The people you impact will be used to spread the Kingdom to various cities. The people will be ‘faithful to the things you spoke’ because they are enjoined to you like a ‘band of brothers’. There memories of you will truly be that of a friend who gave himself away for them. These also will ‘repair breaches, restore paths’ there are so many true Christian values and principles that Jesus taught were the foundations of his Kingdom, things like self sacrifice and laying down your life for others. God will use your ‘seed/offspring’ to restore these ‘lost’ teachings back into the Church. We are so consumed with ‘self help’ that we have lost the foundational principles of the Cross. ‘ If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing what you want on my holy day’. In context God is saying ‘if you rest in me, and stop doing your own works in my day of grace, then I will move mightily on your behalf’. If you remember I already showed you on this blog how the Sabbath is a type of entering into the covenant of Grace. When you cease from your own legalistic attempts to do Gods work, then God will come in and do them thru you! ‘not doing thine own ways, nor speaking thine on words’ much of modern ministry [especially Pastoral] is under the burden to ‘come up with something to speak on for an hour on Sunday’ many of these brothers are well meaning, but because we have structured the church in today’s world around the ‘Sunday meeting’ it has put a burden on Pastors to come up with something to say every Sunday at a certain time. The New Testament churches didn’t function like this. Therefore we have a lot of ‘speaking our own words’ we don’t realize that we are doing this, but in essence we are. I would simply encourage all Christian teachers/speakers to speak only what you hear God saying. If God has a certain vision or direction that he has planted in your heart, then build that into the people. Don’t go thru 20 verses all over the bible and then try to make them fit some theme. The bible has plenty of ‘themes’ already. Focus on whole portions of scripture and teach them as God directs. A lot of the unbalanced teaching in the church today is a result of teachers jumping all over the bible in a 30 minute time span and then making the bible say something that it never meant! ‘If you do all this, then I will cause you to ride upon the high places of the earth’ lets conclude this chapter with an overview. If you do all the things in this chapter: give yourself away for people. Have true religion as described in the book of James. Don’t point the finger in accusation at people, when reproving, which is a function of the prophetic, do it in love. When you speak and do what God is saying, instead of coming up with your own ‘peculiar brand’ of seeing everything, then God will exalt you to a high place. In essence this is the ministry of Jesus, who lowered himself more than any man, who did all the things you read about in this chapter and then God gave him a name that is above all others. Do the will of God my friends and he will exalt you in due season.
(469) Just had a dream. I was in a classroom and the teacher had to punish me. The punishment was I had to leave the class and go fishing. I was fishing off the side of a wall and it was a little scary. I felt like the Lord was saying some of us have remained ‘too long’ in the classroom environment. We have made a ‘career’ out of waiting and learning. God says he is more than pleased with the amount of preparation time you have put in, it’s been more than most. Your inability to ‘break’ from this environment of waiting is no longer you being faithful to what God is saying, but it is now more of an insecurity and fear. You have learned to ‘feel comfortable’ in this ‘place’ and God is saying ‘get the seed out of the barn/ cast your bread upon the waters now so you will have some of it come back to you at a future time’ There is a time and season for every purpose. Even a time to cast things away. Be faithful to this time of transition, I will close up old storehouses and open up new ones, I am God! NOTE : The message bible says ‘change the way you think and act because my Kingdom is here now’ The Lord is saying you are so intricately connected to my purpose that you are already being used in a great way to affect my church. This is happening by virtue of the fact that you are a part of my Body. I am changing [giving Grace for this] the way you think and act for your own protection, your own survival. You cannot exist as a functioning part of my Body with old thought patterns and ways. This ‘uneasy’ time of change is for your benefit. You have been co dependant for so long on certain things that your Body and mind are ‘rebelling’ against my divine act of breaking these things off of you ‘your soul is escaped like a bird out of the snare of the fowler, the snare is broken and you are escaped’! PRAISE GOD FOR THIS!
(470) I just went into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee [decaf now!] and caught an interview with a well known Christian leader. He was asked ‘what is your favorite city in all the world’ [they were in Jerusalem] and he said ‘of course Jerusalem, isn’t that the favorite city of all Christians?’ Let me show you how I would have answered; ‘my favorite city is what Paul described in Galatians as the ‘New Jerusalem’ John also calls her ‘the City that comes down from God out of heaven’ [Revelation] he then says this city is ‘the Bride, the lambs wife’. John also records in the gospel he wrote, chapter 3 ‘He that is born from above’. All this imagery speaks of the Body of Christ being Gods favorite city. This includes all nationalities who believe. Jews, Palestinians, Arabs [I didn’t say Muslims] and every other ethnic group on the face of the earth. For a Christian leader to pick any human city [govt.] and to make that the ‘all time favorite city’ is being ‘unequal’. Does natural Jerusalem ever kill Christians? All natural govts have executed people falsely, whether they meant it or not. Does natural Jerusalem ever persecute innocent people? All human govts, no matter how well intended have done this. Than brother, who is righteous in your eyes? The city that comes down from God out of heaven, she is the FAVORITE city, the apple of Gods eye.
(471) I just woke up from a dream a few minutes ago. There was a black man who was experiencing disillusionment from religion and the various streams and divisions in the church. He reminded me of Forrest Whittaker [the actor, I just saw him in the ‘last King of Scotland’ this is a great movie!] This brother was going from town to town in search of answers. He winds up riding along this deserted country road to a little church on the ‘prairie’. He walks in and I see him only sitting in the back row of this empty church. I can hear clearly the voice of the preacher but I do not see him. I only see the black brother. I recognize the preacher’s voice, I haven’t heard him in years, but I am very familiar with the voice. It is Kenneth Hagin. He is preaching on the legitimacy of the gifts of the Spirit, an area where I have credited brother Hagin for doing good. This black brother goes from sitting in the pew and getting up and kneeling and praying. It seems he is still disillusioned and is going thru difficulty. I am not sure what this dream means. Some of it deals with the church in general. Many believers [and many of our blog readers] have questioned things that have been difficult. Areas that you wish you never ‘ran’ into. Some have gone back and looked at the ‘fathers of their faith’ and have had to come to hard decisions. You have gone between sitting and listening and receiving the good things from your past, but you have also had to ‘get out of the pew’ [a place of passive receiving] and PRAY! God will honor your ‘royal courage’ in this and bless you. I also have had some of the most difficult weeks in my life recently. I felt like the Lord was saying to me ‘blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy’. This one area of credit that I have given to brother Hagin has allowed God to be merciful to me. Too often in prophetic correction it is easy to denigrate the people you are reproving. It is too common to attack them personally and be mean. I feel the lord wants us to be merciful as we come out of past errors. God will be merciful to you if you plant ‘seeds of mercy’ along the way.
(472) A few weeks back my wife told me about a dream she had. She was in our local Christian bookstore and was looking at the list of the top ten Christian books. Our materials were on the list. There was a preacher their [who is a friend of mine] and was saying ‘yea, but it doesn’t mean anything, you have to sell them’. A sort of demeaning of our materials because they are free of charge. I have dreamed myself on a number of occasions that we were having influence in this mans life. I feel like there are times when leadership feels insecure or threatened in some way. This exists among good men in the Kingdom. We unconsciously denigrate others [not legitimate reproof] out of this environment of competition. We measure how well we are doing by how well others are doing ‘gee, if they like Johns books, or Johns blog, don’t forget about our church, we have a blog too’ which comes from a sense of insecurity. I do believe the Lord has given us influence amongst key men ‘gentiles shall come to your light, and Kings to the brightness of your rising’. I pray for both the ‘gentiles’ and the ‘Kings’. NOTE: scripture says when a woman is giving birth, the pain is so severe that she wants to ‘undo’ the process, but after the son is born, her joy causes her to forget the pain. There are times where I have felt this way. I would be more than willing to abort the process to just get the pain to go away. I have learned that this doesn’t work! God wants to bring you to a place where he can entrust you to be faithful to what he is doing thru you. Many prophetic people feel insecure in receiving reproof in the areas where they might have prophesied wrong. We need humility in the prophetic. We must continue to speak what God is saying, in love, even if our ‘speaking it’ is the actual source of ‘the birth pains’. God is going to get that baby out of you one way or another, but he doesn’t do ‘C-sections!’
(473) Yesterday I watched a few Catholic services as well as a few Protestant guys. The Lord did speak to me thru the Catholic Church more so than the others. I share this to let you know I am not too proud to receive from any Christian church. Now the other day Pope Benedict ‘clarified’ some things from Vatican 2 [the council from 1962-65]. In this council the Catholic church made a big step towards Christian unity. It for the first time acknowledged other Protestants as ‘separated brethren’ in this statement the church was not teaching that all Protestant churches are viable ‘churches’ it was simply saying they recognized these Christians in these churches as ‘separated Christians’. That is separated from ‘the one true church’. Now Benedict simply clarified this, and many are saying he is going back from the changes that were made in Vatican 2. So I just thought I would ‘clarify’ this as well. Why do Catholics, as well as other Protestants, do this? In the world of theology it is common to try and trace the natural roots of your communion to the original church. Many do this. To be as honest as I can, if this is the rule for ‘orthodoxy’ then I think the Catholics would win this argument. Why? Because the church in her early stages [1st few centuries] did digress into a ‘Catholic form’ early on. This is not to say that all believers took on this form. Nor is it to say that there wasn’t a ‘remnant’ of faithful believers who stood closer to the original intent of the church. This is saying that much of the historical evidence points to the church as being ‘Catholic’ in its expression early on. This is why you find thru out history famous brothers ‘returning back home’ to the Catholic church. I see all these communions as Christian though I certainly find disagreements in certain areas. Paul tells us in the New Testament to ‘no know man after the flesh’ I see the whole exercise of tracing your churches ‘roots’ back to the original Apostles [Apostolic succession] as fruitless. Scripture tells us that even the early Apostles made drastic mistakes that would be rebuked by Jesus saying to Peter ‘get thee behind me satan’ or later Paul rebuking Peter to his face and calling him a hypocrite. So if the ‘rock’ could have made such historic mistakes, you might simply be tracing your roots back to ‘the mistakes’ which I believe some of us have done. I see the true church as every one who names the name of Christ [Catholic, Protestant, etc.] but I do put the limit on having to ‘name his name’ that is I am not so ‘ecumenical’ that I believe all religions lead to God, this is not true! You must embrace the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the only way to the Father to get in. Well if you are trying to trace your roots, go ahead and trace them to the man whose name is the branch. John calls him the Vine in his gospel. If your ‘roots’ go back to him you will ‘abide for ever’.
(474) Just had a dream. I was in a study hall area of some college, there was a girl there who was the daughter of a friend of mine. She had a question about the meaning of a word. She asked me what the word meant. I told her, but I also kidded her a little ‘what level of college are you at’? She said she was in her first year. There was another student nearby who kind of smirked at me giving an answer to someone, being I myself have never been to college. This other student said ‘he’s wrong, that’s not the answer’. So I said ‘go look it up for yourself, google it’. She then found that my definition was fully right, while what she thought the definition was, was only a very limited view. The complete definition had all that I had said, while her understanding was only one sentence out of around 5 or 6 possible meanings. She finally had to admit that I was right, and she did not want to admit it. Over the years I actually have had this happen to me. Someone would ask me ‘how do you spell this’ or ‘what does this word mean’ and I actually remember giving a definition or spelling and the person would look it up on line and not say anything. I then would ask ‘well, what did you find’? And they would reluctantly admit I was right. I feel like the Lord is saying many of you have held onto certain limited truths. You had a small area of ‘revelation’ but were not fully seeing the whole picture. Some of you have said ‘who does this guy think he is, he has never even been to bible school/college’. You then looked the stuff up on your own and have found us to be ‘more fully correct’ in our understanding of the ‘teaching’ in question. Even after your own studying has brought this out, you were still reluctant to receive it. You must overcome this pride of ‘being corrected’ and move on to the next level. All correction and rebuking is for the purpose of restoration and continued usefulness. Don’t allow the enemies tactic of pride to stop you from receiving your full inheritance. God has great things for you, who cares whom the Lord uses to ‘instruct us in a more perfect way’ just overcome the personas of men [even me!] and move ahead in Gods purpose.
(475) One of the health problems that I have had for around a month now is extreme dizziness/vertigo. If you read the first few entries of this blog you will see that I have used the imagery of Apostles launching out into ‘new’ territories as the commander of a fleet of ships launching out to colonize new nations. When a ship launches on a long journey like this, one of the initial reactions is feeling ‘sea sick’ or a type of ‘motion sickness’. A period where the body needs to adjust from loosing its ‘footing’ on dry ground [or in dock] and re adjusting to a new type of ‘footing’. Where you learn to walk ‘on the water’ if you will. As God transitions some of you from a place of ‘secure footing’ to a more adventurous place of ‘walking on the water’ I want to encourage you to endure thru the voyage. Many turn back at ‘midstream’ out of fear and ‘cultural identity’ they feel ‘homesick’ and want to return to familiar territory. These types of people are just waiting for the next port to get off. They will never see the ‘new land’. Those who endure to the end [of the journey] will not only ‘save their own lives’ but they will be used to colonize new lands. You will truly be a ‘father of many nations’. NOTE: don’t despise those who left out of fear. The children of Israel treated those who didn’t fully fight the same way as those who went out to war. The ‘punishment’ for those who ‘get off early’ will be there own regret at not having fully finished the course. Those who fully finish will receive a full reward. Leave the ‘judging’ up to God! NOTE; For those of you who have read all my recent entries on my health, go back and read the last note on entry # 405, I think you will find it interesting.
(476) I just got a letter back from one of my friends in jail. He is the son of one of the original ‘addicts/ex-cons’ that were a part of the ministry in the early days. I sent him a package of books and stuff and he was real grateful to have heard from me. He gave the books to some fellow inmates to read [which is why I send the stuff!] and he was telling me how one of the guys was really ‘impressed’. This sounds conceited, but when I hear this I realize that someone who has been a Christian for a while and has had questions about stuff has found our little books to have revealed some real answers. I am going to send him another packet soon. He also told me one of the guys knows me. I do not remember the brother by name, but I have had so many buddies over the years that have become friends that it doesn’t surprise me. I know some people think ‘well, what are they doing in jail?’ Not all go back, but the reality is some do. I also reconnected this week with a homeless friend who I haven’t seen in a few years. I saw him walking down the road and stopped to say hi. He was real happy to get together. I invited him to go catch a lunch. He insisted he would pay, he really did try to, but I wouldn’t let him. It was only around 10 bucks, I didn’t eat. Just had a tea, but I wanted to buy. He did tell me I have taken him out to eat hundreds of times over the years and it was his turn. I think I probably have taken him to eat around a hundred times over the years. This is not ‘speaking evangelistically’ if you will! Being I have felt real sick these last few months I was glad to have had some good ministry time. I believe God wants us healed so we can finish the race. We often make ‘well being’ the goal. The goal is the completion of his will, well being [in all areas-health, finances, etc.] are simply tools for the purpose of doing Gods will. The American church is still at the stage of ‘well being for the sake of well being’ we will need to get past this before we can see true revival in our time.
(477) I am walking in my study praying. I sense the Lord telling me to contact 2 friends of mine and give them the blog site. These are friends I have known for 20 years or more. One is in New Jersey and the other in Michigan. They already are familiar with the ministry and at least one has read my books. As I am praying I am asking the Lord ‘is this of you, is there any connection to these 2 names and why they are coming to mind’? I am sort of asking ‘what’s the connection Lord’ to show you how dense I am, as I pray there names [both first and last] it finally dawns on me that their last names are almost identical. It’s like you can be so dense at times you don’t ‘see’ the most obvious things. Note: These are not common last names either!
(478) The other day I read a testimony from Tony Snow [the white house press secretary] he has been battling recurring cancer and when he returned back to work as press secretary a few months back, people were surprised. Not that he was healed [he’s not] but that he decided to live out his days doing what he felt called to do. The testimony was in Christianity today and it gave God glory. Ever since I heard of him getting cancer [a few months back] I actually have been praying for him by name. Yesterday I saw a picture of Tammy Faye Messner [former Bakker] in the paper, she looked like she was on her deathbed. It said she was 65 pounds and was recently on Larry King. Tammy has always maintained a Christian confession ever since she was well known for PTL and I have written her ex husband over the years [Jim Bakker] and he has sent me hand written thank you notes for the little books I have sent him. I just prayed for Tammy a lot yesterday. I even told my wife how bad Tammy looked and asked her to pray for her. My wife told me later that evening [I fell asleep around 8!] that Tammy passed away. I was glad I spent the day praying for her. I don’t want to make light of it ‘hey don’t pray for me too!’ type thing. I sort of had the feeling that it was too late for her healing. Not that God couldn’t do it, but the prayers were more in line with Gods grace being with her yesterday. It was!
(479) Just had a dream [15 minutes ago] and part of it had my old area from North Bergen in it. Me and a few friends [from the present time] were walking past an old friend’s house. We stopped to look at the beautiful stained glass windows in the house. I told my friends ‘this is my old friends house [Billy Pokluda] he has a sad story. Both of his parents passed away when he was young. His dad used to make these stained glass windows [which was true!]’ I have had 4 dreams about old Jersey friends these past few weeks. In another dream I was with some old friends and we were having a home prayer meeting [which I am hoping to start some soon!] and I was praying ‘Father pour out your Spirit on all flesh’. I felt these dreams are speaking to God really working with some of our ‘blog community’ from Jersey. Any of you guys reading this, e mail me or write some comments in the tape catalog section of this blog. I would like all of our ‘blog community’ to interact this way. Some of you can e mail me for the address of my friends in jail, you can write them! Guys in jail need this, and it would help me out too!
(480) I watched a prophetic conference the other day. I liked it. The brother is a well known ‘Prophet’ in prophetic circles. He did make a statement that I disagree with. He said ‘put behind you all doctrine, theology and creeds and just come to me’. He said this more than once. I do understand that there are times where God says ‘I am God, don’t look to yourselves for help’ I see that there is merit at times in ‘putting all you have learned behind you’ but the overall idea of disregarding theology, doctrine and creeds as ‘old stuff’ is not really biblical. Paul did say ‘hold to the traditions that I have taught you’ it is a funny thing that Paul’s ‘tradition’ in this passage [go and look it up, I forget where it is right now- either 1st or 2nd Thessalonians] is the tradition of ‘getting a job’. He actually is teaching if someone is not working, then he is a troublemaker! The point is ‘all tradition’ is not wrong. Its only when the ‘traditions of men’ usurp the Word of God. This is what you see Jesus rebuking in the Gospels. He says ‘by your traditions you have made void the Word of God’. So anyway I just wanted to clarify that true Christianity doesn’t mean you leave your brain behind you. It does mean that faith in God, even when you don’t understand it, takes priority. The ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ was forbidden to Adam in the garden. This didn’t mean Adam had no wisdom or knowledge, to the contrary he was extremely intelligent. He named all living creatures off the ‘top of his head’. But not eating of the tree meant Adam was not to live his life based on his own moral criteria. His own ability to ‘think things out’. God would be his provider and sustainer. He had full access to the ‘tree of life’. The day Adam made the ‘knowledge of good and evil’ his standard, in that day he died! NOTE: Now look at something prophetic that is going to happen. I just remembered at the end of the above meeting, the Prophet shared a story about Elijah and the woman who was barren. I heard him share this a few times thru the meetings I have caught on God TV this month. The story emphasized ‘making room for the prophet’ at the end of these meetings. This GOOD, WELL MEANING brother is sharing this and saying how the people need to give money into the ‘prophetic’ in order to receive a blessing. This brother is Prophetic, no doubt. He is not a ‘crook’ or ‘fake’, I actually like him. The New Testament leaves NO ROOM for the receiving of money [whether offering/tithe/whatever] directly after the prophetic word. For some reason the early church abhorred doing this. The teaching from Christ about ‘freely you have received, freely give’ is really dealing with the ministry gifts deposited in the people. The earliest writings of the Apostles [early church] that we have today, apart from the bible are called the ‘Didache’ [the teaching of the Apostles]. Though this book is not scripture, it gives us insight into the way the believers dealt with certain things. In the Didache it says ‘if a prophet stays around for more than a few days and is charging money, he is a false prophet’. Now I personally am not that hard. The point is today’s environment of ‘professional minister’ especially as it relates to the prophetic, is not seen in scripture. Though the New Testament leaves room for the financial support of laboring elders [Leaders] it does not permit the direct asking for money right after prophesying. The instance of the guy in Acts, Simon, who thought he could ‘purchase the gift of God’ with money is strongly rebuked by Peter. This guys name later came to represent the abuse of money and Gods gifts and not rightfully dividing the two. The definition of this is called ‘Simony’. The whole point is the above Prophet is a truly gifted brother, he does not see that the direct asking for an offering, and appealing to people to ‘give into the prophets ministry’ is really not scriptural. Though you can use the story of Elijah and others who did get material needs met thru people, the overall teaching that has Prophets actually prophesying and then seeing this as ‘well, I used the gift to build the church, therefore I am worthy of my reward’ and then correlating giving directly into the ministry with ‘giving to God’ is something the first century church would not permit. I am not saying this brother is not a Prophet, or that he is not being used of God. I am saying the Prophets today need to re think what it means to be in ‘Prophetic ministry’ and to bring their gifts more in line with scripture. That is if you ‘didn’t leave doctrine and creeds and theology’ at the door when you came in! NOTE: I have been following the restoration process of Paul Cain. Paul was the Prophet I told you about earlier on this blog. Paul is an older man who is sick and also takes care of some family members who are sick. In following Paul’s restoration I saw how the Christians who are helping him thru this were trying to explain why they feel Paul should start ministering again. Even though others feel he should stay low for a while. One of the reasons was for salary. The team of Christians working with Paul explained that Paul’s only [main] source of income was his prophesying. Therefore he realistically needed to start ministering again. I use this as an example only. I love and pray for Paul Cain. The point is we ‘see’ our gifts as our source of income. This is no where to be found in the New Testament. Again, the actual teaching from JESUS CHRIST was ‘freely you have received, freely give’. The early Christians took this seriously. The teaching from Paul on ‘laborers being worthy of their hire’ was simply showing us that it is all right to support, voluntarily, those who are giving themselves to the word and prayer. There is a big difference between the biblical support of elders [ministers] and seeing our gifts as a means of financial gain. Peter wrote in his letter for elders to not go into ministry for ‘filthy lucre’s sake’. So the idea of a prophetic gift bringing in money, right after the gift was used, is not good. The present church is so inundated with the prosperity gospel that she really doesn’t see or understand this principle yet. When we give, Jesus did say men would give back to us. But these verses must fit in with all the other ones you just saw me quote. Prophets should not ask for money after they prophesy, the New Testament has NO examples of this ever happening. And there is proof that the early church saw it as wrong. It is too common for the modern professional minister to apply ‘sowing into good soil/ giving to God’ to their specific ministry. Over 90 % of New Testament teaching on giving is actually giving to the poor. Meeting the real needs of people. In today’s environment, whether Christian TV or ‘pulpit ministry’ we constantly equate the believer’s faithfulness with giving to US. It is highly irresponsible for so many professional ministries/ministers to continue to do this. We need to redirect our appeal to the church at large and instruct them to give/sow into the needs of the world around us. It is a blatant misuse of scripture for the average believer to hear over and over again that ‘giving to God’ means giving to a ministry or minister. I have tried my best to explain this in the past [the store house being the actual people of God as opposed to the 501c3 church building] but I felt like we needed to be reminded of this.
(481) Let me talk a little on ‘revival’ and ‘revivalism’. In the above meeting there was a real desire to ‘encourage’ the people to get aggressive. A sort of ‘up beat’ tempo that was trying to stir the people up. There is nothing really wrong about getting ‘hyped’ for the big game. There just needs to be an understanding that the locker room hype is only for a short time. The majority of the game is played and won by the consistent diligence of the players. Revivalism describes the rise in the 18th/19th century of strong ‘movement’ ‘revival’ type ministers. This country experienced great revivals during this time. Jonathan Edwards as well as Charles Finney and George Whitefield are well known ‘fire starters’ of these great awakenings. Today you have ‘old time’ preachers who still look for the ‘revival’ as the goal. Then on the others side you have the more refined preachers/theologians [who also can be seen as ‘old school’] who tend to lean more towards the classic strain of Christianity as seen in the creeds of the church. This is why when the ‘more refined’ brothers hear statements like ‘leave behind your doctrine and creeds’ they cringe at that. The strong revivalists are focusing on a repeat [or greater] of the great awakenings. The orthodox brothers keep plodding along at a slower pace, but do seem to have some truth about the turtle finally passing up the rabbit. The strong ‘hype’ type Christianity can really burn you out. Christians cant live on the hype plane of meeting to meeting and getting this adrenaline rush all the time. God does have a few occasional ‘mountain top’ experiences for you. There are set times of drastic change and mountain moving faith. But if you find yourself needing to live daily on a miracle, then something is wrong. What would you think if your kids depended on you like that. ‘Daddy, Daddy, oh please feed me today. I don’t know if I can live another day without you feeding me’ You would say ‘what’s wrong Johnny, you know I have fed you ever since you were a baby. You are now 55 years old, I was hoping you were going to get past this!’ [sorry, I couldn’t help it]. So in reality it is good to expect God to move miraculously on our behalf, and he does! But eventually we need to see that ‘revival’ is not a state of being where Christians live in this ‘high’ atmosphere continually. Pentecost was a good thing, a great thing! But the church eventually settled down and continued STEADFASTLY in the Apostles doctrine. They didn’t ‘put doctrine behind them’ after revival, they allowed the revival to charge them up for the next level of Christian growth.
(482) Last week I watched one of the most famous prosperity preachers do a conference on the west coast. I do not watch to be critical or look for faults. I feel sometimes the lord wants me to watch in order to learn whether or not there are true changes being made. As I watched I kind of felt a little sorry for the brother [for real!] it seemed as if there ministry has taken a toll over these last few years. Many on the west coast have become familiar with the extreme errors of this teaching, and it did look like it was taking a toll. I don’t rejoice over this. I enjoyed the praise and worship part of the meetings. I really felt the presence of God. I also was glad to hear the grandson [?] of the main preacher of this movement. He really preached well and had a greater passion for truth than the leaders of the movement. I watched just long enough to see what the founder of this group [from the Forth Worth area] was going to preach on. There have been times where I have seen brothers truly repent of the more extreme teachings from this camp. Sad to say the brother preached from Corinthians and took a small portion of Paul’s teaching on ‘whoever sows will reap’ and sure enough the whole focus was on getting money. Despite the fact that Paul will later teach Timothy [1st Timothy 6] that in the last days teachers will arise and teach that ‘gain is godliness’ from such turn away. It’s like the most obvious warnings from scripture are consistently overlooked, while we spend entire conferences teaching the side verses of scripture without truly getting to the heart of the matter. I do pray that the next generation coming up will return back to the pure exposition of the Word of God. NOTE: People don’t seem to understand the difficulty of turning from a way you have been taught your whole life and repenting back to the truth. Even when people are faced with indisputable fact, they still will not repent. This is something in man. The root of it is pride. We are all susceptible to this. When Jesus confronted the 1st century religious mind, he did it with absolute undeniable truth. No one could say he was wrong or had a fault. In today’s prophetic environment, you can always find fault with the Prophet. This tends to be the reason why the religious mind today is less open for correction. I have found it utterly amazing that intelligent leaders still dispute the fact that Jesus lived a simple itinerant lifestyle. Some will absolutely teach that Jesus actually was one of the richest men of his day. That he owned an expensive house and bought the most expensive stuff of the day. They will teach that his treasury was so wealthy that he and the disciples were the highest paid ministers of the day. Despite the absolute plain historical, biblical truth to the contrary. The deceitfulness in mans heart is a very hard obstacle to overcome. I do not take it personal when people don’t repent. Paul did instruct us to leave them alone after the 3rd warning of heresy. I still will warn the new believers to avoid it, though I have given up on trying to correct those who have seen the plain error of their doctrine and refuse to repent.
(483) There are a lot of teachings I have done thru the years over radio. You can get an overview of them by reading the tape catalog on this site, but you don’t really get all the teaching unless you listen to all the programs. This would take years! So let me share a little old stuff that I think is relevant. A few years back I was working on my classic mustang in the garage. A couple of Jehovah’s witnesses stopped by. I was dirty and under the car, but I got out from under the car and had one of my good conversations with them. I tell them right off that I do embrace the new Kingdom on earth that God will establish in the future [all Christians do believe this whether they know it or not!] and then I shared how all who know Jesus by faith will have an inheritance in this new Kingdom. Partaking of it is a gift thru Christ, it is not only given to those who join some group. During this particular discussion the lady [they were a couple] mentioned something about the bible, to which I agreed, but I also told her that the 1st century church had no bible [like we do today, they did have the Old Testament and the early epistles were being written] and yet they were a strong church because they were established on the actual person of Christ. Jesus was building his church and this was a real living relationship that he had with his people. To my surprise the husband totally agreed with me. It was like one of those moments where someone has believed something for a while and someone else comes along and confirms it. It was funny, because both me and the husband were agreeing while the wife was ‘on the outside’. The point is we often confuse what the book of Acts describes as ‘they preached the word’. When Acts uses this terminology, the ‘word’ is expressly speaking of the message of God to man thru Christ. The ‘word of reconciliation’ if you will. That Jesus [the word] has now become the fulfillment of all the promises that were made thru the Prophets to Israel. This central message of Jesus gospel is ‘the word’. Now I do believe in scripture and the inspiration of it, but I want you to see that the actual reality of Jesus rising from the dead was the power behind the New Testament church. It wasn’t all the wonderful bible stories that we have today. You didn’t find them preaching on Jonah accept how it would relate to Christ [Jesus says ‘as Jonah was in the belly of the whale, so shall the son of man be in the heart of the earth’] so all scripture, especially the Old Testament, was now presented in a way that pointed to Jesus as the way to God. We often think ‘preaching the word’ is simply going to all these great bible stories or teaching some great bible principle. While these stories and principles are good for learning [Paul taught that all scripture is profitable] they are not the foundation of the church. The church [Spiritual community] is actually built upon the reality of the person of Christ. Jesus was actively administrating the growth of the New Testament church thru his Spirit. He said in the gospel of John that he was leaving them for a little while and then HE would come back. In this text he was speaking of the Holy Spirit. So the message [which by the way the gospel can also be called ‘the message’] was the actual person of Christ. Once the reality of the simple gospel began to spread in the 1st century, there was no stopping this simple truth. They did not have the availability of bibles like we do today. It was not until many centuries later that all Christians would have there own copies of the bible. Yet these ‘bible less’ churches were unstoppable! Lets ‘preach the word’ again like they did in the old days and we will see the same results! NOTE: In all these conversations I have with the Jehovah’s and Mormons I do what Paul did ‘I become all things to all people that I might save some’. I do not compromise to the points of heresy that these groups do embrace, but after a few minutes of talking with them as friends, and them seeing me quote both scripture and the histories of their movements, they begin to see me as one of them. I actually have had some tell me ‘wow, you know all the stuff we know’. One innocent ‘elder’ from the Mormons made the mistake of telling his ‘overseers’ this and he never came back! The point is I truly relate to them as real people who are on a quest for God. If they weren’t really seeking God do you think they would be going door to door for what they believe is Gods truth? Paul preached a sermon in Acts [I think Mars hill?] and the people were ‘superstitious’ which means ‘religious’ in this context. They believed in many gods. Greek culture had this type of Pantheism where all gods were welcome. Rome [who was heavily influenced by Greek thought- the word for this is ‘Helenization’] allowed you to have other Gods. You just had to worship the roman Caesar as ‘lord’ and this is what got the early church in trouble. While Paul was preaching to these ‘religious’ people, they had an altar to so many gods in their town, that to play it safe they even had an altar to ‘the unknown god’. They figured ‘hey, if we missed a god, this will cover it’. So Paul uses this ‘unknown god’ and tells this group ‘I am declaring to you who this unknown god is’. Paul took this opportunity of their religion and used it as best as he could to preach the true God. I see this in my approach to these groups. Identify as best as you can with them. They often don’t have real good conversations/friendships with true believers. If you are solid in the faith, become friends with them. Get the conversation back to ‘who there god really is’ and you will see God reveal himself on the ‘altars’ of religious people!
(484) In a few weeks we will probably be finishing my overview of the last few chapters of Isaiah. As I was just praying I felt the Lord wanted me to speak a little more on ‘freely you have received, freely give’. There is a verse coming up in our Isaiah study [unless we already passed it?] that says ‘come, let him drink. Buy good stuff, without money and free of charge’ [my paraphrase]. Modern ministry is structured along the contemporary way we function in the corporate world. I need to make a distinction here. There are old time preachers who will criticize the church I attend because they play hard rock Christian music [hey, I listen to hard rock ‘unchristian music’]. I don’t want to be flippant here. I have absolutely no problem with modern ministries progressing and doing whatever it takes to get the gospel out. I am not in the camp of these old time brothers who are fighting for the ‘old time gospel’ but are really just defending a culture/heritage that has nothing to do with the gospel. I have already made plain thru all our teaching that the way we normally practice ‘church’ today is not in the New Testament. Now, as we progress as Christians [Pastors/leaders] we normally fall into the same mindset of the corporate world that causes us to ‘get our name known, be at the top of the charts, and publicize our personas for the sake of the ministry’. I just recently spoke on God exalting us in due time for his glory. Fame that comes from God is OK [Billy Graham]. It’s just the modern idea of going after it is so engrained in the way we do business that it’s hard for us to not violate the principle of Jesus when he taught ‘servanthood leadership’. The question of who would be greatest and rise to the top in Gods Kingdom was dealt with by Jesus in the gospels. He tried to change the thinking of ‘roman hierarchy’ to that of being last. It was hard for the disciples to truly grasp this principle, but he basically showed them that the normal idea of every man for himself as he works his way up the ladder was not the way the Kingdom would operate. So today we see nothing wrong with having highly famous people who Christian’s pattern themselves after to the degree where we have the ‘cult of personality’ operating in the Body of Christ. It is common for the universities of our day to put out Pastors/leaders who are looking to advance a business, and to see the ‘pastoring part’ as simply part of the whole package. I will serve these people [Marry, bury, etc] and they will tithe and together we will see this thing grow. The mindset is engrained into the way we function. We see ‘hired clergy’ as a vocation like we see ‘carpentry’. ‘Hey Pastor, you were hired to build this ‘house’ and if we think you are doing shoddy work we will fire you and get another contractor’ we function along these lines that Jesus expressly taught his disciples not to partake of. I just want to encourage all Christians today to see themselves as needed parts of the overall purpose of God for his church. We all are ministers who have gifts in us that are to be used to build up Gods people. Pastors, don’t see yourselves as punching a time clock. Give your self away for the world. Empower your people to do the same. We are not in this to make a name for ourselves, to impress the community around us, we are in this to fulfill his purpose and destiny. God highly values those who lay down their lives [their own desire to be ‘great’ in the eyes of men] and become the least in the Kingdom of God.
(485) ‘Parable from a laptop’ A Few months back I started having problems with my laptop. It was slow and I couldn’t access my hotmail account. I recently told the Lord ‘Lord, I really need to speed this computer up, and I need to access my email, fix it for me’. Now I have tried to ad memory before and the local computer stores tried 4 or 5 different brands of memory and they told me there is something wrong with the computer itself and it will not take any new memory sticks. So I just prayed about it. You know how the Lord answered my prayer? My whole computer crashed! I took it to a friend who does the work on my computers and we put in a new hard drive and all sorts of stuff. It was down for a few days and I had to re learn some new tricks to get everything working right [I am very bad at computers. Though I have typed the lettering off of my laptop with my much writing, yet I am not good with them. Until recently everytime I scrolled down to the end of this site I used to simply do it the long way. One day my youngest daughter shows me something and scrolls all the way down the fast way. I told her I was doing it the other way and she couldn’t believe it!] The Lord answered my prayer by allowing the computer to go thru some drastic ‘down time’ and to come back stronger than before. I feel like the Lord is doing the same with many of us. He knows we have been asking for him to change things in us, it’s just that we never expected to ‘crash’.
(486) I woke up this morning thinking about the incredible teaching/prophetic ministry of Jesus. No one could match his talent. He gave these stories [parables] that contained tremendous hidden truths. He had the ability to stump the greatest theologians of his day, and yet be the most approachable, merciful person that walked the earth. You would think someone with this tremendous talent would ‘protect his anointing’. In today’s environment he would be behind one of those glass bullet proof things, maybe ride in a ‘Pope mobile’. You know what he went and did? He risked all of these tremendous gifts that God gave him and went and hung out with the Lepers! These little kids came up to him one time and the disciples said ‘he doesn’t have time for such childish things, he has a great calling’ Jesus would have none of it. Then one day he shocks his friends. He says ‘I am going to go to Jerusalem to be killed’. What! What on earth gave you such a stupid idea [in so many words this is what Peter said to him]. Jesus understood that the greatest gift he carried was his ability to lay down his life for his friends. He had the greatest love for man than any other human. He did not see his death as an obstacle in the way of a successful ministry. He saw it as the key ingredient to all that the father called him to do. ‘Except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone. But if it dies it will bring forth much fruit’ would you really die for God? NOTE; God wants a living sacrifice. People who walk the earth as ‘dead men’. Paul said ‘I die daily’ ‘I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ who lives in me. The life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me’ we are indebted to God to lay our lives down for others.
(487) The other day my wife’s friend dropped her 10 year old boy off at our house when she went to the doctor. She has been sick for many years and the doctors told her ‘you aren’t going to live much longer’ she said ‘I know, I just need to make it till my boy is 18’ the doctor said he didn’t think she would. She is a single mom with lots of struggles. She is sort of like the homeless friends that I have, it’s my wife’s ‘ministry’ if you will. I do like the little boy, he is very hyperactive and really does have A.D.D. I gave the boy a few dollars and an old ‘lost in space’ video. A few years ago I gave him our old Nintendo with some old games, they became his favorite games. I asked the boy ‘where did your mom go today’?[I knew]. He told me she went to the doctors. I asked how he was feeling about it. He said ‘I am very worried John, I don’t want to lose her’ I asked him to pray with me for his mom. I prayed the verse where it says ‘by his stripes we are healed’ and I graphically explained the scars and marks that Jesus received were a part of our healing. I told him to pray this as often as he can for his mom. It will be a great day when death has no more dominion over man. Jesus looked it in the face and came out on the other side. NOTE: Let me tell you guys a few cute stories about this kid. One time after we took him to church he came to spend the day with us. When we got home we had a few movies we had rented and I tried to get him to sit and maybe watch a few movies. He likes to get on my kids play station /game cube games and will play for hours. But he is so hyper that he pulls the whole game off the shelf! So as I am trying to convince him to watch the movies he says ‘John, I can’t watch those. They are scary and my doctor [?] doesn’t want me to see them’ [something like that]. So he goes ahead and plays the games. Later we do put the TV on and as I am flipping thru the channels he says ‘stop’ and I stop on the show he is interested in. Sure enough its some thing on the ‘the top 100 scary movies of all time’. As he is watching he is naming every character to all these movies. He knows them like clockwork. I say ‘Chris, for someone who never watches scary movies, you sure know the names of a lot of them’. After a few minutes of me teasing him he says ‘all right John, so you caught me!’ Also when I gave him the ‘lost in space’ video he was real happy. As soon as he saw his mom he showed her the video. She says ‘wow, are you sure he gave it to you’ the boy says ‘yeah, I know mom. It is a collector’s item. It must be worth money’. It was funny because the mom is the exact same way. She will find old costume jewelry and stuff and tells my wife ‘I have to take it to the jewelers; I don’t know what I got here’. They both thought they hit the jackpot with these simple gifts.
(488) I was praying and writing this morning. I have been taking a month off from ministry stuff, like getting with my friends, because I felt the Lord wanted me to. Not because I have been sick, to the contrary I feel much better when I get out and interact with the brothers. But I just felt the Lord wanted me to take a break. Well one of my buddies rang the bell [a very rare thing] and it was the first real ministry day in over a month. We ran into one of my old friends in town whose is wheel chair bound. I would have taken him to eat with us, but he can’t get out of his chair anymore. It’s a motorized one that ways around 300 pounds, I have tried to put it in my truck before, you cant! He asked if I could help him with 10 dollars, I gave him a twenty. He does not drink, he will use it for stuff he needs. I took the other friend to eat. I felt the Lord wanted me to give him a few dollars too. I gave him a ten and he was really grateful, he said he was going to ask if I could lend him 5 dollars. This friend also will not use it for drugs or drinking. I know both of these guys well, around 15 years. They are real old friends. I later got home [right now!] and thought it interesting. I ‘unknowingly’ gave them 30 dollars. Twice the amount of what they wanted, or asked for. I am actually believing the Lord to work out my retirement where I will bring in around 3 thousand a month. I need a few more things to work out, but I didn’t even realize that I ‘unconsciously’ gave a ‘hundredth’ of that amount. Jesus says some will get 30, 60 and a hundred fold. I have ‘unknowingly’ given the amount that I need to see a ‘hundredfold’ return on. I also spend right at $300.oo a month for radio and news paper ads. I have been ‘tithing’ [though I don’t believe we are under it!] unconsciously on a 3 thousand dollar income. I find it funny that I have been doing all this voluntarily for many years, not even looking for a return, yet God seems to ‘return’ what you need when you don’t do it for money. Jesus said some will say at the judgment ‘Lord, when did we feed you and visit you and clothe you’ the righteous were ‘unknowingly’ doing the things that God wanted. They weren’t doing these things with the return in mind. I thank the Lord that he led me to give away the money, I think he was setting me up for the return! NOTE: My friend reminded me how a few years back we were driving to the other side of town with a bunch of homeless guys, we passed up a guy on the corner with a sign begging for money. One of the homeless guys roles down his window and yells ‘get a job you bum’. These are the same guys who hold signs on my side of town!
NOTE; I just went back and read the last 3 entries. I write these things off the top of my head with no order or thought. # 486 speaks of Jesus ministry to ‘lepers’ [outcasts] and little children. #s 487 and 488 speak of me reaching out to outcasts and little children. Prophetic things are so ‘cool’.
(489) I couldn’t sleep too well last night. I was lying down and just praying for a lot of my friends who are having hard times. I was thinking how earlier in the day I dropped off my homeless buddy at the area of brush that he makes his home in. He showed me how to get to his spot, I used to visit him years ago at another campsite and he would make me ‘hobo’ coffee right over the fire. I kinda felt bad for my buddy today. His spot is back behind a bunch of swamp land. He had to get back and cut some trees and stuff so he would be able to burn them to keep the mosquitoes away at night. It is a hard life. I thought how hard it must be when they struggle with depression and stuff. Being in that type of environment for most of your life. During the day as we went and ate and checked out some of the new development in the Corpus area [new overpasses and Whataburger field [our local baseball teams field] these guys don’t have cars so they don’t get around town to see this stuff that often] he was telling me a few verses that he has put to memory and how he is trying to follow the Lord. Last year one of the other guys beat him up pretty severely. He has seen him recently and was battling the temptation to get even. He told me how he realizes that it’s just pride. He quoted the verse in Proverbs that says ‘don’t make friends with an angry man, because you will get in trouble and have to help him out of trouble over and over again’. He wasn’t sure where this verse was, I told him I thought it was in proverbs. He realized that he didn’t want to be ‘this angry man’. He even remembered the verses from one of the little books I wrote. He read it years ago and still was quoting it. I gave him new copies of all the books and stuff again. A few years back one of my original friends from Kingsville [a whole different time and group of friends/ oikos- God will allow you to impact different people groups thru out your life] came to see me. We were reminiscing about the old days. I was surprised how he would remember the things that I thought were insignificant. I was thinking they would remember all the great prophetic stuff, or the teaching and stuff. He remembered the time he was strung out on dope and I spent the early morning [2 or 3 am] in front of his family’s home in government housing just talking to him about the Lord. He remembered the real times of friendship and stuff like that. I guess that’s why Jesus put such a high priority on loving our neighbor, he new these were the most effective ways of bringing people into the Kingdom. Of having long lasting impact that they would remember for years to come. God wants these things to be our legacy. What good is it if we have the greatest knowledge in the world, or the greatest prophecies? Or even if we do great charity works. If we do it all without true love for people it profits us nothing [1st Corinthians 13], people don’t remember all the great prophetic things. There a dime a dozen. They remember true friendship. NOTE: One of the dangerous mindsets that works against the Kingdom is prejudice and ‘class warfare’. In today’s ‘radio’ environment, it is all too easy to spend hours listening to all the legitimate reasons why we shouldn’t help illegal aliens, or why the poor are ‘getting what they deserve’. In Jesus teaching to us, he instructed us to help the poor. To treat our neighbor with love and respect. These concepts are real ways we spread the Kingdom. Jesus knew that ‘the poor’ were very often people who ‘got what they deserved’. There were obvious reasons why they wound up as the outcasts of society. Jesus told us nevertheless to help them. It is an act of mercy and compassion to treat them with love and respect. Even if they don’t deserve it. It breaks our pride and prejudice to give freely to those who don’t deserve it. This is done because of Gods treatment of us. We were/are undeserving of all the good gifts he has given us. We didn’t get mercy because we deserved it! God requires of us to lay down our lives for others who don’t deserve it. This is how they, and others, will experience Gods GRACE and MERCY. They will see it thru us.
(490) I am adding this note for those who have been following my health stuff. After over a month of extreme vertigo and non stop dizziness, I have learned from my own research [the doctors do their best] that I have acute Labyrinthitis. A problem with the inner ear. Mine is obviously from a viral infection. Because the antibiotics that I finished taking a few weeks back have had no effect on the problem. This was an important part of my struggle, as to the fact that the back problems and the associated anxiety of everything else was being added on to this unexplainable continual dizziness and vertigo. I have researched a lot on all the other stuff, but to be honest this inner ear problem is without a doubt the most disorienting. I am ‘high’ 24/7. I used to think that this would be a good thing! But to be continually disorientated 24/7 is not good. I basically found out that this is what I have thru extensive on line research. There is no doubt that this is one of the problems. I am trusting God to heal this. I can live with the leg/back problems. But this thing is too debilitating. I would appreciate you guy’s prayers, thanks.
(491) ‘No chastening for the present time seems to be joyous, but rather grievous. Nevertheless afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who go thru it’ ‘It is a good thing that you were afflicted, before you were afflicted you went astray, but afterward you kept my word’ ‘for this cause many are weak and sickly among you, for if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged we are being chastened by the Lord so we will not be condemned with the world’ this is the Word of the Lord unto you today. The hard things that you have been going thru are for my purposes. I have done things thru your suffering that were not being produced any other way ‘though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience thru the things that he suffered’ ‘think it not a strange thing, the fiery trials that you re going thru, as if some strange thing is happening to you. But rather rejoice, knowing that these same afflictions are being accomplished in your brethren thru out the world’ the things you are going thru are not unique to you alone. You are receiving these sufferings as my servant Paul did when he said ‘I am filling up the rest of the sufferings of the Body of Christ’ Your difficulty is part of the overall birthing process of what I desire to do in the earth at this time. Rejoice that you have been counted worthy to suffer because of the name of my Son.
(492) I have a book I was going to read sitting here in my study [I have a few that I have picked up these last few years and haven’t gotten to them yet]. It deals with the story of a large ministry [not in the U.S.] and how by faith the Lord has given them millions of dollars and has truly opened up many doors thru finances for this good work. In today’s environment we often see God thru the lens of ‘you can give me the finances to do this great work’. Many times these are sincere believers whom God does really work in this way on their behalf. We also hear often ‘do you need a financial miracle’ or ‘who needs healing in their finances’ [though Jesus never healed anyone from ‘financial sickness!’] The point is God definitely works in all areas of life. He is our provider and source, the God who is more than enough. It’s just that we really don’t treat him that way. Let me show you what I mean. When the apostle Paul said ‘I have learned in whatever state I am [Texas?] to be content. I have learned to be in need and to be full. I can do all things thru Christ who strengthens me’ we often see ‘doing all things’ as the ‘full’ part. We very rarely see it as the ‘being in need’ part. Because God is truly our source, we don’t always need the financial miracle to see something happen. We actually need him! He has done and will do tremendous things with simple people who do not have lots of money. ‘Well brother how can we reach the world unless we all have lots of money’? Well there goes your lack of faith! Jesus said the gospel is so powerful in the hearts and lips of his people, that the world can and has been revolutionized thru the simple saints thru out the ages. Jesus has truly taken ‘the few loaves and fishes’ and has MULTIPLIED the seed to reach the multitudes. We would have been praying ‘Lord, before we go to the 5,000 people we need to raise lots of money for food. It wouldn’t be responsible for us to have all these people come out and hear you preach until we have the great supply in our hands’ We would have been asking Jesus to give us the actual resources ahead of time in order to ‘reach/feed’ the people. We need a financial miracle Jesus! As a matter of fact that is what the disciples tell him when he says ‘have the people sit down and we will feed them’. The disciples are like ‘we don’t have enough money in the treasury to do this [by the way this also reproves those who teach that the treasury/bag that Jesus and the disciples had was really rich. The disciple in this story plainly states that they didn’t have the treasury money to cover it!] Jesus doesn’t give them a financial miracle in the way they expected. What he does do is he takes the very limited resources of a little boys sack lunch and he multiplies it as they give it away. We don’t really need to be ‘healed financially’ we need to begin giving ourselves away, Jesus will multiply our ‘seed/bread’ [the influence of our lives] when we do this.
(493) It’s Sunday morning. I am watching a few local churches on TV. I caught one of the non denominational guys. Good message [I guess?] a little too much of ‘I am your Pastor. You need to be submitted to me and be under my authority’ he meant well, just doesn’t see the overall view. Basically everything I have taught [and others!] about the office of Pastor and it not being a singular authority position over ANY OF THE CHURHCES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT! I switched to the Catholic mass. They were much more humble. They had a deacon sharing on forgiveness; they then cited the Apostles creed. It got me to thinking about the brother who I wrote on a few weeks ago who said ‘leave behind you the creeds and doctrines’. The contrast between these 2 ways of ‘doing church’ are tremendous. While I do not embrace all Catholic teaching, it is obvious to see that the Protestant brothers meetings were saturated with them. You see their gifts, their abilities. The whole service is really about them. They don’t mean for this to be so, its just the result of ‘doing church’ thru the lens of ‘I am the Pastor, my job is to speak to you every Sunday for the rest of your life. Your job is to come and listen and put the tithe in. Anyone who disagrees is in the camp of those who challenged Moses authority. The earth might just open up and swallow you’. Now, I am being a little sarcastic. The point is ‘church’ is supposed to be the healthy gathering and communing of all believers around the reality of Christ. It was never intended to be a ‘place’ where people are spectators in an audience who are watching others perform. It is very obvious to see how the Protestant church has allowed herself to become ‘personality oriented’ as opposed to Christ being the real center of attention.
(494) To be honest with you guys, I feel like I have been on a acid trip for over a month. It is the most nerve wracking thing I have gone thru in years. Before I realized that the ‘Labyrnthitis’ causes you to see everything thru a ‘glass’ type image [now we see thru a glass darkly- Corinthians] it was unreal to wake up one day feeling totally wasted, nonstop! Well now that I realize what it is, it is not as nerve wracking. I am reading the autobiography of Brian ‘head’ Welch, the ex guitarist of the rock group ‘Korn’. It is real interesting. It reminded me of a few things. Many years ago [around16] I backslid pretty badly. I was already preaching and had pastored our church. But I spent about a year being ‘lost’. During that time I was separated from my wife and was ‘hanging out’ with all types of people. One night me and this ‘girl friend’ who was a full blown junkie wound up off of some street in Corpus Christi [I didn’t live there yet]. It was in a real bad section of town. By the Morgan/Baldwin area. If you’re a white guy, you aren’t supposed to be around there. I remember shooting pool one night in one of the clubs and I was the only English speaking person there. The bartender didn’t know what I was saying when I ordered a drink. I was shooting pool, waiting for my ‘friend’ to get back. I really am surprised I didn’t get shot. Shootings happen weekly in these areas of town. Well when we were at some house not far from there, people were mainlining right there. The girl I was with was getting her fix. Somehow as she introduced me to her Hispanic friends [I really took risks by being there] she mentions ‘John used to be a preacher’. Sure enough one of the guys starts repenting towards me. He’s telling me he feels the Lord sent me there that night as a sign. He says I am like the angel in the show on TV [Michael Landon played an angel, I cant remember the name]. This was pretty surreal. I don’t know why I just thought of this story, but I did. This poor girl, one day a few years later I went to work and they told me some ‘chick’ was dragged by some guy leaving the bar the night before. We all find out if there were any deaths and stuff when we go to work. ‘You guys have any fires or shootings last night’ stuff like that. It winds up that this girl was stuck in the car door with some guy she was fighting with, he drug her a few blocks before he realized she was stuck in the door. When the ambulance got there the skin was ripped from her. Everyone thought she was already dead, then she simply looked at them for help. They did all they could do and she died. Sin is so devastating. May God forgive me, and everyone else who has made these terrible mistakes in life. ‘There is a redeemer, Jesus Gods own Son, precious Lamb of God messiah, holy one’ Keith Green.
(495) When I picked up my homeless friend the other day, we had a good discussion on the ‘Temple of God’ being the people of God as opposed to a ‘place of meeting’. I always emphasize that it is not wrong for believers to meet in buildings, but that the great transition from the Old Testament mindset to the New Testament was one of transition from an actual Temple to a Spiritual one. That is the people of God would become the actual dwelling place and mode of operation that the Father would work thru to establish his purpose in the earth. The famous Old Testament story of ‘Jacobs ladder’ was an encounter that Jacob had with God. When he awoke he said ‘this is the House of God’ though there was no building for miles! It was a preview of Gods house as seen thru the meditation of Christ. The Ladder had angels ascending and descending. It was a type of Christ who would give new access from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven. Wherever you would find this ‘ladder’ being set up in the future, there you would have the ‘house of God’ [all New Testament communities of people]. There was a time in Israel’s history where they came to depend on their temple. They were saying ‘the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord’ and they were rebuked for trusting in this earthly piece of furniture and not trusting in the living God. And of course Jesus prophesied of the temples destruction in the Gospels. The whole point I made to my friend was that God’s mode of operation was to express himself thru a living community of people who would not be limited to a ‘place of worship’ but who would carry this presence of God wherever they go. In essence wherever people were experiencing the reconciliation of the Cross, there a ‘ladder’ [the Cross] would be ‘set up’. God would be setting up these access points from heaven to earth all over the planet. No more ‘dwelling in temples made with hands’. Now the fact that believers do have this ‘atmospheric influence’ wherever they go, means that even if they are in the ‘church building’ or home or park or anywhere, then God will manifest himself there. Not because of these buildings, or because of the lack of a building. But his presence is solely based on the fact that people are there who have accessed ‘Jacobs ladder’ they have access with God thru the Cross. I would encourage you today to ‘plant that ladder’ everywhere you go. Allow God to use you as an access point from heaven to earth. Those you come in contact with, set up that ladder of hope for them. Let them see how simple it is to approach God thru the finished work of the Cross. Let them know that after you leave, that truly ‘this was the House of God’.
(496) I have been interceding for a while this morning. I have been praying for 22 Korean Christian hostages who were taken by the Taliban in Afghanistan for a few days. Today is 7-30-07, I don’t know what has happened to them yet. The other day they killed the 42 year old Pastor of the group. They are South Korean Christians who were there doing charity work. I also was watching a big Christian meeting who gathered conservative Christians from all over to ‘unite for Israel’ these brothers have interviews and meetings with Israeli leaders. They glory in her as a natural nation. They call for more financial support of her military. There is always a danger in supporting any natural nation to the degree where you side with her and almost justify military action to the point of killing other people. Does Israel have a right to defend herself as a Nation? Yes. Do all nations have this right? Yes. Have there ever been scenarios where Christians on the other side [Palestinian or whatever] found themselves stuck in the nation that was on the opposite side? Yes. Is it possible that there might be 10 righteous Christians in the other nation who we are advocating violence against? Yes. So John what’s the answer? Well it certainly isn’t starting some Christian movement where you actually advocate for the build up of Israel’s defenses and you seem to be approaching end time scenarios with this bloodlust to attack other nations. I don’t care what your eschatology is, pray for the peace of Jerusalem and pray for the peace of the ‘Jerusalem of God’ as well. Paul defined this Jerusalem as all Christians. Even those who might be huddled in some corner of a Palestinian home waiting to get the hell bombed out of them from the others side. I just hope they weren’t watching the Christian conference [from San Antonio] who were glorying in a nation’s natural heritage right before they get bombed to death!
(497) Pride hinders the growth of the New Testament church. The way the early Christians ‘did church’ is described in the book of Corinthians. The meeting of believers was a simple informal format of believers gathering together from house to house and sharing with each other. The role of ‘Pastor’s or Elders was simply the oversight of more mature believers living in the city, who gave guidance and direction to the younger believers as they developed in the Lord. The growth of home/cell based churches is basically a return back to a more biblical form. Now pride is the arrogance of any man, who looks at this pattern and says ‘you are not under the local church, or a Pastor. You are out of order’ So here you would find the well meaning Pastor, judging a form of church that is much more in line with the New testament, and actually seeing his understanding of church as the only legitimate pattern. So in essence the humble cell group could actually respond by stating ‘you, Pastor, are holding a title/office that is no where to be found in the New Testament. You coming against us by saying ‘we are not submitted to you, or others like you’ is actually usurping the headship of Christ over his body. And you are placing yourself as Diotrophes did in 3rd John’. Now, I do not see all Pastors like this, the point is the cell group are much more in line and in biblical order than this Pastor. This shows you what happens when man holds on to a limited view of church and then adds to it a strong authoritarian mindset of ‘Pastor’ that is not biblical. God deals in Grace with all of us, it would do us all good to see him thru his various operations, and not try to make a particular mode of worship ‘the only legitimate expression of Christ’s church today’. God has many different expressions.
(498) I am almost finished with the book by Brian ‘head’ Welch. It tells a lot of times when Welch was thinking of getting off of drugs and would find himself doing more. The feeling I have had for a while now reminds me of being on an ‘Acid’ trip. The bad ‘trip’ I had years ago had me seeing ‘things’ pretty badly. I remember looking into this mirror of a bowling alley and seeing my face black/purple. Seeing yourself this way while also experiencing no feeling to your body is a trip. You think your dead. One time during the year where I backslid, I took a friend over to Robstown to score some stuff. He was going to shoot it up, I just went for the ride [really!]. My pay was some real good weed. I sat in the car and got high on this joint. Before I smoked it he told me ‘this is some real good weed’ but he then used a term, which too me in my early days meant ‘week weed’ but in South Texas language this term meant ‘really strong’. Oh well. After smoking this joint I got absolutely wasted. There obviously was something more than just ‘pot’ in it. I drove a few blocks [my friend was still inside fixing] and parked by some Rail Road tracks. I just laid down in the car and went on this trip. It reminded me somewhat of the acid trip I had years before. I later [or earlier] had snorted some cocaine with my friends, but this weed had something much more potent in it. I remember how at times in the past where I would be totally wasted, yet I would not stop partying. It was like I felt ‘man, I really need to come down’ and then keep getting high. In the book I could identify somewhat with Brian’s seeming inability to just stop. Ultimately God does the ‘stopping’ for you. When people are in this cycle they don’t seem to realize the danger of dieing. You seem to think nothing will happen. And then when your ‘tripping’ you think ‘O my God, I feel like I am going to die’ it really is deceptive. Only God can save people from this. NOTE: This brother was one of a whole family of guys I met while preaching to the father in jail. One of these brothers is now one of our main guys in Kingsville serving the Lord. During this year of backsliding, I took him to H.E.B. [our grocery stores in Texas- like Path Mark to all you Yankees!] and he goes in. He comes out with something that he was going to steel from one of the hardware aisles. He walks out with the look on his face like ‘there’s nothing strange about the way I look, I am just normal’ as I see him walking across the parking lot, I could spot the stolen thing under his shirt a mile away! It looked so obvious, like a pregnant woman! When he got to the car I was like ‘I could see you a mile away you idiot, how did you get away with it?’ Of course he bought a stick of gum or something on the way out, he told me ‘I think the chick at the register liked me’ I guess so! NOTE: One time when we were having ‘church’ in an old rented hospital building, I would go and pick up our guys before the service. One day both of my friends had been out the night before shooting up. So when I went to get them the wives and kids got in my suburban but the guys were no where to be found, and as we were driving back to the building, we stopped right at a stop sign where these 2 guys were right next to us in the car that they were using all night to score drugs. Of course their wives were mad, these guys were out all night shooting up. It was too late to hide, but as they were looking straight at us, my one friend [Elias] just ducks down and hides in the seat, my other friend [Juan Saldana] just looked straight forward. It was kinda funny, we did laugh about it later. Elias eventually became the preacher of the local Victory Outreach. He died from a brain aneurism while serving the Lord. Juan, I haven’t heard from him years. I think he is working with a ministry in El Paso?
(499) The benefit of blogging like this is it allows you to hear God and just write what you hear. When writing a book you really cant jump like that. For some strange reason I just saw a whole scenario of legitimacy that comes from being a child of God and how that relates to family/community. We often see believers as a ‘part of the church’. God does deal with us as a community, as well as individuals. You will find the strong Orthodox/ Catholic brothers emphasize the community aspect of Christianity. You will also see the more individualistic style of Christianity emphasize the ‘individualistic’ aspect. ‘Me and Jesus’ both of these are true. What I want you to see right now is how we often try to ‘de legitimize’ Christians by saying ‘who’s local church are you under? What family do you belong to, you cant function/operate outside of the family. You derive your authority from the family’. Now look at this for a moment. When you are born, you are born into some type of family. It might not be fully functional, but there at least had to have been a mom and a dad at the beginning. Now as you develop you are part of a family. You are part of this family by virtue of your birth. You actually do not derive your life from the family. God created you. But family is vital to your growth and health. As you grow older you learn to depend less and less on the authority figures that God has placed over you. Some times the parents want the children to stay ‘under their authority’ for insecure reasons. The empty nest syndrome. But if the family is healthy the children will eventually launch out. There may be times where the waters get rough and they return for a season, but ultimately they launch. If you were to tell little Johnny ‘who do you think you are leaving us? Don’t you realize that you really don’t have a life apart from us? You were born here, we raised you, everything God has done thru you up until this moment has been in the family context. You leaving us is rebelling against our parenthood over you. Don’t forget what happens when you rebel against us. O well you’ll find out the hard way’ Johnny’s parents are sincerely seeing his role as it relates to them, they don’t fully see or function in the reality that their roles are meant to change over the course of Johnnies life. They sincerely think his step of independence is rebellion. After all they have been ‘over’ Johnnie his whole life. Who does he think he is anyway? Sure enough Johnnie will launch out [to the dismay of his other siblings who tried to launch before and had failures. They later returned back home and thought their failures were a sign from God that they should have never launched] When Johnnie does eventually succeed there is an initial reaction of ‘who needs families anyway, they were just holding me back’ this is a natural result from the way the family tried to hold him past the ‘launch date’. As Johnnie matures he will lose this harshness that he is experiencing at this time. Ultimately Johnnie and a whole new generation of ‘Johnnies’ will grow and leave and become all that God originally intended. The insecure parents will warn all the older children who are still relating to them in co dependant ways ‘don’t do like all these rebels, you know what can happen’ and this reinforces the mindset of never fully growing up. And yet the parents will at times say ‘when are you ever going to grow up?’ not realizing that they have had a big part in creating this unhealthy long-term environment. I feel today we are seeing this play out on a large scale in the Body of Christ. There are so many ‘Johnnies’ who have been told ‘your identity to our family is Gods purpose [true] therefore you really have no authority on your own’ [false]. The authority for both family and Johnnie launching are both from God. They all receive their right to do what God is telling them because they were all born of God. It is easy to only view legitimacy from the standpoint of ‘family’. Not seeing that God originally told the man ‘When you launch out on your own someday [a God given thing] then you will leave your parents and cleave to your wife’ [the wife can be the Ecclesia/oikos that God wants you to relate to as an ‘elder’ as well. While all believers are not ‘5-fold’ ministers, they all are to grow and mature. Becoming an ‘elder’ more mature one who gives oversight to others, is a natural function of your growth] God always intended the oversight role of parents [Pastors/Elders] to be temporary. This launching will eventually create a whole new family, with a whole new home of Johnnies. And the process repeats. I find a lot of believers at the ‘launching dock’ who are fearful to launch. They have seen some launch, and sad to say they drowned. A natural risk inherent in all journeys. These have made ‘shipwreck of the faith’. Others launched and never returned for reunions because they were so mad at the original parents calling them ‘lost children’ when they first left. Ultimately when enough Johnnies do it right then the whole family will see and realize that they were at an immature stage and are now seeing this ‘launching’ as in Gods original plan. Have you launched yet? NOTE: Often times the ‘parents’ [Pastors/elders] find their identity in ‘being parents’ they feel good functioning in this oversight role. They preach, organize, strategize and do many good things. Sometimes out of insecurity they add to their preaching, themes that warn the children ‘don’t ever leave us, it would be a big mistake’ and if they see someone leave, they will often say ‘well, now that you left, who is your new father [Pastor] and which family did you join in order to pay your dues?’ [Tithe]. The former Pastor is trying to say to Johnnie ‘well, you left this nest, you cannot function outside of it’ unless you yourself become one of us [a Pastor] then you have the right to not be under one of us. ‘This is Gods order’. The whole thing can be a big mess. Truly God does have order in his family, but we need to be careful that we are not superimposing a modern way of church, and then calling that ‘Gods Order’. NOTE: It is common amongst ‘apostolic people’[people who feel they hold the office of Apostle] to struggle with ‘who’s local church will I be under’. They often start a 501c3 ministry, relate to other ‘local churches’ and preach a very strong ‘You must be under a Pastor’ type message. They then will struggle with ‘which Local church will be my covering, as I also ‘cover’ many other Local churches/Pastors’ all of this language and covering and everything associated with it is really not seen in the New Testament function of Apostles. Apostles were not people going around ‘covering’ all ready established groups of Christians. The true fruit of an Apostle is someone who has the gift to ‘birth’ communities of believers thru the preaching of the gospel. You never find Paul, ever, telling the new believers to be ‘under the covering of a Pastor’ you do find admonitions to submit to Godly leadership that God has placed in ‘your church’ meaning ‘your community of believers that are around you’. You actually will find references in the New Testament to the ‘Elders of your Church/ Elders of your city’ [i.e.; ordain Elders in every city as I ordained you] so the submission to Elders was the simple ‘growing up stage’ in your life as a believer, until you are mature enough to ‘launch’.
(500) I was watching ‘journey home’ on E.W.T.N. last night. I do like the catholic station. They had a panel of ‘ex-Pastors’ from Pentecostal churches who are now Catholic. It was a good discussion and I do see them as Gods people. One area that I often hear on this show is ‘When I was Protestant/Pentecostal we all had our own ideas of what scripture meant. Without the teaching authority [magesterium] of the Catholic Church there is no true order to what scripture means’. Let me address this a little. I too see the danger of everyone coming up with their own interpretation of scripture. Believe it or not I also believe in the ‘teaching authority of the church’ but I see ‘the church’ as all the corporate people of God from century one until today. Therefore all that the Spirit has communicated in unity to the people of God thru out the last 2 thousand years is ‘the teaching authority of the church’. It is obvious to me, and many other voices [even Catholics!] that the ‘Catholic church’ has things that most believers understand to not be true. If most believers [Even many Catholics] as well as many great reformers of the church, who also were Catholic, if they with one voice disagree with the hierarchal interpretation of the ancient church, then this in itself is a function of the ‘teaching authority of the church [Holy Spirit] revealing truth to and thru the Church [corporate people of God]’. Now I don’t want to get too technical here, and I love my Catholic brothers. But the argument that because there are so many wrong interpretations of scripture, for that to lead a person, as humble and sincere as he is. For that person to say ‘therefore, because of the inconsistencies of my former Pentecostal Pastor friends, I have now come to accept a certain strain of hiearchacal truth. Now I am in truth’ without being offensive, this part of the church [Catholic] have erred in the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception as well as other things. It is not me saying this, but the ‘Spirits witness’ thru the church down thru the ages, as expressed thru her own people [i.e.; the many Catholic reformers who have spoken out from inside her walls]. So to be clear, I love the Catholic people, our only safety to guide us into all truth is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He has surely operated inside of the Catholic Church, as well as all the others ‘churches’ who have spoken in line with the Spirits testimony thru the centuries. The ‘magesterium’ if you will, is the Spirits corporate witness of unity as he has spoken thru the people of God down thru the centuries. The ‘teaching authority’ of the church is not limited to that which comes down from any one ‘part’ of the Body of Christ. God does not ask us to lay down our own moral conscience to accept teachings that in our heart we know are wrong. In many of these testimonies when the Protestant Pastor who has converted to Catholicism is asked ‘how did you overcome your ‘inner rejection’ to finally accept Mary’s role in the Church, and to accept that she was born sinless?’ Many of the brothers simply say ‘I got to a point where I had to overcome my own beliefs [conscience!] and to accept the witness of the ancient church’. This to me is not what God asks of his people. To ‘overcome your inner witness’. Scripture speaks of truth being revealed to us by Gods Spirit as an inner witness. ‘Well brother, then where is the safety mechanism from keeping everyone from going off track’? Well, ultimately it is a function of the Spirit of God working in the people of God [the true magesterium] thru out the centuries. Why does over 90 % of all the church believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ? Who has ‘engrained’ this truth into the minds of so many various denominations? Was it a function of the Catholic churches ‘teaching authority’? It was a function of the Spirit guiding the people of God thru out the centuries into all truth. If someone out of fear or confusion relinquishes his own conscience to the interpretation of any ‘institution’ no matter how early their institution began, then you are overlooking the ability of the Spirit, to reveal all truth to all men. I realize that the Catholic argument is ‘the Spirit does this thru the church’ to which I say ‘Amen’, but once again I see the church as all who have seen the father thru the Son. If no man can come to the Father, but by him. Then all who are now in him [all believers regardless of background] are ‘in him’. Therefore all who are ‘in him’ [including Luther, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, etc.] are part of the corporate voice of the Spirit as he ‘speaks thru the church’ down thru the ages. The ‘safety mechanism’ to keep every one from his own interpretation is the ability of the Spirit to speak with one voice thru all of his people. Thus we wind up with over 90 % of all believers embracing the true gospel. Well, what about the other 10%? Well, some who don’t embrace this gospel are in all of the other camps. Catholic, Protestant, etc. Liberalism that denies Christ’s bodily resurrection can be found in all ‘churches’. Therefore the ‘magesterium’ did not prevent their own catholic people from ‘departing from the faith’. All Christians are dependant on the Spirit, as well as the guidance from the majority of Christian voices that have come to us down from the centuries. I include Catholics as well as Protestants in this ‘corporate voice’. It’s humility to be able to embrace this.
(501) Over the years I have given lots of my books away. I give them all away now, I don’t sell anything anymore. I actually did have a publishing house print the first few batches of books. This was not cheap! I gave them to a friend as well as all of my other books as I wrote them. This friend had a family member write a book. I told him, ‘as soon as it’s done, give me one!’ After it was finished, the person let me know they were for sale. I wasn’t really offended, I kinda really didn’t have time to read the book. I initially said ‘give me one’ to encourage them in the writing of the book, they are still good friends of mine till this day, real good Christian people. I got the sense that he got offended because I didn’t buy one. Too be honest I had given him all my books for free over the years! I know he was thinking ‘hey, we got this book published. I cant give it to him for free’ I got mine published too, and I gave almost all of them away for free! Even to him! The point is, we see giving the tithe as necessity. But we don’t truly see giving all the other gifts and things we have the same way. I have friends who cant believe I will give away 20 dollars at the drop of a hat. Or simply pay a 100 dollar light bill [not my own, sad to say 100 dollars wouldn’t cover it!] I have been doing it for years with no regret. This stuff is taught in scripture man! Yet most Christians will willingly put 200 dollars in as a tithe, but to give even something worth 10 dollars [a book] is too hard to do.
(502) I just got done doing a little yard work. Nothing heavy, but I risked moving a few bricks and stuff and my back started killing me. I knew better, but o well. To be honest the pain is nothing compared to the vertigo thing. I am remembering some old drug experiences as I read the book from Brian Welch [Korn]. I remembered how after my worst overdose on acid I had flashbacks for years. There came a time in the beginning where I just determined ‘well, if I wind up dieing, there is nothing I can do about it. So be it’ I just remembered this recently. There was a putting of everything into Gods hand, even though I didn’t really know him! I was thinking about the people I know, some who have been diagnosed with fatal diseases. I am praying much for them. No matter what people have done, God is very compassionate. I think we [or at least I] don’t show the level of mercy and compassion that we should. What would you do if you were on death row and knew the exact date of your death? ‘Month away, 2 more weeks, 3 days left, tomorrow when I wake up I am going to die’ how would you react. I am not justifying anything that these guys have done; I just think it takes courage to face it like a man. Some ask both Gods and their victim’s families to forgive them. They go out well. I am praying for a few more people who I have come to know while researching my sickness. I didn’t meet them thru any Christian means, just thru finding answers thru the net. I have given them my blog site and told them up front I am a believer. Maybe they are reading this now! I just think if I could have trusted God and went thru those early years of acid trips and stuff, how much more should we as believers overcome the desolate places we find ourselves at today.
(503) Isaiah 59- ‘Gods hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor his ear dull that it cannot hear. But our sins have separated us from God acting on our behalf’ one of the themes we will see in this chapter is God wanting us to speak truth and to stand for justice. He will reprove the times we lie and don’t really speak and walk in truth. There are so many issues with the American church at this season. I saw Benny Hinn speaking to a meeting of Pastors. I have sent Benny my books and stuff. I was encouraged to hear him reprove those who teach that Job [in the bible] was making a bad confession and God recorded his words, but didn’t justify Jobs confession. Those of you in the ‘know’ remember how it was [and still is!] taught that Job went thru trials because of a bad confession, and in essence God doesn’t want us reading Job and believing Jobs confession. You just read Job to see what not to do! I have dealt with this error before. But I was glad to see Benny hit on it in such a public way. This is an example of God telling us ‘Church, I love you guys. I have given you time to overcome this. You can’t keep speaking ‘lies’ and think I am going to move in your country [The U.S.]’ So God is dealing with us in mercy, but he is telling all of us ‘I really want to move on your behalf, you must humble yourselves and repent. I want justice, I want truth. You need mercy and love, but they cannot trump my desire for truth and righteous justice’. ‘None calleth for justice, none speak truth. They trust in vanity and speak lies’ There has been a stubbornness on certain parts of the American church that have consistently ‘trusted fake things, and continue to speak fake things’ we are all guilty of this, Gods agenda is for us to seek him and return to a pure biblical gospel. I am so excited about this younger generation. I have been watching the ‘call’ or the ‘cause’. Basically a group of young people on fire for Jesus. The I.H.O.P. meetings with Mike Bickle. The ‘merchant band’ all of these radical kids seeking the face of God. They put me to shame. And in the midst of this there exists an older generation who insist on ‘speaking lies, trusting in vanity’ the older generation needs to listen to these ‘babes’, out of their mouths God is speaking. They sing things like ‘don’t sell out for the stuff of this world’. ‘They hatch eggs, whoever eats their eggs dies. They will not continue to cover themselves with their teachings’ when we steer off course of Christ’s main message, the things we produce [books, blogs, tapes, etc.] only hurt others. We can’t keep ‘feeding rotten eggs’ to Gods kids. These movements who have veered away from the gospel will not continue to ‘cover themselves’ [hide within their groups] because God is calling for repentance and justice. ‘They have made crooked paths, those who go in them will not have peace’ when teachers establish wrong doctrines and teachings in the church, they become ‘crooked paths’ paths that many will go down. It is very hard to undo this. Jesus actually said ‘let them go down these paths. They will all fall into a ditch’ sometimes God allows the wrong paths to exist until both the leaders and followers see the error of their way. I remember reading how Jim Bakker saw how wrong he was. He started reading the gospels while in prison and couldn’t believe that he was a money preacher who taught that Jesus was rich. After reading the gospels he saw how wrong he was. God is going to take those who have made ‘crooked paths’ and he will use them to go straight again.
NOTE: Let me interject a reminder here. All Christians, especially those who feel the Lord has called them to the prophetic ministry, are required to confront [in love] obvious abuses and error in the church. One of the most difficult things about this calling is the majority of people you are called to speak into will reject you at the start. The gift brings with it an ‘inner mechanism’ that causes the messenger to be rejected initially. Why? Be cause to confront and undo mindsets that have existed in certain areas of the people of God is ‘tumultuous’. You go thru a season where you ‘pluck up, root out, tear down’ and then you get to the place where you ‘build and strengthen’ again. I look at these contractors who buy nice homes on prime lots of real estate. They go in and begin to dismantle the house! Even though it is an ‘OK’ structure, it has provided shelter for many years. Lots of kids grew up in that house. Man, what are you doing coming against all my memories! Well the contractor realizes that it served a purpose, but the time has come to realize that the structure is insufficient for the next level of community growth. So I see the temptation for those whom the Lord has called to prophetic things, to go thru this type of rejection. And when these people go thru difficulty it is own natural to say ‘Physician, heal thyself’ those whom the message is directed will have a tendency to say ‘see, that Isaiah fellow, he thought he was such a voice for God, look at him now’ [or Jeremiah or any of the other prophets]. So as we continue thru Isaiah we will eventually get to the ‘building up process’ but first God has to make sure all the debris is truly removed before the next structure can go up. Remember what I said about the prophecy given to the Virgin Mary ‘a sword shall pierce thru your own heart also, that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed’ God allows prophetic people to be ‘pierced’ so he can see the response of those around them. Note; I have found myself at times thinking ‘If I could just overcome this obstacle, if I didn’t have to deal with these difficulties at this time, I would be so much more effective’ I have to remind myself that ‘when I am weak, then God can be glorified thru me’ natural thinking says ‘why the Cross?’ then you learn to say ‘nevertheless not my will, but yours be done’ amen!
‘Therefore we behold obscurity’ I have found one of the worst judgments in my own life is when I ‘behold obscurity’. When I am in sin in some area of my life, Gods mercy is always there, but there is a real sense of the absence of Gods presence. Jesus said ‘the pure in heart see God’ when our hearts are not pure, we ‘see obscurity’. ‘We roar like bears, and mourn like doves’ Have you ever experienced extreme highs and lows. Days where you were ‘roaring like a bear’ and the next day ‘crying like a dove’. When our hearts are not right, these ups and downs are inevitable. Sometimes we even experience this when our hearts are right, but in this context sin is the main reason for it. ‘our transgressions are with us and our iniquities, we know them’ transgressions are the actual breaking of Gods law, the ‘act of sin’ if you will. The ‘iniquity’ is that tendency in us to gravitate towards certain sins. That ‘bent’ that keeps turning us in the wrong direction. You say ‘why brother, I have no idea what you are talking about’. You’re lying! Here God says ‘we know them’. ‘Truth faileth and he that departs from error makes himself a target’ I find it interesting, when people repent from ‘wrong paths’ they then become the target of those who are still on the path! Why? Because if you can do it, make the change, go to the next level. Then there is no more excuse for those who are not changing. This is at the heart of murder and hatred. The bible says ‘for this reason Cain slew Able, because his own works were wicked and his brothers righteous’ Envy and pride are horrible things. They cause us to want the failure of others who are succeeding. We really don’t want ‘that other church to succeed’ in our hearts. If they get 6 thousand people to attend, then all my excuses of why I only have so many attend my church are no longer valid. Those who start going on the better paths than we have been on become a target! ‘And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, those that turn away from transgression in Jacob’ God will come to those who ‘turn away from sin in Jacob’ like Paul says in the New Testament, it is not natural birth that counts. To simply be ‘Jacob’ [Israel] doesn’t cut it. You need to have ‘turned away from sin’ and accepted Gods sacrifice, Jesus! To those [Jew or Gentile] that ‘turn away from transgression’ [this means the actual act of disobedience!] God will reveal himself. ‘This is my promise to you, the word that I have put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth, nor out of the mouth of your seed, nor out of the mouth of your seeds seed, from this time forth and forever more’ Yesterday we had a good home meeting in Kingsville. One of the ‘sons’ of the fathers I used to preach to years ago in jail. The son is the ‘seed’ [offspring] of the original person from this family that I preached to. His son [the grandson] lives in Corpus and also is a part of what the Lord is doing. God promises that if you speak his words, they will remain in the mouths of ‘the children’s children’ God is always thinking generationaly /dynastically. Man thinks short term.
(504) I was watching a preacher the other day teaching on end time things. He is very dogmatic in his view. The Rapture and all. I thought it funny, because as he got to the part where he was teaching on the ‘4 horseman of Revelation’ he flatly says ‘the rider on the white horse is the anti-christ’. I know this view fairly well. I was taught it as a new Christian. The last few times I have read Revelation I lean more towards this rider being Christ who is conquering against the forces of evil. Some say ‘well, we know this isn’t Christ, because after him come the other 3 horses which represent death and destruction and bad stuff’. The point I will make is in Revelation your are seeing ‘the wrath of God’ it is Gods judgment on the unbelieving world. It would seem fitting for Christ to appear at the beginning of these judgments, after all ‘all judgment has been committed to the Son’. I really have no idea why I am even getting into this, I haven’t read Revelation in a while. I just thought it funny, how someone can be so sure of his end time scenario, where he might actually be calling a reference to Christ ‘the anti-christ’.[a bit prophetic, don’t you think? Revelation is about the story of the Son of God triumphing over the forces of evil, but those who hold to the strong antichrist view, it just seems fitting for them to mistake ‘Christ’ for ‘antichrist’, if this is all you see when you read the book, then that’s what you will SEE!] NOTE; Let me overview a little bit more. The above interpretation of the rider on the white horse being ‘antichrist’ grows out of an entire ‘scheme’ of end time events that was developed in the 19th and 20th centuries. These were good men [John Nelson Darby] who came to embrace certain views of end time things [Rapture]. To these brothers they see the Church [believers] ‘taken away’ in the first few chapters of Revelation. They say ‘Jesus is speaking to the churches by his Spirit, then you have no more ‘churches’ being spoken to’. God tells John to ‘come up here’ [heaven] and they see this as the ‘secret Rapture’ where the church is taken away. The reason they see it like this is in Revelation you see Gods wrath on those that ‘dwell on the earth’ and therefore believers can’t be here! Even though you will find actual references of the Devil fighting the Saints. Making war against those who ‘keep the Word of God’ and all sorts of references of the enemy fighting believers thru out the book. The ‘Rapture’ brothers will say ‘these groups are those who got saved after the church left’ well, if they are saved, they are ‘in the church’ technically speaking. So it is possible [very likely too me!] that ‘Christians’ are on the planet when these hard times take place. They also will say ‘these references to those who keep the Word of God’ are to certain Jews who are converted [again all new testament language to ‘the Israel of God’ and things like this are speaking of those who have come to know God by faith, even Jews] so the fact that thru out the rest of the book you find language like this, tells me the ‘church’ didn’t get secretly taken away. And then most importantly, you find CLEAR verses actually speaking of Jesus coming, in PLAIN LANGUAGE, and these verses are looked at as ‘the final stage of the second coming’ or other verses referencing Christ [like the rider on the white horse] being called ‘anit christ’. To me all these brothers ‘suffer from’ a mistake that they warn others about making. That is ‘interpret the plain meaning of scripture first, before going to lengths to develop doctrines from that which isn’t plainly in the text’. If God has ANY PEOPLE ON THE EARTH WHO ARE CALLED ‘SAINTS’ THOSE WHO KEEP THE WORD OF GOD and any other references like this, then plainly these references show that Christians are on the planet during this time. The Rapture guys will so much as accept this, but then they come up with all sorts of different categories for these ‘converts’ who are ‘saved’ during the tribulation. My argument would simply be ‘so if you admit there are actual converts in this tribulation time, then it very much is possible, even thru your own interpretation, to have believers on the earth during this time’. So how then does God ‘spare them from his wrath’ while they are going thru all these difficulties? He does it by divine power. You see the believers thru out history going thru many times of ‘great tribulation’. You also see the lost world going thru many periods of ‘Gods wrath’. To the casual observer, these might look like the same thing. But to those going thru it, they know the difference. The simple fact that God has the ability to ‘keep those’ in Christ from his wrath is the answer. You don’t have to come up with all types of belief systems that say ‘Jesus secretly appeared between chapters 3 and 4 and the reason we know this is ….’ Why do stuff like this? There are very real and plain references to Jesus coming again in the book of Revelation. Don’t go and find some doctrine that comes from ‘silence’. That is ‘since the Spirit is no longer speaking directly to the churches after chapter 3, therefore Jesus came and took them all away’. Jesus is no longer speaking ‘to the churches’ because the main issue after chapter 3 is the outpoured wrath of God on an unbelieving world. We know he didn’t come and take all the believers away, because there are many verses dealing with his people being here, as well as very plain and open verses that say when he comes. So lets stick with the plain meaning first, and then you can try and ‘figure out who the 144,000 are’. Another note; I am really ‘delving’ into it for those who were taught his. At the end of the book of Revelation you do see ‘Jesus coming back with his saints’ and in the book of Thessalonians it says ‘don’t worry about those who have died, when Christ comes back, he will bring them also’. There was a very real 1st century fear that the loved ones who have died were gone. Paul deals with this in Thessalonians as well as Corinthians chapter 15. I know to us it seems silly for believers to have held to this fear, but the fact is it was something the Apostle Paul dealt with. So you see the New Testament speaking of ‘Christ coming back with the Saints’ as a hope of the resurrection. That is Jesus brings back [at the 2nd coming] the ‘spirits’ if you will, of all who have been with him for thousands of years. These will ‘reunite’ with their bodies at the Resurrection. Those who are living at this point will be instantly glorified [1st Thessalonians 4] so to read a verse that says ‘Jesus comes back with his saints’ shouldn’t cause you to think ‘well, how did all the saints get there? He must have secretly come back and taken them, there you have it’ well they got there BY DIEING! Jesus brings them back with him as was taught thru out the whole New Testament. Don’t go and develop some doctrine that believers didn’t ‘know about’ for 1800 years to explain this stuff. It’s simple if you just read and believe scripture as it is written. Also there is a real event at the second coming that ‘raptures’ believers into the air to meet with Christ. This event does happen. It happens at the second coming. So we too who are alive will be ‘caught up together with the Lord’. The return of Jesus back to earth takes place with all of the saints at the ‘touch down’ of Jesus feet on the planet. Truly he ‘comes back with all his saints’. Don’t go and develop a secret ‘second coming’ [rapture] that took every one away at another time. The ‘rapture’ takes place at the ‘second coming’ it is the event of us going up to meet him in the air at the moment of resurrection! NOTE; this also brings us back to the verses in Isaiah ‘not speaking your own words’. Many of the brothers who teach these things are well meaning gospel preachers. Good churches who lead people to Christ. Most of them are taught this stuff at bible school, or from well meaning ‘fathers of the faith’ that they looked up to. During these formative years they are told ‘this is what the Rapture is’ along with all sorts of other learning. They don’t have time to spend years ‘un learning’ this stuff. They mean well. Often times they only question it as they leave the learning environment of college and become long term students of the bible and history. A lot of times when we put ‘preachers out into the work’ they come with these pre conceived ideas that they learned along the way. The problem is if people are teaching things that ‘are the words of men’ [to put it nicely!] then they are ‘speaking their own words’. While every teacher is susceptible to this, we do it at an alarming rate in today’s media world. It’s so easy to catch a preacher teaching this on TV, or to read a Tim Lahaye book on the end times. I see some of this as a result of the Protestant churches ‘coming out from all historical truth, the fathers of the ancient church’ and going with the ‘bible only’. Now going with the ‘bible only’ is a good thing. I have used the bible to show you in this whole entry why the Rapture as taught today holds no ground. But the strong independent protestants truncate themselves from the heritage of all the saints [All the great church fathers, down thru the present time] and leave themselves open to having too much influence from a small part of the Christian church. In my experience I found it ‘amusing’ how the Fundamental Baptists were so much like the Assembly of God in all of these doctrines, and yet the fundamental Baptists viewed them as heretics over the gift of tongues. They couldn’t see that they had so much in common, even the wrong stuff on the Rapture! So it would do us all good to sit back, read the writings of church history, study the bible, pray, DO EVANGELISM [the great commission was to go and make disciples, not even get into all this stuff!] and over time allow the Spirit of God to lead you. You will find that you as a believer can disagree on these end time issues and still work together for the cause Of Christ in your community.
(505) The other day when I took one of my homeless buddies for a ride to see some of the new development around town, we stopped by the new baseball field and being we were right there I took for the first time some real good pictures of the Harbor Bridge. I have taken lots of pictures these last few years with my cell phone, sometimes the pictures are prophetic. Once I took some pictures of a train, the same day I read some real significant prophecies on trains. So for around a week I have had this cool looking picture of a bridge on the phone. Just 3 days ago the worst bridge collapse in years [possibly ever] happened in the U.S. It was the I 35 bridge in Minnesota. All you can see on the news for the last few days is the bridge collapse. NOTE; I don’t want to make light of this incident, people died. But I do want to say, people might think ‘hey, go take a picture of a bank, you might get some money!’ It doesn’t work that way. I remember one time at the Fire House I was watching them say the lotto numbers on the news with a friend. I guessed like 3 or 4 of the numbers. My friend, who played ‘religiously’ was a little surprised. So he says ‘how did you do that’ I told him ‘usually the Lord gives me all the numbers, but I don’t think he would want me to use it for this’ he seriously tells me ‘I don’t think the Lord would mind if you gave them to me’!
(506) Today’s 8-3-07, I have been looking forward to this week. I basically have been ‘lying low’ for the summer, and really needed to get out and see our guys. Today I will be ‘driving the perimeter’ of a bunch of cities that I used to drive while going to work. I am still on workman’s comp but plan on putting in for retirement soon. So as I have been looking forward to re connecting with a few brothers, and launching some regional home groups, yesterday I do a little yard work and move some bricks and stuff. Sure enough my back hurt so bad I could barely walk. Besides the fact that I still am having some residual effects of ‘disorientation’ from this viral infection of the inner ear. Its like I can’t walk anyway, plus I can’t see straight! ‘Screw it’ [sorry] but I have too much to do than to sit around and whine about it. I am looking forward to this day, I believe I am going to see some good fruit. ‘Get out of the City and dwell in the fields, even in Babylon. There I will be with you and there I will deliver you from the hand of the enemy’ [bible]. You will never get better if you don’t ‘GO’.
(507) Woke up this morning after a very difficult day, I knew it was going to be hard to pray. I then sat down and wrote for around 2 hours straight! I went back to some older entries and added a bunch of stuff. Was my day hard because of not being able to walk well, or feeling ‘stoned’ 24/7? No, not really. If that’s all I had to deal with, I would have been happy. Why am I sharing this? Because as I sat down to write I covered things that I had no idea I was going to write about, to be honest it feels like a prophetic function. Many times as I made radio messages, I had no idea I was going to say the stuff I said. I will later review the tapes and see things that I didn’t even know I knew! So Paul tells Timothy ‘Preach the word, be instant in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering [ouch- maybe in the Greek it really means ‘short suffering’?] and doctrine. For in doing this YOU WILL SAVE YOURSELF, AND THOSE WHO HEAR YOU’. There is a prophetic function that causes both the hearers and the speakers to ‘receive salvation’ as a result. Paul said ‘woe is me if I preach not the gospel’ Paul knew that he would actually be ‘cursing himself’ if he didn’t preach, or communicate the Word of the Lord. Jeremiah said ‘I determined not to speak anymore in the name of the Lord’ but then there was this ‘fire in his bones’. God said ‘I put this thing in you, if you don’t let this fire out, it will consume you’. It says in Revelation ‘fire proceeds out of their mouths and consumes their adversaries’ ‘we overcame him [enemy] by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony’. God makes deposits into prophetic people [all of us are prophetic!] these deposits are like ‘fire inside you’ it is meant to ‘devour the enemy’. If you don’t let it out it can ‘burn you from the inside out!’
(508) I kid my daughter’s friends and stuff. They will do something silly, and I say ‘I am going to put that on the blog’ or ‘I told that story on the radio’ they know I am kidding, they will say ‘you better not!’ These are all 13-15 year olds. I am finally going to tell one. One of the girls is a real nice kid. She is a Christian and her family goes to church and all. She has a stepfather and a bunch of brothers and sisters. She is Hispanic [I say this for a reason] [actually I was just going to kid and say the reason is ‘I don’t like Hispanics’- but I think that would have been going overboard. Many of my best buddies are Hispanic!] A couple of years ago this girl got on the school bus with a pocket knife. And basically the no tolerance policy had her kicked out of school, and my daughter got put in a disciplinary area of our schools for a few months. It was a mess. Right after it happened I of course forgave the little girl, and I dealt with the whole problem of my daughter getting involved. It was so easy for this nice ‘Hispanic’ family to want to retreat and hide and maybe even move from the block. After all, it was ‘living up’ to all the stereo types that exist. I actually right away waved to the family when I saw them. After the initial punishments that the kids went thru, I let my kids be friends and all. I could tell that at first the family was real worried about living with this ‘mark’ or stereotype. I even would wind up kidding the girl when she would come over. I would say ‘let’s put up all the knives’ and stuff like that. Not to take it too lightly, but to be real. I have been much worse than this in my life. I shared with her a few weeks ago about how I was dreaming of the floods coming, and then a few weeks later Texas got the worst floods on record [apart from a hurricane]. She was shocked, as I was telling her the dream; she said ‘I too just had those dreams’. I shared how the bible says ‘God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh and your sons and DAUGHTERS will prophesy, and dream dreams’. She is a cute kid. I will have to tell her name now, for the rest of the story. Her name is ‘Hannah’ the reason I had to share it is because one time one of the girls asked what a certain name meant [?] and I shared the spiritual meaning behind it. This kid asks ‘what’s my name mean John’ [I know I shouldn’t have] but I said something like ‘the devils child’. Now right away they knew I was kidding ‘like, shut up’ and then I told her the story of Hannah in scripture. But the whole point is it would have been so easy to stereotype this family. This little girl has a calling, like all kids, we obviously don’t want our kids hanging out with kids who get in trouble, but be sensitive to the Spirits leading. These kids remember the stories you tell them about God. It stays with them!
(509) Let me make a distinction here between ‘professional clergy/salary’ and New Testament giving. Jesus had a treasury [a collection of money/material goods to meet his needs and the disciples during the 3 year ministry of Christ]. During this time THEY WERE THE ONLY ‘STOREHOUSE’ OF GOD ON THE EARTH. [Apart from the actual one at the Temple, this is a transition stage if you will] They were the fledgling movement of Jesus in the beginning stage. Theologians usually point to Pentecost [Acts 2] as the birthing of the church; I have no real problem with that. Jesus said if you have a disagreement take it to the church [what church? He said this before Acts 2. And scripture speaks of ‘the church in the wilderness with Moses’ the point is you had groups of people following hard after God!] During the time of Christ’s earthly ministry people did voluntarily give of material goods to Jesus and the disciples, this is acceptable in Christian circles. You also had the Pharisees [hired clergy!] operating along a legalistic system of giving that came along with their religion [The Tithe!] so right from the start you are seeing a major difference in the way the New Testament church would function, as opposed to the religious law. During this time of giving to Jesus they simply received whatever was freely given. Sort of like the ‘freewill offerings’ taught in the Old Testament. You find Judas getting upset because the woman poured the expensive perfume on Jesus. Judas wanted to sell it because he was stealing from ‘the bag’ [of cash]. So during Jesus ministry we find a great example of how giving and receiving would be carried out in the church. Pretty simple. This style was keeping true to the actual teachings Jesus taught ‘give freely, freely you have received, freely give’ and all the other things Jesus taught. Later on in the Epistles and the book of Acts you see real examples of this being carried out. The only ‘tithers’ were the Jerusalem church. I have explained this before. Not real hard to see! But if you never ‘saw’ this before now, then it is hard. After God shows it to you, you begin to see it all thru out scripture. This leaves us today with the free grace and duty to give to those in need, which can include ‘laboring elders/pastors’ a major difference between ‘hired clergy’ or ‘using your gift to make money’. Jesus and the disciples used their gifts many times with out taking offerings. They did not see this as wrong. You often hear in today’s world ‘I am only asking you to give to me for your benefit’ now Paul does say this at times, the point is you have the average believer hearing this thru TV, when he ‘goes to church’ and the appeal is endless. There are many times where ministry was carried out with no appeals for an offering. Let’s be attentive to what God is saying. Paul did like me, he basically said to the Corinthians ‘I have not charged you for the gospel’ he also said ‘I had a right to receive support, but I chose to lay this right down’ it seems quite plain to me that it is very scriptural for lots of ‘ministers’ to decide to take this route. Some do [not just me] but we often don’t leave this option on the table when training young men to be Pastors. We teach a form of giving that simply looks at the basic need for upkeep of the building, paying salary and stuff like this. In this environment you can’t really teach it the way I just did. But then you have the rise of ‘home/cell’ churches. The ‘emerging churches’ and all types of free flowing styles of Christians getting together and sharing their faith. Many of these movements do not take money at all, except maybe for the meeting of the real needs of people around them. As you can imagine this can cause a type of insecurity to rise up in the hired clergy. The Pharisees said ‘If Jesus keeps doing his stuff, we will lose our position and place in society’. There is a real fear when someone sees the possibility of ‘loosing his job’. So the old time clergy will fight against this more legitimate expression of ‘church’ by saying ‘they are not a church’. And then you have all the problems you have seen me write about up until now! So in grace give to support the work of God, there definitely are good ‘churches’ and Pastors doing good works. Use discernment, go with Gods leading. Give freely. Pastors, some of you can take Paul’s example and ‘do it for free’. Some already do! NOTE; I have heard it taught like this ‘well, if people get offended and think churches/ministries are asking for too much money, then let them get offended. I am doing it for their own good’. Paul actually said one of the reasons why he didn’t take money from the Corinthians was so people couldn’t use the ‘money excuse’ against him. Paul’s attitude wasn’t ‘well, if they get offended, let them’ Paul said ‘I will go out of my way to not offend people, or give them excuses to speak against the gospel’ so much of today’s ‘offense’ that is given because of the churches money focus is a bad thing. Christians are responsible to remove any barriers that the world has. Even if we have a ‘right’ to the offering, sometimes you lay that ‘right’ down for the sake of the gospel.
(510) I read a book years ago on ‘church planting’. It was a good book. I remember one of the stories how a brother came to preach a series of meetings in some church. During the week of meetings they collected thousands of dollars. The type of teaching focused on all the scriptures on ‘giving to get’. After the week was over the ‘evangelist’ took the Pastor and their wives to a jewelry store. The Evangelist bought his wife a diamond [or some other jewelry?] and spent all the money on it. He sincerely told the Pastor ‘this is the reward for my service to God’. Because of the tremendous lack of balance in today’s church, stuff like this happens. I do not see this above brother as a ‘fake’ or false prophet [you might!] I see him as a victim [willingly] of the wrong focus and understanding of all we have taught these past few years. I do wonder what they think when they read 1st Timothy 6, or the verses on ‘watch out for the love of money’ or Peters words on ‘elders, take oversight of Gods flock, not for the sake of filthy money, but out of a pure heart’. They seem to think the other verses on Gods provisions trump these verses. It just isn’t so. We do have a long way to go.
(511) I don’t know how many of you old Jersey friends are reading this blog. I know there are a few. To my old friend John Lattarulo, I am looking at some old pictures that I have when we were kids. It’s got one of me and you flying a kite in Hudson County Park. My old friend Mark Lillis is holding the kite. I am holding the string and you are holding the spool of string. The reason I had to laugh is the ‘spool’ of string must have a few 100 thousand yards of string on it. It looks like a full roll of paper towels or something. I said to myself ‘gee, you think we had enough string?’ Thought it was funny.
(512) 500 years ago the bible was written in Latin. A man named William Tyndale secretly published thousands of New Testaments in English. The ‘church’ saw this as absolute rebellion. It wasn’t just the ‘wicked Catholics’ it was a mindset that began to see as ‘sacred’ something that was once truly used of God. But the church couldn’t distinguish between that which they saw as ‘untouchable’ and the true intent of God. I see the same thing among Protestants today. Many of them see it sacrilegious to challenge the whole idea of ‘Sunday Church’. They see this structure that worked well for hundreds of years, and they cant see that God can operate ‘outside’ of this limited perspective. Many believers were killed if they were found with Tyndales bibles. The ‘institutional church’ came against the organic one in a big way. Today we see our mistakes, and we understand that God is merciful. Those who are fighting against the purpose of God for his Ecclesia really think they are ‘doing God service’. In a few centuries we will see different. NOTE; why do I harp on this issue so much? Some theologians actually understand all the things I have written on the ‘Local Church’ and agree that she was a ‘community of people’ as opposed to what we think today. They believe that maybe it was Gods plan for the church to ‘grow into’ a hierarchal institution as seen in the Catholic/Orthodox church. Some think ‘what the church has become is what God wanted, even though it is not what she was like in the first century’. The reason this is bad/wrong is because one of the most basic truths of Christianity is the believers ‘full access and acceptance with God by faith’ Luther’s doctrine of ‘the Priesthood of all believers’. To then develop an idea about ‘church’ that seems to say to believers ‘you are not legitimate unless you do such and such’ this takes away the heart of the believers right to function and spread the Kingdom by virtue of the fact that ‘they believe’. God chose ‘justification by faith’ I know we usually see ‘justification’ in terms of ‘being saved’ but it carries with it someone who at one time was ‘illegitimate’ and has now become ‘legitimate’. So any so called ‘development’ of an institutional church, that lends itself to the de legitimizing of the average believer, in my view is not what God intended. In essence these ‘structures’ can be a real hindrance to the freedom of all believers, if we use them to declare to Christians ‘you are not under the authority of a local church’.
(513) A few months ago, before I got sick or had any physical problems, I wrote a dream on this blog. I forget where it is, but it is on the blog. It said ‘I was in a shop area; I was going to different stands. I stopped at one that was a ‘physician’s stand’ I purchased a trumpet and walked away with a limp’. Now I know I gave the best interpretation that I thought at the time. It just recently dawned on me that I have spent the summer going to ‘physician’s offices’ and I have been walking away from them with this real limp. Sometimes we have a tendency to ‘spiritualize’ prophetic things. Some times they turn out to be more real than you could have imagined!
(514) I am praying one of my ‘intercessory’ prayers where I go thru a long list of things that I feel are important. I just prayed for the church worldwide, the Korean hostages in Afghanistan and a bunch of other stuff. Even by name for the people who have emailed me and asked for prayer! I told them I would regularly pray for them by name! The reason I stopped is not to ‘brag about my praying’ but I just prayed for all the unbelievers in the world. I don’t generalize it too much; I try to pray for specific people groups. I say ‘Father, I pray for every group outside of the Covenant of your Son. For all Muslims, for all Israel and for every one else outside of Christ. Father reveal your Son to them. Send laborers into the harvest’ When scripture says ‘pray for the peace of Jerusalem’ it doesn’t mean for her military success. It doesn’t mean for her ‘standing’ in the geopolitical world ‘more money for defense’. When you ‘pray for the peace of Jerusalem’ or any other people group, you pray that God would open their eyes to the Prince of Peace!
(515) I want to talk a little on politics. I am not a Republican or a Democrat. This week the House of Representatives took a vote on certain pending legislation that would have given illegal aliens Social Security, it was added to a bill as one of the ‘add ons’ that politicians do to ‘slip’ things thru. Both sides play this game. Now during the floor vote the little machine that actually tallies the vote said ‘215-213’ in favor of the minority party [Republicans]. But being the Majority party is Democrat, they actually have the right to ‘say’ what the vote is. So they simply announced ‘the vote is 214 to 214’ and the tie always goes to the majority party. I am sure they figured ahead of time ‘this is what we are going to do, we believe that we are helping people, so what if we do this ‘little lie’. I admit it is no real big thing in the scheme of things, I do find it funny that this same group will state that one of its greatest achievements in this congressional year is ‘ethics reform’. I guess it means the ethics of the opposing side? The whole point is our country is really in serious trouble. This type of major childish division fuels our political parties. It goes on endlessly. I will try and explain the ‘Valerie Plame’ outing. Before we invaded Iraq [which I personally was against from the get go!] you had political people that were for it and against it. A book was just written that shows how the C.I.A. has been in open opposition to the Bush administration from day one. It goes into detail how for various reasons the C.I.A. had things against Bush. So before we invaded Iraq, you had a few people [in the CIA] that were actively trying to come up with evidence of why we shouldn’t invade. During this time a person named Joe Wilson went overseas to see if he could find proof that Iraq wasn’t trying to buy ‘yellow cake’ from the country of Niger. If he could show that there was no evidence, then this would undermine one of the reasons for invasion. He comes back after his trip and writes an open article in the New York Times that says ‘The Bush administration sent me to see if there was evidence, I went and came back and told them there was none. They obviously are ignoring their own people that they sent’. Now when the Bush administration read this, they went ‘huh’ [or some other cuss word]. In essence they had no idea who this guy was, and who sent him. Joe Wilson claimed that the Vice President sent him. Cheney calls the C.I.A. [the group that is overjoyed about this by the way] and finds out after digging into it that some lady named Valerie Plame sent him. She suggested he go, because he speaks French and would be able to handle the people better [I think it was French?] O, I left out one little detail. Valerie Plame is the wife of Joe Wilson. So after a few weeks of the press saying ‘look, Bush ignored his own guy who brought back evidence’ Cheney does something that is natural. It is a real part of politics. He tells his staff [Lewis Libby] get the word out that we didn’t send this guy, his wife did. Why would you do this? So people wouldn’t think that Cheney’s office sent him, like he was saying. During all of this, there was a little ‘oversight’ that nobody took into account. Valerie Wilson had what was called ‘undercover status’ she had previously done some undercover work for the C.I.A. and held this status. This made it illegal to ‘out her name’ in public. Now most reporters in town knew who she was. She had even appeared on the cover of a magazine, using her name! If you are really undercover you don’t do this. Even Andrea Mitchell [a well respected reporter] said ‘everyone knew she worked for the C.I.A.’ Now, of course the other side [Democrats] demanded ‘who outed her on purpose’ they do a special investigation and find out it was Dick Armitage [someone who the Democrats like!] who inadvertently told her name to Robert Novak [who at the time worked for C.N.N.] So what was really a story about ‘get the truth out, we didn’t send Joe Wilson, his wife did’ became a national joke. A huge game of ‘I got you now’ played out on a national scale by politicians who are acting like children while the world is facing real problems. This is why the Democrats will say one of their greatest achievements this year is ‘ethics reform’ they see ‘getting the other side’ as achievement. Today I don’t defend either side. The fact is if these childish games are played on such a large scale. The public thinking ‘wow, Scooter Libby got off Scott free’ for a horrible crime [he did lie during the investigation, and they got him on perjury- Bush commuted his sentence]. While the politicians are playing a game of ‘gottcha’ it is hurting this country. Most of you didn’t even realize all the stuff I just showed you in context, because we are victims of the news medias ‘sound bites’. Pray for our country. No side [Republican/Democrat] are perfect. Scripture says a house divided against itself can not stand. Sad to say, we are looking like that house more and more as the years go by. NOTE; Joe Wilson sued the White House saying they purposely caused harm to him and his family by outing his wife. A Federal judge just recently ruled on their case. The judge said ‘when you plunge yourself into the fray of political action to the degree that you say openly ‘Cheney sent me’. That in this environment it is perfectly acceptable for the other side to ‘get the facts out’. The judge saw it the way I just explained it to you. Also during this whole time, congress did a special investigation concerning Joe Wilson’s open claims that ‘Cheney sent me’ they found him to have been lying. Another interesting thing, the book that just came out exposing the tremendous political rift between the C.I.A. and the Bush administration, shows that there were a few people in the C.I.A. that actually held to the conspiracy theory that the Bush administration knew the planes were heading towards the towers, and let them hit so we would have an excuse to invade Iraq. Sort of like the ‘Gulf of Tonkin’ or how some believe that F.D.R. knew of the Pearl Harbor attack, but let it happen anyway. You will find these ideas on the internet from all types of people. It is alarming to think that people in the C.I.A. actually held to this. I believe Joe Wilson is a good man at heart, his wife also. He sincerely believes that there was more to the ‘outing of his wife’. He felt like Karl Rove was secretly behind it to get him. While there is no doubt that the White House ‘pushed back’ against him and his wife, the evidence seems to show that it was for the purpose that I revealed above. During this time many Democrats knew this to be true, they just played the man to their advantage. It’s like going along with someone’s miss conceptions, because after all ‘he might just take down this President, or at Least Cheney’. So people become tools in the hands of the parties to get what they want. The fact is poor Wilson really had this conspiracy thing going ‘they got my wife’. The judge ruled ‘yes they got her, but it was to show that your story wasn’t true’. It’s like lying on the vote ‘215-213’ into ‘214-214’ you sincerely believe what you are doing is right for the country, so if it means you have to lie to achieve it, you do. Despite the fact that you just passed ‘ethics reform’. All people have ways to justify their own sin, while finding the other sides to be deplorable. NOTE; Let me give you a few known facts in this case. Before the war, Colin Powel gave a speech at the U.N. that included a reference to Iraq trying to purchase ‘yellow cake’ [an ingredient needed to build a Nuclear bomb] from Niger. The C.I.A. had said ‘we are not sure about this piece of intelligence, it is possible to be not true’. The fact that Powel used it is seen to be the Bush administrations ‘selective use’ of intelligence for their own purpose. There was a lot of ‘fabricated’ intelligence that the opposing side in Iraq actually made up so the U.S. would invade. Saddam's enemies weren’t idiots! Now after all was said and done in this affair, some today still believe that Iraq really was trying to obtain this stuff from Niger, others don’t. Great Britain has stated they believe other intelligence to be true, despite the possibility that some was made up. They insist that they have other reasons to believe it. So the Joe Wilson premise, that Iraq wasn’t proved to be trying to get this stuff has some truth to it. After Powell left the administration he also felt like the Bush administration might have taken advantage of his standing by allowing this in the speech. What was also true is the open fact, that many countries intelligence agencies all pointed to the fact that Iraq was wanting a Nuclear Weapon. So to many people this point is moot. My point is both sides play into the game of ‘gotcha on this one’. Most politicians who were fueling the ‘go get em Wilson’ had to have known the basic premise of all I just showed you in this entry. They will ‘blow it out of proportion’ on purpose. After all the Republicans did it to Clinton! [they did!] So the game is non stop. Joe Wilson lied, an investigation showed this. Not about the major stuff, but about the fact that Bush didn’t send him. Clinton lied, not about ‘major stuff’ but about, well you know! Libby lied, not about outing Wilson’s wife, but about who first told him Wilson’s wife was Valerie Plame. He did lie about this, even though he wasn’t the main ‘leaker’. They caught him in a lie. The Judge gave him over 2 years in prison and a huge financial fine. Bush commuted the prison term. Of course the Democrats were outraged. The game never stops! NOTE; Jesus said a strange thing in the gospel. He said ‘if these injustices can happen when the tree is green, what will happen when anarchy is here’ [my paraphrase]. Scripture says ‘where envying and strife are, this is confusion and EVERY EVIL WORK’ The strategy of the enemy is to cause there to be this type of environment. The crucifixion of Jesus took place in the heated political posturing of the day. The Jews saying ‘he claims to be our king, we have no king but Caesar’ [even though they despised Caesar!] the inference was ‘Pilate, if you don’t kill this guy, well you must not think too highly of Caesar’. Pilate writes ‘the King of the Jews’ over the Cross. The Jews say ‘don’t put that! Put ‘he said I was the king of The Jews’ [because this would make it look like the Jews had him killed because of their so called ‘love for Caesar’] Pilate says ‘I have written it and it will stay’. All this happened according to Jesus ‘in a green tree’ which meant during a time of true govt. and law existing. Though Rome was not Christian, they actually had a system of courts and justice that allowed appeals to me made and all. Jesus is saying ‘if they can do this type of injustice during true govt. just wait till anarchy gets here’. When you have this type of political posturing take place, the enemy can ‘slip in’ abortion and all types of stuff. The actual fact that there are occasions in this country where babies ‘slipped out’ during an abortion and made it. And the Doctors cant ‘kill it’ because it’s too late [these things have happened] makes you think ‘what in the world are we doing’ but in the midst of all this strife, there is confusion and ‘every evil work’. The answer is not to be found in politics. Its found in ‘if my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves, and pray and turn from their sins. Then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land’. Our land desperately needs to be healed! NOTE; I do find it ironic that politicians try to pass ‘ethics reform’ while at the same time openly say ‘it is not a politicians job to legislate morality’ ethics [moral standards] reform [repentance] is ‘imposing morality’ by definition! Yet if you were to ask them ‘why do you support the murder of babies in the womb’ they will say ‘I am personally against it, but it is not my job to impose morality’ this my friends is hypocrisy in it’s highest form. NOTE; Jesus one time told the Jews ‘I come to you in truth, I come in the name of my Father. I present myself to you in truth as his Son. I have told you truth. Yet you will not believe me. Yet when another comes to you in his name, you believe him’ Scholars have related this to the anti Christ. It’s possible. But if you put this in context of all I just showed you, it’s also possible that Jesus is foreseeing their future accusation against him by their so called allegiance to Caesar. In essence he might be saying ‘not too long from now you guys will be appealing to Caesar as your king, though you will be doing it at the rejection of your true king’. They were more than willing to acknowledge Rome’s authority over them when it seemed convenient to their cause. Yet the King they have been waiting for, for thousands of years shows up and they wont take his word for it!
(515) I want to challenge you guys. I have spoken a lot on this blog on your responsibility to ‘bring the Kingdom’ wherever you go. Remember, because we have access to God [Jacobs ladder/the Cross] wherever we go we are ‘setting up that ladder’ [bringing an atmosphere where God and man meet]. I have also shown you how God commands us all to go into the world and preach the gospel. Many times we spend way too much time trying to figure out ‘how will I fund it, where will the money come from’ well I hate to say this, but it comes from YOU! What! Show me scripture! Well just a reminder ‘he that is not working, let him get a job so HE CAN HAVE TO GIVE TO THOSE IN NEED’ ‘See a brother in need. Feed him’ ‘give to him that asketh of thee’ ‘how can you say you love God, who you don’t see. When you don’t meet the real needs of your brothers, who you do see’. Now, for sure there are verses where Paul asks for others to give financially into the work. I am not saying there is no biblical authority for doing this. I am saying God does expect all believers to share of their own time and resources to spread the Kingdom. You don’t get off the hook just because you gave into the church offering basket! I want to exhort you today to give yourself away somehow for the kingdom. If all you do is sit around and listen to talk radio, or read the papers and are inundated with how the poor and hurting are such a drain on society, you will get a critical spirit. If you begin touching the lost you will see them as real friends and people. Don’t try and figure out how you will fund your ministry, give yourself away instead!
(516) One of my buddies at the firehouse is a Christian. He sees the ministry stuff I do and all. So one time he makes an honest effort to do something out of charity. He tells me how this lady called the firehouse and asked if any guys wanted some fire wood, all they had to do is come and trim all her trees. To be honest, the cost of trimming these Mesquites would have been more than the value of the wood, but my buddy wanted to do a good deed. He goes over and trims a bunch of trees, he uses his chain saw. As he goes to get more limbs and stuff to bring them back to the truck, he sees his chainsaw is gone! Sure enough someone stole it. He says ‘see, John. I am trying to help the Lord out and the Devil goes and steals my chainsaw’. I told him ‘the way the enemy works, I am surprised when you went back to get the limbs, the lady didn’t say ‘sonny, I hope you don’t think you’re getting that wood for free!’
(517) A few weeks ago I dropped off the tapes for my radio program. The station is right across the street from our mental health clinic. A lot of ‘homeless/mentally challenged’ people always walking around. The secretary from the radio station has told me they lock the doors because they are always getting these guys walking in and stuff. They basically are ‘hiding out’ in their building. So being I think I am the only ‘preacher’ who actually hand delivers the tapes, there is no mail box or anything to put them in. So I have found myself knocking at the door, sometimes for around 10 minutes or so before anyone opens the door. I have told you guys I kinda have long hair, look at little ‘rough’ myself, definitely not what you would think a ‘preacher’ would look like. So the last time I waited for the secretary to get the door, she always looks a little apologetic when they let me in after standing their a few minutes. I finally realized that they must see me thru the tinted glass doors and think I am one of the ‘mentally challenged’ people always walking around. So as I ‘prophetically saw this’ [kidding] I told her as she opened the door ‘Now I realize why you make me wait, you guys think I am one of the ‘strays’, to be honest her face turned a little red. I said ‘I am going to put this on my blog’ she said ‘I never admitted to this!’ I know she didn’t, but to be faithful I thought I would put this entry in like I said. NOTE: If she ever reads this I know she will say ‘I can’t believe he really put this on the blog!’
(518) Yesterday we had a real good outreach day in Bishop. The Lord allowed for a lot of my homeless friends to meet a lot of the original group of guys. Today we plan on going back to Kingsville and just doing an outreach at one of the parks. I feel the Lord wants people to simply ‘act’. Not be a ‘faker’ but an initiator! Get out of the city and dwell in the fields! Sometimes it is the simple act of motion that starts the ball rolling. One of the guys asked me about the vision in Ezekiel ‘a wheel within a wheel’ is it U.F.O.s? I told him I doubt it, but one of the meanings of the vision is God is ‘continually in motion’ as Saint Thomas Aquinas taught, God is the ‘prime mover’. He got the ball rolling! As Gods kids he has given us the inherent ability to ‘get the ball rolling’. Why do we hesitate to act? Out of fear, greed, I want my own thing. All sorts of base lusts and sins keep us from moving. Sometimes we are waiting for the specific exact thing to do, and God says ‘I will give you all the details son, but I can’t give them to you unless your start rolling’! I found it interesting that I hooked up with one of the original families in Bishop. The brother and nephew of real good friends. They have all been to our church in the early days. The brother accepted the Lord thru our ministry [I think the nephew too; I will be baptizing him soon. I know he is a believer for sure, I just didn’t bother to ask if he got saved during those early days] I thought it interesting because the brother [the kid’s uncle] had another brother who was one of our original guys, who died years ago from bad stuff. The brother mentions how I used to know ‘BeBe’ and the nephew says ‘you knew my other uncle brother John’. I didn’t realize he never knew him. There are so many related friends and all thru these families it never dawned on me that this kid was too little to remember the uncle who died years earlier. As we were talking I then re tell some old stories [good ones!] and I trace the original family member, who is this kids Grandfather, who by the way is also dead [many years of drugs] and how the granddad and uncle were some of the original friends of mine. This nephew, who really sees me as his original ‘Pastor’ learned a lot of his family tree from this time. I finally gave him the card to this blog site and he was going to go home and get with another friend [the son of one of our main guys, also related to this family thru the marriage of the mom to the father. It’s a long story!] But these 2 younger kids [now in their early 20’s] were going to get online and read the whole story of the ministry that they never knew before. I just wanted to update you guys today. I didn’t want you to think all I am going thru is struggles. The Lord has really opened some regional doors for us this past week, so keep doing what God is telling you to do, and don’t forget to ‘get moving!’ NOTE; it was weird, as the nephew was asking me if I knew his other uncle who he never saw, but heard stories how he was crazy [shooting cops!] I remembered how 25 years earlier I was visiting his uncle in this exact same ranch property that this family owned. It was another old house that is now gone, but it just happened to have been this exact location of ranch, 25 years earlier! [It’s on the outskirts of Bishop, by Kingsville]. Also I spoke at this uncles funeral years ago, he is buried around 20 yards away from where we were having this discussion, in a little cemetery right next to the house. Also as I was dropping the nephew off in Corpus, he told me ‘brother John, we have your name hanging up in our house’ he told me that his mom has a baby picture of him, I guess when he was born, and it has me signing it ‘brother John’ along with other family members. I surely don’t remember, but it was special for him to have seen this picture for all these years. He must think ‘how in the ‘hell’ has this guy been involved in so many things. This white boy from Jersey’. He is like his dad, still alive by the way, but ‘in hiding’ if you will, he likes to kid a lot! NOTE: I remember taking this boys dad out to eat years ago. His dad tells me ‘brother John, where are we going to eat? I feel uncomfortable being in a crowded place’ he has done lots of prison time and all, but doesn’t like being where he might run into an off duty cop or something. I tell him ‘don’t worry Rudy, it’s just the buffet at Pizza hut’ [Kingsville] sure enough we go in and it’s not too crowded, after around 10 minutes about 25 on duty state troopers walk in and start eating, I guess they were having some convention or something. You could see the panic in my buddies face. It was funny!
(519) Since I have been sick these last few months, one of the results of the ‘vertigo/feeling always high’ thing has caused me to be claustrophobic. I have avoided closed spaces. So these doctor visits and stuff have me going to the stairs and avoiding the elevator. So what, a few flights of stairs are good for you. It’s not like Jersey, where all the buildings are high. Well, I have this appointment at one of our older hospitals. This building is high. I go in and find the doctors name on the wall map. Floor 8! So, you think the Lord made me face my fears? I hoofed it 8 floors! [Note; I just rode in one yesterday, I got tired of the stairs.]
(520) Recently a local ministrty came under fire for some things. They are friends of mine and run a christrian camp. I am not sure of all the accusations in the news. But when these types of problems arise with ministries it is common to hear ‘they are not under a local church’ or ‘a Pastor’. I also recently watched a service from a church in the Dallas area, it’s a large church with thousands of people. One of the comments from the Pastor was ‘the reason you have all these ‘little churches’ on every street corner is because no body wants to submit, everyone wants to do ‘their own thing’. He is a good man, he has been to Corpus before, he holds to strong apostolic thinking in terms of ‘Apostles are over churches’ and stuff. As I finished the book by Brian Welch [Korn] he shared how as he began learning and growing in the Lord that one Pastor/church told him ‘If you keep visiting these other churches I cant mentor you. You must choose loyalty’. Now in all of these areas above, where do people find safety? Is safety found in ‘being loyal to your church’? What if when we say things like this, if we really say it out of insecurity. The Pastors fear of ‘loosing this famous convert’. Or for other less than noble reasons. How can the Pastor with the large independent church see all the ‘little churches’ as ‘Pastors doing their own thing’ but yet not see how he falls into this same category when being looked at by the traditional church? They see all ‘independent bible churches’ in this light. The New testament shows Jesus preaching the gospel to people. Freely sharing and teaching the love of God. Jesus demanded loyalty to him. As the head of the church this is right. All Christian leadership also has a role to play in being ‘under shepherds’ they take oversight of new and upcoming believers. Safety is found in growing and learning from each other. Mutual submission to one another’s gifts. Seeing and partaking from all the believers in your area. It is not found in giving loyalty or submission to a specific group that meets in your part of town, to the exclusion of all other groups. ‘Well, are you with us or not’? When this wording is used to demand allegiance to a project or to tithe to a certain church, then it is unbiblical. Why? Because nowhere in the New testament do you see these divisions. I too believe a lot of the little ‘churches’ who meet on every corner U.S.A. are a result of wrong thinking and acting. It comes from Christians seeing an ‘overabundance’ of Pastors [millions] to the neglecting of the other gifts in the church. The simple fact that other titles/gifts are mentioned more in scripture than ‘the Pastor’ and yet in today’s church this title seems to mean ‘the main person in charge of a local church’ should cause us to re think our dependence on this office. It also leaves you with the majority of young men who feel this stirring in them to serve God, they are taught this stirring means ‘go be a Pastor’ and then of course you need to ‘start a church’ to be one! There you have it, all well meaning people starting tons of ‘well meaning churches’ [places to meet] and even though many of these churches [big and small] have found themselves in deep heresy and problems, yet when a ‘Para church’ ministry gets in trouble, the Pastors think ‘told you, they are not under us’. It is all a big mess. Safety, freedom, staying on course are all outgrowths of believers being ‘part of the Body’. You must be influenced by as many of the church leaders that have gone on before, as well as those speaking Gods Word today. Your loyalty to the people of God and the purpose of God should be fierce. As a leader yourself, don’t demand allegiance from others in a way that violates peoples consciences ‘you are either with me or not’ to the degree where you do like the Pastor did with Brian Welch. You are stifling their growth when you do this. Sure, if someone you are discipling goes off track, or heads towards a cult. You warn them, but this strong ‘you are under me, sit under my ministry for 20 years’ mindset is a hindrance to the growth of the kingdom. It is often born out of insecurity. The underlying idea that the main problem with today’s church is ‘too many people not willing to submit’ might be true. It would be right if ‘submit’ meant to surrender to Gods cause and purpose. But when we use it in a self serving way. To apply it to other independent ministers/churches because they are small, and yet not see it apply to you, because you ‘are big’ is self serving. It tends to say to those in hearing distance ‘get on board with this highly independent ministry’ who in many ways is just as truncated from the rest of the Body as the ‘little churches’ they are referring to. All Christians should function daily with each other as much as possible. Be in touch with all the people of God in your area. Don’t see a limited form of ‘church/Pastor/tithe’ as the primary measurements of your loyalty. I have already shown you how these ideas didn’t even operate in the early church like they do today. The overall themes of all of us as one people, striving for unity as we learn and mature in Christ. Overcoming the sectarian mindset that says ‘be a part of this church only’ rise above these fleshly divisions and tendencies that exist in Gods people. You will find safety in ‘the church’ [all the people of God, past and present!] and in him whom is the refuge of the Saints! ‘The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run into it and are safe’.
(521) Was listening to T.D. Jakes the other day. He was preaching on empowering people for the next level. He did share good points. One of the examples was ‘you need people to accomplish something. You can’t do it by yourself. You might be able to make a pound cake, but if you are going to run Sara Lee, you need help’. A good point, scripture shows us how even Moses taught delegated authority. Jesus was the Master at it! My teaching has come against the prevailing mindset in the modern church that says ‘you really can’t make a big impact on your own, you need to give money to us, and then you can reach the world’. Now if you said this, I am not talking about you. I have heard this many times over the years. My point is when we tell people ‘your pound cake doesn’t really matter, or have a big impact’ then we are violating the principle of Jesus when he taught us that our ‘little bit of loaves and fishes’ matters. I know bro. Jakes would agree, he was teaching right on the principle of business that he was sharing. I just wanted to show you how your little bit does matter. Jesus delegated all of us to do our little bit. True delegation empowers everyone. In today’s world we make appeals to people based on money ‘give your money and you will have a reward in all the ministries you support’. There is some truth to this, but Jesus really didn’t teach us that we could ‘witness’ vicariously. Or ‘touch the world vicariously’ he actually told us to GO. So to view the principle of partnering in a way that seems to let the people think if they give money they are off the hook, isn’t a viable biblical alternative. At the judgment he says ‘when I was hungry and thirsty and in jail you didn’t come to me’ he doesn’t say ‘you didn’t support financially the programs that were doing it’. So, go ahead and make your pound cake, you would be surprised how far it can go!
(522) I spent some time the other day with one of my new friends. He is homeless and does suffer from mental problems, more than most. He is a great friend and very smart. He retells all of the movies he has ever seen. He remembers every detail from them, and tells the spiritual lessons that God has shown him thru the movies. Disney stories and stuff ‘Iron Will’ ‘Where the Red Fern grows’. Somehow I mentioned the verse ‘where no Oxen are the crib is clean, but much increase comes from the strength of the Ox’ [somewhere in Proverbs]. I talked about the ‘stuff’ we sometimes have to wade thru in order to see increase. It is popular today to avoid the ‘stuff’ as you make your way to Sunday church. Try to make the goal ‘don’t step in the stuff’ . Heaven forbid one of these guys holding up a sign gets too close to the car, the ‘stuff’ might get on you. It’s possible to live your whole life staying clean and avoiding ‘the stuff’, but you would be surprised of the riches and treasures you can find in the people who are ‘covered by the stuff’.
(523) Yesterday [Sunday] we had a good fellowship day with some of our guys. We went to my church [a mega church] and also visited a friend’s tent church service that he holds in a park. A lot of my homeless friends were there. We also watched a few T.V. church services in between [at my house. Isaiah 58 says you’re blessed if you take the homeless to YOUR OWN HOUSE!] Thru it all we heard the themes of giving for Gods work, that God wants you to have favor and that Paul was content when he had both a little and a lot! I found it interesting, the message on ‘You don’t have to go thru life struggling, you have a ‘crown’ of favor on you’ was good to hear. A little too unbalanced. One of the verses on ‘our crown’ actually spoke of the blessings that the believer gets at the end of his life, a crown [reward] waiting for us at the resurrection. So in context you really can’t apply it to God always wanting us to have ‘the overabundance’ because part of the ‘being content’ verse speaks of being content even in lack. The teaching on giving was fine. Overall it seemed like the Lord was speaking to us that day on giving and serving and being part of the ‘Body of Christ’. All of the ‘church’ are the people of God. My friend who holds the tent meeting invited me to preach. I respectfully told him ‘I don’t do that anymore’. I didn’t want to let him down, there are so many others who can do it, I already speak too much! Radio and writing and all, give someone else a chance. I just have gotten away from the whole routine of ‘preaching at churches’ I feel I am not supposed to do it. Well I thought I would share this one with you guys, hope you got something from it.
(524) Let me give you guys a health update. I at this time only take natural supplements [vitamins and stuff] and am trusting the Lord to heal me. These last few months I have been prescribed various things for pain and the ‘dizziness’ and other stuff. In keeping with what I told you guys in the past, I have basically chosen to not take any medication long term. I have taken some of the med’s I was given, but nothing long term. The last back doctor kind of saw that I was in pain, but I told him ‘Doc, this is my last visit. I don’t want any med’s, lets just wrap this up’. So I don’t want to tell you guys to do this, but I wanted to let you know that this is what’s happening. I am not totally healed yet and I still want you guys to pray for me! But thought I would give you this update.
(525) Isaiah 60 ‘Arise, shine; for thy light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Darkness shall cover thee earth and gross darkness the people, but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee’ Like we said when we spoke on the kingdom of God, though the world is getting darker, the church gets brighter! We are ‘the light of the world’ the world needs us! They don’t want to admit it, but at the end of all atheism, humanism and every other ‘ism’ there is a void. They will be drawn to the light! ‘Gentiles SHALL come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising’ ‘thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side’ though these verses are Messianic in nature [they speak prophetically of Christ] yet they are also fulfilled thru us, because we are ‘extensions of Christ’ in the earth. We ARE his Body! ‘Then thou shalt see, and FLOW TOGETHER, and thy heart shall fear and be enlarged’ When the Lord is magnified, when his will and purpose take precedence, we FEAR him and are enlarged. We also flow together as Gods people. There is a real sense of your success being found in your brothers and sister’s success. We flow together. ‘In my wrath I smote thee, but in my favor I have had mercy on thee. Therefore thy gates shall be open continually’ in the ‘New Jerusalem’ [the Church] our gates are ‘open always’ people find access to come in and rest in God. But open gates also allow for there to be exit. Not ‘damnation’ here, but a going into all the world to preach the gospel. The people of God are made to find rest in him and be by still waters. Then there comes this churning, this ‘inner pull’ to go out ‘is it from God’ yes! God allows you to have seasons of rest and refuge, and then he calls you to the example of Christ. He compels you to look at the harvest and say ‘here am I, send me’. ‘The glory of Lebanon shall come to thee, the Fir tree, the Pine tree and the Box tree together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary, AND I WILL MAKE THE PLACE OF MY FEET GLORIOUS’ God will bring great diversity [Pine, Box, Fir tree’s] into one corporate function and purpose. We will no more say ‘I am Charismatic’ I am Baptist, I am Catholic, I am this or that. We will truly bring our diversity together and lay them at Christ’s feet. He makes the place of his feet glorious. Jesus washed the disciple’s feet; he was showing that this place of humility and service will be honored in Gods economy. It is the place of value and exaltation. He offers it to all, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of takers. ‘Whereas thou hast been afflicted and hated, I will make thee an eternal excellency; a joy of many generations’ God allows affliction and hatred for a season. Both natural Israel and her Messiah went thru this. We all will partake of it at one time or another; REJOICE when it happens, because God is preparing you for eternal excellency! ‘For brass I will bring gold, for iron silver, for wood brass and for stones iron, I will make thy officers peace’ we often preach and teach ‘for stones you will get gold’ we ‘skip’ the steps! God’s prosperity comes to those who patiently and consistently give and love and work and invest and do many things in stages. These people are not trying to turn stones into gold. They realize you go from stones to iron to silver and to gold. They have realistic expectations on living a consistent life. God will make our ‘officials’ peace. The verse that says let all your requests be known to God and Gods peace will keep your hearts and minds, this speaks of Gods peace being the ‘officiator’ Christians make good decisions when they cast all their care over to God. Gods peace comes in to officiate for us, we don’t have to worry about the next step, we simply need to rest and walk in it as it is revealed. ‘Violence shall be no more in the land, nor destruction in our borders, your walls shall be Salvation and your gates Praise’ this is speaking of a spiritual/heavenly city. God is already showing that his future place of rest, the ‘eternal city’ that needs no light, because the Lamb is the light, God is showing that it is a place where walls and gates are praise and salvation. Not brick and mortar! He will make this place glorious. ‘The Lord shall be the everlasting light, the days of mourning shall be ended Thy people shall all be righteous, they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will do it in my time’ God will extend you and cause all the people you work with to be right. A day is coming where the smallest one [least significant] shall have great influence. He will ‘grow you and your people like a branch thru the earth’ thru the people you bring into the Kingdom, God will allow great influence to go forth. God told Abraham ‘thru your seed shall all nations be blessed’ you are simply the ‘instigator/initiator’ of the thing, it will get carried out thru your spiritual children!
(526) One of the homeless brothers told me how he started feeling dizzy a few weeks back, before I started getting with him on a regular basis. Another friend shared his testimony with me, how God visited him years ago and he had this awesome experience. One of the ‘effects’ was he felt like he was ‘looking thru a glass’. Our key brother in Kingsville [one of them, I have a few] reminded me of a dream he had in prison, where he was on the highway overpass looking into the city and he saw as it were a ‘sea of people’. I have spoken on all of these experiences and images over these past few months. Often time’s people from the same spiritual family go thru like things. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Pray for those who you regularly work with and interact with as a Body. Three fold cords are not easily broken. There is strength in unity and agreement. Jesus said ‘where 2 or more agree, God will act’ be loyal to the brotherhood that exists in Christ.
(527) I was reading on a movement of Christians out of Austin who left the concept of ‘church’ as being the ‘place we go to on Sunday’ and have relocated their families to the lower class areas of town. These are Chinese believers who are seeing ‘church’ as community. I also remember reading an article a few years ago on ‘out of church Christians’. The article spoke on why so many people are ‘leaving church’ and addressed a lot of good things. Later in the article the writer then talked about ‘coming back from the wilderness journey into the church’. He still ‘saw’ church as the Sunday meeting. He misread what God was doing. Those who have left the ‘Sunday church model’ are not ‘in the wilderness’ so to speak. They are seeing ‘church’ as the entire community action that they are involved with. This is much different than simply ‘seeing’ the people who are ‘leaving Sunday church’ as disgruntled or dissatisfied believers. The new paradigm [really not new, it was around for the first few centuries] sees the actual community of people as ‘the church’. So for these to then see ‘going back to the Sunday model’ as coming out from the wilderness is not seeing the heart of the movement. I also read the critics who are against the ‘emergent model’. Some feel that they are giving in to liberal trends in theology [I am sure some are] and are fighting against the community model thinking they are ‘defending the faith’. You don’t have to embrace theological liberalism to see this new way of doing church. The first century Apostles were certainly not theological liberals, but they viewed church as community. I just thought I would share these few thoughts today, hope it helped. NOTE; Another interesting fact about the ‘out of the church building’ movement is that the Lord allowed for there to be a whole new way to communicate this truth thru the internet. During the time of the reformation you recently had the printing press invented by Guttenberg. It’s like the Lord opened up a door of mass communication right at the time of him raising up prophetic voices who would speak into the church at large. There were new groups of believers for the first time publishing all these small articles [Tractarians] and these writings were having a tremendous impact on the church. So today you have the availability of the net to allow the ‘common voices’ to speak into the church at large. This is actually part of the concept of the corporate voice versus the singular one [Pastor]. Many home church movements see the teaching of Paul in Corinthians as telling the church to all have an input, not just one main speaker. This is what is happening thru the net. Many voices are being heard. You then of course have the danger that our Catholic brothers raised during the reformation. The Catholics [some] believed if the bible was translated from Latin into the common language there would be all sorts of interpretations and stuff. Some of this came true! You had certain radical people who started ‘Waco’ [Muenster Prophets? If I remember well] type cults during this time. And it was a result of individuals coming up with their own ‘private’ interpretation of scripture. But the answer wasn’t to stifle the church, but to allow all believers to freely read and see the truth of God, despite the danger of a few going off track. So in the world of ‘being on line’ you can see a real revolution take place, are there possible areas of danger? Sure. But overall the internet has become a ‘printing press’ for the modern reformation! NOTE; another result of the reformation was the fact that many new believers would no longer ‘pay tithes’ into the old system. The instigating factor of the reformation was the abuse of indulgences, a money issue! So likewise today you are also seeing the strong ‘tithe or you are under the curse’ versus ‘give to your brothers in need’ mentality. It is only normal for those dependant on the tithe to fight against this. They see all the good things they want to accomplish, and they realize it can’t be done unless so many people tithe. The new churches are getting away from this. They see the actual concept of all Gods people living every day as ‘the church’ to be the real ‘change factor’ in the world. They don’t view the need for lots of money to come into the institution, they see all the people as the ‘institution’ and therefore the act of releasing them into the harvest will have a greater effect than all the money in the world.
(528) Isaiah 61 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me BECAUSE the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek, he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound’ Jesus read this verse in the gospel and said it was being fulfilled thru him. God anoints Jesus and us for set purposes. I find it interesting how this coincides with chapter 58 and deals with the hand of God to free people. To actually minister to real needs. In chapter 58 God rebukes Israel for thinking the anointing [Spirit] is for ritualistic religion, he tells them to do justice and reach out to the hurting. Jesus exemplifies this. He ‘proclaims’ liberty to captives. It’s like if someone were in a jail cell and the governor sent a message that said ‘you are already pardoned’. The message of the gospel is ‘you are free, God is not holding your sins against you. Only believe!’ We often preach ‘you must do so and so to get free’ Jesus said ‘you already are’. ‘To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, the day of vengeance of our God’ we must make it clear that a day of judgment is coming. The reality is God does forgive you, but you must come thru the Cross. It must be plain that all who reject Christ face a sure and certain judgment. A few years ago a very famous Charismatic preacher became a ‘universalist’ [someone who believes that everyone goes to heaven, or in this case that hell and judgment do not exist] He shared how when he stopped preaching ‘hell’ that it just made everyone feel better. It might make you feel better, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real! God wants us to tell people about this ‘acceptable time of the Lord’ but also warn them that if they refuse Gods grace, judgment is coming down the road. ‘To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness’ Now we are going to see a theme thru out the rest of the chapter. God wants to bring you out of mourning and into full restoration. I said in the previous chapters that rebuke and correction lead up to restoration. It is vital that we enter into joy! God wants us to come out of places of ‘heaviness’ [depression] and bring us to places of joy and peace ‘that we might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, and they shall build up the waste places, repair waste cities’ Who will do these things ? Those who have truly entered into praise! This is why it’s vital to make the transition into joy. It is the restoration process that enables us to move on to the next level. God says ‘you will have a scar, but no open wound’ There will be reminders of the desert you were in, that’s good. God says I want you to remember how awful it really was, never forget the ‘pit that I took you out of’ now that you are out, go and do my works! I have claimed these verses for over 20 years concerning building up waste cities and God doing it thru your seed. Yesterday we had a good outreach day in Kingsville. We got with some brothers and met at a park. I have a friend who is a musician, but he only knows the old classics ‘amazing grace’ and stuff. Fine with me, we sang and praised in that park. I felt the Lord said that he was going to restore joy to ‘our mourners’ and it will be thru this restored joy that he will ‘build the old waste places’. ‘You shall be named the Priests of the Lord, the ministers of our God’ this is all of us! No special class here, no ‘clergy’. This is you and me. ‘For your shame ye shall have double, and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion, they shall posses double, everlasting joy shall be with them’ In Hebrews it says of Jesus ‘he despised the shame, looking ahead to the reward’. Here it says God will reward you by giving you many converts and blessing these converts exponentially based on the shame and confusion you experience. Don’t try to get out of the shame/difficulty/persecution, but see it as part of the cost. Know that as you suffer, God is promising to reward you thru your seed. ‘I the Lord love judgment, I HATE ROBBERY FOR BURNT OFFERINGS’ now I want you to pay attention here. In the New Testament Jesus teaches the way people ‘rob God’ is by not meeting the needs of people. He rebuked the Pharisees for tithing to the temple and using this as an excuse to not meet the needs of their parents. Jesus said when you didn’t meet the needs of the destitute that you were NOT MEETING HIS NEEDS, Jesus is God! John says ‘how can you say you love God who you don’t see, when you don’t meet the needs [love demonstrated] of the brother that you do see’. It is common today to use Malachi and teach ‘robbing God’ in the context of ‘not tithing’. Because the New Testament temple are made up of people, the New Testament teaches ‘robbing God’ is done by not ‘giving’ to this temple, which are people! I have taught all this before, but I want to change your thinking in this area. You must see the people as the temple in order to not ROB GOD. ‘I WILL GREATLY REJOICE IN THE LORD, MY SOUL SHALL BE JOYFUL IN MY GOD’ I want to end on this high note, even though the last verse of this chapter is also good [go read it!] I personally believe this to be a key ingredient at this time for us. The joy of the Lord is our strength. ‘But brother, you ‘rebuke’ so much in your writings, you teach correction a lot. How can you have joy when there is so much difficulty and trials and stuff?’ Our joy is not dependant on our situation, it is fixed in God. Read the Psalms, David understood this principle. Paul said his contentment was not based on outward circumstances. Let’s grasp hold of the great reality of what God has done for us; we are going to live forever! Don’t lose sight of the great things God has done. Be joyful in God at all times. I know he is going to do great things for all of us, let’s rejoice in the Lord, and again I say REJOICE! NOTE; ‘for confusion and shame your children shall posses a double portion in the land’ [my paraphrase] this past year my 2 oldest daughters [19-21] both purchased their own homes. They ‘possessed’ double of what I own. I see God doing things in the natural first, then the spiritual. A couple of our friends from the early years have just begun doing home groups in their cities, they have been serving the Lord, but it’s been a while since we really established anything consistent with these guys. I felt like the Lord was saying ‘our seed [yours too!] will begin possessing the Land this year’.
(529) The other week I took some homeless friends to the church I attend, as well as to a ‘tent church’ that had around a hundred homeless people show up. My intent in telling this is not to condemn any particular style of church. I want to share the reaction/way my friends saw things. In my church the service was focused on tithing. The church recently built a big building [seats around 3 thousand] and it just so happened that this Sunday the message was on tithing. My friends also saw in the church pamphlet that around 8 million was raised from the 10 million needed for the building campaign. Now all of these scenarios play out all across the world on a regular basis. There are well meaning and good intended brothers/churches that find them selves in these scenarios often. My friends liked the church, I was happy to have them see it for the first time. I was not critical nor did I critique the tithing message. My friends later made comments about how the money could be used to house and feed poor people. And they simply saw the other things that the money could be used for, they were seeing thru their world. Later at the tent church many destitute people came. They all had church and ate donated chili dogs. More of a street ministry. Over the years of teaching on church and trying to change the mindset of believers, I have run across well meaning believers who question ‘well brother, where are all the believers going to meet? If you want to reach 20 thousand people, you will need a 20 thousand seat auditorium!’ This is why I am trying to steer us more towards the New Testament mindset. It is all too common to truly reach between 1 to 5 thousand people. To then see growing as expanding in the size of the meeting place, and then the believers see the next level thru the eyes of ‘bring in the money so the rest of the people can be reached’. All well intended, but it lacks the focus of New Testament evangelism. Paul and all the other first century Apostles and believers practiced a type of ‘church growth’ that simply said ‘preach the gospel, allow all the people in the cities to spread the word to all the other people. Meet in your homes, break bread, share the great message of redemption. Send people out to other places as God leads’ [Acts 13- Paul from Antioch] and keep growing along the lines of spreading a revolutionary message about Christ. This New Testament mindset never appealed for the Galatians or Ephesians or any other city of believers to get into building campaigns to reach the rest of the harvest field. This mindset also allows for the rapid growth of the gospel to go forth. It is empowering all Christians to do their part. You see your responsibility more along the lines of spreading the gospel, than along the lines of raising money. I do believe and understand that their truly are good guys [Pastors] and others who are advancing along the lines of mega churches. And it is hard to write entries like this. I just wanted you to see the perspective of my homeless friends, and also how the contemporary church sees evangelism along the lines of ‘I need so many members in order to have the funds needed to go to the next level’. This mindset sees the amount of people that need to come to church and give so much for the organization to grow. It can become very limited in its appeal to the Sunday church goer. They can begin to see themselves solely along the lines of ‘We need to be faithful to raise so much money’ they begin to see their main measure of faithfulness and sacrifice along these lines. The New Testament believers were seeing faithfulness in different ways. There were appeals to help Paul go to the next city to preach, and appeals to help the needy, but they weren’t seeing the appeals that are common today. Paul wasn’t asking ‘we need to raise lots of money to go to Galatia and build a church’ or to fund a huge ministry to reach Galatia. They were simply needing the money to survive and get their bodies to the next city in order to preach the word. This is real people evangelism, all the people seeing their main responsibility as being involved, not giving money. Well I don’t mean to offend in these entries, I pray for the success of all of us [I really do!] I just wanted to share some input. I also at times feel bad for the young Pastors who can get in over their heads financially. They are doing it for the most part out of a true love of God. I feel they put themselves at times under great financial strain because they see it as what God wants. It might be at certain times, but it also is an out growth of seeing ‘church’ as having the building big enough for everyone to attend. Sometimes God wants the growth to go outward. You didn’t see the Ephesians or other New Testament churches finding places big enough where they could all get together. They grew along the lines of more people meeting across the cities and being a part of one family of believers in the city. No need for one place to all meet. Say if you had 50 thousand in a city turn to Christ. I know some mega churches [Paul Yongi Cho-Korea] do try to simply build bigger places, as well as home church growth. But the New Testament mindset was not seeing it at all along these lines. They were spreading a radical revolutionary message in the hearts of people. This allowed for the people themselves to run with the message. NOTE; I usually don’t give examples that ‘hit this close to home’. I want the church I mentioned above to succeed. Those of you in the Corpus area that read this blog and attend this church, I want you to do all you can to give and support the church. If you are not giving money in other well established Christian avenues on a regular basis, then give all you can to help the church you go to! Give 10 % or more! Our goal is to see the overall transition of Gods people from the normal view of church, back to a radical 1st century view. It is common in revolutionaries to go overboard [I have!] and then want to see the ‘old church model’ fail. This is not what God wants. Don’t take entries like this and then wait for your view to win while the other guy fails. This is not Christian! So to all the local brothers who read this, support the church financially as much as possible, also begin spreading the Kingdom as well.
(530) A few years ago a famous atheist, Anthony Flew, renounced atheism and professed belief in God. A very intelligent atheist, he saw the impossibility of life and all things being a result of a past history where supposedly nothing existed. It is impossible! I just read an article how in the year 2000 a famous Paleontologist, Meave Leakey, discovered evidence against evolution. In Kenya she found 2 skulls that were supposed to have been ancestors who ‘evolved’ millions of years apart. She found them in the same location. The same ‘level’ that proved beyond all doubt that these so called ‘ancestors’ lived at the same time. To be honest these so called ‘ancestors’ are simply different species of Apes and Monkeys that people find thru out time. The knowledgeable person realizes this, the evolutionist doesn’t! The fact that Leakey’s find wasn’t published until 2007 [ in the scientific journal ‘Nature’ August 9] makes me wonder why it took so long. Well obviously the find goes against evolution, the evolutionists religiously defend their belief. If they themselves find evidence against their theory, it doesn’t help their ‘religious belief’ to publish it! I just thought it worthwhile to keep you all up to date on the evidence from both atheists and evolutionists that back up Christian belief.
(531) I watched a panel of 3 of the top Prosperity Preachers host a talk show. I thought it was real interesting, the brother hosting the show was informally talking to his friends, but you could tell he wanted to share something. He then reads from Acts where it says ‘the Holy Spirit witnesses in every city that bonds and afflictions await me at Jerusalem’. It is speaking of Paul. I noticed one of the other Prosperity guys kind of looked a little perplexed [?] as the verse was read. I know they have all taught in the past that bonds and afflictions are not what God wants for us. They have intricate systems of belief that do get around persecutions. But the brother shared it in love and seemed to allow the Lord to use him in this public forum to bring some balance back to this thing. The other brothers had no problem receiving the truth, because it was coming from someone within their own camp. I just felt this was interesting to share. We all need reproof at times, and God is jealous for his reputation. He will gain it back in this camp. NOTE; These brothers have taught in the past that when Paul spoke on his thorn in the flesh, that God was saying ‘his grace is sufficient for thee’ meant that God was saying ‘you have the grace/ability to make it go away’ kind of a perverted view of the verse. God actually told Paul ‘you can live with certain difficulties, because my grace is all you need’ in essence ‘you don’t need a perfect, affliction free environment to operate in, I am all you need’ Basically God was not telling Paul ‘you make it go away yourself’. Now I had one of my homeless friends say the other day ‘I think Paul went thru sufferings because he was reaping what he sowed when he persecuted Christians’ you could tell he has been influenced by this teaching. It was a little sad because this friend does suffer from mental problems, and he was telling me that Paul was suffering affliction as a result of his past sins. I then told him this is not true, and I quoted the verses that say ‘it is given to us also to suffer for his name’ God telling Paul ‘I will show thee the sufferings that you will go thru’ at his initial conversion. In context I explained to my friend that these verses show us the afflictions and sufferings that Paul went thru were NOT a result of him reaping what he sowed. They were an up front part of the cost that all the early believers understood. The sad thing is this poor mentally challenged brother was going thru life with a ‘form of doctrine’ that denied Gods power and reality. It had him thinking that he was really reaping what he sowed by going thru mental challenges. This is why I have said in the past that it is no light thing to undermine the word of God and to distort it. Even though many of these teachings are defined as ‘Word churches’ and stuff. This still doesn’t give you the right to distort the Word.
(532) Isaiah 62 ‘For Zion’s sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and salvation like a lamp that burns’ This is intercession based on natural Israel’s spiritual conversion. He is praying ‘open up Israel’s eyes to true salvation and righteousness’. ‘And gentiles shall see thy righteousness [Christ] and all kings thy glory, and thou shall be called by a new name [the Body of Christ! Spiritual Israel, a ‘new name’ that no one knows but he who gave it] which the mouth of the Lord shall name’. ‘Thou shall no longer be called forsaken or desolate, thy land shall be married’ The great ‘marriage supper of the Lamb’ a day when Israel will no longer be ‘separated/divorced’ from God, but will be part of the ‘bride of Christ’ and thru this holy union be ‘married’ back to God! ‘As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride [this is actually an intimate term ‘rejoiceth over’ God will actually be intimate with us and we with him!] so shall God rejoice over thee’. ‘I have set watchman on thy walls oh Jerusalem, they shall never be quiet day or night, give him no rest till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth’ Pray over Israel/Jerusalem until he makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth, this will be at the appearing of her Messiah. NOTE; some theologians today are called ‘New Perspective’ they are giving a new perspective on Paul’s theology. There are some good points they bring out. One area is they are showing how the New Testament offer of ‘faith’ to the gentiles was ‘come and believe and you too will be part of the commonwealth of Israel’ they emphasize that faith allowed gentiles to partake of the community that God already had with Israel. There is some truth to this. The extreme says ‘Israel really is in line with God now, gentiles just need to get in on what she has’ this view doesn’t see that in Christ the TWO are made INTO ONE NEW MAN. God is actually creating one new man [not asking gentiles to come into an old man] and this happens thru Christ! ‘The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, surely I will no longer give thy corn to be food for thy enemies, and the son of the stranger shall not drink thy wine for which you have worked, but they that have earned it shall eat it and praise the Lord’ One of the curses for being disobedient is the wages and things you earn count for nothing. There are different types of judgment on sin, one is you have no power to posses wealth. The other is you have no power to keep it! Here God is saying when people are in judgment they lose the stuff they earned. One of the greatest financial wreckers in society today is divorce. Some high wage people have lived in difficulty because of this. They might earn 10 thousand a month and still be broke! This is common. God is telling his people if we get right with him, not only will he give us great opportunities to earn wealth, but we also get to keep it! [That is use it for right things, not horde it!] ‘go thru, go thru the gates, prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway, gather out the stones, lift up a standard for the people’ A few years ago [2004] I felt the Lord tell me to start driving to work in Kingsville thru a longer route that would take me thru regional cities. During this time they also built all these new overpasses that allowed you to ‘drive on the walls of the cities’ and pray over them from a ‘high place’. This was for 3 years until I would retire [which I am in the process of doing]. I felt the lord gave me 3 intense years of prayer and intercession over a region that we have long prayed for. When I read these verses ‘go thru the gates/highway and take out the stones and prepare a way for the people’ as well as God saying ‘I will cause you to ride upon the high places of the land’ I felt things like this were signifying how God wants us to lay the groundwork thru prayer first. As I drove thru the land and ‘prophesied’ and prayed, God was ‘breaking up the fallow ground’. God has ‘land’ for you, you will begin possessing it as you are faithful to ‘go thru the land’ but also ‘gather out the stones’ this speaks of a willingness to both reprove [in love] and remove the ‘stones’ that are hindering the highway. When a road is filled with obstacles, you can still drive it, but very slow. I felt like the Lord was speaking of ‘acceleration’ a ‘suddenly’ when he acts quickly on our behalf. If we want to ‘advance rapidly thru out the land’ then we must get the stones out of the road! NOTE; I have told you guys in the past that sometimes my ‘spell check’ is prophetic. When I wrote ‘reprove’ it spelt ‘repave’.
(533) Just read a letter from my old buddy in New Jersey state prison. He ran into another old buddy of ours in prison. He gave him my books, but wants them back. So he asked if I could send some more, I will today. It’s funny, these are buddies from the past that did bad stuff. I had some crazy times with these guys in the past. Now their interested in the books and stuff. God will open doors if you maintain real friendships with people. My friend even said ‘now you have 2 friends in New Jersey prisons’. I know the Lord will use these guys in some way.
(534) I just remembered a funny story about the friend in prison. Years ago on one of my visits back to Jersey I ran into this friend. I always liked his family. He told his dad ‘Johns in town’ and the dad said ‘bring him by, I want to say hi’. Sure enough the day I am going to see him, my friend takes me down to these docks by the Hudson River. It’s close to Jersey City. We go under some bridge and wind up in some real ‘on the waterfront’ type hideout. My friend brings me to his dads ‘shop’ and he pulls open this raggedy garage door. These guys are ‘working’ on some cars in the dark. They are surprised by us opening the door. The dads ‘worker’ was cutting some car in the back and looks up with this look of ‘I hope I’m not busted’ like from the TV show ‘cops’. The dad then realizes it’s us and is real happy to see me. He was a great guy. My friend introduces me to the other guy in the corner ‘skeeter’ or something? It was hilarious.
(535) Isaiah 63 The first part of the chapter speaks of Gods righteous judgment ‘the day of vengeance’ and then mixes in mercy! ‘In all their affliction, he was afflicted’ this is interesting, God says ‘when you were afflicted, I too experienced it’. Wow, how could our afflictions be experienced by God? In Corinthians you have the doctrine of the ‘sin unto death’. There are various interpretations on this. You see certain believers who are in open sin. God allows judgment on them, even to the point of death, because they are ‘part of his body’. Sort of like God is saying ‘you guys are intricately attached to me, when you, as my Body, sin, then you are dragging me into the situation’. It seems as if God was saying his judgment is a result of them being the church, and at the same time ‘drinking the cup of devils’. You can’t have both! So in this case judgment was pronounced because they were ‘making the Spirit of God partake of evil things’ so to speak. Understand when we go thru things, especially open rebellion, God will eventually judge. It’s not out of meanness, but mercy. You read in Corinthians that when God judges us it is so we will not be condemned with the world. His judgment proves we are his kids and therefore it is really an act of divine mercy! ‘But they rebelled and VEXED his Holy Spirit’ it was ‘vexing’ to the Spirit because they were the temple of the Spirit. ‘O Lord, why hast THOU made us to err from thy ways’ Interesting! One of the prophets said ‘you deceived me, and I was deceived’. A lot of modern translations try to change this. They try to say God wouldn’t be an active partaker in ‘deceiving you’. I see it along these lines, God knows us intimately, he even knows there are fears and shortcomings that prevent us from truly entering into our destiny. He will actively allow us to ‘be deceived’ or cause us to ‘err from his ways’ because he wants us to get to the point of doing his will, he knows it’s best for us. If we don’t do his will voluntarily, he allows us to stray so ‘in the desert’ we will turn back to him. ‘Return for thy servants sake’ after the desert we then are willing! In the day of thy wrath you made us willing!
(536) Isaiah 64 ‘Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou would come down, that the mountains might flow at thy presence’ There are pivotal times in our lives where we have done all the planning we could imagine. We have prayed, read the Word and done all the things that we thought were necessary to see God move. It is often at the end of all of our efforts that we get to a place where we see the futility of it all, apart from God! In the end, like Paul said, some water, some plant, but only God can cause it to grow! Have you seen the need for God to come down and move on your behalf? You’ve done everything else, might as well call on God and believe that he alone can do it. ‘As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causes the waters to boil’ WOW! Jesus said ‘I am come to set fire to the earth, how I wish it were already burning’ [my translation]. We will read in this chapter ‘God is a consuming fire’. Jesus understood the role he was to play. He knew it would end in violence and resurrection. He knew it would be revolutionary in nature. How can you expect to come to a group of people who truly believe in God, and then show them that they have fallen away from the true intent of God and then say ‘God sent me to tell you this’. The role of a Prophet is revolutionary by its very nature. It will ‘burn’ things, things that need to be burnt. Jesus knew the course he was on, he knew he was going to start a fire that would consume everything in its path, he said he wished it were already burning. ‘For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what you have prepared for those who wait for you’ Paul quotes this to the Corinthians. This is not really talking about the great ministries and things that we think, it can include that. But this is speaking of the unbelievable mystery of redemption thru Christ. The things that Angels desire to look into. The story of mans redemption and how God preplanned it before the world began is a tremendous mystery that no man can see unless God reveals it to him. Paul says ‘no man can say Jesus is Lord but by Gods Spirit’ Paul was not saying no one could ‘mouth’ it, he was saying no human understanding can grasp it apart from the revelation of God. ‘Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways’ God instituted things so his people would ‘remember him’. The Passover, the Lords Supper. Often time’s people remember him in these rituals, but forget him in ‘their ways’. This is the main rebuke Isaiah gives to Israel in this book. When religion digresses to a point of ritual, apart from righteous action [justice] then we are not remembering God in his ways. Because his ways are justice and mercy and caring for the downtrodden and oppressed. It is too easy today to associate Christianity with ‘conservatism’. I am neither liberal or conservative, but you will find I hold to beliefs in both of these camps. The danger of aligning Christiantiy with a political cause is then you begin to think the ‘cause’ is Christian. You can fight against the illegal alien, or be against ‘welfare’ and the people on it, and if taken to the extreme you begin to see Christianity thru a lens that says ‘we are moral preachers to a fallen society’ to a point where we no longer practice charity or justice for the oppressed. God says he wants us to remember him in ‘ritual’ as long as we also remember him in deed. ‘But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our good deeds are as filthy rags’ This verse has been a key verse in many of the revivalist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. They focused on mans inability to please God and be good. Later on the ‘Word of Faith/Prosperity movement’ brought out good points when they emphasized that we are now made the righteousness of God in Christ. The balance here is apart from God, we are absolutely unrighteous and unable to please God. In Christ we are ‘acceptable to God’. God sees us as totally righteous. The caveat is Paul will still refer to himself at times as ‘the worst of sinners’ even after his conversion. I see the balance like this; In God we are accepted and God sees his Sons righteousness as being imputed to us by faith. During our journey we are progressively being made actually righteous. We are being sanctified. There are obvious times in this walk where we totally fail God. We then confess and repent and continue the journey. The closer we get to God, the further we see how far we really are. So Paul [and us] can at times see how ‘we are the worst of sinners’ and at the same time thank God that he doesn’t view us that way! ‘Our iniquities like the wind have taken us away’ Jesus says in John 3 ‘those that are born of the Spirit are like the wind’ Paul also teaches that as we once were controlled by sin, now we are to be controlled by righteousness. The ‘wind’ can describe how either we are led by sin or by God. It is an unseen force that cause’s things to turn in a certain direction. You can look at the wind blowing a tree and say ‘wow, that tree is being bent severely’ and yet you know it is a result of the wind. Often times I have seen [and experienced!] the lifestyle of going down paths that you seem to have no control over, friends who are at the stage of being in the street, robbing everything they can get their hands on for the next fix, and then going off to prison. At these stages they are allowing sin to bend them like the wind. I have also seen these same guys later be controlled by the Spirit and serving God. Paul said the way to ‘not walk in the flesh’ is to ‘walk in the Spirit’. Religion tells people ‘don’t do this or that’ while Gods recovery program is ‘do what the Spirit is saying’. The secret to deliverance is for a person to actively give them selves over to God and to do his works. If you ‘walk in the Spirit, then you will not do the works of the flesh’. ‘Commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts will be established’ we need a breakthrough in obedience, in getting out and fulfilling Gods will. Most Christians who are running around from deliverance conference to deliverance conference are not yet ‘delivered’ because they haven’t yet fully given themselves into the active service of the Lord! ‘There is none that calls upon thy name, that stirs himself up to take hold of thee’ Why? Because our sins have separated us from God! In Hebrews it says ‘let us come boldly before the throne with a clear conscience’ it says this in context of the work of Christ in redemption. Because legally God refuses to hold our sins against us, therefore we have confidence. One of the most devastating things about sin is it separates us from God. It keeps us from coming to him. We feel guilty and unworthy and we can’t seem to get thru in prayer. God says ‘come’ and he will heal and forgive and restore. ‘But you are our father, we are the clay, you are the potter, we are the work of your hand. Don’t be really mad, don’t remember our sins, we are your people’ Isaiah uses the same ‘strategy’ as Moses ‘we are yours, we bare your name. For this reason please come and help us. It won’t look good on your record if your people don’t make it!’ We are asking God to help us because all we are is from him. He chose us and fashioned us with a specific destiny in mind. Tell God ‘you made me to do your will, move on my behalf Father, help me at this time. I have come to do thy will O God’ he often will ‘take away the first that he might establish the second’ [Hebrews]. Look for God to allow the first works of ministry to ‘dissolve’ as he transitions you into new things. Sometimes we hold onto our Ishmael’s because we truly have an affinity for them, yet God says ‘let go of Ishmael, I will still bless him, but the promise will be fulfilled in Isaac’. ‘Our holy and our beautiful house is burned up with fire’ interesting, we just read how ‘God is a consuming fire’ and how Jesus said ‘I have come to start a fire’. In the New Testament God transitioned his ‘holy place’ from the natural temple to the spiritual temple [the church/Body of Christ]. Thru out Israel’s history the destruction of the temple always represented Gods judgment. That was the significance of Jesus saying ‘destroy this temple and in 3 days I will raise it up’ this was offensive to the Jewish mind. It was like desecrating the flag [even though Jesus was speaking of his body, the Jews were offended because they took it to mean their temple]. The fact that Israel, as a nation, would not make the full transition into the New Covenant left them with their temple and sacrifices that God already said were an abomination to him [Hebrews]. Ultimately this would lead to the temples final destruction in A.D. 70 under Titus. The destruction of the temple again was Gods way of saying ‘I no longer dwell in temples made with hands, I no longer will accept animal sacrifices. I will dwell in those who accept the sacrifice of my son, and I will receive their sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, this is the temple I will build, the temple of the Body of Christ’.
(537) Isaiah65 ‘I am sought of them that asked not for me, I am found of them that sought me not’ Paul uses these verses in Romans to show how Gods justification went to the Gentiles and not to Israel. The nation that prided herself in ‘seeking God’ were not accepted because of pride and her refusal to acknowledge the Messiah, the Gentiles were not even thinking there could be a chance of acceptance, and Jesus says ‘to all of you who weren’t even looking, you didn’t even bother to seek me, I am now opening my arms to you’ Wow! ‘I have stretched out my hands ALL DAY LONG unto a rebellious people, which walk after their own thoughts, they continually provoke me to anger, they sacrifice in gardens and burn incense on altars of brick’ God prescribed the way to sacrifice, Israel went another way. In Israel’s history you find times where she introduced a priesthood and system of sacrifice that ‘veered away’ from the ‘orthodox order’. During these times the people still had sacrifice, which they figured was good enough, but God detested sacrifices that were not in his prescribed order. Now all this points to the Cross. In Hebrews God says ‘I will not accept any more animal sacrifices, the prescribed order is now one sacrifice made on the altar of the Cross’. God is showing us here that even though many good people continue to ‘serve God in their own way’ this doesn’t cut it! You must come Gods way, his sacrifice and altar are the only way. It might seem ‘culturally incorrect’ to look at all religion outside of the Cross and deem it useless, but this is what God is saying! Don’t come to me with your own ideas of acceptable sacrifice [Cain/Able] but come to me thru the one sacrifice that I deem worthy. ‘As the new wine is found in the cluster and one saith, destroy it not for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servant’s sake, that I may not destroy them all. I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains’ God said if he found 10 righteous people in Sodom he would have spared the whole city for the remnants sake. This is a theme in scripture. God says he spares nations and people groups for the sake of the few who still have potential in them. God does this with individuals also. He sees remnants of good still left in you. You might have failed miserably, done terrible things. Why in the world does God still stick with you? He sees potential in you still, and knows it’s worth the wait! ‘The former troubles are forgotten, they are hid from mine eyes, for I create new heavens and a new earth, the former shall not be remembered or come into mind’ Now, I don’t want to whitewash what comes before this. God does rebuke and punish the people for walking in their own ways, after their own thoughts. God brings very severe judgment on the people for their sin! But after they turn back to God he says ‘I choose to forget the past, don’t keep going back to your ‘old world’ I am creating a new atmosphere for you to operate in’ I don’t want to over spiritualize this. God will make a real new heaven and earth someday. This is true. But he also wants to make a ‘new heaven and earth’ for you right now. He wants you to come out of your own small world of problems. Don’t spend your whole life surrounded by little insignificant problems. I don’t want to demean you; I want to show you that we have a tendency to see everything thru a myopic view. In the microscope everything looks huge, until you pull your head back and look at everything else around you. Sometimes the solution to our problem is to simply pull back and see the new heaven and earth that God has waiting for you; don’t spend so much time looking thru the microscope! ‘For as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and they shall long enjoy the work of their hands’ I have often used the analogy of a tree to describe Gods people, scripture does the same. Jesus is the vine, ‘the man whose name is the branch, he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the Lord’. God wants to branch out thru you, he wants you to grow and extend thru the disciples that you bring to Christ. ‘I am the vine; ye are the branches’ you ‘branch out’ thru the people you bring to the Lord. Are you branching out yet? ‘They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble, they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them’ these last few passages I have committed to memory. These verses are about as good as any to memorize and pray and claim. I like them better than the prayer of Jabez! ‘It shall come to pass before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear’ A few years ago I was in a Church service and the Pastor asked the whole congregation to pray that the Lord would pay the salary of another staff worker for a campus church in Kingsville [Bay Area Fellowship]. As the Pastor and the congregation prayed this prayer, a few minutes later another staff person came to the front and announced that earlier in the morning, before we prayed, someone already volunteered to pay the salary of the person for one year. Before we asked, God answered!
(538) This past week the Jehovah Witnesses held a regional convention in our city, the theme was ‘Jesus Christ’. The papers said they were making an all out effort to appeal to Christians at large by doing this. The Pope’s most recent book is ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ he is defending the supernatural and historical accuracy of Jesus as described in the Gospels. He is basically defending the truth of Christ. I find it interesting that most ‘Christian’ groups, even those like the Jehovah witnesses, who historically fall into the cult category, realize that the way to be ‘politically correct’ amongst other groups is to acknowledge Christ. Now I am not saying all groups are doing this out of a pure motive, Jesus said many would come in his name and say ‘I am Christ’ this not only can mean they are claiming to be Christ [Moonies] but it can also mean they are saying ‘Jesus is Christ’ but they don’t truly acknowledge his full deity. The point is even Muslims acknowledge Christ as well as do the Jews. They see him differently than Christians, but they can’t deny him fully! God will draw men to Christ; some of them will preach him out of impure motives, like Paul said. But he also said ‘either way Christ is preached’. I find it interesting that God will even use his enemies to preach his name! [Note: I am not saying this about our Catholic brothers!]
(539) Isaiah 66 ‘Thus saith the lord, the heaven is my throne and the earth my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? And where is the place of my rest’ Here we begin to see the transition that will take place in 1st century Rome. These descriptions from Isaiah are prophetic of Gods offer to Israel. Isaiah is saying ‘where is the temple that you can build for me to dwell in’? I do not want a man made temple any more. I am done with all animal sacrifices [we read that next!] God will end the prophetic message of Isaiah with his intent to transfer from an earthly natural temple, to a heavenly spiritual one, the Body of Christ! God will show his displeasure with all animal sacrifices, not just certain ones. For Isaiah to claim to be speaking for God, and to say these things seems blasphemous to Israel at this time. You must see that Isaiah is coming against all the ceremony and system that God instituted. To say these things was to put himself in the same category of Paul who the Jews will accuse of trying to destroy the law and Temple worship. But Paul was saying this post Christ, Isaiah was saying it before the Cross. How could Isaiah get away with this while the law was still in effect? The Spirit of prophecy sees and functions in future realities. When God opens up the future to a prophet, he simply speaks what he is seeing. It is Gods prerogative to proclaim his disapproval of the old system in anticipation of the new one that was to come. ‘For all those things hath mine hand made, but to this man will I look, to him that is of a poor and contrite spirit’ God says ‘I will not dwell in the temples of men, but in those who are humble and contrite’. Jesus said unless we humble ourselves and become as little children, we will not enter Gods kingdom. Here we see the ‘stones’ that the new temple will be made of, humble contrite people. ‘He that killeth an ox is like he slew a man, he that sacraficeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dogs neck, he that offers an oblation, as if he offered swine’s blood [and you guys think I am harsh!] and he that burneth incense as if he blessed an idol’ In essence Isaiah is saying the same as the book of Hebrews. You must see that in the mind of God, all animal sacrifice, after the Cross[which Isaiah is seeing thru prophecy, he is speaking ‘post Cross prophetically’] is an insult and an abomination. I am going to start a commentary on Hebrews as soon as I finish Isaiah, I want to put the book in proper perspective. When the writer of Hebrews says ‘those who continue to sin after they were enlightened, that God will not allow them to renew their repentance’ it is not speaking of believers, as commonly taught. But it is telling Israel ‘if you reject Messiah, and think you can keep bringing me all these sacrifices of repentance, I won’t accept them anymore. You cant be ‘renewed again unto repentance, you have done despite to the Spirit of Grace and have trampled under foot the sacrifice of God’ The reason the language is so strong here, is because God is saying when you continue to sacrifice animals after the once and for all sacrifice of my Son, then you are doing disgrace to Grace. For Isaiah to being saying this, pre Cross, is amazing! ‘Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out FOR MY NAMES SAKE said, let the Lord be glorified, but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed’ the brethren of Jesus cast him out for what they thought was Gods will. The rejection of Messiah was seen to be an act of Israel’s orthodox belief. They truly thought they were doing the will of God. Jesus even said a time was coming when people would kill believers thinking they were doing Gods service. But in the end God appeared to Jesus joy and they were ashamed. ‘A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple’ Gods ‘city’ and ‘temple’ are the people of God. God has a voice that comes forth out of the temple. Rivers flow from this temple. Jesus said he who believes, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. God speaks thru his church. Some have attempted to ‘de gender’ God. They will say that God is both male and female. This is not so. God is definitively male. Then where is the feminine voice? It comes from what the Spirit is saying thru the bride, the Lambs wife. God has purposed to speak this way. So you have both the male and female sides seen. Paul said that the Jerusalem which is above is the mother of us all. The ‘Jerusalem from above’ is the church, the city of God. Scripture says listen to the voice of your mother and your father. We are to hear what God says [Father] and our mother, the corporate voice of the Spirit that has spoken thru the church, the mother of us all. ‘Before she travailed she brought forth, before her pain came she was delivered of a man child, who hath heard such a thing? For as soon as Zion travailed she brought forth her children. Shall I bring to the birth and not cause to bring forth?’ God is saying there is a process to the things he wants to birth from you. Part of the process is travailing, it is the severe pain experienced at the end of pregnancy. We often equate that pain the wrong way. We think ‘well, things are so hard here at the end, I want to quit and go home’ God is saying don’t quit, you are about to give birth. Don’t misread the labor pains; it is a culmination of the long months of waiting. I determined to bring you to this point of extreme pain, it is my process. Don’t abort! ‘Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, be glad all ye that love her’ It is vital for us to enter into joy. Jesus said after the woman gives birth, she forgets all the pain she went thru, because of the joy of bringing forth the child. Begin rejoicing in God, he will do great things. Scripture says ‘when the Lord turned the captivity of Zion, it was like a dream’ God is going to so move on your behalf that you will think it is too good to be true! ‘I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the gentiles like a flowing stream’ Jesus said ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give I unto you, let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid’ You have the inner ability to ‘not let your heart be troubled’ the world runs to doctors and drugs, we run to God. ‘As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem’ God comforts us ‘in Jerusalem’. In the book of Galatians the Body of Christ is called ‘the New Jerusalem, the Church, the mother of us all’ in the book of Revelation John says ‘the city that comes down from God out of heaven, the New Jerusalem, is the bride, the Lambs wife’ God says we are comforted in community. John also says [in 1st John] ‘when WE walk in the light, WE have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses US from all sin’ God works in community, as well as with individuals. Some times we as believers go to one extreme or another. Soren Kierkegaard, the great 19th century Philosopher/Theologian wrote as a Prophet against what he saw as the abuses of the institutional church. The Danish state church had a lot of formality and ‘spectator’ Christianity. Kierkegaard emphasized Gods desire to reveal himself to people individually, outside of ‘the church’. He would say things like ‘the congregations are totally useless, there is nothing good to be found there’ and then he would say you can only truly serve God outside of ‘the church’. Well God does see all of us ‘as the church’ and he works thru individuals as well as ‘groups of people’. God wants to ‘attach’ you to people for his purpose and destiny. You need to ‘walk in the light’ with other believers, so God can ‘comfort you in Jerusalem’ the corporate city of God. ‘For I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations… to the Isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither seen my glory, and they shall declare my name among the gentiles’ sound familiar? This sounds just like the day of Pentecost, in Acts. God gathered all types of people groups to Jerusalem for the outpouring of the Spirit, and these nations/people groups went back to their own areas and spread the gospel. God sends those ‘who escape’, out to be evangelists. Many times you will ‘go thru hell’ and barley escape with your life, but the reason God let you escape was for the purpose of sending you out to other places and people. Don’t make bargains with God and not keep them! How many times have people said ‘God, if you get me out of this one I sware to do this or that’ are you out? Then do what you said! [note: in the New testament Jesus and James taught to not even make these types of vows, so I am not advocating doing this, but the point is many of us have, so if you did do it, now fulfill what you promised God you would do!] ‘For as the new heavens and the new earth shall remain before me, so shall your seed and name remain… and all flesh shall come to worship me.. and they shall go forth and look upon the bodies of those who transgressed against me, for their worm dieth not, neither shall the fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh’ I want to end our study of these last 15 or so chapters of Isaiah with a brief overview. God tells us ‘I am going to make all things new’ God has a real future eternal hope for all those who are in Christ. We need to reaffirm the truth that heaven is real! As well as a ‘new earth’ that he will make new some day. God also affirms thru the Prophet that hell is real! Theologians, even good ones, have differing views on hell. I like R.C. Sproul, he is one of my favorite theologians, he believes the references to ‘hell fire’ are symbolic, but he states ‘the real punishment will be worse than real fire’ the reason I wanted to add the above verses on ‘the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched’ is because Jesus himself uses this terminology when describing eternal punishment, the ‘worm dieth not’ indicates that there will be a real physical judgment that lasts forever! God doesn’t want ANYBODY to go there. How many will go? I don’t know, but this I do know, we as believers have the only hope in the world to keep people from going there, his name is Jesus Christ. I exhort all of you to begin doing all you can to reap in a huge harvest of souls for God, we can’t bring our cars and houses and money and stocks and all these other things with us, but we can bring people! Gather up as many of them as you can, so you will have some friends and family when you get to the other side.
(540) I got with some friends the other day. We were talking about the Lord. One of the guys brought up the verse where Jesus says ‘it is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven then for a camel to go thru the eye of a needle’ both of these friends are homeless [or about to be]. They are poor and have struggles. The one friend shared the verse to show how riches are not as important as people think. The other friend shared the interpretation that I have heard before. He said some people teach that the ‘eye of the needle’ was a low gate in the wall of Jerusalem, and that the camels can get thru the gate, but they have to crouch down and that makes it difficult. Now this teaching has been taught publicly by prosperity teachers. It used to be fairly popular in this camp. I find it sad that even this homeless guy was affected by it. I told my friend that I too was familiar with this teaching, and that it is fake. Historically there is no evidence of a gate being the ‘eye of the needle’. Second, the response of the disciples to Jesus saying this was ‘who then can be saved?’ they took Jesus words the way you and I would take it. That he was saying something that was impossible to do, except for God. It’s stuff like this that we need to be warned of. You interpret scripture thru the plain meaning, the fact that the context of the verse shows that the disciples didn’t think he was speaking about a ‘low gate’ in the wall should guide us into the right view of the verse. The word for ‘needle’ in this passage is the word used for a regular sewing needle. False teaching is harmful; Christians should refute it in love.
(541) Sometimes we overlook the obvious. In our local news paper they have been doing a story on one of the staff that follows her efforts to lose weight. She is overweight and every week they tell you how good or bad she has been doing ‘this week I feel bad, I ate too much’ and stuff like that. I read a commentary from the section of the paper where they print the public’s letters and comments. Some lady wrote in and said ‘can’t you show us an uplifting story on people who have lost weight’? She went on to describe how this story is depressing, the poor girl is never overcoming anything, always falling off the diet. She then said she even caught her at one of our restaurants with a ‘rather healthy portion of unhealthy food’ [ouch!]. Well I just read her story yesterday. She shared how when she was getting up to walk in the mornings, you are supposed to eat before you walk, so she would. Also you should eat when you get done, she did! Then she found out you shouldn’t eat right before walking, and she walks early, so should you get up at 4:00 a.m. and eat and go back to sleep and wake up at 6:00 a.m. and then walk and come home and catch your ‘after workout meal’ and maybe catch a few more zee’s before starting your day? Obviously the problem is TOO MUCH FOOD! Now, I don’t want to be mean. I have the habit of not eating at all until around 3 or 4 pm. I then will have a light snack around 7 or so. I only eat once a day. I am not bragging, and I have had people tell me this is unhealthy, maybe it is. The point I am making is if you’re ‘routine’ to lose weight has you possibly waking up at 4 a.m. to eat, you have a wrong routine! Don’t overlook the obvious. Christians are notorious for this. I was talking to one of my homeless friends who struggles with mental issues. He is very smart and suffers from a form of Autism. He also has battles in the mind. I recommended him to read a chapter of Proverbs a day. I also have seen Christians who can’t understand why nothing good is happening in their lives. I ask them ‘are you praying, do you read Gods word’? the basics, often they answer ‘no’. Don’t fall into the category of our poor ‘dieting lady’ do what's obvious. If you are having trouble loosing weight, well for heavens sake don’t wake up early and eat 2 meals before you start the day, you are obviously stumbling over a food issue if you are doing this!
(542) I have had an interesting few days. The other day I went to the homeless hangout to see some friends. I usually have a few people ask me for a few dollars, I usually give it. I had an old friend ask for a dollar, I really didn’t have one, but I did have a twenty. I have given away twenty before. But I took a risk and gave him the 20 and asked him to bring me the change. I have done this before and without fail I have always got the change back, often with the receipt! They have to go to the corner store and come back. They usually want it for cigarettes, I know some will rebuke me for this, but I won’t do it for beer. The reason I take the risk by giving them a 10 or 20 is because they can’t believe someone trusts them again, after the many failures they have had in their lives. This is why they can’t wait to get back with the receipt, to them it is an honor to get another chance. Well I waited for Angel to bring me back the change, he never showed up. I am not mad or angry at all, I saw it only as an opportunity to really show trust, I know he failed and I am out the 20, but I have spent many 20’s before. Well I knew as soon as I would see him I would forgive him. I don’t want him to avoid coming around the homeless mission over this. I didn’t realize he was doing that bad. For someone to break trust like this means they are probably on some drug, ‘ice’ is real popular on the street right now. Later in the day I had a few of the homeless guys come back to the house for a fellowship, it was good. The next day my daughter was real sick and I had to admit her to the hospital for a few days [she is still there] sure enough I needed that ‘darn’ 20 for coffee and stuff, no big deal, I hit the ATM machine. I thought it interesting how some people would give up completely on these homeless guys if this happened to them. Mercy and grace are things that are undeserved. God doesn’t require us to let people walk all over us [to a degree] but he does require of us to show love and compassion to those who at times are ungrateful and unworthy. Jesus was spit at, they tore the beard from his face. They put a bag over his face, punched him, took the bag off and said ‘now big prophet, who hit you, you think you’re such a prophet’. They stripped him and nailed his Body to a Cross, they hung him up over this ancient hill. They made his mother watch in tears and agony. They [we] were very cruel to the Son of God. He says ‘Father, forgive them for they don’t understand what they are doing’ and then a little while later will cry ‘my God, my God, why have you left me’. I think we can put up with not getting the change back from a 20! NOTE; I had both the Catholic and Protestant Chaplains come by and see us at the Hospital. They were making the rounds. I spoke to the Protestant brother for over an hour, I was ‘preaching’ and downloading stuff into him at an alarming rate. Usually you can only communicate so much to a person at one time. The Lord really opened a door to fellowship. He has many friends in Alice and told me how he just transferred from the Alice hospital to Corpus this year. I told him I felt the Lord was going to give us an ‘Alice’ connection this year [Alice is the name of one of our regional cities] he indicated he thought it might be him. He is a real good brother, open to the many things the Lord is doing. Maybe we will do a home group or something with him. I gave him this blog site, hopefully we will keep in touch. His name is Jeff, if you read this brother send me an email!
(543) While at the hospital I had the chance to catch the local religious cable channel. I have direct TV at the house and don’t get to see it. I was a little embarrassed, the level of what Christians broadcast makes you wonder if God wants the ‘TV’ to be a medium for anyone who holds a church service. I also saw a commercial for a national ministry who broadcasts locally. It was a short clip on how it is always Gods will for you to have an abundance of money. This is the well known ministry out of the Fort Worth area. There are times in our growth as Christians where we are at a level that is immature. It’s OK to be there when you are growing. It is not good to then broadcast this level on a wide scale to a broad audience. It would be like taking your 3rd grade class lectures and putting them out on the air as university lectures. It just doesn’t fit. The commercial that said it is always Gods will for you to have an over abundance in all areas [money] is a very unbalanced view. I know they sincerely teach this, but it is unbalanced. For the whole region of south Texas [and all the other places where this ministry broadcasts] to hear this level of teaching is not good. Maybe in some cases it would be OK to teach the biblical concept of God meeting our needs in an abundant way, he surely can do this. But to miss the whole point of ‘being content and in Gods will when both having an abundance and lack’ is directly opposed to what this ministry broadcast. So all I wanted to share today is we as Gods people need to recognize when we are really not at the ‘level’ of a broad audience. Don’t seek to make your voice heard beyond the parameters that God has ordained. Let God lead in all the teaching and outreach you do, if he says not to go ‘regional’ or ‘worldwide’ then don’t! If he says ‘go’ then go! But don’t simply get into this arena because you can. Just because a local cable channel allows you to broadcast to a wide region, doesn’t mean you should. It has a tendency to ‘fill the air with our words’ instead of what the Spirit is speaking.
(544) To you guys who never read the introduction any more, I just posted our latest book in the book section of this blog, it is a commentary on Hebrews. That’s why I haven’t updated this section in a while [for those of you who come to this section every week!]. Don’t forget to read the introduction every so often for new updates. Hope you like the commentary, John.
(545) I am reading Deuteronomy and thought I would share a few thoughts [chaps 1-8]. As Moses is standing on the edge of the promised land he asks God ‘can I please go into this land’ God says ‘no, and don’t ask me any more about it’. It seems kind of harsh. It also seems like God is saying ‘I know I have called you to this place. Your whole desire to see the land is something I put in you, but because you represented me in a wrong way before the people, I can’t let you in [yet!]’. Did you know that I found a verse where God let him in? I am not spiritualizing it either. You know the verse also. The Mount of Transfiguration! After all those years God said ‘now I will let your feet touch the land my son!’ it’s like God knew how bad Moses wanted to posses it, so during the true time of inheritance, the coming of Messiah, God said ‘inherit’. God gives a lot of promise’s and lessons in these first 8 chapters of Deuteronomy. He also tells Israel ‘because you didn’t believe me when I told you to go into the Promised Land, therefore I made you wander in the wilderness for 40 years and I caused you to learn a lesson’. What was the lesson? He taught them that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God! How did he teach them this lesson? He gave them plain Manna every day for 40 years. They couldn’t store it up, they had to trust him for ‘beggars bread’ if you will. Hey, if they took the one big step of faith 40 years earlier they would have had tons of great food that they didn’t have to ‘believe for’ every day, it would have just been there, in abundance! But instead he showed them what it means to trust his word. They got to a point after 40 years where if some stranger showed up and said ‘how are all you guys getting fed?’ they would have said ‘no big deal, every morning God gives us Angel food’. It would have seemed like a big deal to the stranger! God taught them to believe in his consistency. They learned that to believe for the big moment [40 years earlier] would have been better than to believe for the ‘little moments’ thru out the 40 years! We just finished Hebrews. Why does God allow Samson to be in the great ‘heroes of the faith’ chapter? Samson had a lot of problems; he had moral failures and was actually quite the playboy. He also had moments of ‘great faith’. He knew when to lay it all out on the line and risk it all. He pulled down the pillars and killed all the enemies of Israel, and oh yes, he knew he would die too. That made up for a lot! I think it would be easier for us to believe God at the edge of ‘our promised land’ than to go 40 years learning the same lesson, in little bits at a time! They still displayed a lot of faith, but it took 40 years of it to make up for that one day!
(546) Deuteronomy 9-11 In chapter 10 God tells Moses ‘this time when you come up and get the 2nd set of commandments, build me an ark [box!] so you don’t ‘accidentally’ drop them again’. It is a little funny, Moses broke the first set of commandments out of anger. God says ‘lets do it one more time, but just in case you lose it again, bring a box to put them in!’. Moses had an anger problem. This is what kept him out of the Promised Land! But God even uses this as a prophetic type. Moses actually led the people thru their journey under a ‘second covenant’. Of course the 2nd set of commandments had the same words on them as the first. But it was a type of the prophetic ministry of Moses who was a symbol of Jesus. Jesus of course would establish a new covenant in his blood, so Moses was symbolizing that 2nd covenant thru this act. Also if you review the first 10 or so chapters you will see Moses emphasize again and again the need for obedience. He tells the people ‘if you obey, your kids and land and businesses will be blessed. God will take away all sickness and disease from you. All will go well with you and your kids and you will prolong your days in the land’. God also says ‘you have been at this mountain long enough, it is time to move on. Go north’ I felt like the Lord was telling us to begin looking ‘northward’ see beyond where you have been. You might have spent 40 years in a wilderness place, begin obeying and believing God for new things. Look to him alone. When God called Abraham he called him by himself and took him and brought him to a strange land and made of him a great nation [the children we are reading about right now!] Can’t you remember when God called you in the early days, how it was just you and him? Rekindle that original flame, tell God ‘it’s just me and you again Father, show yourself strong on my behalf’. God wants to do great things with you again. One more thing, when God told Moses to come up the 2nd time to get the 10 commandments, he said ‘bring blank slates’. God asks us to bring a clean slate to him. Sort of like a blank canvas that he can paint on. If we have too many preconceived ideas on how we think things should be done, then that hinders God from painting the beautiful picture that he has in mind. Let your life be clean and open for him to do what he wants. God bless you guys, and don’t forget ‘don't brake what he paints this time around!’
(547) I woke up yesterday and wrote down ‘subscribe to a few Christian magazines’. I have subscribed to some years ago, but it’s been a while. When I went to my P.O. Box later in the day, I saw that Charisma magazine sent me a free subscription! The issue [Oct/sept 2007] dealt with so much of what I have been teaching this last year. I wonder if Lee Grady reads my blog? [I have sent him my books over the years] I liked the article he wrote. It was a warning against exalting natural Israel to a point where we undermine the need for Jews to be saved thru the blood of Christ. It was a lot like the themes I have spoken on this year. Then when you went thru the rest of the magazine it was filled with articles and ad’s for all types of Jewish stuff! ‘Buy this Hebrew prayer shawl’ and things like that. It was a little funny to be honest with you. I have subscribed to charisma before, to be honest they are way to ‘shallow’ to truly learn from. Now I am not saying I am too good for them, I think the abundance of articles from well meaning women preachers [I am not against women!] on ‘you can have what you say’ or ‘you can achieve some goal’ is not cutting it in preparing believers to live in society. I was at the homeless shelter a few years back and just hanging out with some homeless friends. I wasn’t preaching or anything. Some brothers were talking about the Lord and a new guy but in. He said he was at one time a professor from Berkeley [the liberal university in California] and that he had taught an entire course on how Greek wisdom and writings contained all types of Christian thought before Christ. Things like the story of Hercules and myths on ‘a son of the gods who would come and save the world’. He explained in true atheistic fashion that all of these sources contained much of what you find in scripture, therefore scripture and the story of Jesus are fake imitations of Greek wisdom. Now I usually do not get into these debates with homeless guys, and to be honest this guy probably thought I was homeless! The long hair and scraggly clothes fit in well with this bunch. But I had to correct this ‘professors’ attack on the faith. I explained to him that I was familiar with this teaching, and that the way I usually answer it is to tell the person [which I was about to do!] that before you had ‘Greek thought’ you had ‘Jewish though’ [the Old testament Prophets and stuff] and that in ‘Jewish thought’ are contained all the hidden shadows of a future Messiah and all other types of ‘pre Christian’ ideas. Therefore any overflow of this ‘thought’ into ‘Greek thought’ was simply a Greek copy of the true! So therefore all of this ‘professors’ refutation of Christianity is now refuted! Touché. He seemed a little depressed over this. It was like he never heard his false ideas challenged before. I did do it in love. But he should have just kept his mouth shut and not have tried to use his ‘Berkeley wisdom’ on some red neck town deep in the heart of Texas [Kidding a little here!] What’s the point? The point is if we keep feeding the church messages on how to get wealthy and to have a successful career, then we are not truly equipping them for society. I thank Charisma for sending me the free magazine, but like I said in the past, the only good stuff in it seems to be the short introduction from Lee Grady.
(548) In reading Deuteronomy God tells Israel to tear down the altars and high places where the pagan nations worshipped their god’s. Later in Israel’s history we find out that they didn’t fully obey God in this. Eventually Israel would wind up offering their children on the altar of Moloch. Moloch was a god [demon] that the pagans made an idol of. This statue was heated up by fire until the arms of the idol were bright red. Then the people would place their babies into the arms. God told Israel they made their babies pass thru the fire unto Moloch. They eventually adopted the practices of the other nations. We do this today, in a much more hidden environment. We allow for a woman to go to an abortion clinic and for a doctor to insert a knife and dismember the baby. We do this under the guise of ‘a free and open minded society’. We lie! I have found it sad how those who pride themselves in being liberal minded often hold to the most bigoted idea’s one could espouse. In Darwin’s last book [descent of man] he taught a type of evolution that said ‘the whites are further along down the path of evolving. It is obvious that the Negro is still much closer to the Monkey/Ape than the white. Both physically and mentally’[paraphrase]. Now, for any liberal to hold to this mans ignorant ideas, and to hold to them in such a way that he is proud to say ‘I believe in Darwin’ is total stupidity. Darwin’s theory has come apart at the seems in the world of science. Many scientists have come to the conclusion that the theory can lo longer be honestly held. There are tons of scientific reasons for this. But the simple fact that many in today’s society pride themselves in being ‘disciples’ of Darwin then also think that those who oppose his views are ‘bigoted’ these same people hold to one of the most racist ideas ever put in print. Hitler himself read and was a believer in Darwin’s theory. He actually believed that the extermination of the Jews was a faster way to eliminate the inferior races. This theory of Evolution is demonic at its core. It makes it easy to abort children with no consideration of the actual life of the child. We have our own Moloch’s today! NOTE; God Said that men who did not retain him in their minds would be given over to foolishness. Recently the fossil ‘Lucy’ has been making the rounds to different countries by way of airplane. Many scientists were up in arms that the flying around of this ‘precious fossil’ might endanger it. There were all sorts of debates on how to protect it and all, the best first class service for sure. How satan must be laughing at the stupidity of men who go to great lengths to protect the flying bones of a monkey, while at the same time aborting thousands of children on the planet who were created in the image of God!
(549) I had a Pastor friend years ago who was struggling to raise money for his church. He was a good man, but because of the heavy emphasis at the time on ‘bring in the wealth’ and other off balanced teaching in the church at large, he began to focus on all the money promises in scripture. A big part of the Sunday service was on God doing ‘money miracles’ any correction would of course be seen as ‘you are an instigator causing trouble’. It was so easy to fall into the category of spending most of you waking hours believing God for a financial miracle. These types of scenarios play out time and again with good Pastors. It becomes easy to fall into the mindset of viewing God and his resources as the primary thing to believe for, because after all these good men are all surrounded by other good Pastors who are all raising money for good churches. We don’t even see the great body of Christian teaching that speaks of the Kingdom of God being carried out by the poor and humble person. There is so much evidence in scripture, but we overlook it in order to fund the modern machine! Paul lived in a day where wealth and meeting places [buildings] were in abundance. You even had huge coliseums! For Paul to have reached as many areas as he did with the gospel, and with the average salary of say ‘a firefighter’ or some other average paying job, is completely overlooked by the good ministers who appeal to Paul's writings to raise wealth. These brothers don’t seem to see that Paul could have easily gone down the road of ‘renting the coliseum’ or organizing the early church around a multi million dollar organization, yet he saw in the simple proclaiming of the gospel, with minimal financial resources, the key to reaching ‘his world’. I want to exhort all the pastors and leaders who read this blog, look to the simple reality of God again. Don’t become so tunnel visioned that you see God only thru the lens of a money miracle. Money is a small aspect of completing the mission, it can become large if you see it that way, but it is small in the overall scope of the Kingdom.
(550) Deuteronomy 13-18 The Lord instructs the people that he will meet all their needs financially, and that they will always have the poor among them. Just like Jesus taught! The balance is that God would give more than enough provision into the community, and whether or not all the needs were met was up to the generosity of the community. The same thing you see in the book of Acts. Certain rich people gave and the poor had their needs met. To develop a doctrine form Deuteronomy that says to the poor ‘if you just had faith you would be rich’ violates Paul’s teachings in Timothy [chapter 6] where he says certain teaches in the last days will teach that gain is godliness [that is you can measure godliness by material wealth] from such turn away, they have erred from the faith. So in context God will bless us all as a family of people, but do not teach a material gospel. Also the Lord tells Israel ‘when you get into the land and set up a King over you, don’t let him accumulate great wealth unto himself’ interesting, God says make sure your leaders are not living high on the hog thru your money. We violate this all the time in today’s church. How many stories of teachers with million dollar condos and homes, all the while appealing to a broad audience of Christians to give sacrificially. God isn’t saying that leaders can’t prosper, but he is saying they should not be getting rich from the overall giving of many average wage workers. It is so easy to simply read all the wealth verses in this book and to look right past all these warnings. Why do we do this? We all have a tendency to ‘see’ what we want to see and overlook the rest. The Lord also gives instruction on Prophets, he says ‘if a Prophet prophesies something and it comes to pass, but he leads you away from the true God, don’t listen’ also ‘if he prophesies something and it doesn’t happen, don’t listen to him’. It is easy to recognize the second one as false, but we often overlook the first one. I have heard so many times over the years ‘well brother, I know my teachers teach that Jesus was a millionaire, and it works for me, that’s all that counts’ no it isn’t! Whether it works or not is irrelevant [in this instance] God says if it leads you away from the truth, then it’s false! Let all of our teaching and instruction bring us back into alignment with the character and nature of God, he is the goal.
(551) Deuteronomy 20-25 You read ‘the elders of the city’ a lot in these chapters. Paul will eventually choose to use this terminology to describe the leadership of the New Testament church. These were plural leaders among a group of believers in a city. Not singular preachers of groups of people in buildings on a set day of the week! You did have the singular model in Paul’s day. Where? In the system of the Pharisees and Synagogues! The concept of a ‘president’ of the synagogue leading the people on Sabbath day in Christian [Jewish] instruction was being carried out in Paul’s day. Paul used to be part of the system! He chose the concept of elders over a city, instead of a singular title over a part of the people that met in a building. I think we need to get back to the better model. Also instruction is given that when the children enter the land they are to share the fruits of the land with the stranger. They are not to totally reap all the fruit from the trees or the fields. The stranger can walk in your fields and eat whatever he wants; he just can’t take it with him. These guidelines are given for the benefit of the alien [stranger]. God says I want you to remember that you too were strangers in Egypt. This cuts to the heart of so much of the present debate over the illegal alien issue of our day. I do understand the anger that some have over this issue, God says ‘remember, you were all aliens at one time or another, don’t get so self righteous. If I tell you to share your goods with those who don’t deserve it, then do it. I am the one who brings forth the produce, so share it with others’. God has blessed us financially and materially, he requires us to share it with others. A few difficult verse’s 23:1 God says if a man is wounded in the ‘private area’ he cannot come into the congregation. God is not telling people if they have had some sexual accident that they cant serve God, he is saying he wants people who can ‘procreate’ in his church! He wants people to be able to ‘reproduce’ [soul winners] for his Kingdom. 23:14-15 God says when you ‘go to the bathroom in the land’ dig a hole and bury it, because he is in the land and your land must be sanctified. If it isn’t then he can’t ‘walk among you’. The spiritual lesson is we can’t accomplish anything without God’s presence. We need him, stay clean so he can work among us. Only by the blood. Also when a man dies without having children, his widow shall marry the brother so he can have seed remain in his name. If the brother says ‘no, I do not want to raise up seed to my brother’ then he is taken before the elders and they take off his shoe, spit in his face, and his name is called ‘the man who has no shoe’. What’s this all about? God is saying be willing to build others up, your gift is not given for you to build your ministry, or the people who relate only to you [church members]. But I have given you gifts to raise up ‘seed to your brethren’ as well. Use your gift to help others, others who can’t repay you [I think I heard this somewhere before? Jesus!] If you don’t, all the people will know your church well, it will be the one in town where every body where’s one shoe!
(552) Deuteronomy 28-31 The Lord promises much material blessings in these chapters, but he also says the Levites who receive the tithes are not to own anything. They could not use the tithe as a means to accumulate wealth. I find it funny that the modern church teaches the tithe, but leaves this part out! Also Moses is told ‘you will not go into the land, but help Joshua go in’. Moses must see his gift as something to use to build others and help them achieve goals that he himself will not achieve. Moses learns the true principle of the least being the greatest. He will be the only one who will enter in after death! Out of all the adults who were in the wilderness, only Joshua and Caleb go in to the Promised Land. Moses goes in after death at the mount of transfiguration. He fulfills the symbol of Christ as the first fruits unto God. Moses tells Joshua ‘you must go in with this people’. In the world of church and Pastoral ministry, I have seen how good men will start a ‘work’ and sometimes out of fear begin to look for someone to ‘take it over’. God tells Joshua ‘you must go in too!’ In Moses case the word of the Lord was ‘don’t go in’ [yet!] in Joshua’s case ‘don’t not go in!’ Have you allowed fear and intimidation to lead you to think it’s time to ‘get out’. Only move [remove] as God directs, don’t start looking for a replacement, you have too many years to fulfill, you must go in with this people! NOTE; I thought I just ‘heard’ someone say ‘is this guy talking about me’? Hey, if it’s for you, then yes!
(553) Deuteronomy 32-34 Moses tells the people after he dies they will fall away from God and spend years in judgment. This is a necessary failure. He will hide his face from them and they will realize that God alone is God and they will find help no where else. God does stuff like this a lot! One of the verses in chapter 28 says ‘you will have confusion for the sight of your eyes’. This summer I had a terrible case of vertigo. I eventually found out it was from damage that is done to the inner ear from a viral infection. I researched some natural supplements and had to choose between 2 types. I chose St. Johns Wort and also eventually took Valerian root as well. The ‘St. Johns Wort’ seemed ‘prophetic’ enough, it has my name in it! But I never saw any prophetic indications with the Valerian Root. I have a homeless friend who is a deep bible student, he has been asking me to look up Spikenard for him. It is a biblical thing. He has been talking about it for a while. Yesterday we were at my house fellowshipping and I gave him a bible dictionary and said ‘look it up’. He reads the definition, it comes from Valerian Root, Oh well there’s the ‘prophetic’ thing. The real point is God allowed me to go thru a season of ‘disorientation’ cause of ‘the sight of my eyes’. You mean to tell me brother that God chastens you? Oh my, I would never go thru stuff like that. You lie! In the last chapter Moses dies and scripture says ‘no man knows where his tomb is till this day’. I like this. Moses is still fulfilling prophetic imagery in death. Years later a prophet would arise in Israel whose name is Jesus. He will claim to be sent from God. Many will challenge this claim. He will do no wrong, and no deceit will ever be found in his mouth. They will get tired of him. They will finally railroad him in an unjust court and bring false witnesses to testify against him. They will crucify him in front of his friends and family. They will put him in a grave and 3 days later he will come back to life. He will give instructions to his followers and ascend into heaven. This fact is the singular most historical fact of the first century [of all centuries!] many will testify to this. Because of the significance of this movement many will do their best over the centuries to disprove his story. They will search high and low for ways to disprove Jesus. They will spend years and millions looking for ‘the tomb of Jesus’ with a body in it. They will never find one. Just like the people of Moses day would never find his body in a tomb either. NOTE; a few verses that I liked at the end. God says ‘a fiery law shall proceed out of thy right hand’ ‘everyone shall receive of thy words’ and ‘my doctrine shall drop down like rain’. I like these images. I have prayed the scriptures ‘pour out your Spirit on my seed, your blessing on my offspring’ ‘I will pour water on him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground’. I felt like the Lord was saying he is going to give power and authority to those who are truly speaking what the Spirit is saying. Not just motivational stuff! God raises up prophetic voices to deal with real issues, not just to motivate you into a successful life. They said of Jesus ‘he speaks with authority, not like the regular preachers’ if you want this type of effect, then you must say what the Spirit is saying.
(554) I just got back from some fellowship with one of my homeless friends. He was studying some end time scenarios and discussing the book of revelation. He is very knowledgeable. I tried to steer the conversation more towards the spiritual signs of the end times versus the geopolitical signs. I shared how Jesus will come back for a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle. So an important sign is the condition of the church, the true temple of God. To look at the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem as a major hinge event of Christ’s return, and to the many different end time scenarios as what must happen and when, this gets us off of the main themes taught by Jesus in Matthew. Jesus teaching on the end time is much more basic than these elaborate scenarios. Jesus actually says that after the tribulation of those days that the sign of the coming of the Son of man will be seen. He also says that after the tribulation one will be taken and another left. Pretty plain. I realize that the brothers who hold to the more elaborate themes see that Jesus will take away believers before the tribulation. I know all the explanations of this [I think!] but I shared with my friend that if you simply picked up the bible and read that after the tribulation of those days Jesus will come back and some will be taken and others left, that you would see that Jesus will return and take people after the tribulation. To then develop all types of ‘secret’ comings, to view the verses where the Lord says to John ‘come up hither’ in revelation, and then to say ‘this is where Jesus secretly catches away believers’ is to complicate the simple eschatology of Jesus. My friend was discussing a lot of the other ideas of the end times, I tried to focus him on the fact that Jesus wants us to grow in him, evangelize the world, and not get sidetracked into trying to figure out all types of national scenarios of global proportions. My friend did say that Jesus said the gospel will be preached in all the world before the end comes. I agreed and shared with him that Jesus told us that when the church is loving each other the way he taught [full maturity] then all nations will know that we are his. In essence we got back to the ‘sign’ of the church being mature and being the holy temple that God desires when he returns. My friend saw the point. NOTE; During the conversation I mentioned how we sometimes get locked into certain viewpoints that can lead to ‘seeing’ a possible reference of Jesus and saying ‘this is anti-christ’. I mentioned how many modern preachers see the verse on the rider on a white horse who is going forth to conquer and freely say ‘this is anti christ’ [Revelation 6- Zechariah chapter 6 actually calls these horses the 4 spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of the earth, hardly a picture of anti christ!] You will see images of Jesus being on a white horse later in revelation, and also one of the reasons people have seen this first reference as ‘anti christ’ is because of the plagues and judgments that follow this rider. I shared with my friend how in Revelation the seals and bowls and other images of judgment are the judgments of God, not satan. So it would not be inconsistent to see Jesus on a white horse prior to the release of judgments, as a matter of fact this is one of the main themes of Revelation. My friend almost saw this idea as heresy. He told me how he too views the rider as anti christ, and how because this rider has a bow [a pagan symbol from Rome] that he is anti-christ. I briefly quoted off the top of my head a few scriptures where God uses a bow in prophetic imagery ‘I will bend Judah like a bow’ ‘children are like arrows in the hand of a mighty man’. I didn’t want to argue with my friend, I just tried to show him how we can be so sure of certain ways of seeing things that we never even give a second thought to interpreting a possible Jesus verse as ‘anti-christ’. This is the problem with a lot of these drawn out end time ‘prophecy charts’ they have way too many dogmatic scenarios that seem to lose sight of Jesus! Revelation says the testimony of Jesus is the spirit [intent] of prophecy. All prophecy should ultimately testify of Christ, not anti christ!
(555) I mentioned the other day how one morning I woke up and thought I heard the Lord telling me to subscribe to a few Christian magazines, and then later in the day I found a Charisma magazine in my p.o. box, well a friend also just gave me a year old Christianity today magazine that someone had given him. I read some articles, I was happy to see the amount of deep Christian books, put out by well respected theologians, on the view of church that I espouse. There were a lot of articles on the church as a natural organic community of people as opposed to the institutional thing. Many thoughts and ideas I have taught. They were coming from brilliant minds. I felt this to be a confirmation to a lot of the things I have taught. So in the past few weeks I saw the Lord confirm many of the things I have been speaking over the years, and it was confirmation that I didn’t expect or seek for. Why is this important? We all need to be encouraged and affirmed in the message we speak. In the previous entry, why is it so hard for intelligent Christians, who really know the word, to see obvious ‘Jesus’ verse’s and see them as ‘anti chirst’. Because we have been taught certain views of religious things and we hold to these views ‘religiously’. When someone comes along and says you need to re examine your views, it hurts! Old Testament prophets were rejected on these grounds. God will often confirm to you a ‘new way’ of seeing things thru the mouths of 2 or more witnesses. I think when I woke up the other day and heard the Lord say ‘get Christian magazines’ that what he was really telling me was he would confirm to me that we were on track thru the witness of 2 Christian magazines. I didn’t look for them; they just ‘accidentally’ found their way into my hands. NOTE; I just looked up the chapters in revelation that deal with the riders on white horses. In chapter 6 you see the rider on the white horse that some say is anti chirst. I think it is Christ. In chapter 5 you see Jesus as the one who has power to open the book that releases judgments on the earth. He is the one opening the judgments in chapter 6. In chapter 19 you see Jesus coming back on a white horse going forth to judge and make war. Some say the verse in chapter 6 can’t be Jesus [hey, you only have 2 mentions of riders on white horse’s in Revelation. In both references war and judgment are seen to be tied in with the rider] because war and judgment come right after. That is exactly why it just might be Jesus! NOTE; I see this thinking as being indicative to the way we truncate Jesus and his prophetic role in judgment and magnify the doctrine of anti chirst. In revelation [the book!] you are not seeing anti christ as someone going forth to conquer, you are seeing the righteous judgments of God and the vindication of Christ’s Kingdom in the earth. The ‘judgment’ of the beast and satan are things coming down upon them, not them going forth to conquer. It is this overall view of prophecy that permeates modern evangelicalism, it has a tendency to see prophecy thru the lens of the anti christ and the beast. It unintentionally ‘exalts’ the work of the enemy. If we follow the guideline given in the book of Revelation itself, that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit [intent] of prophecy, then when you come upon verses of judgment being released after the appearing of a rider on a white horse, your initial reaction isn’t to see this rider as anti christ, but as Christ, the one whom prophecy points too! NOTE; Might as well run with this a little more. Scholarship has shown us that one of the earliest new testament books written was Thessalonians. That’s interesting, why would the lord inspire this book before the others? Because it dealt with a major threat to the early church that was imminent. Paul knew there were to be extreme persecutions coming to the early church. He would write the early believers and warn them of demonized leaders who would attack God's people. Many believe the early writings of anti christ refer to early Roman Emperors [Nero and others]. Now if this is true, and Paul was warning the church of future persecutions that were on the horizon, then it only makes sense that this letter would be written early on, before the persecutions got into full swing. I mention this because another field of teaching goes into elaborate schemes of what will happen in the rebuilding of the temple in the last days. While it is possible that there will be a rebuilding, it is not necessary! You can argue about all the technical details surrounding the scriptures that speak of the destruction and desecration of the temple. You have had multiple times in history where these things happened. Some believe that the later references [like in Thessalonians!] refer to events surrounding the destruction in a.d. 70 under Titus. Now we didn’t always know for sure that Thessalonians was written before a.d. 70 and that would eliminate the references as referring to the a.d. 70 date. But now we are sure that Thessalonians was written before that date, around a.d. 50. So without being dogmatic, I wanted to put some context to the debate. You do not need the revived Roman empire to fulfill things in prophecy if the 1st Roman empire already fulfilled it! So let’s get some balance and knowledge to go along with all our end time scenarios. We might be looking for things that already happened [like the destruction of the temple]. NOTE; It is still possible that a temple will be built in Jerusalem, I just want you to see that there were immediate concerns that Paul was addressing to the readers of his letters. Warning the Christians in Corinthians about marrying, maybe it had something to do with the Lord revealing to him the upcoming persecutions of believers. Paul might have been saying ‘for the present time, don’t get married, we have lots of persecution coming ahead’. The point is we need to understand the real significance that the early epistles had to the hearers of the letters. We can not allow our belief in the inspiration of scripture [which I hold to!] to bypass the practical aspects of the letters that were being written. The recipients had to have had some practical application to what was being written. So any letters referencing the destruction of the temple, or future leaders who would destroy Gods people and desecrate the temple, these references must be seen in the context of the times. If Paul prophesied a coming desecration of the temple, and he said it a few years prior to it’s destruction, then you must question whether or not this is what he was referring to. Jesus early on prophesied the destruction, it is only natural for the Apostles to have held to this belief as an early tradition of the church. It was quite obvious that the destruction that Jesus spoke about happened in a.d 70, it is very possible that this was the same event Paul was speaking of. Don’t always read these letters as future dates, they were future at the time of writing, but a few thousand years have gone by, some of the ‘future’ things might have now past! NOTE; It’s funny, but some of these brothers believe that Jesus comes back in Revelation 4 secretly and takes away half the planet [the church] they seem to find this ‘taking away’ from the verse that says to John ‘come up hither’. They also see a possible verse describing Jesus on a white horse and call him ‘the antichrist’ and these same dear brothers think I am the heretic![they ‘see’ him where he is not. They see Jesus coming and taking away a large population of earth from a verse that simply says ‘come up hither’ to John. They then have a very plain verse of a conquering rider on a white horse and say ‘this cant be Jesus because he has a bow instead of a sword’ this reasoning is crazy!] God does have a sense of humor. Also in the book of revelation you have prophetic imagery. The beast and the dragon and the lamb. Revelation uses extreme figures to clearly show forth either the righteousness [white horse] or the judgment [pale horse] of things. John is seeing things in stark images. To then translate the rider on the white horse in a way that is ‘secretive’ [i.e.; satan appearing as an angel of light] would be going against the main flow of the images in revelation. This prophetic book clearly uses symbols in stark contrast. Though the book itself has many ‘tricky’ symbols, the symbols themselves are not hidden, but obvious. Like the ‘great whore’ and stuff like that. I want to stress that the brothers who believe these silly interpretations are very smart. In the above example they will have all types of deep reasons why a certain image means a certain thing. Deep studies into the possible rise of the Roman Empire and things. While I personally do not see their views as correct, they have done lots of research and background work in espousing their views. How than can intelligent people overlook some of the plain stuff I just showed you? It’s because we have a tendency to go down certain paths in our thinking, and once we go down these paths it never dawns on us to take a breath before you so adamantly describe the rider on the white horse ‘oh, he is the anti christ’. All of us need to lay our knowledge and past influences at the foot of the Cross. I am not saying leave your brain at the door! But we need to approach scripture with a broad view of Gods overall purpose. If you see revelation from the context of Kingdoms being in conflict, and you view Johns prophetic writings as the Spirit showing us that the Kingdom of God will face fierce resistance from the kingdoms of men, then you will be looking for images of Jesus conquering in the face of fierce opposition. You will also see the church going thru great trials throughout the centuries. You will see God vindicating his people, and even honoring the prayers of his martyrs. You will see the empire that John was living in at the time as one of the most severe threats to the fledgling church [Rome and the early centuries]. This will help in the overall view of the book, seeing it in the light of the way it was written. This style of literature was called ‘apocalyptic’ in the early church. There were ways to see this type of writing. I am not saying that revelation isn’t inspired, but see it in context of the larger picture. John shows the Kingdom of God ultimately triumphing over the kingdoms of men at the end of the age. We know that these figures are still in the future, but much of the imagery of Rome [the city on 7 hills] and its war against the saints had fulfillment during the early centuries. It had real meaning to the church then, as it does to us today. Why resurrect the Roman Empire as well as all the other images in order to fit our day. The book was meant for all the church. So our brother’s who lived 2000 years ago had stuff about them and their struggles, as well as the future hopes contained in it for us. The book is a wonderful prophetic vision given to encourage the people of God thru out the ages. The message is the ultimate triumph of the Kingdom of God over the kingdoms of men. We see a victorious Jesus leading a white robed [righteous] army of saints in certain victory. Don’t read the book looking for 666 and stuff, I know it’s in there, but the purpose of the book is to testify of Jesus conquering Kingdom, not the anti Christ.
(556) Started reading Joshua. As God brings them into the land Joshua is like Jesus in Revelation, leading the people into a triumphant victory. In both books you see 2 spies [witnesses] you have the harlot Rahab getting judged [she is declared righteous, a Divine act of justification-Hebrews 11] and you have the great whore of Babylon getting judged in Revelation. You have the Old Testament Joshua which means Jesus in the New. As the children of Israel take Jericho they see how God is working supernaturally on their behalf. They then go to the next city, Ai, and only send in a few thousand troops. They lose around 36 men. Joshua overreacts to this loss and falls on his face. Tells God ‘why did you make us come over this Jordan, we could have stayed on the other side. When all our enemies hear about this they will surround us and kill us’. He has quite a pity party! It’s like God is looking down and telling Jesus ‘hey, I know I picked the boy, but who would have thought he was going to take it this bad!’ It’s funny, the Lord finally appears to him and says ‘get up, what are you doing on your face? You have encountered a problem, so deal with it’ God reveals to Joshua that one of his men has some of the goods hidden in his camp and that’s the sin that caused the defeat. They get the guy, make him confess, and everything is O.K. Not! They stone the brother to death and then to make sure he’s dead, they burn the guy! Ouch! I could just see one of our local gangs standing by thinking ‘and we thought our gang was bad’. The Lord deals with the sin and they regroup. I find it funny how Gods leaders all have a tendency to overreact to problems. I think it’s in our nature. Leaders have the ability to see farther than the rest of the community, they also come to more drastic conclusions when things go wrong. Elijah, Moses, etc... The Lords solution was ‘deal with the problem, do what you have to do, get up off of your face for heavens sake, and let’s get on with the program’. I don’t like these types of answers either. I wish the Lord would give me a special response like ‘son, I see the problem. Your right. I will rapture you and destroy all your enemies. And I will make all those people who talked about you feel bad that you aren’t around anymore. We’ll show them’ God doesn’t do this, he tells us ‘get off the ground and start moving’ are you moving forward yet?
(557) Joshua- As Joshua takes Jericho, they experience failure at Ai. They violate the principle of God being with them as a community. They split off and send a few thousand to Ai, God stayed in the camp! Our victory comes when we see all of our brothers in our region as the corporate people of God, don’t divide the Body of Christ, it is certainly not limited to the Christians who meet in buildings on Sunday. It is also not divided into all these different ‘churches’. We are all the Church, even the ones who don’t ‘go to church on Sunday!’ [That is if you are a believer]. Gibeon sees Israel’s victory and pretends they are travelers going thru the land. They put old clothes on and have moldy bread. They tell Joshua ‘we are traveling thru the land, make a league with us’ Joshua does, and they find out that they are really inhabitants of the land. The people blame the leaders for this bad decision, even though they all thought it was a good idea at the time! This happens all the time in church situations, if you haven’t experienced it yet, you will. So as the children of Israel start possessing land, it becomes easy. They form a habit of possessing! God will bring you to a place where you begin overcoming obstacles on a routine basis. Another dynamic that takes place is the inhabitants of the land begin forming alliances against Israel. One alliance forms, and Joshua conquers them. Then another one forms. Scripture says God put it in their hearts to do this so Joshua would cover more territory rapidly. God was allowing Israel to ‘kill 2 birds with one stone’ so to speak. Do you see your enemies forming alliances against you? Sort of like ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. Do people who could never agree on things unite now in opposition to you? Then praise God, he is giving you possession rapidly! The tribe Of Joseph asks Joshua for more land, they have 2 tribes to represent [Ephraim and Manasseh] Joshua says ‘you are right, go take the wood land [forest]’ they say ‘it’s to hard to take’ Joshua says ‘be strong; you would be surprised what you can do with Gods help’ Joshua learned this lesson from experience. Some times we are like the tribe of Joseph, we want people to give us opportunities. We want land given to us free and clear. We have developed this entitlement mentality in the church [and country!] Often times the answer to our problem is ‘overcome it’. We don’t like this answer.
(558) A few more things from Joshua. He tells Israel to build cities of refuge, so when someone is guilty of the blood of another person he can flee into the city for refuge. This is a type of the church. The bible calls the church the New Jerusalem, John calls her the city of God coming down from God out of heaven, the bride the lamb’s wife. All men are guilty of the blood of Jesus, he died for our sins. We can flee into the Body of Christ and find refuge in the church. Those who fled to the cities of refuge stayed there until the death of the high priest. After his death they could go out from the city and live the rest of their days in their land. The death of our high priest, Jesus, allows us to ‘go out and come in and find pasture’ we have release thru the death of Jesus as well as thru his life! The 2 and a half tribes, Rueben, Gad and Manasseh go back to the other side of the Jordan to posses their land. They build an altar on the coast of Jordan. The tribes in the Promised Land hear about it and confront them ‘why did you build this altar? Are you rebelling against God?’ They reassure their brothers that it is an altar of witness only, they will never sacrifice an animal on it. It is standing there alone, away from the tabernacle and is free from all animal sacrifice. What a picture of the Cross! And last but not least Joshua commands all the people to honor God, he makes them publicly commit to serve the Lord. He then sets up this ‘great stone’ and says ‘this stone is a witness for you, it has heard all the words you have spoken. Don’t go against what you have said’. This is another type of Christ. Jesus is the ‘great stone’ that all judgment has been given to. He has ‘heard all the words we have spoken’ and seen our thoughts and intents. Don’t rebel against him. He also is the ‘capstone/headstone’ that completes the temple of God [the church]. In the prophets [Haggai/Zechariah] they shout ‘grace, grace’ unto it as it is being placed at the temples completion. Jesus will return someday and complete the glorious temple of God, the church, and he does it with absolute grace. He is the great stone!
(559) Felt like the lord had a word for you ‘Those who I give great authority to, are required to walk in humility. The authority requires it. If pride gets in the way, I will not remove the authority, but instead allow humiliation. Either you humble yourself, or I will humble you. I am more concerned with fulfilling the mandate thru you, than for your own personal comfort’.
(560) This goes with the last entry, but I wanted that word to stand alone. In the early church you had leaders who raised the dead and operated in miraculous signs. None of them organized a ministry around their personalities or saw their gift as a means to obtain financial independence. They were not operating with today’s mindset. When undue attention was given to them because of their gifts, they saw it as their responsibility to reject it. They would not allow themselves to become famous and become the center of attention. I often hear talk on the return of the early power once again. Until we rethink the purpose and nature of our gifts, we will not have the character to handle it. The present church thru pride has grasped an ideology that sees the gifts and the people as tools to bring success to themselves. This spirit must come down. It is no accident that Jesus dealt with the money changers the way he did. He understood that the merchandising of the gospel would be a tremendous hindrance to his purpose in the earth. We, as a people, must repent and return to a simple concept of all Gods people being equals, and the gifted ones in our midst are simply carriers of the gifts for the mutual benefit of all Gods people. We need to humble ourselves once again.
(561) I heard a brother speak the other day. He shared a good message. He confessed that most of his background and study came from a certain type of Christianity. He shared from A.A. Allen, John G lake, Kathryn Kuhlman and others who were part of the ‘latter rain’ or healing movements from the middle of the last century. He also said how after he became a Christian he called Rhema Bible college and ordered ‘one of everything’ they had. He had quite a big load of books and tapes! The message the brother shared was good, he seems to be a very humble man. I remember studying many of these movements myself, I realized the danger that comes from seeing only one particular aspect of the church. Like studying year’s worth of teachings that all have the same fundamental error. You might think you are learning year’s worth of knowledge, but in reality you are feeding from a very skewed idea of Christianity. The people the lord used in the latter rain movement were good people [with many flaws] that for the most part were gifted in great ways. I feel the problem with this movement was the whole concept of fame and ‘platform performance’. They didn’t see the wrong paradigm that they were operating from. They didn’t realize that these gifts should be used in a limited way from such a platform. They fell into the mindset of the day that created an organization around them and their personas. So you had tremendously gifted people, like William Branham, who operated in tremendous giftings, but who also had some serious doctrinal flaws. He taught racist ideas about blacks, the ‘seed of the serpent’ and things like this. I do not view all of these people as false prophets, the danger was the individualistic style and performance mentality that went along with the gifts. Real gifts, less than ideal ways of expressing them.
(562) John:1 Jesus is called the Word of God, he comes into the earth as the incarnation, the ‘fleshed out’ fulfillment of Gods Word. John the Baptist is asked who he is. The Jewish leaders ask ‘are you that prophet?’ he says ‘no’. What prophet? The one Moses said would come ‘the Lord God will raise up a prophet unto you, like me. Whoever doesn’t listen to him will be destroyed’. We covered this in Deuteronomy. They ask him ‘are you Elijah’ he says ‘no’. John was the fulfillment of the Malachi prophecy that said before the Lord comes he will send Elijah the prophet. Jesus says this about John. Why did John deny it? I am not sure, but it might be because he really didn’t know. Sort of like the thorn in Paul’s side, God allowed things to happen to Paul so he would not get puffed up in pride and side track his mission. Maybe the Lord never let John see how truly effective he was. John does say ‘I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness’ John does see himself thru the prophet Isaiah. I like this. I have personally had many words from Isaiah that I felt the Lord had given me, John saw himself in this book too. John was ‘the voice’ just like Jesus is ‘the Word’ John is ‘the voice’. John was a voice before he was a man. God had predestined John to carry a message before he was born. He had this word in his DNA at birth. His body was simply a carrier, an ‘incarnation’ of the voice that he was to have. God has predestined all of us with a purpose before we were born. Our appearing on the planet is for the sole purpose of carrying out this destiny. You are not here to be happy, have a nice income, go to a nice church. You are here to fulfill Gods will, you can have the other things or not, that is irrelevant. You must first fulfill the mission! John testifies of Christ by the Spirit descending on Jesus. John says ‘I knew him not, but by the Spirit’ John knew Jesus, he was his cousin! But John was only going to recognize the gifts and callings on people. He would follow Paul's admonition ‘know no man after the flesh’. It is incumbent upon us to recognize the gifts in others and to operate accordingly. Don’t make alliances and pacts with people based on friendship and personal affiliations. It’s good to have friends and all, but the Kingdom is built upon recognizing and receiving those who have come with a mandate from God. John saw Jesus in this light. Scripture says ‘the world was made by him, he was in the world, yet they knew him not’ Jesus was creating a divine atmosphere of grace for people to access. They didn’t even know or recognize him, yet this didn’t side track him from his purpose. Understand that God has placed you in a geographical location with a pre planned destiny in mind. God has chosen you to be where you are and for this season. You will fulfill your calling whether people ‘know’ you or not. God requires us to see the gifts in each other, but many will not appreciate what you are doing, do it any way, you have come with a destiny to fulfill, so fulfill it!
(563) John 2- Jesus does his first miracle, changes water into wine. They say ‘most people put the good wine out first, but you have saved the best for last’. This is a type of the new covenant of his blood [wine], Jesus will introduce a better covenant thru his blood. Many will not accept this new way because they have been ‘drinking’ old wine for so long, they are not willing to change. We often see this in Christian circles, people who have functioned in a limited way for years, God might bring to them new ways of seeing things, they will often reject the new wine on the basis of being comfortable with the old way, we don’t want to shake the apple cart. God wants us to shake it! Jesus finds the money changers in the temple and drives them out with a whip, turns the tables over and gets mad. He didn’t take the ecumenical approach! There are times for radical transition, I feel we are at that place now as the people of God. The gospel is not about us increasing our portfolio, it’s about laying our goals down for the kingdom. These money changers lost their influence in the ‘temple’ after Jesus got thru with them, I think it was prophetic. Jesus says ‘destroy this temple and in 3 days I will raise it up’ those hearing this mistake his Body [temple] with the building [temple in Jerusalem]. Evangelicals [some of them] make the same mistake today. They are looking to the natural events in natural Jerusalem, they should be looking at the real temple! [Both Jesus and the Body of Christ]. Jesus goes to the Passover, the people hail him and Jesus says he will not commit himself to them, because he knew what was in man. What was in man? These same people will be asking for his death not long from now. Jesus did not seek commitment from men, contrary to the way we see ministry today. Modern ministry seeks to increase man’s commitment to them ‘pledge so much money, join this or that’ Jesus knew he had a destiny, he would fulfill it without the help of man!
(564) DREAM- I just woke up, I dreamt that I was in this room with a Catholic Bishop. We were friends and helping each other out. He was going to go to some nation or place, before he left I laid hands on him and he was being filled with the Spirit. I feel like this spoke to us ministering to a large Catholic community of people. I have both given and received ministry from Catholics. I felt the Lord was saying we would have influence with our Catholic brothers. Sometimes I ‘spiritualize’ these dreams, it might be that a Catholic Bishop was filled with the Spirit while listening to us?
(565) John 3- Nicodemus comes secretly to Jesus, he is one of the few in leadership that is having doubts. The others with one voice reject Jesus, Nicodemus is wondering. Jesus rebukes him for being a ‘ruler’ of the Jews and not being able to comprehend the most basic stuff. I have found it disheartening over the years to talk with Pastors who heard someone teach that because Jesus had an expensive coat, that he must have been rich. Despite all the evidence in the New Testament how Jesus was the son of a carpenter and lived an average life. The tons of verses where Jesus is reproving rich people. The whole historical and biblical truth of Jesus being a man of humble means. The fact that he had an expensive coat can more than likely be explained by the custom of people doing extravagant acts of worship towards him. The woman and the expensive perfume poured on him. Things like this. Someone probably gave him the coat. But for Pastors, who are good men, to fall for this stuff was unbelievable. Sort of like Jesus telling Nicodemus ‘you are a leader and can’t discern the most basic stuff’! Jesus teaches the reality of the new birth. All people must be born of God thru belief in Jesus, or they will not be saved. We must stand strong for Jesus as the only way to God. John the Baptist will be told that all men are going to Jesus. John says ‘great, he must increase and I must decrease’ John understood that the role of leadership [prophets] was to point to the fame and persona of Jesus. Not to go down the common road of pointing people towards us. In modern ministry we draw people to our gifts and abilities. We structure modern churches around the gift of the Pastor. We allow leadership to become preeminent in our minds and thoughts. John knew better. We also see that the wrath of God abides on all who do not believe in Jesus. If you believe in Jesus you escape Gods wrath. It can’t touch you. Whether you are in heaven or earth, or like David said ‘in hell you are there’. That is you can’t escape Gods presence anywhere. So if you are in Christ, wrath can’t get you. If you are not in Christ, it continually abides on you. You do not escape wrath by leaving the planet during the tribulation. If an unbeliever was on a rocket ship right before the tribulation started, and wound up on the moon during the 7 years of wrath, he wouldn’t escape Gods wrath. You don’t escape judgment by being in the right geographical location, you escape it by being IN HIM! John also says a man can receive nothing unless it is given to him. Why be jealous if all of our gifts and abilities are free gifts? We act like we earned them! John says no man receives his testimony, then he says ‘to those who have received it’. What’s this mean? Paul told the Corinthians that we have received the Spirit of God so we might know the things that are freely given to us from God. God gives us his Spirit first, so we can receive his testimony. This goes back to the early centuries of the church and hits all the major doctrines on sovereignty. Augustine, Calvin, Luther [Yes Luther was a strong believer in predestination, it was no accident that he was an Augustinian monk!] Paul tells the Ephesians that were are dead in sins and completely incapable of receiving spiritual truth until God pours his Spirit into us and we become alive. Thank God that even though no man [in the natural] can receive his testimony, that God gives us his Spirit and births us so we can know the things that he has freely given to us in Christ!
(566) John 4- Jesus talks to the woman at the well. She is Samaritan and he violates the cultural norms of the day by speaking to this woman. Critics often say Christianity is bigoted against women, Jesus gave more honor to women than any other religion of the day. He tells the woman that if she asked, he would give her the Spirit that would be a well of water in her. God wants us to flow in revelation and truth, not just teach from the intellect. Now the intellect is important, God says ‘worship me with you heart, soul, MIND and might’ but you must allow the Spirit to spring up from you like a well. Jesus tells the woman ‘you have had 5 husbands and the guy you’re shacking up with now is not your husband’ she then says ‘I perceive you are a prophet’. Funny, she turns the conversation over to religion! She recognizes the prophetic aspect of Jesus words and says ‘I think you’re a prophet’. Unlike many Christians today, she believed that prophecy was more than just preaching, she knew it carried a supernatural element. They continue to talk ‘religion’ and Jesus tells her all worship takes place in Spirit and truth, not at a specific location. The religious mind looks for ‘religious’ places to carry out worship, Jesus says ‘from now on it will be done thru all who worship in Spirit and truth’. He is speaking of the new concept of the people of God being the temple. No longer will they need the temple down the block, but they will be the actual dwelling place of God. Jesus says his meat is to do the will of him that sent him and to finish his work. We often do the will, but don’t finish the task! I just retired after 25 years as a firefighter [actually the retirement is in process] and I have seen so many talented guys join the dept and do a few years and go somewhere else. They might stay a few years at the next dept. and leave again. It’s not that they aren’t talented, they just don’t stick it out. God wants us to finish his task, don’t have a resume with a lot of activity, have one that has some assignments that were completed. Jesus says look on the fields, they are ready. Don’t say ‘4 more months and then comes harvest’. We are always in the harvest. It is not something that only happens in church on Sunday. Break the mindset that is always looking down the road for ministry to happen. Ministry happens right now, all the time. You and I are in the harvest, are you picking any fruit? Jesus says a prophet has no honor in his own country. We often want a prophetic word from some out of town prophet. We enjoy going out of town to a conference or some vacation venue to get a ‘word from the Lord’. We do not like to receive from prophets in our midst. They often don’t give good words like ‘Thus saith the Lord, you will be rich’ and stuff like that. We need to stop looking for the word we want to hear, and receive from prophets in our area.
(567) John 5- Jesus heals the man at the pool of Bethesda. Scripture says an angel went down into this pool at a certain time and stirred the water, whoever got in after the water was stirred was healed. How do we explain this? Were the people superstitious? Well I think it happened just like John wrote it. We believe in a supernatural God, he raised his Son from the dead, he surely can send an angel to stir up some water. Jesus asks the man ‘do you want to be healed’? You would think ‘of course’ but people that are in situations that can lend to being irresponsible, having others take care of them, they often want to stay that way. It gives them an excuse to ‘not act responsibly’. The man says ‘I have no man to put me into the water after the angel comes’ he is looking for others to do something for him. He has a victim mentality. Jesus says ‘quit blaming everyone else, take up your bed and walk’. It’s time for our society to tell people ‘take up your bed and walk, we love you, we want to help you as much as possible, but you need to eventually take up your bed and walk’ hard stuff! Jesus will call God his father, making himself equal with God. The Jewish leaders will be offended. He then will tell them if they do not honor him, they are not honoring the Father. He says he only does what he sees the Father doing first. His life was an exact duplicate of the heart of God. Our lives should be the result of what God wants and reveals to us. Your life is not the result of your confession, or you seeking success. Your life should be the outcome of what God has revealed to you. It might mean less money, or less success. It might mean a Cross or martyrdom. Don’t presume that Gods plan for you is simply to have lots of money and be successful, it might mean less money and obscurity. But it will be an abundant life because you lived it in the purpose of God. Jesus says the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear will live. You had as much to do with your spiritual birth as you did with your natural one. Before you were born you had no power or ability to choose to be born, so in your new birth you were dead in sin and unable to ‘choose God’ he chose you. Jesus will tell the religious leaders ‘how can you believe if you seek the honor of men’ he will challenge the religious mindset of the day that thrived off of the notoriety of ‘being in ministry’. The leaders loved the greetings in the markets and public places. They lived for the honor that came from their status as ‘preachers’ who were well known. Jesus condemned this mindset. He says ‘I receive not honor from men’ in essence I am here to lay my life down, I will suffer shame and public humiliation, I will do the will of my Father and bare tremendous reproach and hatred from men. I will please my Father. Jesus tells the Jewish leaders ‘Moses wrote about me, you have his writings. If you don’t believe his writings, how can you believe in me, he wrote about me’ we have covered a lot of the ‘hidden’ images of Jesus found in the Old Testament. Paul will use these images time and again in his debates with Israel. I find it interesting that Jesus saw himself in the Old Testament also.
(568) John 6- We see the first miracle of the feeding of the multitudes. It has been commonly taught that this was a miracle of ‘location’, that is they were far from the market and couldn’t get food to feed everyone. This is not the heart of the story. It is actually a question of finance. Jesus in essence asks ‘how can we buy enough food for everyone to eat, where’s the money gonna come from?’ His disciples say ‘200 pennyworth is not enough to feed them’. They tell Jesus we don’t have the cash to cover it. This is important to see, many have taught a doctrine that says Jesus and the disciples had a large treasury with lots of money. This refutes that. This story is one of God being our supply, we don’t need to trust him for the millions of dollars we think we need to reach the world. We need to believe that he can use our limited finances to reach the world! He did it with Paul, why not you? We also see the doctrine of sovereignty again. Jesus says all who the Father gave to him will come to him, and he will raise them up at the last day. No man can come unless the Father draws him. The Father will draw all who are called. Jesus will lose none of the ones the father gives to him. These doctrines are without a doubt taught in this Gospel. I believe them. Some try to make them ‘fit’ the reasoning of men. They eventually taught that Jesus died only for the elect. That the ‘world’ in John 3:16 speaks of the ‘world of the elect’. Others taught that Jesus blood was only shed for the elect [limited atonement]. Christians have fought for centuries over these doctrines. Our Catholic brothers do not officially teach predestination, though Catholic scholars have believed in it [Augustine]. Some will later be called ‘5 point Calvinists’ others ‘4 points’ and so on. I simply believe the words of Jesus. All that the Father gave to him will come to him, those who come will be raised at the last day. No one comes unless God brings them. The point is God is the initiator, sustainer and completer of our salvation. In our minds we can’t grasp this, but without a doubt Jesus teaches it in this chapter. Now, Jesus will also teach that he is the bread from heaven and unless a man eats his flesh and drinks his blood he will not have eternal life. Many good Christians have taught that the way this is carried out is thru transubstantiation, they teach that the bread and wine turn into the literal body and blood of Jesus at the Mass [Catholic theologian Scott Hahn believes John chapter 6 is the foundational chapter for all Catholic theology]. That it just looks like bread and wine, but it is really flesh and blood. Luther and Calvin taught something almost identical, consubstantiation. The doctrine that the bread and wine stay bread and wine, but that the flesh and blood of Jesus are also literally contained within the bread and wine. This doctrine differs very little from the Catholic one. Both of these doctrines are called ‘the real presence’. The only reformer who taught what much of modern Evangelicals believe was Zwingli. He took it to be a symbol only. Zwingli was the dear brother who killed the Ana Baptists for their faith! I visited the spot where this took place in Switzerland many years ago. There is this huge statue of Zwingli overlooking the town where he drowned the poor brothers! The Jews in this chapter say ‘how can this man give us his flesh to eat and blood to drink?’ They are clearly seeing this in the natural. Jesus goes on and teaches that all who believe in him will never hunger again. He is associating eating with faith. He also says ‘the flesh profits nothing, the words I am speaking to you give life’ he is clearly teaching that he was not going to figure out a way to change bread and wine into his literal flesh. He was teaching that all who would believe in his death and resurrection were eating and getting life from Jesus, they would have eternal life. The bread that if a man eats from will live forever. I believe my Catholic and Orthodox and Lutheran brothers are Christian, I do not hold to the view that the ‘real presence’ is a doctrine from hell. I believe good Christians took the words of Jesus literally and developed a belief that became an historic belief amongst many Christians. Some of the greatest Christian theologians hold to this belief. I simply disagree with them.
(569) In reading this new book I came across a verse I like ‘The rescuer will come out of Zion and rip away iniquity from Jacob’. I am not sure which version of the bible it is, but it sure works!
(570) DREAM- I just dreamt that I took my van to the tire shop to get some new tires and an oil change. The guy asked me how far I was going, 100 miles? I told him no, around a 1,000 miles. I felt like the Lord was saying he is going to increase our [you too!] distance and influence. ‘GET OUT OF THE CITY AND DWELL IN THE FIELDS’ ‘YOU HAVE BEEN FAITHFUL OVER A LITTLE, I WILL NOW GIVE YOU AUTHORITY OVER 10 CITIES’ Be sensitive to the new areas that God is going to open for you. One word from the Lord will accomplish much more than all the good ideas you can come up with. Don’t think in 100 mile parameters, but in a thousand!
(571) Just heard from a friend in Jersey, he just did 5 months in jail. He is a few years younger than me, didn’t grow up with him but met him a few years ago. He told me he had a jail mate [room mate!] that was from my old neighborhood, he was my age and all. He told me the name and I recognized the guy, I went to high school with him. He told my friend how he got busted for holding up the gas station in my old neighborhood with a gun. He is a crack addict and spent the last 27 years after graduating [class of 1980- my graduation year] high school robbing and doing drugs. Sad. A few years ago when I was up north I was walking by my old high school and saw his parent’s deli, they own a deli right by my old high school. I went in to see if he was still around. I spoke to his brother and he simply acknowledged that he was still around, but gave no details. I guess they didn’t want to say anymore. I feel time is running out for some of us. A lot of people reap at the age of 45 [both of our ages as I write this]. Read the death row stories that come out in the paper. Most of the guys are right around that age. The harvest is ready, the laborers are few. If you are a believer and are reading this, go out into the fields and bring in some harvest before it’s too late.
(572) John 7- His brethren say ‘if you do these things, go up to the feast and show yourself openly’. The mindset was if you are really as special or gifted as you think, then go public! Jesus did not seek honor from men. He will ‘go public’ at the right time, but it will be a public crucifixion before many witnesses. He would not let them make him a king, or exalt him in their own way. Before exaltation there would be a Cross. ‘Some say he is a good man, others that he is a deceiver’ Jesus caused polarizing reactions from people. Prophets will be seen as false or good, there is very little middle ground. ‘How knoweth this man letters, having never learned’ Jesus learned, he was a good Jewish boy. They had the Old Covenant and were taught it ‘religiously’. The leaders meant he did not have the ‘higher education’ from the institutions of the day. I want to make a note here, I am not against higher education, Jesus did avail himself of the Old Testament, which was the ‘library’ of the day. A great collection of books and wisdom, if you read the gospels carefully you will also see that Jesus knew current events, he was not an isolated person coming up with his individual conclusions of scripture. I think it hurts the church to have an attitude of ‘all I need to know is the bible’ while it is good to know the Word, you should also expand your knowledge as much as possible. You don’t need the ‘letters’ or titles from men, but you should be educated as much as possible. ‘I have done one work and you all marvel’ the leaders were condemning Jesus for healing the man on the Sabbath, he tells them ‘you circumcise on the Sabbath, why cant I make someone whole on the Sabbath?’ circumcision was the cutting away of the ‘flesh’ in consecration to God. In essence it was saying ‘all that proceeds from me from this day forward, my lineage and seed and everything I am, is dedicated to God’ if they were allowed, by their own conscience, to ‘cut the flesh away’ on the Sabbath, then why not permit [in their own mind] the ‘adding’ unto a person by healing his flesh and giving him back his health. Jesus showed them that even in their own reasoning they could allow for what he did, but they didn’t give him the same lenience that they gave themselves. We often reject what a person is saying based on the actions he has done in the past, even though we allow many of the same things. Jesus said ‘judge rightly’ use the same measure that you would use on your self. ‘Yet a little while I am with you, you will seek me and not find me’ Jesus says this to the Jews who do not accept him as Messiah, they have been looking for him [unknowingly] for 2 thousand years and haven’t found him yet, boy are they gonna be surprised! The Pharisees send the officers to take Jesus, even though he didn’t openly go up to the feast, he later went secretly. He is teaching publicly and the people are amazed. They say ‘if this is the one the leaders are trying to get, why don’t they just take him?’ the officers couldn’t stop him! The Pharisees ask ‘why didn’t you capture him like we asked’ they respond ‘never man spake like him’ the authority that he had from God protected him. As the Pharisees discuss Jesus, they say ‘this people who do not know the law [word] are going after him, none of us are’. Well Nicodemus is in this group, and we know he snuck out in chapter 3 and did go ‘after him’. He is feeling a little guilty about it and speaks up on Jesus behalf ‘well, let’s not be so quick to judge, lets hear him out’. The other Pharisees reject him too ‘are you also from Galilee?’ They had this intellectual argument going that took all the Old Testament prophecies about Messiah and where he would come from. There are different prophecies that speak of Jesus in different ways, they held to a belief that when Messiah came, no one would no where he came from. Their understanding kept them in the dark. They were not willing to be corrected, they saw everyone else as ignorant, and they were the true ‘elites’ of the day. Pride keeps people form truth. We often can’t be corrected, we think the ‘correctors’ just don’t know the word. This comes from spiritual pride. Many who view themselves as religious leaders, or gifted in some way with bible knowledge, can not humble themselves and receive correction in the area where they pride themselves. For the Pharisees to have accepted Jesus, they would have had to admit that they were wrong about certain prophecies, and that the ‘under class’ was right, this was too much for them to accept.
(573) Jesus asked once ‘who do men say that I am?’ then the disciples gave a short list of ideas. How would this question be answered today? If you looked at the best selling Christian books of the last few years you would think God was a cosmic Santa Claus, some success guru who lived to give us a happy, wealthy, trouble free life. We are not the first generation of people that ‘created God in our own image’. That is we see a ‘god’ of our own choosing. We see what we want! Who do you say that he is? NOTE; The problem with modern publishing is the book publishers are in it for profit [nothing wrong about profit] this cause’s them to publish popular names, regardless of the content. So once a Christian preacher becomes famous, his stuff gets published, because it will sell. This lends to the flooding of the market with ‘average’ [or less than average] stuff. The real good stuff can be found, but you have to wade thru the ‘dung’.
(574) I was just praying and incorporated a verse into it. I usually pray for the Lord to ‘pour out his Spirit on our seed [people we are birthing into the kingdom- seed can mean various things in scripture, one of them means offspring] I also pray ‘let your doctrine drop down like rain, your speech distil like due [Deuteronomy]’ ‘Pour floods upon the dry ground’. All of these verses have been added as I read and memorize scripture. The one that we just read in John ‘out of our bellies shall flow rivers of living water’ speak of Gods flow of life and revelation thru his people. So I added this one too. May God flow thru all of you guys and flood the earth so the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. You have a river of life inside of you, it gives life to all who come in contact with it, let your life be a river. God wants you to overflow with his Spirit so everything that touches you comes to life.
(575) There is a trend going on among evangelicals that I like. Many of the up and coming believers are getting away from the spooky looking presentations of the TV preachers that you and I are familiar with. Many are becoming environmentally minded, they are holding to more liberal views in politics and describe themselves openly as liberal minded. I too see many of the things they see. I purposefully avoid the whole persona of the religious right. Some on the religious right mean well, some seem to be in it for the glory of the crusade. I believe we all should stand for life, that is abortion is wrong, very wrong. We should have compassion on the abused women who have been victims of the whole mindset of ‘the right to choose’. They are guinea pigs in the system. I recently heard a testimony from a person who worked at an abortion clinic. The girl getting the abortion wanted to see ‘it’ after it was over. The nurse brought the ‘it’ to her. She broke down crying and screaming, she begged God to forgive her for what she had just done. The damage done this poor girl will be with her for the rest of her life. The nurse telling the story said ‘I guess she didn’t realize what she was going to see’. This girl was a victim of the system. She was under the impression that doing this was the ‘progressive’ thing to do. It was ‘open minded’. Though I disagree with the whole persona of the moral crusaders, don’t forget what’s truly important. The death of these little babies is neither a ‘right’ or ‘left’ issue, it is one of truth. Have mercy on all those involved, but do all you can in love to defend the defenseless. NOTE; Let me give you an example on how both sides [right and left] can be ‘married’ to their cause more than truth. I personally was against the war in Iraq from the start. It was not for many of the reasons you hear the liberals give today. Many of their arguments are false. Some of them say ‘I voted for the war, but it didn’t work because Bush mishandled it, he is incompetent!’ the same group will say ‘what idiot thought you could get these warring factions in Iraq to work together, they have been fighting for thousands of years and have never been at harmony’. First, if you thought it could have worked, but bush messed it up, fine. Then don’t come back a year later and give the other argument, both cant be true! Second, these ‘tribes’ have lived together for years in a measure of ‘harmony’. They did it Under Saddam Hussein. This is the very argument that they make, that all was ‘well’ before we went in. These guys are all over the map with their reasoning. Now, when Bush got in office, he was told by the outgoing Clinton administration that the single greatest threat was militant Islam and terrorism. At the same time Saddam just stepped up his shooting at our pilots who were regularly flying the no fly zone [remember Bush 1, he signed a surrender agreement with the guy!] so Bush 2 gets in office, is told the number one threat is militant Islam, Saddam is regularly firing at our planes, also kicking out the weapons inspectors. All the intelligence from ALL the countries said ‘Saddam is massing or developing weapons of mass destruction’. Then 9-11 happens. It was a judgment decision to go in and invade. Many of Bush’s advisors had the ideology [neo con’s] that the only way to truly change the region and deal with this ongoing threat was to go in and establish a democracy in this area. They sincerely believed this, they felt Clintons strategy was not working, just ‘smart bombing’ every now and then to try and kill Osama bin Laden [or 'bin hiding'!] So the critics today would have you believe that all was well in the world before Bush started his crusade against Islam, not true. Can you imagine what Chris Matthews and all the other talking heads would have said if Bush didn’t go in? Saddam just might have succeeded in downing our planes, then what? He would have had no weapons inspectors. Over time things just might have gotten pretty bad. The fact that we did tie up much of Al Qaeda has had an affect on us not getting hit again since 9-11. It is very possible that the invasion has caused the terrorists to focus on Iraq and not have the time or resource’s to hit us at home. The critics of the war never even seem to give this a second thought. Now, why was I against this war? I felt we were spreading ourselves to thin. To go and occupy another country on the other side of the world was just doing too much. If we had to eliminate the guy, then do it like Israel does. Just send a commando force in and do it. I know this also would have had tremendous reverberations, the critics would have decried the instability of Iraq as all the tribes would be fighting for control of the country, and sure enough all the talking heads would have said ‘what in the world is Bush doing, doesn’t he know that you have to occupy a country to change it, you cant just assassinate the leader’ you will never please these news guys [note; It is the policy of our country to not assassinate leaders of other countries, some think we should re think this policy]. So anyway I just thought I would throw this in being we are talking about Christians being both liberal and conservative on various issues. NOTE; recently we have had terrible wild fires in California. Chris Matthews had the Lt. Governor of California on his show [he interviewed him on the screen, he is a Democrat] Bush was going to fly in and see the damage and support the people. Matthews asks the question ‘by Bush flying in, will it hurt or help’ he asks this in a loaded way, expecting the anti Bush answer. The politician says ‘ it will hurt us, he will be taking security resources and be a big distraction’. Matthews espouses the thought that Bush is going for purely political reasons and is actually causing great damage to the state. In essence ‘he shouldn’t go’. This is the same guy who couldn’t stop accusing Bush of insensitivity because he waited too long before he went to Louisiana after hurricane Katrina. No matter what Bush does, Matthews will find something wrong. This is not news reporting, this is simply division for the sake of ratings. I am an avid news watcher, I watch all the stations, both liberal and conservative. Matthews [hardball on MSNBC] is doing a disservice to this country. He also accused Bush of racism and neglecting the poor, he interviewed Peter King [congressman from New York] after Katrina and wanted to know why more money was cut from Louisiana’s budget than any other state in the years before Katrina. He was leading the whole audience to believe Bush was a racist, didn’t care about the poor blacks. He went on for days about this. Finally Peter King informs him on the air, that the same year Matthews is asking about, that Louisiana received more federal money than any other state [not the year of the disaster]. Obviously this is why their budget was cut the most, they still received the most out of all the other states. They cut to a commercial and you never hear Matthews recant of his racist accusations. He just drops the whole matter. So all the viewers of his show who were led to believe that Bush is a racist, they heard it for weeks from this guy, they then never were told the truth. Matthews just stopped talking about it. This guy is dangerous to this country, whether you are to the right or the left of the political spectrum, consistent lying is of no value whatsoever. NOTE; to be honest I have since come to the conclusion that the massive effort, expense and loss of life has caused me to think that the war has not been worth the cost. Hopefully things will work out better than they look right now [11-07] but the fact remains that eventually whoever runs the country in the future, we have no guarantee they will be better than Saddam. As it looks now, the group who holds the most seats in their govt. are the same religious sect that Iran’s madman holds to. Not very comforting! Also the other thing is Christians should question how the teachings of Jesus should mold our thinking in the area of war. I am not a pacifist, I do hold to the classic Christian doctrine of just war, but there are many believers who are pacifists. I remember reading somewhere how a leading Christian pacifist was debating someone who believed in war, the ‘war guy’ said ‘look at how dangerous your doctrine can be, say if everybody embraced it, what would happen?’ The pacifist answered ‘no more war’. I understand it is naïve to believe that sinful man could ever embrace it on a global scale. James tells us all wars come from mans sin and strife, so as believers we should be very ‘slow’ to go to war, a very last resort. Overall I do think the cost of the Iraq war was too much in life and money to have been justified. Do I advocate pulling out before we give the current govt. a chance to stabilize? No, that would be totally irresponsible on our part. We need to do our best to help them stabilize, but we also want to get our guys out as fast as we can. Some believe the problem is the lack of ‘financial well being’ that these Muslim countries have that cause’s the problem. They espouse the view that if the rich nations helped the poor ones [even though many of these nations have wealth, the standard of living for the average Muslim is low] that this would solve the problem of radical Islam. They don’t seem to realize that Osama was very wealthy and affluent. The problem is much deeper than money, seeing money as the answer is symptomatic of the problem with western thought in the world and church. We seem to think that money is the answer to everything, we see our God thru the lens of how he can increase our portfolio. The problem with all mankind is sin, the only solution to the sin dilemma is Christ. This is why I have said before the answer is not killing the radical Muslim, but bringing the truth of the gospel to him. Muhammad saw the idolatry in the Christian church and how far she fell from the standards of God, he saw the inconsistencies of western Christianity [really western, Rome] in the way she allowed the setting up of statues, which Muhammad saw as a violation of the commandment not to make any graven images. He saw the expressions of the Trinity, some that actually said ‘we have 3 separate Gods who are all equal’ this expression violated the teaching in scripture of ‘the Lord our God is one’. Now I am a Trinitarian, but it is not hard to see how even Muhammad could have disagreed with the above language, it is not easy to explain the Trinity! So there were some real problems that Islam saw with Christianity and went down a wrong road. Any road that doesn’t accept the full deity of Christ leads to destruction. So the answer isn’t to kill these guys, or to lift up their standard of living. But to bring the true freedom of Christ to them. Now I realize that our country wasn’t in the business of preaching the gospel of pacifism after we got hit at 9-11, but the overall answer to mans problem [all mankind, Jew, Muslim [Arab], nominal Christians] is Jesus Christ. He said ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No man can come to the Father but by me’. NOTE; strife is in mans nature. I have a friend up north who was telling me how one of their friends was looking for a place to live, the place he is now living at is not good. The landlords are his sister and her husband. The husband has a bad temper, he has been in prison for murder! So my friend says ‘you can rent from me, I have a room where you can stay’. So they go over to get his stuff, and as their walking up to the house my friend notices they have a nice pool in the yard of this 2 story home [in Jersey where I grew up]. As they keep walking my friend sees all types of stuff in the pool, furniture and stuff. The pool is full of water. My fiend asks ‘what’s all the furniture doing in the pool’ the other guy says ‘o, it’s my landlord, he fights with his wife and throws the stuff out the window and they land in the pool’!
(576) I have a homeless friend who doesn’t like Bush [or the mayor of our city]. He is a believer and is upset that Bush has said that Allah and God are the same, they certainly are not! Every now and then when he is upset about the president, or tells me something that leads to political talk, I will kid him and say ‘well, you know what Bush says ‘Allah and God are the same’ and he will go on for at least an hour after this! He also has something against our Mayor, maybe it’s an authority thing? But he has been harassed over the years by the cops, he doesn’t drink and is a strong believer, but he is homeless. So every so often the cops harass him, he blames it on the Mayor. Sure enough I tell him ‘you mean Henry Garret’ that is the Mayors name. Well my friend didn’t know his full name, my friends name is also Henry, he wasn’t to pleased with this development. Then one day we were just fellowshipping, and I was reading the paper. The Mayor is on the front page with a broad smile, just rejoicing and full of life. I tell my friend ‘hey, your buddies picture is on the front page’ I show it to him and he must have went on for 2 hours about him, I don’t say anything about the Mayor anymore.
(577) Now that I’m telling stories, let me throw this one in. A friend was driving with another friend one day and they make an illegal turn, sure enough the cops are right behind them and turn on the lights. My friend says ‘act like your having a seizure or something, and I’ll pretend I am taking you to the hospital’. Well the cop walks up and asks why they made the illegal turn. Sure enough my friend goes into the explanation as the other person is faking the seizure or something [?] The cop then says ‘I think you are faking it’ and they get a ticket [I think they got the ticket?] Well as my friend is telling me this whole story you can see how mad they were ‘who does this guy think he is, accusing us of lying to get out of a ticket. I should make a formal complaint, how dare they question my integrity’ they went on about how unjust this cop was. I said ‘so you are basically mad that you got caught’ they admitted it!
(578) We are still going to cover the gospel of John, I just felt like the Lord had me sidetrack for these last few entries. I actually have been reading this morning as I penned the last 2 or 3 entries. Let me overview something. I am reading chapter 8 right now, I will cover it soon, but I want to focus you in on the greater objective of Jesus and the introduction of the Kingdom of God to planet earth. In Jesus dealings you see him dealing with the issues of forgiveness, restoration and the breaking in to society of a different kingdom. His concerns are not those of today’s church for the most part. We have a tendency to view scripture and Christianity thru the lens of ‘starting churches’ [Christian places for believers to meet] we view the Kingdom [those of us who don’t believe it is on hold!] thru the lens of man. We see change as something we effect by becoming wealthy and influential in society ‘the world will have to pay attention to us now, look at all the wealth we have’ or ‘look at the big voting block we represent, they will pay attention to this sleeping giant now’ we lose sight of the principles of sacrifice and humility and truly being Christ like. We want the world to notice us because we are more ‘threatening’ and influential than they are. This might get their attention, but it doesn’t really reach them for the kingdom. As we read thru the gospel of John, pay attention to the ‘other worldliness’ of Jesus statements ‘I am not alone, the one who sent me is with me’ ‘you are from below, I am from above’ ‘you can not hear or understand me, you are of this world, I am not’ there is this whole sense of Jesus operating outside of the structures and influence of men. He says ‘I am speaking these things to the world’ yet he never traveled far from his hometown, he did not have the types of journeys that Paul had. Yet he was confident that if he spoke what the Father was saying, then it was Gods job to get the message out. He knew his job was humility and the Cross, he chose to not seek the honor of men, and yet he has had more honor than any other person who has walked the planet. I just wanted to do a little ‘course correction’ here at midstream of our overview of John, don’t just read it for principles to fit in to your present paradigm and structure. It is a gospel that calls us to new birth and new ways of seeing the kingdom. Get your eyes off of the natural, see Jesus for real in this book.
(579) I feel the Lord wants me to speak out on a subject that is controversial. The death penalty. I have never been against it as far as I can tell. I usually answered any questions about it in this way ‘In the bible [Genesis] God says if a man takes another persons life, by man [govt.] his life will be taken’ so this is the justification for the death penalty. Some Christians believe that the teaching of Jesus on the New Covenant being one of turning the other cheek should mean that we should be against the death penalty. I still believe that the govt. has the right to take a life if it is proven beyond any doubt that the person is guilty of murder, and I see the teaching of Jesus as applying to the believer on not personally taking action or revenge. If you apply the teachings of Jesus to all human govts. then you would have a hard time with the teachings of Paul who taught that human govt. has with in it the ability to punish evil doers [Romans]. Now, there have been cases these last few years where people who were in prison with the death penalty have been found to be innocent, I just feel the possibility of executing an innocent person has to override the reality that there are also guilty people on death row. The problem is not with the punishment itself, it is with the weakness of a system that has actually overturned verdicts of people who were on death row. I personally think it’s time for us as a country to put a hold on the death penalty until we can fix the system, or possibly outlaw the death penalty all together. I have felt the Lord wanting me to speak out on this for a while, so here it is. NOTE; I have had friends over the years who came from big families [lots of brothers] who were all robbing, doing drugs and going to prison. One of these guys told me how he got picked up for a robbery that he actually didn’t do. During court the lady pointed him out and swore it was him, he couldn’t believe it. He went and did the time. While in prison his brother, who looked like him, confessed that he did it. My friend did the time, he told me he had done so many other robberies without ever getting caught that he just looked at it as doing time for the other stuff. Well, I just read a story about a guy who was put to death on eyewitness testimony. Someone swore he shot a cop in Texas, after his death years later they found a letter written by his nephew that said his dad [the brother of the man executed] really shot the cop. I do not know all of the details, but I know from personal experience with my friend that it is possible to be found guilty of a crime that your brother committed, the problem is if you already put the guy to death it’s too late to undo it. Also the racial disparity in the amount of blacks that are populating the prison system causes concern. Now, I know whites and Hispanics and other races are also in prison, but the percentage of blacks is not good. Many black kids do not have the same ability to hire lawyers like others due to a lack of finances. So the odds on a black person being executed innocently are higher. The racial disparity should cause us to rethink this policy in our country.
(580) I picked up a book at the bookstore a few weeks ago, I didn’t get it at the Christian bookstore, but at a regular bookstore. It was written by a Catholic theologian and it’s defending Paul’s writings in the New Testament against his critics. A hobby among people today is to say that Paul ‘hijacked’ the real message of Jesus and preached this anti gay, women hating, anti Semitic message. These critics will tell you how Jesus never said anything against homosexuality, but the homophobia you see in the church is a result of Paul. Well needless to say I disagree. Even though the author is trying to defend Paul, he is one of those higher critics who questions the authenticity of some of Paul’s letters. In his defense of Paul he falls into the category of ‘New Perspective Theology’ that just looks at Paul’s statements on Gentiles being brought in to the community of fellowship that Israel already had with God, sort of like focusing only on the verses of us sharing in the fellowship with God that Israel had. This truth, apart from the other verses on how Israel too must accept Messiah, leaves the perception that Israel is just fine in her current state [of being!]. Well in our study of John we read the Jews respond to Jesus ‘God is our Father’ and Jesus says ‘if you don’t honor me, you can’t have the Father’ though Israel ‘believes’ in the true God, yet she doesn’t know him, according to Jesus. So anyway the book wasn’t as good as I thought it would be. A few weeks back I read ‘My new kind of normal’ [I think that’s the title, it’s by Carol Kent] it was real good. She tells the story of how her son joined the military and married a nice girl who had some children from a previous marriage. The son winds up shooting and killing the ex-husband to protect his step daughters. The story is very real, that which is lacking in Christian books today. We have famous Christian celebrity authors writing things that don’t really matter, this book matters. I also just got a book in the mail from Amazon Books on the ‘Children of God’ group. I have studied this movement before, they are a cult. And I have another book coming in a few days on the story of the conversion of Jeffrey Dahmer, he was the serial killer who ‘ate’ his victims. He did accept the lord in prison and I have been wanting to read his story for a while. Have you read any good books lately [or at all]? NOTE; when I went back to spell check this entry it sounds like all I am reading is on cults and killers, trust me I read other good stuff too!
(581) Just reviewing some of the stuff in John’s gospel. The verse ‘those that believe in Jesus, as the scripture hath said, out of their bellies shall flow rivers of living water’ God wants to ‘flow’ multiple streams [rivers-plural] from your life. You must believe on him as the scripture hath said, you can’t come up with your own ideas of Jesus, they must be formed by the witness of the Spirit and the scripture. I can’t help but notice the tremendous lack of authority that comes from the average ‘preaching’ that we hear today. If you are believing in a Jesus that is really not found in scripture, you can’t have ‘multiple’ streams of life flowing thru you.
(582) We have a blind dog, she is old and sweet. Some people were going to put her to sleep and we took her. My daughter gave her a haircut the other day and it looks terrible! All chopped up. I tell her ‘look on the bright side of it, at least she’s blind’.
(583) I just heard on the radio how a famous baseball manager left the Yankees for the Dodgers. The team he was with offered him 5 million a year, he got a better deal somewhere else. I do like the man, Joe Torre. It got me to thinking about some of the mindsets in the corporate/church world. I have heard it taught that if a C.E.O. of a ‘worldly’ business makes 100 million a year, how much more should Gods people value themselves. Now, Paul was the greatest writer of the first century. Though he wasn’t a great speaker, you had others who were [Apollos]. You had the most gifted people in the church in the first century. The writing of the Gospels and the teachings of Jesus have been called the greatest teachings ever. You also had the profession of speaking [rhetoric] and writing books for money that did exist at the time. Why didn’t Paul ‘value’ his letters and get a good price for them? Why didn’t they charge for their ‘value’ in speaking and philosophy? Others did. There was a built in teaching that Jesus left them ‘freely you have received, freely give’. Peter would write leaders in the first century and say ‘take oversight of Gods flock, not for money, but out of a pure heart’. The Old Testament prophets rebuked the shepherds of Israel’s day for ‘fleecing the sheep’, getting gain from the community of God. So, even though it was very possible for Paul and other gifted saints to have made a huge amount of money, they didn’t. We must see this, because the way it is taught today is Christians find the truth out about God blessing Abraham and making him wealthy. They see the many promises of God meeting our needs, and then they go off on this tangent to see nothing wrong about becoming rich off of the people, even though becoming rich off of the people is explicitly forbidden in scripture! If you look at Paul, he was living well below the means that his tremendous gift could have earned him. He is the most well read author today [along with the whole New Testament]. Many people made a good living this way, Paul didn’t. So don’t confuse the times where Paul does speak on contributing to laboring Elders, or where he praises a church [Philippians] for sending him money. He is simply talking about the basic needs being met in these scenarios, it is all too popular for the modern minister to appeal to Paul’s writings on money and then to develop a lifestyle of wealth that Paul himself would warn against [1st Timothy 6]. So today, we do have good men serving the Lord with an honest heart, many are doing good works for the Lord. Some do make a good salary, that’s really not wrong. What I am warning against is the mindset that seems to say ‘if a C.E.O. can make so much, why not Gods leaders’? Well I just showed you why, this is not my idea, it is scripture. That’s the problem, most brothers think an argument like this is simply ‘old tradition wanting to keep Gods people under’ or ‘that old religious spirit again, rearing it’s ugly head’. Sincere people don’t realize the error of this thinking, that’s why we need to be balanced in scripture. I am sure Paul knew the ‘money promises’ in scripture. I know Jesus knew the nature of God as our provider, the God of more than enough. Yet you will find both of them giving many warnings against materialistic mindsets. ‘A mans life doesn’t consist in the abundance of the things he possesses’ ‘it is easier for a camel to go thru the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven’ to the man who was experiencing great financial increase in his business ‘thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee, then who will get the things you lived for’ [his kids will fight over it with Anna Nicole Smith!] The point is You can go thru the many warnings in the New Testament against materialism and develop a doctrine that says ‘this is why Paul and the others ‘devalued’ their earnings potential’ they were explicitly taught that their spiritual gifts [whether preaching or writing bestsellers] were freely given to them, and it was on this basis that they didn’t ‘charge’ or require a salary for their services. I know this is hard to deal with if you are already ‘making a killing’ in the ministry, it’s something that we just cant get around. Don’t take all the verses where you find Paul speaking of receiving offerings, and then use them in a way that violates the warnings he gave to Timothy in 1st Timothy 6. You shall know the truth and it will set you free, but first it makes you miserable! NOTE; Over the years I have noticed a progression that takes place. Very often you will find good men who do not see what I just showed you, after seeing it they usually come back to balance [after being mad for a while!]. Others are so busy fighting their critics that they don’t even listen to any reproof in any area, these often ‘fall’ for the proof texts [individual verses] that say Jesus wore an expensive coat, Judas was stealing out of the ‘bag’ [and ‘the bag’ must have contained millions because Jesus didn’t notice the few thousand that Judas took] and then in total ignorance start teaching a doctrine that says Jesus was rich. Once people espouse views publicly, or teach them for many years to generations of people, it is almost impossible to bring them back from the brink of obvious heresy. They cant admit to themselves that what they thought all along was true revelation from God, was really total deception. It is hard to repent after you have put out tons of books and tapes on these things. My goal is to ‘catch’ the average Pastor before he spends 10-15 years teaching this stuff to his people. If a man is warned in the beginning then he can deal with it better. Why have so many fallen for this? Good men, Assemblies of God, Baptists, etc. I think one of the reasons is other ‘good men’ particularly Prophets, have not warned against it like they should have. Jesus flat out said ‘beware of covetousness’ Paul warns Timothy about this doctrine[1st Timothy 6]. Peter plainly tells the Elders of his day ‘don’t go into ministry with money in mind’. Leaders are plainly told that part of the cost is to warn against this stuff. So many didn’t warn, and many fell for it. So now what? Well at least those of you reading this can avoid this path, and as God directs use the tools you have to warn others. Take this whole blog site and send it to others you know who are dealing with this. Print sections that you think are relevant and send them out. My goal is not to build an organization [we have none!] or to get speaking engagements [I don’t do that] or to make money [we do not take offerings!] my goal is to get this thing back on track before some innocent Pastor spends 20 years wasting his life teaching this stuff! NOTE; so am I saying Christian leaders can’t be rich? No! But brother if Joe Torre can make 5 million or more, why not a believer? You can. It’s just a fact that God ordained that believers do not become rich thru the administration of their spiritual gift in a way that has other believers giving money as a direct result of the administration of the gift. The verses I showed you above do say this. Aren’t the natural gifts, say of a baseball manager, also God given? Yes. Then why can’t you get rich off of a spiritual gift, just like a natural ability, God is the giver of both. I don’t know, why don’t you ask God about it? The point is we get into natural thinking and we come to conclusions that violate scripture. Jesus said it’s very possible for the pursuit of wealth to sidetrack you [the deceitfulness of riches choke the word] Paul said those that desire to become rich have sidetracked from the faith [1st Timothy 6]. There are clear restrictions and warnings given, as well as the reality of God being able to supernaturally give millions of dollars. God is God, he has the right to be the God of abundance and also to put the restrictions in place that I just showed you. We simply need to obey all scripture. NOTE; Let me give you an example, years ago I was watching a famous prosperity teacher who still teaches many of the errors I have shown you. He said when he was younger he remembers looking up as a plane flew overhead, and with great joy and expectation said ‘you wait and see, someday I will own one of those’ he then went on to explain that that day has arrived. The years of faith and confession and ‘thinking on abundance’ finally produced this harvest. I can imagine a young Billy Graham, as a boy looking out over the harvest field of people, of reading where Jesus said ‘go into all the world and peach the gospel’ how he must have believed and confessed and ‘obsessed’ over reaching his world for Christ. A time would come where Billy would become known as the greatest evangelist of all time. What’s the difference? Billy also has brought in huge amounts of money over the years, much more than the brother who saw the obtaining of things as the goal. Billy lived and exemplified the words of Jesus ‘seek ye first the Kingdom and all these things [planes and money and stuff] will be added unto you’ one man made souls the priority, the other saw the ‘stuff’ as the goal and message. Now to be fair the prosperity guy does win souls to the Lord to a degree, but if you listen long enough the gospel of wealth is entrenched in his belief system. I share this to warn you guys, many good men do see financial miracles happen all the time. There are real stories of God doing these things with good men. When they happen we should rejoice, praise God and stick with the main message of the gospel. The deception comes in when a good man sees the true financial miracle and then falls into the trap of seeing God and his kingdom thru the lens of abundance and money and always believing and speaking and centering his life around finances. The reason Jesus and Paul said ‘beware’ is because you must BE WARE! If it wasn’t a dangerous and difficult balance to keep, then they wouldn’t have been so strong in their warnings!
(584) [THIS ENTRY IS FOR ALL OF YOU ON THE ‘MOVING ON’ WEB SITE, THOSE WHO I HAVE BEEN IN CONTACT WITH THRU THE SITE]- This version is ‘Post critics!’ Thanks to ‘Fish’ ‘Limmiwinks’ ‘smshgrl’ ‘sar’ ‘afflic’ [Sp?] and all the other comments from you guys! I sure wish you guys had real names!
I had the book ‘Jesus freaks’ sitting on my desk still wrapped in the box that Amazon used to send it in. I cut the box open and read the whole book in one sitting [around 225 pages, not real big] I have read on this group before and want to share some stuff. First, the thing that caught my interest was not that they are a ‘sex cult’. It was the fact that they started at the time of the Jesus movement out in California in the late 60’s early 70’s. The Jesus movement was a time where many hippies and young people rebelled against authority and were dropping out of the ‘suit and tie’ establishment of their parents.
Many of these kids found Jesus for real, some great ministries came out of this period. Calvary Chapel with Chuck Smith, the Vineyard Churches with Ken Gulliksen and JohnWimber, and the great music of Keith Green and ‘Last Days Ministries’ that was headquartered in Lyndale Texas [now owned by Teenmania ministries with Ron Luce]. One of the ‘coffee houses’ was called ‘The Living Room’, people like Arthur Blessit were popular at the time, the group from the Living Room would also be called ‘Jesus people U.S.A.’ and re locate and start a great magazine that also did a lot of ‘cult exposing’ and even did an expose on ‘ALBERTO’ the Catholic Priest in the ‘CHICK TRACKS’ it showed him to be a total fraud. They also exposed Mike Warnke [sp?] the author of the best selling ‘Satan seller’ who claimed to have run a coven of witches before he was converted. Mike was also a Christian comedian. I actually read the book in the early days and was a fan of Mike. I even invited him to come to our little church at one time, it never worked out. I liked Mike, and after he was ‘exposed’ it seemed to show that Mike really liked ‘telling stories’. A lot of his friends said Mike was sort of a chronic story teller. Mike was a Christian, and after this incident he did submit to other Pastors to oversee his restoration, but the fact was Mike made up most of the stuff in his best selling book. I think the name of the magazine that the ‘Jesus People’ put out was Cornerstone? It is no longer in print but you can find old copies on line.
A lot of good came out from this time. Some of the converts wound up back in their ‘daddy’s religion’. That is after they ‘got saved’ they became true students of the bible and church history and began ‘rebelling’ against their ‘rebellion’. They saw that many of the historic churches had great roots and were not totally worthless. Some went back to the older churches. Jack Sparks had a ministry called ‘World Liberation Front’ and espoused many of the ideas of the strong authoritarian ‘Apostolic’ ministries. These were the ‘shepherding’ movements that were very influential in ‘covering’ young Christians. Bob Mumford and others were leading the Discipling Movement. Sparks got into the strong apostolic stuff and would write ‘we are going to get noticed, those in the churches that do not recognize us, we will take your people’ pretty authoritarian don’t you think? Well Sparks also got into the ‘cult exposing’ movement, which also was birthed at this time, and he eventually became a Greek Orthodox Priest and as far as I know is still one today [Sparks eventually would become one of the critics of the ‘Local Church Movement’ of Watchman Nee, being led by ‘Witness Lee’ in California. The ‘Local Church’ would eventually take the cult exposing ministries to court over this] so you had some interesting fellows at this time.
One of the most interesting was a man named ‘David Berg’ AKA ‘Moses David Berg’. He was the son of Christian ministers, his mom, Virginia, was a traveling evangelist who would eventually set up shop in Florida. David learned ministry and the gospel from his years as his mother’s main helper. He also did a short stint as a Pastor of a Protestant church. David was in his 50’s about the time the Jesus movement hit, he wound up back in California at his moms house. He eventually worked his way into reaching the kids of the area, Huntington Beach and places where the hippies were hanging out. His ministry grew, eventually they would be called ‘the Children of God’ ‘The Family’ and the ‘Family international’. They were around at the same time as the other good ministries that I mentioned.
They were like a commune of hippies/Jesus freaks that eventually would have outposts all over the world. Their language and beliefs were a lot like any evangelical group of the day. Over a period of time their leader ‘David/Moses’ would espouse the doctrine of ‘free love’ which taught ‘we love everyone like ourselves’ and should share everything with everybody else. I mean everything! They became known as a sex cult. They are not the first to believe this either. John Humphrey Noyes of the Oneida Community in upstate New York taught and practiced this ‘open love’ in the 1800’s. Bergs group got a lot of heat when word got out that they practiced sex with under age children. A few magazines and news papers would introduce this strange cult to the world as they covered the story in the 70’s and 80’s. As I have read a lot about this group over the years, I have come to see how many of the kids sincerely thought they were following the Lord, and some were never involved in the strange sex practices [most knew of the open love doctrine, but some did not experience the under age abuse. I say ‘some’ for the benefit of those still in the group who have said this, but there are tons of stories of children who were abused]. Some of these today are still on the mission field with their families and are witnessing for Jesus in the exact same way that many other missionaries do. But of course the doctrine of the leader of this group was classic cult material.
You can go on line and find both pro and con web sites. Just Google ‘The Family’ or ‘Moses David Berg’ and you will find them. The reason I just read this most recent book [the other one I read is ‘Heavens Harlot’s’] is because after a few years of them fading away from public memory, one of the sons of the wife of David Berg [though not Bergs actual son] who was being groomed to be the prophet to take over the group, killed another group member out of revenge and a feeling of trying to get more heat on the group and to bring the group down [The boys mom was Karen Zerby, the leader of the group today, she became pregnant from an Hispanic waiter thru the ‘flirty fishing’[actually called ‘FFing’!] doctrine of the group which taught witnessing and ‘fishing for men’ can be done thru sleeping with men, you sleep with them, show them ‘Gods love’ and there you have it!]
This boy was sexually abused from birth and was to be an experiment on what it would be like if someone enjoyed open sex from birth, sort of a guinea pig for Moses Berg’s doctrine. Eventfully the boy left the group and became part of a growing number of second generation defectors who have made it their goal to expose and bring the group down. Many who are still in the group live in various parts of the world and have said they do not practice sex with kids any more, but still believe in the ‘open love doctrine’.
The young prophet who was to eventually take over the group was called ‘Davidito’ he eventually changed his name to Ricky Rodriguez. By all accounts he was a good young man, who rejected his cultic upbringing and was trying to make a life for himself after leaving the group. A smart, intelligent well liked young man. He could never get over his rage and in 2005 made a videotape of himself getting ready to murder one of the female leaders who molested him as a little boy. He would stab the woman to death, send three copies of his confession video to 3 friends and pull up on some deserted highway in California and put a bullet thru his head. This is why the recent book ‘Jesus Freaks’ just came out, they covered this most recent affair.
This is such a sad story. Many still in the group are trying to change it into a more ‘respectable’ group, those who have defected are trying to bring the group down. All of these kids, being taught scripture, growing up in this perverted environment. Learning true bible stuff along with the distorted stuff. Lifetimes of trying to serve Jesus mixed in with these cruel ideas and actions that are a part of their lives. Many who have defected have committed suicide. Truly David Berg was a false Prophet of the highest order, he has met God now.
There actually has been a very popular well known preacher out of the Atlanta area, Earl Paulk, who I have been praying for now for a few years. I liked watching him on TBN for years. He had a few accusations against him over the years of sexual misconduct. I do not know whether they were true or false. Paulk admitted to certain past indiscretions, but never to the allegations of certain women. They claimed Paulk secretly taught them ‘kingdom /covenant relationships’ which were basically a doctrine to justify adultery. I was hesitant about sharing the Paulk story, but I did so for a reason. Why would I see this doctrine as false, and those who teach it as ‘cultic’, and not hold the same standard to a Jimmy Swaggart or a Ted Haggard? All humans can fall into any type of sin, Paul wrote the Corinthians and told them ‘you have a brother who is sleeping with his mother, this must stop’ If a believer falls into a sexual sin, he either repents or falls into Gods discipline. But if a teacher begins justifying sin as a doctrinal truth, then you have problems. Many of these cults have done this, they see the truth in scripture about loving each other and living communally and sharing what you have with everyone else, but they don’t see the other warnings against immorality. They find polygamy taught in the old testament, or the fact that Adam and Eve’s kids had to have married each other, and they will teach incest or polygamy is for today, not realizing that the new testament speaks of being married to one wife and any thing else is adultery.
When leaders use scripture to justify sin this becomes a cult. I think we should all pray for those involved. Brother Earl Paulk has been sick [he might have even died by now?] but the latest accusation from his worship leader of many years has caused him to step down [a good thing!] but I still pray for the man. Let’s pray for all these kids still in the ‘family’ as well as those who have come out, they need our prayers.
[NOTE; I was just outside praying for you guys as a ‘community’ of people. To be honest I have added all of you as a group to my ‘prayer region’ [whole groups of people I fiercely pray over]. This is what I felt the Lord saying. Many of you have without a doubt come to know the Lord thru this time period in your lives. Many ‘regular’ Christians can’t really discern this. Much of what you see and hear in other Christian groups looks and sounds almost identical to the ‘family’ except for the ‘free love’ stuff. This dynamic has made it hard for you to relate to other Christians. They just look at you as ‘thank God you are free from that sex cult, now God brought you to us to show you all this true stuff’. The problem is many of you already know the ‘true stuff’. I felt the Lord was encouraging you as a group of people to ‘move on’ with him. Many of you are so turned off by what you have seen in other Christian groups, it’s like ‘I’ve been there’. God loves you guys so much [even this sounds abusive to you, you have heard this your whole life from the lips of people that abused you]. My heart breaks for you guys, I am so happy to read some of your stories and how some of you are still walking with ‘Jesus’ so to speak. I personally am worried that I too might come off as a religious nut. All the ‘prophecy’ and stuff I do. Teaching on Prophets and all. I do believe that God has placed Prophets in the church, but what you experienced thru Berg was almost a demonic type of Prophet. A man that had real gifts and talents, but also developed a doctrine that would justify to himself his own impulses and sinful desires that he struggled with his whole life. I believe there were aspects of David’s life that truly wanted to serve God, but like others before him [Noyes] he developed a ‘scheme’ that would appease his own conscience, and he released this evil desire on a whole community of young people. The most difficult thing for some of you is to realize that you truly do love God and have found him while being in this group. I love you guys and will continue to pray for you. As you read [or listen to our radio show] and you hear me speak on Prophets and the Prophetic movement, understand I in no way am speaking of the abusive ‘family’ that you have been involved with thru out your lives. God bless all of you and feel free to email or write me at my P.O. Box. If any of you want to get together while in the area contact me before you come and I will try and get with you. Thanks, John.]
During the time of Bergs rise to ‘Prophet’ he was in an atmosphere where other well known ministries were espousing many of the same views on end time things. You also had Hal Lindsey and many others who taught the same as Berg in the area of the Tribulation and the nearness of the end of the world. Hal wrote the bestseller ‘The Late great Planet Earth’. While Hal obviously isn’t near the category of Berg, it was common for people at the time to be living on the edge of their seats thinking that the world might end at any moment. This led to an environment amongst many well meaning followers of Jesus that had an attitude of ‘if the world will end soon, what the heck, why bother going to school or even worry about planning for a future’ This mindset would later make it hard for those who tried to get out of the cult. They found the most basic things, like writing a check, difficult.
The thing that first interested me about this group was the ‘apostolic’ concept of community. Many who have studied ‘ecclesiology’ [church government] have seen in scripture the more biblical idea of church as community. Some have tried to duplicate the early environment seen in the book of Acts. A common purse and sharing of their goods with the needy. Berg also was a student of communism like Jim Jones, a whole other story. Even though you had all believers sharing and helping each other in Acts, you didn’t see an environment where people surrendered their individual identities and ‘morphed’ into the identity of a group.
In Acts they still lived in their own homes and maintained a family idea. To be sure today’s idea of ‘church at the building on Sunday’ as being ‘the church’ did not exist, but you also didn’t have communes. I believe it is OK for believers who radically sell out to leave the comforts of a home environment and to live daily trusting God. I have met ‘homeless’ friends who were on their own serving God and surviving. But to force a communistic idea upon people, and to cause them to lose their own personal identity for the ‘cause of the group’ is cultic right from the start.
God wants us to be more than ‘pew warmers who are preached at every week’ he wants us to experience this Journey with him as being part of a wonderful Christian family, with many wonderful brothers and sisters. Seeing the ‘other churches’ not as the institutionalized monster, but as sincere Christian’s in the Lord. I know there are times in my own writing that I seem to be hard on ‘the church’ but I do not hold to the view that they are all of the devil!
Berg seemed to confuse the ‘religions of men’ and the establishment with the true boundaries put down in scripture. He would view his own feelings of guilt about his sexual weakness and failure and eventually blame the ‘established church’ for his ‘guilt feelings’. He would develop a doctrine that fit in well with the ‘anti church’ atmosphere of the time. He would see all the free loving hippies and how they jumped in to the open love of the 60’s and 70’s sexual revolution, and then compare that to his own struggle of trying to suppress his sexual desires for many years under what he saw to be the authoritarian religious morals that he heard time and again thru his mothers preaching. It was natural for Berg to view the ‘established religions of men’ as the cause for all the years he spent repressing his sexual urges. Hey, he thought, if God created me [and others] to be able to enjoy the feelings of sex from a young age, then why do I feel guilty if I act out sexually in a way that society deems wrong?
Berg would challenge the mindset of minors being sexually active. He thought it was society that caused the guilt, not his sin. So in the California environment of ‘church religion’ being deceived, he thought ‘they must also be wrong on the sex part too’. Well if Berg was a true student of scripture, he would not have come to this conclusion. Scripture most definitely speaks of God as the creator of sex, but it also puts down definite parameters. ‘Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled. But adulterers and whoremongers God will judge’ [Hebrews]. Berg thought for sure his belief in open sex with anyone at anytime was a true revelation from God, as opposed to the ‘moral old time religion’ of the past.
His great experiment would be to raise a child from day one in a hyper sexualized atmosphere and to then have the child diagnosed by professionals to see if any emotional damage was done. This experiment was what happened with ‘Davidito’. As Ricky grew older they tested him and others to see if they were harmed emotionally in any way. The ‘family’ found doctors to go along with their belief and to testify that the children were emotionally healthy. Later when Ricky [Davidito] would leave the group and kill one of the ladies who abused him as a child, the group tried to explain that when Ricky was in the group he harbored no ill feelings. It was when he got out and then ‘society’ taught him that what he did was wrong, that at that time he had guilt.
This diabolical social experiment that Berg thought would surely justify his sexual indiscretions did not work the way the family thought. While there are obvious problems with ‘organized religion’ we have to make sure we are not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Many of the old churches have carried the true gospel of Christ for centuries before us. Scripture says we ‘shouldn’t remove the ancient landmarks that out fathers have set down’. This speaks of being very careful when we critique older religious churches that have been serving God for centuries. There were many ‘Jesus Freaks’ that left the old time churches of their fathers and have done well, they are still serving God and have never went back to the old church model. Others have gone back and even become ‘part of the old church’. But regardless of where you find yourself today, you must be careful that the things you think are ‘just religion making me feel guilty’ aren’t really things that the bible says are wrong. Many people ‘feel guilty’ because they are guilty! The way to get over the guilt is to receive Gods forgiveness and ask him to help you ‘sin no more’.
NOTE; I am not speaking about the guilt that some one might experience as a result of being abused in this group. It is common for victims of sexual abuse to ‘feel guilty’ even though they were victims. In some cases people feel guilty because they might have responded sexually while being abused, thinking that they in some way condoned the abuse, this is not so! Many of you guys have had to deal with this, maybe this had something to do with Ricky’s rage? So I just wanted to release you guys from this.
Let me mention some other stuff on cults and prophets. I have studied various cults over the years, some of them have definitely had demonic powers behind the leadership. When studying ‘heavens gate’ there were things that people experienced that fall under the category of demonic power. People who had a sense of being ‘mesmerized’ while listening to the leader. Or the leader’s ability to actually know what happened or predict future events. A fake imitation of a true prophetic gift.
Others, like David Korresh with the group ‘the branch davidians’ which were an offshoot of the seventh Day Adventist Church would come under the ‘spell’ of Korresh and begin viewing him as one of the end time witnesses spoken of in the book of Revelation. They would eventually see themselves as directly being referenced in scripture. They fulfilled their own ‘prophecy’ about being destroyed at the end of the world. Other ‘non cult’ prophets have also had this strong influence over people. William Brahnam was a very gifted Prophet in the middle of the last century, he without a doubt had extraordinary gifts, some till this day see him as either one of the seven angels in Revelation, or as one of the 2 witnesses in chapter 11.
So it seems to be a theme in some of these groups to come under the ‘mesmerizing’ influence of the gifted leader and to begin to view him in a way that associates him with actual biblical figures. The early church had some doubts about putting the book of Revelation in the New Testament, one of the reasons for this was they feared individuals might interpret it in a way that could cause trouble, a bit prophetic don’t you think? While reading about David Berg I have come to believe he had demonic powers working with him. You might think ‘no kidding man’. I don’t always believe this to be the case, I feel many contemporary Christians have a tendency to over do the ‘demon possession’ thing, always trying to cast a demon out of someone ‘I cast the demon of Marlboro cigarettes out of you’ or the ‘demon of poverty’ and silly stuff like that. I think in some of these cases we should cast the ‘demon of thinking that everything is a demon’ out of them! But in Bergs case there have been some leaders who ran into him thru out their lives and sensed a ‘presence’ that was strange. The brother who had a commune in Texas that Berg would eventually take over and call it ‘The Texas Soul Clinic’ felt like the group had a force behind them that was unstoppable, he till this day has never gotten over his impact with ‘the family’.
So it is more than likely that Berg had some demonic stuff going on. I am asked sometimes about people like John Edwards of the show ‘crossing over’ or other people who seem to have true gifts. I try to distinguish between out right fakers, and those who are really operating with a supernatural ‘element’. I believe many of the Psychics actually have a connection with the ‘spirit world’ that would simply be in the category of ‘soothsayer’ or like the witch of Endor spoken of in the bible. In her story she is requested by King Saul to bring back the Prophet Samuel from the dead. God’s people were forbidden to consult a soothsayer or ‘psychic’. The fact was she was well known, sort of like all these ‘card readers’ and stuff I see as I travel thru South Texas. Well this witch does bring back Samuels spirit, to the amazement of Saul and herself! She actually is portrayed as being afraid when her ‘soothsaying’ works. She was surprised he came back! Some think this was because she knew her gift was fake, and when it worked she scared herself. It’s also possible that the usual ‘spirits’ that did come thru for her were not there this time, she really got Samuel.
The point is in some of the people that are doing these things it is possible that they are ‘picking up’ something in the ‘spirit’, it’s just not what they think! In Edwards’s case he feels he is ‘crossing over’ and contacting the spirits of dead relatives, he might really believe that this is who is speaking to him during his shows. The truth is scripture speaks of ‘familiar spirits’ and demons. A person might have some real gifting going on, but it might not be what they think.
Edgar Casey [sp? It might be Cayce] is another example of a famous ‘prophet’. He was dubbed the ‘sleeping prophet’ because he would give readings while lying down and falling asleep and going into a trance. In all of these cases Christians are forbidden to delve into the ‘unknown’ thru these means. Some believers have gone too far in rejecting ‘prophets’. They do not see the true biblical gift as spoken of in the New Testament. God has clearly placed Prophets in the church, the book of Ephesians says this [as well as Corinthians and other references]. Some Christians believe it is because of the lack of biblical Prophets today, that this is why the world runs to the psychics, that if the church just functioned in the real gift, then you wouldn’t have all the popular psychics. Some who say this have some truth, but then I get a little worried because they seem to espouse the idea that true prophets should have their own call in shows and stuff, sort of ‘1-800-prophecy’ and stuff like that. I don’t think so!
So anyway I think Berg had some demonic stuff going on, as believers we should ‘test the spirits, for every spirit is not of God’ it says this in 1st John. If you read it in context it is not speaking of ‘disembodied spirits’ that are floating around in the sky [which is another off balanced teaching in the Church, Christians starting whole spiritual warfare movements and going around casting these spirits out of the sky. Jesus never cast demons out of the sky, but out of people!] But this verse is speaking of ‘testing spirits’ that are operating in people! That is whether people are ‘true prophets’ or’ false’. Don’t allow the strong giftings of leaders ‘pull you in’ but test everything by Gods Spirit. Be open to true prophetic gifts, don’t reject all prophecy, but be discerning.
I just reviewed the family photos of Ricky Rodriguez on the site ‘moving on’ he looked like such a wonderful kid. Go check them out, they give a face to this whole sad story. A few years ago someone wrote a book on dangerous communal groups, I believe the author was Ron Enroth [churches that abuse?] while the book served a good purpose, they drew some heat over the fact they included some Christian groups that seemed to be serving the Lord. One of the groups they singled out responded in defense of their faith. They answered their critics well [not like the official response of those still in the family. I have read some of the articles from their web site and something seems ‘off’ sort of like a ‘stepford wives’ type response] They explained while it is true that many cults have embraced communal living, Christians have also experimented with these models. They showed that those living in this type of atmosphere, where you are always together [sort of like my job as a firefighter in a way, when you live in 24 hour shifts with people, you get on each others nerves] lends to the complaints of authoritarianism and control.
The fact that the average Christian only spends an hour on Sunday with other believers, while those in a communal atmosphere live all the time with other believers, then you are going to get more complaints from those living together, it’s only natural. So I didn’t want to group every ‘communal group’ as being bad, though they do have a tendency to ‘lord it over the people’. The Boston Churches of Christ [a specific movement, not all the churches of Christ in Boston] are not communal, but they practice a fierce ‘shepherding’ doctrine, where the people must answer to the shepherds in a way that is dangerous.
This was the error of the ‘discipling movement’ also know as the shepherding movement. Berg’s group most definitely had this going on. This type of idea teaches a strong accountability to ‘over shepherds’ in a way that violates the true freedom that we have in Christ. So you don’t have to be living communally to be cultic, you can be ‘doing church’ the Sunday way and also be ‘cultic’.
I am a little hesitant to put this in, but will take the chance. I believe in God giving us prophetic signs and stuff, but many have used ‘signs’ and ‘prophecy’ as a tool of abuse. Yesterday I was out among a lot of my friends who are homeless. Ran into a Pastor friend and some other old friends. For some reason they were calling me ‘David’ and then they realized my name is John. I kinda felt this to be a little strange. I have been praying for the ‘moving on’ group as a Father would pray over his ‘spiritual children’. Now stick with me, I AM NOT SAYING THAT I AM CHANNELING THE DAVID BERG SPIRIT! In a strange way when leaders oversee a group of people they become a ‘Father’ to the group. They carry a special responsibility to lead the people. Berg had this ‘fathering’ responsibility, and he became a ‘child abuser’ towards a whole family of people. So I just felt the ‘sign’ of people calling me David, the day after I spent time praying and trying to speak into the community was in a sense prophetic. Sort of like God saying ‘One by the name of David abused these people severely, I will raise up other ‘spiritual fathers’ who will make up for the abuse they have received, David’s who are men after my own heart’ [King David in scripture is called a man after Gods own heart].
Just felt like the Lord was saying this about multiple people, those who will care for you in the original way God intended, as representative in some way I would like to say ‘please forgive us [Christian leadership] I am so sorry for what I have done to you’. ‘I am the good shepherd, all that ever came before me were thieves and robbers. I come that you might have life. The robber came to steal, kill and destroy you. I am the good shepherd, I have given my life for the sheep’ Jesus Christ.
(585) John 8- The Pharisees catch the woman in adultery and bring her to Jesus ‘Moses in the law says kill her, what about it Jesus?’ Religion digressed into this conservative moral crusade that went and found people in sin and singled them out for judgment. Jesus doesn’t say ‘oh, don’t worry about that silly law of Moses’ he says in essence ‘you guys are right, justice demands strict holiness, you got me now’ instead he agrees that justice does require her death, and he says ‘go ahead, start stoning’. One thing ‘you must be free of sin in order to carry out this punishment’. The law required total righteousness from everyone, even the moral crusaders! When religion digresses to the point where all it does is go out into society and find fault, then this type of religion is powerless to change the ‘fault finders’. Jesus doesn’t side with the ultra liberals either, you don’t see him marching for the right for homosexuals to marry. He tells the woman ‘neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more’. Jesus said this to the guy he healed a few chapters ago. ‘Go and sin no more less a worse thing happen to thee’. Was Jesus simply telling them the same thing that they heard from the religious right their whole lives? Was he simply saying ‘watch out, if you sin again you will get in trouble’ not really. Jesus words had tremendous power and authority, he told people who couldn’t see ‘see’ and they would! People who couldn’t walk ‘get up’ and they did. He was empowering these people by his words. When he said ‘sin no more’ he was giving them the first freedom from years of bondage that they ever had. He also was saying ‘I don’t condone sin’ but he was saying much more! Jesus tells the Jews who ‘believe in him’ if you continue in my word ye shall be free. In the next chapter [9] we will read of the guy Jesus heals, who also says ‘Jesus healed me’ but doesn’t know who Jesus is yet, then later he believes in him as Messiah. This is the type of belief that Israel and Islam and other religions have about Jesus. They accept him as a good man, prophet even. But not the Son of God. To these he says ‘if ye continue in my word then you will know the truth and be free’ if they stick around long enough they might just see that Jesus is for real! Truth is progressive, often times I will give a book to someone, or teach something over the radio. People will see things that they haven’t seen before. A few years go by and they ‘fall back’ into the old mindset. They sincerely forgot that some of the questions they have now have actually been answered already. ‘Go read the first book I wrote, it explains it’ oh yhea, I see now. People need to ‘continue in the word’ in order to be changed. It is not just the one time ‘revelation’ of a certain doctrine that changes you, it is continuing in Gods truth and knowing him, that is Jesus, who is the way and truth and life. Knowing doctrine does not set people free, knowing Jesus does.
[#’s 421-585] TEACHINGS PART 3
(421) Isaiah 55 ‘I have given him [you] for a witness to the people, a leader and a commander to the people. You will call a nation that you do not know. And nations that do not know you will come to you. This will happen because of my choice, I have exalted you’ God chose you to have great influence in the Kingdom. There will be large people groups [nations] that you will influence and you won’t even know of the impact you are making until the coming of the Lord. For the most part you will remain ‘faceless’ [you will not know them and they will not know you] but the gift I have put in you will have great influence. NOTE: these verses are primarily speaking of Jesus calling gentile nations, and gentile nations coming to him. We are called the ‘body of Christ’ so allow these verses to speak to you as an extension of Jesus Body in the earth today. ‘For as the rain and snow come down [remember the vision I had about ‘bolts of snow coming down’? It is on this site] and water the earth and cause it to bud’. So shall it be with my words, the things I am specifically communicating to you at this season of your life. These words shall accomplish my purpose in you. I have sent these words out to you, they will prosper in the areas that I desire. ‘This shall be for a sign that shall not be cut off’ I have given you signs this past year. You have seen me work before, but many times you later forgot what I said. Sort of like the signs and things were real but you couldn’t ‘retain’ the awesome things I was showing you. Not this time. This year I have given you signs that will last for the rest of the journey, just like at the start.
(422) watched a special last night on the gang ‘MS 13’. I have seen it before and felt like the lord wanted me to speak on it. I do realize that there are things that I have spoken on that are not safe. I advertise this blog in North Bergen, N.J. This area is full of Muslim radicals. The type of ‘brothers’ who would kill you for speaking against Islam. I basically have taught that Allah is a false god. And Muhammad is his prophet. I have to be careful if I get an invitation to do a ‘cell’ group in this area. It might be a Muslim cell wanting to ‘fellowship’ with me! I also have mentioned the ‘Mexican Mafia/Texas Syndicate’ on this site. I had a good friend who was a member [he is dead]. This ‘gang’ is one of the most serious gangs in the prison system in Texas. They make these ‘kid gangs’ look like punks. So speaking on these groups is dangerous. The show I saw last night showed how the gang MS 13 started in L.A. as an innocent young gang. It expanded from L.A. to other parts of the country [Texas] and when the prison system deported a bunch of them back to El Salvador, it spread like wildfire. Gangs are the enemies’ imitation of what the Ecclesia was supposed to be. A group/family of people [brotherhood] who would find identity as a family. Many gang kids see their membership ties in a stronger way than they see their family. The gang is their family. The rapid spread of these gangs is an organic thing that is out of the control of their founders. The church was intended to spread this way. They have no ‘gang houses’ that they call ‘the gang’ [Christians call the ‘church’ building the ‘church’]. Their strength is in their identifying as a family. When we first started our ministry in 1987 I had some of the original group of friends [addicts] that wanted to extend the ministry with ‘outreaches’. We were grappling with the way the Victory Outreach does it. We actually bought an old lumberyard building and were going to set up a drug/outreach type thing. All good stuff. I feel one of the reasons these things never got off the ground was because the Lord was going to change my understanding of church to the family/brotherhood mindset. I was too ‘building centric’. Trying to start programs instead of seeing our guys as a brotherhood. It’s OK to start these types of things, but as the lead vision implanter I felt the Lord wanted to transition my vision into one of rapidly spreading the Kingdom by influencing people as a brotherhood. Today I have friends who see themselves as a ‘part of us’ even though we don’t identify around any particular building or ‘church meeting’ environment. If you study movements like ‘the local church’ which is an apostolic movement started by Watchman Nee, you see some good stuff. Watchman Nee was a Chinese Apostle who got a hold of many of the things you see me write on. He spread the ‘local church’ movement thru out China as an underground church. No official denomination or recognition of ‘clergy’ but a movement that was persecuted by the communists. They spread worldwide and have many churches in the U.S. today. They also erred [in my opinion] on the side of strong authoritarianism and began to see themselves as ‘the Local Church’, that is they viewed their group as the true restoration of the Local Church. While I do not view them as a cult [like other cult watchers do] I do see the mistake as seeing their group as the true group, as opposed to all the other ‘groups/churches’ in a city. The sectarian mindset. The true power behind these apostolic movements is the instilling of vision into people. People see the church as a brotherhood [like the gangs] and they are not identifying with programs that their ‘church building/business’ is doing. They are identifying along the lines of a ‘gang/brotherhood’ in a noble way. The same thing that the Victory Outreach or the Door does. Things that I see as good. Recruiting people into a brotherhood mentality. The danger is becoming ‘cult like’ in your view of seeing your group as ‘thee group’. These underground churches cannot be stopped thru persecution or the ‘closing down of their churches’ like other denominations have experienced. Communist govts. have been able to oppose the organized church because all they had to do is shut down the church building and remove the Pastor/Priest and the functioning would stop. You can’t do this with a brotherhood. Just like the gangs. They will thrive whether you put them in prison, shut down their ‘meeting houses’ or anything else. Their secret of survival is in their brotherhood mentality. Jesus obviously knew the power of this, that’s why he said ‘the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against the church’. He knew the movement that he was founding would have the allegiance of a brotherhood. It would not simply be a social club. When human govts came against the 1st century church, it couldn’t stop them. Rome even said that as they spilled the blood of the early believers, it was like seed falling into the ground [a bit prophetic, Jesus did say that martyrdom was like planting seed ‘Except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and DIES it abides alone, but if it dies it will produce much fruit’] so man could not stop a true movement of people. Man can stop a denomination who needs the ‘church building’ and the clergy to function!
(423) I want all my evangelical friends to listen closely. There are many radical and unpopular things I teach on this site. Everything we teach has to be seen thru the Cross. I am listening to a radio message. I stopped to do this. Often times Evangelicals go to great lengths in their defense of natural Israel. The things that I have said on this site concerning Israel has made us deadly enemies in certain camps. The message on the radio is dealing with Esther and how God will go to great lengths in order to preserve Israel. Many of these types of sermons speak against people like myself, who teach that Israel’s only hope is to find her identity in Christ. This type of message that I am hearing is OK. They simply need to understand that God HAS gone to GREAT LENGTHS to preserve Israel. He gave his Son for this purpose. The only way any nation [Jew, Muslim, ‘Christian’] can ever be preserved is in Christ. The promise of everlasting preservation is in Him. Those who defend natural Israel to the point of teaching that God has a covenant with Israel APART from Christ are doing harm to her preservation. Scripture says ‘he that doeth the will of God shall abide forever’ [1st John] it also says ‘this is the will of God, that you would believe on him that God has sent’ [the gospel of John]. John [the disciple/not the Baptist] was a Jew. He knew Israel and her customs well. John knew that the only way to preserve her was thru her Messiah. All the other Apostles died for this belief. John was the only one to escape martyrdom. He lived to around 90 years old. He got stuck on some island called ‘Patmos’. They tried to kill the guy by boiling him in oil [so the story goes]. As an old man he gets one last chance to speak to Israel. He writes this tremendous prophecy [Revelation] and he presents Jesus as the Lamb who is sitting on the throne. John knew the truth.
(424) I WILL MAKE THY WINDOWS OF AGATES, THY GATES OF CARBUNKLES, AND ALL THY BORDERS OF PRECIOUS STONES [Isaiah] Windows speak of ‘portals of sending’ [like this blog! Or radio and stuff like this]. I felt like the Lord was saying he is going to bless your ‘portals’ of sending. ‘Cast your seed upon the water, for in many days it will come back to you’ [message in a bottle- the Police]. God is going to increase you. He will expand your borders. He will not only ‘bless your gates/borders’ but he will ‘bless your windows’. Windows let light out of a house. They allow the ‘brightness’ to go out into the dark. They also allow light to come in and lighten up a room in a way that no ‘man made’ light could do. God is going to bless ‘your windows’. You will see things that you have never seen before, and you will reach places that are far away with the light that is ‘in your house’. ‘I have given you an open window that no man can shut’ God to John in the book of Revelation.
(425) The other day I heard one of the few [only?] prosperity preachers in our city say ‘we don’t have the right to talk about any other preachers’. I got the sense that word has gotten out that we are uprooting this stuff from the church. This level of discernment that teaches we shouldn’t deal with false prophets is extremely lacking in wisdom. I can say this about any cult. Joseph Smith [Mormon] did good things. It would be absolutely irresponsible to say ‘you don’t have the right to deal with Mormonism’. All false doctrine and teachers need to be dealt with by Christian leadership. This doesn’t give anyone the right to be a ‘self proclaimed’ judge of other believers. It’s just a basic guideline that when teachers go way off track [teaching that Jesus was a millionaire, he died to get money to you, and these same preachers seeing their goal as to reap lots of money!] then we as leaders MUST come against this. I didn’t realize how many of these ministries are in Texas. I would say Texas is the main propagator of this stuff. The Lord is dealing with Texas at this time. Corpus Christi bears the name of Christ. I just think it’s prophetic that the Lord would use our city as one of the major places where he will ‘regain’ his image back in the church. Those in this area who do not line up with Gods agenda will have no future in what he is doing at this time. You guys teaching this stuff still. God will remove your candlestick if you don’t stop it. NOTE: Remember what I said about the prophetic ministry of John the Baptist? He not only had the ability to recognize Jesus in a way that others couldn’t see yet. But he also could not remain silent on the obvious ‘sins’ of the day. He spoke out on the King and his adulterous marriage. Many ‘believers’ of his day grew comfortable with an obvious abuse of leadership. They knew in their hearts that what leadership [King] was doing was wrong, but they had other things on their agenda. To deal with the Kings abuse of his authority would bring difficulty and affliction. John simply felt this to be a carrying out of his Prophetic ministry. To John it was like ‘how can we not speak out against this’. John also paid a severe cost. Note: If you use as a ‘measuring rule’ to be ‘how do I feel’ or ‘does this doctrine benefit me financially’ then you have lost your prophetic edge. I have seen many of these obvious abuses go on with the Christian TV networks. Some of these networks are good, some are not. Why the good ones will permit these abuses to be on is beyond me. They either feel that these brothers are paying well, or they feel like they bring in lots of money during the ‘sharathon’. These brothers are using a measuring line that says ‘if it brings in money, then I don’t care whether or not they preach that Jesus was a millionaire who died to make people rich’ they seem to see the bottom line as the criteria of whether or not to allow them to have influence. This IS NOT THE CRITERIA! Jesus is the ‘plumb line’ if things don’t measure up to him they must be abandoned!
(426) I was just thinking of the verse that says to the Virgin Mary ‘this child is set for the rising and falling of many in Israel, a sword shall pierce thru your own heart also that the thoughts of many hearts can be revealed’ [I don’t know where it is, a rough quote from memory]. Jesus prophetic aspect caused many to question and wonder about their own beliefs. He also caused people to be honest with each other and sometimes this honesty caused division. There ‘possibly’ have been scenarios where preacher friends or ‘church attendees’ have gone to their Pastors and said ‘can you believe what John is preaching now, he doesn’t believe the rapture!’ and for the first time the Pastor has to admit that he doesn’t believe it either! So what the ‘well meaning’ person thought was going to happen ‘talk about John’ really didn’t happen. Instead the ‘thoughts’ of his Pastors heart were revealed. I like stuff like that. Many of you guys are going to have ‘a sword pierce thru your heart’ in the sense that there will be things that you questioned earlier as a believer and learned to ‘silence’ the questions. At this season a lot of the prophetic preaching is ‘re opening’ these old wounds. They were never meant to become ‘wounds’. God showed you a lot of this stuff at the beginning of your journey. The ‘sword of the Spirit’ has opened these questions up again, and the thoughts of your heart are being revealed. This is reformation my friends. We often pray for it, but when it shows up it looks different than what we expected. Sort of like Jesus appearing to the 1st century Jew. It wasn’t what they expected!
(427) It is common in the modern world of ‘church’ to have a scenario where certain people [deacon boards and stuff like this] rise up and come against ‘the Pastor’. You then have a dynamic where the ‘Pastor’ is in a struggle for ‘control over his church’. Then the fight rages on. All of this is absent from the New Testament. Paul fought against the false teachers who were trying to influence the ‘churches’ [communities of people] with false doctrine, but this power struggle over the ‘control of my church’ [501c3 Christian business who meets on Sunday] did not exist. Recently I have heard/seen a few scenarios along these lines. There actually are scenarios where those who are fighting the Pastor are like what you would find in an abusive relationship. A type of manipulation that says ‘if you don’t say stuff that makes me mad, I will behave’. Then the Pastor feels like ‘I stood up against the opposition and God was with me’. Even though the whole ‘atmosphere’ of stuff like this is unscriptural. This type of stuff is what you see in the world of corporate takeover. The rising up of stockholders and stuff who are ‘dethroning’ the CEO’s who are making millions while the stock is falling. I just want you to see that when we view and function in limited paradigms; this affects the way we carry on with the journey. Jesus taught a type of ‘prophetic preaching’ that said ‘if people don’t receive the gift, go to the next house/city’ I am not saying all Pastors should leave their churches when strife arises. I am saying that the whole scenario is really not of God. Even the part where the well meaning Pastor ‘fights for the control of the church’ [Christian business]. Being the true New Testament Churches were communities of people, as opposed to ‘501 c 3’s’ you never had these types of situations. NOTE: I really don’t blame the Pastors for functioning out of this limited mindset. We send guys to College and they are taught all types of stuff under the guise of ‘Pastoral’ administration. We basically teach them that this means running and administrating a business. We teach a form of ‘deacon board’ and all other types of stuff that are simply bible names given to 501c3 corporations and their boards [Roberts’s rules of order!] The New Testament shows all these ‘gifts’ [Pastor, Deacon, etc.] as gifts that function in a community environment. The modern Pastor is taught in a way that he simply replaces the idea of ‘board of directors’ with ‘Deacon board’. If you try to show these brothers that they are simply putting bible names on an American corporation, they will tell you ‘well brother, the bible speaks of deacons’. True, but the bible speaks of Bishops and Pastor and we think that justifies us putting our own definitions to them. God has placed gifted individuals in the ‘church’ [community of believers]. These gifts are primarily given to build up people. If in this process you need a building, or a ‘501c3’ or a ‘radio/blog ministry’ that’s fine! But your gift is not primarily given to administrate the tool [the whole business and stuff that arises out of modern ideas of church] but the gift is primarily given to facilitate growth in the community of people. Because we don’t really see and function this way, we inadvertently accuse the saints. We say ‘if you don’t put the tithe in on Sunday, you are cursed because you are not submitting to the Local church. Which after all is Gods plan to change the world’. Well it is Gods purpose to function thru the ‘Local Church’ but once again this simply means ‘all the believers residing locally’. It does not mean the whole 501c3 organization that functions in the building on Sunday. You see how easy it is to read the verses on ‘bring all the tithes into the storehouse’ and then to mistake the ‘storehouse’ for the 501 c 3 that owns the ‘church building’. The storehouse are the corporate people. Jesus said ‘my house shall be called a house of prayer’. We are his house! We are a ‘corporate house of Prayer’. Well I have taught all this stuff before, just felt like you needed a reminder. NOTE: I have heard over the year’s well meaning Pastors say things like ‘I don’t believe in Bible college, that’s the job of the ‘Local Church’ or others who might denigrate a ministry because ‘it is not under a local church covering’. The mistake these brothers are making is once again ‘seeing’ the ‘local church’ as the building and all the operations surrounding it. What do they mean when they say ‘it’s the job of the local church’? They seem to be implying that the actual instruction should take place ‘on the grounds of the 501c3 organization’ or in the actual building where the Christians meet on Sunday, after all ‘it is the Local church!’ UGGH! They don’t seem to realize that if the college or other ministry that they are talking about is something that was a God ordained thing, and that ‘thing’ is being administrated or ‘run’ by ‘local believers’ then it is part of ‘the local church’ [community]. But when you ‘see’ local church as the 501c3 building/organization that Christians meet in on Sunday, then you inadvertently ‘accuse’ the brethren by saying ‘you are not under the local church’. God does not vest authority/legitimacy in a ‘501c3’ corp. He vests authority in his people by his Spirit. When you do not see this you accuse the ‘local church’ [the local believers] by thinking that ‘the local church’ is something that its not! Let me also add that I have had friends over the years who ran ‘Para church’ organizations [a misnomer!] some of these brothers have jumped thru all sorts of hoops to gain legitimacy with the ‘local churches’ [organizations] when these brothers see that I am ‘functioning’ as a believer with Gods authority, they do get offended. Sort of like ‘I have jumped thru these hoops for years. Tithing to my ‘church’ and all sorts of things to be in proper order. How dare you come along and challenge the legitimacy of ‘the local church’. The point is God wants all of his kids to function freely under his headship/authority. It’s OK if your ‘Para church’ ministry is working along side a ‘local church organization’ but to then try to make everyone fit into this limited paradigm is out of order. If Jesus taught us anything on authority, he taught that servants gain authority in Gods Kingdom. If you want authority my friends, then serve! Don’t think it comes from being ‘under the covering’ of some man made organization. NOTE: If the Kingdom is not about ‘being over people’ as Jesus taught, then why even ‘have authority’? Those who are being used in the Kingdom to build up the Body of Christ realize that there is no greater joy than to actually ‘wash the feet of Jesus [serving him]’ by building up the Body of Christ [the Local church/community of people]. You build so far and then you need more ‘skills’ to complete the ‘building’. At that stage ‘more authority’ is given for this purpose. The ‘minister’ is rejoicing because God has given him more adequate tools to complete the mission. Further ability to serve! Paul told the believers that God gave him this authority to build them up, not to ‘rule over them’. In today’s environment of success and trying to feel legitimate, people unconsciously fight for this recognition [authority] thinking it will bring them some sort of fulfillment. In the more extreme cases this can lead to ‘authoritarianism’. An ongoing battle between the ‘congregation’ and the ‘Pastor’ for control. So here you see how the limited paradigm affects everything else. In the New Testament churches you did not have scenarios where ‘Pastors’ were trying to be over the people for long periods of time. The shepherding process [discipling] was done over a short time until the new believers were mature enough to be ‘launched out on their own’ [under Christ’s headship]. When you have unnatural environments where men are fighting for control or authority simply for the purpose of ‘having authority’ then this causes an abusive situation for the people of God. Not all Pastors do this, but the unnatural environment lends to this happening more often than it should. The giving of ‘more authority’ is primarily for the continued function of servant hood, to continue to build the people up. It is a violation of biblical authority to see your position as one of singular authority over the people of God [see Diotrephes mentioned in the 3rd letter of John].
(428) I kind of am hesitant to do this, but I felt it was time. I have had a radio listener who is a prosperity guy. He has written me ‘re proofs’ for years. I am surprised he still listens! He recently sent me a few more letters. He actually liked what I was teaching and did thank me. But he usually sends pages of stuff to teach that Jesus was a millionaire [actually the richest man who ever lived]. He basically has been taught an exhaustive doctrine [that goes on forever!] that traces Jesus roots thru King David to Abraham and goes thru these pages of explaining how Jesus was the natural heir of David and therefore truly owned all the wealth of Jerusalem. He has been taught [or taught himself] an intricate bible system that is absolutely consumed with mammon. The simple fact that Jesus was a carpenter’s son and lived that way escapes these guys. The fact that Paul taught ‘you came into the world without material wealth, when you die you will not be able to take wealth with you. Therefore be happy with your needs being met’ [1st Timothy 6]. Why didn’t Paul teach Timothy that he needed to believe for all this wealth so he could reach the Roman world? These poor brothers who are so consumed with wealth have gone to extremes to search the scriptures and come up with unbelievable teachings that are consumed with mammon. I have come to believe these guys are under a ‘spell’ [Paul says this in Galatians- ‘who hath bewitched you’]. I am glad this guy still listens to the program, maybe he will get free someday? Also for the sake of this brothers argument. Jesus was from the line of King David. The fact that he was ‘conceived’ by the Spirit, a major Christian doctrine, shows that Jesus ‘in the natural’ did not come from the line of natural David [the actual ‘seed’ of David, don’t want to get to explicit here!] because of this Jesus would teach things like ‘my Kingdom is not from this world’. Jesus showed us that his actual lineage [really] was from the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit caused Mary to conceive! This isn’t a problem for most Christians, but this guy has sent me these arguments for years and for his sake I thought I would do this. NOTE: this note is for the last 2 entries. Both the idea that the ‘church’ is the actual 501c3 corp. who meets in a building on Sunday, as well as the teaching on lots of money go hand in hand. It is only natural for the Pastor/CEO mindset to fall into the snare of seeing how ‘if we just had more money’ if Gods people were not disobedient in bringing the tithe to the ‘storehouse’ then we could accomplish ‘the ministry’. These well meaning Pastors get allured by this need for money, they then fall into the extremes of the prosperity gospel. They truly feel unless tons of money comes into the ‘local church coffers’ [which they see as the 501c3 machine!] then the world will never be evangelized. Its easy to look to the examples in the New Testament where Paul is receiving support, or where all the believers gave sacrificially and brought the money and laid it at the Apostles feet. In these scenarios you had the concept of communal sacrifice and giving that ‘equaled the playing field’ and fulfilled the Old Testament type of Manna. Those who gathered what was enough for their families [be content with having your needs met] were provided for. Those that gathered much for the greater need had enough. Those that gathered little for their need had enough. God specifically rebuked hoarding and a covetous mindset by showing that those who took too much, the Manna ‘bred worms’. So in these examples of extravagant giving in the book of Acts, we are seeing Gods family voluntarily [no tithe!] give of their wealth to meet the needs of their brothers and sisters. When the modern minister uses these verses to either teach a doctrine of becoming rich, or to bring in ‘the tithes to the storehouse’ he is not rightly dividing the Word! NOTE: Just read an article in the paper on someone starting a ministry. They showed the facility. Talked about the renovations needed. The eventual staff. The need to obtain I.R.S. status. This is typical of the way we ‘see’ ministry. Our mindsets see a project, a facility and the functioning of some type of a ‘service’ that we will provide. The New Testament mindset was taking the message of the Kingdom and simply proclaiming it to people groups. The fact that the message of the gospel has within it the inherent power to change society caused there to be a mindset that said ‘if I can just plant this Word in the hearts of people, I will have been faithful to the task’. You don’t see Paul going to cities and setting up anything! He is presenting the gospel, and the actual act of the gospel being believed becomes the completed task. The communities of people who believe become the ‘Local church’ that is the ‘outpost’ of God in that region. The people are the ‘facility’ that God takes up residence in by his Spirit and this is the work of the Apostle or believer carrying out the great commission. We focus too much on ‘starting something’ instead of ‘declaring him’! NOTE: It is also a common mistake for Christians to ‘attend church’ and debate the fact that ‘everything our church does is scriptural’. They will mistake the function of someone ‘preaching’ bible words [either the Pastor or Evangelist] as ‘being biblical’ even if the entire mindset of ‘the church I am attending’ is absolutely no where to be found in scripture! Now I don’t want to be too ‘iconoclastic’ [a destroyer of idols] here, but I want you to see that many Christians see ‘being scriptural’ as simply ‘speaking from scripture’. To be truly ‘scriptural’ is to function as the New Testament churches [communities of people] functioned. They lived lifestyles of community that did not view the ‘Sunday service’ as the ‘place I attend and put in my tithe’. When we as Christians view ‘church’ in this limited way, we are being UNSCRIPTURAL, even if we preach from scripture while doing it!
(429) I will do one of no spiritual value. I had a homeless friend who visited me one day. I had the news on. They were talking about some type of government entitlement program. My friend asked what they were talking about. I told him they are thinking of giving a free check to everyone who is homeless. They will simply get a free check every month. No food stamps or stuff. He told me that this was great, he has been waiting for something like this for years [I knew this, he used to tell me this. That’s why I came up with the story]. I then told him I was kidding. Well they then started talking about the death penalty, he asks ‘what are they discussing now?’ [You think he would have learned not to ask me this]. I then proceeded to tell him That Texas is trying to extend the death penalty to include all those who are ‘unemployed’ for more than a year. That the state is going to keep records, and if it shows you haven’t been working for a year or more you get put on a ‘death row list’. Well you could see the look of worry on his face. I told him I was just kidding again. This poor brother went from getting a free check for the rest of his life, to thinking the state was going to execute him if he didn’t find a job! I thought it was funny at the time.
(430) Let’s review a few things. In Isaiah it says ‘my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways’. A lot of the stuff I have been showing you on ‘Local Church’ is simply a process of changing our thoughts [ways of seeing things] to Gods thoughts. As you see this stuff you begin to see that ‘knowing scripture’ is different than just memorizing verses, or being familiar with the text. It means having a general understanding of the whole flow of what God means. As you simply ‘see’ Gods thoughts on ‘Local church’ it allows for there to be a ‘grid’ that puts everything else in context. When Jesus debated the Pharisees, they had this ‘obsessive’ ability to memorize scripture. They actually had a ‘profession’ that copied the Old Testament to the tee [scribes]. These ‘brothers’ were obsessed with the technicality of the Word! Yet Jesus would rebuke them for not truly grasping the meaning of the ‘text’. Sort of like not being able to see the forest because of the trees. This ultimately led them to crucifying their Messiah. They couldn’t ‘see the Body of Christ’. So today when we don’t ‘see’ Christ’s Body properly [thru the Church] we also do harm to it. Let God replace your thoughts for his. NOTE: I don’t mean to be picky here. But when we don’t ‘discern’ the ‘Body of Christ’ [the church] we do unconsciously accuse her. Paul writes ‘I have shown you these things so you would know how to behave in the house of God, the pillar and ground of the truth’. We read ‘how to behave in the church building on Sunday’ [our thoughts] when what it is really saying is ‘how to behave in the family of God’. We say things to believers who are ‘functioning locally’ ‘you need to be under a covering, you need to be in submission to ‘a local church’. We often are using a ‘form’ of local church that isn’t to be found in scripture when we say this. In essence we are doing ‘damage to the Body of Christ’ when we do not properly discern her.
(431) Isaiah 56 ‘Keep judgment and do justice, for my salvation is near and my righteousness is ready to be revealed’ God says he is about to do some major things. He wants you to ‘judge right’ actually stand strong in discernment with mercy. It’s easy to give up on the things God has shown you and to fall into the status quo. God says stay true to what I showed you because it’s for a purpose. ‘Blessed is the man that doesn’t pollute my Sabbath and keeps his hand from evil’. Remember what we recently said about the Sabbath? God says ‘blessed are those who remain in my rest. Those who abide in me and allow me to bring forth the fruit’ this is the only way we can keep our selves from ‘doing evil’. In Gods grace! ‘These are the ones I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in MY HOUSE OF PRAYER’ we also just discussed Gods house of prayer. God will gather all those who are in grace and make them ‘joyful’ as they join in intercession for the nations. You are a ‘house of Prayer’ you will only be fulfilled when you are doing what you were created to do! Remember, we are corporately his facility, our ‘use’ is to be a habitation thru whom God intercedes. ‘His watchman are blind, they cant see. They are greedy, they can never have enough wealth. They are all out for personal gain, they look for it to come to their areas. They say ‘tomorrow will be much more abundant’. Here God rebukes the leadership for always wanting more finances. They live day by day with the goal of ‘great material abundance’. They have usurped Gods purpose for his ‘house’ and made it into a den of thieves! [These are the leaders who teach it obsessively, they have made the goal ‘material wealth’ not so much the Pastors who are raising money for unselfish things! Also see the specific rebuke to those who say ‘tomorrow we will have more wealth’ the actual confession and excitement of seeing more wealth as the goal is being rebuked here!]
(432) I am continuing to study on apostolic movements. I read a book years ago on these movements [reinventing American Protestantism-Donald Miller] and have read lots of stuff over the years. I just looked at the ‘Calvary Chapel’ with Chuck Smith and the ‘Vineyard’ with the late John Wimber. I also looked at the Victory Outreach and the Door. I would have to say the Calvary Chapels and the Vineyard are ‘more mature’ in their understanding of what God is doing with them. The ‘door’ is a little too ‘sectarian’ in their mindset. They actually expressed things on their site that seem to say they see ‘their movement’ as ‘thee’ restoration of ‘the’ Local Church. This type of stuff is dangerous. But overall these movements are great. The book I read from Donald Miller referred to these churches as ‘new paradigm’ churches. I don’t really see them as ‘new paradigm’ they still function out of the ‘paradigm’ of local church being the Sunday 501c3 corp. but they are ‘new’ in the sense of the way they branched out thru outreaches. I commend these works and these men, both Wimber and Chuck Smith are good men whom I respect. A lot of the critics don’t see them this way, but I see them as truly being used of God. I think we are at a stage in the Body of Christ where God wants to ‘join’ the dimension of rapidly expanding thru ‘church planting’ with the whole concept of the church as ‘family’ as opposed to ‘the building we meet at’. What this ‘new paradigm’ will do is release all the Body of Christ into seeing themselves as ‘church planters’. Everyone has the ability to speak the gospel to people groups in various locations and settings. Too many of the older type movements were looking for ‘church sites’ ‘what property should we purchase?’ And stuff like this. The ‘new paradigm’ will be looking to ‘people groups’. ‘Shall I go to Macedonia today?’ ‘I wonder if the Lord will send me to Galatia?’ Things like this. Instead of ‘seeing’ the setting up of an organization, you will be ‘seeing’ the open doors to reach people groups. ‘Where will we have church than?’ everywhere! You can meet in a park, home, whataburger, even in a CHURCH BUILDING! The point is God will provide many ‘places’ to get together. Quit being so focused on ‘the place’. Didn’t you have friends growing up? You had a ‘bunch of people’ that were your ‘clique’. You played ball, went places, did things. Were you always looking for the ‘building’ to meet in? NO! You were a group of people with a common identity. You gathered around mutual interests. So begin to see this ‘new paradigm’ and operate along these lines. This reduces the current need for great finances, and allows for the simple expansion of the Kingdom thru simple disciples carrying the great message of Christ. NOTE: it is common for the average Pastor to fight against this way of seeing ‘church’. You will often hear the verse in Hebrews ‘forsake not the assembling of yourselves together’. This verse cant be used to defend a form of ‘Local Church’ that is no where to be found in the New Testament! If you stopped ‘getting together’ with your friends in the above scenario, your parents might say ‘what’s wrong with you Johnny? You are becoming too isolated. Don’t STOP GETTING TOGETHER WITH YOUR FRIENDS’. In essence this is what the writer of Hebrews is saying. Don’t use stuff like this to justify ‘going to church on Sunday’.
(433) GO WASH IN THE POOL OF SILOAM [Jesus said this] this summer [2007] I have taken my kids to the beach a lot. I usually can’t get them to go. It’s one of those things like you live so close, you never take advantage of it! Like growing up by New York City, a lot of my friends never went to the Empire state building! Well the area where I have been taking my kids is right next to the north jetty of the Packery Channel. This is the channel that the state opened up after 50 years of it being closed. I have shared lots of stuff on this site about it. If you remember when it first opened I shared how one day I took a walk [south jetty] and walked the beach to the jetty. I burned my feet that day. Well this summer I walked the north jetty for the first time. Its beautiful and provides an ‘atmosphere/environment’ where you can walk out and see a view of the coast that you never saw before. The ‘jetty’ is like a highway that has been created by an opening of an ancient waterway. I felt like God was saying he has opened up new ‘waterways’ for you. These new channels will provide a ‘highway’ for you to go places and see things that you have never seen before. These new openings/highways will also create a ‘pool’ environment that will allow your ‘children’ to enjoy for many years. When God opens up new opportunities for you [highways] it is your responsibility to ‘go for it’. Sometimes you walk out on the wall, other times you ‘jump in’. But either way you must take advantage of the opportunities when they are there. Don’t be like the friends who never went to the Empire state building. It’s those who are ‘closest’ to the kingdom that have the greatest risk of not entering in! ‘The children of the kingdom were cast out’ Jesus said this to the Jewish nation as they were on the verge of rejecting him. This new ‘wall/highway’ will also ‘cut off’ access to the old desert that got you burned in the past! The channel actually creates a waterway that ‘cuts off’ the old section of island/desert. When God opened up the Red Sea for the children of Israel it gave them a way out of Egypt, but it also cut off access back. There are things that you will never get ‘clean’ from until you ‘wash in the POOL of Siloam’ [plunge into the purpose of God]!
(434) I woke up today with nothing to say. I actually thought I would take a break. I made the mistake of asking the Lord if he wanted me to speak, and here we go! A few years back I had a Pastor friend who was an ex addict/convict. We ran in the same group of guys. He was ‘solo Jesus’ [Jesus only]. All these brothers are Christian! Let me talk a little about this way of seeing the Trinity. In the gospels Jesus says ‘go and baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost’. If you look at the actual baptisms in scripture [Acts] you will see that every time they mention the ‘name’ as they baptize, that it is ‘in the name of Jesus’. So what you get from this is when Jesus said ‘baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit’ he was actually saying that there is only one proper name given in the New Testament for any of the Godhead. Father, Son and Spirit are not names, they are titles. So the reason why the Apostles baptized in Jesus name was because of this. Now the ‘Jesus only’ groups got hold of this as well as other truths and are identified as ‘Jesus only’. I believe in the doctrine of the Trinity as stated in the ancient creeds. I am not a ‘Jesus only’. But this shouldn’t prevent us from seeing truth. Basically the Jesus only groups teach that in heaven you will see ‘Jesus only’ on the throne. God is a Spirit, is he a different Spirit than the ‘Holy Spirit’? Jesus is the only person in the Godhead with a Body. Does Jesus have a spirit? Well if God is a Spirit and all the fullness of God is in Jesus bodily, then they teach you will not see God in heaven as a ‘disembodied Sprit’ that you will see Jesus on the throne, and he will be the express image of God. This is surely interesting. Do I totally hold to this? No. But I wouldn’t classify someone as a heretic for this. I believe there is truth that God gives us from many camps. The problem is as the church developed thru the centuries they had debates over the nature of Jesus and the creeds came down on a certain side. I agree with the creeds, but they had a tendency to say ‘take one side, if not you’re a heretic’ so some of the early fathers had no choice to express other views on these things. I mentioned the ‘Local church’ movement that started under watchman Nee. His disciple that carried the torch after Nee died was ‘witness Lee’ this brother has been fighting the old time apologists for years over this issue. Witness Lee sees some of this stuff. He actually was called a heretic by the apologists for saying ‘Jesus is the Father’. The apologists say ‘you are rejecting the historic Trinity’ the apologists argued with him over the verse in Isaiah that says ‘His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God the Everlasting Father’ this verse is no doubt speaking of Jesus. Lee says ‘see, Jesus is the Father here’ I agree! The strong Trinity guys [of which I am one myself] say that in this verse ‘the Father’ is not God the Father, but a reference to Jesus as the Father of a new race. Lee shoots back and says ‘then you believe in 2 Fathers’. I fall on Lee’s side here. The ‘Father’ reference is speaking of God. The fact is Jesus is the revelation of the Father to us. Scripture says ‘all the fullness of God is in Christ’. Jesus told Phillip ‘if you have seen me, you have seen the Father’. I just think we take revelations from God, like the Trinity, and we cant fully comprehend all there is in it. And then we come to limited human understandings that get us into trouble. It is obvious to me that the strong apologists who are fighting Lee in this one verse are wrong. They are trying to make it fit. It’s hard to make God ‘fit’. God has revealed great truths to the church thru the centuries. I don’t advocate ‘undoing’ the creeds. But we have to be open for further insight into things that we don’t fully comprehend. I remember telling some friends this once. I explained that it isn’t real easy to understand all this. I shared how God is a Spirit, and how the Holy Spirit is God. And God is one. Are there 2 different Spirits? As you can see it’s not easy. So for all my Jesus only brothers, they do have truth. For all those like me [classic Trinitarian] we also have truth. But I also am able to see the truth about all the references in the book of Acts on being baptized ‘in the name of Jesus’. They actually did do this! The strong Trinitarians say ‘that’s right, because Jesus is God, so we should say ‘Father, Son and Spirit’. The point is, because Jesus is God, that’s why they all said ‘Jesus’ at the actual baptism! It’s like if I told you ‘go and cash this check [baptize] in the name of my father, my son and my spirit’. And you went down to the bank and put ‘my father, my son and my spirit’ on the check. They would look at you funny. You would understand that I meant the name ‘Chiarello’ not the title’s ‘my Father, Son and Spirit’. I really don’t see why Christians kill each other over this stuff. I am not advocating re baptizing everyone who did it the historic way. I also think it is more scriptural to say ‘Jesus’ when doing it. Frank Barltleman, who I mentioned earlier on this blog, was one of the smartest Christians at the turn of the last century. He documented the Azusa street revivals and wrote the book ‘another wave rolls in’. He actually saw a lot of this and became identified as a ‘Jesus only’ and lost a lot of influence in the church because of it. I think its good to see it like this. ‘Jesus is the only revealed proper name given to any of the Trinity in the New Testament. He is the singular revelation of God to humanity. All that we ‘see’ and know about who God is and how he reacts is seen thru the incarnate God/man Jesus Christ. When he told the disciples ‘go and baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost’ he was once again speaking of himself in the 3rd person [like in John chapter 3, Jesus says ‘God so loved the world that he gave his son’ He didn’t say ‘that he gave me’ he spoke of himself in the 3rd person because it is the work of the Spirit to actually reveal Christ to man. Jesus was letting the Spirit reveal him, he wasn’t doing it thru self proclamation] The reality of the baptisms being done in the book of Acts under the name ‘Jesus’ is a revelation to us that Jesus is the only revealed name of the Father, Son and Spirit given to us in the New Testament, he is the express image of God to man’. So instead of labeling everyone a heretic, we need to see Jesus more fully! P.S. I believe 100 % in the Trinity! NOTE: It’s OK to say ‘Jehovah’ or ‘Yahweh’ or other names of God. But it’s important to see that because Jesus is the revelation of God given to man, that in the New Testament the name ‘Jesus’ is the only proper name given to describe any of the Godhead. This doesn’t mean that there is no Trinity, it just shows us that all of God was in Christ. Not just one third! Also to be a little technical, Jesus said ‘baptize in the NAME’ not NAMES. The Jesus only groups will tell you that Jesus was speaking of a singular name here. The fact that all the baptisms in Acts that give you the reference to the name being used, it’s always the name ‘Jesus’ it never shows an example of them saying ‘in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit’ when they are baptizing someone. The churches that do use this formula will say ‘well, we know they must have said it, because Jesus told us to say it’ he really didn’t tell us to say it, he did tell us to use the NAME of the Father, Son and Spirit, so the fact that they said ‘Jesus’ when they baptized shows us that he told them to use his name, he obviously was referring to himself in the 3rd person. There really isn’t a better explanation for this. It just seems to me that this is a truth that you can’t get around.
(435) This fits in with the last entry. It is important for Christians to form their view of God thru Christ. You often hear good reformed theologians [whom I like] focus on the holiness and transcendent nature of God. Some will even teach that the reason the church is in a ‘worldly’ state is because we preach the Gospel without the Law. They seem to be saying if we preach God in an Old Testament way, and we preach the law, that this will bring the church back into holiness. The message of God thru Christ was one of reconciliation. There is no doubt that Jesus was against sin. The times he taught that if you looked upon a woman with lust you were just as guilty as committing adultery. These statements were intended to show mans inability to reform himself. Many of the law keepers were counting on their ability to not commit outward acts of sin, even though in their hearts they were just as lost as the prostitute and drunkard. Jesus was not ‘exalting’ law here. He was showing those who trusted in their own righteousness that they didn’t have a chance at being accepted this way. He then of course would die for mans sin and man would receive this ransom freely. This is why you see the Apostle Paul stress justification by faith. I feel we do damage when we believe the answer to ‘worldliness’ is to preach more law. The preaching of law has a tendency to appeal to mans sinful nature. It actually stirs up in man a feeing of ‘I will now go and do what I was told not to’. When you mix this in with an Old Testament revelation of God [one of wrath] this doesn’t produce the desired result of holiness. It is the unconditional message of grace that people need. Not an ‘easy believism’ type thing, but a radical view of Gods mercy as seen thru the incarnation of Jesus. The way Jesus treated sinners and unbelievers gave them an avenue to approach God. His ‘exalting’ of the law was for the purpose of bringing man to him, in some of the reformed circles they think that if you exalt the law it will bring a degree of ‘self restraint’ to the church. I do not see this as a New Covenant function. Once you are in Christ it is the ability to rest in him that brings ‘holiness’. If people aren’t ‘holy enough’ the preaching of the law and the focus on Gods holiness will only increase the level of condemnation. All righteousness comes by faith in Christ, we are to form our ideas about the way God sees us thru the actual way Jesus lived. This is the revelation of God to us. Jesus did not condone sin, but he functioned in such a way that sinners did not see God as far away and ‘transcendent’ they saw God as close and accessible to meet man where he was at.
(436) Let’s go back to the ‘Jesus only’ stuff. The Jesus only brothers will take the verses that say ‘Jesus is God’ and combine them with the verse that says ‘Jesus name is the Everlasting father’ and come to the conclusion that ‘Jesus is God’ well he is! They will then say ‘when you go to heaven, you will see ‘Jesus only’ because God the Father is a Spirit, and this Sprit lives in Jesus’! Now on the other end of the spectrum you have whole groups of Christians that say ‘Jesus is the Son of God [true] but not God [untrue]’. Even in the first 3 centuries of the church this became a debate. Some priests and Bishops said ‘Jesus is Gods Son, but God is the only God. God is 1, not many [3]’ These brothers will show you how Paul addresses the Christians in his letters and says ‘God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’ but Paul never says ‘Jesus, the God of the Father’. So they simply say ‘Jesus is Gods Son, but the Father is God’. Now there is truth to some of these things, but not all. Then in the 4th century under the Emperor Constantine, he calls a worldwide Council of Bishops and they come to the conclusion of the historic Trinity and the Divine nature of Jesus. Those who disagree will show you that Constantine did this for political reasons [calling the council] and therefore will see the ‘Trinitarian formula’ as a false doctrine from ‘Rome’. There are whole groups of Baptists that also believe this! I had a friend of mine who joined the Air force, he attended the Fundamental Baptist Church I went to. He got stationed somewhere and found some ‘Independent Baptist churches’. They were just like the one we attended, except that they all taught that the Trinity was a false doctrine that was invented by the Catholic Church, and that all the other Baptists that believed it were in apostasy! Now these brothers will point to all the scriptures that say ‘God is one’ and tell you the language for the Trinity ‘God in 3 Persons’ is unscriptural. The Jesus only brothers will do this too! So as you can see it’s not easy to explain this stuff. The New Testament tells us ‘God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen on by men, received up into glory’ Jesus is God. We know this. But it is easy to see how when you look at certain ‘angles’ of truth, that it’s also easy to fall into categories where you make the other side a heretic. Let me say also, the reason why we form our view of God thru Christ is because God chose to reveal himself to us in this way. I do believe the ‘God of the Old Testament’ is God. The reason he is seen as wrathful and ‘transcendent’ is because this is how God is, apart from the Cross. In the Old Testament you see God dealing with man based on mans attempt at making himself righteous. Man couldn’t come close, so you ‘see’ God as wrathful and far away. In the New Testament you see God relating to man on the basis of the Cross. God’s wrath and anger are appeased and he is seen as someone who is not ‘far away’ anymore. Some historical Christians actually taught that the God of the Old Testament was a different God. One guy even came out with the first ‘cannon’ of scripture. It basically left out the Old Testament and contained only Paul’s letters, I think his name was ‘Marcion’ if I am remembering right? There are not 2 different Gods, the God of Israel is the same God as ‘the God’ of the Christians, it’s just you cant ‘have him’ without having his Son! Jesus did teach this. Now what about ‘Allah’, isn’t he also the same God with a different name. No he is not! This is why when we try to strive for unity and pluralism in society [all Muslims should have the right to worship as they please!] we also should be able to discern between Christian and Muslim belief. Allah is the ‘god’ of Islam, this is not the same God of Israel or Christians. NOTE: I have a friend of mine who is a Christian, but not real active in ‘churchy’ type things [sort of like Nacho Libre/Jack Black ‘a real religious man I am’!] and he says to me ‘What about those Mormons [we had a mutual friend who was Mormon] they believe in some God called ‘Yahweh’. I told him ‘this is not only the Mormon God, but ours too!’ Yahweh is the Name of God in scripture! Thought this was funny.
(437) About 15 years ago I hurt my back at work, we were lifting a football player from A and I university [A and M is now the name]. I slipped a disk or something. It was bad, couldn’t walk for a few weeks. Over the years this same area of my back has had a ‘reoccurring’ feeling of pain. I am irresponsible in the area of doctors. I haven’t done doctors check ups and stuff like you should. Recently its been killing me, I usually wait it out and eventually it gets better, it got so bad the other day that I went to the Emergency room [couldn’t wait till morning] and had to get something for the pain. They gave me some Valium and a direct shot of something into the lower spine area. After 30 minutes the pain never went away, it was that bad. Well I am off of work for a few days and the pain med’s along with the other prescribed meds seem to be helping. In the past guys with this type of injury would take months off, I plan on going back in a few days. Not bragging, just have too much to do to take months of down time. So this got me thinking about ‘healing’ again. I was thinking of the scenario in the Old Testament when the Israelites were in the wilderness and God sent snakes [fiery serpents-King James] to bite the people for their rebellion. As the people were being bitten they are dieing. God tells Moses to make this brass/bronze statue of a snake and put it in a poll. Whoever looks to the pole after they are bitten will get healed. Later on in Israel’s history you read an insignificant verse [I forget where it is, you can look it up in a concordance] where this statue had to be destroyed because the children of Israel went and idolized the thing. Now Jesus in John chapter 3 describes this story to Nicodemus. He basically says ‘as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up, so whosoever looks to him will be saved’ The reason Jesus would describe himself as a ‘serpent’ was because in Gods eyes Jesus became ‘accursed’ for us. The serpent in the Garden of Eden story is a cursed thing. Satan is called a serpent. When people are in need, they look to Jesus to get healed and forgiven. He was cursed on a pole [Cross] for us and we look to him for eternal life. Those who fastened their eyes on the serpent lived. Those who look to Jesus live. He is THE LIFE. God didn’t give you an experience that gave you eternal life, God gave you his Son so you would forever ‘look’ to him [an ongoing relationship versus a ‘1’ time deal!] and live forever. The verse in Hebrews says Jesus lives forever and because of this he is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God by him. Many times preachers say this means ‘guttermost’ or that Jesus saves people who are at the worst end of the scale [uttermost]. While this is true, this is not what this verse means. This verse is saying all who are in Christ have a never-ending Priesthood of intercession that Jesus forever carries out on our behalf. The ‘uttermost’ is referring to Christ’s present intercession for us that will last FOREVER; this is why he saves us to the uttermost [never ending]. Now the reason why the serpent on the pole had to be destroyed was because people take the things that God uses as examples or as tools and we make idols out of them. We do this with Pastors, Prophets and all the other gifted servants in the church. We seem to forget that we are just ‘objects/tools’ that God chooses to use as a means of getting people to Christ. We are just ‘Poles’ that are lifting Jesus up. After a while we have a tendency to ‘exalt the pole’ or worship the ‘statue’. Now we are to worship Jesus, but God doesn’t want us to make idols out of the means of communication that he uses. It’s hard to put this in, but let me try. Even the cannon of scripture is a tool to bring us to the reality of Christ. Some Christians would have you think that the tool is more important than Christ! I know I will get criticism for this, but I want you to see that it’s possible to have the tool, memorize the tool, even prop it up on some ‘pole’ but if you don’t have an ongoing relationship with God thru Christ, then this ‘tool’ can become your idol!
(438) This last week I have had an old injury from work ‘re surface’. I hurt my back years ago while on duty and it has been an on and off problem ever since. Recently it’s been causing severe pain. I finally went to the E.R. because the pain was so severe. They gave me Valium and a direct shot of painkiller into my lower spine. After about 30 minutes I got a rush, but it did nothing for the pain! I have been on some meds since [a few days] and the pain got better but I am left with a severe limp! I guess I did some damage to the nerves in my right leg, it feels totally numb. I thought this to be interesting, I had a dream a few weeks ago that I injured my leg and was walking with a limp! This reminds me of Jacob. After Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord all night, he later had a permanent limp. This was not so much a sign of judgment as it was a sign of Jacobs’s determination. Jacobs name gets changed to Israel and he is someone who prevails with both God and men. If you will Jacob had ‘war wounds’ that went on his ‘resume’. Sometimes in the Kingdom we see talented people, that’s good. But often times you don’t see determination. Much of the modern church is built on ‘performance talent’ and personality. People want to look good! Jesus rebuked the religious leaders of his day because they loved the acclaim that came along with religious position. The Kingdom needs people who will persevere [by Gods grace] whether they look good or not! I like the story of Jacob. I know he did some crafty things [supplanter] but this didn’t seem to bother the Lord as much as it bothers us. God is not looking for perfect people in as much as he is looking for ‘persevering people’. Let me exhort you to finish the race and endure by Gods grace to the end of your mission!
(439) Just opened up my newspaper. First thing I saw was ‘man dies swimming at Packery channel’. A 23 year old drowned right at the site that I have been swimming at the last few weeks. It is the first reported drowning this year off of our coast. I do not want to take lightly, or use the death of someone lightly. I want to show you that this channel, which I have spoken on a lot, represents ‘dieing to old things, and a coming alive to something new’. I felt like the Lord was telling me that the old person is passing away for many of us. The old ‘patterns/routines’ are being left behind only as you move ahead to new territory. You must access the ‘channel/highway’ that God is opening at this time, it will mean ‘death’ to the old man. Go and wash in this new open door I am giving you [Siloam/sent] your ‘sending’ will provide a cleansing avenue that will be found no where else!
(440) I was listening to a preacher on the radio; he is a great grace preacher. He is also a ‘cessationist’ someone who believes that the gifts of the Spirit and the 5 fold ministries passed away [the 5 fold refers to Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers]. We know there are no more Apostles in the sense of the ‘12 Apostles of the Lamb’ these are a category unto themselves. But scripture says ‘after Jesus ascended on high, he gave gifts unto men; Apostles, Prophets, etc.’ so this category of ‘Apostles and Prophets’ never even existed until after the ascension! Also this is speaking of Prophets that were made after Jesus ascended. So the original 12 and all the Old Testament Prophets are not even in this category. Also some teach that when Paul said ‘Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers’ and then he says ‘God gave them to the church until that which is perfect is come’ [Corinthians, Ephesians] some say ‘that which is perfect’ is the completed canon [the Bible] and since we now have the bible we don’t need Apostles and Prophets. Well simple grammar tells you no matter how you interpret this verse, that all 5 of these gifts are clumped together. If you don’t have Prophets, then you don’t have Teachers either! This verse is actually speaking of the perfection of the Bride of Christ that will take place at the second coming ‘for when we see him we will be like him, for we will see him as he is’. So to me ‘that which is perfect’ is not the bible or the second coming, but it is speaking of the Body of Christ coming to maturity [perfection is used in this way in scripture, and this will happen at the second coming, but the ‘perfect’ part is speaking of the bodies maturity at that event. John says ‘when we see him we will be like him’ 1st John]. Also to those who believe the gifts passed away. Peter quotes Joel in the book of Acts and says ‘In the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy’ This verse specifically says ‘people will prophesy in the last days’. I know some say ‘this is simple preaching’. But if you continue thru the book of Acts, which Peter describes as ‘the last days’ you will find examples of Prophets ‘prophesying’ and it isn’t simple preaching or exhortation, it is ‘predictive/prophetic’ speaking. The Prophet Agabus takes Paul’s ‘girdle’ [clothing] and says ‘whoever owns this coat will be bound and taken captive’. The Prophet says this as he is ‘Prophetically’ wrapping it around him. Now this isn’t simple preaching or exhortation. I know the critics say ‘this is before the bible is finished’ the point I am making is this defines the actual type of prophecy that Peter spoke of. And it wasn’t PREACHING!
(441) I am going to share a dream, but first this. The main reason the 1st century religious leaders did not receive the prophetic ministry of Jesus was because of their understanding of THE PROPHETS. They truly prided themselves in the fact that they were the keepers of the Old Testament, and that they possessed singular wisdom from the prophets that no one else could see. The great irony was that Jesus was the GREATEST prophet ever, all the Prophets pointed to him! Yet in their religious pride the Pharisees could not see ‘him’. Often times God will use people at certain periods in church history. These ‘prophetic voices’ are not meant to be worshipped or revered [only Jesus] but you will find the most ‘enlightened’ leaders of the day rejecting what they are saying because of their understanding of ‘the prophets’ [Word of God]. Often times these are the biggest obstacles to what God is doing. Jesus said the ‘sinners’ were much more open and willing to receive him than the religious leaders. All these people looking for spirituality in the New Age movement and psychics and stuff. Many of them are really open to the prophetic things of God. I am not saying these ‘spiritual counterfeits’ are prophetic, but people are looking for something real. They don’t find it in these ‘quasi movements’ they find it in Jesus. The woman at the well [John 4] said ‘come see a man that told me my whole life’. The fact that Jesus ‘saw into her heart’ caused her to go and testify of him. A woman who was steeped in sin. The Pharisees avoided and condemned her thru out her life. She was even from the wrong side of the religious world [Samaritan] yet in one prophetic encounter with Jesus she gets converted! Something all the Law and religion of the day could not do! Something that even the religious leaders were unable to receive. They had their views formed by their interpretation of the ‘prophets’ and nothing was going to change that, not even the greatest prophet who ever lived! Moses said ‘the Lord is going to raise up a prophet like unto me, those who will not hear him will be destroyed’. In the book of Acts Jesus is identified as ‘this prophet’. Moses brought the people on a spiritual journey that at first seemed exciting, then it seemed to ‘off the wall’. They found themselves living in the wilderness dependant on this ‘bread’ [Manna] that is coming down from heaven. The name ‘Manna’ means ‘what is it’ they survived on food that was strange to them. The disciples followed Jesus for 3 years and many said ‘who in the world is this guy’ [Manna- ‘what is this?’] Jesus had the audacity to say ‘I am the bread that comes down from heaven, whoever eats of me will never die’ this was too much for the leaders to hear. They would eventually kill him. DREAM; I just dreamt I was in a store. I had a complaint about something and went to tell the manager. The manager said ‘don’t you know that I can call the police on you’ she seemed like she knew the complaint was legitimate, but so what, what can you do to right this wrong. I said I too can call the law. It seemed like a confrontation with ‘Jezebel’. I called on my phone and she called on hers. She seemed like she was used to this challenge to her authority, this time was different. A few minutes after I called the sky started getting dark. It was a warm day, but a storm began to blow in. Everyone started getting scared. As the storm approached it began to snow [I have had snow before in dreams] and it became like hurricane conditions. Everyone began running for their lives. I too was running, but I wasn’t scared. It felt like when I pray outside during a thunderstorm. I was comfortable with it. I did have to avoid things blowing around and all, but it was like calling in ‘friendly fire’ during a war. You ask your own army to bombard your area. You know you might get hit too, but there are so many enemies surrounding you, that you go for it. As the winds and snow and storm got severe, a flash flood came in and covered the ground. I had to climb up a wall. I felt like the woman who challenged me by calling the authorities was like Jezebel. She has been seducing the people of God for so long that the church and its leadership got to a point where they would ignore her. In the past whenever some so-called ‘prophet’ would challenge her, she was able to ‘make them run’. She didn’t count on me ‘calling in friendly fire’ this time it was every man for himself, even her! There were some other parts to the dream that I don’t recall as clearly, but I think they dealt with a warning for those who are seeing stuff from our site [sight!] I felt the Lord said to be careful in dealing with ‘the weeds’ because you might accidentally pull up ‘the wheat’. It is easy for people to see real truth from this site, the intent is for reformation, not destruction. Sometimes ‘Jezebel’ is so rooted in the church that it takes a violent act to root her out. Jehu drove furiously, but he had a job to do! I want all our readers to be careful as you try to ‘root out Jezebel’ in your area [cities/states] she has been ‘welcomed’ for a very long season, she will not leave politely! Revelation- ‘I have something against you, you have suffered that woman jezebel to seduce my servants and commit fornication’ Jesus said this to one of the churches. James says ‘don’t you know that your love of the world is like committing adultery, your heart and desires are in things where God doesn’t dwell’ paraphrase. We suffer ‘Jezebel’ by truly loving the things of the world; we make pleasure and success our god. NOTE: Isaiah says ‘as the snow comes down from heaven and waters the earth, so is my word that goes out of my mouth. It will water the earth and make it bring forth. It will accomplish the purpose for why it was sent’! NOTE: Too often in the church we have labeled women as ‘jezebel’. Sometimes we put this label on women struggling in the ‘sex trades’. Remember, Jesus did not approach the Samaritan woman in this way, he gave her hope and forgiveness! Jezebel to me is more of a ‘seducing spirit’ she [and others] know she is ‘seducing’ the saints, but they allow her [suffer her] to continue! NOTE: The ‘snow’ images I have seen and shared on this blog speak to me of God covering areas with his prophetic word. A few years back it snowed in Corpus. I have pictures of this area covered with snow. I also saw an aerial view and it covered this entire southern coast and spread inland. In the above dream I feel the snow represents God permitting a prophetic word [words] to come from this area and to affect the state, nation and the world! Only God can cause the ‘snow’ [word/seed] to ‘cause the earth to bud’. There are seasons where God desires to bring ‘adjustment’ to the Body of Christ, these times are usually not comfortable! Also a few entries back I spoke on the strong ‘apologist’ movements who seem to only be looking for fault in the church. This has caused good men to go to the other extreme and to never bring correction or reproof at all. This is why you have many good Pastors today who are ‘shaken’ when true correction comes. Its not that they are all ‘wimps’ it’s just the present level of corrective reproof in the church is very low. When children have not been disciplined in a long time, they react violently when you try to correct them. I don’t want to sound demeaning, I am just trying to show you that ‘when it snows’ those who are unfamiliar with it have a hard time. When it snowed in Jersey, the street workers were out and the streets were clean and ready to drive. Not here in Corpus! We were not ‘used to’ snow. Hebrews says when people are ‘chastened’ [disciplined] it does not feel good at the beginning, but afterward it produces righteousness in those who accept it. Let the ‘summer snow’ do its work, it can be refreshing if you receive it in the right spirit. Also I used to have some music from Keith Green [I still love his music, but I gave the CD’s away to a friend!] he sang a song called ‘summer snow’ this verse is somewhere in the bible [Proverbs?] I kinda remember it saying something like ‘as snow to someone in summer’ speaking of a refreshing surprise visitation that ‘feels good’ and refreshing. Keith sang it to show the ‘surprise’ return of the Lord, that people wouldn’t be ready or expecting it. You usually get ready for the winter months while living up north. You don’t get all the snow gear in stores and stuff during the summer! So Jesus return will take many by surprise. A few years ago I took a drive to Jersey. I know it’s long [1800 miles!] but I am one of those road warriors that drives 1100-1200 miles in day one, and then finishes the rest on day 2. [I am also one who will drive wrong for 100 miles before I will ask for directions!] While there [February] we got a severe snowstorm, I loved it. I took a bunch of pictures of my truck being in a few feet of snow [vehicles represent ministries in prophetic imagery] I developed the pictures when I got back to Texas and lost them! They were missing for a few years. As I looked for them on many occasions I realized it was going to be a sign. Sometimes this will happen with me loosing things, when they show up later I know it was for a reason. Well after looking for them for a few weeks, I told the Lord ‘I know they will show up some day, for now I will let it go’ [not by might, nor power, but by my Spirit says the Lord] after a year or 2 [?] one day I walked into my study and they were laying out in plain view on a desk. I never asked who put them there or anything. I took it as a sign from the Lord. The year I found them was 2007, the same year the Lord allowed us to ‘snow’ on the North East. This year was the first year our blog and radio program reached Jersey. The radio station we are on broadcasts on line, so all my old buddies can read the blog and hear our program for the first time. Remember ‘snow’ is an image of Gods word ‘blanketing’ an area! Note: The last few months I debated on what towns we would post our blog. It is a little expensive and I do pay for this stuff out of pocket. I finally decided to ‘skip’ the Dallas/Fort Worth area. They wanted $170.00 for 1 day a month! The area we blog/ broadcast finally ended up being from the valley area, over to Laredo, back over thru the San Antonio/Corpus area, and instead of Dallas we just ‘shoot’ straight over to Houston and even hit Louisiana on a clear day. Plus we blog the New York area. I have this area ‘posted’ on all the maps and stuff that I use as ‘prayer reminders’. I just found the ‘aerial’ shot of the snow in 2004, it is an exact picture of the areas I show on the maps [except for the New York area] I forgot how accurate prophetic things can be! Also I forgot to mention that it snowed on Christmas day. Christmas was a sign of sending for me a few years ago, I saw the ‘tree’ in a dream and in a star pattern that year. So this would signify God ‘sending us out’ thru the various avenues of speaking/prophesying the word. As I just re read the details on the snow of 2004, it was the most snowfall ever recorded for this area. Claim these promises for yourself as God directs, his purpose is for all the Body of Christ to be actively involved with spreading the word! NOTE: see entry 454 as the fulfillment of the dream of flash floods.
(442) I am going to speak this as I just ‘heard’ it. God is requiring some of you to take action like a ‘Samson’. I felt like the Lord was saying that some of you have been preparing for ministry for years. You seem to be stuck at a place where you need to find one more answer, or settle just 1 more issue before you take the plunge. Some of you feel like you need a ‘track’ record of good days before you will act. Samson reached a point in his life where he was reaping what he sowed. His reputation and personal future was beyond repair. He was being mocked regularly while he struggled with ‘bondage issues’. One day he saw an opportunity to commit a single act of bravery that would mean martyrdom for him, but he knew it would be his last chance to ‘make history’. He could have never done what he was going to do. If ‘survival’ and existence was the measuring rule, he would have just been happy by living day to day as the but of the enemies jokes. The court jester if you will. He got tired of that existence. One day as he is being mocked he ‘positions’ himself in a strategic place, it almost looks like a ‘Cross’. His arms are placed from one pillar to another and he ‘goes for it’. Everything comes down, even on him [friendly fire!] but scripture says he killed more of the enemy in his death, than in his entire life [a bit prophetic, don’t you think?] Hebrews 11 records him as one of the heroes of the faith. That’s funny, God didn’t ‘remember’ his bad track record, God saw his act of faith! What are you waiting for? NOTE: I am going to share this as I just ‘heard it’. ‘Your whole life, in Gods eyes is as a single day. God’s mercies are new every morning. If you woke up today and found out that every failure you have ever committed, every wrong thing you have ever done. All the mistakes you might have made in ministry, the friendships that have parted, possibly because you were the one at fault. Your own personal failures and weaknesses. Those of you who have been divorced, had abortions and have done the most horrendous things imaginable. If you just woke up and realized that it was all a dream. That as a matter of fact this is the first day of your life. You were like the guy in ‘it’s a wonderful life’ and you really had a bran new start today. This is how God sees you. Your whole life, all the successes and failures, every single thing that has happened up until now has only been a ‘blip’ on Gods radar screen. Your whole life is like a single day in the mind of God. If your kid woke up today and disobeyed you, you might punish him and send him to his room. By the evening he forgot all about it and wants to throw the football or ride his bike. How do you view him? Do you really hold that ‘one day mistake’ against him? This is how God sees you right now, in his mind none of this ever happened. He really sees you as the little boy/girl who made a ‘one day mistake’ and he wants you to finish the day with him. The night is almost here and you will be sleeping soon, have some fun.
(443) Jesus never used his tremendous wisdom to ‘trick’ or baffle the average person. But he did do this with the religious leaders who were proud. It is easy to fall into the category of ‘wanting to win the argument’. God wants us to be right, but the end goal is to ‘win the person’. I like studying intellectuals and the current trends in theology, I think most Pastors/Leaders are too lacking in these areas. I will notice sometimes that ‘theologians’ will fall into the trap of speaking for hours with such intellectual language that when they are done you have no idea of what they were saying. I have read books like this. They seem to see that as a badge of honor. Jesus only did stuff like this when dealing with the proud ‘preachers’ of his day. ‘Who is the Messiah? Is he the Son of David? Then if this is so, why does David call him his Lord in the Psalms?’ The Pharisees were baffled. The answer is common today. Jesus was before David [John 1:1] and he became ‘incarnate’ after David. It is a theological answer to be sure, but none of the Theologians knew it. But later Jesus will plainly reveal the Love and Mercy of God to man. I do think there are times to be ‘intellectual’, but mostly when dealing with religious leadership who is steeped in their knowledge, they often need to be ‘out trumped’ before they will change. The main message of the Cross is meant to be simple and relevant. Paul had the opportunity to ‘dazzle’ the Corinthians, but he said he stuck with the message of the Cross so their faith wouldn’t be in some intricate system of thought, but in Christ! NOTE: Let me show you how easy it is to ‘not see’ the obvious. The New Testament speaks specifically about the area of giving of finances. If you go to all the direct portions of scripture that deal with it [not simply to the few verses that mention the tithe that are found in the gospels and the book of Hebrews, when the ‘tithe’ is mentioned in these verses it is not speaking on giving in the New Testament church] you will find Paul teaching giving in a ‘non compulsory’ way. Why did Paul actually say ‘ give, not by compulsion, but of a willing heart’? Because the first century Jew knew of only one way to give, and that was by compulsion. The Tithe was by compulsion, no way around it. The teaching in Malachi says to the Jew ‘if you don’t tithe, you are under a curse and are robbing God’ this my friends is compulsion. Now when we in the church teach people ‘if you don’t tithe God will get it from you one way or the other. Either your kids will get sick or you will pay it out at the hospital’ this is also compulsion! So to be contrary to this mindset that was imbedded in the law, Paul purposely teaches the opposite. The fact that the New Testament teaches to give not by compulsion is just like saying ‘don’t give with the tithe mentality’. It actually is very clear! Just like it was clear to Jesus [and to us today] that Messiah was not only the Son of David, but also David’s Lord. Things become obvious when you are taught them by God. Now the New Testament gives a lot of instructions on how Christians should give, this is not a secret! But like anything else we read scripture with preconceived ideas and then we make scripture fit. We are all guilty of this, I just wanted you to see how we are just like the Pharisees in many ways. Thank God that he is a God of mercy. NOTE: It is not our intent to get Christians to stop supporting the ‘church’ they are currently attending, if you dedicated a certain amount of giving then keep doing it. If the church you attend has made certain budget decisions based on what you said you would give, then out of simple integrity to your word try and fulfill these promises. I even believe that certain Pastors can still encourage the people to give 10% without using the ‘tithe’ as the ‘trigger’. Just appeal based on grace. If you as a believer are currently learning these new truths from us, but you don’t effectively share financially thru avenues the Lord has shown you, then continue to support the church you are attending. Truth and reformation are processes that take time. Even though I believe the church is not under the tithe, yet it is not Gods purpose to ‘undercut’ the budget of well meaning Pastors/churches by you seeing this new truth. Let God lead, I don’t want to be the one who gives Christians excuses not to give.
(444) Today its June 25th, 2007. It’s been 6 months since I started this blog. Today is the day the Supreme Court outlawed prayer in Public Schools, this day in 1962 [the year I was born]. Yesterday I took my youngest daughter to church. My wife and other kids were busy, 2 of my daughters went on their own. After church I took my girl to see ‘Evan Almighty’ a good movie that does a spoof on the story of Noah’s Ark, but it is good. I told you guys once about my study, it is set up like a throw back to the 70’s. I have a lot of old stuff. One thing I have is the original ‘Gumby’ rubber man. I saw it once in a store and bought it as a collector’s thing. This week for some reason I was thinking of taking it out of the plastic that it’s in. I have no idea why I would be thinking of Gumby. Yesterday [the day I went to see the movie] I also was looking in the paper and saw some Dell Laptops, this week I have been thinking of getting one. They had a flyer on them in the paper so I was looking at the prices. Last but not least, as I am praying in my study I keep noticing this poster of John Lennon, it is a real charcoal drawing that someone had made. My wife found it in an abandoned apartment that she manages. I have had it for a few years. I was thinking of maybe taking it down, because as I am praying it kind of was distracting me, it’s got these real looking eyes that seem to pierce your soul. Well how in the world can any of this make sense? As I go to the movie I am looking for some signs or stuff the lord wants to say. The God character [Morgan Freeman] has the first conversation with the ‘Noah’ character [Steve Carell- ‘the 40 year old virgin’] and God convinces ‘Noah’ that it is him speaking to him by bringing up a childhood memory, he mentions ‘Gumby’. As the story moves ahead Noah grows hair and a beard, the son calls him ‘John Lennon’ and they play some Lennon music as well. Steve Carrel is doing all his work on a ‘Dell computer’ [a form of communication, like what I am doing on my laptop right now!] I did feel like the Lord showed me a few things. I have seen in the past certain things from Lennon and Dylan. Lennon was shocked by the effect that his words were having on a generation, Dylan was real uncomfortable about being a ‘prophet’ to his generation. If you read or watch stories on these figures, it was like the Lord was giving exponential ‘influence’ by the simple words they were speaking. On one MTV/VH1 special I saw Lennon confront a fan from an old video. Lennon was trying to tell this fan who was obsessed with the words from his songs ‘I am just a man, I am just writing my thoughts in my songs, don’t be so enamored with it’ it was like the Lord allowed certain ‘prophetic/rock’ voices to have tremendous influence, whether or not the ‘prophet’ wanted this attention or not. In the movie Steve Carell builds the Ark and is waiting for the rain, it rains a little, but the flood comes form a broken damn instead. This didn’t really fit in with the prophetic stuff I have been ‘seeing’ recently. I just dreamed of a huge storm the other day, where’s the storm? As we left the theatre my daughter says ‘look at the sky dad, a huge storm is moving in’ on the way home it was one of those flash flood storms that covers the sky and looks eerie. I got home and started writing this stuff on my mission statement, it was pouring at the time. NOTE: The reason God shows up is that Evan becomes a congressman and promises to ‘change the world’ God teaches him that you can change the world by ‘one random act of kindness at a time’ this fits in with my philosophy on the church and ministry. The biblical idea of church is for all believers everywhere to see themselves as the actual ‘fire starters’ of this Jesus revolution. It’s not the multimillion dollar ‘church organizations’ that are always appealing for money that will change the world, its all the ‘simple believers’ who have been told their whole lives ‘you cant have any influence yourself, send your money to us’ that are going to do it!
(445) A while back I read a vision from a prophet. It spoke of a huge wave that was leaving the coast, as it left it exposed the sins and shortcomings of Gods people. The wave ‘covered’ them for a while, but when it left, the people were exposed and suffered shame. Many who were on the ‘coast’ [beach] left out of fear and shame. A few remained and sure enough the wave came back. As it came back it then flooded the entire coastal region. There are verses in the Old Testament prophets that speak of stages where God dealt with the sins of his people. There are specific references to those who ‘fled’ the city [place of destiny]. It speaks of a ‘remnant’ that didn’t flee in the face of their own failure and fear. These were the ones the Lord would use to bring in the harvest. I don’t want to say that everyone who ‘leaves Corpus’ [or your city] is guilty of this, in scripture ‘here we have no continuing city’ the city imagery speaks of your purpose in the Kingdom. God is saying ‘those who stay in the destiny that I have called them to, despite the shame and failures that they have gone thru, will be the ones who will usher in and partake of my wave’.
(446) A few years ago I had a Pastor friend who kind of competed with me in ‘getting’ the addicts/ex-cons to ‘go to his church’. I knew this brother for years. He got saved in his 50’s [?] and started preaching at the jails when I was going in my 20’s. Eventually he left the Pentecostal church he attended and ‘started his own church’. I knew he would talk about me every now and then, and to tell you the truth, it really didn’t bother me. It’s like when you go thru rumors that your are having a gay relationship with an ‘ordained minister/sorcerer’ who started the rumors himself, you kind of don’t mind about the regular normal gossip. I chalked it up to his immaturity in the Lord. Even though he was a good 25 years older than me, he meant well and was going thru the silly games preachers play when they first start out. He did invite me to preach at his church once, and we had a good service. But being he would gossip to me about the Pastor and church he had formally attended, I knew it was only a matter of time before he would get to me! I never even confronted him or anything, I just let it slide. One day he saw me at a restaurant with a brother [ex-con/addict] you could tell he was a little jealous that the brother was with me and not him. I don’t even ‘have a church’ but in his mind he was at the childish stage of ‘why don’t you come to my church’ type thing. This Pastor read my first book ‘house of prayer or den of thieves’ and I think it might have been a little strong. I never gave him my 2nd book, and as we went to the parking lot to get it, he started gossiping about the ex- addict brother who we just left to go into the parking lot! Well I gave him my 2nd book, which challenges the whole concept of ‘local church’ and the role of ‘Pastor’. I knew it wouldn’t be long before he would read it, and more than likely I would become the talk of the town by this Pastor in his 60’s who would probably call me a heretic. I just didn’t worry about it, I figured I would give him the book and just leave it at that. We did have a mutual Christian friend and I finally asked him how Pastor ‘so and so’ was doing. In a nice way, I kinda figured the Pastor might have already gotten to my friend and told him what a heretic I was. My friend said the last time he saw him he was in the hospital and it looked like he was going to die. I don’t think it was because he more than likely talked about me, it was just something that happened. I later thought about it, how so many of us [Pastors/leaders] see people as simple tools in a big game. To try to challenge the present mindset of ‘Pastor’ and ‘church’ is a difficult thing. To be sure all Pastors don’t fall into the category of my friend, but the system itself has a way to bring this type of stuff out of us, even the best of us. NOTE; he died a few months back, the same day I read of his death we had a strange phenomenon in the gulf where I live. We had a real clear ‘water spout’ that the local channels picked up. It was a perfect ‘tunnel’ type spout that showed the water going right up to ‘heaven’ thru this tube. I took it as a beautiful sign of my friend’s home going. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints!
(447) It is difficult for the American church/Pastor to ‘reform’ his understanding of church from one of ‘the 501c3 organization that raises funds to do projects and support ministries’ to that of a free community of people whom Christ’s Spirit dwells in to ‘reform and effect’ society around them. I remember hearing defenses of the ‘Local church’ from the fundamental Baptists that said ‘some people speak of the ‘invisible church/universal church’ well the bible never speaks of a church ‘you cant see’. While there is some truth to this, what these brothers were saying is ‘the local church is this ‘church building’ and all the functions that surround it’! God has his people strategically located all over the earth. When the Bible speaks of ‘local believers’ versus ‘the universal church’ it is not speaking of 2 different things. It is speaking of Christians who reside locally and to the believers who reside ‘universally’. They are the same thing, just in different locations. We have a tendency as Pastors and leaders to want to do some project, complete some goal. This is good. But it becomes ‘not good’ when we view Gods people at large as the primary ‘funders’ of the ‘big project’. This ‘projects’ a mindset into the people of God that is contrary to the function of the church. Moses, Paul and all the other biblical leaders were men with vision and destiny. Moses did ‘collect funds’ for certain godly purposes [the Tabernacle] while leading the people, but the primary thing they were doing, their ‘vision and destiny’ if you will, was bringing the people of God along a journey that led them to a place of self sufficiency/rule under the headship of God [Christ] that released them into a functioning society of people. You never see Paul or the other Apostles primarily relating to the people along the lines of ‘God has given me this vision, if you Galatians, Ephesians, etc. were simply obedient to fund it, then it would happen’ the vision was not some project or thing apart from their own function and growth. They were not following Paul’s leadership to accomplish something apart from them. What Paul [Moses] were doing was bringing them into the reality that God wants to express himself and who he is thru a people that bear his name. The fact that Israel [or the church] were being governed by God and representing him in the earth gave God ‘opportunities’ to act and show himself strong on their behalf. Society around them were not going to be influenced by the great things they were to build [Babel mindset] but they were to be influenced by who they were and their real relationship with God as a nation. So when we ‘see’ the church as ‘this visible 501c3 organization’ and the people as ‘taxpayers’ [tithers] to the projects and goals of the organization, this causes both the Pastors and the people to fall into roles that are not the primary expression of what God really wants. The people are faced, week after week, month after month, year after year, with leadership saying ‘you are not obedient enough in the area of raising funds’ and the primary challenge to the average saint in the pew is ‘I will give more diligently this time’ and his whole function is measured by this rule. Then leadership reinforces the ‘scriptural mandate’ of this dynamic by appealing to the few areas in Paul’s writings that speak on giving. Though Paul was not primarily dealing with it in the same way. We truly ‘see’ the function of the motivated minister to set goals and somehow inspire people to fund these well meaning goals. This is a very small part of what New Testament leadership was doing. In the very verses we use to justify ‘giving on Sunday’ in a legalistic way, Paul actually says ‘take up the collection before I get there [Corinth] because when I get there we have real important things to do, I don’t want to waste time dealing with the money stuff [1 Corinthians 16]’ so we take these verses that are teaching the small role that finances play in the functioning of the church [to support laboring elders/Pastors and to meet the needs of the less fortunate] and we turn these verses around and teach them in a way that giving becomes thee number 1 measurement of a persons faith. We give the mindset to the average believer that his main function is to ‘attend church and give money’ and he measures his faithfulness this way. And he is taught ‘God highly values the ‘local church’ if he loves it so much that he gave his life for it, how much more should you value the local church in your life and give it priority’ But we seem to be telling the poor people that the ‘it/local church’ is the organization and all that surrounds its ‘corporations life’ [versus corporate life]. Yes God does love the 'local church’ [community of believers] and he did give his life for it [them and you!] and this is why you see biblical leadership so unfocused on some ‘vision to accomplish something’ and so focused on ‘seeing the people of God come to maturity’. They were giving their lives for the thing of value, which were the people of God [the LOCAL CHURCH!] NOTE: This is why you can see Paul in prison, writing letters to the churches and being totally fulfilled while doing this. His purpose was not to be in such a ‘state’ of outward self sufficiency and having all the money to accomplish some goal, he was actually doing the purpose of God by building the church, even though his outward man [and all of its expressions] were ‘passing away’. NOTE: the materialistic mindset in the church, along with the confusion on what [who] the church is, causes us to be unable to grasp how Paul could be ‘fulfilled’ even though he was not ‘building’ a ‘ministry or organization’. Paul was the one who said ‘we look not at the things which are seen, but unseen’ also ‘Abraham believed that the things that God said would come true’. We use these verses to bring us to a point of ‘making things seen’ or building outward stuff. In these verses God was defining faith as actually living in such a way that you knew after your departure that your ‘seed/lineage’ of spiritual children would ‘inherit’ the land. In essence ‘faith’ in these stories is the ability to die without actually seeing or possessing the physical promise in this life. The patriarchs are defined this way in Hebrews 11. They died as they blessed their offspring, believing that God would make a great ‘family/dynasty’ from their offspring. So Paul in prison is ‘unstoppable’ because he knew the Word of the Lord would have free course. He knew ‘by faith’ that these outward things were not really where the Kingdom was at. He knew by faith that after his death the ‘everlasting gospel’ would prevail and that by Gods grace his ‘spiritual seed’ would go on forever. That’s why I am writing about him now, and you are listening!
(448) I read an article the other day that illustrates this stuff. It was about a ‘bi-vocational Pastor’ who was ‘Pastoring’ 3 churches at a time, because the churches were too small to ‘afford a fulltime Pastor’ and there was a need for someone to ‘administrate the ordinances’ so what else could they do? The well-meaning Pastor was in his fifties and was a fulltime military man. And it showed a picture of him innocently ‘manning the pulpit’ as he fulfills this ‘office’ every Sunday for these 3 churches. It showed how much our present mindset of ‘church’ and the protestant office of ‘The Pastor’ is really an unbiblical role. I know this sounds ‘mean’ but for heavens sake lets move on with the program. God has been dealing with the Body of Christ for quite some time. He wants to release/empower us to ‘be the church’ [the mobile community of God functioning and flowing in all areas of society] if we can’t get past ‘how can our church function unless someone is pastoring it?’ then we still have a long way to go! NOTE: My ‘spell check’ is prophetic. When I wrote the word ‘unbiblical’ above, it actually fixed it on it’s own to say ‘umbilical [cord]’ we cant seem to ‘break’ the ‘childish’ connections that we have towards these ‘lifelong ties’ to a ‘Pastor’. God never intended any of his gifted ones to be the ‘lifelong’ overseer of anybody. These gifts [Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers] were all given to play a role at various times in your development to bring you to maturity, none of them were to fulfill the co-dependant role that the protestant office of ‘the Pastor’ has become! I think ‘umbilical cord’ was probably the right word! [Sorry, but I just couldn’t help it!]
(449) ‘recognize, don’t organize’ Chee Ann said this [a Pastor/Apostle]. I like this. In business you are taught to set ‘long term goals’ a good thing. Often time’s people in ministry find it helpful to do this. OK. But God has more to give you than just a ‘10’ or ‘20’ year plan. God reveals his ways and purposes to us thru out our lives. If you try to really seek God at the early stage of your walk, he will reveal himself to you. But he will not give you a ‘20’-year plan in full form. Why? Because much of what he wants to do thru you, and show to you is a process of you becoming like him. It is not simply information! If your 5 year old asks you about life and what he should be when he grows up, you will give him basic desires and hopes to shoot for. ‘I want to be a fireman’ or whatever. But if he took the broad overview of what you said, and refused to ‘adjust’ along the way, he would be in trouble. You realize that you are revealing to him basic goals, but that he is really not ‘grown’ enough to fully understand or receive all that you want to show him. God works like this with us. He shows us things by bringing us to different levels of growth. When you reach these different ‘places’ in him, you begin to see and function on a ‘higher’ plane. It’s not so much ‘more information’ in as much as it is ‘more formation’. Set goals, this is good. But be moldable and shapeable along the way. It’s not being unfaithful to adjust as you grow in him. He really wants us to grow into his image along the way; it’s not so much just a task that he wants us to perform.
(450) I was listening to a preacher telling his testimony. I have seen and read his writings before, but never heard him speak. The opinion I had from seeing/reading him was one of a very motivated professional minister. Nothing wrong, just the ‘jet set’ highly mobile successful mega church image. An image that often times is hard for the average person to relate to, though they are still very successful and accomplishing good things in the kingdom. As I finally heard him speak he sounded so much like me. He shared how he grew up in the 70’s, got high, listened to rock music and went to ‘deep purple’ concerts; it was a very real sounding testimony. You almost had the feeling of the voice not fitting the person [I know people feel this way when they see me too. I do not look, or come off as someone who teaches on radio and writes books and stuff]. The point I am making is sometimes the ‘environment’ of professional ministry hinders the ‘realness’ that God intended for the gospel to have. Jesus was very real and human in his lifestyle. Very different from the image/persona of religious leadership. There was no sense of ‘watch what you say, the Pastor is here’ type thing. I think it would do us good if we can be real people with real struggles with real friends. The unbelieving world has so many questions, but the ‘church world’ is so unapproachable that they look elsewhere for the answers. NOTE; In the early church Christianity was not a separate field or vocation like it is today. Today Christianity is a ‘world/business’ unto itself. While God did intend the church to influence all areas of society, he didn’t intend the church to have its own ‘culture’ of Christian things [Christian restaurants, Christian mechanics, Christian bookstores, and on and on] while these types of things are well intentioned, we unconsciously create a separate culture when we do this. The early believers lived and functioned as real people in society, even the Apostles! [Tent makers]. We sort of have developed a society within the church that has young believers seeing ‘the ministry’ as a profession. ‘God has called me to start a [some Christian function] ministry’ and then you have an entire sector of society whose profession and identity becomes defined by ‘full time Christian service’. The New Testament teaches whatever a person is doing as a vocation, he is serving Christ. It does a disservice to the testimony of believers when we make these secular/holy divisions. Christians are to discern between what is evil and what is good, but this does not mean we withdraw from the marketplace of influence, it also does not mean that we influence the market place by ‘Christian stuff’ [holding huge Christian festivals that draw millions of dollars, trying to show the world that we have influence. This really isn’t influence. Though millions are being spent, it is money basically generated by a ‘vacation/tourism’ mentality. While it is beneficial for believers to have times of refreshing, this type of economic impact is not the same as believers actually being owners of the motels and the other establishments that are benefiting from the festival type atmosphere]. I hope you can see what I am saying. It’s OK for a T.D. Jakes to do a ‘mega fest’ but this is not primarily what the scriptures are referring to when it speaks of believers affecting the world by ‘remaining in it’. We affect it by actually being the ‘prime movers’ and shakers in all areas. We carry the Spirit of God within us, we speak the gospel of hope to those around us, and we interact successfully with society, we don’t ‘withdraw’ into some ‘full time ministry’ mentality that causes the church to always appeal for funds [when I say church, I mean believers] because we feel like God has called us to not be employed and instead to make our living by offerings, this really is not a viable Christian testimony.
(451) I want to put some perspective and balance in here. Many people can’t understand my last entry, and how I also can preach so strongly against materialism. I believe there is a big difference between materialism and responsible Christians in the market place. I wont ‘re preach’ it all, but if you read all the stuff on this site you will see what I mean. I also do struggle with the fact that I have made other believers uncomfortable by my dealing with it, I ‘feel’ for the preachers and their kids, I know that because of certain aspects of my calling these individuals have experienced difficulty. I also believe preachers in general have let certain abuses go on for so long, that the Lord allowed our ‘voice’ to be so strong. I like the movie ‘a river runs thru it’ I catch it every now and then. At the end it shows one of the sons who outlived everyone else. His parents have died, his brother is gone and his wife as well. It shows him old and at the end of the journey. He is back home fly-fishing and he is all alone. It puts into perspective the un importance of material things. We will all depart some day, I hope and pray that I will have truly preached eternal things versus temporary stuff. I heard the late J Vernon Magee [sp?] say ‘Now that I have cancer, stuff doesn’t mean so much to me. I have a new reel for my fishing pole that I bought before I found out about the cancer. I was excited about it. Couldn’t wait to use it. Now I look at it and it doesn’t mean anything anymore’ [I am paraphrasing somewhat]. Jesus taught often about the brevity of life. He spoke of the rich man who pulled down his barns to build greater storehouses and have much goods for many days. The mindset of the rich man was his security was in things. Jesus said he would die that night and who then will get his stuff? His family will probably fight over it in probate court. Jesus often pointed to things like this. The Bible teaches financial responsibility and being involved in financial matters, its just Jesus put it all in perspective. I also have heard preachers say ‘the bible speaks more about money than salvation’ [or some other important subject] and the inference is ‘therefore lets make money our top priority’ well if you use this logic, the bible also speaks more on hell [judgment] than heaven, but that doesn’t mean God wants us all to go there! Well anyway I pray that if I outlive my family and friends and make it to a hundred, that if I find myself standing on the end of the North Jetty [Packery channel] that I will have done more then packed away ‘gobs of cash’. P.S. I haven’t been feeling well lately, not only the leg injury. I just saw the x-ray yesterday, one of the discs in my spine is almost completely gone. I was a little surprised to have seen it was really that bad. As of today I think I will have to retire with 25 years as a firefighter. I will be 45 next month, but I didn’t plan on retiring just yet. I really don’t look bad [I hope!] I mean I still look in shape and athletic, but the limp has been giving me away. I also tried to run and realized I cant anymore. I kinda felt a little depressed about that. If I knew that I wouldn’t run again I probably would have done as much as possible this last year. I would appreciate you guy’s prayers, thanks! NOTE: I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, I want to be real with you and get you to pray for me! Because of the way we ‘do church’ it is common to have scenarios where the main leader [Pastor] is overburdened with ‘the pressures of a big ministry/organization’ and the people see this and feel for him. In some more severe situations [where it looks like the Pastor is on the verge of a nervous breakdown!] you can develop really unhealthy environments where week after week the ‘stresses’ are so obvious, and the peoples main relationship with the Pastor is one of ‘I really am trying to do all I can to support you’ even if it means ‘enabling’ situations that are not good. This is an outgrowth of the unnatural environment of the position of ‘the Pastor’ that is not really seen in the New Testament. You did have scenarios of believers [leaders and others] who were struggling and needed prayer. But because there really was no office of a ‘Pastor’ that was the primary speaker [Sunday after Sunday for 30 years in a row] of the local church, therefore you didn’t develop these long scenarios of ‘enabling’ someone and also the co dependency that sometimes can surround the situation. To be sure not all Pastors fall into this category, but I wanted to show how the present model of the Local Church is more prone to allow these things to go on.
(452) Let me give you a little example of how ‘so not in control’ I am. I have been trying to post this blog site in the Bergen Record for a few months. As far as I know they have posted it a few times already [at least I know they deducted the payment from my checking!] Well I finally got a hold of the person who does the church ads, she is a nice lady. But I was kinda concerned because I didn’t get any ‘hard copy’ of the ad, and you cant find it on the papers web site. So after weeks of trying to get this straightened out, I finally got her to send me a page of the paper thru the mail. I was looking for it for a week or so and it never showed up. Then my wife finds it last night in a stack of junk mail [by the way ‘junk mail’ is the name I use to refer to all types of stuff. Critical prosperity brothers who send me rebukes, bills and all sorts of stuff!] I am happy to realize it made it to my house; they did have the wrong zip code on it. I was tempted to open it up while sitting on the couch trying to recuperate from some hard days I have been having. I already have learned to not open mail unless you are prepared to deal with whatever problem might arise. It’s like just picking up the phone when it rings. I NEVER answer my house phone [maybe one time out of 500 hundred]. I will be sitting right next to it, reading the paper or eating. It can ring 50 times [my wife and daughters friends must have the same genetic problem that causes someone to do this!] and I refuse to even look at the caller I.D. I always carry my cell phone and my family knows if they need me to call me on it. Sometimes my kids will see me sitting there as the house phone rings 20 times, they will be in the restroom or something. They will be upset that I didn’t even care to look at the caller I.D. Well anyway the principle is if you allow any interruption to hit you at any time, you will not accomplish much. So even though I was excited to finally have a chance to actually look at our ad that has been running for a few months, I figured let me wait until the morning before I open the envelope, my wife cant do stuff like this! So anyway I just opened it, the religion section looks great. I haven’t read a ‘hard copy’ from a Jersey Paper in a while. I enjoyed seeing all the church ad’s and stuff. I am kinda expecting our ad to be wrong, which would mean I have been paying for a wrong ad for months. It wasn’t wrong at all. As a matter of fact it wasn’t even there! O well, I knew I wasn’t supposed to look at it last night. NOTE: At least all you tithers can now say ‘we told you the Lord was gonna get it from you one way or another!’ NOTE: I know some of you think it’s irreverent to even kid like this. In the New Testament ‘the tithe’ wasn’t the main ‘standard’ of spirituality as it has become today. The main standard was the Sabbath. The Sabbath became the key tool of measurement that the Pharisees would use to judge Jesus. You could have said that Jesus actually ‘was in their face’ on this issue. Jesus purposefully would heal on the Sabbath. In today’s mindset you could have thought ‘well, we know the Pharisees were wrong in the way they elevated the Sabbath to something that it wasn’t, but we do live in a pluralistic society, and in keeping with the respect for all religions, Jesus could have simply avoided healing on the Sabbath. He still could have healed as many as he wished and he would have also been making the gospel more ‘acceptable’ to the religious mindset of the day’ Jesus would have none of it! Why? Because one of the major barriers that would stand in the way of the fledgling church would be legalism. Jesus wanted to be the ‘first’ prophetic sledgehammer that would open the way for the other ‘grace preachers’ who would come after him. In essence Jesus HAD TO HAVE DONE THESE THINGS ON THE SABBATH or else it would not have offended the religious mind enough to provoke it into reformation!
(453) I have recently been thinking on the shortness of life. Not only do the toys we have rust [like my 66 Mustang] but our bodies ‘die daily’. I feel sad for some of the teachings in the church that really are obviously wrong. I really don’t know what else I can do to bring to our attention the need to live above ‘stuff’. As I was just outside praying, not feeling too well, I thought of the time I heard it taught that when Jesus said ‘Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven where moth doth not corrupt, or thieves break thru and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also’. I know you guys are tired of hearing me, I am tired too. I really am not in ‘a rebuking’ mode at all right now. I am physically and emotionally drained and tired of the whole thing. It was taught once by the prosperity teaching that this meant ‘when you give by faith, you are actually building up an account in heaven [sort of like a bank book/ledger] and this is what it means to store up treasure in heaven. And then when you have built up a huge account, by faith you can make withdrawals on it here. Your faith is ‘causing the things that are not seen [the account in heaven] to manifest the into things that are seen’. I really feel at times I am at the end of my rope explaining these things. You will be surprised how many intelligent influential people cannot see this as wrong. Do I really need to tell you that this is obviously not what Jesus is teaching. Why do all my prophetic friends not deal with this? Why do you brothers/sisters not give me some help in trying to bring this thing back on track? I don’t think these types of interpretations are funny at all anymore. A lot of my prophetic/pastoral friends will ‘wince’ at stuff like this in private. But in public say things like ‘well, God is happy with all the people who have been won to the Lord thru all the money that the prosperity gospel has brought in’. Just give me some help guys, stuff like what I just showed you is taught en masse thru out this country today [and the world]. I do not want to be an alarmist, I just feel like we need to really build up treasure in heaven, lets not live for this world anymore.
(454) I haven’t Picked up the San Antonio paper in about a week, I got it today on my way to the spine doctor, the headlines were ‘CENTRAL TEXAS GETS DRENCHED’ We have had more flooding this month [6-2007 for those who read this stuff in 10 years from now!] in certain parts of Texas than since 1970. The state is getting ‘poured on’. I told you guys earlier this year that the Lord led me to pray ‘pour out water upon him that is thirsty and FLOODS upon the dry ground’. I also felt like we started ‘flooding’ the dry ground this year more than any other year since we started the ministry. Actually the image I have had while praying outside in the mornings [3 am type mornings!] is God ‘blog spotting’ the state. Pouring out thru the various means that he has given us [you also!] thru his Word like rain and snow. I just quoted the other day in a dream the scripture in Isaiah ‘As the rain and snow come down and water the earth and make it to bud, so is the word that goes forth out of my mouth, it accomplishes the thing for which I sent it’ I just felt like the Lord is really pouring out this year on Texas, especially San Antonio for those of you in our ‘range’. NOTE: I really try to ‘not exaggerate’ when writing, I just heard on the radio, the City of Austin [our Capitol] has had more rain this week that at any other time since the state has kept records [1870]. One city had 19 inches in one day. NOTE: read entry 441, I had a dream of flooding a few weeks ago. These recent floods have been on the news and in the papers. I have been seeing images of entire roadways and regions flooded in ways that I have never seen before in Texas. I have been here for 27 years and have never seen it like this.
(455) I felt like God just had a prophetic word for you ‘There are times in my will where your scenery [that which you see] is going to change. These are transition times. When this happens it is your responsibility to recognize it and allow the scenery to change. You don’t ‘change’ it by any thing you do, you just recognize that things are changing and allow it to happen’. If you don’t transition when these seasons are upon you, then the world will provide a destiny for you [Larry Randolph].
(456) Recently I have been struggling a lot with nervousness and depression. I know leaders are not supposed to say this, but I want to be honest with you, also I need your prayers! I read a story in the paper the other day on some guy who started some Christian paper in California. It works with needy people and all. The story was great. He had suffered the loss of three children thru various mishaps and was mad at God for years. One day he read a verse in Corinthians from the message bible, I don’t have it in front of me, but it’s the verse that says ‘When we go thru struggles God comes and comforts us, so when others struggle we can comfort them with the same comfort God has given to us’ It says ‘God comes along side us’ this is the name of the Holy Spirit, he is called the comforter. During my recent struggles I have felt really desperate. All the verses on Peace that I have memorized over the years are really helpful to me at this time. This is why David says in Psalms ‘thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee’ Also Jesus says to the disciples ‘the Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance all the things that I have told you’. Wow, I didn’t even realize as I just sat down to write, that I was going to even say this. As you look at it this is one of the ways the Holy Spirit comforts us, by bringing to our remembrance these words of Jesus on Peace ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid’ ‘Do the things that make for peace’ ‘he is our peace’. One of the things I am re learning is the importance of thinking and meditating on the Lord. The Christian music channel is on 24 hours a day in my home. A few nights I have just prayed all night, many times the songs are actually psalms of intercession that I simply agree with in prayer. These next few weeks I will try to share things to comfort you as God comforts me. I have had times in the past where I have battled these types of things, it helps me to be more merciful towards others when I go thru this. I realize I have been hard at times, if I have offended any of you guys [needlessly] then I ask for your forgiveness. Thanks, John. ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee’ ‘trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto thy own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths’. Christianity isn’t always about climbing the next mountain, sometimes it’s learning to trust him in the valley. ‘thou shalt be far from oppression, for thou shalt not fear. And from terror, for it shall not come near thee’ ‘be not afraid of sudden fear, for the Lord shall be thy confidence and shall keep thy foot from being taken’ ‘this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God’.
(457) Some of this feeling of disorientation that I am going thru is due to the fact that I haven’t been doing my normal routine that I have been doing for the last 24 years! I have been off of work for a few weeks, and I haven’t been driving thru the towns and praying in that way [though I am still praying]. This is a sense of ‘spatial disorientation’ [I don’t even think this is a word!]. I kind of feel disorientated because of change. This sometimes happens with believers. During times of personal transition as well as corporate [reformation] there is a feeling of unease and upheaval that comes along with change, even if it is God ordained! The natural tendency of the flesh is to rebel against this. Sometimes we mistake the feeling of ‘uneasiness’ as a sign of God not wanting the change. I think it’s more that we often don’t feel comfortable in new environments. That’s why I do understand when certain individuals feel fearful and uneasy about transitioning in the area of moving on with God. I still feel a sense of ‘comfort’ and peace when I visit a Catholic church. It reminds me of my boyhood and provides a sense of ‘attachment’ to my roots. Does this mean I should become Catholic? No. But it shows how in man he identifies his experience with God thru the external environment that he was brought up in. When God ‘changes’ that environment we often measure what we will do based on comfort. If this ‘truth’ [whatever area God is dealing with] makes me uncomfortable there is a natural tendency to return to the ‘environment’ that we are familiar with. We identify it with God. I do not fault people for this, it’s just when God leads us to ‘move on’ we need to take the steps he shows us and trust him along the way, it truly can be scary.
(458) The other day I was feeling so disoriented that I went to a doctor clinic to see if they could give me a temporary sedative, something that could help at this time. Years ago I had gotten a shot of something and it helped. The doctor checked me out and prescribed some medication for anxiety that she said ‘once you get on it, you can not stop taking it’. In essence ‘we will give you something to make you an addict’ gee thanks. I took it for 2 days [2 pills] and looked on line for natural sedatives. I do take around 7-8 supplements every day. Vitamins, natural oils [fish, flax seed] and the other basic good supplements that I have read on. I do believe the ‘leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations’ [bible]. I saw the 2 top natural remedies that were agreed on by most people. They were ‘St. Johns Wort’ a combination of herbs made from a ‘yellow flower’. And ‘Valerian’ another plant that is used widely in Europe. I was going to go with Valerian, I am trying to hear God on this. This last year I have had signs about the ‘yellow sunflowers’ they are the ones in my yard that turn into the ‘puffballs’ and I have had signs about them this year. As soon as I read that St. Johns Wort was made from yellow flowers, I knew that was the way to go. To show you how ‘dense’ I can be, it never dawned on me that my name is John and one of the supplements is ‘St. John’ it’s like God can hit you over the head with a sign and you don’t even see it! Now let me give some spiritual stuff. I just quoted a verse ‘the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations’. God speaks of people as trees. Your life and mine are to ‘take root’ and ‘spread out’. God wants to flow thru you as an extension of his Son in the earth. Jesus is called ‘the branch/vine’ also the old testament has a verse speaking of a person who God has called, it says ‘the man whose name is the branch, he will branch out of his place and build the temple of the Lord’. The tree itself is not ‘for the touching of the nations’ in these images. The tree will produce fruit/leaves/acorns that drop down and others partake of the ‘leaves’ and they are the direct contact points to the nations. God wants our lives to touch others, and thru these ‘leaves’ [people/disciples] he will touch/contact the nations. Our lives and ministries are not for the purpose of us individually [us meaning key leaders] to do all the ‘touching/impacting’ but we do ‘touch/impact’ a key group of people [Jesus had 12] and they in turn go and touch others, and so on. These are the ‘leaves’ of the tree. Let the Lord use you to be a consistent ‘tree’ [mainstay of wisdom] in the lives of key people, and they will carry on the purpose that God has ordained for your life.
(459) ‘ISAIAH 57’ ‘the righteous perisheth and no man takes it to heart, none considers that he is taken away from the evil to come’ God has/is removing some of you from familiar territory. This ‘land’ has been a source of provision in the past, he is now moving you away from it. You seem confused as to why others can receive income/resource from this land, but you cannot. God is saying ‘I am removing you from these sources because they will not be their for ever, they will dry up. Others put their trust in them, they will fear when the source dries up’. ‘He that putteth his trust in me shall posses the land and shall inherit my holy mountain, and shall say cast up, cast up, prepare the way, take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people’ those who trust in the Lord as opposed to their own wisdom will be used to remove the things that have been causing Gods people to stumble. Don’t rejoice in the fact that you see it when others don’t. You only see these stumbling blocks because of Gods grace, a man can receive no ministry unless it was given to him as a free gift from God. ‘I dwell with him that is humble and contrite, I will revive them’ ‘I will not contend forever, nor always be wroth’ God says there are things he wants to remove and change in us. The things he has shown us should produce humility and a contrite spirit. Don’t ‘kick against the pricks’ don’t rebel against the things God has shown you to change. Don’t blame the prophets, they are just seeing/saying the words of God. ‘For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him. I hid [stopped correcting him for a season] and he went on forwardly in the way of his heart [this part of the Body excelled and went forward in the ways that they chose, even though the Lord had previously said no more] I have seen his ways and will heal him and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners’ Many who have become renown in the area of ‘covetousness’ will be healed. They will see how off track they have been and God will forgive and restore and continue to use them [Jim Bakker] but first there will be a humbling. NOTE: All true ministry is really not about us ‘fulfilling our dreams’ or ‘achieving our goals’ it’s about being faithful to God. Saying and doing the things he wants. You will be fulfilled by doing this, but this is a result, not the goal.
(460) I have my original King James Bible that my wife bought me when we were first saved. I gave it to my friend Miguel [the friend who came to Texas with me from New Jersey] and he used it for a year or two. He eventually got a new one and returned it. He later would die of aids. Many years later as I looked thru this ‘keepsake’ I saw the notes he wrote in it. He would underline stuff and write ‘ask John about this’ and stuff like that. I felt the Lord allowed me to have a reminder of our ‘first fruits’ from Jersey. Miguel was the first Jersey friend I led to the Lord. These types of things are where the true riches are found. Don’t worry about who will run the ministry/church/501c3 corporation after you are gone. This isn’t the legacy at all. The legacy is the children of God that you will meet on the other side, this will be a great family reunion for sure. Have you sent any treasures on to the others side?
(461) Felt like I just heard the Lord for Pastors/leaders. Don’t struggle for the success of your ministry/church/organization, but look for the opportunities to simply impact people. Paul rejoiced when God gave him an open door to preach the gospel to various people groups. The New Testament apostles weren’t rejoicing over the success of ‘their ministries’. Don’t spend all your time and focus on the function of the organization, simply build into the people.
(462) Let me share a key with you guys. Over the years there have been times where I have gone thru drastic upheaval and difficulty. Thru out these times I also have consistently prayed a regular intercessory type prayer time for others. Just now I finished a few hour intercession time that goes thru a variety of things. During this time I will quote lots of scriptures that come to memory every time I do this. I have also noticed recently that when you go thru periods of anxiety/depression that it is very hard to focus on things. Watching TV and other things is difficult. At least in my case I find it hard to maintain a long lasting rest. But when I do the regular prayer that includes a continual routine of scripture quotes and intercession, its like the practice of disciplining the mind for over 20 years has benefits. How many people live their lives with no mental discipline? When they go thru a time of testing in the area of the mind, they do not have a ‘stronghold’ of many years of ‘prayer’ practice. This time of a few hours [sometimes more] is a focused time of thought where there is no external media giving you a message. It is also not a desperate cry for help [which is OK by the way!] but it is a consistent act of mental integrity that has been engrained in the mind of the intercessor that makes it easy/routine to have no other thoughts but God during this prayer time. If you haven’t already developed this practice years before, you will not be able to master it when the trials hit. God will still hear you when you pray, don’t get me wrong. But the actual mental discipline of a few hours of focused consistent prayer over a 20 year period provides a ‘marathon’ of mental focus that comes as routine for those who have partaken of it thru out their lives. If you don’t presently do this, then start now! Scripture says that in the end time’s men’s hearts will fail them for fear, today’s # 1 prescribed drug [if I remember right] has to do with rest and overcoming anxiety. Learn this discipline now, cause when anxious times come, it will be impossible to train your mind at that time. NOTE: scripture says the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends. People don’t pray for others during times of severe trial unless they see it as a function of their responsibilities before God. Job didn’t all of a sudden pray for his friends during his trials, Job had a lifestyle of prayer for others that he saw as a responsibility before God. He prayed for others because during your most trying times you still try your best to do the basic requirements of life, the things you see as necessity. The intercessor naturally sees his time of prayer as one of these basic necessities. He doesn’t view prayer as a religious function. As he lives up to this responsibility before God he unconsciously will continue to pray for others as has been his custom, the turning of the intercessors captivity is a ‘side’ effect of his prayer. He doesn’t realize that as he begins interceding for others that God is actually using this as a tool for his own deliverance, he just realizes it afterwards. Only a true intercessor will find himself in this position. Jesus said it is more blessed to give than receive. The intercessor finds true deliverance as he gives himself away in prayer for others, God comes along side those who stand in the gap for the world. The ‘comforter’ will come when you least expect him [that is for your own benefit].
(463) Let me remind you guys of something. I just had the dream of Jezebel and the friendly fire incident the other day. Within a week all hell broke loose. I just thought I would remind you.
(464) I was just hearing the Lord on transition and change. When God sent Moses to deliver the people from Egypt, this was done out of an answer to their prayers. God said he heard the cry of his people who were in bondage and he raised up Moses. What was one of the bondages they were under? They were forced to build bricks for the ‘buildings of men’ [I don’t relate this to ‘church buildings’ in as much as to modern ministry mindsets that see the people as producers/suppliers to build ministries and other things. We often see Gods people as simply funders of Christian projects]. So God answers their prayers, great! This must mean things get better. O really! One of the results of Moses ministry is Pharaoh makes the children of Israel work twice as hard, and he doesn’t even give them the supplies to do it. Basically the initial result of the answered prayer is difficulty. It just seemed like things got worse. Thanks a lot Moses. Who do you think you are any way, coming to us with this great vision? We think it’s your fault. Moses was thinking ‘hey, you guys have been whining [praying] for help. God took me away from my ranch and comfortable lifestyle as a result of your prayers and now you guys are blaming me!’ You will see this scenario play out time and again with Moses and the people. I see prophetic ministry [the book of Acts calls Moses a prophet] as one of upheaval and transition. Often times we as Christians settle into comfortable places in God. We ‘exist’. We think this is Gods purpose. But we also know there is something more, some destiny in God that he wants for us. We pray for change, we ask God ‘do something’ and then he shakes things up. How do we respond, we want to kill the messenger! Moses was a type of Christ. Jesus showed the high cost of change. He introduced a tremendous transition from old law to new. The message of God accepting us freely based upon Christ’s death and resurrection is a wonderful message. The transition was so great that it instigated the death of the Son of God. Let’s be careful when God uses individuals to shake things up, it might just be an answer to our prayers!
(465) A few years ago I had a knock on the door. I was sleeping on the couch in the middle of the day and got up to get the door. Sure enough it was some Jehovas Witnesses or Mormons [I forget]. I usually do have good talks with them. I also have been rude at times. One time I told a salesman that whatever he was selling was against my religion, and he left. This day I answered the door and saw the surprised look on the face of the brothers. I just knew I must have looked like Moses coming down from the mount when his face was shining. Or maybe it was the strong prophetic anointing on me? Well after a few minutes they left, seemingly without a fight. As I walked back to my living room I caught a glimpse of myself in the hallway mirror. My 2 little girls had put beautiful bows in my hair as I was sleeping. Gosh darnet, I thought it was the anointing!
(466) A few years back I visited my mom in Jersey. She has a good Christian friend [Catholic] that she has told about me over the years. You never know what people think ‘my sons a preacher in Texas’. People think ‘cult/Waco’ and all sorts of stuff. I finally met this nice lady [Joan] and we did have some good fellowship. She had some questions and there were even some prophetic things that happened. I answered a few questions before she asked them. She would say ‘how did you know I was going to ask that?’ I like it when people are not familiar with prophetic things and just respond in childlike faith! Well I do kid a lot. She finally is feeling comfortable with me and asks something about Oprah Winfrey. She then says ‘you do like Oprah don’t you’ and I said ‘we teach that Oprah is the anti christ’ she simply looks at me and says something like ‘o you do’. I of course told her that I was kidding. Thought it funny that she was willing to go along with my doctrine for a few seconds!
(467) Many years ago one of the first friends I met was a drug addict who lived with his aunt. I met him while going to the local jails and preaching to the inmates. He became a good friend of mine and was one of the original guys I worked with. He is dead now, he died while serving the Lord, but reaped many years of physical abuse of his body. He died of liver problems, something addicts deal with. This is not the friend I told you about earlier who also was an addict and became a preacher and later died as well, his name was Elias, this brother’s name was Emmett. He had a son [Emmett Jr.] who is still a good friend of mine till this day. The aunt who raised these boys was a wonderful woman. She was an older Catholic lady in her 70’s and I got to know her as I would pick up her nephews for our home meetings we used to hold. She became a very faithful attendee to our little church. She would tell me stuff like ‘brother John, my Catholic friends ask me “why do you go to brother Johns little church, you are Catholic” and she would say “ I learn more from brother John than from the Mass” now I love the Catholic people and am definitely not what you would call ‘anti Catholic’. I found it interesting that this older woman, who I called ‘Aunt Bee’ was a schoolteacher for many years. She taught famous people from our state as they were growing up. She had Senator Carlos Truan and Representative Irma Rangel as her former students, key influential people who came from a small town in Texas [Kingsville]. It’s funny how the Lord would allow a teacher of leaders to learn from a little insignificant preacher who was doing his best to reach out to addicts. God works in strange ways. He will often open doors of influence to you when you are not looking for them. I have found the friendships made along the journey are the things that really matter. The connections with people as you are ‘doing ministry’ become the thing of value down the road. The ‘act/function’ of ministry is often the side detail, while the valuable things are the friends who are on this road with us. I had someone recently tell me that they heard some of my old cassette tapes that I made years ago [during this time of doing home meetings]. I have had others tell me this before. These old tapes are not at the ‘level’ of thought and understanding that we currently teach at. I actually have told people ‘o, don’t listen to those old tapes, they were at an immature stage of teaching’. But then I stopped saying this because I realized that God speaks to people at the level of where they are at at the time. I don’t want to sound condescending, but God uses us, he is not primarily concerned about whether we look good, or are at our best. He simply desires functional fruit. If a simple tape from days gone by is what he chooses, than that’s fine with me. They don’t have to hear my ‘best’ stuff, that’s not what’s important. Well I find it interesting to realize that God will allow you to be a teacher of ‘teachers’ if you will humble yourself and become a servant of men.
(468) ISAIAH 58 ‘Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins’ When prophets go thru difficulty, the first thing they question is ‘have I been too hard on your people?’ God is going to deal with this in this chapter. He starts by first of all telling Isaiah ‘I have called you to reveal to my people their sins, it is my calling for you to show them the areas they don’t fully see yet. Their ‘sins’ of ignorance. They often ask for me. I am going to show them things about church and the way they worship me that are limited. Showing them ‘their sins’ is not a function of judgment, it is a necessary ‘uprooting’ that they need in order for their prayers to be answered.’ God is basically telling Isaiah ‘when things are hard and difficult, don’t question my basic revelatory ministry thru you. You don’t have the right to stop speaking what I am saying!’ ‘Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, they ask of me the ordinances of justice and take delight in approaching me’ we as believers take the act of seeking and asking and learning, and we turn it into ‘doing what God wants’. In essence we have developed a mindset that says ‘I go to church, I learn all the bible tricks on how to have a happy and prosperous life. If I am ever confronted with teaching that doesn’t appeal to me, or requires sacrifice, I have already learned to ignore it, you cant fly with eagles if you think like a turkey’ we basically have bypassed the instructions on self sacrifice and giving our lives away for the Kingdom. We simply think the ‘acts’ of going and learning from bible truths, even if it is all based on self, that this in itself is pleasing to God. God says why do my people by pass all my instructions and then delight that they are going to approach me? It’s because our ‘approaching God’ in the present mindset of the western church is simply for self-fulfillment. We approach him like a cosmic Santa Clause and this delights us. God says I want to show you things that I require from you and I want you to do them. Don’t simply think that you are pleasing me by ‘approaching me’ I want the action/obedience to be the fruit of your ‘approaching/church going’. [NOTE: It is not totally wrong to seek God for self help/improvement. It’s just many of us in today’s church have made this the priority. When people watch the ‘get rich and famous’ infomercials on the weekends, there is a feeling of ‘hope and self fulfillment’ that simply comes from surrounding yourself in an environment of ‘maybe that can be me someday’. Its OK to hope, but scripture does teach us [1st Timothy 6] to ‘not desire to become rich’ as well as Jesus many other warnings in the gospels. So I just want to warn you to not fall into the trap of making ‘church/approaching God’ a format for self help. It might ‘feel good’ to see Christianity thru this materialistic lens, but in the end it can be dangerous] ‘Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free, that you break every yoke. Is it not to feed your food to the hungry, that you bring the poor to YOUR house. You should clothe the naked, and help your own natural family. If you do these things you will get healed, your goodness will shine like the morning sun. You will call to me and I will hear. Take away from you the bondages, the blaming of others and speaking vanity. Draw out your soul to the hungry, feed them and satisfy them [even with your ministry/teaching] and your light shall rise in obscurity and your darkness will be like day’ you find all the elements of Jesus earthly ministry contained here. The Pharisees lived for religious ritual. They fasted and afflicted themselves [and others] Jesus reached out in love and poured his soul out for the needy, Isaiah is prophesying the heart of Jesus here. God accepts a lifestyle of giving your life away for others. Jesus would teach that this type of love is the greatest commandment. Here we see the heart of ministry. I want to challenge everyone [especially leaders] to re examine your ‘ministry’ does it contain these most fundamental elements? Do we carry out ministry in a way that simply tells the world ‘hey, look at us, we are a highly motivated business and we can compete with any other organization in our area’. Do we view ministry this way? Jesus values the souls of those who lay their lives down for others, don’t fall into the trap of establishing religious functions for the purpose of impressing men. This is what 1st century religion digressed to, even though one of their own prophets [Isaiah] warned against it centuries before! ‘thou shalt be like a spring of water who’s waters fail not. They that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places and make the desolate cities to be inhabited [I added this last part from another place, I am so used to saying it like this] Thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in’ God is saying when you give yourself away for others, when you obey him. When you show compassion. When you do not view ‘ministry’ as trying to attain some degree of respect in the ‘corporate world’ when you approach it like Jesus, then the Lord will allow your influence to go far. The people you impact will be used to spread the Kingdom to various cities. The people will be ‘faithful to the things you spoke’ because they are enjoined to you like a ‘band of brothers’. There memories of you will truly be that of a friend who gave himself away for them. These also will ‘repair breaches, restore paths’ there are so many true Christian values and principles that Jesus taught were the foundations of his Kingdom, things like self sacrifice and laying down your life for others. God will use your ‘seed/offspring’ to restore these ‘lost’ teachings back into the Church. We are so consumed with ‘self help’ that we have lost the foundational principles of the Cross. ‘ If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing what you want on my holy day’. In context God is saying ‘if you rest in me, and stop doing your own works in my day of grace, then I will move mightily on your behalf’. If you remember I already showed you on this blog how the Sabbath is a type of entering into the covenant of Grace. When you cease from your own legalistic attempts to do Gods work, then God will come in and do them thru you! ‘not doing thine own ways, nor speaking thine on words’ much of modern ministry [especially Pastoral] is under the burden to ‘come up with something to speak on for an hour on Sunday’ many of these brothers are well meaning, but because we have structured the church in today’s world around the ‘Sunday meeting’ it has put a burden on Pastors to come up with something to say every Sunday at a certain time. The New Testament churches didn’t function like this. Therefore we have a lot of ‘speaking our own words’ we don’t realize that we are doing this, but in essence we are. I would simply encourage all Christian teachers/speakers to speak only what you hear God saying. If God has a certain vision or direction that he has planted in your heart, then build that into the people. Don’t go thru 20 verses all over the bible and then try to make them fit some theme. The bible has plenty of ‘themes’ already. Focus on whole portions of scripture and teach them as God directs. A lot of the unbalanced teaching in the church today is a result of teachers jumping all over the bible in a 30 minute time span and then making the bible say something that it never meant! ‘If you do all this, then I will cause you to ride upon the high places of the earth’ lets conclude this chapter with an overview. If you do all the things in this chapter: give yourself away for people. Have true religion as described in the book of James. Don’t point the finger in accusation at people, when reproving, which is a function of the prophetic, do it in love. When you speak and do what God is saying, instead of coming up with your own ‘peculiar brand’ of seeing everything, then God will exalt you to a high place. In essence this is the ministry of Jesus, who lowered himself more than any man, who did all the things you read about in this chapter and then God gave him a name that is above all others. Do the will of God my friends and he will exalt you in due season.
(469) Just had a dream. I was in a classroom and the teacher had to punish me. The punishment was I had to leave the class and go fishing. I was fishing off the side of a wall and it was a little scary. I felt like the Lord was saying some of us have remained ‘too long’ in the classroom environment. We have made a ‘career’ out of waiting and learning. God says he is more than pleased with the amount of preparation time you have put in, it’s been more than most. Your inability to ‘break’ from this environment of waiting is no longer you being faithful to what God is saying, but it is now more of an insecurity and fear. You have learned to ‘feel comfortable’ in this ‘place’ and God is saying ‘get the seed out of the barn/ cast your bread upon the waters now so you will have some of it come back to you at a future time’ There is a time and season for every purpose. Even a time to cast things away. Be faithful to this time of transition, I will close up old storehouses and open up new ones, I am God! NOTE : The message bible says ‘change the way you think and act because my Kingdom is here now’ The Lord is saying you are so intricately connected to my purpose that you are already being used in a great way to affect my church. This is happening by virtue of the fact that you are a part of my Body. I am changing [giving Grace for this] the way you think and act for your own protection, your own survival. You cannot exist as a functioning part of my Body with old thought patterns and ways. This ‘uneasy’ time of change is for your benefit. You have been co dependant for so long on certain things that your Body and mind are ‘rebelling’ against my divine act of breaking these things off of you ‘your soul is escaped like a bird out of the snare of the fowler, the snare is broken and you are escaped’! PRAISE GOD FOR THIS!
(470) I just went into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee [decaf now!] and caught an interview with a well known Christian leader. He was asked ‘what is your favorite city in all the world’ [they were in Jerusalem] and he said ‘of course Jerusalem, isn’t that the favorite city of all Christians?’ Let me show you how I would have answered; ‘my favorite city is what Paul described in Galatians as the ‘New Jerusalem’ John also calls her ‘the City that comes down from God out of heaven’ [Revelation] he then says this city is ‘the Bride, the lambs wife’. John also records in the gospel he wrote, chapter 3 ‘He that is born from above’. All this imagery speaks of the Body of Christ being Gods favorite city. This includes all nationalities who believe. Jews, Palestinians, Arabs [I didn’t say Muslims] and every other ethnic group on the face of the earth. For a Christian leader to pick any human city [govt.] and to make that the ‘all time favorite city’ is being ‘unequal’. Does natural Jerusalem ever kill Christians? All natural govts have executed people falsely, whether they meant it or not. Does natural Jerusalem ever persecute innocent people? All human govts, no matter how well intended have done this. Than brother, who is righteous in your eyes? The city that comes down from God out of heaven, she is the FAVORITE city, the apple of Gods eye.
(471) I just woke up from a dream a few minutes ago. There was a black man who was experiencing disillusionment from religion and the various streams and divisions in the church. He reminded me of Forrest Whittaker [the actor, I just saw him in the ‘last King of Scotland’ this is a great movie!] This brother was going from town to town in search of answers. He winds up riding along this deserted country road to a little church on the ‘prairie’. He walks in and I see him only sitting in the back row of this empty church. I can hear clearly the voice of the preacher but I do not see him. I only see the black brother. I recognize the preacher’s voice, I haven’t heard him in years, but I am very familiar with the voice. It is Kenneth Hagin. He is preaching on the legitimacy of the gifts of the Spirit, an area where I have credited brother Hagin for doing good. This black brother goes from sitting in the pew and getting up and kneeling and praying. It seems he is still disillusioned and is going thru difficulty. I am not sure what this dream means. Some of it deals with the church in general. Many believers [and many of our blog readers] have questioned things that have been difficult. Areas that you wish you never ‘ran’ into. Some have gone back and looked at the ‘fathers of their faith’ and have had to come to hard decisions. You have gone between sitting and listening and receiving the good things from your past, but you have also had to ‘get out of the pew’ [a place of passive receiving] and PRAY! God will honor your ‘royal courage’ in this and bless you. I also have had some of the most difficult weeks in my life recently. I felt like the Lord was saying to me ‘blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy’. This one area of credit that I have given to brother Hagin has allowed God to be merciful to me. Too often in prophetic correction it is easy to denigrate the people you are reproving. It is too common to attack them personally and be mean. I feel the lord wants us to be merciful as we come out of past errors. God will be merciful to you if you plant ‘seeds of mercy’ along the way.
(472) A few weeks back my wife told me about a dream she had. She was in our local Christian bookstore and was looking at the list of the top ten Christian books. Our materials were on the list. There was a preacher their [who is a friend of mine] and was saying ‘yea, but it doesn’t mean anything, you have to sell them’. A sort of demeaning of our materials because they are free of charge. I have dreamed myself on a number of occasions that we were having influence in this mans life. I feel like there are times when leadership feels insecure or threatened in some way. This exists among good men in the Kingdom. We unconsciously denigrate others [not legitimate reproof] out of this environment of competition. We measure how well we are doing by how well others are doing ‘gee, if they like Johns books, or Johns blog, don’t forget about our church, we have a blog too’ which comes from a sense of insecurity. I do believe the Lord has given us influence amongst key men ‘gentiles shall come to your light, and Kings to the brightness of your rising’. I pray for both the ‘gentiles’ and the ‘Kings’. NOTE: scripture says when a woman is giving birth, the pain is so severe that she wants to ‘undo’ the process, but after the son is born, her joy causes her to forget the pain. There are times where I have felt this way. I would be more than willing to abort the process to just get the pain to go away. I have learned that this doesn’t work! God wants to bring you to a place where he can entrust you to be faithful to what he is doing thru you. Many prophetic people feel insecure in receiving reproof in the areas where they might have prophesied wrong. We need humility in the prophetic. We must continue to speak what God is saying, in love, even if our ‘speaking it’ is the actual source of ‘the birth pains’. God is going to get that baby out of you one way or another, but he doesn’t do ‘C-sections!’
(473) Yesterday I watched a few Catholic services as well as a few Protestant guys. The Lord did speak to me thru the Catholic Church more so than the others. I share this to let you know I am not too proud to receive from any Christian church. Now the other day Pope Benedict ‘clarified’ some things from Vatican 2 [the council from 1962-65]. In this council the Catholic church made a big step towards Christian unity. It for the first time acknowledged other Protestants as ‘separated brethren’ in this statement the church was not teaching that all Protestant churches are viable ‘churches’ it was simply saying they recognized these Christians in these churches as ‘separated Christians’. That is separated from ‘the one true church’. Now Benedict simply clarified this, and many are saying he is going back from the changes that were made in Vatican 2. So I just thought I would ‘clarify’ this as well. Why do Catholics, as well as other Protestants, do this? In the world of theology it is common to try and trace the natural roots of your communion to the original church. Many do this. To be as honest as I can, if this is the rule for ‘orthodoxy’ then I think the Catholics would win this argument. Why? Because the church in her early stages [1st few centuries] did digress into a ‘Catholic form’ early on. This is not to say that all believers took on this form. Nor is it to say that there wasn’t a ‘remnant’ of faithful believers who stood closer to the original intent of the church. This is saying that much of the historical evidence points to the church as being ‘Catholic’ in its expression early on. This is why you find thru out history famous brothers ‘returning back home’ to the Catholic church. I see all these communions as Christian though I certainly find disagreements in certain areas. Paul tells us in the New Testament to ‘no know man after the flesh’ I see the whole exercise of tracing your churches ‘roots’ back to the original Apostles [Apostolic succession] as fruitless. Scripture tells us that even the early Apostles made drastic mistakes that would be rebuked by Jesus saying to Peter ‘get thee behind me satan’ or later Paul rebuking Peter to his face and calling him a hypocrite. So if the ‘rock’ could have made such historic mistakes, you might simply be tracing your roots back to ‘the mistakes’ which I believe some of us have done. I see the true church as every one who names the name of Christ [Catholic, Protestant, etc.] but I do put the limit on having to ‘name his name’ that is I am not so ‘ecumenical’ that I believe all religions lead to God, this is not true! You must embrace the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the only way to the Father to get in. Well if you are trying to trace your roots, go ahead and trace them to the man whose name is the branch. John calls him the Vine in his gospel. If your ‘roots’ go back to him you will ‘abide for ever’.
(474) Just had a dream. I was in a study hall area of some college, there was a girl there who was the daughter of a friend of mine. She had a question about the meaning of a word. She asked me what the word meant. I told her, but I also kidded her a little ‘what level of college are you at’? She said she was in her first year. There was another student nearby who kind of smirked at me giving an answer to someone, being I myself have never been to college. This other student said ‘he’s wrong, that’s not the answer’. So I said ‘go look it up for yourself, google it’. She then found that my definition was fully right, while what she thought the definition was, was only a very limited view. The complete definition had all that I had said, while her understanding was only one sentence out of around 5 or 6 possible meanings. She finally had to admit that I was right, and she did not want to admit it. Over the years I actually have had this happen to me. Someone would ask me ‘how do you spell this’ or ‘what does this word mean’ and I actually remember giving a definition or spelling and the person would look it up on line and not say anything. I then would ask ‘well, what did you find’? And they would reluctantly admit I was right. I feel like the Lord is saying many of you have held onto certain limited truths. You had a small area of ‘revelation’ but were not fully seeing the whole picture. Some of you have said ‘who does this guy think he is, he has never even been to bible school/college’. You then looked the stuff up on your own and have found us to be ‘more fully correct’ in our understanding of the ‘teaching’ in question. Even after your own studying has brought this out, you were still reluctant to receive it. You must overcome this pride of ‘being corrected’ and move on to the next level. All correction and rebuking is for the purpose of restoration and continued usefulness. Don’t allow the enemies tactic of pride to stop you from receiving your full inheritance. God has great things for you, who cares whom the Lord uses to ‘instruct us in a more perfect way’ just overcome the personas of men [even me!] and move ahead in Gods purpose.
(475) One of the health problems that I have had for around a month now is extreme dizziness/vertigo. If you read the first few entries of this blog you will see that I have used the imagery of Apostles launching out into ‘new’ territories as the commander of a fleet of ships launching out to colonize new nations. When a ship launches on a long journey like this, one of the initial reactions is feeling ‘sea sick’ or a type of ‘motion sickness’. A period where the body needs to adjust from loosing its ‘footing’ on dry ground [or in dock] and re adjusting to a new type of ‘footing’. Where you learn to walk ‘on the water’ if you will. As God transitions some of you from a place of ‘secure footing’ to a more adventurous place of ‘walking on the water’ I want to encourage you to endure thru the voyage. Many turn back at ‘midstream’ out of fear and ‘cultural identity’ they feel ‘homesick’ and want to return to familiar territory. These types of people are just waiting for the next port to get off. They will never see the ‘new land’. Those who endure to the end [of the journey] will not only ‘save their own lives’ but they will be used to colonize new lands. You will truly be a ‘father of many nations’. NOTE: don’t despise those who left out of fear. The children of Israel treated those who didn’t fully fight the same way as those who went out to war. The ‘punishment’ for those who ‘get off early’ will be there own regret at not having fully finished the course. Those who fully finish will receive a full reward. Leave the ‘judging’ up to God! NOTE; For those of you who have read all my recent entries on my health, go back and read the last note on entry # 405, I think you will find it interesting.
(476) I just got a letter back from one of my friends in jail. He is the son of one of the original ‘addicts/ex-cons’ that were a part of the ministry in the early days. I sent him a package of books and stuff and he was real grateful to have heard from me. He gave the books to some fellow inmates to read [which is why I send the stuff!] and he was telling me how one of the guys was really ‘impressed’. This sounds conceited, but when I hear this I realize that someone who has been a Christian for a while and has had questions about stuff has found our little books to have revealed some real answers. I am going to send him another packet soon. He also told me one of the guys knows me. I do not remember the brother by name, but I have had so many buddies over the years that have become friends that it doesn’t surprise me. I know some people think ‘well, what are they doing in jail?’ Not all go back, but the reality is some do. I also reconnected this week with a homeless friend who I haven’t seen in a few years. I saw him walking down the road and stopped to say hi. He was real happy to get together. I invited him to go catch a lunch. He insisted he would pay, he really did try to, but I wouldn’t let him. It was only around 10 bucks, I didn’t eat. Just had a tea, but I wanted to buy. He did tell me I have taken him out to eat hundreds of times over the years and it was his turn. I think I probably have taken him to eat around a hundred times over the years. This is not ‘speaking evangelistically’ if you will! Being I have felt real sick these last few months I was glad to have had some good ministry time. I believe God wants us healed so we can finish the race. We often make ‘well being’ the goal. The goal is the completion of his will, well being [in all areas-health, finances, etc.] are simply tools for the purpose of doing Gods will. The American church is still at the stage of ‘well being for the sake of well being’ we will need to get past this before we can see true revival in our time.
(477) I am walking in my study praying. I sense the Lord telling me to contact 2 friends of mine and give them the blog site. These are friends I have known for 20 years or more. One is in New Jersey and the other in Michigan. They already are familiar with the ministry and at least one has read my books. As I am praying I am asking the Lord ‘is this of you, is there any connection to these 2 names and why they are coming to mind’? I am sort of asking ‘what’s the connection Lord’ to show you how dense I am, as I pray there names [both first and last] it finally dawns on me that their last names are almost identical. It’s like you can be so dense at times you don’t ‘see’ the most obvious things. Note: These are not common last names either!
(478) The other day I read a testimony from Tony Snow [the white house press secretary] he has been battling recurring cancer and when he returned back to work as press secretary a few months back, people were surprised. Not that he was healed [he’s not] but that he decided to live out his days doing what he felt called to do. The testimony was in Christianity today and it gave God glory. Ever since I heard of him getting cancer [a few months back] I actually have been praying for him by name. Yesterday I saw a picture of Tammy Faye Messner [former Bakker] in the paper, she looked like she was on her deathbed. It said she was 65 pounds and was recently on Larry King. Tammy has always maintained a Christian confession ever since she was well known for PTL and I have written her ex husband over the years [Jim Bakker] and he has sent me hand written thank you notes for the little books I have sent him. I just prayed for Tammy a lot yesterday. I even told my wife how bad Tammy looked and asked her to pray for her. My wife told me later that evening [I fell asleep around 8!] that Tammy passed away. I was glad I spent the day praying for her. I don’t want to make light of it ‘hey don’t pray for me too!’ type thing. I sort of had the feeling that it was too late for her healing. Not that God couldn’t do it, but the prayers were more in line with Gods grace being with her yesterday. It was!
(479) Just had a dream [15 minutes ago] and part of it had my old area from North Bergen in it. Me and a few friends [from the present time] were walking past an old friend’s house. We stopped to look at the beautiful stained glass windows in the house. I told my friends ‘this is my old friends house [Billy Pokluda] he has a sad story. Both of his parents passed away when he was young. His dad used to make these stained glass windows [which was true!]’ I have had 4 dreams about old Jersey friends these past few weeks. In another dream I was with some old friends and we were having a home prayer meeting [which I am hoping to start some soon!] and I was praying ‘Father pour out your Spirit on all flesh’. I felt these dreams are speaking to God really working with some of our ‘blog community’ from Jersey. Any of you guys reading this, e mail me or write some comments in the tape catalog section of this blog. I would like all of our ‘blog community’ to interact this way. Some of you can e mail me for the address of my friends in jail, you can write them! Guys in jail need this, and it would help me out too!
(480) I watched a prophetic conference the other day. I liked it. The brother is a well known ‘Prophet’ in prophetic circles. He did make a statement that I disagree with. He said ‘put behind you all doctrine, theology and creeds and just come to me’. He said this more than once. I do understand that there are times where God says ‘I am God, don’t look to yourselves for help’ I see that there is merit at times in ‘putting all you have learned behind you’ but the overall idea of disregarding theology, doctrine and creeds as ‘old stuff’ is not really biblical. Paul did say ‘hold to the traditions that I have taught you’ it is a funny thing that Paul’s ‘tradition’ in this passage [go and look it up, I forget where it is right now- either 1st or 2nd Thessalonians] is the tradition of ‘getting a job’. He actually is teaching if someone is not working, then he is a troublemaker! The point is ‘all tradition’ is not wrong. Its only when the ‘traditions of men’ usurp the Word of God. This is what you see Jesus rebuking in the Gospels. He says ‘by your traditions you have made void the Word of God’. So anyway I just wanted to clarify that true Christianity doesn’t mean you leave your brain behind you. It does mean that faith in God, even when you don’t understand it, takes priority. The ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ was forbidden to Adam in the garden. This didn’t mean Adam had no wisdom or knowledge, to the contrary he was extremely intelligent. He named all living creatures off the ‘top of his head’. But not eating of the tree meant Adam was not to live his life based on his own moral criteria. His own ability to ‘think things out’. God would be his provider and sustainer. He had full access to the ‘tree of life’. The day Adam made the ‘knowledge of good and evil’ his standard, in that day he died! NOTE: Now look at something prophetic that is going to happen. I just remembered at the end of the above meeting, the Prophet shared a story about Elijah and the woman who was barren. I heard him share this a few times thru the meetings I have caught on God TV this month. The story emphasized ‘making room for the prophet’ at the end of these meetings. This GOOD, WELL MEANING brother is sharing this and saying how the people need to give money into the ‘prophetic’ in order to receive a blessing. This brother is Prophetic, no doubt. He is not a ‘crook’ or ‘fake’, I actually like him. The New Testament leaves NO ROOM for the receiving of money [whether offering/tithe/whatever] directly after the prophetic word. For some reason the early church abhorred doing this. The teaching from Christ about ‘freely you have received, freely give’ is really dealing with the ministry gifts deposited in the people. The earliest writings of the Apostles [early church] that we have today, apart from the bible are called the ‘Didache’ [the teaching of the Apostles]. Though this book is not scripture, it gives us insight into the way the believers dealt with certain things. In the Didache it says ‘if a prophet stays around for more than a few days and is charging money, he is a false prophet’. Now I personally am not that hard. The point is today’s environment of ‘professional minister’ especially as it relates to the prophetic, is not seen in scripture. Though the New Testament leaves room for the financial support of laboring elders [Leaders] it does not permit the direct asking for money right after prophesying. The instance of the guy in Acts, Simon, who thought he could ‘purchase the gift of God’ with money is strongly rebuked by Peter. This guys name later came to represent the abuse of money and Gods gifts and not rightfully dividing the two. The definition of this is called ‘Simony’. The whole point is the above Prophet is a truly gifted brother, he does not see that the direct asking for an offering, and appealing to people to ‘give into the prophets ministry’ is really not scriptural. Though you can use the story of Elijah and others who did get material needs met thru people, the overall teaching that has Prophets actually prophesying and then seeing this as ‘well, I used the gift to build the church, therefore I am worthy of my reward’ and then correlating giving directly into the ministry with ‘giving to God’ is something the first century church would not permit. I am not saying this brother is not a Prophet, or that he is not being used of God. I am saying the Prophets today need to re think what it means to be in ‘Prophetic ministry’ and to bring their gifts more in line with scripture. That is if you ‘didn’t leave doctrine and creeds and theology’ at the door when you came in! NOTE: I have been following the restoration process of Paul Cain. Paul was the Prophet I told you about earlier on this blog. Paul is an older man who is sick and also takes care of some family members who are sick. In following Paul’s restoration I saw how the Christians who are helping him thru this were trying to explain why they feel Paul should start ministering again. Even though others feel he should stay low for a while. One of the reasons was for salary. The team of Christians working with Paul explained that Paul’s only [main] source of income was his prophesying. Therefore he realistically needed to start ministering again. I use this as an example only. I love and pray for Paul Cain. The point is we ‘see’ our gifts as our source of income. This is no where to be found in the New Testament. Again, the actual teaching from JESUS CHRIST was ‘freely you have received, freely give’. The early Christians took this seriously. The teaching from Paul on ‘laborers being worthy of their hire’ was simply showing us that it is all right to support, voluntarily, those who are giving themselves to the word and prayer. There is a big difference between the biblical support of elders [ministers] and seeing our gifts as a means of financial gain. Peter wrote in his letter for elders to not go into ministry for ‘filthy lucre’s sake’. So the idea of a prophetic gift bringing in money, right after the gift was used, is not good. The present church is so inundated with the prosperity gospel that she really doesn’t see or understand this principle yet. When we give, Jesus did say men would give back to us. But these verses must fit in with all the other ones you just saw me quote. Prophets should not ask for money after they prophesy, the New Testament has NO examples of this ever happening. And there is proof that the early church saw it as wrong. It is too common for the modern professional minister to apply ‘sowing into good soil/ giving to God’ to their specific ministry. Over 90 % of New Testament teaching on giving is actually giving to the poor. Meeting the real needs of people. In today’s environment, whether Christian TV or ‘pulpit ministry’ we constantly equate the believer’s faithfulness with giving to US. It is highly irresponsible for so many professional ministries/ministers to continue to do this. We need to redirect our appeal to the church at large and instruct them to give/sow into the needs of the world around us. It is a blatant misuse of scripture for the average believer to hear over and over again that ‘giving to God’ means giving to a ministry or minister. I have tried my best to explain this in the past [the store house being the actual people of God as opposed to the 501c3 church building] but I felt like we needed to be reminded of this.
(481) Let me talk a little on ‘revival’ and ‘revivalism’. In the above meeting there was a real desire to ‘encourage’ the people to get aggressive. A sort of ‘up beat’ tempo that was trying to stir the people up. There is nothing really wrong about getting ‘hyped’ for the big game. There just needs to be an understanding that the locker room hype is only for a short time. The majority of the game is played and won by the consistent diligence of the players. Revivalism describes the rise in the 18th/19th century of strong ‘movement’ ‘revival’ type ministers. This country experienced great revivals during this time. Jonathan Edwards as well as Charles Finney and George Whitefield are well known ‘fire starters’ of these great awakenings. Today you have ‘old time’ preachers who still look for the ‘revival’ as the goal. Then on the others side you have the more refined preachers/theologians [who also can be seen as ‘old school’] who tend to lean more towards the classic strain of Christianity as seen in the creeds of the church. This is why when the ‘more refined’ brothers hear statements like ‘leave behind your doctrine and creeds’ they cringe at that. The strong revivalists are focusing on a repeat [or greater] of the great awakenings. The orthodox brothers keep plodding along at a slower pace, but do seem to have some truth about the turtle finally passing up the rabbit. The strong ‘hype’ type Christianity can really burn you out. Christians cant live on the hype plane of meeting to meeting and getting this adrenaline rush all the time. God does have a few occasional ‘mountain top’ experiences for you. There are set times of drastic change and mountain moving faith. But if you find yourself needing to live daily on a miracle, then something is wrong. What would you think if your kids depended on you like that. ‘Daddy, Daddy, oh please feed me today. I don’t know if I can live another day without you feeding me’ You would say ‘what’s wrong Johnny, you know I have fed you ever since you were a baby. You are now 55 years old, I was hoping you were going to get past this!’ [sorry, I couldn’t help it]. So in reality it is good to expect God to move miraculously on our behalf, and he does! But eventually we need to see that ‘revival’ is not a state of being where Christians live in this ‘high’ atmosphere continually. Pentecost was a good thing, a great thing! But the church eventually settled down and continued STEADFASTLY in the Apostles doctrine. They didn’t ‘put doctrine behind them’ after revival, they allowed the revival to charge them up for the next level of Christian growth.
(482) Last week I watched one of the most famous prosperity preachers do a conference on the west coast. I do not watch to be critical or look for faults. I feel sometimes the lord wants me to watch in order to learn whether or not there are true changes being made. As I watched I kind of felt a little sorry for the brother [for real!] it seemed as if there ministry has taken a toll over these last few years. Many on the west coast have become familiar with the extreme errors of this teaching, and it did look like it was taking a toll. I don’t rejoice over this. I enjoyed the praise and worship part of the meetings. I really felt the presence of God. I also was glad to hear the grandson [?] of the main preacher of this movement. He really preached well and had a greater passion for truth than the leaders of the movement. I watched just long enough to see what the founder of this group [from the Forth Worth area] was going to preach on. There have been times where I have seen brothers truly repent of the more extreme teachings from this camp. Sad to say the brother preached from Corinthians and took a small portion of Paul’s teaching on ‘whoever sows will reap’ and sure enough the whole focus was on getting money. Despite the fact that Paul will later teach Timothy [1st Timothy 6] that in the last days teachers will arise and teach that ‘gain is godliness’ from such turn away. It’s like the most obvious warnings from scripture are consistently overlooked, while we spend entire conferences teaching the side verses of scripture without truly getting to the heart of the matter. I do pray that the next generation coming up will return back to the pure exposition of the Word of God. NOTE: People don’t seem to understand the difficulty of turning from a way you have been taught your whole life and repenting back to the truth. Even when people are faced with indisputable fact, they still will not repent. This is something in man. The root of it is pride. We are all susceptible to this. When Jesus confronted the 1st century religious mind, he did it with absolute undeniable truth. No one could say he was wrong or had a fault. In today’s prophetic environment, you can always find fault with the Prophet. This tends to be the reason why the religious mind today is less open for correction. I have found it utterly amazing that intelligent leaders still dispute the fact that Jesus lived a simple itinerant lifestyle. Some will absolutely teach that Jesus actually was one of the richest men of his day. That he owned an expensive house and bought the most expensive stuff of the day. They will teach that his treasury was so wealthy that he and the disciples were the highest paid ministers of the day. Despite the absolute plain historical, biblical truth to the contrary. The deceitfulness in mans heart is a very hard obstacle to overcome. I do not take it personal when people don’t repent. Paul did instruct us to leave them alone after the 3rd warning of heresy. I still will warn the new believers to avoid it, though I have given up on trying to correct those who have seen the plain error of their doctrine and refuse to repent.
(483) There are a lot of teachings I have done thru the years over radio. You can get an overview of them by reading the tape catalog on this site, but you don’t really get all the teaching unless you listen to all the programs. This would take years! So let me share a little old stuff that I think is relevant. A few years back I was working on my classic mustang in the garage. A couple of Jehovah’s witnesses stopped by. I was dirty and under the car, but I got out from under the car and had one of my good conversations with them. I tell them right off that I do embrace the new Kingdom on earth that God will establish in the future [all Christians do believe this whether they know it or not!] and then I shared how all who know Jesus by faith will have an inheritance in this new Kingdom. Partaking of it is a gift thru Christ, it is not only given to those who join some group. During this particular discussion the lady [they were a couple] mentioned something about the bible, to which I agreed, but I also told her that the 1st century church had no bible [like we do today, they did have the Old Testament and the early epistles were being written] and yet they were a strong church because they were established on the actual person of Christ. Jesus was building his church and this was a real living relationship that he had with his people. To my surprise the husband totally agreed with me. It was like one of those moments where someone has believed something for a while and someone else comes along and confirms it. It was funny, because both me and the husband were agreeing while the wife was ‘on the outside’. The point is we often confuse what the book of Acts describes as ‘they preached the word’. When Acts uses this terminology, the ‘word’ is expressly speaking of the message of God to man thru Christ. The ‘word of reconciliation’ if you will. That Jesus [the word] has now become the fulfillment of all the promises that were made thru the Prophets to Israel. This central message of Jesus gospel is ‘the word’. Now I do believe in scripture and the inspiration of it, but I want you to see that the actual reality of Jesus rising from the dead was the power behind the New Testament church. It wasn’t all the wonderful bible stories that we have today. You didn’t find them preaching on Jonah accept how it would relate to Christ [Jesus says ‘as Jonah was in the belly of the whale, so shall the son of man be in the heart of the earth’] so all scripture, especially the Old Testament, was now presented in a way that pointed to Jesus as the way to God. We often think ‘preaching the word’ is simply going to all these great bible stories or teaching some great bible principle. While these stories and principles are good for learning [Paul taught that all scripture is profitable] they are not the foundation of the church. The church [Spiritual community] is actually built upon the reality of the person of Christ. Jesus was actively administrating the growth of the New Testament church thru his Spirit. He said in the gospel of John that he was leaving them for a little while and then HE would come back. In this text he was speaking of the Holy Spirit. So the message [which by the way the gospel can also be called ‘the message’] was the actual person of Christ. Once the reality of the simple gospel began to spread in the 1st century, there was no stopping this simple truth. They did not have the availability of bibles like we do today. It was not until many centuries later that all Christians would have there own copies of the bible. Yet these ‘bible less’ churches were unstoppable! Lets ‘preach the word’ again like they did in the old days and we will see the same results! NOTE: In all these conversations I have with the Jehovah’s and Mormons I do what Paul did ‘I become all things to all people that I might save some’. I do not compromise to the points of heresy that these groups do embrace, but after a few minutes of talking with them as friends, and them seeing me quote both scripture and the histories of their movements, they begin to see me as one of them. I actually have had some tell me ‘wow, you know all the stuff we know’. One innocent ‘elder’ from the Mormons made the mistake of telling his ‘overseers’ this and he never came back! The point is I truly relate to them as real people who are on a quest for God. If they weren’t really seeking God do you think they would be going door to door for what they believe is Gods truth? Paul preached a sermon in Acts [I think Mars hill?] and the people were ‘superstitious’ which means ‘religious’ in this context. They believed in many gods. Greek culture had this type of Pantheism where all gods were welcome. Rome [who was heavily influenced by Greek thought- the word for this is ‘Helenization’] allowed you to have other Gods. You just had to worship the roman Caesar as ‘lord’ and this is what got the early church in trouble. While Paul was preaching to these ‘religious’ people, they had an altar to so many gods in their town, that to play it safe they even had an altar to ‘the unknown god’. They figured ‘hey, if we missed a god, this will cover it’. So Paul uses this ‘unknown god’ and tells this group ‘I am declaring to you who this unknown god is’. Paul took this opportunity of their religion and used it as best as he could to preach the true God. I see this in my approach to these groups. Identify as best as you can with them. They often don’t have real good conversations/friendships with true believers. If you are solid in the faith, become friends with them. Get the conversation back to ‘who there god really is’ and you will see God reveal himself on the ‘altars’ of religious people!
(484) In a few weeks we will probably be finishing my overview of the last few chapters of Isaiah. As I was just praying I felt the Lord wanted me to speak a little more on ‘freely you have received, freely give’. There is a verse coming up in our Isaiah study [unless we already passed it?] that says ‘come, let him drink. Buy good stuff, without money and free of charge’ [my paraphrase]. Modern ministry is structured along the contemporary way we function in the corporate world. I need to make a distinction here. There are old time preachers who will criticize the church I attend because they play hard rock Christian music [hey, I listen to hard rock ‘unchristian music’]. I don’t want to be flippant here. I have absolutely no problem with modern ministries progressing and doing whatever it takes to get the gospel out. I am not in the camp of these old time brothers who are fighting for the ‘old time gospel’ but are really just defending a culture/heritage that has nothing to do with the gospel. I have already made plain thru all our teaching that the way we normally practice ‘church’ today is not in the New Testament. Now, as we progress as Christians [Pastors/leaders] we normally fall into the same mindset of the corporate world that causes us to ‘get our name known, be at the top of the charts, and publicize our personas for the sake of the ministry’. I just recently spoke on God exalting us in due time for his glory. Fame that comes from God is OK [Billy Graham]. It’s just the modern idea of going after it is so engrained in the way we do business that it’s hard for us to not violate the principle of Jesus when he taught ‘servanthood leadership’. The question of who would be greatest and rise to the top in Gods Kingdom was dealt with by Jesus in the gospels. He tried to change the thinking of ‘roman hierarchy’ to that of being last. It was hard for the disciples to truly grasp this principle, but he basically showed them that the normal idea of every man for himself as he works his way up the ladder was not the way the Kingdom would operate. So today we see nothing wrong with having highly famous people who Christian’s pattern themselves after to the degree where we have the ‘cult of personality’ operating in the Body of Christ. It is common for the universities of our day to put out Pastors/leaders who are looking to advance a business, and to see the ‘pastoring part’ as simply part of the whole package. I will serve these people [Marry, bury, etc] and they will tithe and together we will see this thing grow. The mindset is engrained into the way we function. We see ‘hired clergy’ as a vocation like we see ‘carpentry’. ‘Hey Pastor, you were hired to build this ‘house’ and if we think you are doing shoddy work we will fire you and get another contractor’ we function along these lines that Jesus expressly taught his disciples not to partake of. I just want to encourage all Christians today to see themselves as needed parts of the overall purpose of God for his church. We all are ministers who have gifts in us that are to be used to build up Gods people. Pastors, don’t see yourselves as punching a time clock. Give your self away for the world. Empower your people to do the same. We are not in this to make a name for ourselves, to impress the community around us, we are in this to fulfill his purpose and destiny. God highly values those who lay down their lives [their own desire to be ‘great’ in the eyes of men] and become the least in the Kingdom of God.
(485) ‘Parable from a laptop’ A Few months back I started having problems with my laptop. It was slow and I couldn’t access my hotmail account. I recently told the Lord ‘Lord, I really need to speed this computer up, and I need to access my email, fix it for me’. Now I have tried to ad memory before and the local computer stores tried 4 or 5 different brands of memory and they told me there is something wrong with the computer itself and it will not take any new memory sticks. So I just prayed about it. You know how the Lord answered my prayer? My whole computer crashed! I took it to a friend who does the work on my computers and we put in a new hard drive and all sorts of stuff. It was down for a few days and I had to re learn some new tricks to get everything working right [I am very bad at computers. Though I have typed the lettering off of my laptop with my much writing, yet I am not good with them. Until recently everytime I scrolled down to the end of this site I used to simply do it the long way. One day my youngest daughter shows me something and scrolls all the way down the fast way. I told her I was doing it the other way and she couldn’t believe it!] The Lord answered my prayer by allowing the computer to go thru some drastic ‘down time’ and to come back stronger than before. I feel like the Lord is doing the same with many of us. He knows we have been asking for him to change things in us, it’s just that we never expected to ‘crash’.
(486) I woke up this morning thinking about the incredible teaching/prophetic ministry of Jesus. No one could match his talent. He gave these stories [parables] that contained tremendous hidden truths. He had the ability to stump the greatest theologians of his day, and yet be the most approachable, merciful person that walked the earth. You would think someone with this tremendous talent would ‘protect his anointing’. In today’s environment he would be behind one of those glass bullet proof things, maybe ride in a ‘Pope mobile’. You know what he went and did? He risked all of these tremendous gifts that God gave him and went and hung out with the Lepers! These little kids came up to him one time and the disciples said ‘he doesn’t have time for such childish things, he has a great calling’ Jesus would have none of it. Then one day he shocks his friends. He says ‘I am going to go to Jerusalem to be killed’. What! What on earth gave you such a stupid idea [in so many words this is what Peter said to him]. Jesus understood that the greatest gift he carried was his ability to lay down his life for his friends. He had the greatest love for man than any other human. He did not see his death as an obstacle in the way of a successful ministry. He saw it as the key ingredient to all that the father called him to do. ‘Except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone. But if it dies it will bring forth much fruit’ would you really die for God? NOTE; God wants a living sacrifice. People who walk the earth as ‘dead men’. Paul said ‘I die daily’ ‘I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ who lives in me. The life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me’ we are indebted to God to lay our lives down for others.
(487) The other day my wife’s friend dropped her 10 year old boy off at our house when she went to the doctor. She has been sick for many years and the doctors told her ‘you aren’t going to live much longer’ she said ‘I know, I just need to make it till my boy is 18’ the doctor said he didn’t think she would. She is a single mom with lots of struggles. She is sort of like the homeless friends that I have, it’s my wife’s ‘ministry’ if you will. I do like the little boy, he is very hyperactive and really does have A.D.D. I gave the boy a few dollars and an old ‘lost in space’ video. A few years ago I gave him our old Nintendo with some old games, they became his favorite games. I asked the boy ‘where did your mom go today’?[I knew]. He told me she went to the doctors. I asked how he was feeling about it. He said ‘I am very worried John, I don’t want to lose her’ I asked him to pray with me for his mom. I prayed the verse where it says ‘by his stripes we are healed’ and I graphically explained the scars and marks that Jesus received were a part of our healing. I told him to pray this as often as he can for his mom. It will be a great day when death has no more dominion over man. Jesus looked it in the face and came out on the other side. NOTE: Let me tell you guys a few cute stories about this kid. One time after we took him to church he came to spend the day with us. When we got home we had a few movies we had rented and I tried to get him to sit and maybe watch a few movies. He likes to get on my kids play station /game cube games and will play for hours. But he is so hyper that he pulls the whole game off the shelf! So as I am trying to convince him to watch the movies he says ‘John, I can’t watch those. They are scary and my doctor [?] doesn’t want me to see them’ [something like that]. So he goes ahead and plays the games. Later we do put the TV on and as I am flipping thru the channels he says ‘stop’ and I stop on the show he is interested in. Sure enough its some thing on the ‘the top 100 scary movies of all time’. As he is watching he is naming every character to all these movies. He knows them like clockwork. I say ‘Chris, for someone who never watches scary movies, you sure know the names of a lot of them’. After a few minutes of me teasing him he says ‘all right John, so you caught me!’ Also when I gave him the ‘lost in space’ video he was real happy. As soon as he saw his mom he showed her the video. She says ‘wow, are you sure he gave it to you’ the boy says ‘yeah, I know mom. It is a collector’s item. It must be worth money’. It was funny because the mom is the exact same way. She will find old costume jewelry and stuff and tells my wife ‘I have to take it to the jewelers; I don’t know what I got here’. They both thought they hit the jackpot with these simple gifts.
(488) I was praying and writing this morning. I have been taking a month off from ministry stuff, like getting with my friends, because I felt the Lord wanted me to. Not because I have been sick, to the contrary I feel much better when I get out and interact with the brothers. But I just felt the Lord wanted me to take a break. Well one of my buddies rang the bell [a very rare thing] and it was the first real ministry day in over a month. We ran into one of my old friends in town whose is wheel chair bound. I would have taken him to eat with us, but he can’t get out of his chair anymore. It’s a motorized one that ways around 300 pounds, I have tried to put it in my truck before, you cant! He asked if I could help him with 10 dollars, I gave him a twenty. He does not drink, he will use it for stuff he needs. I took the other friend to eat. I felt the Lord wanted me to give him a few dollars too. I gave him a ten and he was really grateful, he said he was going to ask if I could lend him 5 dollars. This friend also will not use it for drugs or drinking. I know both of these guys well, around 15 years. They are real old friends. I later got home [right now!] and thought it interesting. I ‘unknowingly’ gave them 30 dollars. Twice the amount of what they wanted, or asked for. I am actually believing the Lord to work out my retirement where I will bring in around 3 thousand a month. I need a few more things to work out, but I didn’t even realize that I ‘unconsciously’ gave a ‘hundredth’ of that amount. Jesus says some will get 30, 60 and a hundred fold. I have ‘unknowingly’ given the amount that I need to see a ‘hundredfold’ return on. I also spend right at $300.oo a month for radio and news paper ads. I have been ‘tithing’ [though I don’t believe we are under it!] unconsciously on a 3 thousand dollar income. I find it funny that I have been doing all this voluntarily for many years, not even looking for a return, yet God seems to ‘return’ what you need when you don’t do it for money. Jesus said some will say at the judgment ‘Lord, when did we feed you and visit you and clothe you’ the righteous were ‘unknowingly’ doing the things that God wanted. They weren’t doing these things with the return in mind. I thank the Lord that he led me to give away the money, I think he was setting me up for the return! NOTE: My friend reminded me how a few years back we were driving to the other side of town with a bunch of homeless guys, we passed up a guy on the corner with a sign begging for money. One of the homeless guys roles down his window and yells ‘get a job you bum’. These are the same guys who hold signs on my side of town!
NOTE; I just went back and read the last 3 entries. I write these things off the top of my head with no order or thought. # 486 speaks of Jesus ministry to ‘lepers’ [outcasts] and little children. #s 487 and 488 speak of me reaching out to outcasts and little children. Prophetic things are so ‘cool’.
(489) I couldn’t sleep too well last night. I was lying down and just praying for a lot of my friends who are having hard times. I was thinking how earlier in the day I dropped off my homeless buddy at the area of brush that he makes his home in. He showed me how to get to his spot, I used to visit him years ago at another campsite and he would make me ‘hobo’ coffee right over the fire. I kinda felt bad for my buddy today. His spot is back behind a bunch of swamp land. He had to get back and cut some trees and stuff so he would be able to burn them to keep the mosquitoes away at night. It is a hard life. I thought how hard it must be when they struggle with depression and stuff. Being in that type of environment for most of your life. During the day as we went and ate and checked out some of the new development in the Corpus area [new overpasses and Whataburger field [our local baseball teams field] these guys don’t have cars so they don’t get around town to see this stuff that often] he was telling me a few verses that he has put to memory and how he is trying to follow the Lord. Last year one of the other guys beat him up pretty severely. He has seen him recently and was battling the temptation to get even. He told me how he realizes that it’s just pride. He quoted the verse in Proverbs that says ‘don’t make friends with an angry man, because you will get in trouble and have to help him out of trouble over and over again’. He wasn’t sure where this verse was, I told him I thought it was in proverbs. He realized that he didn’t want to be ‘this angry man’. He even remembered the verses from one of the little books I wrote. He read it years ago and still was quoting it. I gave him new copies of all the books and stuff again. A few years back one of my original friends from Kingsville [a whole different time and group of friends/ oikos- God will allow you to impact different people groups thru out your life] came to see me. We were reminiscing about the old days. I was surprised how he would remember the things that I thought were insignificant. I was thinking they would remember all the great prophetic stuff, or the teaching and stuff. He remembered the time he was strung out on dope and I spent the early morning [2 or 3 am] in front of his family’s home in government housing just talking to him about the Lord. He remembered the real times of friendship and stuff like that. I guess that’s why Jesus put such a high priority on loving our neighbor, he new these were the most effective ways of bringing people into the Kingdom. Of having long lasting impact that they would remember for years to come. God wants these things to be our legacy. What good is it if we have the greatest knowledge in the world, or the greatest prophecies? Or even if we do great charity works. If we do it all without true love for people it profits us nothing [1st Corinthians 13], people don’t remember all the great prophetic things. There a dime a dozen. They remember true friendship. NOTE: One of the dangerous mindsets that works against the Kingdom is prejudice and ‘class warfare’. In today’s ‘radio’ environment, it is all too easy to spend hours listening to all the legitimate reasons why we shouldn’t help illegal aliens, or why the poor are ‘getting what they deserve’. In Jesus teaching to us, he instructed us to help the poor. To treat our neighbor with love and respect. These concepts are real ways we spread the Kingdom. Jesus knew that ‘the poor’ were very often people who ‘got what they deserved’. There were obvious reasons why they wound up as the outcasts of society. Jesus told us nevertheless to help them. It is an act of mercy and compassion to treat them with love and respect. Even if they don’t deserve it. It breaks our pride and prejudice to give freely to those who don’t deserve it. This is done because of Gods treatment of us. We were/are undeserving of all the good gifts he has given us. We didn’t get mercy because we deserved it! God requires of us to lay down our lives for others who don’t deserve it. This is how they, and others, will experience Gods GRACE and MERCY. They will see it thru us.
(490) I am adding this note for those who have been following my health stuff. After over a month of extreme vertigo and non stop dizziness, I have learned from my own research [the doctors do their best] that I have acute Labyrinthitis. A problem with the inner ear. Mine is obviously from a viral infection. Because the antibiotics that I finished taking a few weeks back have had no effect on the problem. This was an important part of my struggle, as to the fact that the back problems and the associated anxiety of everything else was being added on to this unexplainable continual dizziness and vertigo. I have researched a lot on all the other stuff, but to be honest this inner ear problem is without a doubt the most disorienting. I am ‘high’ 24/7. I used to think that this would be a good thing! But to be continually disorientated 24/7 is not good. I basically found out that this is what I have thru extensive on line research. There is no doubt that this is one of the problems. I am trusting God to heal this. I can live with the leg/back problems. But this thing is too debilitating. I would appreciate you guy’s prayers, thanks.
(491) ‘No chastening for the present time seems to be joyous, but rather grievous. Nevertheless afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who go thru it’ ‘It is a good thing that you were afflicted, before you were afflicted you went astray, but afterward you kept my word’ ‘for this cause many are weak and sickly among you, for if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged we are being chastened by the Lord so we will not be condemned with the world’ this is the Word of the Lord unto you today. The hard things that you have been going thru are for my purposes. I have done things thru your suffering that were not being produced any other way ‘though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience thru the things that he suffered’ ‘think it not a strange thing, the fiery trials that you re going thru, as if some strange thing is happening to you. But rather rejoice, knowing that these same afflictions are being accomplished in your brethren thru out the world’ the things you are going thru are not unique to you alone. You are receiving these sufferings as my servant Paul did when he said ‘I am filling up the rest of the sufferings of the Body of Christ’ Your difficulty is part of the overall birthing process of what I desire to do in the earth at this time. Rejoice that you have been counted worthy to suffer because of the name of my Son.
(492) I have a book I was going to read sitting here in my study [I have a few that I have picked up these last few years and haven’t gotten to them yet]. It deals with the story of a large ministry [not in the U.S.] and how by faith the Lord has given them millions of dollars and has truly opened up many doors thru finances for this good work. In today’s environment we often see God thru the lens of ‘you can give me the finances to do this great work’. Many times these are sincere believers whom God does really work in this way on their behalf. We also hear often ‘do you need a financial miracle’ or ‘who needs healing in their finances’ [though Jesus never healed anyone from ‘financial sickness!’] The point is God definitely works in all areas of life. He is our provider and source, the God who is more than enough. It’s just that we really don’t treat him that way. Let me show you what I mean. When the apostle Paul said ‘I have learned in whatever state I am [Texas?] to be content. I have learned to be in need and to be full. I can do all things thru Christ who strengthens me’ we often see ‘doing all things’ as the ‘full’ part. We very rarely see it as the ‘being in need’ part. Because God is truly our source, we don’t always need the financial miracle to see something happen. We actually need him! He has done and will do tremendous things with simple people who do not have lots of money. ‘Well brother how can we reach the world unless we all have lots of money’? Well there goes your lack of faith! Jesus said the gospel is so powerful in the hearts and lips of his people, that the world can and has been revolutionized thru the simple saints thru out the ages. Jesus has truly taken ‘the few loaves and fishes’ and has MULTIPLIED the seed to reach the multitudes. We would have been praying ‘Lord, before we go to the 5,000 people we need to raise lots of money for food. It wouldn’t be responsible for us to have all these people come out and hear you preach until we have the great supply in our hands’ We would have been asking Jesus to give us the actual resources ahead of time in order to ‘reach/feed’ the people. We need a financial miracle Jesus! As a matter of fact that is what the disciples tell him when he says ‘have the people sit down and we will feed them’. The disciples are like ‘we don’t have enough money in the treasury to do this [by the way this also reproves those who teach that the treasury/bag that Jesus and the disciples had was really rich. The disciple in this story plainly states that they didn’t have the treasury money to cover it!] Jesus doesn’t give them a financial miracle in the way they expected. What he does do is he takes the very limited resources of a little boys sack lunch and he multiplies it as they give it away. We don’t really need to be ‘healed financially’ we need to begin giving ourselves away, Jesus will multiply our ‘seed/bread’ [the influence of our lives] when we do this.
(493) It’s Sunday morning. I am watching a few local churches on TV. I caught one of the non denominational guys. Good message [I guess?] a little too much of ‘I am your Pastor. You need to be submitted to me and be under my authority’ he meant well, just doesn’t see the overall view. Basically everything I have taught [and others!] about the office of Pastor and it not being a singular authority position over ANY OF THE CHURHCES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT! I switched to the Catholic mass. They were much more humble. They had a deacon sharing on forgiveness; they then cited the Apostles creed. It got me to thinking about the brother who I wrote on a few weeks ago who said ‘leave behind you the creeds and doctrines’. The contrast between these 2 ways of ‘doing church’ are tremendous. While I do not embrace all Catholic teaching, it is obvious to see that the Protestant brothers meetings were saturated with them. You see their gifts, their abilities. The whole service is really about them. They don’t mean for this to be so, its just the result of ‘doing church’ thru the lens of ‘I am the Pastor, my job is to speak to you every Sunday for the rest of your life. Your job is to come and listen and put the tithe in. Anyone who disagrees is in the camp of those who challenged Moses authority. The earth might just open up and swallow you’. Now, I am being a little sarcastic. The point is ‘church’ is supposed to be the healthy gathering and communing of all believers around the reality of Christ. It was never intended to be a ‘place’ where people are spectators in an audience who are watching others perform. It is very obvious to see how the Protestant church has allowed herself to become ‘personality oriented’ as opposed to Christ being the real center of attention.
(494) To be honest with you guys, I feel like I have been on a acid trip for over a month. It is the most nerve wracking thing I have gone thru in years. Before I realized that the ‘Labyrnthitis’ causes you to see everything thru a ‘glass’ type image [now we see thru a glass darkly- Corinthians] it was unreal to wake up one day feeling totally wasted, nonstop! Well now that I realize what it is, it is not as nerve wracking. I am reading the autobiography of Brian ‘head’ Welch, the ex guitarist of the rock group ‘Korn’. It is real interesting. It reminded me of a few things. Many years ago [around16] I backslid pretty badly. I was already preaching and had pastored our church. But I spent about a year being ‘lost’. During that time I was separated from my wife and was ‘hanging out’ with all types of people. One night me and this ‘girl friend’ who was a full blown junkie wound up off of some street in Corpus Christi [I didn’t live there yet]. It was in a real bad section of town. By the Morgan/Baldwin area. If you’re a white guy, you aren’t supposed to be around there. I remember shooting pool one night in one of the clubs and I was the only English speaking person there. The bartender didn’t know what I was saying when I ordered a drink. I was shooting pool, waiting for my ‘friend’ to get back. I really am surprised I didn’t get shot. Shootings happen weekly in these areas of town. Well when we were at some house not far from there, people were mainlining right there. The girl I was with was getting her fix. Somehow as she introduced me to her Hispanic friends [I really took risks by being there] she mentions ‘John used to be a preacher’. Sure enough one of the guys starts repenting towards me. He’s telling me he feels the Lord sent me there that night as a sign. He says I am like the angel in the show on TV [Michael Landon played an angel, I cant remember the name]. This was pretty surreal. I don’t know why I just thought of this story, but I did. This poor girl, one day a few years later I went to work and they told me some ‘chick’ was dragged by some guy leaving the bar the night before. We all find out if there were any deaths and stuff when we go to work. ‘You guys have any fires or shootings last night’ stuff like that. It winds up that this girl was stuck in the car door with some guy she was fighting with, he drug her a few blocks before he realized she was stuck in the door. When the ambulance got there the skin was ripped from her. Everyone thought she was already dead, then she simply looked at them for help. They did all they could do and she died. Sin is so devastating. May God forgive me, and everyone else who has made these terrible mistakes in life. ‘There is a redeemer, Jesus Gods own Son, precious Lamb of God messiah, holy one’ Keith Green.
(495) When I picked up my homeless friend the other day, we had a good discussion on the ‘Temple of God’ being the people of God as opposed to a ‘place of meeting’. I always emphasize that it is not wrong for believers to meet in buildings, but that the great transition from the Old Testament mindset to the New Testament was one of transition from an actual Temple to a Spiritual one. That is the people of God would become the actual dwelling place and mode of operation that the Father would work thru to establish his purpose in the earth. The famous Old Testament story of ‘Jacobs ladder’ was an encounter that Jacob had with God. When he awoke he said ‘this is the House of God’ though there was no building for miles! It was a preview of Gods house as seen thru the meditation of Christ. The Ladder had angels ascending and descending. It was a type of Christ who would give new access from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven. Wherever you would find this ‘ladder’ being set up in the future, there you would have the ‘house of God’ [all New Testament communities of people]. There was a time in Israel’s history where they came to depend on their temple. They were saying ‘the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord’ and they were rebuked for trusting in this earthly piece of furniture and not trusting in the living God. And of course Jesus prophesied of the temples destruction in the Gospels. The whole point I made to my friend was that God’s mode of operation was to express himself thru a living community of people who would not be limited to a ‘place of worship’ but who would carry this presence of God wherever they go. In essence wherever people were experiencing the reconciliation of the Cross, there a ‘ladder’ [the Cross] would be ‘set up’. God would be setting up these access points from heaven to earth all over the planet. No more ‘dwelling in temples made with hands’. Now the fact that believers do have this ‘atmospheric influence’ wherever they go, means that even if they are in the ‘church building’ or home or park or anywhere, then God will manifest himself there. Not because of these buildings, or because of the lack of a building. But his presence is solely based on the fact that people are there who have accessed ‘Jacobs ladder’ they have access with God thru the Cross. I would encourage you today to ‘plant that ladder’ everywhere you go. Allow God to use you as an access point from heaven to earth. Those you come in contact with, set up that ladder of hope for them. Let them see how simple it is to approach God thru the finished work of the Cross. Let them know that after you leave, that truly ‘this was the House of God’.
(496) I have been interceding for a while this morning. I have been praying for 22 Korean Christian hostages who were taken by the Taliban in Afghanistan for a few days. Today is 7-30-07, I don’t know what has happened to them yet. The other day they killed the 42 year old Pastor of the group. They are South Korean Christians who were there doing charity work. I also was watching a big Christian meeting who gathered conservative Christians from all over to ‘unite for Israel’ these brothers have interviews and meetings with Israeli leaders. They glory in her as a natural nation. They call for more financial support of her military. There is always a danger in supporting any natural nation to the degree where you side with her and almost justify military action to the point of killing other people. Does Israel have a right to defend herself as a Nation? Yes. Do all nations have this right? Yes. Have there ever been scenarios where Christians on the other side [Palestinian or whatever] found themselves stuck in the nation that was on the opposite side? Yes. Is it possible that there might be 10 righteous Christians in the other nation who we are advocating violence against? Yes. So John what’s the answer? Well it certainly isn’t starting some Christian movement where you actually advocate for the build up of Israel’s defenses and you seem to be approaching end time scenarios with this bloodlust to attack other nations. I don’t care what your eschatology is, pray for the peace of Jerusalem and pray for the peace of the ‘Jerusalem of God’ as well. Paul defined this Jerusalem as all Christians. Even those who might be huddled in some corner of a Palestinian home waiting to get the hell bombed out of them from the others side. I just hope they weren’t watching the Christian conference [from San Antonio] who were glorying in a nation’s natural heritage right before they get bombed to death!
(497) Pride hinders the growth of the New Testament church. The way the early Christians ‘did church’ is described in the book of Corinthians. The meeting of believers was a simple informal format of believers gathering together from house to house and sharing with each other. The role of ‘Pastor’s or Elders was simply the oversight of more mature believers living in the city, who gave guidance and direction to the younger believers as they developed in the Lord. The growth of home/cell based churches is basically a return back to a more biblical form. Now pride is the arrogance of any man, who looks at this pattern and says ‘you are not under the local church, or a Pastor. You are out of order’ So here you would find the well meaning Pastor, judging a form of church that is much more in line with the New testament, and actually seeing his understanding of church as the only legitimate pattern. So in essence the humble cell group could actually respond by stating ‘you, Pastor, are holding a title/office that is no where to be found in the New Testament. You coming against us by saying ‘we are not submitted to you, or others like you’ is actually usurping the headship of Christ over his body. And you are placing yourself as Diotrophes did in 3rd John’. Now, I do not see all Pastors like this, the point is the cell group are much more in line and in biblical order than this Pastor. This shows you what happens when man holds on to a limited view of church and then adds to it a strong authoritarian mindset of ‘Pastor’ that is not biblical. God deals in Grace with all of us, it would do us all good to see him thru his various operations, and not try to make a particular mode of worship ‘the only legitimate expression of Christ’s church today’. God has many different expressions.
(498) I am almost finished with the book by Brian ‘head’ Welch. It tells a lot of times when Welch was thinking of getting off of drugs and would find himself doing more. The feeling I have had for a while now reminds me of being on an ‘Acid’ trip. The bad ‘trip’ I had years ago had me seeing ‘things’ pretty badly. I remember looking into this mirror of a bowling alley and seeing my face black/purple. Seeing yourself this way while also experiencing no feeling to your body is a trip. You think your dead. One time during the year where I backslid, I took a friend over to Robstown to score some stuff. He was going to shoot it up, I just went for the ride [really!]. My pay was some real good weed. I sat in the car and got high on this joint. Before I smoked it he told me ‘this is some real good weed’ but he then used a term, which too me in my early days meant ‘week weed’ but in South Texas language this term meant ‘really strong’. Oh well. After smoking this joint I got absolutely wasted. There obviously was something more than just ‘pot’ in it. I drove a few blocks [my friend was still inside fixing] and parked by some Rail Road tracks. I just laid down in the car and went on this trip. It reminded me somewhat of the acid trip I had years before. I later [or earlier] had snorted some cocaine with my friends, but this weed had something much more potent in it. I remember how at times in the past where I would be totally wasted, yet I would not stop partying. It was like I felt ‘man, I really need to come down’ and then keep getting high. In the book I could identify somewhat with Brian’s seeming inability to just stop. Ultimately God does the ‘stopping’ for you. When people are in this cycle they don’t seem to realize the danger of dieing. You seem to think nothing will happen. And then when your ‘tripping’ you think ‘O my God, I feel like I am going to die’ it really is deceptive. Only God can save people from this. NOTE: This brother was one of a whole family of guys I met while preaching to the father in jail. One of these brothers is now one of our main guys in Kingsville serving the Lord. During this year of backsliding, I took him to H.E.B. [our grocery stores in Texas- like Path Mark to all you Yankees!] and he goes in. He comes out with something that he was going to steel from one of the hardware aisles. He walks out with the look on his face like ‘there’s nothing strange about the way I look, I am just normal’ as I see him walking across the parking lot, I could spot the stolen thing under his shirt a mile away! It looked so obvious, like a pregnant woman! When he got to the car I was like ‘I could see you a mile away you idiot, how did you get away with it?’ Of course he bought a stick of gum or something on the way out, he told me ‘I think the chick at the register liked me’ I guess so! NOTE: One time when we were having ‘church’ in an old rented hospital building, I would go and pick up our guys before the service. One day both of my friends had been out the night before shooting up. So when I went to get them the wives and kids got in my suburban but the guys were no where to be found, and as we were driving back to the building, we stopped right at a stop sign where these 2 guys were right next to us in the car that they were using all night to score drugs. Of course their wives were mad, these guys were out all night shooting up. It was too late to hide, but as they were looking straight at us, my one friend [Elias] just ducks down and hides in the seat, my other friend [Juan Saldana] just looked straight forward. It was kinda funny, we did laugh about it later. Elias eventually became the preacher of the local Victory Outreach. He died from a brain aneurism while serving the Lord. Juan, I haven’t heard from him years. I think he is working with a ministry in El Paso?
(499) The benefit of blogging like this is it allows you to hear God and just write what you hear. When writing a book you really cant jump like that. For some strange reason I just saw a whole scenario of legitimacy that comes from being a child of God and how that relates to family/community. We often see believers as a ‘part of the church’. God does deal with us as a community, as well as individuals. You will find the strong Orthodox/ Catholic brothers emphasize the community aspect of Christianity. You will also see the more individualistic style of Christianity emphasize the ‘individualistic’ aspect. ‘Me and Jesus’ both of these are true. What I want you to see right now is how we often try to ‘de legitimize’ Christians by saying ‘who’s local church are you under? What family do you belong to, you cant function/operate outside of the family. You derive your authority from the family’. Now look at this for a moment. When you are born, you are born into some type of family. It might not be fully functional, but there at least had to have been a mom and a dad at the beginning. Now as you develop you are part of a family. You are part of this family by virtue of your birth. You actually do not derive your life from the family. God created you. But family is vital to your growth and health. As you grow older you learn to depend less and less on the authority figures that God has placed over you. Some times the parents want the children to stay ‘under their authority’ for insecure reasons. The empty nest syndrome. But if the family is healthy the children will eventually launch out. There may be times where the waters get rough and they return for a season, but ultimately they launch. If you were to tell little Johnny ‘who do you think you are leaving us? Don’t you realize that you really don’t have a life apart from us? You were born here, we raised you, everything God has done thru you up until this moment has been in the family context. You leaving us is rebelling against our parenthood over you. Don’t forget what happens when you rebel against us. O well you’ll find out the hard way’ Johnny’s parents are sincerely seeing his role as it relates to them, they don’t fully see or function in the reality that their roles are meant to change over the course of Johnnies life. They sincerely think his step of independence is rebellion. After all they have been ‘over’ Johnnie his whole life. Who does he think he is anyway? Sure enough Johnnie will launch out [to the dismay of his other siblings who tried to launch before and had failures. They later returned back home and thought their failures were a sign from God that they should have never launched] When Johnnie does eventually succeed there is an initial reaction of ‘who needs families anyway, they were just holding me back’ this is a natural result from the way the family tried to hold him past the ‘launch date’. As Johnnie matures he will lose this harshness that he is experiencing at this time. Ultimately Johnnie and a whole new generation of ‘Johnnies’ will grow and leave and become all that God originally intended. The insecure parents will warn all the older children who are still relating to them in co dependant ways ‘don’t do like all these rebels, you know what can happen’ and this reinforces the mindset of never fully growing up. And yet the parents will at times say ‘when are you ever going to grow up?’ not realizing that they have had a big part in creating this unhealthy long-term environment. I feel today we are seeing this play out on a large scale in the Body of Christ. There are so many ‘Johnnies’ who have been told ‘your identity to our family is Gods purpose [true] therefore you really have no authority on your own’ [false]. The authority for both family and Johnnie launching are both from God. They all receive their right to do what God is telling them because they were all born of God. It is easy to only view legitimacy from the standpoint of ‘family’. Not seeing that God originally told the man ‘When you launch out on your own someday [a God given thing] then you will leave your parents and cleave to your wife’ [the wife can be the Ecclesia/oikos that God wants you to relate to as an ‘elder’ as well. While all believers are not ‘5-fold’ ministers, they all are to grow and mature. Becoming an ‘elder’ more mature one who gives oversight to others, is a natural function of your growth] God always intended the oversight role of parents [Pastors/Elders] to be temporary. This launching will eventually create a whole new family, with a whole new home of Johnnies. And the process repeats. I find a lot of believers at the ‘launching dock’ who are fearful to launch. They have seen some launch, and sad to say they drowned. A natural risk inherent in all journeys. These have made ‘shipwreck of the faith’. Others launched and never returned for reunions because they were so mad at the original parents calling them ‘lost children’ when they first left. Ultimately when enough Johnnies do it right then the whole family will see and realize that they were at an immature stage and are now seeing this ‘launching’ as in Gods original plan. Have you launched yet? NOTE: Often times the ‘parents’ [Pastors/elders] find their identity in ‘being parents’ they feel good functioning in this oversight role. They preach, organize, strategize and do many good things. Sometimes out of insecurity they add to their preaching, themes that warn the children ‘don’t ever leave us, it would be a big mistake’ and if they see someone leave, they will often say ‘well, now that you left, who is your new father [Pastor] and which family did you join in order to pay your dues?’ [Tithe]. The former Pastor is trying to say to Johnnie ‘well, you left this nest, you cannot function outside of it’ unless you yourself become one of us [a Pastor] then you have the right to not be under one of us. ‘This is Gods order’. The whole thing can be a big mess. Truly God does have order in his family, but we need to be careful that we are not superimposing a modern way of church, and then calling that ‘Gods Order’. NOTE: It is common amongst ‘apostolic people’[people who feel they hold the office of Apostle] to struggle with ‘who’s local church will I be under’. They often start a 501c3 ministry, relate to other ‘local churches’ and preach a very strong ‘You must be under a Pastor’ type message. They then will struggle with ‘which Local church will be my covering, as I also ‘cover’ many other Local churches/Pastors’ all of this language and covering and everything associated with it is really not seen in the New Testament function of Apostles. Apostles were not people going around ‘covering’ all ready established groups of Christians. The true fruit of an Apostle is someone who has the gift to ‘birth’ communities of believers thru the preaching of the gospel. You never find Paul, ever, telling the new believers to be ‘under the covering of a Pastor’ you do find admonitions to submit to Godly leadership that God has placed in ‘your church’ meaning ‘your community of believers that are around you’. You actually will find references in the New Testament to the ‘Elders of your Church/ Elders of your city’ [i.e.; ordain Elders in every city as I ordained you] so the submission to Elders was the simple ‘growing up stage’ in your life as a believer, until you are mature enough to ‘launch’.
(500) I was watching ‘journey home’ on E.W.T.N. last night. I do like the catholic station. They had a panel of ‘ex-Pastors’ from Pentecostal churches who are now Catholic. It was a good discussion and I do see them as Gods people. One area that I often hear on this show is ‘When I was Protestant/Pentecostal we all had our own ideas of what scripture meant. Without the teaching authority [magesterium] of the Catholic Church there is no true order to what scripture means’. Let me address this a little. I too see the danger of everyone coming up with their own interpretation of scripture. Believe it or not I also believe in the ‘teaching authority of the church’ but I see ‘the church’ as all the corporate people of God from century one until today. Therefore all that the Spirit has communicated in unity to the people of God thru out the last 2 thousand years is ‘the teaching authority of the church’. It is obvious to me, and many other voices [even Catholics!] that the ‘Catholic church’ has things that most believers understand to not be true. If most believers [Even many Catholics] as well as many great reformers of the church, who also were Catholic, if they with one voice disagree with the hierarchal interpretation of the ancient church, then this in itself is a function of the ‘teaching authority of the church [Holy Spirit] revealing truth to and thru the Church [corporate people of God]’. Now I don’t want to get too technical here, and I love my Catholic brothers. But the argument that because there are so many wrong interpretations of scripture, for that to lead a person, as humble and sincere as he is. For that person to say ‘therefore, because of the inconsistencies of my former Pentecostal Pastor friends, I have now come to accept a certain strain of hiearchacal truth. Now I am in truth’ without being offensive, this part of the church [Catholic] have erred in the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception as well as other things. It is not me saying this, but the ‘Spirits witness’ thru the church down thru the ages, as expressed thru her own people [i.e.; the many Catholic reformers who have spoken out from inside her walls]. So to be clear, I love the Catholic people, our only safety to guide us into all truth is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He has surely operated inside of the Catholic Church, as well as all the others ‘churches’ who have spoken in line with the Spirits testimony thru the centuries. The ‘magesterium’ if you will, is the Spirits corporate witness of unity as he has spoken thru the people of God down thru the centuries. The ‘teaching authority’ of the church is not limited to that which comes down from any one ‘part’ of the Body of Christ. God does not ask us to lay down our own moral conscience to accept teachings that in our heart we know are wrong. In many of these testimonies when the Protestant Pastor who has converted to Catholicism is asked ‘how did you overcome your ‘inner rejection’ to finally accept Mary’s role in the Church, and to accept that she was born sinless?’ Many of the brothers simply say ‘I got to a point where I had to overcome my own beliefs [conscience!] and to accept the witness of the ancient church’. This to me is not what God asks of his people. To ‘overcome your inner witness’. Scripture speaks of truth being revealed to us by Gods Spirit as an inner witness. ‘Well brother, then where is the safety mechanism from keeping everyone from going off track’? Well, ultimately it is a function of the Spirit of God working in the people of God [the true magesterium] thru out the centuries. Why does over 90 % of all the church believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ? Who has ‘engrained’ this truth into the minds of so many various denominations? Was it a function of the Catholic churches ‘teaching authority’? It was a function of the Spirit guiding the people of God thru out the centuries into all truth. If someone out of fear or confusion relinquishes his own conscience to the interpretation of any ‘institution’ no matter how early their institution began, then you are overlooking the ability of the Spirit, to reveal all truth to all men. I realize that the Catholic argument is ‘the Spirit does this thru the church’ to which I say ‘Amen’, but once again I see the church as all who have seen the father thru the Son. If no man can come to the Father, but by him. Then all who are now in him [all believers regardless of background] are ‘in him’. Therefore all who are ‘in him’ [including Luther, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, etc.] are part of the corporate voice of the Spirit as he ‘speaks thru the church’ down thru the ages. The ‘safety mechanism’ to keep every one from his own interpretation is the ability of the Spirit to speak with one voice thru all of his people. Thus we wind up with over 90 % of all believers embracing the true gospel. Well, what about the other 10%? Well, some who don’t embrace this gospel are in all of the other camps. Catholic, Protestant, etc. Liberalism that denies Christ’s bodily resurrection can be found in all ‘churches’. Therefore the ‘magesterium’ did not prevent their own catholic people from ‘departing from the faith’. All Christians are dependant on the Spirit, as well as the guidance from the majority of Christian voices that have come to us down from the centuries. I include Catholics as well as Protestants in this ‘corporate voice’. It’s humility to be able to embrace this.
(501) Over the years I have given lots of my books away. I give them all away now, I don’t sell anything anymore. I actually did have a publishing house print the first few batches of books. This was not cheap! I gave them to a friend as well as all of my other books as I wrote them. This friend had a family member write a book. I told him, ‘as soon as it’s done, give me one!’ After it was finished, the person let me know they were for sale. I wasn’t really offended, I kinda really didn’t have time to read the book. I initially said ‘give me one’ to encourage them in the writing of the book, they are still good friends of mine till this day, real good Christian people. I got the sense that he got offended because I didn’t buy one. Too be honest I had given him all my books for free over the years! I know he was thinking ‘hey, we got this book published. I cant give it to him for free’ I got mine published too, and I gave almost all of them away for free! Even to him! The point is, we see giving the tithe as necessity. But we don’t truly see giving all the other gifts and things we have the same way. I have friends who cant believe I will give away 20 dollars at the drop of a hat. Or simply pay a 100 dollar light bill [not my own, sad to say 100 dollars wouldn’t cover it!] I have been doing it for years with no regret. This stuff is taught in scripture man! Yet most Christians will willingly put 200 dollars in as a tithe, but to give even something worth 10 dollars [a book] is too hard to do.
(502) I just got done doing a little yard work. Nothing heavy, but I risked moving a few bricks and stuff and my back started killing me. I knew better, but o well. To be honest the pain is nothing compared to the vertigo thing. I am remembering some old drug experiences as I read the book from Brian Welch [Korn]. I remembered how after my worst overdose on acid I had flashbacks for years. There came a time in the beginning where I just determined ‘well, if I wind up dieing, there is nothing I can do about it. So be it’ I just remembered this recently. There was a putting of everything into Gods hand, even though I didn’t really know him! I was thinking about the people I know, some who have been diagnosed with fatal diseases. I am praying much for them. No matter what people have done, God is very compassionate. I think we [or at least I] don’t show the level of mercy and compassion that we should. What would you do if you were on death row and knew the exact date of your death? ‘Month away, 2 more weeks, 3 days left, tomorrow when I wake up I am going to die’ how would you react. I am not justifying anything that these guys have done; I just think it takes courage to face it like a man. Some ask both Gods and their victim’s families to forgive them. They go out well. I am praying for a few more people who I have come to know while researching my sickness. I didn’t meet them thru any Christian means, just thru finding answers thru the net. I have given them my blog site and told them up front I am a believer. Maybe they are reading this now! I just think if I could have trusted God and went thru those early years of acid trips and stuff, how much more should we as believers overcome the desolate places we find ourselves at today.
(503) Isaiah 59- ‘Gods hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor his ear dull that it cannot hear. But our sins have separated us from God acting on our behalf’ one of the themes we will see in this chapter is God wanting us to speak truth and to stand for justice. He will reprove the times we lie and don’t really speak and walk in truth. There are so many issues with the American church at this season. I saw Benny Hinn speaking to a meeting of Pastors. I have sent Benny my books and stuff. I was encouraged to hear him reprove those who teach that Job [in the bible] was making a bad confession and God recorded his words, but didn’t justify Jobs confession. Those of you in the ‘know’ remember how it was [and still is!] taught that Job went thru trials because of a bad confession, and in essence God doesn’t want us reading Job and believing Jobs confession. You just read Job to see what not to do! I have dealt with this error before. But I was glad to see Benny hit on it in such a public way. This is an example of God telling us ‘Church, I love you guys. I have given you time to overcome this. You can’t keep speaking ‘lies’ and think I am going to move in your country [The U.S.]’ So God is dealing with us in mercy, but he is telling all of us ‘I really want to move on your behalf, you must humble yourselves and repent. I want justice, I want truth. You need mercy and love, but they cannot trump my desire for truth and righteous justice’. ‘None calleth for justice, none speak truth. They trust in vanity and speak lies’ There has been a stubbornness on certain parts of the American church that have consistently ‘trusted fake things, and continue to speak fake things’ we are all guilty of this, Gods agenda is for us to seek him and return to a pure biblical gospel. I am so excited about this younger generation. I have been watching the ‘call’ or the ‘cause’. Basically a group of young people on fire for Jesus. The I.H.O.P. meetings with Mike Bickle. The ‘merchant band’ all of these radical kids seeking the face of God. They put me to shame. And in the midst of this there exists an older generation who insist on ‘speaking lies, trusting in vanity’ the older generation needs to listen to these ‘babes’, out of their mouths God is speaking. They sing things like ‘don’t sell out for the stuff of this world’. ‘They hatch eggs, whoever eats their eggs dies. They will not continue to cover themselves with their teachings’ when we steer off course of Christ’s main message, the things we produce [books, blogs, tapes, etc.] only hurt others. We can’t keep ‘feeding rotten eggs’ to Gods kids. These movements who have veered away from the gospel will not continue to ‘cover themselves’ [hide within their groups] because God is calling for repentance and justice. ‘They have made crooked paths, those who go in them will not have peace’ when teachers establish wrong doctrines and teachings in the church, they become ‘crooked paths’ paths that many will go down. It is very hard to undo this. Jesus actually said ‘let them go down these paths. They will all fall into a ditch’ sometimes God allows the wrong paths to exist until both the leaders and followers see the error of their way. I remember reading how Jim Bakker saw how wrong he was. He started reading the gospels while in prison and couldn’t believe that he was a money preacher who taught that Jesus was rich. After reading the gospels he saw how wrong he was. God is going to take those who have made ‘crooked paths’ and he will use them to go straight again.
NOTE: Let me interject a reminder here. All Christians, especially those who feel the Lord has called them to the prophetic ministry, are required to confront [in love] obvious abuses and error in the church. One of the most difficult things about this calling is the majority of people you are called to speak into will reject you at the start. The gift brings with it an ‘inner mechanism’ that causes the messenger to be rejected initially. Why? Be cause to confront and undo mindsets that have existed in certain areas of the people of God is ‘tumultuous’. You go thru a season where you ‘pluck up, root out, tear down’ and then you get to the place where you ‘build and strengthen’ again. I look at these contractors who buy nice homes on prime lots of real estate. They go in and begin to dismantle the house! Even though it is an ‘OK’ structure, it has provided shelter for many years. Lots of kids grew up in that house. Man, what are you doing coming against all my memories! Well the contractor realizes that it served a purpose, but the time has come to realize that the structure is insufficient for the next level of community growth. So I see the temptation for those whom the Lord has called to prophetic things, to go thru this type of rejection. And when these people go thru difficulty it is own natural to say ‘Physician, heal thyself’ those whom the message is directed will have a tendency to say ‘see, that Isaiah fellow, he thought he was such a voice for God, look at him now’ [or Jeremiah or any of the other prophets]. So as we continue thru Isaiah we will eventually get to the ‘building up process’ but first God has to make sure all the debris is truly removed before the next structure can go up. Remember what I said about the prophecy given to the Virgin Mary ‘a sword shall pierce thru your own heart also, that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed’ God allows prophetic people to be ‘pierced’ so he can see the response of those around them. Note; I have found myself at times thinking ‘If I could just overcome this obstacle, if I didn’t have to deal with these difficulties at this time, I would be so much more effective’ I have to remind myself that ‘when I am weak, then God can be glorified thru me’ natural thinking says ‘why the Cross?’ then you learn to say ‘nevertheless not my will, but yours be done’ amen!
‘Therefore we behold obscurity’ I have found one of the worst judgments in my own life is when I ‘behold obscurity’. When I am in sin in some area of my life, Gods mercy is always there, but there is a real sense of the absence of Gods presence. Jesus said ‘the pure in heart see God’ when our hearts are not pure, we ‘see obscurity’. ‘We roar like bears, and mourn like doves’ Have you ever experienced extreme highs and lows. Days where you were ‘roaring like a bear’ and the next day ‘crying like a dove’. When our hearts are not right, these ups and downs are inevitable. Sometimes we even experience this when our hearts are right, but in this context sin is the main reason for it. ‘our transgressions are with us and our iniquities, we know them’ transgressions are the actual breaking of Gods law, the ‘act of sin’ if you will. The ‘iniquity’ is that tendency in us to gravitate towards certain sins. That ‘bent’ that keeps turning us in the wrong direction. You say ‘why brother, I have no idea what you are talking about’. You’re lying! Here God says ‘we know them’. ‘Truth faileth and he that departs from error makes himself a target’ I find it interesting, when people repent from ‘wrong paths’ they then become the target of those who are still on the path! Why? Because if you can do it, make the change, go to the next level. Then there is no more excuse for those who are not changing. This is at the heart of murder and hatred. The bible says ‘for this reason Cain slew Able, because his own works were wicked and his brothers righteous’ Envy and pride are horrible things. They cause us to want the failure of others who are succeeding. We really don’t want ‘that other church to succeed’ in our hearts. If they get 6 thousand people to attend, then all my excuses of why I only have so many attend my church are no longer valid. Those who start going on the better paths than we have been on become a target! ‘And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, those that turn away from transgression in Jacob’ God will come to those who ‘turn away from sin in Jacob’ like Paul says in the New Testament, it is not natural birth that counts. To simply be ‘Jacob’ [Israel] doesn’t cut it. You need to have ‘turned away from sin’ and accepted Gods sacrifice, Jesus! To those [Jew or Gentile] that ‘turn away from transgression’ [this means the actual act of disobedience!] God will reveal himself. ‘This is my promise to you, the word that I have put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth, nor out of the mouth of your seed, nor out of the mouth of your seeds seed, from this time forth and forever more’ Yesterday we had a good home meeting in Kingsville. One of the ‘sons’ of the fathers I used to preach to years ago in jail. The son is the ‘seed’ [offspring] of the original person from this family that I preached to. His son [the grandson] lives in Corpus and also is a part of what the Lord is doing. God promises that if you speak his words, they will remain in the mouths of ‘the children’s children’ God is always thinking generationaly /dynastically. Man thinks short term.
(504) I was watching a preacher the other day teaching on end time things. He is very dogmatic in his view. The Rapture and all. I thought it funny, because as he got to the part where he was teaching on the ‘4 horseman of Revelation’ he flatly says ‘the rider on the white horse is the anti-christ’. I know this view fairly well. I was taught it as a new Christian. The last few times I have read Revelation I lean more towards this rider being Christ who is conquering against the forces of evil. Some say ‘well, we know this isn’t Christ, because after him come the other 3 horses which represent death and destruction and bad stuff’. The point I will make is in Revelation your are seeing ‘the wrath of God’ it is Gods judgment on the unbelieving world. It would seem fitting for Christ to appear at the beginning of these judgments, after all ‘all judgment has been committed to the Son’. I really have no idea why I am even getting into this, I haven’t read Revelation in a while. I just thought it funny, how someone can be so sure of his end time scenario, where he might actually be calling a reference to Christ ‘the anti-christ’.[a bit prophetic, don’t you think? Revelation is about the story of the Son of God triumphing over the forces of evil, but those who hold to the strong antichrist view, it just seems fitting for them to mistake ‘Christ’ for ‘antichrist’, if this is all you see when you read the book, then that’s what you will SEE!] NOTE; Let me overview a little bit more. The above interpretation of the rider on the white horse being ‘antichrist’ grows out of an entire ‘scheme’ of end time events that was developed in the 19th and 20th centuries. These were good men [John Nelson Darby] who came to embrace certain views of end time things [Rapture]. To these brothers they see the Church [believers] ‘taken away’ in the first few chapters of Revelation. They say ‘Jesus is speaking to the churches by his Spirit, then you have no more ‘churches’ being spoken to’. God tells John to ‘come up here’ [heaven] and they see this as the ‘secret Rapture’ where the church is taken away. The reason they see it like this is in Revelation you see Gods wrath on those that ‘dwell on the earth’ and therefore believers can’t be here! Even though you will find actual references of the Devil fighting the Saints. Making war against those who ‘keep the Word of God’ and all sorts of references of the enemy fighting believers thru out the book. The ‘Rapture’ brothers will say ‘these groups are those who got saved after the church left’ well, if they are saved, they are ‘in the church’ technically speaking. So it is possible [very likely too me!] that ‘Christians’ are on the planet when these hard times take place. They also will say ‘these references to those who keep the Word of God’ are to certain Jews who are converted [again all new testament language to ‘the Israel of God’ and things like this are speaking of those who have come to know God by faith, even Jews] so the fact that thru out the rest of the book you find language like this, tells me the ‘church’ didn’t get secretly taken away. And then most importantly, you find CLEAR verses actually speaking of Jesus coming, in PLAIN LANGUAGE, and these verses are looked at as ‘the final stage of the second coming’ or other verses referencing Christ [like the rider on the white horse] being called ‘anit christ’. To me all these brothers ‘suffer from’ a mistake that they warn others about making. That is ‘interpret the plain meaning of scripture first, before going to lengths to develop doctrines from that which isn’t plainly in the text’. If God has ANY PEOPLE ON THE EARTH WHO ARE CALLED ‘SAINTS’ THOSE WHO KEEP THE WORD OF GOD and any other references like this, then plainly these references show that Christians are on the planet during this time. The Rapture guys will so much as accept this, but then they come up with all sorts of different categories for these ‘converts’ who are ‘saved’ during the tribulation. My argument would simply be ‘so if you admit there are actual converts in this tribulation time, then it very much is possible, even thru your own interpretation, to have believers on the earth during this time’. So how then does God ‘spare them from his wrath’ while they are going thru all these difficulties? He does it by divine power. You see the believers thru out history going thru many times of ‘great tribulation’. You also see the lost world going thru many periods of ‘Gods wrath’. To the casual observer, these might look like the same thing. But to those going thru it, they know the difference. The simple fact that God has the ability to ‘keep those’ in Christ from his wrath is the answer. You don’t have to come up with all types of belief systems that say ‘Jesus secretly appeared between chapters 3 and 4 and the reason we know this is ….’ Why do stuff like this? There are very real and plain references to Jesus coming again in the book of Revelation. Don’t go and find some doctrine that comes from ‘silence’. That is ‘since the Spirit is no longer speaking directly to the churches after chapter 3, therefore Jesus came and took them all away’. Jesus is no longer speaking ‘to the churches’ because the main issue after chapter 3 is the outpoured wrath of God on an unbelieving world. We know he didn’t come and take all the believers away, because there are many verses dealing with his people being here, as well as very plain and open verses that say when he comes. So lets stick with the plain meaning first, and then you can try and ‘figure out who the 144,000 are’. Another note; I am really ‘delving’ into it for those who were taught his. At the end of the book of Revelation you do see ‘Jesus coming back with his saints’ and in the book of Thessalonians it says ‘don’t worry about those who have died, when Christ comes back, he will bring them also’. There was a very real 1st century fear that the loved ones who have died were gone. Paul deals with this in Thessalonians as well as Corinthians chapter 15. I know to us it seems silly for believers to have held to this fear, but the fact is it was something the Apostle Paul dealt with. So you see the New Testament speaking of ‘Christ coming back with the Saints’ as a hope of the resurrection. That is Jesus brings back [at the 2nd coming] the ‘spirits’ if you will, of all who have been with him for thousands of years. These will ‘reunite’ with their bodies at the Resurrection. Those who are living at this point will be instantly glorified [1st Thessalonians 4] so to read a verse that says ‘Jesus comes back with his saints’ shouldn’t cause you to think ‘well, how did all the saints get there? He must have secretly come back and taken them, there you have it’ well they got there BY DIEING! Jesus brings them back with him as was taught thru out the whole New Testament. Don’t go and develop some doctrine that believers didn’t ‘know about’ for 1800 years to explain this stuff. It’s simple if you just read and believe scripture as it is written. Also there is a real event at the second coming that ‘raptures’ believers into the air to meet with Christ. This event does happen. It happens at the second coming. So we too who are alive will be ‘caught up together with the Lord’. The return of Jesus back to earth takes place with all of the saints at the ‘touch down’ of Jesus feet on the planet. Truly he ‘comes back with all his saints’. Don’t go and develop a secret ‘second coming’ [rapture] that took every one away at another time. The ‘rapture’ takes place at the ‘second coming’ it is the event of us going up to meet him in the air at the moment of resurrection! NOTE; this also brings us back to the verses in Isaiah ‘not speaking your own words’. Many of the brothers who teach these things are well meaning gospel preachers. Good churches who lead people to Christ. Most of them are taught this stuff at bible school, or from well meaning ‘fathers of the faith’ that they looked up to. During these formative years they are told ‘this is what the Rapture is’ along with all sorts of other learning. They don’t have time to spend years ‘un learning’ this stuff. They mean well. Often times they only question it as they leave the learning environment of college and become long term students of the bible and history. A lot of times when we put ‘preachers out into the work’ they come with these pre conceived ideas that they learned along the way. The problem is if people are teaching things that ‘are the words of men’ [to put it nicely!] then they are ‘speaking their own words’. While every teacher is susceptible to this, we do it at an alarming rate in today’s media world. It’s so easy to catch a preacher teaching this on TV, or to read a Tim Lahaye book on the end times. I see some of this as a result of the Protestant churches ‘coming out from all historical truth, the fathers of the ancient church’ and going with the ‘bible only’. Now going with the ‘bible only’ is a good thing. I have used the bible to show you in this whole entry why the Rapture as taught today holds no ground. But the strong independent protestants truncate themselves from the heritage of all the saints [All the great church fathers, down thru the present time] and leave themselves open to having too much influence from a small part of the Christian church. In my experience I found it ‘amusing’ how the Fundamental Baptists were so much like the Assembly of God in all of these doctrines, and yet the fundamental Baptists viewed them as heretics over the gift of tongues. They couldn’t see that they had so much in common, even the wrong stuff on the Rapture! So it would do us all good to sit back, read the writings of church history, study the bible, pray, DO EVANGELISM [the great commission was to go and make disciples, not even get into all this stuff!] and over time allow the Spirit of God to lead you. You will find that you as a believer can disagree on these end time issues and still work together for the cause Of Christ in your community.
(505) The other day when I took one of my homeless buddies for a ride to see some of the new development around town, we stopped by the new baseball field and being we were right there I took for the first time some real good pictures of the Harbor Bridge. I have taken lots of pictures these last few years with my cell phone, sometimes the pictures are prophetic. Once I took some pictures of a train, the same day I read some real significant prophecies on trains. So for around a week I have had this cool looking picture of a bridge on the phone. Just 3 days ago the worst bridge collapse in years [possibly ever] happened in the U.S. It was the I 35 bridge in Minnesota. All you can see on the news for the last few days is the bridge collapse. NOTE; I don’t want to make light of this incident, people died. But I do want to say, people might think ‘hey, go take a picture of a bank, you might get some money!’ It doesn’t work that way. I remember one time at the Fire House I was watching them say the lotto numbers on the news with a friend. I guessed like 3 or 4 of the numbers. My friend, who played ‘religiously’ was a little surprised. So he says ‘how did you do that’ I told him ‘usually the Lord gives me all the numbers, but I don’t think he would want me to use it for this’ he seriously tells me ‘I don’t think the Lord would mind if you gave them to me’!
(506) Today’s 8-3-07, I have been looking forward to this week. I basically have been ‘lying low’ for the summer, and really needed to get out and see our guys. Today I will be ‘driving the perimeter’ of a bunch of cities that I used to drive while going to work. I am still on workman’s comp but plan on putting in for retirement soon. So as I have been looking forward to re connecting with a few brothers, and launching some regional home groups, yesterday I do a little yard work and move some bricks and stuff. Sure enough my back hurt so bad I could barely walk. Besides the fact that I still am having some residual effects of ‘disorientation’ from this viral infection of the inner ear. Its like I can’t walk anyway, plus I can’t see straight! ‘Screw it’ [sorry] but I have too much to do than to sit around and whine about it. I am looking forward to this day, I believe I am going to see some good fruit. ‘Get out of the City and dwell in the fields, even in Babylon. There I will be with you and there I will deliver you from the hand of the enemy’ [bible]. You will never get better if you don’t ‘GO’.
(507) Woke up this morning after a very difficult day, I knew it was going to be hard to pray. I then sat down and wrote for around 2 hours straight! I went back to some older entries and added a bunch of stuff. Was my day hard because of not being able to walk well, or feeling ‘stoned’ 24/7? No, not really. If that’s all I had to deal with, I would have been happy. Why am I sharing this? Because as I sat down to write I covered things that I had no idea I was going to write about, to be honest it feels like a prophetic function. Many times as I made radio messages, I had no idea I was going to say the stuff I said. I will later review the tapes and see things that I didn’t even know I knew! So Paul tells Timothy ‘Preach the word, be instant in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke and exhort with all longsuffering [ouch- maybe in the Greek it really means ‘short suffering’?] and doctrine. For in doing this YOU WILL SAVE YOURSELF, AND THOSE WHO HEAR YOU’. There is a prophetic function that causes both the hearers and the speakers to ‘receive salvation’ as a result. Paul said ‘woe is me if I preach not the gospel’ Paul knew that he would actually be ‘cursing himself’ if he didn’t preach, or communicate the Word of the Lord. Jeremiah said ‘I determined not to speak anymore in the name of the Lord’ but then there was this ‘fire in his bones’. God said ‘I put this thing in you, if you don’t let this fire out, it will consume you’. It says in Revelation ‘fire proceeds out of their mouths and consumes their adversaries’ ‘we overcame him [enemy] by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony’. God makes deposits into prophetic people [all of us are prophetic!] these deposits are like ‘fire inside you’ it is meant to ‘devour the enemy’. If you don’t let it out it can ‘burn you from the inside out!’
(508) I kid my daughter’s friends and stuff. They will do something silly, and I say ‘I am going to put that on the blog’ or ‘I told that story on the radio’ they know I am kidding, they will say ‘you better not!’ These are all 13-15 year olds. I am finally going to tell one. One of the girls is a real nice kid. She is a Christian and her family goes to church and all. She has a stepfather and a bunch of brothers and sisters. She is Hispanic [I say this for a reason] [actually I was just going to kid and say the reason is ‘I don’t like Hispanics’- but I think that would have been going overboard. Many of my best buddies are Hispanic!] A couple of years ago this girl got on the school bus with a pocket knife. And basically the no tolerance policy had her kicked out of school, and my daughter got put in a disciplinary area of our schools for a few months. It was a mess. Right after it happened I of course forgave the little girl, and I dealt with the whole problem of my daughter getting involved. It was so easy for this nice ‘Hispanic’ family to want to retreat and hide and maybe even move from the block. After all, it was ‘living up’ to all the stereo types that exist. I actually right away waved to the family when I saw them. After the initial punishments that the kids went thru, I let my kids be friends and all. I could tell that at first the family was real worried about living with this ‘mark’ or stereotype. I even would wind up kidding the girl when she would come over. I would say ‘let’s put up all the knives’ and stuff like that. Not to take it too lightly, but to be real. I have been much worse than this in my life. I shared with her a few weeks ago about how I was dreaming of the floods coming, and then a few weeks later Texas got the worst floods on record [apart from a hurricane]. She was shocked, as I was telling her the dream; she said ‘I too just had those dreams’. I shared how the bible says ‘God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh and your sons and DAUGHTERS will prophesy, and dream dreams’. She is a cute kid. I will have to tell her name now, for the rest of the story. Her name is ‘Hannah’ the reason I had to share it is because one time one of the girls asked what a certain name meant [?] and I shared the spiritual meaning behind it. This kid asks ‘what’s my name mean John’ [I know I shouldn’t have] but I said something like ‘the devils child’. Now right away they knew I was kidding ‘like, shut up’ and then I told her the story of Hannah in scripture. But the whole point is it would have been so easy to stereotype this family. This little girl has a calling, like all kids, we obviously don’t want our kids hanging out with kids who get in trouble, but be sensitive to the Spirits leading. These kids remember the stories you tell them about God. It stays with them!
(509) Let me make a distinction here between ‘professional clergy/salary’ and New Testament giving. Jesus had a treasury [a collection of money/material goods to meet his needs and the disciples during the 3 year ministry of Christ]. During this time THEY WERE THE ONLY ‘STOREHOUSE’ OF GOD ON THE EARTH. [Apart from the actual one at the Temple, this is a transition stage if you will] They were the fledgling movement of Jesus in the beginning stage. Theologians usually point to Pentecost [Acts 2] as the birthing of the church; I have no real problem with that. Jesus said if you have a disagreement take it to the church [what church? He said this before Acts 2. And scripture speaks of ‘the church in the wilderness with Moses’ the point is you had groups of people following hard after God!] During the time of Christ’s earthly ministry people did voluntarily give of material goods to Jesus and the disciples, this is acceptable in Christian circles. You also had the Pharisees [hired clergy!] operating along a legalistic system of giving that came along with their religion [The Tithe!] so right from the start you are seeing a major difference in the way the New Testament church would function, as opposed to the religious law. During this time of giving to Jesus they simply received whatever was freely given. Sort of like the ‘freewill offerings’ taught in the Old Testament. You find Judas getting upset because the woman poured the expensive perfume on Jesus. Judas wanted to sell it because he was stealing from ‘the bag’ [of cash]. So during Jesus ministry we find a great example of how giving and receiving would be carried out in the church. Pretty simple. This style was keeping true to the actual teachings Jesus taught ‘give freely, freely you have received, freely give’ and all the other things Jesus taught. Later on in the Epistles and the book of Acts you see real examples of this being carried out. The only ‘tithers’ were the Jerusalem church. I have explained this before. Not real hard to see! But if you never ‘saw’ this before now, then it is hard. After God shows it to you, you begin to see it all thru out scripture. This leaves us today with the free grace and duty to give to those in need, which can include ‘laboring elders/pastors’ a major difference between ‘hired clergy’ or ‘using your gift to make money’. Jesus and the disciples used their gifts many times with out taking offerings. They did not see this as wrong. You often hear in today’s world ‘I am only asking you to give to me for your benefit’ now Paul does say this at times, the point is you have the average believer hearing this thru TV, when he ‘goes to church’ and the appeal is endless. There are many times where ministry was carried out with no appeals for an offering. Let’s be attentive to what God is saying. Paul did like me, he basically said to the Corinthians ‘I have not charged you for the gospel’ he also said ‘I had a right to receive support, but I chose to lay this right down’ it seems quite plain to me that it is very scriptural for lots of ‘ministers’ to decide to take this route. Some do [not just me] but we often don’t leave this option on the table when training young men to be Pastors. We teach a form of giving that simply looks at the basic need for upkeep of the building, paying salary and stuff like this. In this environment you can’t really teach it the way I just did. But then you have the rise of ‘home/cell’ churches. The ‘emerging churches’ and all types of free flowing styles of Christians getting together and sharing their faith. Many of these movements do not take money at all, except maybe for the meeting of the real needs of people around them. As you can imagine this can cause a type of insecurity to rise up in the hired clergy. The Pharisees said ‘If Jesus keeps doing his stuff, we will lose our position and place in society’. There is a real fear when someone sees the possibility of ‘loosing his job’. So the old time clergy will fight against this more legitimate expression of ‘church’ by saying ‘they are not a church’. And then you have all the problems you have seen me write about up until now! So in grace give to support the work of God, there definitely are good ‘churches’ and Pastors doing good works. Use discernment, go with Gods leading. Give freely. Pastors, some of you can take Paul’s example and ‘do it for free’. Some already do! NOTE; I have heard it taught like this ‘well, if people get offended and think churches/ministries are asking for too much money, then let them get offended. I am doing it for their own good’. Paul actually said one of the reasons why he didn’t take money from the Corinthians was so people couldn’t use the ‘money excuse’ against him. Paul’s attitude wasn’t ‘well, if they get offended, let them’ Paul said ‘I will go out of my way to not offend people, or give them excuses to speak against the gospel’ so much of today’s ‘offense’ that is given because of the churches money focus is a bad thing. Christians are responsible to remove any barriers that the world has. Even if we have a ‘right’ to the offering, sometimes you lay that ‘right’ down for the sake of the gospel.
(510) I read a book years ago on ‘church planting’. It was a good book. I remember one of the stories how a brother came to preach a series of meetings in some church. During the week of meetings they collected thousands of dollars. The type of teaching focused on all the scriptures on ‘giving to get’. After the week was over the ‘evangelist’ took the Pastor and their wives to a jewelry store. The Evangelist bought his wife a diamond [or some other jewelry?] and spent all the money on it. He sincerely told the Pastor ‘this is the reward for my service to God’. Because of the tremendous lack of balance in today’s church, stuff like this happens. I do not see this above brother as a ‘fake’ or false prophet [you might!] I see him as a victim [willingly] of the wrong focus and understanding of all we have taught these past few years. I do wonder what they think when they read 1st Timothy 6, or the verses on ‘watch out for the love of money’ or Peters words on ‘elders, take oversight of Gods flock, not for the sake of filthy money, but out of a pure heart’. They seem to think the other verses on Gods provisions trump these verses. It just isn’t so. We do have a long way to go.
(511) I don’t know how many of you old Jersey friends are reading this blog. I know there are a few. To my old friend John Lattarulo, I am looking at some old pictures that I have when we were kids. It’s got one of me and you flying a kite in Hudson County Park. My old friend Mark Lillis is holding the kite. I am holding the string and you are holding the spool of string. The reason I had to laugh is the ‘spool’ of string must have a few 100 thousand yards of string on it. It looks like a full roll of paper towels or something. I said to myself ‘gee, you think we had enough string?’ Thought it was funny.
(512) 500 years ago the bible was written in Latin. A man named William Tyndale secretly published thousands of New Testaments in English. The ‘church’ saw this as absolute rebellion. It wasn’t just the ‘wicked Catholics’ it was a mindset that began to see as ‘sacred’ something that was once truly used of God. But the church couldn’t distinguish between that which they saw as ‘untouchable’ and the true intent of God. I see the same thing among Protestants today. Many of them see it sacrilegious to challenge the whole idea of ‘Sunday Church’. They see this structure that worked well for hundreds of years, and they cant see that God can operate ‘outside’ of this limited perspective. Many believers were killed if they were found with Tyndales bibles. The ‘institutional church’ came against the organic one in a big way. Today we see our mistakes, and we understand that God is merciful. Those who are fighting against the purpose of God for his Ecclesia really think they are ‘doing God service’. In a few centuries we will see different. NOTE; why do I harp on this issue so much? Some theologians actually understand all the things I have written on the ‘Local Church’ and agree that she was a ‘community of people’ as opposed to what we think today. They believe that maybe it was Gods plan for the church to ‘grow into’ a hierarchal institution as seen in the Catholic/Orthodox church. Some think ‘what the church has become is what God wanted, even though it is not what she was like in the first century’. The reason this is bad/wrong is because one of the most basic truths of Christianity is the believers ‘full access and acceptance with God by faith’ Luther’s doctrine of ‘the Priesthood of all believers’. To then develop an idea about ‘church’ that seems to say to believers ‘you are not legitimate unless you do such and such’ this takes away the heart of the believers right to function and spread the Kingdom by virtue of the fact that ‘they believe’. God chose ‘justification by faith’ I know we usually see ‘justification’ in terms of ‘being saved’ but it carries with it someone who at one time was ‘illegitimate’ and has now become ‘legitimate’. So any so called ‘development’ of an institutional church, that lends itself to the de legitimizing of the average believer, in my view is not what God intended. In essence these ‘structures’ can be a real hindrance to the freedom of all believers, if we use them to declare to Christians ‘you are not under the authority of a local church’.
(513) A few months ago, before I got sick or had any physical problems, I wrote a dream on this blog. I forget where it is, but it is on the blog. It said ‘I was in a shop area; I was going to different stands. I stopped at one that was a ‘physician’s stand’ I purchased a trumpet and walked away with a limp’. Now I know I gave the best interpretation that I thought at the time. It just recently dawned on me that I have spent the summer going to ‘physician’s offices’ and I have been walking away from them with this real limp. Sometimes we have a tendency to ‘spiritualize’ prophetic things. Some times they turn out to be more real than you could have imagined!
(514) I am praying one of my ‘intercessory’ prayers where I go thru a long list of things that I feel are important. I just prayed for the church worldwide, the Korean hostages in Afghanistan and a bunch of other stuff. Even by name for the people who have emailed me and asked for prayer! I told them I would regularly pray for them by name! The reason I stopped is not to ‘brag about my praying’ but I just prayed for all the unbelievers in the world. I don’t generalize it too much; I try to pray for specific people groups. I say ‘Father, I pray for every group outside of the Covenant of your Son. For all Muslims, for all Israel and for every one else outside of Christ. Father reveal your Son to them. Send laborers into the harvest’ When scripture says ‘pray for the peace of Jerusalem’ it doesn’t mean for her military success. It doesn’t mean for her ‘standing’ in the geopolitical world ‘more money for defense’. When you ‘pray for the peace of Jerusalem’ or any other people group, you pray that God would open their eyes to the Prince of Peace!
(515) I want to talk a little on politics. I am not a Republican or a Democrat. This week the House of Representatives took a vote on certain pending legislation that would have given illegal aliens Social Security, it was added to a bill as one of the ‘add ons’ that politicians do to ‘slip’ things thru. Both sides play this game. Now during the floor vote the little machine that actually tallies the vote said ‘215-213’ in favor of the minority party [Republicans]. But being the Majority party is Democrat, they actually have the right to ‘say’ what the vote is. So they simply announced ‘the vote is 214 to 214’ and the tie always goes to the majority party. I am sure they figured ahead of time ‘this is what we are going to do, we believe that we are helping people, so what if we do this ‘little lie’. I admit it is no real big thing in the scheme of things, I do find it funny that this same group will state that one of its greatest achievements in this congressional year is ‘ethics reform’. I guess it means the ethics of the opposing side? The whole point is our country is really in serious trouble. This type of major childish division fuels our political parties. It goes on endlessly. I will try and explain the ‘Valerie Plame’ outing. Before we invaded Iraq [which I personally was against from the get go!] you had political people that were for it and against it. A book was just written that shows how the C.I.A. has been in open opposition to the Bush administration from day one. It goes into detail how for various reasons the C.I.A. had things against Bush. So before we invaded Iraq, you had a few people [in the CIA] that were actively trying to come up with evidence of why we shouldn’t invade. During this time a person named Joe Wilson went overseas to see if he could find proof that Iraq wasn’t trying to buy ‘yellow cake’ from the country of Niger. If he could show that there was no evidence, then this would undermine one of the reasons for invasion. He comes back after his trip and writes an open article in the New York Times that says ‘The Bush administration sent me to see if there was evidence, I went and came back and told them there was none. They obviously are ignoring their own people that they sent’. Now when the Bush administration read this, they went ‘huh’ [or some other cuss word]. In essence they had no idea who this guy was, and who sent him. Joe Wilson claimed that the Vice President sent him. Cheney calls the C.I.A. [the group that is overjoyed about this by the way] and finds out after digging into it that some lady named Valerie Plame sent him. She suggested he go, because he speaks French and would be able to handle the people better [I think it was French?] O, I left out one little detail. Valerie Plame is the wife of Joe Wilson. So after a few weeks of the press saying ‘look, Bush ignored his own guy who brought back evidence’ Cheney does something that is natural. It is a real part of politics. He tells his staff [Lewis Libby] get the word out that we didn’t send this guy, his wife did. Why would you do this? So people wouldn’t think that Cheney’s office sent him, like he was saying. During all of this, there was a little ‘oversight’ that nobody took into account. Valerie Wilson had what was called ‘undercover status’ she had previously done some undercover work for the C.I.A. and held this status. This made it illegal to ‘out her name’ in public. Now most reporters in town knew who she was. She had even appeared on the cover of a magazine, using her name! If you are really undercover you don’t do this. Even Andrea Mitchell [a well respected reporter] said ‘everyone knew she worked for the C.I.A.’ Now, of course the other side [Democrats] demanded ‘who outed her on purpose’ they do a special investigation and find out it was Dick Armitage [someone who the Democrats like!] who inadvertently told her name to Robert Novak [who at the time worked for C.N.N.] So what was really a story about ‘get the truth out, we didn’t send Joe Wilson, his wife did’ became a national joke. A huge game of ‘I got you now’ played out on a national scale by politicians who are acting like children while the world is facing real problems. This is why the Democrats will say one of their greatest achievements this year is ‘ethics reform’ they see ‘getting the other side’ as achievement. Today I don’t defend either side. The fact is if these childish games are played on such a large scale. The public thinking ‘wow, Scooter Libby got off Scott free’ for a horrible crime [he did lie during the investigation, and they got him on perjury- Bush commuted his sentence]. While the politicians are playing a game of ‘gottcha’ it is hurting this country. Most of you didn’t even realize all the stuff I just showed you in context, because we are victims of the news medias ‘sound bites’. Pray for our country. No side [Republican/Democrat] are perfect. Scripture says a house divided against itself can not stand. Sad to say, we are looking like that house more and more as the years go by. NOTE; Joe Wilson sued the White House saying they purposely caused harm to him and his family by outing his wife. A Federal judge just recently ruled on their case. The judge said ‘when you plunge yourself into the fray of political action to the degree that you say openly ‘Cheney sent me’. That in this environment it is perfectly acceptable for the other side to ‘get the facts out’. The judge saw it the way I just explained it to you. Also during this whole time, congress did a special investigation concerning Joe Wilson’s open claims that ‘Cheney sent me’ they found him to have been lying. Another interesting thing, the book that just came out exposing the tremendous political rift between the C.I.A. and the Bush administration, shows that there were a few people in the C.I.A. that actually held to the conspiracy theory that the Bush administration knew the planes were heading towards the towers, and let them hit so we would have an excuse to invade Iraq. Sort of like the ‘Gulf of Tonkin’ or how some believe that F.D.R. knew of the Pearl Harbor attack, but let it happen anyway. You will find these ideas on the internet from all types of people. It is alarming to think that people in the C.I.A. actually held to this. I believe Joe Wilson is a good man at heart, his wife also. He sincerely believes that there was more to the ‘outing of his wife’. He felt like Karl Rove was secretly behind it to get him. While there is no doubt that the White House ‘pushed back’ against him and his wife, the evidence seems to show that it was for the purpose that I revealed above. During this time many Democrats knew this to be true, they just played the man to their advantage. It’s like going along with someone’s miss conceptions, because after all ‘he might just take down this President, or at Least Cheney’. So people become tools in the hands of the parties to get what they want. The fact is poor Wilson really had this conspiracy thing going ‘they got my wife’. The judge ruled ‘yes they got her, but it was to show that your story wasn’t true’. It’s like lying on the vote ‘215-213’ into ‘214-214’ you sincerely believe what you are doing is right for the country, so if it means you have to lie to achieve it, you do. Despite the fact that you just passed ‘ethics reform’. All people have ways to justify their own sin, while finding the other sides to be deplorable. NOTE; Let me give you a few known facts in this case. Before the war, Colin Powel gave a speech at the U.N. that included a reference to Iraq trying to purchase ‘yellow cake’ [an ingredient needed to build a Nuclear bomb] from Niger. The C.I.A. had said ‘we are not sure about this piece of intelligence, it is possible to be not true’. The fact that Powel used it is seen to be the Bush administrations ‘selective use’ of intelligence for their own purpose. There was a lot of ‘fabricated’ intelligence that the opposing side in Iraq actually made up so the U.S. would invade. Saddam's enemies weren’t idiots! Now after all was said and done in this affair, some today still believe that Iraq really was trying to obtain this stuff from Niger, others don’t. Great Britain has stated they believe other intelligence to be true, despite the possibility that some was made up. They insist that they have other reasons to believe it. So the Joe Wilson premise, that Iraq wasn’t proved to be trying to get this stuff has some truth to it. After Powell left the administration he also felt like the Bush administration might have taken advantage of his standing by allowing this in the speech. What was also true is the open fact, that many countries intelligence agencies all pointed to the fact that Iraq was wanting a Nuclear Weapon. So to many people this point is moot. My point is both sides play into the game of ‘gotcha on this one’. Most politicians who were fueling the ‘go get em Wilson’ had to have known the basic premise of all I just showed you in this entry. They will ‘blow it out of proportion’ on purpose. After all the Republicans did it to Clinton! [they did!] So the game is non stop. Joe Wilson lied, an investigation showed this. Not about the major stuff, but about the fact that Bush didn’t send him. Clinton lied, not about ‘major stuff’ but about, well you know! Libby lied, not about outing Wilson’s wife, but about who first told him Wilson’s wife was Valerie Plame. He did lie about this, even though he wasn’t the main ‘leaker’. They caught him in a lie. The Judge gave him over 2 years in prison and a huge financial fine. Bush commuted the prison term. Of course the Democrats were outraged. The game never stops! NOTE; Jesus said a strange thing in the gospel. He said ‘if these injustices can happen when the tree is green, what will happen when anarchy is here’ [my paraphrase]. Scripture says ‘where envying and strife are, this is confusion and EVERY EVIL WORK’ The strategy of the enemy is to cause there to be this type of environment. The crucifixion of Jesus took place in the heated political posturing of the day. The Jews saying ‘he claims to be our king, we have no king but Caesar’ [even though they despised Caesar!] the inference was ‘Pilate, if you don’t kill this guy, well you must not think too highly of Caesar’. Pilate writes ‘the King of the Jews’ over the Cross. The Jews say ‘don’t put that! Put ‘he said I was the king of The Jews’ [because this would make it look like the Jews had him killed because of their so called ‘love for Caesar’] Pilate says ‘I have written it and it will stay’. All this happened according to Jesus ‘in a green tree’ which meant during a time of true govt. and law existing. Though Rome was not Christian, they actually had a system of courts and justice that allowed appeals to me made and all. Jesus is saying ‘if they can do this type of injustice during true govt. just wait till anarchy gets here’. When you have this type of political posturing take place, the enemy can ‘slip in’ abortion and all types of stuff. The actual fact that there are occasions in this country where babies ‘slipped out’ during an abortion and made it. And the Doctors cant ‘kill it’ because it’s too late [these things have happened] makes you think ‘what in the world are we doing’ but in the midst of all this strife, there is confusion and ‘every evil work’. The answer is not to be found in politics. Its found in ‘if my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves, and pray and turn from their sins. Then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land’. Our land desperately needs to be healed! NOTE; I do find it ironic that politicians try to pass ‘ethics reform’ while at the same time openly say ‘it is not a politicians job to legislate morality’ ethics [moral standards] reform [repentance] is ‘imposing morality’ by definition! Yet if you were to ask them ‘why do you support the murder of babies in the womb’ they will say ‘I am personally against it, but it is not my job to impose morality’ this my friends is hypocrisy in it’s highest form. NOTE; Jesus one time told the Jews ‘I come to you in truth, I come in the name of my Father. I present myself to you in truth as his Son. I have told you truth. Yet you will not believe me. Yet when another comes to you in his name, you believe him’ Scholars have related this to the anti Christ. It’s possible. But if you put this in context of all I just showed you, it’s also possible that Jesus is foreseeing their future accusation against him by their so called allegiance to Caesar. In essence he might be saying ‘not too long from now you guys will be appealing to Caesar as your king, though you will be doing it at the rejection of your true king’. They were more than willing to acknowledge Rome’s authority over them when it seemed convenient to their cause. Yet the King they have been waiting for, for thousands of years shows up and they wont take his word for it!
(515) I want to challenge you guys. I have spoken a lot on this blog on your responsibility to ‘bring the Kingdom’ wherever you go. Remember, because we have access to God [Jacobs ladder/the Cross] wherever we go we are ‘setting up that ladder’ [bringing an atmosphere where God and man meet]. I have also shown you how God commands us all to go into the world and preach the gospel. Many times we spend way too much time trying to figure out ‘how will I fund it, where will the money come from’ well I hate to say this, but it comes from YOU! What! Show me scripture! Well just a reminder ‘he that is not working, let him get a job so HE CAN HAVE TO GIVE TO THOSE IN NEED’ ‘See a brother in need. Feed him’ ‘give to him that asketh of thee’ ‘how can you say you love God, who you don’t see. When you don’t meet the real needs of your brothers, who you do see’. Now, for sure there are verses where Paul asks for others to give financially into the work. I am not saying there is no biblical authority for doing this. I am saying God does expect all believers to share of their own time and resources to spread the Kingdom. You don’t get off the hook just because you gave into the church offering basket! I want to exhort you today to give yourself away somehow for the kingdom. If all you do is sit around and listen to talk radio, or read the papers and are inundated with how the poor and hurting are such a drain on society, you will get a critical spirit. If you begin touching the lost you will see them as real friends and people. Don’t try and figure out how you will fund your ministry, give yourself away instead!
(516) One of my buddies at the firehouse is a Christian. He sees the ministry stuff I do and all. So one time he makes an honest effort to do something out of charity. He tells me how this lady called the firehouse and asked if any guys wanted some fire wood, all they had to do is come and trim all her trees. To be honest, the cost of trimming these Mesquites would have been more than the value of the wood, but my buddy wanted to do a good deed. He goes over and trims a bunch of trees, he uses his chain saw. As he goes to get more limbs and stuff to bring them back to the truck, he sees his chainsaw is gone! Sure enough someone stole it. He says ‘see, John. I am trying to help the Lord out and the Devil goes and steals my chainsaw’. I told him ‘the way the enemy works, I am surprised when you went back to get the limbs, the lady didn’t say ‘sonny, I hope you don’t think you’re getting that wood for free!’
(517) A few weeks ago I dropped off the tapes for my radio program. The station is right across the street from our mental health clinic. A lot of ‘homeless/mentally challenged’ people always walking around. The secretary from the radio station has told me they lock the doors because they are always getting these guys walking in and stuff. They basically are ‘hiding out’ in their building. So being I think I am the only ‘preacher’ who actually hand delivers the tapes, there is no mail box or anything to put them in. So I have found myself knocking at the door, sometimes for around 10 minutes or so before anyone opens the door. I have told you guys I kinda have long hair, look at little ‘rough’ myself, definitely not what you would think a ‘preacher’ would look like. So the last time I waited for the secretary to get the door, she always looks a little apologetic when they let me in after standing their a few minutes. I finally realized that they must see me thru the tinted glass doors and think I am one of the ‘mentally challenged’ people always walking around. So as I ‘prophetically saw this’ [kidding] I told her as she opened the door ‘Now I realize why you make me wait, you guys think I am one of the ‘strays’, to be honest her face turned a little red. I said ‘I am going to put this on my blog’ she said ‘I never admitted to this!’ I know she didn’t, but to be faithful I thought I would put this entry in like I said. NOTE: If she ever reads this I know she will say ‘I can’t believe he really put this on the blog!’
(518) Yesterday we had a real good outreach day in Bishop. The Lord allowed for a lot of my homeless friends to meet a lot of the original group of guys. Today we plan on going back to Kingsville and just doing an outreach at one of the parks. I feel the Lord wants people to simply ‘act’. Not be a ‘faker’ but an initiator! Get out of the city and dwell in the fields! Sometimes it is the simple act of motion that starts the ball rolling. One of the guys asked me about the vision in Ezekiel ‘a wheel within a wheel’ is it U.F.O.s? I told him I doubt it, but one of the meanings of the vision is God is ‘continually in motion’ as Saint Thomas Aquinas taught, God is the ‘prime mover’. He got the ball rolling! As Gods kids he has given us the inherent ability to ‘get the ball rolling’. Why do we hesitate to act? Out of fear, greed, I want my own thing. All sorts of base lusts and sins keep us from moving. Sometimes we are waiting for the specific exact thing to do, and God says ‘I will give you all the details son, but I can’t give them to you unless your start rolling’! I found it interesting that I hooked up with one of the original families in Bishop. The brother and nephew of real good friends. They have all been to our church in the early days. The brother accepted the Lord thru our ministry [I think the nephew too; I will be baptizing him soon. I know he is a believer for sure, I just didn’t bother to ask if he got saved during those early days] I thought it interesting because the brother [the kid’s uncle] had another brother who was one of our original guys, who died years ago from bad stuff. The brother mentions how I used to know ‘BeBe’ and the nephew says ‘you knew my other uncle brother John’. I didn’t realize he never knew him. There are so many related friends and all thru these families it never dawned on me that this kid was too little to remember the uncle who died years earlier. As we were talking I then re tell some old stories [good ones!] and I trace the original family member, who is this kids Grandfather, who by the way is also dead [many years of drugs] and how the granddad and uncle were some of the original friends of mine. This nephew, who really sees me as his original ‘Pastor’ learned a lot of his family tree from this time. I finally gave him the card to this blog site and he was going to go home and get with another friend [the son of one of our main guys, also related to this family thru the marriage of the mom to the father. It’s a long story!] But these 2 younger kids [now in their early 20’s] were going to get online and read the whole story of the ministry that they never knew before. I just wanted to update you guys today. I didn’t want you to think all I am going thru is struggles. The Lord has really opened some regional doors for us this past week, so keep doing what God is telling you to do, and don’t forget to ‘get moving!’ NOTE; it was weird, as the nephew was asking me if I knew his other uncle who he never saw, but heard stories how he was crazy [shooting cops!] I remembered how 25 years earlier I was visiting his uncle in this exact same ranch property that this family owned. It was another old house that is now gone, but it just happened to have been this exact location of ranch, 25 years earlier! [It’s on the outskirts of Bishop, by Kingsville]. Also I spoke at this uncles funeral years ago, he is buried around 20 yards away from where we were having this discussion, in a little cemetery right next to the house. Also as I was dropping the nephew off in Corpus, he told me ‘brother John, we have your name hanging up in our house’ he told me that his mom has a baby picture of him, I guess when he was born, and it has me signing it ‘brother John’ along with other family members. I surely don’t remember, but it was special for him to have seen this picture for all these years. He must think ‘how in the ‘hell’ has this guy been involved in so many things. This white boy from Jersey’. He is like his dad, still alive by the way, but ‘in hiding’ if you will, he likes to kid a lot! NOTE: I remember taking this boys dad out to eat years ago. His dad tells me ‘brother John, where are we going to eat? I feel uncomfortable being in a crowded place’ he has done lots of prison time and all, but doesn’t like being where he might run into an off duty cop or something. I tell him ‘don’t worry Rudy, it’s just the buffet at Pizza hut’ [Kingsville] sure enough we go in and it’s not too crowded, after around 10 minutes about 25 on duty state troopers walk in and start eating, I guess they were having some convention or something. You could see the panic in my buddies face. It was funny!
(519) Since I have been sick these last few months, one of the results of the ‘vertigo/feeling always high’ thing has caused me to be claustrophobic. I have avoided closed spaces. So these doctor visits and stuff have me going to the stairs and avoiding the elevator. So what, a few flights of stairs are good for you. It’s not like Jersey, where all the buildings are high. Well, I have this appointment at one of our older hospitals. This building is high. I go in and find the doctors name on the wall map. Floor 8! So, you think the Lord made me face my fears? I hoofed it 8 floors! [Note; I just rode in one yesterday, I got tired of the stairs.]
(520) Recently a local ministrty came under fire for some things. They are friends of mine and run a christrian camp. I am not sure of all the accusations in the news. But when these types of problems arise with ministries it is common to hear ‘they are not under a local church’ or ‘a Pastor’. I also recently watched a service from a church in the Dallas area, it’s a large church with thousands of people. One of the comments from the Pastor was ‘the reason you have all these ‘little churches’ on every street corner is because no body wants to submit, everyone wants to do ‘their own thing’. He is a good man, he has been to Corpus before, he holds to strong apostolic thinking in terms of ‘Apostles are over churches’ and stuff. As I finished the book by Brian Welch [Korn] he shared how as he began learning and growing in the Lord that one Pastor/church told him ‘If you keep visiting these other churches I cant mentor you. You must choose loyalty’. Now in all of these areas above, where do people find safety? Is safety found in ‘being loyal to your church’? What if when we say things like this, if we really say it out of insecurity. The Pastors fear of ‘loosing this famous convert’. Or for other less than noble reasons. How can the Pastor with the large independent church see all the ‘little churches’ as ‘Pastors doing their own thing’ but yet not see how he falls into this same category when being looked at by the traditional church? They see all ‘independent bible churches’ in this light. The New testament shows Jesus preaching the gospel to people. Freely sharing and teaching the love of God. Jesus demanded loyalty to him. As the head of the church this is right. All Christian leadership also has a role to play in being ‘under shepherds’ they take oversight of new and upcoming believers. Safety is found in growing and learning from each other. Mutual submission to one another’s gifts. Seeing and partaking from all the believers in your area. It is not found in giving loyalty or submission to a specific group that meets in your part of town, to the exclusion of all other groups. ‘Well, are you with us or not’? When this wording is used to demand allegiance to a project or to tithe to a certain church, then it is unbiblical. Why? Because nowhere in the New testament do you see these divisions. I too believe a lot of the little ‘churches’ who meet on every corner U.S.A. are a result of wrong thinking and acting. It comes from Christians seeing an ‘overabundance’ of Pastors [millions] to the neglecting of the other gifts in the church. The simple fact that other titles/gifts are mentioned more in scripture than ‘the Pastor’ and yet in today’s church this title seems to mean ‘the main person in charge of a local church’ should cause us to re think our dependence on this office. It also leaves you with the majority of young men who feel this stirring in them to serve God, they are taught this stirring means ‘go be a Pastor’ and then of course you need to ‘start a church’ to be one! There you have it, all well meaning people starting tons of ‘well meaning churches’ [places to meet] and even though many of these churches [big and small] have found themselves in deep heresy and problems, yet when a ‘Para church’ ministry gets in trouble, the Pastors think ‘told you, they are not under us’. It is all a big mess. Safety, freedom, staying on course are all outgrowths of believers being ‘part of the Body’. You must be influenced by as many of the church leaders that have gone on before, as well as those speaking Gods Word today. Your loyalty to the people of God and the purpose of God should be fierce. As a leader yourself, don’t demand allegiance from others in a way that violates peoples consciences ‘you are either with me or not’ to the degree where you do like the Pastor did with Brian Welch. You are stifling their growth when you do this. Sure, if someone you are discipling goes off track, or heads towards a cult. You warn them, but this strong ‘you are under me, sit under my ministry for 20 years’ mindset is a hindrance to the growth of the kingdom. It is often born out of insecurity. The underlying idea that the main problem with today’s church is ‘too many people not willing to submit’ might be true. It would be right if ‘submit’ meant to surrender to Gods cause and purpose. But when we use it in a self serving way. To apply it to other independent ministers/churches because they are small, and yet not see it apply to you, because you ‘are big’ is self serving. It tends to say to those in hearing distance ‘get on board with this highly independent ministry’ who in many ways is just as truncated from the rest of the Body as the ‘little churches’ they are referring to. All Christians should function daily with each other as much as possible. Be in touch with all the people of God in your area. Don’t see a limited form of ‘church/Pastor/tithe’ as the primary measurements of your loyalty. I have already shown you how these ideas didn’t even operate in the early church like they do today. The overall themes of all of us as one people, striving for unity as we learn and mature in Christ. Overcoming the sectarian mindset that says ‘be a part of this church only’ rise above these fleshly divisions and tendencies that exist in Gods people. You will find safety in ‘the church’ [all the people of God, past and present!] and in him whom is the refuge of the Saints! ‘The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run into it and are safe’.
(521) Was listening to T.D. Jakes the other day. He was preaching on empowering people for the next level. He did share good points. One of the examples was ‘you need people to accomplish something. You can’t do it by yourself. You might be able to make a pound cake, but if you are going to run Sara Lee, you need help’. A good point, scripture shows us how even Moses taught delegated authority. Jesus was the Master at it! My teaching has come against the prevailing mindset in the modern church that says ‘you really can’t make a big impact on your own, you need to give money to us, and then you can reach the world’. Now if you said this, I am not talking about you. I have heard this many times over the years. My point is when we tell people ‘your pound cake doesn’t really matter, or have a big impact’ then we are violating the principle of Jesus when he taught us that our ‘little bit of loaves and fishes’ matters. I know bro. Jakes would agree, he was teaching right on the principle of business that he was sharing. I just wanted to show you how your little bit does matter. Jesus delegated all of us to do our little bit. True delegation empowers everyone. In today’s world we make appeals to people based on money ‘give your money and you will have a reward in all the ministries you support’. There is some truth to this, but Jesus really didn’t teach us that we could ‘witness’ vicariously. Or ‘touch the world vicariously’ he actually told us to GO. So to view the principle of partnering in a way that seems to let the people think if they give money they are off the hook, isn’t a viable biblical alternative. At the judgment he says ‘when I was hungry and thirsty and in jail you didn’t come to me’ he doesn’t say ‘you didn’t support financially the programs that were doing it’. So, go ahead and make your pound cake, you would be surprised how far it can go!
(522) I spent some time the other day with one of my new friends. He is homeless and does suffer from mental problems, more than most. He is a great friend and very smart. He retells all of the movies he has ever seen. He remembers every detail from them, and tells the spiritual lessons that God has shown him thru the movies. Disney stories and stuff ‘Iron Will’ ‘Where the Red Fern grows’. Somehow I mentioned the verse ‘where no Oxen are the crib is clean, but much increase comes from the strength of the Ox’ [somewhere in Proverbs]. I talked about the ‘stuff’ we sometimes have to wade thru in order to see increase. It is popular today to avoid the ‘stuff’ as you make your way to Sunday church. Try to make the goal ‘don’t step in the stuff’ . Heaven forbid one of these guys holding up a sign gets too close to the car, the ‘stuff’ might get on you. It’s possible to live your whole life staying clean and avoiding ‘the stuff’, but you would be surprised of the riches and treasures you can find in the people who are ‘covered by the stuff’.
(523) Yesterday [Sunday] we had a good fellowship day with some of our guys. We went to my church [a mega church] and also visited a friend’s tent church service that he holds in a park. A lot of my homeless friends were there. We also watched a few T.V. church services in between [at my house. Isaiah 58 says you’re blessed if you take the homeless to YOUR OWN HOUSE!] Thru it all we heard the themes of giving for Gods work, that God wants you to have favor and that Paul was content when he had both a little and a lot! I found it interesting, the message on ‘You don’t have to go thru life struggling, you have a ‘crown’ of favor on you’ was good to hear. A little too unbalanced. One of the verses on ‘our crown’ actually spoke of the blessings that the believer gets at the end of his life, a crown [reward] waiting for us at the resurrection. So in context you really can’t apply it to God always wanting us to have ‘the overabundance’ because part of the ‘being content’ verse speaks of being content even in lack. The teaching on giving was fine. Overall it seemed like the Lord was speaking to us that day on giving and serving and being part of the ‘Body of Christ’. All of the ‘church’ are the people of God. My friend who holds the tent meeting invited me to preach. I respectfully told him ‘I don’t do that anymore’. I didn’t want to let him down, there are so many others who can do it, I already speak too much! Radio and writing and all, give someone else a chance. I just have gotten away from the whole routine of ‘preaching at churches’ I feel I am not supposed to do it. Well I thought I would share this one with you guys, hope you got something from it.
(524) Let me give you guys a health update. I at this time only take natural supplements [vitamins and stuff] and am trusting the Lord to heal me. These last few months I have been prescribed various things for pain and the ‘dizziness’ and other stuff. In keeping with what I told you guys in the past, I have basically chosen to not take any medication long term. I have taken some of the med’s I was given, but nothing long term. The last back doctor kind of saw that I was in pain, but I told him ‘Doc, this is my last visit. I don’t want any med’s, lets just wrap this up’. So I don’t want to tell you guys to do this, but I wanted to let you know that this is what’s happening. I am not totally healed yet and I still want you guys to pray for me! But thought I would give you this update.
(525) Isaiah 60 ‘Arise, shine; for thy light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Darkness shall cover thee earth and gross darkness the people, but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee’ Like we said when we spoke on the kingdom of God, though the world is getting darker, the church gets brighter! We are ‘the light of the world’ the world needs us! They don’t want to admit it, but at the end of all atheism, humanism and every other ‘ism’ there is a void. They will be drawn to the light! ‘Gentiles SHALL come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising’ ‘thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side’ though these verses are Messianic in nature [they speak prophetically of Christ] yet they are also fulfilled thru us, because we are ‘extensions of Christ’ in the earth. We ARE his Body! ‘Then thou shalt see, and FLOW TOGETHER, and thy heart shall fear and be enlarged’ When the Lord is magnified, when his will and purpose take precedence, we FEAR him and are enlarged. We also flow together as Gods people. There is a real sense of your success being found in your brothers and sister’s success. We flow together. ‘In my wrath I smote thee, but in my favor I have had mercy on thee. Therefore thy gates shall be open continually’ in the ‘New Jerusalem’ [the Church] our gates are ‘open always’ people find access to come in and rest in God. But open gates also allow for there to be exit. Not ‘damnation’ here, but a going into all the world to preach the gospel. The people of God are made to find rest in him and be by still waters. Then there comes this churning, this ‘inner pull’ to go out ‘is it from God’ yes! God allows you to have seasons of rest and refuge, and then he calls you to the example of Christ. He compels you to look at the harvest and say ‘here am I, send me’. ‘The glory of Lebanon shall come to thee, the Fir tree, the Pine tree and the Box tree together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary, AND I WILL MAKE THE PLACE OF MY FEET GLORIOUS’ God will bring great diversity [Pine, Box, Fir tree’s] into one corporate function and purpose. We will no more say ‘I am Charismatic’ I am Baptist, I am Catholic, I am this or that. We will truly bring our diversity together and lay them at Christ’s feet. He makes the place of his feet glorious. Jesus washed the disciple’s feet; he was showing that this place of humility and service will be honored in Gods economy. It is the place of value and exaltation. He offers it to all, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of takers. ‘Whereas thou hast been afflicted and hated, I will make thee an eternal excellency; a joy of many generations’ God allows affliction and hatred for a season. Both natural Israel and her Messiah went thru this. We all will partake of it at one time or another; REJOICE when it happens, because God is preparing you for eternal excellency! ‘For brass I will bring gold, for iron silver, for wood brass and for stones iron, I will make thy officers peace’ we often preach and teach ‘for stones you will get gold’ we ‘skip’ the steps! God’s prosperity comes to those who patiently and consistently give and love and work and invest and do many things in stages. These people are not trying to turn stones into gold. They realize you go from stones to iron to silver and to gold. They have realistic expectations on living a consistent life. God will make our ‘officials’ peace. The verse that says let all your requests be known to God and Gods peace will keep your hearts and minds, this speaks of Gods peace being the ‘officiator’ Christians make good decisions when they cast all their care over to God. Gods peace comes in to officiate for us, we don’t have to worry about the next step, we simply need to rest and walk in it as it is revealed. ‘Violence shall be no more in the land, nor destruction in our borders, your walls shall be Salvation and your gates Praise’ this is speaking of a spiritual/heavenly city. God is already showing that his future place of rest, the ‘eternal city’ that needs no light, because the Lamb is the light, God is showing that it is a place where walls and gates are praise and salvation. Not brick and mortar! He will make this place glorious. ‘The Lord shall be the everlasting light, the days of mourning shall be ended Thy people shall all be righteous, they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will do it in my time’ God will extend you and cause all the people you work with to be right. A day is coming where the smallest one [least significant] shall have great influence. He will ‘grow you and your people like a branch thru the earth’ thru the people you bring into the Kingdom, God will allow great influence to go forth. God told Abraham ‘thru your seed shall all nations be blessed’ you are simply the ‘instigator/initiator’ of the thing, it will get carried out thru your spiritual children!
(526) One of the homeless brothers told me how he started feeling dizzy a few weeks back, before I started getting with him on a regular basis. Another friend shared his testimony with me, how God visited him years ago and he had this awesome experience. One of the ‘effects’ was he felt like he was ‘looking thru a glass’. Our key brother in Kingsville [one of them, I have a few] reminded me of a dream he had in prison, where he was on the highway overpass looking into the city and he saw as it were a ‘sea of people’. I have spoken on all of these experiences and images over these past few months. Often time’s people from the same spiritual family go thru like things. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Pray for those who you regularly work with and interact with as a Body. Three fold cords are not easily broken. There is strength in unity and agreement. Jesus said ‘where 2 or more agree, God will act’ be loyal to the brotherhood that exists in Christ.
(527) I was reading on a movement of Christians out of Austin who left the concept of ‘church’ as being the ‘place we go to on Sunday’ and have relocated their families to the lower class areas of town. These are Chinese believers who are seeing ‘church’ as community. I also remember reading an article a few years ago on ‘out of church Christians’. The article spoke on why so many people are ‘leaving church’ and addressed a lot of good things. Later in the article the writer then talked about ‘coming back from the wilderness journey into the church’. He still ‘saw’ church as the Sunday meeting. He misread what God was doing. Those who have left the ‘Sunday church model’ are not ‘in the wilderness’ so to speak. They are seeing ‘church’ as the entire community action that they are involved with. This is much different than simply ‘seeing’ the people who are ‘leaving Sunday church’ as disgruntled or dissatisfied believers. The new paradigm [really not new, it was around for the first few centuries] sees the actual community of people as ‘the church’. So for these to then see ‘going back to the Sunday model’ as coming out from the wilderness is not seeing the heart of the movement. I also read the critics who are against the ‘emergent model’. Some feel that they are giving in to liberal trends in theology [I am sure some are] and are fighting against the community model thinking they are ‘defending the faith’. You don’t have to embrace theological liberalism to see this new way of doing church. The first century Apostles were certainly not theological liberals, but they viewed church as community. I just thought I would share these few thoughts today, hope it helped. NOTE; Another interesting fact about the ‘out of the church building’ movement is that the Lord allowed for there to be a whole new way to communicate this truth thru the internet. During the time of the reformation you recently had the printing press invented by Guttenberg. It’s like the Lord opened up a door of mass communication right at the time of him raising up prophetic voices who would speak into the church at large. There were new groups of believers for the first time publishing all these small articles [Tractarians] and these writings were having a tremendous impact on the church. So today you have the availability of the net to allow the ‘common voices’ to speak into the church at large. This is actually part of the concept of the corporate voice versus the singular one [Pastor]. Many home church movements see the teaching of Paul in Corinthians as telling the church to all have an input, not just one main speaker. This is what is happening thru the net. Many voices are being heard. You then of course have the danger that our Catholic brothers raised during the reformation. The Catholics [some] believed if the bible was translated from Latin into the common language there would be all sorts of interpretations and stuff. Some of this came true! You had certain radical people who started ‘Waco’ [Muenster Prophets? If I remember well] type cults during this time. And it was a result of individuals coming up with their own ‘private’ interpretation of scripture. But the answer wasn’t to stifle the church, but to allow all believers to freely read and see the truth of God, despite the danger of a few going off track. So in the world of ‘being on line’ you can see a real revolution take place, are there possible areas of danger? Sure. But overall the internet has become a ‘printing press’ for the modern reformation! NOTE; another result of the reformation was the fact that many new believers would no longer ‘pay tithes’ into the old system. The instigating factor of the reformation was the abuse of indulgences, a money issue! So likewise today you are also seeing the strong ‘tithe or you are under the curse’ versus ‘give to your brothers in need’ mentality. It is only normal for those dependant on the tithe to fight against this. They see all the good things they want to accomplish, and they realize it can’t be done unless so many people tithe. The new churches are getting away from this. They see the actual concept of all Gods people living every day as ‘the church’ to be the real ‘change factor’ in the world. They don’t view the need for lots of money to come into the institution, they see all the people as the ‘institution’ and therefore the act of releasing them into the harvest will have a greater effect than all the money in the world.
(528) Isaiah 61 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me BECAUSE the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek, he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound’ Jesus read this verse in the gospel and said it was being fulfilled thru him. God anoints Jesus and us for set purposes. I find it interesting how this coincides with chapter 58 and deals with the hand of God to free people. To actually minister to real needs. In chapter 58 God rebukes Israel for thinking the anointing [Spirit] is for ritualistic religion, he tells them to do justice and reach out to the hurting. Jesus exemplifies this. He ‘proclaims’ liberty to captives. It’s like if someone were in a jail cell and the governor sent a message that said ‘you are already pardoned’. The message of the gospel is ‘you are free, God is not holding your sins against you. Only believe!’ We often preach ‘you must do so and so to get free’ Jesus said ‘you already are’. ‘To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, the day of vengeance of our God’ we must make it clear that a day of judgment is coming. The reality is God does forgive you, but you must come thru the Cross. It must be plain that all who reject Christ face a sure and certain judgment. A few years ago a very famous Charismatic preacher became a ‘universalist’ [someone who believes that everyone goes to heaven, or in this case that hell and judgment do not exist] He shared how when he stopped preaching ‘hell’ that it just made everyone feel better. It might make you feel better, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real! God wants us to tell people about this ‘acceptable time of the Lord’ but also warn them that if they refuse Gods grace, judgment is coming down the road. ‘To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness’ Now we are going to see a theme thru out the rest of the chapter. God wants to bring you out of mourning and into full restoration. I said in the previous chapters that rebuke and correction lead up to restoration. It is vital that we enter into joy! God wants us to come out of places of ‘heaviness’ [depression] and bring us to places of joy and peace ‘that we might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, and they shall build up the waste places, repair waste cities’ Who will do these things ? Those who have truly entered into praise! This is why it’s vital to make the transition into joy. It is the restoration process that enables us to move on to the next level. God says ‘you will have a scar, but no open wound’ There will be reminders of the desert you were in, that’s good. God says I want you to remember how awful it really was, never forget the ‘pit that I took you out of’ now that you are out, go and do my works! I have claimed these verses for over 20 years concerning building up waste cities and God doing it thru your seed. Yesterday we had a good outreach day in Kingsville. We got with some brothers and met at a park. I have a friend who is a musician, but he only knows the old classics ‘amazing grace’ and stuff. Fine with me, we sang and praised in that park. I felt the Lord said that he was going to restore joy to ‘our mourners’ and it will be thru this restored joy that he will ‘build the old waste places’. ‘You shall be named the Priests of the Lord, the ministers of our God’ this is all of us! No special class here, no ‘clergy’. This is you and me. ‘For your shame ye shall have double, and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion, they shall posses double, everlasting joy shall be with them’ In Hebrews it says of Jesus ‘he despised the shame, looking ahead to the reward’. Here it says God will reward you by giving you many converts and blessing these converts exponentially based on the shame and confusion you experience. Don’t try to get out of the shame/difficulty/persecution, but see it as part of the cost. Know that as you suffer, God is promising to reward you thru your seed. ‘I the Lord love judgment, I HATE ROBBERY FOR BURNT OFFERINGS’ now I want you to pay attention here. In the New Testament Jesus teaches the way people ‘rob God’ is by not meeting the needs of people. He rebuked the Pharisees for tithing to the temple and using this as an excuse to not meet the needs of their parents. Jesus said when you didn’t meet the needs of the destitute that you were NOT MEETING HIS NEEDS, Jesus is God! John says ‘how can you say you love God who you don’t see, when you don’t meet the needs [love demonstrated] of the brother that you do see’. It is common today to use Malachi and teach ‘robbing God’ in the context of ‘not tithing’. Because the New Testament temple are made up of people, the New Testament teaches ‘robbing God’ is done by not ‘giving’ to this temple, which are people! I have taught all this before, but I want to change your thinking in this area. You must see the people as the temple in order to not ROB GOD. ‘I WILL GREATLY REJOICE IN THE LORD, MY SOUL SHALL BE JOYFUL IN MY GOD’ I want to end on this high note, even though the last verse of this chapter is also good [go read it!] I personally believe this to be a key ingredient at this time for us. The joy of the Lord is our strength. ‘But brother, you ‘rebuke’ so much in your writings, you teach correction a lot. How can you have joy when there is so much difficulty and trials and stuff?’ Our joy is not dependant on our situation, it is fixed in God. Read the Psalms, David understood this principle. Paul said his contentment was not based on outward circumstances. Let’s grasp hold of the great reality of what God has done for us; we are going to live forever! Don’t lose sight of the great things God has done. Be joyful in God at all times. I know he is going to do great things for all of us, let’s rejoice in the Lord, and again I say REJOICE! NOTE; ‘for confusion and shame your children shall posses a double portion in the land’ [my paraphrase] this past year my 2 oldest daughters [19-21] both purchased their own homes. They ‘possessed’ double of what I own. I see God doing things in the natural first, then the spiritual. A couple of our friends from the early years have just begun doing home groups in their cities, they have been serving the Lord, but it’s been a while since we really established anything consistent with these guys. I felt like the Lord was saying ‘our seed [yours too!] will begin possessing the Land this year’.
(529) The other week I took some homeless friends to the church I attend, as well as to a ‘tent church’ that had around a hundred homeless people show up. My intent in telling this is not to condemn any particular style of church. I want to share the reaction/way my friends saw things. In my church the service was focused on tithing. The church recently built a big building [seats around 3 thousand] and it just so happened that this Sunday the message was on tithing. My friends also saw in the church pamphlet that around 8 million was raised from the 10 million needed for the building campaign. Now all of these scenarios play out all across the world on a regular basis. There are well meaning and good intended brothers/churches that find them selves in these scenarios often. My friends liked the church, I was happy to have them see it for the first time. I was not critical nor did I critique the tithing message. My friends later made comments about how the money could be used to house and feed poor people. And they simply saw the other things that the money could be used for, they were seeing thru their world. Later at the tent church many destitute people came. They all had church and ate donated chili dogs. More of a street ministry. Over the years of teaching on church and trying to change the mindset of believers, I have run across well meaning believers who question ‘well brother, where are all the believers going to meet? If you want to reach 20 thousand people, you will need a 20 thousand seat auditorium!’ This is why I am trying to steer us more towards the New Testament mindset. It is all too common to truly reach between 1 to 5 thousand people. To then see growing as expanding in the size of the meeting place, and then the believers see the next level thru the eyes of ‘bring in the money so the rest of the people can be reached’. All well intended, but it lacks the focus of New Testament evangelism. Paul and all the other first century Apostles and believers practiced a type of ‘church growth’ that simply said ‘preach the gospel, allow all the people in the cities to spread the word to all the other people. Meet in your homes, break bread, share the great message of redemption. Send people out to other places as God leads’ [Acts 13- Paul from Antioch] and keep growing along the lines of spreading a revolutionary message about Christ. This New Testament mindset never appealed for the Galatians or Ephesians or any other city of believers to get into building campaigns to reach the rest of the harvest field. This mindset also allows for the rapid growth of the gospel to go forth. It is empowering all Christians to do their part. You see your responsibility more along the lines of spreading the gospel, than along the lines of raising money. I do believe and understand that their truly are good guys [Pastors] and others who are advancing along the lines of mega churches. And it is hard to write entries like this. I just wanted you to see the perspective of my homeless friends, and also how the contemporary church sees evangelism along the lines of ‘I need so many members in order to have the funds needed to go to the next level’. This mindset sees the amount of people that need to come to church and give so much for the organization to grow. It can become very limited in its appeal to the Sunday church goer. They can begin to see themselves solely along the lines of ‘We need to be faithful to raise so much money’ they begin to see their main measure of faithfulness and sacrifice along these lines. The New Testament believers were seeing faithfulness in different ways. There were appeals to help Paul go to the next city to preach, and appeals to help the needy, but they weren’t seeing the appeals that are common today. Paul wasn’t asking ‘we need to raise lots of money to go to Galatia and build a church’ or to fund a huge ministry to reach Galatia. They were simply needing the money to survive and get their bodies to the next city in order to preach the word. This is real people evangelism, all the people seeing their main responsibility as being involved, not giving money. Well I don’t mean to offend in these entries, I pray for the success of all of us [I really do!] I just wanted to share some input. I also at times feel bad for the young Pastors who can get in over their heads financially. They are doing it for the most part out of a true love of God. I feel they put themselves at times under great financial strain because they see it as what God wants. It might be at certain times, but it also is an out growth of seeing ‘church’ as having the building big enough for everyone to attend. Sometimes God wants the growth to go outward. You didn’t see the Ephesians or other New Testament churches finding places big enough where they could all get together. They grew along the lines of more people meeting across the cities and being a part of one family of believers in the city. No need for one place to all meet. Say if you had 50 thousand in a city turn to Christ. I know some mega churches [Paul Yongi Cho-Korea] do try to simply build bigger places, as well as home church growth. But the New Testament mindset was not seeing it at all along these lines. They were spreading a radical revolutionary message in the hearts of people. This allowed for the people themselves to run with the message. NOTE; I usually don’t give examples that ‘hit this close to home’. I want the church I mentioned above to succeed. Those of you in the Corpus area that read this blog and attend this church, I want you to do all you can to give and support the church. If you are not giving money in other well established Christian avenues on a regular basis, then give all you can to help the church you go to! Give 10 % or more! Our goal is to see the overall transition of Gods people from the normal view of church, back to a radical 1st century view. It is common in revolutionaries to go overboard [I have!] and then want to see the ‘old church model’ fail. This is not what God wants. Don’t take entries like this and then wait for your view to win while the other guy fails. This is not Christian! So to all the local brothers who read this, support the church financially as much as possible, also begin spreading the Kingdom as well.
(530) A few years ago a famous atheist, Anthony Flew, renounced atheism and professed belief in God. A very intelligent atheist, he saw the impossibility of life and all things being a result of a past history where supposedly nothing existed. It is impossible! I just read an article how in the year 2000 a famous Paleontologist, Meave Leakey, discovered evidence against evolution. In Kenya she found 2 skulls that were supposed to have been ancestors who ‘evolved’ millions of years apart. She found them in the same location. The same ‘level’ that proved beyond all doubt that these so called ‘ancestors’ lived at the same time. To be honest these so called ‘ancestors’ are simply different species of Apes and Monkeys that people find thru out time. The knowledgeable person realizes this, the evolutionist doesn’t! The fact that Leakey’s find wasn’t published until 2007 [ in the scientific journal ‘Nature’ August 9] makes me wonder why it took so long. Well obviously the find goes against evolution, the evolutionists religiously defend their belief. If they themselves find evidence against their theory, it doesn’t help their ‘religious belief’ to publish it! I just thought it worthwhile to keep you all up to date on the evidence from both atheists and evolutionists that back up Christian belief.
(531) I watched a panel of 3 of the top Prosperity Preachers host a talk show. I thought it was real interesting, the brother hosting the show was informally talking to his friends, but you could tell he wanted to share something. He then reads from Acts where it says ‘the Holy Spirit witnesses in every city that bonds and afflictions await me at Jerusalem’. It is speaking of Paul. I noticed one of the other Prosperity guys kind of looked a little perplexed [?] as the verse was read. I know they have all taught in the past that bonds and afflictions are not what God wants for us. They have intricate systems of belief that do get around persecutions. But the brother shared it in love and seemed to allow the Lord to use him in this public forum to bring some balance back to this thing. The other brothers had no problem receiving the truth, because it was coming from someone within their own camp. I just felt this was interesting to share. We all need reproof at times, and God is jealous for his reputation. He will gain it back in this camp. NOTE; These brothers have taught in the past that when Paul spoke on his thorn in the flesh, that God was saying ‘his grace is sufficient for thee’ meant that God was saying ‘you have the grace/ability to make it go away’ kind of a perverted view of the verse. God actually told Paul ‘you can live with certain difficulties, because my grace is all you need’ in essence ‘you don’t need a perfect, affliction free environment to operate in, I am all you need’ Basically God was not telling Paul ‘you make it go away yourself’. Now I had one of my homeless friends say the other day ‘I think Paul went thru sufferings because he was reaping what he sowed when he persecuted Christians’ you could tell he has been influenced by this teaching. It was a little sad because this friend does suffer from mental problems, and he was telling me that Paul was suffering affliction as a result of his past sins. I then told him this is not true, and I quoted the verses that say ‘it is given to us also to suffer for his name’ God telling Paul ‘I will show thee the sufferings that you will go thru’ at his initial conversion. In context I explained to my friend that these verses show us the afflictions and sufferings that Paul went thru were NOT a result of him reaping what he sowed. They were an up front part of the cost that all the early believers understood. The sad thing is this poor mentally challenged brother was going thru life with a ‘form of doctrine’ that denied Gods power and reality. It had him thinking that he was really reaping what he sowed by going thru mental challenges. This is why I have said in the past that it is no light thing to undermine the word of God and to distort it. Even though many of these teachings are defined as ‘Word churches’ and stuff. This still doesn’t give you the right to distort the Word.
(532) Isaiah 62 ‘For Zion’s sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and salvation like a lamp that burns’ This is intercession based on natural Israel’s spiritual conversion. He is praying ‘open up Israel’s eyes to true salvation and righteousness’. ‘And gentiles shall see thy righteousness [Christ] and all kings thy glory, and thou shall be called by a new name [the Body of Christ! Spiritual Israel, a ‘new name’ that no one knows but he who gave it] which the mouth of the Lord shall name’. ‘Thou shall no longer be called forsaken or desolate, thy land shall be married’ The great ‘marriage supper of the Lamb’ a day when Israel will no longer be ‘separated/divorced’ from God, but will be part of the ‘bride of Christ’ and thru this holy union be ‘married’ back to God! ‘As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride [this is actually an intimate term ‘rejoiceth over’ God will actually be intimate with us and we with him!] so shall God rejoice over thee’. ‘I have set watchman on thy walls oh Jerusalem, they shall never be quiet day or night, give him no rest till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth’ Pray over Israel/Jerusalem until he makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth, this will be at the appearing of her Messiah. NOTE; some theologians today are called ‘New Perspective’ they are giving a new perspective on Paul’s theology. There are some good points they bring out. One area is they are showing how the New Testament offer of ‘faith’ to the gentiles was ‘come and believe and you too will be part of the commonwealth of Israel’ they emphasize that faith allowed gentiles to partake of the community that God already had with Israel. There is some truth to this. The extreme says ‘Israel really is in line with God now, gentiles just need to get in on what she has’ this view doesn’t see that in Christ the TWO are made INTO ONE NEW MAN. God is actually creating one new man [not asking gentiles to come into an old man] and this happens thru Christ! ‘The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, surely I will no longer give thy corn to be food for thy enemies, and the son of the stranger shall not drink thy wine for which you have worked, but they that have earned it shall eat it and praise the Lord’ One of the curses for being disobedient is the wages and things you earn count for nothing. There are different types of judgment on sin, one is you have no power to posses wealth. The other is you have no power to keep it! Here God is saying when people are in judgment they lose the stuff they earned. One of the greatest financial wreckers in society today is divorce. Some high wage people have lived in difficulty because of this. They might earn 10 thousand a month and still be broke! This is common. God is telling his people if we get right with him, not only will he give us great opportunities to earn wealth, but we also get to keep it! [That is use it for right things, not horde it!] ‘go thru, go thru the gates, prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway, gather out the stones, lift up a standard for the people’ A few years ago [2004] I felt the Lord tell me to start driving to work in Kingsville thru a longer route that would take me thru regional cities. During this time they also built all these new overpasses that allowed you to ‘drive on the walls of the cities’ and pray over them from a ‘high place’. This was for 3 years until I would retire [which I am in the process of doing]. I felt the lord gave me 3 intense years of prayer and intercession over a region that we have long prayed for. When I read these verses ‘go thru the gates/highway and take out the stones and prepare a way for the people’ as well as God saying ‘I will cause you to ride upon the high places of the land’ I felt things like this were signifying how God wants us to lay the groundwork thru prayer first. As I drove thru the land and ‘prophesied’ and prayed, God was ‘breaking up the fallow ground’. God has ‘land’ for you, you will begin possessing it as you are faithful to ‘go thru the land’ but also ‘gather out the stones’ this speaks of a willingness to both reprove [in love] and remove the ‘stones’ that are hindering the highway. When a road is filled with obstacles, you can still drive it, but very slow. I felt like the Lord was speaking of ‘acceleration’ a ‘suddenly’ when he acts quickly on our behalf. If we want to ‘advance rapidly thru out the land’ then we must get the stones out of the road! NOTE; I have told you guys in the past that sometimes my ‘spell check’ is prophetic. When I wrote ‘reprove’ it spelt ‘repave’.
(533) Just read a letter from my old buddy in New Jersey state prison. He ran into another old buddy of ours in prison. He gave him my books, but wants them back. So he asked if I could send some more, I will today. It’s funny, these are buddies from the past that did bad stuff. I had some crazy times with these guys in the past. Now their interested in the books and stuff. God will open doors if you maintain real friendships with people. My friend even said ‘now you have 2 friends in New Jersey prisons’. I know the Lord will use these guys in some way.
(534) I just remembered a funny story about the friend in prison. Years ago on one of my visits back to Jersey I ran into this friend. I always liked his family. He told his dad ‘Johns in town’ and the dad said ‘bring him by, I want to say hi’. Sure enough the day I am going to see him, my friend takes me down to these docks by the Hudson River. It’s close to Jersey City. We go under some bridge and wind up in some real ‘on the waterfront’ type hideout. My friend brings me to his dads ‘shop’ and he pulls open this raggedy garage door. These guys are ‘working’ on some cars in the dark. They are surprised by us opening the door. The dads ‘worker’ was cutting some car in the back and looks up with this look of ‘I hope I’m not busted’ like from the TV show ‘cops’. The dad then realizes it’s us and is real happy to see me. He was a great guy. My friend introduces me to the other guy in the corner ‘skeeter’ or something? It was hilarious.
(535) Isaiah 63 The first part of the chapter speaks of Gods righteous judgment ‘the day of vengeance’ and then mixes in mercy! ‘In all their affliction, he was afflicted’ this is interesting, God says ‘when you were afflicted, I too experienced it’. Wow, how could our afflictions be experienced by God? In Corinthians you have the doctrine of the ‘sin unto death’. There are various interpretations on this. You see certain believers who are in open sin. God allows judgment on them, even to the point of death, because they are ‘part of his body’. Sort of like God is saying ‘you guys are intricately attached to me, when you, as my Body, sin, then you are dragging me into the situation’. It seems as if God was saying his judgment is a result of them being the church, and at the same time ‘drinking the cup of devils’. You can’t have both! So in this case judgment was pronounced because they were ‘making the Spirit of God partake of evil things’ so to speak. Understand when we go thru things, especially open rebellion, God will eventually judge. It’s not out of meanness, but mercy. You read in Corinthians that when God judges us it is so we will not be condemned with the world. His judgment proves we are his kids and therefore it is really an act of divine mercy! ‘But they rebelled and VEXED his Holy Spirit’ it was ‘vexing’ to the Spirit because they were the temple of the Spirit. ‘O Lord, why hast THOU made us to err from thy ways’ Interesting! One of the prophets said ‘you deceived me, and I was deceived’. A lot of modern translations try to change this. They try to say God wouldn’t be an active partaker in ‘deceiving you’. I see it along these lines, God knows us intimately, he even knows there are fears and shortcomings that prevent us from truly entering into our destiny. He will actively allow us to ‘be deceived’ or cause us to ‘err from his ways’ because he wants us to get to the point of doing his will, he knows it’s best for us. If we don’t do his will voluntarily, he allows us to stray so ‘in the desert’ we will turn back to him. ‘Return for thy servants sake’ after the desert we then are willing! In the day of thy wrath you made us willing!
(536) Isaiah 64 ‘Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou would come down, that the mountains might flow at thy presence’ There are pivotal times in our lives where we have done all the planning we could imagine. We have prayed, read the Word and done all the things that we thought were necessary to see God move. It is often at the end of all of our efforts that we get to a place where we see the futility of it all, apart from God! In the end, like Paul said, some water, some plant, but only God can cause it to grow! Have you seen the need for God to come down and move on your behalf? You’ve done everything else, might as well call on God and believe that he alone can do it. ‘As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causes the waters to boil’ WOW! Jesus said ‘I am come to set fire to the earth, how I wish it were already burning’ [my translation]. We will read in this chapter ‘God is a consuming fire’. Jesus understood the role he was to play. He knew it would end in violence and resurrection. He knew it would be revolutionary in nature. How can you expect to come to a group of people who truly believe in God, and then show them that they have fallen away from the true intent of God and then say ‘God sent me to tell you this’. The role of a Prophet is revolutionary by its very nature. It will ‘burn’ things, things that need to be burnt. Jesus knew the course he was on, he knew he was going to start a fire that would consume everything in its path, he said he wished it were already burning. ‘For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what you have prepared for those who wait for you’ Paul quotes this to the Corinthians. This is not really talking about the great ministries and things that we think, it can include that. But this is speaking of the unbelievable mystery of redemption thru Christ. The things that Angels desire to look into. The story of mans redemption and how God preplanned it before the world began is a tremendous mystery that no man can see unless God reveals it to him. Paul says ‘no man can say Jesus is Lord but by Gods Spirit’ Paul was not saying no one could ‘mouth’ it, he was saying no human understanding can grasp it apart from the revelation of God. ‘Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways’ God instituted things so his people would ‘remember him’. The Passover, the Lords Supper. Often time’s people remember him in these rituals, but forget him in ‘their ways’. This is the main rebuke Isaiah gives to Israel in this book. When religion digresses to a point of ritual, apart from righteous action [justice] then we are not remembering God in his ways. Because his ways are justice and mercy and caring for the downtrodden and oppressed. It is too easy today to associate Christianity with ‘conservatism’. I am neither liberal or conservative, but you will find I hold to beliefs in both of these camps. The danger of aligning Christiantiy with a political cause is then you begin to think the ‘cause’ is Christian. You can fight against the illegal alien, or be against ‘welfare’ and the people on it, and if taken to the extreme you begin to see Christianity thru a lens that says ‘we are moral preachers to a fallen society’ to a point where we no longer practice charity or justice for the oppressed. God says he wants us to remember him in ‘ritual’ as long as we also remember him in deed. ‘But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our good deeds are as filthy rags’ This verse has been a key verse in many of the revivalist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. They focused on mans inability to please God and be good. Later on the ‘Word of Faith/Prosperity movement’ brought out good points when they emphasized that we are now made the righteousness of God in Christ. The balance here is apart from God, we are absolutely unrighteous and unable to please God. In Christ we are ‘acceptable to God’. God sees us as totally righteous. The caveat is Paul will still refer to himself at times as ‘the worst of sinners’ even after his conversion. I see the balance like this; In God we are accepted and God sees his Sons righteousness as being imputed to us by faith. During our journey we are progressively being made actually righteous. We are being sanctified. There are obvious times in this walk where we totally fail God. We then confess and repent and continue the journey. The closer we get to God, the further we see how far we really are. So Paul [and us] can at times see how ‘we are the worst of sinners’ and at the same time thank God that he doesn’t view us that way! ‘Our iniquities like the wind have taken us away’ Jesus says in John 3 ‘those that are born of the Spirit are like the wind’ Paul also teaches that as we once were controlled by sin, now we are to be controlled by righteousness. The ‘wind’ can describe how either we are led by sin or by God. It is an unseen force that cause’s things to turn in a certain direction. You can look at the wind blowing a tree and say ‘wow, that tree is being bent severely’ and yet you know it is a result of the wind. Often times I have seen [and experienced!] the lifestyle of going down paths that you seem to have no control over, friends who are at the stage of being in the street, robbing everything they can get their hands on for the next fix, and then going off to prison. At these stages they are allowing sin to bend them like the wind. I have also seen these same guys later be controlled by the Spirit and serving God. Paul said the way to ‘not walk in the flesh’ is to ‘walk in the Spirit’. Religion tells people ‘don’t do this or that’ while Gods recovery program is ‘do what the Spirit is saying’. The secret to deliverance is for a person to actively give them selves over to God and to do his works. If you ‘walk in the Spirit, then you will not do the works of the flesh’. ‘Commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts will be established’ we need a breakthrough in obedience, in getting out and fulfilling Gods will. Most Christians who are running around from deliverance conference to deliverance conference are not yet ‘delivered’ because they haven’t yet fully given themselves into the active service of the Lord! ‘There is none that calls upon thy name, that stirs himself up to take hold of thee’ Why? Because our sins have separated us from God! In Hebrews it says ‘let us come boldly before the throne with a clear conscience’ it says this in context of the work of Christ in redemption. Because legally God refuses to hold our sins against us, therefore we have confidence. One of the most devastating things about sin is it separates us from God. It keeps us from coming to him. We feel guilty and unworthy and we can’t seem to get thru in prayer. God says ‘come’ and he will heal and forgive and restore. ‘But you are our father, we are the clay, you are the potter, we are the work of your hand. Don’t be really mad, don’t remember our sins, we are your people’ Isaiah uses the same ‘strategy’ as Moses ‘we are yours, we bare your name. For this reason please come and help us. It won’t look good on your record if your people don’t make it!’ We are asking God to help us because all we are is from him. He chose us and fashioned us with a specific destiny in mind. Tell God ‘you made me to do your will, move on my behalf Father, help me at this time. I have come to do thy will O God’ he often will ‘take away the first that he might establish the second’ [Hebrews]. Look for God to allow the first works of ministry to ‘dissolve’ as he transitions you into new things. Sometimes we hold onto our Ishmael’s because we truly have an affinity for them, yet God says ‘let go of Ishmael, I will still bless him, but the promise will be fulfilled in Isaac’. ‘Our holy and our beautiful house is burned up with fire’ interesting, we just read how ‘God is a consuming fire’ and how Jesus said ‘I have come to start a fire’. In the New Testament God transitioned his ‘holy place’ from the natural temple to the spiritual temple [the church/Body of Christ]. Thru out Israel’s history the destruction of the temple always represented Gods judgment. That was the significance of Jesus saying ‘destroy this temple and in 3 days I will raise it up’ this was offensive to the Jewish mind. It was like desecrating the flag [even though Jesus was speaking of his body, the Jews were offended because they took it to mean their temple]. The fact that Israel, as a nation, would not make the full transition into the New Covenant left them with their temple and sacrifices that God already said were an abomination to him [Hebrews]. Ultimately this would lead to the temples final destruction in A.D. 70 under Titus. The destruction of the temple again was Gods way of saying ‘I no longer dwell in temples made with hands, I no longer will accept animal sacrifices. I will dwell in those who accept the sacrifice of my son, and I will receive their sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, this is the temple I will build, the temple of the Body of Christ’.
(537) Isaiah65 ‘I am sought of them that asked not for me, I am found of them that sought me not’ Paul uses these verses in Romans to show how Gods justification went to the Gentiles and not to Israel. The nation that prided herself in ‘seeking God’ were not accepted because of pride and her refusal to acknowledge the Messiah, the Gentiles were not even thinking there could be a chance of acceptance, and Jesus says ‘to all of you who weren’t even looking, you didn’t even bother to seek me, I am now opening my arms to you’ Wow! ‘I have stretched out my hands ALL DAY LONG unto a rebellious people, which walk after their own thoughts, they continually provoke me to anger, they sacrifice in gardens and burn incense on altars of brick’ God prescribed the way to sacrifice, Israel went another way. In Israel’s history you find times where she introduced a priesthood and system of sacrifice that ‘veered away’ from the ‘orthodox order’. During these times the people still had sacrifice, which they figured was good enough, but God detested sacrifices that were not in his prescribed order. Now all this points to the Cross. In Hebrews God says ‘I will not accept any more animal sacrifices, the prescribed order is now one sacrifice made on the altar of the Cross’. God is showing us here that even though many good people continue to ‘serve God in their own way’ this doesn’t cut it! You must come Gods way, his sacrifice and altar are the only way. It might seem ‘culturally incorrect’ to look at all religion outside of the Cross and deem it useless, but this is what God is saying! Don’t come to me with your own ideas of acceptable sacrifice [Cain/Able] but come to me thru the one sacrifice that I deem worthy. ‘As the new wine is found in the cluster and one saith, destroy it not for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servant’s sake, that I may not destroy them all. I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains’ God said if he found 10 righteous people in Sodom he would have spared the whole city for the remnants sake. This is a theme in scripture. God says he spares nations and people groups for the sake of the few who still have potential in them. God does this with individuals also. He sees remnants of good still left in you. You might have failed miserably, done terrible things. Why in the world does God still stick with you? He sees potential in you still, and knows it’s worth the wait! ‘The former troubles are forgotten, they are hid from mine eyes, for I create new heavens and a new earth, the former shall not be remembered or come into mind’ Now, I don’t want to whitewash what comes before this. God does rebuke and punish the people for walking in their own ways, after their own thoughts. God brings very severe judgment on the people for their sin! But after they turn back to God he says ‘I choose to forget the past, don’t keep going back to your ‘old world’ I am creating a new atmosphere for you to operate in’ I don’t want to over spiritualize this. God will make a real new heaven and earth someday. This is true. But he also wants to make a ‘new heaven and earth’ for you right now. He wants you to come out of your own small world of problems. Don’t spend your whole life surrounded by little insignificant problems. I don’t want to demean you; I want to show you that we have a tendency to see everything thru a myopic view. In the microscope everything looks huge, until you pull your head back and look at everything else around you. Sometimes the solution to our problem is to simply pull back and see the new heaven and earth that God has waiting for you; don’t spend so much time looking thru the microscope! ‘For as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and they shall long enjoy the work of their hands’ I have often used the analogy of a tree to describe Gods people, scripture does the same. Jesus is the vine, ‘the man whose name is the branch, he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the Lord’. God wants to branch out thru you, he wants you to grow and extend thru the disciples that you bring to Christ. ‘I am the vine; ye are the branches’ you ‘branch out’ thru the people you bring to the Lord. Are you branching out yet? ‘They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble, they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them’ these last few passages I have committed to memory. These verses are about as good as any to memorize and pray and claim. I like them better than the prayer of Jabez! ‘It shall come to pass before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear’ A few years ago I was in a Church service and the Pastor asked the whole congregation to pray that the Lord would pay the salary of another staff worker for a campus church in Kingsville [Bay Area Fellowship]. As the Pastor and the congregation prayed this prayer, a few minutes later another staff person came to the front and announced that earlier in the morning, before we prayed, someone already volunteered to pay the salary of the person for one year. Before we asked, God answered!
(538) This past week the Jehovah Witnesses held a regional convention in our city, the theme was ‘Jesus Christ’. The papers said they were making an all out effort to appeal to Christians at large by doing this. The Pope’s most recent book is ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ he is defending the supernatural and historical accuracy of Jesus as described in the Gospels. He is basically defending the truth of Christ. I find it interesting that most ‘Christian’ groups, even those like the Jehovah witnesses, who historically fall into the cult category, realize that the way to be ‘politically correct’ amongst other groups is to acknowledge Christ. Now I am not saying all groups are doing this out of a pure motive, Jesus said many would come in his name and say ‘I am Christ’ this not only can mean they are claiming to be Christ [Moonies] but it can also mean they are saying ‘Jesus is Christ’ but they don’t truly acknowledge his full deity. The point is even Muslims acknowledge Christ as well as do the Jews. They see him differently than Christians, but they can’t deny him fully! God will draw men to Christ; some of them will preach him out of impure motives, like Paul said. But he also said ‘either way Christ is preached’. I find it interesting that God will even use his enemies to preach his name! [Note: I am not saying this about our Catholic brothers!]
(539) Isaiah 66 ‘Thus saith the lord, the heaven is my throne and the earth my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? And where is the place of my rest’ Here we begin to see the transition that will take place in 1st century Rome. These descriptions from Isaiah are prophetic of Gods offer to Israel. Isaiah is saying ‘where is the temple that you can build for me to dwell in’? I do not want a man made temple any more. I am done with all animal sacrifices [we read that next!] God will end the prophetic message of Isaiah with his intent to transfer from an earthly natural temple, to a heavenly spiritual one, the Body of Christ! God will show his displeasure with all animal sacrifices, not just certain ones. For Isaiah to claim to be speaking for God, and to say these things seems blasphemous to Israel at this time. You must see that Isaiah is coming against all the ceremony and system that God instituted. To say these things was to put himself in the same category of Paul who the Jews will accuse of trying to destroy the law and Temple worship. But Paul was saying this post Christ, Isaiah was saying it before the Cross. How could Isaiah get away with this while the law was still in effect? The Spirit of prophecy sees and functions in future realities. When God opens up the future to a prophet, he simply speaks what he is seeing. It is Gods prerogative to proclaim his disapproval of the old system in anticipation of the new one that was to come. ‘For all those things hath mine hand made, but to this man will I look, to him that is of a poor and contrite spirit’ God says ‘I will not dwell in the temples of men, but in those who are humble and contrite’. Jesus said unless we humble ourselves and become as little children, we will not enter Gods kingdom. Here we see the ‘stones’ that the new temple will be made of, humble contrite people. ‘He that killeth an ox is like he slew a man, he that sacraficeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dogs neck, he that offers an oblation, as if he offered swine’s blood [and you guys think I am harsh!] and he that burneth incense as if he blessed an idol’ In essence Isaiah is saying the same as the book of Hebrews. You must see that in the mind of God, all animal sacrifice, after the Cross[which Isaiah is seeing thru prophecy, he is speaking ‘post Cross prophetically’] is an insult and an abomination. I am going to start a commentary on Hebrews as soon as I finish Isaiah, I want to put the book in proper perspective. When the writer of Hebrews says ‘those who continue to sin after they were enlightened, that God will not allow them to renew their repentance’ it is not speaking of believers, as commonly taught. But it is telling Israel ‘if you reject Messiah, and think you can keep bringing me all these sacrifices of repentance, I won’t accept them anymore. You cant be ‘renewed again unto repentance, you have done despite to the Spirit of Grace and have trampled under foot the sacrifice of God’ The reason the language is so strong here, is because God is saying when you continue to sacrifice animals after the once and for all sacrifice of my Son, then you are doing disgrace to Grace. For Isaiah to being saying this, pre Cross, is amazing! ‘Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out FOR MY NAMES SAKE said, let the Lord be glorified, but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed’ the brethren of Jesus cast him out for what they thought was Gods will. The rejection of Messiah was seen to be an act of Israel’s orthodox belief. They truly thought they were doing the will of God. Jesus even said a time was coming when people would kill believers thinking they were doing Gods service. But in the end God appeared to Jesus joy and they were ashamed. ‘A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple’ Gods ‘city’ and ‘temple’ are the people of God. God has a voice that comes forth out of the temple. Rivers flow from this temple. Jesus said he who believes, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. God speaks thru his church. Some have attempted to ‘de gender’ God. They will say that God is both male and female. This is not so. God is definitively male. Then where is the feminine voice? It comes from what the Spirit is saying thru the bride, the Lambs wife. God has purposed to speak this way. So you have both the male and female sides seen. Paul said that the Jerusalem which is above is the mother of us all. The ‘Jerusalem from above’ is the church, the city of God. Scripture says listen to the voice of your mother and your father. We are to hear what God says [Father] and our mother, the corporate voice of the Spirit that has spoken thru the church, the mother of us all. ‘Before she travailed she brought forth, before her pain came she was delivered of a man child, who hath heard such a thing? For as soon as Zion travailed she brought forth her children. Shall I bring to the birth and not cause to bring forth?’ God is saying there is a process to the things he wants to birth from you. Part of the process is travailing, it is the severe pain experienced at the end of pregnancy. We often equate that pain the wrong way. We think ‘well, things are so hard here at the end, I want to quit and go home’ God is saying don’t quit, you are about to give birth. Don’t misread the labor pains; it is a culmination of the long months of waiting. I determined to bring you to this point of extreme pain, it is my process. Don’t abort! ‘Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, be glad all ye that love her’ It is vital for us to enter into joy. Jesus said after the woman gives birth, she forgets all the pain she went thru, because of the joy of bringing forth the child. Begin rejoicing in God, he will do great things. Scripture says ‘when the Lord turned the captivity of Zion, it was like a dream’ God is going to so move on your behalf that you will think it is too good to be true! ‘I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the gentiles like a flowing stream’ Jesus said ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give I unto you, let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid’ You have the inner ability to ‘not let your heart be troubled’ the world runs to doctors and drugs, we run to God. ‘As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem’ God comforts us ‘in Jerusalem’. In the book of Galatians the Body of Christ is called ‘the New Jerusalem, the Church, the mother of us all’ in the book of Revelation John says ‘the city that comes down from God out of heaven, the New Jerusalem, is the bride, the Lambs wife’ God says we are comforted in community. John also says [in 1st John] ‘when WE walk in the light, WE have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses US from all sin’ God works in community, as well as with individuals. Some times we as believers go to one extreme or another. Soren Kierkegaard, the great 19th century Philosopher/Theologian wrote as a Prophet against what he saw as the abuses of the institutional church. The Danish state church had a lot of formality and ‘spectator’ Christianity. Kierkegaard emphasized Gods desire to reveal himself to people individually, outside of ‘the church’. He would say things like ‘the congregations are totally useless, there is nothing good to be found there’ and then he would say you can only truly serve God outside of ‘the church’. Well God does see all of us ‘as the church’ and he works thru individuals as well as ‘groups of people’. God wants to ‘attach’ you to people for his purpose and destiny. You need to ‘walk in the light’ with other believers, so God can ‘comfort you in Jerusalem’ the corporate city of God. ‘For I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations… to the Isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither seen my glory, and they shall declare my name among the gentiles’ sound familiar? This sounds just like the day of Pentecost, in Acts. God gathered all types of people groups to Jerusalem for the outpouring of the Spirit, and these nations/people groups went back to their own areas and spread the gospel. God sends those ‘who escape’, out to be evangelists. Many times you will ‘go thru hell’ and barley escape with your life, but the reason God let you escape was for the purpose of sending you out to other places and people. Don’t make bargains with God and not keep them! How many times have people said ‘God, if you get me out of this one I sware to do this or that’ are you out? Then do what you said! [note: in the New testament Jesus and James taught to not even make these types of vows, so I am not advocating doing this, but the point is many of us have, so if you did do it, now fulfill what you promised God you would do!] ‘For as the new heavens and the new earth shall remain before me, so shall your seed and name remain… and all flesh shall come to worship me.. and they shall go forth and look upon the bodies of those who transgressed against me, for their worm dieth not, neither shall the fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh’ I want to end our study of these last 15 or so chapters of Isaiah with a brief overview. God tells us ‘I am going to make all things new’ God has a real future eternal hope for all those who are in Christ. We need to reaffirm the truth that heaven is real! As well as a ‘new earth’ that he will make new some day. God also affirms thru the Prophet that hell is real! Theologians, even good ones, have differing views on hell. I like R.C. Sproul, he is one of my favorite theologians, he believes the references to ‘hell fire’ are symbolic, but he states ‘the real punishment will be worse than real fire’ the reason I wanted to add the above verses on ‘the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched’ is because Jesus himself uses this terminology when describing eternal punishment, the ‘worm dieth not’ indicates that there will be a real physical judgment that lasts forever! God doesn’t want ANYBODY to go there. How many will go? I don’t know, but this I do know, we as believers have the only hope in the world to keep people from going there, his name is Jesus Christ. I exhort all of you to begin doing all you can to reap in a huge harvest of souls for God, we can’t bring our cars and houses and money and stocks and all these other things with us, but we can bring people! Gather up as many of them as you can, so you will have some friends and family when you get to the other side.
(540) I got with some friends the other day. We were talking about the Lord. One of the guys brought up the verse where Jesus says ‘it is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven then for a camel to go thru the eye of a needle’ both of these friends are homeless [or about to be]. They are poor and have struggles. The one friend shared the verse to show how riches are not as important as people think. The other friend shared the interpretation that I have heard before. He said some people teach that the ‘eye of the needle’ was a low gate in the wall of Jerusalem, and that the camels can get thru the gate, but they have to crouch down and that makes it difficult. Now this teaching has been taught publicly by prosperity teachers. It used to be fairly popular in this camp. I find it sad that even this homeless guy was affected by it. I told my friend that I too was familiar with this teaching, and that it is fake. Historically there is no evidence of a gate being the ‘eye of the needle’. Second, the response of the disciples to Jesus saying this was ‘who then can be saved?’ they took Jesus words the way you and I would take it. That he was saying something that was impossible to do, except for God. It’s stuff like this that we need to be warned of. You interpret scripture thru the plain meaning, the fact that the context of the verse shows that the disciples didn’t think he was speaking about a ‘low gate’ in the wall should guide us into the right view of the verse. The word for ‘needle’ in this passage is the word used for a regular sewing needle. False teaching is harmful; Christians should refute it in love.
(541) Sometimes we overlook the obvious. In our local news paper they have been doing a story on one of the staff that follows her efforts to lose weight. She is overweight and every week they tell you how good or bad she has been doing ‘this week I feel bad, I ate too much’ and stuff like that. I read a commentary from the section of the paper where they print the public’s letters and comments. Some lady wrote in and said ‘can’t you show us an uplifting story on people who have lost weight’? She went on to describe how this story is depressing, the poor girl is never overcoming anything, always falling off the diet. She then said she even caught her at one of our restaurants with a ‘rather healthy portion of unhealthy food’ [ouch!]. Well I just read her story yesterday. She shared how when she was getting up to walk in the mornings, you are supposed to eat before you walk, so she would. Also you should eat when you get done, she did! Then she found out you shouldn’t eat right before walking, and she walks early, so should you get up at 4:00 a.m. and eat and go back to sleep and wake up at 6:00 a.m. and then walk and come home and catch your ‘after workout meal’ and maybe catch a few more zee’s before starting your day? Obviously the problem is TOO MUCH FOOD! Now, I don’t want to be mean. I have the habit of not eating at all until around 3 or 4 pm. I then will have a light snack around 7 or so. I only eat once a day. I am not bragging, and I have had people tell me this is unhealthy, maybe it is. The point I am making is if you’re ‘routine’ to lose weight has you possibly waking up at 4 a.m. to eat, you have a wrong routine! Don’t overlook the obvious. Christians are notorious for this. I was talking to one of my homeless friends who struggles with mental issues. He is very smart and suffers from a form of Autism. He also has battles in the mind. I recommended him to read a chapter of Proverbs a day. I also have seen Christians who can’t understand why nothing good is happening in their lives. I ask them ‘are you praying, do you read Gods word’? the basics, often they answer ‘no’. Don’t fall into the category of our poor ‘dieting lady’ do what's obvious. If you are having trouble loosing weight, well for heavens sake don’t wake up early and eat 2 meals before you start the day, you are obviously stumbling over a food issue if you are doing this!
(542) I have had an interesting few days. The other day I went to the homeless hangout to see some friends. I usually have a few people ask me for a few dollars, I usually give it. I had an old friend ask for a dollar, I really didn’t have one, but I did have a twenty. I have given away twenty before. But I took a risk and gave him the 20 and asked him to bring me the change. I have done this before and without fail I have always got the change back, often with the receipt! They have to go to the corner store and come back. They usually want it for cigarettes, I know some will rebuke me for this, but I won’t do it for beer. The reason I take the risk by giving them a 10 or 20 is because they can’t believe someone trusts them again, after the many failures they have had in their lives. This is why they can’t wait to get back with the receipt, to them it is an honor to get another chance. Well I waited for Angel to bring me back the change, he never showed up. I am not mad or angry at all, I saw it only as an opportunity to really show trust, I know he failed and I am out the 20, but I have spent many 20’s before. Well I knew as soon as I would see him I would forgive him. I don’t want him to avoid coming around the homeless mission over this. I didn’t realize he was doing that bad. For someone to break trust like this means they are probably on some drug, ‘ice’ is real popular on the street right now. Later in the day I had a few of the homeless guys come back to the house for a fellowship, it was good. The next day my daughter was real sick and I had to admit her to the hospital for a few days [she is still there] sure enough I needed that ‘darn’ 20 for coffee and stuff, no big deal, I hit the ATM machine. I thought it interesting how some people would give up completely on these homeless guys if this happened to them. Mercy and grace are things that are undeserved. God doesn’t require us to let people walk all over us [to a degree] but he does require of us to show love and compassion to those who at times are ungrateful and unworthy. Jesus was spit at, they tore the beard from his face. They put a bag over his face, punched him, took the bag off and said ‘now big prophet, who hit you, you think you’re such a prophet’. They stripped him and nailed his Body to a Cross, they hung him up over this ancient hill. They made his mother watch in tears and agony. They [we] were very cruel to the Son of God. He says ‘Father, forgive them for they don’t understand what they are doing’ and then a little while later will cry ‘my God, my God, why have you left me’. I think we can put up with not getting the change back from a 20! NOTE; I had both the Catholic and Protestant Chaplains come by and see us at the Hospital. They were making the rounds. I spoke to the Protestant brother for over an hour, I was ‘preaching’ and downloading stuff into him at an alarming rate. Usually you can only communicate so much to a person at one time. The Lord really opened a door to fellowship. He has many friends in Alice and told me how he just transferred from the Alice hospital to Corpus this year. I told him I felt the Lord was going to give us an ‘Alice’ connection this year [Alice is the name of one of our regional cities] he indicated he thought it might be him. He is a real good brother, open to the many things the Lord is doing. Maybe we will do a home group or something with him. I gave him this blog site, hopefully we will keep in touch. His name is Jeff, if you read this brother send me an email!
(543) While at the hospital I had the chance to catch the local religious cable channel. I have direct TV at the house and don’t get to see it. I was a little embarrassed, the level of what Christians broadcast makes you wonder if God wants the ‘TV’ to be a medium for anyone who holds a church service. I also saw a commercial for a national ministry who broadcasts locally. It was a short clip on how it is always Gods will for you to have an abundance of money. This is the well known ministry out of the Fort Worth area. There are times in our growth as Christians where we are at a level that is immature. It’s OK to be there when you are growing. It is not good to then broadcast this level on a wide scale to a broad audience. It would be like taking your 3rd grade class lectures and putting them out on the air as university lectures. It just doesn’t fit. The commercial that said it is always Gods will for you to have an over abundance in all areas [money] is a very unbalanced view. I know they sincerely teach this, but it is unbalanced. For the whole region of south Texas [and all the other places where this ministry broadcasts] to hear this level of teaching is not good. Maybe in some cases it would be OK to teach the biblical concept of God meeting our needs in an abundant way, he surely can do this. But to miss the whole point of ‘being content and in Gods will when both having an abundance and lack’ is directly opposed to what this ministry broadcast. So all I wanted to share today is we as Gods people need to recognize when we are really not at the ‘level’ of a broad audience. Don’t seek to make your voice heard beyond the parameters that God has ordained. Let God lead in all the teaching and outreach you do, if he says not to go ‘regional’ or ‘worldwide’ then don’t! If he says ‘go’ then go! But don’t simply get into this arena because you can. Just because a local cable channel allows you to broadcast to a wide region, doesn’t mean you should. It has a tendency to ‘fill the air with our words’ instead of what the Spirit is speaking.
(544) To you guys who never read the introduction any more, I just posted our latest book in the book section of this blog, it is a commentary on Hebrews. That’s why I haven’t updated this section in a while [for those of you who come to this section every week!]. Don’t forget to read the introduction every so often for new updates. Hope you like the commentary, John.
(545) I am reading Deuteronomy and thought I would share a few thoughts [chaps 1-8]. As Moses is standing on the edge of the promised land he asks God ‘can I please go into this land’ God says ‘no, and don’t ask me any more about it’. It seems kind of harsh. It also seems like God is saying ‘I know I have called you to this place. Your whole desire to see the land is something I put in you, but because you represented me in a wrong way before the people, I can’t let you in [yet!]’. Did you know that I found a verse where God let him in? I am not spiritualizing it either. You know the verse also. The Mount of Transfiguration! After all those years God said ‘now I will let your feet touch the land my son!’ it’s like God knew how bad Moses wanted to posses it, so during the true time of inheritance, the coming of Messiah, God said ‘inherit’. God gives a lot of promise’s and lessons in these first 8 chapters of Deuteronomy. He also tells Israel ‘because you didn’t believe me when I told you to go into the Promised Land, therefore I made you wander in the wilderness for 40 years and I caused you to learn a lesson’. What was the lesson? He taught them that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God! How did he teach them this lesson? He gave them plain Manna every day for 40 years. They couldn’t store it up, they had to trust him for ‘beggars bread’ if you will. Hey, if they took the one big step of faith 40 years earlier they would have had tons of great food that they didn’t have to ‘believe for’ every day, it would have just been there, in abundance! But instead he showed them what it means to trust his word. They got to a point after 40 years where if some stranger showed up and said ‘how are all you guys getting fed?’ they would have said ‘no big deal, every morning God gives us Angel food’. It would have seemed like a big deal to the stranger! God taught them to believe in his consistency. They learned that to believe for the big moment [40 years earlier] would have been better than to believe for the ‘little moments’ thru out the 40 years! We just finished Hebrews. Why does God allow Samson to be in the great ‘heroes of the faith’ chapter? Samson had a lot of problems; he had moral failures and was actually quite the playboy. He also had moments of ‘great faith’. He knew when to lay it all out on the line and risk it all. He pulled down the pillars and killed all the enemies of Israel, and oh yes, he knew he would die too. That made up for a lot! I think it would be easier for us to believe God at the edge of ‘our promised land’ than to go 40 years learning the same lesson, in little bits at a time! They still displayed a lot of faith, but it took 40 years of it to make up for that one day!
(546) Deuteronomy 9-11 In chapter 10 God tells Moses ‘this time when you come up and get the 2nd set of commandments, build me an ark [box!] so you don’t ‘accidentally’ drop them again’. It is a little funny, Moses broke the first set of commandments out of anger. God says ‘lets do it one more time, but just in case you lose it again, bring a box to put them in!’. Moses had an anger problem. This is what kept him out of the Promised Land! But God even uses this as a prophetic type. Moses actually led the people thru their journey under a ‘second covenant’. Of course the 2nd set of commandments had the same words on them as the first. But it was a type of the prophetic ministry of Moses who was a symbol of Jesus. Jesus of course would establish a new covenant in his blood, so Moses was symbolizing that 2nd covenant thru this act. Also if you review the first 10 or so chapters you will see Moses emphasize again and again the need for obedience. He tells the people ‘if you obey, your kids and land and businesses will be blessed. God will take away all sickness and disease from you. All will go well with you and your kids and you will prolong your days in the land’. God also says ‘you have been at this mountain long enough, it is time to move on. Go north’ I felt like the Lord was telling us to begin looking ‘northward’ see beyond where you have been. You might have spent 40 years in a wilderness place, begin obeying and believing God for new things. Look to him alone. When God called Abraham he called him by himself and took him and brought him to a strange land and made of him a great nation [the children we are reading about right now!] Can’t you remember when God called you in the early days, how it was just you and him? Rekindle that original flame, tell God ‘it’s just me and you again Father, show yourself strong on my behalf’. God wants to do great things with you again. One more thing, when God told Moses to come up the 2nd time to get the 10 commandments, he said ‘bring blank slates’. God asks us to bring a clean slate to him. Sort of like a blank canvas that he can paint on. If we have too many preconceived ideas on how we think things should be done, then that hinders God from painting the beautiful picture that he has in mind. Let your life be clean and open for him to do what he wants. God bless you guys, and don’t forget ‘don't brake what he paints this time around!’
(547) I woke up yesterday and wrote down ‘subscribe to a few Christian magazines’. I have subscribed to some years ago, but it’s been a while. When I went to my P.O. Box later in the day, I saw that Charisma magazine sent me a free subscription! The issue [Oct/sept 2007] dealt with so much of what I have been teaching this last year. I wonder if Lee Grady reads my blog? [I have sent him my books over the years] I liked the article he wrote. It was a warning against exalting natural Israel to a point where we undermine the need for Jews to be saved thru the blood of Christ. It was a lot like the themes I have spoken on this year. Then when you went thru the rest of the magazine it was filled with articles and ad’s for all types of Jewish stuff! ‘Buy this Hebrew prayer shawl’ and things like that. It was a little funny to be honest with you. I have subscribed to charisma before, to be honest they are way to ‘shallow’ to truly learn from. Now I am not saying I am too good for them, I think the abundance of articles from well meaning women preachers [I am not against women!] on ‘you can have what you say’ or ‘you can achieve some goal’ is not cutting it in preparing believers to live in society. I was at the homeless shelter a few years back and just hanging out with some homeless friends. I wasn’t preaching or anything. Some brothers were talking about the Lord and a new guy but in. He said he was at one time a professor from Berkeley [the liberal university in California] and that he had taught an entire course on how Greek wisdom and writings contained all types of Christian thought before Christ. Things like the story of Hercules and myths on ‘a son of the gods who would come and save the world’. He explained in true atheistic fashion that all of these sources contained much of what you find in scripture, therefore scripture and the story of Jesus are fake imitations of Greek wisdom. Now I usually do not get into these debates with homeless guys, and to be honest this guy probably thought I was homeless! The long hair and scraggly clothes fit in well with this bunch. But I had to correct this ‘professors’ attack on the faith. I explained to him that I was familiar with this teaching, and that the way I usually answer it is to tell the person [which I was about to do!] that before you had ‘Greek thought’ you had ‘Jewish though’ [the Old testament Prophets and stuff] and that in ‘Jewish thought’ are contained all the hidden shadows of a future Messiah and all other types of ‘pre Christian’ ideas. Therefore any overflow of this ‘thought’ into ‘Greek thought’ was simply a Greek copy of the true! So therefore all of this ‘professors’ refutation of Christianity is now refuted! Touché. He seemed a little depressed over this. It was like he never heard his false ideas challenged before. I did do it in love. But he should have just kept his mouth shut and not have tried to use his ‘Berkeley wisdom’ on some red neck town deep in the heart of Texas [Kidding a little here!] What’s the point? The point is if we keep feeding the church messages on how to get wealthy and to have a successful career, then we are not truly equipping them for society. I thank Charisma for sending me the free magazine, but like I said in the past, the only good stuff in it seems to be the short introduction from Lee Grady.
(548) In reading Deuteronomy God tells Israel to tear down the altars and high places where the pagan nations worshipped their god’s. Later in Israel’s history we find out that they didn’t fully obey God in this. Eventually Israel would wind up offering their children on the altar of Moloch. Moloch was a god [demon] that the pagans made an idol of. This statue was heated up by fire until the arms of the idol were bright red. Then the people would place their babies into the arms. God told Israel they made their babies pass thru the fire unto Moloch. They eventually adopted the practices of the other nations. We do this today, in a much more hidden environment. We allow for a woman to go to an abortion clinic and for a doctor to insert a knife and dismember the baby. We do this under the guise of ‘a free and open minded society’. We lie! I have found it sad how those who pride themselves in being liberal minded often hold to the most bigoted idea’s one could espouse. In Darwin’s last book [descent of man] he taught a type of evolution that said ‘the whites are further along down the path of evolving. It is obvious that the Negro is still much closer to the Monkey/Ape than the white. Both physically and mentally’[paraphrase]. Now, for any liberal to hold to this mans ignorant ideas, and to hold to them in such a way that he is proud to say ‘I believe in Darwin’ is total stupidity. Darwin’s theory has come apart at the seems in the world of science. Many scientists have come to the conclusion that the theory can lo longer be honestly held. There are tons of scientific reasons for this. But the simple fact that many in today’s society pride themselves in being ‘disciples’ of Darwin then also think that those who oppose his views are ‘bigoted’ these same people hold to one of the most racist ideas ever put in print. Hitler himself read and was a believer in Darwin’s theory. He actually believed that the extermination of the Jews was a faster way to eliminate the inferior races. This theory of Evolution is demonic at its core. It makes it easy to abort children with no consideration of the actual life of the child. We have our own Moloch’s today! NOTE; God Said that men who did not retain him in their minds would be given over to foolishness. Recently the fossil ‘Lucy’ has been making the rounds to different countries by way of airplane. Many scientists were up in arms that the flying around of this ‘precious fossil’ might endanger it. There were all sorts of debates on how to protect it and all, the best first class service for sure. How satan must be laughing at the stupidity of men who go to great lengths to protect the flying bones of a monkey, while at the same time aborting thousands of children on the planet who were created in the image of God!
(549) I had a Pastor friend years ago who was struggling to raise money for his church. He was a good man, but because of the heavy emphasis at the time on ‘bring in the wealth’ and other off balanced teaching in the church at large, he began to focus on all the money promises in scripture. A big part of the Sunday service was on God doing ‘money miracles’ any correction would of course be seen as ‘you are an instigator causing trouble’. It was so easy to fall into the category of spending most of you waking hours believing God for a financial miracle. These types of scenarios play out time and again with good Pastors. It becomes easy to fall into the mindset of viewing God and his resources as the primary thing to believe for, because after all these good men are all surrounded by other good Pastors who are all raising money for good churches. We don’t even see the great body of Christian teaching that speaks of the Kingdom of God being carried out by the poor and humble person. There is so much evidence in scripture, but we overlook it in order to fund the modern machine! Paul lived in a day where wealth and meeting places [buildings] were in abundance. You even had huge coliseums! For Paul to have reached as many areas as he did with the gospel, and with the average salary of say ‘a firefighter’ or some other average paying job, is completely overlooked by the good ministers who appeal to Paul's writings to raise wealth. These brothers don’t seem to see that Paul could have easily gone down the road of ‘renting the coliseum’ or organizing the early church around a multi million dollar organization, yet he saw in the simple proclaiming of the gospel, with minimal financial resources, the key to reaching ‘his world’. I want to exhort all the pastors and leaders who read this blog, look to the simple reality of God again. Don’t become so tunnel visioned that you see God only thru the lens of a money miracle. Money is a small aspect of completing the mission, it can become large if you see it that way, but it is small in the overall scope of the Kingdom.
(550) Deuteronomy 13-18 The Lord instructs the people that he will meet all their needs financially, and that they will always have the poor among them. Just like Jesus taught! The balance is that God would give more than enough provision into the community, and whether or not all the needs were met was up to the generosity of the community. The same thing you see in the book of Acts. Certain rich people gave and the poor had their needs met. To develop a doctrine form Deuteronomy that says to the poor ‘if you just had faith you would be rich’ violates Paul’s teachings in Timothy [chapter 6] where he says certain teaches in the last days will teach that gain is godliness [that is you can measure godliness by material wealth] from such turn away, they have erred from the faith. So in context God will bless us all as a family of people, but do not teach a material gospel. Also the Lord tells Israel ‘when you get into the land and set up a King over you, don’t let him accumulate great wealth unto himself’ interesting, God says make sure your leaders are not living high on the hog thru your money. We violate this all the time in today’s church. How many stories of teachers with million dollar condos and homes, all the while appealing to a broad audience of Christians to give sacrificially. God isn’t saying that leaders can’t prosper, but he is saying they should not be getting rich from the overall giving of many average wage workers. It is so easy to simply read all the wealth verses in this book and to look right past all these warnings. Why do we do this? We all have a tendency to ‘see’ what we want to see and overlook the rest. The Lord also gives instruction on Prophets, he says ‘if a Prophet prophesies something and it comes to pass, but he leads you away from the true God, don’t listen’ also ‘if he prophesies something and it doesn’t happen, don’t listen to him’. It is easy to recognize the second one as false, but we often overlook the first one. I have heard so many times over the years ‘well brother, I know my teachers teach that Jesus was a millionaire, and it works for me, that’s all that counts’ no it isn’t! Whether it works or not is irrelevant [in this instance] God says if it leads you away from the truth, then it’s false! Let all of our teaching and instruction bring us back into alignment with the character and nature of God, he is the goal.
(551) Deuteronomy 20-25 You read ‘the elders of the city’ a lot in these chapters. Paul will eventually choose to use this terminology to describe the leadership of the New Testament church. These were plural leaders among a group of believers in a city. Not singular preachers of groups of people in buildings on a set day of the week! You did have the singular model in Paul’s day. Where? In the system of the Pharisees and Synagogues! The concept of a ‘president’ of the synagogue leading the people on Sabbath day in Christian [Jewish] instruction was being carried out in Paul’s day. Paul used to be part of the system! He chose the concept of elders over a city, instead of a singular title over a part of the people that met in a building. I think we need to get back to the better model. Also instruction is given that when the children enter the land they are to share the fruits of the land with the stranger. They are not to totally reap all the fruit from the trees or the fields. The stranger can walk in your fields and eat whatever he wants; he just can’t take it with him. These guidelines are given for the benefit of the alien [stranger]. God says I want you to remember that you too were strangers in Egypt. This cuts to the heart of so much of the present debate over the illegal alien issue of our day. I do understand the anger that some have over this issue, God says ‘remember, you were all aliens at one time or another, don’t get so self righteous. If I tell you to share your goods with those who don’t deserve it, then do it. I am the one who brings forth the produce, so share it with others’. God has blessed us financially and materially, he requires us to share it with others. A few difficult verse’s 23:1 God says if a man is wounded in the ‘private area’ he cannot come into the congregation. God is not telling people if they have had some sexual accident that they cant serve God, he is saying he wants people who can ‘procreate’ in his church! He wants people to be able to ‘reproduce’ [soul winners] for his Kingdom. 23:14-15 God says when you ‘go to the bathroom in the land’ dig a hole and bury it, because he is in the land and your land must be sanctified. If it isn’t then he can’t ‘walk among you’. The spiritual lesson is we can’t accomplish anything without God’s presence. We need him, stay clean so he can work among us. Only by the blood. Also when a man dies without having children, his widow shall marry the brother so he can have seed remain in his name. If the brother says ‘no, I do not want to raise up seed to my brother’ then he is taken before the elders and they take off his shoe, spit in his face, and his name is called ‘the man who has no shoe’. What’s this all about? God is saying be willing to build others up, your gift is not given for you to build your ministry, or the people who relate only to you [church members]. But I have given you gifts to raise up ‘seed to your brethren’ as well. Use your gift to help others, others who can’t repay you [I think I heard this somewhere before? Jesus!] If you don’t, all the people will know your church well, it will be the one in town where every body where’s one shoe!
(552) Deuteronomy 28-31 The Lord promises much material blessings in these chapters, but he also says the Levites who receive the tithes are not to own anything. They could not use the tithe as a means to accumulate wealth. I find it funny that the modern church teaches the tithe, but leaves this part out! Also Moses is told ‘you will not go into the land, but help Joshua go in’. Moses must see his gift as something to use to build others and help them achieve goals that he himself will not achieve. Moses learns the true principle of the least being the greatest. He will be the only one who will enter in after death! Out of all the adults who were in the wilderness, only Joshua and Caleb go in to the Promised Land. Moses goes in after death at the mount of transfiguration. He fulfills the symbol of Christ as the first fruits unto God. Moses tells Joshua ‘you must go in with this people’. In the world of church and Pastoral ministry, I have seen how good men will start a ‘work’ and sometimes out of fear begin to look for someone to ‘take it over’. God tells Joshua ‘you must go in too!’ In Moses case the word of the Lord was ‘don’t go in’ [yet!] in Joshua’s case ‘don’t not go in!’ Have you allowed fear and intimidation to lead you to think it’s time to ‘get out’. Only move [remove] as God directs, don’t start looking for a replacement, you have too many years to fulfill, you must go in with this people! NOTE; I thought I just ‘heard’ someone say ‘is this guy talking about me’? Hey, if it’s for you, then yes!
(553) Deuteronomy 32-34 Moses tells the people after he dies they will fall away from God and spend years in judgment. This is a necessary failure. He will hide his face from them and they will realize that God alone is God and they will find help no where else. God does stuff like this a lot! One of the verses in chapter 28 says ‘you will have confusion for the sight of your eyes’. This summer I had a terrible case of vertigo. I eventually found out it was from damage that is done to the inner ear from a viral infection. I researched some natural supplements and had to choose between 2 types. I chose St. Johns Wort and also eventually took Valerian root as well. The ‘St. Johns Wort’ seemed ‘prophetic’ enough, it has my name in it! But I never saw any prophetic indications with the Valerian Root. I have a homeless friend who is a deep bible student, he has been asking me to look up Spikenard for him. It is a biblical thing. He has been talking about it for a while. Yesterday we were at my house fellowshipping and I gave him a bible dictionary and said ‘look it up’. He reads the definition, it comes from Valerian Root, Oh well there’s the ‘prophetic’ thing. The real point is God allowed me to go thru a season of ‘disorientation’ cause of ‘the sight of my eyes’. You mean to tell me brother that God chastens you? Oh my, I would never go thru stuff like that. You lie! In the last chapter Moses dies and scripture says ‘no man knows where his tomb is till this day’. I like this. Moses is still fulfilling prophetic imagery in death. Years later a prophet would arise in Israel whose name is Jesus. He will claim to be sent from God. Many will challenge this claim. He will do no wrong, and no deceit will ever be found in his mouth. They will get tired of him. They will finally railroad him in an unjust court and bring false witnesses to testify against him. They will crucify him in front of his friends and family. They will put him in a grave and 3 days later he will come back to life. He will give instructions to his followers and ascend into heaven. This fact is the singular most historical fact of the first century [of all centuries!] many will testify to this. Because of the significance of this movement many will do their best over the centuries to disprove his story. They will search high and low for ways to disprove Jesus. They will spend years and millions looking for ‘the tomb of Jesus’ with a body in it. They will never find one. Just like the people of Moses day would never find his body in a tomb either. NOTE; a few verses that I liked at the end. God says ‘a fiery law shall proceed out of thy right hand’ ‘everyone shall receive of thy words’ and ‘my doctrine shall drop down like rain’. I like these images. I have prayed the scriptures ‘pour out your Spirit on my seed, your blessing on my offspring’ ‘I will pour water on him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground’. I felt like the Lord was saying he is going to give power and authority to those who are truly speaking what the Spirit is saying. Not just motivational stuff! God raises up prophetic voices to deal with real issues, not just to motivate you into a successful life. They said of Jesus ‘he speaks with authority, not like the regular preachers’ if you want this type of effect, then you must say what the Spirit is saying.
(554) I just got back from some fellowship with one of my homeless friends. He was studying some end time scenarios and discussing the book of revelation. He is very knowledgeable. I tried to steer the conversation more towards the spiritual signs of the end times versus the geopolitical signs. I shared how Jesus will come back for a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle. So an important sign is the condition of the church, the true temple of God. To look at the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem as a major hinge event of Christ’s return, and to the many different end time scenarios as what must happen and when, this gets us off of the main themes taught by Jesus in Matthew. Jesus teaching on the end time is much more basic than these elaborate scenarios. Jesus actually says that after the tribulation of those days that the sign of the coming of the Son of man will be seen. He also says that after the tribulation one will be taken and another left. Pretty plain. I realize that the brothers who hold to the more elaborate themes see that Jesus will take away believers before the tribulation. I know all the explanations of this [I think!] but I shared with my friend that if you simply picked up the bible and read that after the tribulation of those days Jesus will come back and some will be taken and others left, that you would see that Jesus will return and take people after the tribulation. To then develop all types of ‘secret’ comings, to view the verses where the Lord says to John ‘come up hither’ in revelation, and then to say ‘this is where Jesus secretly catches away believers’ is to complicate the simple eschatology of Jesus. My friend was discussing a lot of the other ideas of the end times, I tried to focus him on the fact that Jesus wants us to grow in him, evangelize the world, and not get sidetracked into trying to figure out all types of national scenarios of global proportions. My friend did say that Jesus said the gospel will be preached in all the world before the end comes. I agreed and shared with him that Jesus told us that when the church is loving each other the way he taught [full maturity] then all nations will know that we are his. In essence we got back to the ‘sign’ of the church being mature and being the holy temple that God desires when he returns. My friend saw the point. NOTE; During the conversation I mentioned how we sometimes get locked into certain viewpoints that can lead to ‘seeing’ a possible reference of Jesus and saying ‘this is anti-christ’. I mentioned how many modern preachers see the verse on the rider on a white horse who is going forth to conquer and freely say ‘this is anti christ’ [Revelation 6- Zechariah chapter 6 actually calls these horses the 4 spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of the earth, hardly a picture of anti christ!] You will see images of Jesus being on a white horse later in revelation, and also one of the reasons people have seen this first reference as ‘anti christ’ is because of the plagues and judgments that follow this rider. I shared with my friend how in Revelation the seals and bowls and other images of judgment are the judgments of God, not satan. So it would not be inconsistent to see Jesus on a white horse prior to the release of judgments, as a matter of fact this is one of the main themes of Revelation. My friend almost saw this idea as heresy. He told me how he too views the rider as anti christ, and how because this rider has a bow [a pagan symbol from Rome] that he is anti-christ. I briefly quoted off the top of my head a few scriptures where God uses a bow in prophetic imagery ‘I will bend Judah like a bow’ ‘children are like arrows in the hand of a mighty man’. I didn’t want to argue with my friend, I just tried to show him how we can be so sure of certain ways of seeing things that we never even give a second thought to interpreting a possible Jesus verse as ‘anti-christ’. This is the problem with a lot of these drawn out end time ‘prophecy charts’ they have way too many dogmatic scenarios that seem to lose sight of Jesus! Revelation says the testimony of Jesus is the spirit [intent] of prophecy. All prophecy should ultimately testify of Christ, not anti christ!
(555) I mentioned the other day how one morning I woke up and thought I heard the Lord telling me to subscribe to a few Christian magazines, and then later in the day I found a Charisma magazine in my p.o. box, well a friend also just gave me a year old Christianity today magazine that someone had given him. I read some articles, I was happy to see the amount of deep Christian books, put out by well respected theologians, on the view of church that I espouse. There were a lot of articles on the church as a natural organic community of people as opposed to the institutional thing. Many thoughts and ideas I have taught. They were coming from brilliant minds. I felt this to be a confirmation to a lot of the things I have taught. So in the past few weeks I saw the Lord confirm many of the things I have been speaking over the years, and it was confirmation that I didn’t expect or seek for. Why is this important? We all need to be encouraged and affirmed in the message we speak. In the previous entry, why is it so hard for intelligent Christians, who really know the word, to see obvious ‘Jesus’ verse’s and see them as ‘anti chirst’. Because we have been taught certain views of religious things and we hold to these views ‘religiously’. When someone comes along and says you need to re examine your views, it hurts! Old Testament prophets were rejected on these grounds. God will often confirm to you a ‘new way’ of seeing things thru the mouths of 2 or more witnesses. I think when I woke up the other day and heard the Lord say ‘get Christian magazines’ that what he was really telling me was he would confirm to me that we were on track thru the witness of 2 Christian magazines. I didn’t look for them; they just ‘accidentally’ found their way into my hands. NOTE; I just looked up the chapters in revelation that deal with the riders on white horses. In chapter 6 you see the rider on the white horse that some say is anti chirst. I think it is Christ. In chapter 5 you see Jesus as the one who has power to open the book that releases judgments on the earth. He is the one opening the judgments in chapter 6. In chapter 19 you see Jesus coming back on a white horse going forth to judge and make war. Some say the verse in chapter 6 can’t be Jesus [hey, you only have 2 mentions of riders on white horse’s in Revelation. In both references war and judgment are seen to be tied in with the rider] because war and judgment come right after. That is exactly why it just might be Jesus! NOTE; I see this thinking as being indicative to the way we truncate Jesus and his prophetic role in judgment and magnify the doctrine of anti chirst. In revelation [the book!] you are not seeing anti christ as someone going forth to conquer, you are seeing the righteous judgments of God and the vindication of Christ’s Kingdom in the earth. The ‘judgment’ of the beast and satan are things coming down upon them, not them going forth to conquer. It is this overall view of prophecy that permeates modern evangelicalism, it has a tendency to see prophecy thru the lens of the anti christ and the beast. It unintentionally ‘exalts’ the work of the enemy. If we follow the guideline given in the book of Revelation itself, that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit [intent] of prophecy, then when you come upon verses of judgment being released after the appearing of a rider on a white horse, your initial reaction isn’t to see this rider as anti christ, but as Christ, the one whom prophecy points too! NOTE; Might as well run with this a little more. Scholarship has shown us that one of the earliest new testament books written was Thessalonians. That’s interesting, why would the lord inspire this book before the others? Because it dealt with a major threat to the early church that was imminent. Paul knew there were to be extreme persecutions coming to the early church. He would write the early believers and warn them of demonized leaders who would attack God's people. Many believe the early writings of anti christ refer to early Roman Emperors [Nero and others]. Now if this is true, and Paul was warning the church of future persecutions that were on the horizon, then it only makes sense that this letter would be written early on, before the persecutions got into full swing. I mention this because another field of teaching goes into elaborate schemes of what will happen in the rebuilding of the temple in the last days. While it is possible that there will be a rebuilding, it is not necessary! You can argue about all the technical details surrounding the scriptures that speak of the destruction and desecration of the temple. You have had multiple times in history where these things happened. Some believe that the later references [like in Thessalonians!] refer to events surrounding the destruction in a.d. 70 under Titus. Now we didn’t always know for sure that Thessalonians was written before a.d. 70 and that would eliminate the references as referring to the a.d. 70 date. But now we are sure that Thessalonians was written before that date, around a.d. 50. So without being dogmatic, I wanted to put some context to the debate. You do not need the revived Roman empire to fulfill things in prophecy if the 1st Roman empire already fulfilled it! So let’s get some balance and knowledge to go along with all our end time scenarios. We might be looking for things that already happened [like the destruction of the temple]. NOTE; It is still possible that a temple will be built in Jerusalem, I just want you to see that there were immediate concerns that Paul was addressing to the readers of his letters. Warning the Christians in Corinthians about marrying, maybe it had something to do with the Lord revealing to him the upcoming persecutions of believers. Paul might have been saying ‘for the present time, don’t get married, we have lots of persecution coming ahead’. The point is we need to understand the real significance that the early epistles had to the hearers of the letters. We can not allow our belief in the inspiration of scripture [which I hold to!] to bypass the practical aspects of the letters that were being written. The recipients had to have had some practical application to what was being written. So any letters referencing the destruction of the temple, or future leaders who would destroy Gods people and desecrate the temple, these references must be seen in the context of the times. If Paul prophesied a coming desecration of the temple, and he said it a few years prior to it’s destruction, then you must question whether or not this is what he was referring to. Jesus early on prophesied the destruction, it is only natural for the Apostles to have held to this belief as an early tradition of the church. It was quite obvious that the destruction that Jesus spoke about happened in a.d 70, it is very possible that this was the same event Paul was speaking of. Don’t always read these letters as future dates, they were future at the time of writing, but a few thousand years have gone by, some of the ‘future’ things might have now past! NOTE; It’s funny, but some of these brothers believe that Jesus comes back in Revelation 4 secretly and takes away half the planet [the church] they seem to find this ‘taking away’ from the verse that says to John ‘come up hither’. They also see a possible verse describing Jesus on a white horse and call him ‘the antichrist’ and these same dear brothers think I am the heretic![they ‘see’ him where he is not. They see Jesus coming and taking away a large population of earth from a verse that simply says ‘come up hither’ to John. They then have a very plain verse of a conquering rider on a white horse and say ‘this cant be Jesus because he has a bow instead of a sword’ this reasoning is crazy!] God does have a sense of humor. Also in the book of revelation you have prophetic imagery. The beast and the dragon and the lamb. Revelation uses extreme figures to clearly show forth either the righteousness [white horse] or the judgment [pale horse] of things. John is seeing things in stark images. To then translate the rider on the white horse in a way that is ‘secretive’ [i.e.; satan appearing as an angel of light] would be going against the main flow of the images in revelation. This prophetic book clearly uses symbols in stark contrast. Though the book itself has many ‘tricky’ symbols, the symbols themselves are not hidden, but obvious. Like the ‘great whore’ and stuff like that. I want to stress that the brothers who believe these silly interpretations are very smart. In the above example they will have all types of deep reasons why a certain image means a certain thing. Deep studies into the possible rise of the Roman Empire and things. While I personally do not see their views as correct, they have done lots of research and background work in espousing their views. How than can intelligent people overlook some of the plain stuff I just showed you? It’s because we have a tendency to go down certain paths in our thinking, and once we go down these paths it never dawns on us to take a breath before you so adamantly describe the rider on the white horse ‘oh, he is the anti christ’. All of us need to lay our knowledge and past influences at the foot of the Cross. I am not saying leave your brain at the door! But we need to approach scripture with a broad view of Gods overall purpose. If you see revelation from the context of Kingdoms being in conflict, and you view Johns prophetic writings as the Spirit showing us that the Kingdom of God will face fierce resistance from the kingdoms of men, then you will be looking for images of Jesus conquering in the face of fierce opposition. You will also see the church going thru great trials throughout the centuries. You will see God vindicating his people, and even honoring the prayers of his martyrs. You will see the empire that John was living in at the time as one of the most severe threats to the fledgling church [Rome and the early centuries]. This will help in the overall view of the book, seeing it in the light of the way it was written. This style of literature was called ‘apocalyptic’ in the early church. There were ways to see this type of writing. I am not saying that revelation isn’t inspired, but see it in context of the larger picture. John shows the Kingdom of God ultimately triumphing over the kingdoms of men at the end of the age. We know that these figures are still in the future, but much of the imagery of Rome [the city on 7 hills] and its war against the saints had fulfillment during the early centuries. It had real meaning to the church then, as it does to us today. Why resurrect the Roman Empire as well as all the other images in order to fit our day. The book was meant for all the church. So our brother’s who lived 2000 years ago had stuff about them and their struggles, as well as the future hopes contained in it for us. The book is a wonderful prophetic vision given to encourage the people of God thru out the ages. The message is the ultimate triumph of the Kingdom of God over the kingdoms of men. We see a victorious Jesus leading a white robed [righteous] army of saints in certain victory. Don’t read the book looking for 666 and stuff, I know it’s in there, but the purpose of the book is to testify of Jesus conquering Kingdom, not the anti Christ.
(556) Started reading Joshua. As God brings them into the land Joshua is like Jesus in Revelation, leading the people into a triumphant victory. In both books you see 2 spies [witnesses] you have the harlot Rahab getting judged [she is declared righteous, a Divine act of justification-Hebrews 11] and you have the great whore of Babylon getting judged in Revelation. You have the Old Testament Joshua which means Jesus in the New. As the children of Israel take Jericho they see how God is working supernaturally on their behalf. They then go to the next city, Ai, and only send in a few thousand troops. They lose around 36 men. Joshua overreacts to this loss and falls on his face. Tells God ‘why did you make us come over this Jordan, we could have stayed on the other side. When all our enemies hear about this they will surround us and kill us’. He has quite a pity party! It’s like God is looking down and telling Jesus ‘hey, I know I picked the boy, but who would have thought he was going to take it this bad!’ It’s funny, the Lord finally appears to him and says ‘get up, what are you doing on your face? You have encountered a problem, so deal with it’ God reveals to Joshua that one of his men has some of the goods hidden in his camp and that’s the sin that caused the defeat. They get the guy, make him confess, and everything is O.K. Not! They stone the brother to death and then to make sure he’s dead, they burn the guy! Ouch! I could just see one of our local gangs standing by thinking ‘and we thought our gang was bad’. The Lord deals with the sin and they regroup. I find it funny how Gods leaders all have a tendency to overreact to problems. I think it’s in our nature. Leaders have the ability to see farther than the rest of the community, they also come to more drastic conclusions when things go wrong. Elijah, Moses, etc... The Lords solution was ‘deal with the problem, do what you have to do, get up off of your face for heavens sake, and let’s get on with the program’. I don’t like these types of answers either. I wish the Lord would give me a special response like ‘son, I see the problem. Your right. I will rapture you and destroy all your enemies. And I will make all those people who talked about you feel bad that you aren’t around anymore. We’ll show them’ God doesn’t do this, he tells us ‘get off the ground and start moving’ are you moving forward yet?
(557) Joshua- As Joshua takes Jericho, they experience failure at Ai. They violate the principle of God being with them as a community. They split off and send a few thousand to Ai, God stayed in the camp! Our victory comes when we see all of our brothers in our region as the corporate people of God, don’t divide the Body of Christ, it is certainly not limited to the Christians who meet in buildings on Sunday. It is also not divided into all these different ‘churches’. We are all the Church, even the ones who don’t ‘go to church on Sunday!’ [That is if you are a believer]. Gibeon sees Israel’s victory and pretends they are travelers going thru the land. They put old clothes on and have moldy bread. They tell Joshua ‘we are traveling thru the land, make a league with us’ Joshua does, and they find out that they are really inhabitants of the land. The people blame the leaders for this bad decision, even though they all thought it was a good idea at the time! This happens all the time in church situations, if you haven’t experienced it yet, you will. So as the children of Israel start possessing land, it becomes easy. They form a habit of possessing! God will bring you to a place where you begin overcoming obstacles on a routine basis. Another dynamic that takes place is the inhabitants of the land begin forming alliances against Israel. One alliance forms, and Joshua conquers them. Then another one forms. Scripture says God put it in their hearts to do this so Joshua would cover more territory rapidly. God was allowing Israel to ‘kill 2 birds with one stone’ so to speak. Do you see your enemies forming alliances against you? Sort of like ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. Do people who could never agree on things unite now in opposition to you? Then praise God, he is giving you possession rapidly! The tribe Of Joseph asks Joshua for more land, they have 2 tribes to represent [Ephraim and Manasseh] Joshua says ‘you are right, go take the wood land [forest]’ they say ‘it’s to hard to take’ Joshua says ‘be strong; you would be surprised what you can do with Gods help’ Joshua learned this lesson from experience. Some times we are like the tribe of Joseph, we want people to give us opportunities. We want land given to us free and clear. We have developed this entitlement mentality in the church [and country!] Often times the answer to our problem is ‘overcome it’. We don’t like this answer.
(558) A few more things from Joshua. He tells Israel to build cities of refuge, so when someone is guilty of the blood of another person he can flee into the city for refuge. This is a type of the church. The bible calls the church the New Jerusalem, John calls her the city of God coming down from God out of heaven, the bride the lamb’s wife. All men are guilty of the blood of Jesus, he died for our sins. We can flee into the Body of Christ and find refuge in the church. Those who fled to the cities of refuge stayed there until the death of the high priest. After his death they could go out from the city and live the rest of their days in their land. The death of our high priest, Jesus, allows us to ‘go out and come in and find pasture’ we have release thru the death of Jesus as well as thru his life! The 2 and a half tribes, Rueben, Gad and Manasseh go back to the other side of the Jordan to posses their land. They build an altar on the coast of Jordan. The tribes in the Promised Land hear about it and confront them ‘why did you build this altar? Are you rebelling against God?’ They reassure their brothers that it is an altar of witness only, they will never sacrifice an animal on it. It is standing there alone, away from the tabernacle and is free from all animal sacrifice. What a picture of the Cross! And last but not least Joshua commands all the people to honor God, he makes them publicly commit to serve the Lord. He then sets up this ‘great stone’ and says ‘this stone is a witness for you, it has heard all the words you have spoken. Don’t go against what you have said’. This is another type of Christ. Jesus is the ‘great stone’ that all judgment has been given to. He has ‘heard all the words we have spoken’ and seen our thoughts and intents. Don’t rebel against him. He also is the ‘capstone/headstone’ that completes the temple of God [the church]. In the prophets [Haggai/Zechariah] they shout ‘grace, grace’ unto it as it is being placed at the temples completion. Jesus will return someday and complete the glorious temple of God, the church, and he does it with absolute grace. He is the great stone!
(559) Felt like the lord had a word for you ‘Those who I give great authority to, are required to walk in humility. The authority requires it. If pride gets in the way, I will not remove the authority, but instead allow humiliation. Either you humble yourself, or I will humble you. I am more concerned with fulfilling the mandate thru you, than for your own personal comfort’.
(560) This goes with the last entry, but I wanted that word to stand alone. In the early church you had leaders who raised the dead and operated in miraculous signs. None of them organized a ministry around their personalities or saw their gift as a means to obtain financial independence. They were not operating with today’s mindset. When undue attention was given to them because of their gifts, they saw it as their responsibility to reject it. They would not allow themselves to become famous and become the center of attention. I often hear talk on the return of the early power once again. Until we rethink the purpose and nature of our gifts, we will not have the character to handle it. The present church thru pride has grasped an ideology that sees the gifts and the people as tools to bring success to themselves. This spirit must come down. It is no accident that Jesus dealt with the money changers the way he did. He understood that the merchandising of the gospel would be a tremendous hindrance to his purpose in the earth. We, as a people, must repent and return to a simple concept of all Gods people being equals, and the gifted ones in our midst are simply carriers of the gifts for the mutual benefit of all Gods people. We need to humble ourselves once again.
(561) I heard a brother speak the other day. He shared a good message. He confessed that most of his background and study came from a certain type of Christianity. He shared from A.A. Allen, John G lake, Kathryn Kuhlman and others who were part of the ‘latter rain’ or healing movements from the middle of the last century. He also said how after he became a Christian he called Rhema Bible college and ordered ‘one of everything’ they had. He had quite a big load of books and tapes! The message the brother shared was good, he seems to be a very humble man. I remember studying many of these movements myself, I realized the danger that comes from seeing only one particular aspect of the church. Like studying year’s worth of teachings that all have the same fundamental error. You might think you are learning year’s worth of knowledge, but in reality you are feeding from a very skewed idea of Christianity. The people the lord used in the latter rain movement were good people [with many flaws] that for the most part were gifted in great ways. I feel the problem with this movement was the whole concept of fame and ‘platform performance’. They didn’t see the wrong paradigm that they were operating from. They didn’t realize that these gifts should be used in a limited way from such a platform. They fell into the mindset of the day that created an organization around them and their personas. So you had tremendously gifted people, like William Branham, who operated in tremendous giftings, but who also had some serious doctrinal flaws. He taught racist ideas about blacks, the ‘seed of the serpent’ and things like this. I do not view all of these people as false prophets, the danger was the individualistic style and performance mentality that went along with the gifts. Real gifts, less than ideal ways of expressing them.
(562) John:1 Jesus is called the Word of God, he comes into the earth as the incarnation, the ‘fleshed out’ fulfillment of Gods Word. John the Baptist is asked who he is. The Jewish leaders ask ‘are you that prophet?’ he says ‘no’. What prophet? The one Moses said would come ‘the Lord God will raise up a prophet unto you, like me. Whoever doesn’t listen to him will be destroyed’. We covered this in Deuteronomy. They ask him ‘are you Elijah’ he says ‘no’. John was the fulfillment of the Malachi prophecy that said before the Lord comes he will send Elijah the prophet. Jesus says this about John. Why did John deny it? I am not sure, but it might be because he really didn’t know. Sort of like the thorn in Paul’s side, God allowed things to happen to Paul so he would not get puffed up in pride and side track his mission. Maybe the Lord never let John see how truly effective he was. John does say ‘I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness’ John does see himself thru the prophet Isaiah. I like this. I have personally had many words from Isaiah that I felt the Lord had given me, John saw himself in this book too. John was ‘the voice’ just like Jesus is ‘the Word’ John is ‘the voice’. John was a voice before he was a man. God had predestined John to carry a message before he was born. He had this word in his DNA at birth. His body was simply a carrier, an ‘incarnation’ of the voice that he was to have. God has predestined all of us with a purpose before we were born. Our appearing on the planet is for the sole purpose of carrying out this destiny. You are not here to be happy, have a nice income, go to a nice church. You are here to fulfill Gods will, you can have the other things or not, that is irrelevant. You must first fulfill the mission! John testifies of Christ by the Spirit descending on Jesus. John says ‘I knew him not, but by the Spirit’ John knew Jesus, he was his cousin! But John was only going to recognize the gifts and callings on people. He would follow Paul's admonition ‘know no man after the flesh’. It is incumbent upon us to recognize the gifts in others and to operate accordingly. Don’t make alliances and pacts with people based on friendship and personal affiliations. It’s good to have friends and all, but the Kingdom is built upon recognizing and receiving those who have come with a mandate from God. John saw Jesus in this light. Scripture says ‘the world was made by him, he was in the world, yet they knew him not’ Jesus was creating a divine atmosphere of grace for people to access. They didn’t even know or recognize him, yet this didn’t side track him from his purpose. Understand that God has placed you in a geographical location with a pre planned destiny in mind. God has chosen you to be where you are and for this season. You will fulfill your calling whether people ‘know’ you or not. God requires us to see the gifts in each other, but many will not appreciate what you are doing, do it any way, you have come with a destiny to fulfill, so fulfill it!
(563) John 2- Jesus does his first miracle, changes water into wine. They say ‘most people put the good wine out first, but you have saved the best for last’. This is a type of the new covenant of his blood [wine], Jesus will introduce a better covenant thru his blood. Many will not accept this new way because they have been ‘drinking’ old wine for so long, they are not willing to change. We often see this in Christian circles, people who have functioned in a limited way for years, God might bring to them new ways of seeing things, they will often reject the new wine on the basis of being comfortable with the old way, we don’t want to shake the apple cart. God wants us to shake it! Jesus finds the money changers in the temple and drives them out with a whip, turns the tables over and gets mad. He didn’t take the ecumenical approach! There are times for radical transition, I feel we are at that place now as the people of God. The gospel is not about us increasing our portfolio, it’s about laying our goals down for the kingdom. These money changers lost their influence in the ‘temple’ after Jesus got thru with them, I think it was prophetic. Jesus says ‘destroy this temple and in 3 days I will raise it up’ those hearing this mistake his Body [temple] with the building [temple in Jerusalem]. Evangelicals [some of them] make the same mistake today. They are looking to the natural events in natural Jerusalem, they should be looking at the real temple! [Both Jesus and the Body of Christ]. Jesus goes to the Passover, the people hail him and Jesus says he will not commit himself to them, because he knew what was in man. What was in man? These same people will be asking for his death not long from now. Jesus did not seek commitment from men, contrary to the way we see ministry today. Modern ministry seeks to increase man’s commitment to them ‘pledge so much money, join this or that’ Jesus knew he had a destiny, he would fulfill it without the help of man!
(564) DREAM- I just woke up, I dreamt that I was in this room with a Catholic Bishop. We were friends and helping each other out. He was going to go to some nation or place, before he left I laid hands on him and he was being filled with the Spirit. I feel like this spoke to us ministering to a large Catholic community of people. I have both given and received ministry from Catholics. I felt the Lord was saying we would have influence with our Catholic brothers. Sometimes I ‘spiritualize’ these dreams, it might be that a Catholic Bishop was filled with the Spirit while listening to us?
(565) John 3- Nicodemus comes secretly to Jesus, he is one of the few in leadership that is having doubts. The others with one voice reject Jesus, Nicodemus is wondering. Jesus rebukes him for being a ‘ruler’ of the Jews and not being able to comprehend the most basic stuff. I have found it disheartening over the years to talk with Pastors who heard someone teach that because Jesus had an expensive coat, that he must have been rich. Despite all the evidence in the New Testament how Jesus was the son of a carpenter and lived an average life. The tons of verses where Jesus is reproving rich people. The whole historical and biblical truth of Jesus being a man of humble means. The fact that he had an expensive coat can more than likely be explained by the custom of people doing extravagant acts of worship towards him. The woman and the expensive perfume poured on him. Things like this. Someone probably gave him the coat. But for Pastors, who are good men, to fall for this stuff was unbelievable. Sort of like Jesus telling Nicodemus ‘you are a leader and can’t discern the most basic stuff’! Jesus teaches the reality of the new birth. All people must be born of God thru belief in Jesus, or they will not be saved. We must stand strong for Jesus as the only way to God. John the Baptist will be told that all men are going to Jesus. John says ‘great, he must increase and I must decrease’ John understood that the role of leadership [prophets] was to point to the fame and persona of Jesus. Not to go down the common road of pointing people towards us. In modern ministry we draw people to our gifts and abilities. We structure modern churches around the gift of the Pastor. We allow leadership to become preeminent in our minds and thoughts. John knew better. We also see that the wrath of God abides on all who do not believe in Jesus. If you believe in Jesus you escape Gods wrath. It can’t touch you. Whether you are in heaven or earth, or like David said ‘in hell you are there’. That is you can’t escape Gods presence anywhere. So if you are in Christ, wrath can’t get you. If you are not in Christ, it continually abides on you. You do not escape wrath by leaving the planet during the tribulation. If an unbeliever was on a rocket ship right before the tribulation started, and wound up on the moon during the 7 years of wrath, he wouldn’t escape Gods wrath. You don’t escape judgment by being in the right geographical location, you escape it by being IN HIM! John also says a man can receive nothing unless it is given to him. Why be jealous if all of our gifts and abilities are free gifts? We act like we earned them! John says no man receives his testimony, then he says ‘to those who have received it’. What’s this mean? Paul told the Corinthians that we have received the Spirit of God so we might know the things that are freely given to us from God. God gives us his Spirit first, so we can receive his testimony. This goes back to the early centuries of the church and hits all the major doctrines on sovereignty. Augustine, Calvin, Luther [Yes Luther was a strong believer in predestination, it was no accident that he was an Augustinian monk!] Paul tells the Ephesians that were are dead in sins and completely incapable of receiving spiritual truth until God pours his Spirit into us and we become alive. Thank God that even though no man [in the natural] can receive his testimony, that God gives us his Spirit and births us so we can know the things that he has freely given to us in Christ!
(566) John 4- Jesus talks to the woman at the well. She is Samaritan and he violates the cultural norms of the day by speaking to this woman. Critics often say Christianity is bigoted against women, Jesus gave more honor to women than any other religion of the day. He tells the woman that if she asked, he would give her the Spirit that would be a well of water in her. God wants us to flow in revelation and truth, not just teach from the intellect. Now the intellect is important, God says ‘worship me with you heart, soul, MIND and might’ but you must allow the Spirit to spring up from you like a well. Jesus tells the woman ‘you have had 5 husbands and the guy you’re shacking up with now is not your husband’ she then says ‘I perceive you are a prophet’. Funny, she turns the conversation over to religion! She recognizes the prophetic aspect of Jesus words and says ‘I think you’re a prophet’. Unlike many Christians today, she believed that prophecy was more than just preaching, she knew it carried a supernatural element. They continue to talk ‘religion’ and Jesus tells her all worship takes place in Spirit and truth, not at a specific location. The religious mind looks for ‘religious’ places to carry out worship, Jesus says ‘from now on it will be done thru all who worship in Spirit and truth’. He is speaking of the new concept of the people of God being the temple. No longer will they need the temple down the block, but they will be the actual dwelling place of God. Jesus says his meat is to do the will of him that sent him and to finish his work. We often do the will, but don’t finish the task! I just retired after 25 years as a firefighter [actually the retirement is in process] and I have seen so many talented guys join the dept and do a few years and go somewhere else. They might stay a few years at the next dept. and leave again. It’s not that they aren’t talented, they just don’t stick it out. God wants us to finish his task, don’t have a resume with a lot of activity, have one that has some assignments that were completed. Jesus says look on the fields, they are ready. Don’t say ‘4 more months and then comes harvest’. We are always in the harvest. It is not something that only happens in church on Sunday. Break the mindset that is always looking down the road for ministry to happen. Ministry happens right now, all the time. You and I are in the harvest, are you picking any fruit? Jesus says a prophet has no honor in his own country. We often want a prophetic word from some out of town prophet. We enjoy going out of town to a conference or some vacation venue to get a ‘word from the Lord’. We do not like to receive from prophets in our midst. They often don’t give good words like ‘Thus saith the Lord, you will be rich’ and stuff like that. We need to stop looking for the word we want to hear, and receive from prophets in our area.
(567) John 5- Jesus heals the man at the pool of Bethesda. Scripture says an angel went down into this pool at a certain time and stirred the water, whoever got in after the water was stirred was healed. How do we explain this? Were the people superstitious? Well I think it happened just like John wrote it. We believe in a supernatural God, he raised his Son from the dead, he surely can send an angel to stir up some water. Jesus asks the man ‘do you want to be healed’? You would think ‘of course’ but people that are in situations that can lend to being irresponsible, having others take care of them, they often want to stay that way. It gives them an excuse to ‘not act responsibly’. The man says ‘I have no man to put me into the water after the angel comes’ he is looking for others to do something for him. He has a victim mentality. Jesus says ‘quit blaming everyone else, take up your bed and walk’. It’s time for our society to tell people ‘take up your bed and walk, we love you, we want to help you as much as possible, but you need to eventually take up your bed and walk’ hard stuff! Jesus will call God his father, making himself equal with God. The Jewish leaders will be offended. He then will tell them if they do not honor him, they are not honoring the Father. He says he only does what he sees the Father doing first. His life was an exact duplicate of the heart of God. Our lives should be the result of what God wants and reveals to us. Your life is not the result of your confession, or you seeking success. Your life should be the outcome of what God has revealed to you. It might mean less money, or less success. It might mean a Cross or martyrdom. Don’t presume that Gods plan for you is simply to have lots of money and be successful, it might mean less money and obscurity. But it will be an abundant life because you lived it in the purpose of God. Jesus says the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear will live. You had as much to do with your spiritual birth as you did with your natural one. Before you were born you had no power or ability to choose to be born, so in your new birth you were dead in sin and unable to ‘choose God’ he chose you. Jesus will tell the religious leaders ‘how can you believe if you seek the honor of men’ he will challenge the religious mindset of the day that thrived off of the notoriety of ‘being in ministry’. The leaders loved the greetings in the markets and public places. They lived for the honor that came from their status as ‘preachers’ who were well known. Jesus condemned this mindset. He says ‘I receive not honor from men’ in essence I am here to lay my life down, I will suffer shame and public humiliation, I will do the will of my Father and bare tremendous reproach and hatred from men. I will please my Father. Jesus tells the Jewish leaders ‘Moses wrote about me, you have his writings. If you don’t believe his writings, how can you believe in me, he wrote about me’ we have covered a lot of the ‘hidden’ images of Jesus found in the Old Testament. Paul will use these images time and again in his debates with Israel. I find it interesting that Jesus saw himself in the Old Testament also.
(568) John 6- We see the first miracle of the feeding of the multitudes. It has been commonly taught that this was a miracle of ‘location’, that is they were far from the market and couldn’t get food to feed everyone. This is not the heart of the story. It is actually a question of finance. Jesus in essence asks ‘how can we buy enough food for everyone to eat, where’s the money gonna come from?’ His disciples say ‘200 pennyworth is not enough to feed them’. They tell Jesus we don’t have the cash to cover it. This is important to see, many have taught a doctrine that says Jesus and the disciples had a large treasury with lots of money. This refutes that. This story is one of God being our supply, we don’t need to trust him for the millions of dollars we think we need to reach the world. We need to believe that he can use our limited finances to reach the world! He did it with Paul, why not you? We also see the doctrine of sovereignty again. Jesus says all who the Father gave to him will come to him, and he will raise them up at the last day. No man can come unless the Father draws him. The Father will draw all who are called. Jesus will lose none of the ones the father gives to him. These doctrines are without a doubt taught in this Gospel. I believe them. Some try to make them ‘fit’ the reasoning of men. They eventually taught that Jesus died only for the elect. That the ‘world’ in John 3:16 speaks of the ‘world of the elect’. Others taught that Jesus blood was only shed for the elect [limited atonement]. Christians have fought for centuries over these doctrines. Our Catholic brothers do not officially teach predestination, though Catholic scholars have believed in it [Augustine]. Some will later be called ‘5 point Calvinists’ others ‘4 points’ and so on. I simply believe the words of Jesus. All that the Father gave to him will come to him, those who come will be raised at the last day. No one comes unless God brings them. The point is God is the initiator, sustainer and completer of our salvation. In our minds we can’t grasp this, but without a doubt Jesus teaches it in this chapter. Now, Jesus will also teach that he is the bread from heaven and unless a man eats his flesh and drinks his blood he will not have eternal life. Many good Christians have taught that the way this is carried out is thru transubstantiation, they teach that the bread and wine turn into the literal body and blood of Jesus at the Mass [Catholic theologian Scott Hahn believes John chapter 6 is the foundational chapter for all Catholic theology]. That it just looks like bread and wine, but it is really flesh and blood. Luther and Calvin taught something almost identical, consubstantiation. The doctrine that the bread and wine stay bread and wine, but that the flesh and blood of Jesus are also literally contained within the bread and wine. This doctrine differs very little from the Catholic one. Both of these doctrines are called ‘the real presence’. The only reformer who taught what much of modern Evangelicals believe was Zwingli. He took it to be a symbol only. Zwingli was the dear brother who killed the Ana Baptists for their faith! I visited the spot where this took place in Switzerland many years ago. There is this huge statue of Zwingli overlooking the town where he drowned the poor brothers! The Jews in this chapter say ‘how can this man give us his flesh to eat and blood to drink?’ They are clearly seeing this in the natural. Jesus goes on and teaches that all who believe in him will never hunger again. He is associating eating with faith. He also says ‘the flesh profits nothing, the words I am speaking to you give life’ he is clearly teaching that he was not going to figure out a way to change bread and wine into his literal flesh. He was teaching that all who would believe in his death and resurrection were eating and getting life from Jesus, they would have eternal life. The bread that if a man eats from will live forever. I believe my Catholic and Orthodox and Lutheran brothers are Christian, I do not hold to the view that the ‘real presence’ is a doctrine from hell. I believe good Christians took the words of Jesus literally and developed a belief that became an historic belief amongst many Christians. Some of the greatest Christian theologians hold to this belief. I simply disagree with them.
(569) In reading this new book I came across a verse I like ‘The rescuer will come out of Zion and rip away iniquity from Jacob’. I am not sure which version of the bible it is, but it sure works!
(570) DREAM- I just dreamt that I took my van to the tire shop to get some new tires and an oil change. The guy asked me how far I was going, 100 miles? I told him no, around a 1,000 miles. I felt like the Lord was saying he is going to increase our [you too!] distance and influence. ‘GET OUT OF THE CITY AND DWELL IN THE FIELDS’ ‘YOU HAVE BEEN FAITHFUL OVER A LITTLE, I WILL NOW GIVE YOU AUTHORITY OVER 10 CITIES’ Be sensitive to the new areas that God is going to open for you. One word from the Lord will accomplish much more than all the good ideas you can come up with. Don’t think in 100 mile parameters, but in a thousand!
(571) Just heard from a friend in Jersey, he just did 5 months in jail. He is a few years younger than me, didn’t grow up with him but met him a few years ago. He told me he had a jail mate [room mate!] that was from my old neighborhood, he was my age and all. He told me the name and I recognized the guy, I went to high school with him. He told my friend how he got busted for holding up the gas station in my old neighborhood with a gun. He is a crack addict and spent the last 27 years after graduating [class of 1980- my graduation year] high school robbing and doing drugs. Sad. A few years ago when I was up north I was walking by my old high school and saw his parent’s deli, they own a deli right by my old high school. I went in to see if he was still around. I spoke to his brother and he simply acknowledged that he was still around, but gave no details. I guess they didn’t want to say anymore. I feel time is running out for some of us. A lot of people reap at the age of 45 [both of our ages as I write this]. Read the death row stories that come out in the paper. Most of the guys are right around that age. The harvest is ready, the laborers are few. If you are a believer and are reading this, go out into the fields and bring in some harvest before it’s too late.
(572) John 7- His brethren say ‘if you do these things, go up to the feast and show yourself openly’. The mindset was if you are really as special or gifted as you think, then go public! Jesus did not seek honor from men. He will ‘go public’ at the right time, but it will be a public crucifixion before many witnesses. He would not let them make him a king, or exalt him in their own way. Before exaltation there would be a Cross. ‘Some say he is a good man, others that he is a deceiver’ Jesus caused polarizing reactions from people. Prophets will be seen as false or good, there is very little middle ground. ‘How knoweth this man letters, having never learned’ Jesus learned, he was a good Jewish boy. They had the Old Covenant and were taught it ‘religiously’. The leaders meant he did not have the ‘higher education’ from the institutions of the day. I want to make a note here, I am not against higher education, Jesus did avail himself of the Old Testament, which was the ‘library’ of the day. A great collection of books and wisdom, if you read the gospels carefully you will also see that Jesus knew current events, he was not an isolated person coming up with his individual conclusions of scripture. I think it hurts the church to have an attitude of ‘all I need to know is the bible’ while it is good to know the Word, you should also expand your knowledge as much as possible. You don’t need the ‘letters’ or titles from men, but you should be educated as much as possible. ‘I have done one work and you all marvel’ the leaders were condemning Jesus for healing the man on the Sabbath, he tells them ‘you circumcise on the Sabbath, why cant I make someone whole on the Sabbath?’ circumcision was the cutting away of the ‘flesh’ in consecration to God. In essence it was saying ‘all that proceeds from me from this day forward, my lineage and seed and everything I am, is dedicated to God’ if they were allowed, by their own conscience, to ‘cut the flesh away’ on the Sabbath, then why not permit [in their own mind] the ‘adding’ unto a person by healing his flesh and giving him back his health. Jesus showed them that even in their own reasoning they could allow for what he did, but they didn’t give him the same lenience that they gave themselves. We often reject what a person is saying based on the actions he has done in the past, even though we allow many of the same things. Jesus said ‘judge rightly’ use the same measure that you would use on your self. ‘Yet a little while I am with you, you will seek me and not find me’ Jesus says this to the Jews who do not accept him as Messiah, they have been looking for him [unknowingly] for 2 thousand years and haven’t found him yet, boy are they gonna be surprised! The Pharisees send the officers to take Jesus, even though he didn’t openly go up to the feast, he later went secretly. He is teaching publicly and the people are amazed. They say ‘if this is the one the leaders are trying to get, why don’t they just take him?’ the officers couldn’t stop him! The Pharisees ask ‘why didn’t you capture him like we asked’ they respond ‘never man spake like him’ the authority that he had from God protected him. As the Pharisees discuss Jesus, they say ‘this people who do not know the law [word] are going after him, none of us are’. Well Nicodemus is in this group, and we know he snuck out in chapter 3 and did go ‘after him’. He is feeling a little guilty about it and speaks up on Jesus behalf ‘well, let’s not be so quick to judge, lets hear him out’. The other Pharisees reject him too ‘are you also from Galilee?’ They had this intellectual argument going that took all the Old Testament prophecies about Messiah and where he would come from. There are different prophecies that speak of Jesus in different ways, they held to a belief that when Messiah came, no one would no where he came from. Their understanding kept them in the dark. They were not willing to be corrected, they saw everyone else as ignorant, and they were the true ‘elites’ of the day. Pride keeps people form truth. We often can’t be corrected, we think the ‘correctors’ just don’t know the word. This comes from spiritual pride. Many who view themselves as religious leaders, or gifted in some way with bible knowledge, can not humble themselves and receive correction in the area where they pride themselves. For the Pharisees to have accepted Jesus, they would have had to admit that they were wrong about certain prophecies, and that the ‘under class’ was right, this was too much for them to accept.
(573) Jesus asked once ‘who do men say that I am?’ then the disciples gave a short list of ideas. How would this question be answered today? If you looked at the best selling Christian books of the last few years you would think God was a cosmic Santa Claus, some success guru who lived to give us a happy, wealthy, trouble free life. We are not the first generation of people that ‘created God in our own image’. That is we see a ‘god’ of our own choosing. We see what we want! Who do you say that he is? NOTE; The problem with modern publishing is the book publishers are in it for profit [nothing wrong about profit] this cause’s them to publish popular names, regardless of the content. So once a Christian preacher becomes famous, his stuff gets published, because it will sell. This lends to the flooding of the market with ‘average’ [or less than average] stuff. The real good stuff can be found, but you have to wade thru the ‘dung’.
(574) I was just praying and incorporated a verse into it. I usually pray for the Lord to ‘pour out his Spirit on our seed [people we are birthing into the kingdom- seed can mean various things in scripture, one of them means offspring] I also pray ‘let your doctrine drop down like rain, your speech distil like due [Deuteronomy]’ ‘Pour floods upon the dry ground’. All of these verses have been added as I read and memorize scripture. The one that we just read in John ‘out of our bellies shall flow rivers of living water’ speak of Gods flow of life and revelation thru his people. So I added this one too. May God flow thru all of you guys and flood the earth so the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. You have a river of life inside of you, it gives life to all who come in contact with it, let your life be a river. God wants you to overflow with his Spirit so everything that touches you comes to life.
(575) There is a trend going on among evangelicals that I like. Many of the up and coming believers are getting away from the spooky looking presentations of the TV preachers that you and I are familiar with. Many are becoming environmentally minded, they are holding to more liberal views in politics and describe themselves openly as liberal minded. I too see many of the things they see. I purposefully avoid the whole persona of the religious right. Some on the religious right mean well, some seem to be in it for the glory of the crusade. I believe we all should stand for life, that is abortion is wrong, very wrong. We should have compassion on the abused women who have been victims of the whole mindset of ‘the right to choose’. They are guinea pigs in the system. I recently heard a testimony from a person who worked at an abortion clinic. The girl getting the abortion wanted to see ‘it’ after it was over. The nurse brought the ‘it’ to her. She broke down crying and screaming, she begged God to forgive her for what she had just done. The damage done this poor girl will be with her for the rest of her life. The nurse telling the story said ‘I guess she didn’t realize what she was going to see’. This girl was a victim of the system. She was under the impression that doing this was the ‘progressive’ thing to do. It was ‘open minded’. Though I disagree with the whole persona of the moral crusaders, don’t forget what’s truly important. The death of these little babies is neither a ‘right’ or ‘left’ issue, it is one of truth. Have mercy on all those involved, but do all you can in love to defend the defenseless. NOTE; Let me give you an example on how both sides [right and left] can be ‘married’ to their cause more than truth. I personally was against the war in Iraq from the start. It was not for many of the reasons you hear the liberals give today. Many of their arguments are false. Some of them say ‘I voted for the war, but it didn’t work because Bush mishandled it, he is incompetent!’ the same group will say ‘what idiot thought you could get these warring factions in Iraq to work together, they have been fighting for thousands of years and have never been at harmony’. First, if you thought it could have worked, but bush messed it up, fine. Then don’t come back a year later and give the other argument, both cant be true! Second, these ‘tribes’ have lived together for years in a measure of ‘harmony’. They did it Under Saddam Hussein. This is the very argument that they make, that all was ‘well’ before we went in. These guys are all over the map with their reasoning. Now, when Bush got in office, he was told by the outgoing Clinton administration that the single greatest threat was militant Islam and terrorism. At the same time Saddam just stepped up his shooting at our pilots who were regularly flying the no fly zone [remember Bush 1, he signed a surrender agreement with the guy!] so Bush 2 gets in office, is told the number one threat is militant Islam, Saddam is regularly firing at our planes, also kicking out the weapons inspectors. All the intelligence from ALL the countries said ‘Saddam is massing or developing weapons of mass destruction’. Then 9-11 happens. It was a judgment decision to go in and invade. Many of Bush’s advisors had the ideology [neo con’s] that the only way to truly change the region and deal with this ongoing threat was to go in and establish a democracy in this area. They sincerely believed this, they felt Clintons strategy was not working, just ‘smart bombing’ every now and then to try and kill Osama bin Laden [or 'bin hiding'!] So the critics today would have you believe that all was well in the world before Bush started his crusade against Islam, not true. Can you imagine what Chris Matthews and all the other talking heads would have said if Bush didn’t go in? Saddam just might have succeeded in downing our planes, then what? He would have had no weapons inspectors. Over time things just might have gotten pretty bad. The fact that we did tie up much of Al Qaeda has had an affect on us not getting hit again since 9-11. It is very possible that the invasion has caused the terrorists to focus on Iraq and not have the time or resource’s to hit us at home. The critics of the war never even seem to give this a second thought. Now, why was I against this war? I felt we were spreading ourselves to thin. To go and occupy another country on the other side of the world was just doing too much. If we had to eliminate the guy, then do it like Israel does. Just send a commando force in and do it. I know this also would have had tremendous reverberations, the critics would have decried the instability of Iraq as all the tribes would be fighting for control of the country, and sure enough all the talking heads would have said ‘what in the world is Bush doing, doesn’t he know that you have to occupy a country to change it, you cant just assassinate the leader’ you will never please these news guys [note; It is the policy of our country to not assassinate leaders of other countries, some think we should re think this policy]. So anyway I just thought I would throw this in being we are talking about Christians being both liberal and conservative on various issues. NOTE; recently we have had terrible wild fires in California. Chris Matthews had the Lt. Governor of California on his show [he interviewed him on the screen, he is a Democrat] Bush was going to fly in and see the damage and support the people. Matthews asks the question ‘by Bush flying in, will it hurt or help’ he asks this in a loaded way, expecting the anti Bush answer. The politician says ‘ it will hurt us, he will be taking security resources and be a big distraction’. Matthews espouses the thought that Bush is going for purely political reasons and is actually causing great damage to the state. In essence ‘he shouldn’t go’. This is the same guy who couldn’t stop accusing Bush of insensitivity because he waited too long before he went to Louisiana after hurricane Katrina. No matter what Bush does, Matthews will find something wrong. This is not news reporting, this is simply division for the sake of ratings. I am an avid news watcher, I watch all the stations, both liberal and conservative. Matthews [hardball on MSNBC] is doing a disservice to this country. He also accused Bush of racism and neglecting the poor, he interviewed Peter King [congressman from New York] after Katrina and wanted to know why more money was cut from Louisiana’s budget than any other state in the years before Katrina. He was leading the whole audience to believe Bush was a racist, didn’t care about the poor blacks. He went on for days about this. Finally Peter King informs him on the air, that the same year Matthews is asking about, that Louisiana received more federal money than any other state [not the year of the disaster]. Obviously this is why their budget was cut the most, they still received the most out of all the other states. They cut to a commercial and you never hear Matthews recant of his racist accusations. He just drops the whole matter. So all the viewers of his show who were led to believe that Bush is a racist, they heard it for weeks from this guy, they then never were told the truth. Matthews just stopped talking about it. This guy is dangerous to this country, whether you are to the right or the left of the political spectrum, consistent lying is of no value whatsoever. NOTE; to be honest I have since come to the conclusion that the massive effort, expense and loss of life has caused me to think that the war has not been worth the cost. Hopefully things will work out better than they look right now [11-07] but the fact remains that eventually whoever runs the country in the future, we have no guarantee they will be better than Saddam. As it looks now, the group who holds the most seats in their govt. are the same religious sect that Iran’s madman holds to. Not very comforting! Also the other thing is Christians should question how the teachings of Jesus should mold our thinking in the area of war. I am not a pacifist, I do hold to the classic Christian doctrine of just war, but there are many believers who are pacifists. I remember reading somewhere how a leading Christian pacifist was debating someone who believed in war, the ‘war guy’ said ‘look at how dangerous your doctrine can be, say if everybody embraced it, what would happen?’ The pacifist answered ‘no more war’. I understand it is naïve to believe that sinful man could ever embrace it on a global scale. James tells us all wars come from mans sin and strife, so as believers we should be very ‘slow’ to go to war, a very last resort. Overall I do think the cost of the Iraq war was too much in life and money to have been justified. Do I advocate pulling out before we give the current govt. a chance to stabilize? No, that would be totally irresponsible on our part. We need to do our best to help them stabilize, but we also want to get our guys out as fast as we can. Some believe the problem is the lack of ‘financial well being’ that these Muslim countries have that cause’s the problem. They espouse the view that if the rich nations helped the poor ones [even though many of these nations have wealth, the standard of living for the average Muslim is low] that this would solve the problem of radical Islam. They don’t seem to realize that Osama was very wealthy and affluent. The problem is much deeper than money, seeing money as the answer is symptomatic of the problem with western thought in the world and church. We seem to think that money is the answer to everything, we see our God thru the lens of how he can increase our portfolio. The problem with all mankind is sin, the only solution to the sin dilemma is Christ. This is why I have said before the answer is not killing the radical Muslim, but bringing the truth of the gospel to him. Muhammad saw the idolatry in the Christian church and how far she fell from the standards of God, he saw the inconsistencies of western Christianity [really western, Rome] in the way she allowed the setting up of statues, which Muhammad saw as a violation of the commandment not to make any graven images. He saw the expressions of the Trinity, some that actually said ‘we have 3 separate Gods who are all equal’ this expression violated the teaching in scripture of ‘the Lord our God is one’. Now I am a Trinitarian, but it is not hard to see how even Muhammad could have disagreed with the above language, it is not easy to explain the Trinity! So there were some real problems that Islam saw with Christianity and went down a wrong road. Any road that doesn’t accept the full deity of Christ leads to destruction. So the answer isn’t to kill these guys, or to lift up their standard of living. But to bring the true freedom of Christ to them. Now I realize that our country wasn’t in the business of preaching the gospel of pacifism after we got hit at 9-11, but the overall answer to mans problem [all mankind, Jew, Muslim [Arab], nominal Christians] is Jesus Christ. He said ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No man can come to the Father but by me’. NOTE; strife is in mans nature. I have a friend up north who was telling me how one of their friends was looking for a place to live, the place he is now living at is not good. The landlords are his sister and her husband. The husband has a bad temper, he has been in prison for murder! So my friend says ‘you can rent from me, I have a room where you can stay’. So they go over to get his stuff, and as their walking up to the house my friend notices they have a nice pool in the yard of this 2 story home [in Jersey where I grew up]. As they keep walking my friend sees all types of stuff in the pool, furniture and stuff. The pool is full of water. My fiend asks ‘what’s all the furniture doing in the pool’ the other guy says ‘o, it’s my landlord, he fights with his wife and throws the stuff out the window and they land in the pool’!
(576) I have a homeless friend who doesn’t like Bush [or the mayor of our city]. He is a believer and is upset that Bush has said that Allah and God are the same, they certainly are not! Every now and then when he is upset about the president, or tells me something that leads to political talk, I will kid him and say ‘well, you know what Bush says ‘Allah and God are the same’ and he will go on for at least an hour after this! He also has something against our Mayor, maybe it’s an authority thing? But he has been harassed over the years by the cops, he doesn’t drink and is a strong believer, but he is homeless. So every so often the cops harass him, he blames it on the Mayor. Sure enough I tell him ‘you mean Henry Garret’ that is the Mayors name. Well my friend didn’t know his full name, my friends name is also Henry, he wasn’t to pleased with this development. Then one day we were just fellowshipping, and I was reading the paper. The Mayor is on the front page with a broad smile, just rejoicing and full of life. I tell my friend ‘hey, your buddies picture is on the front page’ I show it to him and he must have went on for 2 hours about him, I don’t say anything about the Mayor anymore.
(577) Now that I’m telling stories, let me throw this one in. A friend was driving with another friend one day and they make an illegal turn, sure enough the cops are right behind them and turn on the lights. My friend says ‘act like your having a seizure or something, and I’ll pretend I am taking you to the hospital’. Well the cop walks up and asks why they made the illegal turn. Sure enough my friend goes into the explanation as the other person is faking the seizure or something [?] The cop then says ‘I think you are faking it’ and they get a ticket [I think they got the ticket?] Well as my friend is telling me this whole story you can see how mad they were ‘who does this guy think he is, accusing us of lying to get out of a ticket. I should make a formal complaint, how dare they question my integrity’ they went on about how unjust this cop was. I said ‘so you are basically mad that you got caught’ they admitted it!
(578) We are still going to cover the gospel of John, I just felt like the Lord had me sidetrack for these last few entries. I actually have been reading this morning as I penned the last 2 or 3 entries. Let me overview something. I am reading chapter 8 right now, I will cover it soon, but I want to focus you in on the greater objective of Jesus and the introduction of the Kingdom of God to planet earth. In Jesus dealings you see him dealing with the issues of forgiveness, restoration and the breaking in to society of a different kingdom. His concerns are not those of today’s church for the most part. We have a tendency to view scripture and Christianity thru the lens of ‘starting churches’ [Christian places for believers to meet] we view the Kingdom [those of us who don’t believe it is on hold!] thru the lens of man. We see change as something we effect by becoming wealthy and influential in society ‘the world will have to pay attention to us now, look at all the wealth we have’ or ‘look at the big voting block we represent, they will pay attention to this sleeping giant now’ we lose sight of the principles of sacrifice and humility and truly being Christ like. We want the world to notice us because we are more ‘threatening’ and influential than they are. This might get their attention, but it doesn’t really reach them for the kingdom. As we read thru the gospel of John, pay attention to the ‘other worldliness’ of Jesus statements ‘I am not alone, the one who sent me is with me’ ‘you are from below, I am from above’ ‘you can not hear or understand me, you are of this world, I am not’ there is this whole sense of Jesus operating outside of the structures and influence of men. He says ‘I am speaking these things to the world’ yet he never traveled far from his hometown, he did not have the types of journeys that Paul had. Yet he was confident that if he spoke what the Father was saying, then it was Gods job to get the message out. He knew his job was humility and the Cross, he chose to not seek the honor of men, and yet he has had more honor than any other person who has walked the planet. I just wanted to do a little ‘course correction’ here at midstream of our overview of John, don’t just read it for principles to fit in to your present paradigm and structure. It is a gospel that calls us to new birth and new ways of seeing the kingdom. Get your eyes off of the natural, see Jesus for real in this book.
(579) I feel the Lord wants me to speak out on a subject that is controversial. The death penalty. I have never been against it as far as I can tell. I usually answered any questions about it in this way ‘In the bible [Genesis] God says if a man takes another persons life, by man [govt.] his life will be taken’ so this is the justification for the death penalty. Some Christians believe that the teaching of Jesus on the New Covenant being one of turning the other cheek should mean that we should be against the death penalty. I still believe that the govt. has the right to take a life if it is proven beyond any doubt that the person is guilty of murder, and I see the teaching of Jesus as applying to the believer on not personally taking action or revenge. If you apply the teachings of Jesus to all human govts. then you would have a hard time with the teachings of Paul who taught that human govt. has with in it the ability to punish evil doers [Romans]. Now, there have been cases these last few years where people who were in prison with the death penalty have been found to be innocent, I just feel the possibility of executing an innocent person has to override the reality that there are also guilty people on death row. The problem is not with the punishment itself, it is with the weakness of a system that has actually overturned verdicts of people who were on death row. I personally think it’s time for us as a country to put a hold on the death penalty until we can fix the system, or possibly outlaw the death penalty all together. I have felt the Lord wanting me to speak out on this for a while, so here it is. NOTE; I have had friends over the years who came from big families [lots of brothers] who were all robbing, doing drugs and going to prison. One of these guys told me how he got picked up for a robbery that he actually didn’t do. During court the lady pointed him out and swore it was him, he couldn’t believe it. He went and did the time. While in prison his brother, who looked like him, confessed that he did it. My friend did the time, he told me he had done so many other robberies without ever getting caught that he just looked at it as doing time for the other stuff. Well, I just read a story about a guy who was put to death on eyewitness testimony. Someone swore he shot a cop in Texas, after his death years later they found a letter written by his nephew that said his dad [the brother of the man executed] really shot the cop. I do not know all of the details, but I know from personal experience with my friend that it is possible to be found guilty of a crime that your brother committed, the problem is if you already put the guy to death it’s too late to undo it. Also the racial disparity in the amount of blacks that are populating the prison system causes concern. Now, I know whites and Hispanics and other races are also in prison, but the percentage of blacks is not good. Many black kids do not have the same ability to hire lawyers like others due to a lack of finances. So the odds on a black person being executed innocently are higher. The racial disparity should cause us to rethink this policy in our country.
(580) I picked up a book at the bookstore a few weeks ago, I didn’t get it at the Christian bookstore, but at a regular bookstore. It was written by a Catholic theologian and it’s defending Paul’s writings in the New Testament against his critics. A hobby among people today is to say that Paul ‘hijacked’ the real message of Jesus and preached this anti gay, women hating, anti Semitic message. These critics will tell you how Jesus never said anything against homosexuality, but the homophobia you see in the church is a result of Paul. Well needless to say I disagree. Even though the author is trying to defend Paul, he is one of those higher critics who questions the authenticity of some of Paul’s letters. In his defense of Paul he falls into the category of ‘New Perspective Theology’ that just looks at Paul’s statements on Gentiles being brought in to the community of fellowship that Israel already had with God, sort of like focusing only on the verses of us sharing in the fellowship with God that Israel had. This truth, apart from the other verses on how Israel too must accept Messiah, leaves the perception that Israel is just fine in her current state [of being!]. Well in our study of John we read the Jews respond to Jesus ‘God is our Father’ and Jesus says ‘if you don’t honor me, you can’t have the Father’ though Israel ‘believes’ in the true God, yet she doesn’t know him, according to Jesus. So anyway the book wasn’t as good as I thought it would be. A few weeks back I read ‘My new kind of normal’ [I think that’s the title, it’s by Carol Kent] it was real good. She tells the story of how her son joined the military and married a nice girl who had some children from a previous marriage. The son winds up shooting and killing the ex-husband to protect his step daughters. The story is very real, that which is lacking in Christian books today. We have famous Christian celebrity authors writing things that don’t really matter, this book matters. I also just got a book in the mail from Amazon Books on the ‘Children of God’ group. I have studied this movement before, they are a cult. And I have another book coming in a few days on the story of the conversion of Jeffrey Dahmer, he was the serial killer who ‘ate’ his victims. He did accept the lord in prison and I have been wanting to read his story for a while. Have you read any good books lately [or at all]? NOTE; when I went back to spell check this entry it sounds like all I am reading is on cults and killers, trust me I read other good stuff too!
(581) Just reviewing some of the stuff in John’s gospel. The verse ‘those that believe in Jesus, as the scripture hath said, out of their bellies shall flow rivers of living water’ God wants to ‘flow’ multiple streams [rivers-plural] from your life. You must believe on him as the scripture hath said, you can’t come up with your own ideas of Jesus, they must be formed by the witness of the Spirit and the scripture. I can’t help but notice the tremendous lack of authority that comes from the average ‘preaching’ that we hear today. If you are believing in a Jesus that is really not found in scripture, you can’t have ‘multiple’ streams of life flowing thru you.
(582) We have a blind dog, she is old and sweet. Some people were going to put her to sleep and we took her. My daughter gave her a haircut the other day and it looks terrible! All chopped up. I tell her ‘look on the bright side of it, at least she’s blind’.
(583) I just heard on the radio how a famous baseball manager left the Yankees for the Dodgers. The team he was with offered him 5 million a year, he got a better deal somewhere else. I do like the man, Joe Torre. It got me to thinking about some of the mindsets in the corporate/church world. I have heard it taught that if a C.E.O. of a ‘worldly’ business makes 100 million a year, how much more should Gods people value themselves. Now, Paul was the greatest writer of the first century. Though he wasn’t a great speaker, you had others who were [Apollos]. You had the most gifted people in the church in the first century. The writing of the Gospels and the teachings of Jesus have been called the greatest teachings ever. You also had the profession of speaking [rhetoric] and writing books for money that did exist at the time. Why didn’t Paul ‘value’ his letters and get a good price for them? Why didn’t they charge for their ‘value’ in speaking and philosophy? Others did. There was a built in teaching that Jesus left them ‘freely you have received, freely give’. Peter would write leaders in the first century and say ‘take oversight of Gods flock, not for money, but out of a pure heart’. The Old Testament prophets rebuked the shepherds of Israel’s day for ‘fleecing the sheep’, getting gain from the community of God. So, even though it was very possible for Paul and other gifted saints to have made a huge amount of money, they didn’t. We must see this, because the way it is taught today is Christians find the truth out about God blessing Abraham and making him wealthy. They see the many promises of God meeting our needs, and then they go off on this tangent to see nothing wrong about becoming rich off of the people, even though becoming rich off of the people is explicitly forbidden in scripture! If you look at Paul, he was living well below the means that his tremendous gift could have earned him. He is the most well read author today [along with the whole New Testament]. Many people made a good living this way, Paul didn’t. So don’t confuse the times where Paul does speak on contributing to laboring Elders, or where he praises a church [Philippians] for sending him money. He is simply talking about the basic needs being met in these scenarios, it is all too popular for the modern minister to appeal to Paul’s writings on money and then to develop a lifestyle of wealth that Paul himself would warn against [1st Timothy 6]. So today, we do have good men serving the Lord with an honest heart, many are doing good works for the Lord. Some do make a good salary, that’s really not wrong. What I am warning against is the mindset that seems to say ‘if a C.E.O. can make so much, why not Gods leaders’? Well I just showed you why, this is not my idea, it is scripture. That’s the problem, most brothers think an argument like this is simply ‘old tradition wanting to keep Gods people under’ or ‘that old religious spirit again, rearing it’s ugly head’. Sincere people don’t realize the error of this thinking, that’s why we need to be balanced in scripture. I am sure Paul knew the ‘money promises’ in scripture. I know Jesus knew the nature of God as our provider, the God of more than enough. Yet you will find both of them giving many warnings against materialistic mindsets. ‘A mans life doesn’t consist in the abundance of the things he possesses’ ‘it is easier for a camel to go thru the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven’ to the man who was experiencing great financial increase in his business ‘thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee, then who will get the things you lived for’ [his kids will fight over it with Anna Nicole Smith!] The point is You can go thru the many warnings in the New Testament against materialism and develop a doctrine that says ‘this is why Paul and the others ‘devalued’ their earnings potential’ they were explicitly taught that their spiritual gifts [whether preaching or writing bestsellers] were freely given to them, and it was on this basis that they didn’t ‘charge’ or require a salary for their services. I know this is hard to deal with if you are already ‘making a killing’ in the ministry, it’s something that we just cant get around. Don’t take all the verses where you find Paul speaking of receiving offerings, and then use them in a way that violates the warnings he gave to Timothy in 1st Timothy 6. You shall know the truth and it will set you free, but first it makes you miserable! NOTE; Over the years I have noticed a progression that takes place. Very often you will find good men who do not see what I just showed you, after seeing it they usually come back to balance [after being mad for a while!]. Others are so busy fighting their critics that they don’t even listen to any reproof in any area, these often ‘fall’ for the proof texts [individual verses] that say Jesus wore an expensive coat, Judas was stealing out of the ‘bag’ [and ‘the bag’ must have contained millions because Jesus didn’t notice the few thousand that Judas took] and then in total ignorance start teaching a doctrine that says Jesus was rich. Once people espouse views publicly, or teach them for many years to generations of people, it is almost impossible to bring them back from the brink of obvious heresy. They cant admit to themselves that what they thought all along was true revelation from God, was really total deception. It is hard to repent after you have put out tons of books and tapes on these things. My goal is to ‘catch’ the average Pastor before he spends 10-15 years teaching this stuff to his people. If a man is warned in the beginning then he can deal with it better. Why have so many fallen for this? Good men, Assemblies of God, Baptists, etc. I think one of the reasons is other ‘good men’ particularly Prophets, have not warned against it like they should have. Jesus flat out said ‘beware of covetousness’ Paul warns Timothy about this doctrine[1st Timothy 6]. Peter plainly tells the Elders of his day ‘don’t go into ministry with money in mind’. Leaders are plainly told that part of the cost is to warn against this stuff. So many didn’t warn, and many fell for it. So now what? Well at least those of you reading this can avoid this path, and as God directs use the tools you have to warn others. Take this whole blog site and send it to others you know who are dealing with this. Print sections that you think are relevant and send them out. My goal is not to build an organization [we have none!] or to get speaking engagements [I don’t do that] or to make money [we do not take offerings!] my goal is to get this thing back on track before some innocent Pastor spends 20 years wasting his life teaching this stuff! NOTE; so am I saying Christian leaders can’t be rich? No! But brother if Joe Torre can make 5 million or more, why not a believer? You can. It’s just a fact that God ordained that believers do not become rich thru the administration of their spiritual gift in a way that has other believers giving money as a direct result of the administration of the gift. The verses I showed you above do say this. Aren’t the natural gifts, say of a baseball manager, also God given? Yes. Then why can’t you get rich off of a spiritual gift, just like a natural ability, God is the giver of both. I don’t know, why don’t you ask God about it? The point is we get into natural thinking and we come to conclusions that violate scripture. Jesus said it’s very possible for the pursuit of wealth to sidetrack you [the deceitfulness of riches choke the word] Paul said those that desire to become rich have sidetracked from the faith [1st Timothy 6]. There are clear restrictions and warnings given, as well as the reality of God being able to supernaturally give millions of dollars. God is God, he has the right to be the God of abundance and also to put the restrictions in place that I just showed you. We simply need to obey all scripture. NOTE; Let me give you an example, years ago I was watching a famous prosperity teacher who still teaches many of the errors I have shown you. He said when he was younger he remembers looking up as a plane flew overhead, and with great joy and expectation said ‘you wait and see, someday I will own one of those’ he then went on to explain that that day has arrived. The years of faith and confession and ‘thinking on abundance’ finally produced this harvest. I can imagine a young Billy Graham, as a boy looking out over the harvest field of people, of reading where Jesus said ‘go into all the world and peach the gospel’ how he must have believed and confessed and ‘obsessed’ over reaching his world for Christ. A time would come where Billy would become known as the greatest evangelist of all time. What’s the difference? Billy also has brought in huge amounts of money over the years, much more than the brother who saw the obtaining of things as the goal. Billy lived and exemplified the words of Jesus ‘seek ye first the Kingdom and all these things [planes and money and stuff] will be added unto you’ one man made souls the priority, the other saw the ‘stuff’ as the goal and message. Now to be fair the prosperity guy does win souls to the Lord to a degree, but if you listen long enough the gospel of wealth is entrenched in his belief system. I share this to warn you guys, many good men do see financial miracles happen all the time. There are real stories of God doing these things with good men. When they happen we should rejoice, praise God and stick with the main message of the gospel. The deception comes in when a good man sees the true financial miracle and then falls into the trap of seeing God and his kingdom thru the lens of abundance and money and always believing and speaking and centering his life around finances. The reason Jesus and Paul said ‘beware’ is because you must BE WARE! If it wasn’t a dangerous and difficult balance to keep, then they wouldn’t have been so strong in their warnings!
(584) [THIS ENTRY IS FOR ALL OF YOU ON THE ‘MOVING ON’ WEB SITE, THOSE WHO I HAVE BEEN IN CONTACT WITH THRU THE SITE]- This version is ‘Post critics!’ Thanks to ‘Fish’ ‘Limmiwinks’ ‘smshgrl’ ‘sar’ ‘afflic’ [Sp?] and all the other comments from you guys! I sure wish you guys had real names!
I had the book ‘Jesus freaks’ sitting on my desk still wrapped in the box that Amazon used to send it in. I cut the box open and read the whole book in one sitting [around 225 pages, not real big] I have read on this group before and want to share some stuff. First, the thing that caught my interest was not that they are a ‘sex cult’. It was the fact that they started at the time of the Jesus movement out in California in the late 60’s early 70’s. The Jesus movement was a time where many hippies and young people rebelled against authority and were dropping out of the ‘suit and tie’ establishment of their parents.
Many of these kids found Jesus for real, some great ministries came out of this period. Calvary Chapel with Chuck Smith, the Vineyard Churches with Ken Gulliksen and JohnWimber, and the great music of Keith Green and ‘Last Days Ministries’ that was headquartered in Lyndale Texas [now owned by Teenmania ministries with Ron Luce]. One of the ‘coffee houses’ was called ‘The Living Room’, people like Arthur Blessit were popular at the time, the group from the Living Room would also be called ‘Jesus people U.S.A.’ and re locate and start a great magazine that also did a lot of ‘cult exposing’ and even did an expose on ‘ALBERTO’ the Catholic Priest in the ‘CHICK TRACKS’ it showed him to be a total fraud. They also exposed Mike Warnke [sp?] the author of the best selling ‘Satan seller’ who claimed to have run a coven of witches before he was converted. Mike was also a Christian comedian. I actually read the book in the early days and was a fan of Mike. I even invited him to come to our little church at one time, it never worked out. I liked Mike, and after he was ‘exposed’ it seemed to show that Mike really liked ‘telling stories’. A lot of his friends said Mike was sort of a chronic story teller. Mike was a Christian, and after this incident he did submit to other Pastors to oversee his restoration, but the fact was Mike made up most of the stuff in his best selling book. I think the name of the magazine that the ‘Jesus People’ put out was Cornerstone? It is no longer in print but you can find old copies on line.
A lot of good came out from this time. Some of the converts wound up back in their ‘daddy’s religion’. That is after they ‘got saved’ they became true students of the bible and church history and began ‘rebelling’ against their ‘rebellion’. They saw that many of the historic churches had great roots and were not totally worthless. Some went back to the older churches. Jack Sparks had a ministry called ‘World Liberation Front’ and espoused many of the ideas of the strong authoritarian ‘Apostolic’ ministries. These were the ‘shepherding’ movements that were very influential in ‘covering’ young Christians. Bob Mumford and others were leading the Discipling Movement. Sparks got into the strong apostolic stuff and would write ‘we are going to get noticed, those in the churches that do not recognize us, we will take your people’ pretty authoritarian don’t you think? Well Sparks also got into the ‘cult exposing’ movement, which also was birthed at this time, and he eventually became a Greek Orthodox Priest and as far as I know is still one today [Sparks eventually would become one of the critics of the ‘Local Church Movement’ of Watchman Nee, being led by ‘Witness Lee’ in California. The ‘Local Church’ would eventually take the cult exposing ministries to court over this] so you had some interesting fellows at this time.
One of the most interesting was a man named ‘David Berg’ AKA ‘Moses David Berg’. He was the son of Christian ministers, his mom, Virginia, was a traveling evangelist who would eventually set up shop in Florida. David learned ministry and the gospel from his years as his mother’s main helper. He also did a short stint as a Pastor of a Protestant church. David was in his 50’s about the time the Jesus movement hit, he wound up back in California at his moms house. He eventually worked his way into reaching the kids of the area, Huntington Beach and places where the hippies were hanging out. His ministry grew, eventually they would be called ‘the Children of God’ ‘The Family’ and the ‘Family international’. They were around at the same time as the other good ministries that I mentioned.
They were like a commune of hippies/Jesus freaks that eventually would have outposts all over the world. Their language and beliefs were a lot like any evangelical group of the day. Over a period of time their leader ‘David/Moses’ would espouse the doctrine of ‘free love’ which taught ‘we love everyone like ourselves’ and should share everything with everybody else. I mean everything! They became known as a sex cult. They are not the first to believe this either. John Humphrey Noyes of the Oneida Community in upstate New York taught and practiced this ‘open love’ in the 1800’s. Bergs group got a lot of heat when word got out that they practiced sex with under age children. A few magazines and news papers would introduce this strange cult to the world as they covered the story in the 70’s and 80’s. As I have read a lot about this group over the years, I have come to see how many of the kids sincerely thought they were following the Lord, and some were never involved in the strange sex practices [most knew of the open love doctrine, but some did not experience the under age abuse. I say ‘some’ for the benefit of those still in the group who have said this, but there are tons of stories of children who were abused]. Some of these today are still on the mission field with their families and are witnessing for Jesus in the exact same way that many other missionaries do. But of course the doctrine of the leader of this group was classic cult material.
You can go on line and find both pro and con web sites. Just Google ‘The Family’ or ‘Moses David Berg’ and you will find them. The reason I just read this most recent book [the other one I read is ‘Heavens Harlot’s’] is because after a few years of them fading away from public memory, one of the sons of the wife of David Berg [though not Bergs actual son] who was being groomed to be the prophet to take over the group, killed another group member out of revenge and a feeling of trying to get more heat on the group and to bring the group down [The boys mom was Karen Zerby, the leader of the group today, she became pregnant from an Hispanic waiter thru the ‘flirty fishing’[actually called ‘FFing’!] doctrine of the group which taught witnessing and ‘fishing for men’ can be done thru sleeping with men, you sleep with them, show them ‘Gods love’ and there you have it!]
This boy was sexually abused from birth and was to be an experiment on what it would be like if someone enjoyed open sex from birth, sort of a guinea pig for Moses Berg’s doctrine. Eventfully the boy left the group and became part of a growing number of second generation defectors who have made it their goal to expose and bring the group down. Many who are still in the group live in various parts of the world and have said they do not practice sex with kids any more, but still believe in the ‘open love doctrine’.
The young prophet who was to eventually take over the group was called ‘Davidito’ he eventually changed his name to Ricky Rodriguez. By all accounts he was a good young man, who rejected his cultic upbringing and was trying to make a life for himself after leaving the group. A smart, intelligent well liked young man. He could never get over his rage and in 2005 made a videotape of himself getting ready to murder one of the female leaders who molested him as a little boy. He would stab the woman to death, send three copies of his confession video to 3 friends and pull up on some deserted highway in California and put a bullet thru his head. This is why the recent book ‘Jesus Freaks’ just came out, they covered this most recent affair.
This is such a sad story. Many still in the group are trying to change it into a more ‘respectable’ group, those who have defected are trying to bring the group down. All of these kids, being taught scripture, growing up in this perverted environment. Learning true bible stuff along with the distorted stuff. Lifetimes of trying to serve Jesus mixed in with these cruel ideas and actions that are a part of their lives. Many who have defected have committed suicide. Truly David Berg was a false Prophet of the highest order, he has met God now.
There actually has been a very popular well known preacher out of the Atlanta area, Earl Paulk, who I have been praying for now for a few years. I liked watching him on TBN for years. He had a few accusations against him over the years of sexual misconduct. I do not know whether they were true or false. Paulk admitted to certain past indiscretions, but never to the allegations of certain women. They claimed Paulk secretly taught them ‘kingdom /covenant relationships’ which were basically a doctrine to justify adultery. I was hesitant about sharing the Paulk story, but I did so for a reason. Why would I see this doctrine as false, and those who teach it as ‘cultic’, and not hold the same standard to a Jimmy Swaggart or a Ted Haggard? All humans can fall into any type of sin, Paul wrote the Corinthians and told them ‘you have a brother who is sleeping with his mother, this must stop’ If a believer falls into a sexual sin, he either repents or falls into Gods discipline. But if a teacher begins justifying sin as a doctrinal truth, then you have problems. Many of these cults have done this, they see the truth in scripture about loving each other and living communally and sharing what you have with everyone else, but they don’t see the other warnings against immorality. They find polygamy taught in the old testament, or the fact that Adam and Eve’s kids had to have married each other, and they will teach incest or polygamy is for today, not realizing that the new testament speaks of being married to one wife and any thing else is adultery.
When leaders use scripture to justify sin this becomes a cult. I think we should all pray for those involved. Brother Earl Paulk has been sick [he might have even died by now?] but the latest accusation from his worship leader of many years has caused him to step down [a good thing!] but I still pray for the man. Let’s pray for all these kids still in the ‘family’ as well as those who have come out, they need our prayers.
[NOTE; I was just outside praying for you guys as a ‘community’ of people. To be honest I have added all of you as a group to my ‘prayer region’ [whole groups of people I fiercely pray over]. This is what I felt the Lord saying. Many of you have without a doubt come to know the Lord thru this time period in your lives. Many ‘regular’ Christians can’t really discern this. Much of what you see and hear in other Christian groups looks and sounds almost identical to the ‘family’ except for the ‘free love’ stuff. This dynamic has made it hard for you to relate to other Christians. They just look at you as ‘thank God you are free from that sex cult, now God brought you to us to show you all this true stuff’. The problem is many of you already know the ‘true stuff’. I felt the Lord was encouraging you as a group of people to ‘move on’ with him. Many of you are so turned off by what you have seen in other Christian groups, it’s like ‘I’ve been there’. God loves you guys so much [even this sounds abusive to you, you have heard this your whole life from the lips of people that abused you]. My heart breaks for you guys, I am so happy to read some of your stories and how some of you are still walking with ‘Jesus’ so to speak. I personally am worried that I too might come off as a religious nut. All the ‘prophecy’ and stuff I do. Teaching on Prophets and all. I do believe that God has placed Prophets in the church, but what you experienced thru Berg was almost a demonic type of Prophet. A man that had real gifts and talents, but also developed a doctrine that would justify to himself his own impulses and sinful desires that he struggled with his whole life. I believe there were aspects of David’s life that truly wanted to serve God, but like others before him [Noyes] he developed a ‘scheme’ that would appease his own conscience, and he released this evil desire on a whole community of young people. The most difficult thing for some of you is to realize that you truly do love God and have found him while being in this group. I love you guys and will continue to pray for you. As you read [or listen to our radio show] and you hear me speak on Prophets and the Prophetic movement, understand I in no way am speaking of the abusive ‘family’ that you have been involved with thru out your lives. God bless all of you and feel free to email or write me at my P.O. Box. If any of you want to get together while in the area contact me before you come and I will try and get with you. Thanks, John.]
During the time of Bergs rise to ‘Prophet’ he was in an atmosphere where other well known ministries were espousing many of the same views on end time things. You also had Hal Lindsey and many others who taught the same as Berg in the area of the Tribulation and the nearness of the end of the world. Hal wrote the bestseller ‘The Late great Planet Earth’. While Hal obviously isn’t near the category of Berg, it was common for people at the time to be living on the edge of their seats thinking that the world might end at any moment. This led to an environment amongst many well meaning followers of Jesus that had an attitude of ‘if the world will end soon, what the heck, why bother going to school or even worry about planning for a future’ This mindset would later make it hard for those who tried to get out of the cult. They found the most basic things, like writing a check, difficult.
The thing that first interested me about this group was the ‘apostolic’ concept of community. Many who have studied ‘ecclesiology’ [church government] have seen in scripture the more biblical idea of church as community. Some have tried to duplicate the early environment seen in the book of Acts. A common purse and sharing of their goods with the needy. Berg also was a student of communism like Jim Jones, a whole other story. Even though you had all believers sharing and helping each other in Acts, you didn’t see an environment where people surrendered their individual identities and ‘morphed’ into the identity of a group.
In Acts they still lived in their own homes and maintained a family idea. To be sure today’s idea of ‘church at the building on Sunday’ as being ‘the church’ did not exist, but you also didn’t have communes. I believe it is OK for believers who radically sell out to leave the comforts of a home environment and to live daily trusting God. I have met ‘homeless’ friends who were on their own serving God and surviving. But to force a communistic idea upon people, and to cause them to lose their own personal identity for the ‘cause of the group’ is cultic right from the start.
God wants us to be more than ‘pew warmers who are preached at every week’ he wants us to experience this Journey with him as being part of a wonderful Christian family, with many wonderful brothers and sisters. Seeing the ‘other churches’ not as the institutionalized monster, but as sincere Christian’s in the Lord. I know there are times in my own writing that I seem to be hard on ‘the church’ but I do not hold to the view that they are all of the devil!
Berg seemed to confuse the ‘religions of men’ and the establishment with the true boundaries put down in scripture. He would view his own feelings of guilt about his sexual weakness and failure and eventually blame the ‘established church’ for his ‘guilt feelings’. He would develop a doctrine that fit in well with the ‘anti church’ atmosphere of the time. He would see all the free loving hippies and how they jumped in to the open love of the 60’s and 70’s sexual revolution, and then compare that to his own struggle of trying to suppress his sexual desires for many years under what he saw to be the authoritarian religious morals that he heard time and again thru his mothers preaching. It was natural for Berg to view the ‘established religions of men’ as the cause for all the years he spent repressing his sexual urges. Hey, he thought, if God created me [and others] to be able to enjoy the feelings of sex from a young age, then why do I feel guilty if I act out sexually in a way that society deems wrong?
Berg would challenge the mindset of minors being sexually active. He thought it was society that caused the guilt, not his sin. So in the California environment of ‘church religion’ being deceived, he thought ‘they must also be wrong on the sex part too’. Well if Berg was a true student of scripture, he would not have come to this conclusion. Scripture most definitely speaks of God as the creator of sex, but it also puts down definite parameters. ‘Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled. But adulterers and whoremongers God will judge’ [Hebrews]. Berg thought for sure his belief in open sex with anyone at anytime was a true revelation from God, as opposed to the ‘moral old time religion’ of the past.
His great experiment would be to raise a child from day one in a hyper sexualized atmosphere and to then have the child diagnosed by professionals to see if any emotional damage was done. This experiment was what happened with ‘Davidito’. As Ricky grew older they tested him and others to see if they were harmed emotionally in any way. The ‘family’ found doctors to go along with their belief and to testify that the children were emotionally healthy. Later when Ricky [Davidito] would leave the group and kill one of the ladies who abused him as a child, the group tried to explain that when Ricky was in the group he harbored no ill feelings. It was when he got out and then ‘society’ taught him that what he did was wrong, that at that time he had guilt.
This diabolical social experiment that Berg thought would surely justify his sexual indiscretions did not work the way the family thought. While there are obvious problems with ‘organized religion’ we have to make sure we are not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Many of the old churches have carried the true gospel of Christ for centuries before us. Scripture says we ‘shouldn’t remove the ancient landmarks that out fathers have set down’. This speaks of being very careful when we critique older religious churches that have been serving God for centuries. There were many ‘Jesus Freaks’ that left the old time churches of their fathers and have done well, they are still serving God and have never went back to the old church model. Others have gone back and even become ‘part of the old church’. But regardless of where you find yourself today, you must be careful that the things you think are ‘just religion making me feel guilty’ aren’t really things that the bible says are wrong. Many people ‘feel guilty’ because they are guilty! The way to get over the guilt is to receive Gods forgiveness and ask him to help you ‘sin no more’.
NOTE; I am not speaking about the guilt that some one might experience as a result of being abused in this group. It is common for victims of sexual abuse to ‘feel guilty’ even though they were victims. In some cases people feel guilty because they might have responded sexually while being abused, thinking that they in some way condoned the abuse, this is not so! Many of you guys have had to deal with this, maybe this had something to do with Ricky’s rage? So I just wanted to release you guys from this.
Let me mention some other stuff on cults and prophets. I have studied various cults over the years, some of them have definitely had demonic powers behind the leadership. When studying ‘heavens gate’ there were things that people experienced that fall under the category of demonic power. People who had a sense of being ‘mesmerized’ while listening to the leader. Or the leader’s ability to actually know what happened or predict future events. A fake imitation of a true prophetic gift.
Others, like David Korresh with the group ‘the branch davidians’ which were an offshoot of the seventh Day Adventist Church would come under the ‘spell’ of Korresh and begin viewing him as one of the end time witnesses spoken of in the book of Revelation. They would eventually see themselves as directly being referenced in scripture. They fulfilled their own ‘prophecy’ about being destroyed at the end of the world. Other ‘non cult’ prophets have also had this strong influence over people. William Brahnam was a very gifted Prophet in the middle of the last century, he without a doubt had extraordinary gifts, some till this day see him as either one of the seven angels in Revelation, or as one of the 2 witnesses in chapter 11.
So it seems to be a theme in some of these groups to come under the ‘mesmerizing’ influence of the gifted leader and to begin to view him in a way that associates him with actual biblical figures. The early church had some doubts about putting the book of Revelation in the New Testament, one of the reasons for this was they feared individuals might interpret it in a way that could cause trouble, a bit prophetic don’t you think? While reading about David Berg I have come to believe he had demonic powers working with him. You might think ‘no kidding man’. I don’t always believe this to be the case, I feel many contemporary Christians have a tendency to over do the ‘demon possession’ thing, always trying to cast a demon out of someone ‘I cast the demon of Marlboro cigarettes out of you’ or the ‘demon of poverty’ and silly stuff like that. I think in some of these cases we should cast the ‘demon of thinking that everything is a demon’ out of them! But in Bergs case there have been some leaders who ran into him thru out their lives and sensed a ‘presence’ that was strange. The brother who had a commune in Texas that Berg would eventually take over and call it ‘The Texas Soul Clinic’ felt like the group had a force behind them that was unstoppable, he till this day has never gotten over his impact with ‘the family’.
So it is more than likely that Berg had some demonic stuff going on. I am asked sometimes about people like John Edwards of the show ‘crossing over’ or other people who seem to have true gifts. I try to distinguish between out right fakers, and those who are really operating with a supernatural ‘element’. I believe many of the Psychics actually have a connection with the ‘spirit world’ that would simply be in the category of ‘soothsayer’ or like the witch of Endor spoken of in the bible. In her story she is requested by King Saul to bring back the Prophet Samuel from the dead. God’s people were forbidden to consult a soothsayer or ‘psychic’. The fact was she was well known, sort of like all these ‘card readers’ and stuff I see as I travel thru South Texas. Well this witch does bring back Samuels spirit, to the amazement of Saul and herself! She actually is portrayed as being afraid when her ‘soothsaying’ works. She was surprised he came back! Some think this was because she knew her gift was fake, and when it worked she scared herself. It’s also possible that the usual ‘spirits’ that did come thru for her were not there this time, she really got Samuel.
The point is in some of the people that are doing these things it is possible that they are ‘picking up’ something in the ‘spirit’, it’s just not what they think! In Edwards’s case he feels he is ‘crossing over’ and contacting the spirits of dead relatives, he might really believe that this is who is speaking to him during his shows. The truth is scripture speaks of ‘familiar spirits’ and demons. A person might have some real gifting going on, but it might not be what they think.
Edgar Casey [sp? It might be Cayce] is another example of a famous ‘prophet’. He was dubbed the ‘sleeping prophet’ because he would give readings while lying down and falling asleep and going into a trance. In all of these cases Christians are forbidden to delve into the ‘unknown’ thru these means. Some believers have gone too far in rejecting ‘prophets’. They do not see the true biblical gift as spoken of in the New Testament. God has clearly placed Prophets in the church, the book of Ephesians says this [as well as Corinthians and other references]. Some Christians believe it is because of the lack of biblical Prophets today, that this is why the world runs to the psychics, that if the church just functioned in the real gift, then you wouldn’t have all the popular psychics. Some who say this have some truth, but then I get a little worried because they seem to espouse the idea that true prophets should have their own call in shows and stuff, sort of ‘1-800-prophecy’ and stuff like that. I don’t think so!
So anyway I think Berg had some demonic stuff going on, as believers we should ‘test the spirits, for every spirit is not of God’ it says this in 1st John. If you read it in context it is not speaking of ‘disembodied spirits’ that are floating around in the sky [which is another off balanced teaching in the Church, Christians starting whole spiritual warfare movements and going around casting these spirits out of the sky. Jesus never cast demons out of the sky, but out of people!] But this verse is speaking of ‘testing spirits’ that are operating in people! That is whether people are ‘true prophets’ or’ false’. Don’t allow the strong giftings of leaders ‘pull you in’ but test everything by Gods Spirit. Be open to true prophetic gifts, don’t reject all prophecy, but be discerning.
I just reviewed the family photos of Ricky Rodriguez on the site ‘moving on’ he looked like such a wonderful kid. Go check them out, they give a face to this whole sad story. A few years ago someone wrote a book on dangerous communal groups, I believe the author was Ron Enroth [churches that abuse?] while the book served a good purpose, they drew some heat over the fact they included some Christian groups that seemed to be serving the Lord. One of the groups they singled out responded in defense of their faith. They answered their critics well [not like the official response of those still in the family. I have read some of the articles from their web site and something seems ‘off’ sort of like a ‘stepford wives’ type response] They explained while it is true that many cults have embraced communal living, Christians have also experimented with these models. They showed that those living in this type of atmosphere, where you are always together [sort of like my job as a firefighter in a way, when you live in 24 hour shifts with people, you get on each others nerves] lends to the complaints of authoritarianism and control.
The fact that the average Christian only spends an hour on Sunday with other believers, while those in a communal atmosphere live all the time with other believers, then you are going to get more complaints from those living together, it’s only natural. So I didn’t want to group every ‘communal group’ as being bad, though they do have a tendency to ‘lord it over the people’. The Boston Churches of Christ [a specific movement, not all the churches of Christ in Boston] are not communal, but they practice a fierce ‘shepherding’ doctrine, where the people must answer to the shepherds in a way that is dangerous.
This was the error of the ‘discipling movement’ also know as the shepherding movement. Berg’s group most definitely had this going on. This type of idea teaches a strong accountability to ‘over shepherds’ in a way that violates the true freedom that we have in Christ. So you don’t have to be living communally to be cultic, you can be ‘doing church’ the Sunday way and also be ‘cultic’.
I am a little hesitant to put this in, but will take the chance. I believe in God giving us prophetic signs and stuff, but many have used ‘signs’ and ‘prophecy’ as a tool of abuse. Yesterday I was out among a lot of my friends who are homeless. Ran into a Pastor friend and some other old friends. For some reason they were calling me ‘David’ and then they realized my name is John. I kinda felt this to be a little strange. I have been praying for the ‘moving on’ group as a Father would pray over his ‘spiritual children’. Now stick with me, I AM NOT SAYING THAT I AM CHANNELING THE DAVID BERG SPIRIT! In a strange way when leaders oversee a group of people they become a ‘Father’ to the group. They carry a special responsibility to lead the people. Berg had this ‘fathering’ responsibility, and he became a ‘child abuser’ towards a whole family of people. So I just felt the ‘sign’ of people calling me David, the day after I spent time praying and trying to speak into the community was in a sense prophetic. Sort of like God saying ‘One by the name of David abused these people severely, I will raise up other ‘spiritual fathers’ who will make up for the abuse they have received, David’s who are men after my own heart’ [King David in scripture is called a man after Gods own heart].
Just felt like the Lord was saying this about multiple people, those who will care for you in the original way God intended, as representative in some way I would like to say ‘please forgive us [Christian leadership] I am so sorry for what I have done to you’. ‘I am the good shepherd, all that ever came before me were thieves and robbers. I come that you might have life. The robber came to steal, kill and destroy you. I am the good shepherd, I have given my life for the sheep’ Jesus Christ.
(585) John 8- The Pharisees catch the woman in adultery and bring her to Jesus ‘Moses in the law says kill her, what about it Jesus?’ Religion digressed into this conservative moral crusade that went and found people in sin and singled them out for judgment. Jesus doesn’t say ‘oh, don’t worry about that silly law of Moses’ he says in essence ‘you guys are right, justice demands strict holiness, you got me now’ instead he agrees that justice does require her death, and he says ‘go ahead, start stoning’. One thing ‘you must be free of sin in order to carry out this punishment’. The law required total righteousness from everyone, even the moral crusaders! When religion digresses to the point where all it does is go out into society and find fault, then this type of religion is powerless to change the ‘fault finders’. Jesus doesn’t side with the ultra liberals either, you don’t see him marching for the right for homosexuals to marry. He tells the woman ‘neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more’. Jesus said this to the guy he healed a few chapters ago. ‘Go and sin no more less a worse thing happen to thee’. Was Jesus simply telling them the same thing that they heard from the religious right their whole lives? Was he simply saying ‘watch out, if you sin again you will get in trouble’ not really. Jesus words had tremendous power and authority, he told people who couldn’t see ‘see’ and they would! People who couldn’t walk ‘get up’ and they did. He was empowering these people by his words. When he said ‘sin no more’ he was giving them the first freedom from years of bondage that they ever had. He also was saying ‘I don’t condone sin’ but he was saying much more! Jesus tells the Jews who ‘believe in him’ if you continue in my word ye shall be free. In the next chapter [9] we will read of the guy Jesus heals, who also says ‘Jesus healed me’ but doesn’t know who Jesus is yet, then later he believes in him as Messiah. This is the type of belief that Israel and Islam and other religions have about Jesus. They accept him as a good man, prophet even. But not the Son of God. To these he says ‘if ye continue in my word then you will know the truth and be free’ if they stick around long enough they might just see that Jesus is for real! Truth is progressive, often times I will give a book to someone, or teach something over the radio. People will see things that they haven’t seen before. A few years go by and they ‘fall back’ into the old mindset. They sincerely forgot that some of the questions they have now have actually been answered already. ‘Go read the first book I wrote, it explains it’ oh yhea, I see now. People need to ‘continue in the word’ in order to be changed. It is not just the one time ‘revelation’ of a certain doctrine that changes you, it is continuing in Gods truth and knowing him, that is Jesus, who is the way and truth and life. Knowing doctrine does not set people free, knowing Jesus does.
[#’s 696-947] TEACHINGS # 5
(696) THOUGHTS FROM GENESIS- Been reading Genesis 12-22. I felt like the Lord wanted me to overview some stuff. Paul will quote the account in Gen: 15 [and 12] a lot. ‘The just shall live by faith’ is oft mentioned in the New Testament. He uses Abraham as an argument for Justification by Faith. Both Romans and Galatians are masterpieces at this. In my first book ‘House of Prayer or Den of Thieves’ I wrote a chapter titled ‘the Abrahamic Blessing’. I tried to undue a false teaching that arose out of the prosperity movement that taught the ‘Abrahamic Blessing’ was believers being promised material stuff. If you read the chapter [Galatians 3] you will see the Abrahamic blessing to mean Gods promise to Abraham that he would bless the whole world thru his child [seed]. Paul uses this to combat the Judiazers who were teaching you get saved by the law. Paul in essence says ‘God promised Abraham that he would bless [in context, to ‘Justify’ and give the Spirit to those who have faith] the world thru his child [Jesus] long before he gave the law to Moses’. And being God can’t lie, the first promise [to Abraham] is stronger than the second promise to Moses [Law]. Good stuff! But a false teaching twists the ‘promise’ and says ‘see, Paul says we are Abraham’s kids [true] and therefore we get his blessings’ [stuff] false! There are many reasons why it is false, but if your Pastor simply reads scripture in context, he will lead you right. I have grown ‘weary’ over the years in trying to correct this stuff. I have come to the conclusion that many well meaning Pastors/Teachers should have never had the large area of influence [media] due to the ‘basic’ level of thought they were functioning at. I want to be kind, but many of these doctrines are propagated because the mass of teaching going out is by brothers who simply can’t grasp scripture in context. Now, they are not all bad! But if your Pastor can’t see that the same writer of Galatians would also write 1st Timothy 6, and say ‘false teachers will rise in the last days, teaching gain is godliness. Turn away from them’ the fact that Paul connects false prophets to those who connect money with ‘godliness’ shows you that Paul is not teaching the Galatians that they were going to get rich because they had faith! Simple stuff, but the average teacher that can’t see or discern this should not be teaching on TV![or radio]. Because they wind up propagating stuff that is false. That’s why James says ‘don’t all try to be teachers, you will be held to a higher standard’. There seems to be a mindset in Christian ministry that says ‘The goal of our ‘church’ is to raise as much money as possible, expand our influence as far as possible, and have our Pastors message go to the ends of the earth’. This causes there to be a basic violation of ‘not many of you should be teachers’. Or a rush to get your words out! Now, God does ordain certain voices at certain times to have great influence. And it is fine for all ministers to try and get the gospel out as much a possible. But when I hear these national voices teach the most obvious mistakes, I think ‘surely these guys are not supposed to be teaching on this level’! So in Abraham’s story, the Lord tells him ‘I am going to bless the whole planet thru your seed’. God is giving us glimpses of Jesus Christ and his purpose to bring blessing to the whole world thru him. Have you been ‘blessed’ [born again] thru Abrahams seed?
(697) GENESIS 12: 1-3 ‘The Lord said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred and from thy father’s house, unto a land THAT I WILL SHOW THEE. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great; [God will do it, not him!] and thou shalt be a blessing: and I will bless THEM that bless thee, and curse HIM that curseth thee: and IN THEE SHALL ALL FAMILIES OF THE EARTH BE BLESSED’. The blessing is contingent upon Abraham going on a pilgrimage, for his entire life! Jesus said a prophet has no honor in his home town and among his own family. Over the years I have seen many gifted men along the way. Many still live WITH THEIR PARENTS. Or have a family situation where their wife IS THE PARENT. They have never ‘launched out’ and become responsible adults. There came a time in Abrahams life where the Lord said ‘you must leave your familiar surroundings, in order to become a great nation of people, you must leave the comfortable nation [environment] that you are trusting’. Some times all it takes is a willingness to get up and begin the journey. It’s scary at first, but no adventure is 100 % safe! Notice the Lord also informs him that he WILL FACE OPPOSITION! Those [plural] who are for him will be there. And HIM [singular] that is against thee shall also be there. God promises there are more on your side than on the critic’s side! Hey, they might only be invisible angels [Elijah, Elisha] but God says the numbers are on your side. The enemy often uses this ploy against you. ‘Hey, everyone thinks you are a failure, what are you still doing trying to finish Gods work!’ These were the accusations that Nehemiah would hear. That everyone is talking about what a mess the whole thing is. ‘Who does he think he is anyway’? Who cares what they think! We will ALL be dead and gone in a few years, the voices of opposition will be gone. The only thing that will matter then is what you did with a sincere and noble heart. At least you will have some rewards coming, the critics will only ‘have words’.
(698) GENESIS 12- Abraham goes into the Promised Land. God begins appearing to him, and Abraham builds an altar and calls on the Lord. A key principle to ‘possessing your land’ is responding right! Each time you move forward in the journey it is imperative that you ‘hear God’. He must ‘appear to you’ in some way [thru scripture, prophetic direction, etc] and your response should be prayer. This sequence of events will take place more than one time with Abraham and his kids. Though they are strangers in the land, each time God appears to them they set up ‘outposts’ [altars] for the Kingdom. Altars are places of prayer and sacrifice. They are ‘contact points’ between heaven and earth. Abrahams grandson, Jacob, will ‘set up one’ at Bethel [house of God] and have a dream of angels ascending and descending on a Ladder. Which of course is a type of the Cross. Abraham goes into Egypt and commits a familiar sin that he will pass on to his kids. The famous ‘this is my sister, not my wife’ deal. Pharaoh takes her and God curses Pharaoh and Pharaoh rebukes Abraham for lying out of fear. Isaac will do the same later on. Notice in this chapter the Lord told Abraham to ‘leave his family and go into a new place’ did he fully obey? Not really. He takes Lot [nephew] with him. Of course he was to take his wife, but I am not sure if he fudged on the Lot thing. You will notice later that as soon as he separates from Lot that the Lord begins reaffirming the promise to him. I kinda get the feeling that things were put on hold until he fully obeyed. One of the things we will see in Abraham’s life, was though he was a great man of faith. Yet he struggled like everyone else. He still clung to stuff out of fear. We end this chapter with Abraham going up out of Egypt, a short excursion and lesson in disobedience. Some of these early failures will plague his future dynasty!
(699) GENESIS 13- Abraham leaves Egypt and the scripture says HE WAS VERY RICH! One of the things we want to do as we review these chapters is to rightly divide the word of God. The church went thru an ‘immature’ level of thinking and teaching. She [the church!] saw all these truths on God blessing Abraham. The many true verses on ‘the blessing of the Lord, it makes rich and he adds no sorrow to it’ ‘the Lord gives you power to get wealth that he may establish his covenant in the earth’ and all the other truths on God meeting the needs of his kids and blessing them. But the teachers went overboard and taught a doctrine of a rich Jesus who died to make you rich. They would become the false prophets that Paul would warn Timothy about in 1st Timothy 6. So here we want to see and understand that the Lord blessed Abraham and did make him rich. We also want to balance this with all the teachings of Jesus on ‘beware of covetousness, for a mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesses’ ‘you can not serve God and money’ ‘the love of money is the root of all evil, while some have gone after it they have left the faith’ [Paul]. All of these scriptures are true, not just the ones we like the most! In this chapter Abraham separates from Lot and the lord reaffirms his promise to him. It seems like God was waiting on Abraham to ‘fully leave his family’ like the earlier verse said ‘get thee out of thy country AND FROM THY KINDRED’ here he finally left ‘the kindred’ and God said ‘now lets keep going’! Sometimes the only thing holding us back is full obedience. You don’t need to re do everything! Just bring some stuff back into alignment. Also after the Egypt ‘side trail’ Abraham renews his ‘first love’ and reconnects with God at bethel, but then moves to another spot and builds another altar. This chapter says ‘he went on his journeys’. God didn’t want Abraham to go stagnant, enjoy the area around the first altar and never advance. The purpose for Abraham was to be a father of MANY NATIONS. You can’t do that if your comfortable just settling down on the street corner and ‘pastoring your little flock’ [ouch!]. God wants us to ‘go on journeys’. I am not saying there are not times where ‘Pastoring the flock’ is OK. But the modern church goes to extremes. She either wants to build huge 20 thousand seat auditoriums [which tends to lead to a spectator mentality] or preach to 30 people at a time! God’s purpose is to impact all of society with the gospel. Jesus gospel was bigger than the one we embrace today. Hey, if you really enjoyed God’s presence at ‘Bethel’ just wait until you get to the next altar! Don’t forget Bethel [your first love] but you have a nation [nations!] to inherit!
(700) GENESIS 14- Abraham goes after the kings who took Lot captive. He takes his 318 trained men and gets Lot and the rest of the spoils from the invading armies. When Abraham brings the stuff back to the King of Sodom, the king tells Abraham ‘take all the goods as well’. Abraham refuses and takes only his expenses. You also find Abraham later on paying for the burial site for Sarah and his family. Even though the people wanted to give it as a ‘tax free gift’! It is important to see that although Abraham was rich, he often refused free handouts! The problem with the church today is you have too many Preachers who see the truths on Abraham being rich and they mix it with a message that says ‘sow seed into my ministry, don’t disobey God!’ it is taught in a way that violates the whole character of Abraham. If you want the lord to bless you, reexamine the way your are expecting it. Abraham would not take free stuff! The church needs to teach prosperity in balance with all the other principles of diligence and giving to God and being smart investors and AVOIDING FREE GIFTS! This mode of operation will be found in the life of Abraham more than once!
(701) GENESIS 15- Abraham has been living for a bunch of years since God told him ‘you will have lots of kids, great nations and peoples’ yet he hasn’t had any children yet! You begin to see the natural mind working. Abraham suggests that one of his servants might become the promised ‘seed’. It was not uncommon for a father with no natural children to give the inheritance to a servant. Scripture says a wise servant will rule over a foolish son. Remember the movie ‘Gladiator’? The King/father chooses the Roman gladiator [Crowe] over the son. So Abraham is thinking maybe this is Gods plan. He will do this later with Ishmael as well. A son born from him, but not from Sarah. The Lord will have to keep reaffirming the original vision, so Abraham will have to trust. Also scripture says ‘the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision’. Let’s do a quick study. The New Testament teaches faith comes by hearing and ‘hearing by the Word of the Lord’. In the book of Acts the phrase ‘they preached the Word’ appears. Paul says ‘all scripture is given by inspiration of God’. What exactly is ‘the word of the Lord’? While you certainly can apply it to our bible, yet Paul will use this phrase before the New Testament was complete. The preaching in Acts was ‘the word’ yet they had no bibles like we have today. What is the ‘all scripture’ Paul is speaking of? It is specifically the promised ‘word’ that was fulfilled thru Messiah as the completion of the revelation of God to man. This certainly included the Old Testament, but it was more specific. The preaching in Acts was focused on Jesus being the fulfillment of the promise that all Israel was waiting for. So ‘the word of the Lord’ is not simply some general belief in scripture [though it is good to have this belief!] but it is belief in the promise and revealed will of God to you thru out your life. It is the thing you have been waiting for, as revealed by God to you. If you will, it is the actual vision of God for your life. When you believe and see the purpose of God for you, you will have momentum and a dynamic that can not be achieved thru other means. When God calls you and reveals his will to you, you must reattach to this purpose thru out your life. Even in Abraham’s doubts, he is still trying to figure out how to complete the mission! The whole ‘let my servant be the son’ or later on ‘let Ishmael live before thee’ are doubts that are arising out of his determination to see ‘the word of the lord’ [Gods original promise to him] fulfilled! So I want to encourage you to do a little housecleaning. Have things moved so fast [or slow!] in your life that you have lost the original purpose? Are you spending your time doing things that are not primarily connected to your destiny in God? Re attach to the original purpose. In verse 6 Abraham believes God again and it is accounted unto him for righteousness. God is still wanting you to believe him to bring it to pass!
(702) GENESIS 16- Abraham is around 85 years old. He’s been waiting around 10 years for God to fulfill the promise and give him a child. In the last chapter he suggested for the Lord to count his servant from his household as the heir. Now Sarah says ‘take my maid Hagar and have a son with her’. Of course the sons name is Ishmael. For all you preachers who read this site, well you know the story. But for all my buddies let me explain. Ishmael is usually looked upon as ‘the flesh’. That is Abraham went out in his own strength and tries to make Gods promise happen. True. But Paul will use this story in Galatians 4 and teach the difference between law and grace. Though Ishmael is the father of the Arab nations [Muslim people for the most part]. Yet Paul does not compare Ishmael to ‘natural Arab descent’. He compares Ishmael to JEWISH PEOPLE WHO ARE LAW KEEPERS AND WHO PERSECUTE TRUE BELIEVERS! Now, I don’t want to go anti Semitic. I want you to see this very important distinction. Today we should see this whole story thru the eyes of law versus grace. Not thru the eyes of Jew versus Muslim! When you preach it the ethnic way [Jew versus Muslim] you do harm to the purpose of God. Paul will use the illustration to show how all those who are under grace are free and don’t have to be under a legalistic mindset. He will compare Ishmael to those who are NATURAL JERUSALEM [not Arab people!] and say ‘you must be free from trying to please God thru the law, and come to the Cross!’ [Hebrews, Romans, Galatians, etc.] Preaching it like this is consistent with the New Testament. Preaching it like the American Fundamentalists causes strife in the world! So read this chapter along with Galatians 3 and 4. Think about what I just told you as you read, and see if it falls down on the side of grace versus ethnic division. God loves all people. He is calling all nations to himself thru Christ. Let’s keep this in mind as we ‘preach the bible’. Many times we do damage to the purpose of God because we think ‘preach the bible’ means spewing out hatred to Muslim people. Here we have shown you that this is not the will of God!
(703) GENESIS 17- Once again God appears to Abraham to reassure him of the original promise. What did God promise him again? He will be the father of many nations [Paul will refer this to Abraham being the father, spiritually, of all believers. Not just natural Israel!] God told him he would be a blessing to the whole world thru his offspring [Both Jesus individually, all men being justified and receiving the Spirit by faith. And also thru the ‘corporate Christ’. The whole body of Christ, including Jew and gentile believers] and Abraham would ‘inherit all this land thru his offspring’. If you go back and look at the actual borders that God spoke of, it is much more than what you see on a map of Israel today! We are going to deal with the mistaken idea of the Protestant American Evangelist and his preaching on so called ‘replacement theology’. Now The Lord will reaffirm this basic promise and tell Abraham ‘walk before me and be perfect’. I get the sense that the Lord was waiting until Abraham’s faith was ‘perfect’ enough to fulfill the promise [read my commentary on Hebrews 11 on this site!] It’s like the Lord was saying ‘walk right son, I am waiting to give you all the stuff I spoke of!’ Abraham is 99 and Sarah is 90. God says ‘Sarah will be the mother of many nations’. It seems like Abraham all ready gave up on his future son Isaac and had all his hopes on Ishmael. Abraham will say this in response to the promised Isaac. ‘O that Ishmael would live before thee’ in essence ‘just do the promise thru Ishmael, I’m all right with it’. God says no, he will do it thru the promised child! Now, let’s get into it. Read Galatians 3-4 and Romans 3-4. Paul will take all these promises and say ‘the promise that God made to Abraham that he would inherit the world was not to Abraham or his kids thru the law, but by faith. So at the end [fulfillment] the promise might apply to all the kids, not just to natural Jews who are living by the law’. Paul absolutely is a REPLACEMENT THEOLOGIAN! He is really not guilty of what this so called accusation means. Some preachers will say those who ‘spiritualize’ the promise of God to Israel and apply them to the church are ‘replacement theologians’. But the fact is Paul is doing this! Read Romans 4: 13-14. Paul interprets these passages to refer to the church. Both Jew and non Jew who believe. ‘Why brother, how can the church fulfill the promise of God to Abraham that his seed [kids] would inherit the holy land’? Easy, the New Testament clearly states that we are joint heirs with Christ. We basically own the planet. There are believers right now in every part of the Holy land and all Palestine and Iraq and Egypt and as a matter of fact all over the world! Did you notice Paul will expand the ‘land promise’ from the holy land to the world! Jesus is actually seated at Gods right hand in heaven ruling from a universal throne [which includes Israel!] and is expanding his actual earthly presence thru the church. The fact that right now Abraham has spiritual children inhabiting the whole planet, including Israel. Shows that the promise to Abraham is being fulfilled thru ALL THE SEED, not just those who are ‘of the law’ [natural Israel]. Well in a nutshell, Paul was a ‘replacement theologian’ but I prefer to see it more as a ‘full world theologian’ a type of interpretation that sees all of Gods kids possessing all of Gods world thru the ‘promise of the Spirit’. NOTE; It is vital for believers to see this truth. It will keep us from getting involved in ‘holy wars’ between Israel and Palestine and advocating actual murder as a fulfillment of Gods word! [See entry 827]
(704) GENESIS 18- The Lord appears to Abraham and tells him he is going to destroy Sodom. Abraham has family living there [Lot] and pleads with the Lord not to judge the place. Abraham says ‘what if 50 righteous people are there, will you destroy them with the rest’? The Lord says ‘No’. Abraham goes all the way to ‘what about 10 people’ and the Lord assures Abraham he will not destroy the place if there are 10 righteous people there. Well, you know the story. Lot and his family will leave and God will judge the place. Peter will use the example of Lot and say ‘the Lord knows how to deliver [save] the righteous’. He ‘delivered’ just Lot. Also the Lord ‘saved’ Noah who was a preacher of righteousness. David in Psalms says ‘The righteous cry [call upon] and the Lord hears and saves them’. The theme of God ‘saving the righteous’ is different than God ‘saving sinners’. This is actually what Paul is referring to in Romans 10 ‘with the heart mans believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation’. In essence ‘you are saved’ when you believe. And the process of ‘ongoing promised salvation and deliverance will come to all who call’. Hey, once you believe [are made just] you can’t help but call! For the Spirit of God is sent forth into your heart and you will cry ‘Abba, father’. I don’t want to get technical here. If you asked Jesus into your heart and are truly serving God, great! But in context there is a ‘salvation of the righteous’ as well as a ‘salvation of the sinner’. They are intricately connected, but you see the doctrine here. God will save the just over and over again as they call upon his name. The righteous cry and the Lord hears their prayer and delivers them.
(705) GENESIS 19- The Lord tells Lot to leave Sodom quickly. Lot has to be forcibly removed by the angels! The men of Sodom wanted to have ‘relations’ with the angels! Lot offers his daughters instead and the men pass on the offer. God initially tells Lot to flee to the mountain [the name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run into and are safe- once again we will see the doctrine of the righteous being saved by the Lord]. Lot offers the angels a compromise. He says ‘let me go to this nearby city instead’ the angels say ‘fine’. The next day lot wakes up and sees the total destruction of Sodom and realizes this was the last city he lived in that the Lord wasn’t to happy with. He must have turned around and thought ‘geez, the lord also wasn’t to happy with me going to this other city [Zoar] either, he wanted me to go to the mountain’ and he tells his kids ‘you know what, that mountain retreat sounds like a good idea after all’! The scripture says he feared to stay in Zoar! If you read 2nd Peter 2 and Jude you will see Lot mentioned. The writers will once again say the Lord knows how to save the righteous. These chapters speak of both the deliverance of Noah and the story of Lot. Many times rapture theorists will see the truth of God saving his people from wrath and mistakenly apply it to a geographical deliverance. Both lot and Noah are examples of believers who were ‘removed from wicked places and preserved from God’s wrath’. It was a geographical salvation if you will. In the New Testament the wrath of God is seen in a more universal dimension. In John 3 the scripture says ‘the wrath of God continually abides on the unbeliever’. Paul will say ‘Jesus delivered us from the wrath to come’. Past tense! The New Testament doctrine of promised deliverance from ‘the wrath to come’ is not contingent upon a geographical location. It is based on ‘being in Christ’ [the city of God, the bride the lambs wife! Revelation] and coming ‘out of Babylon’. The world [not the earth!] and its false systems of pride and sin. So in context you can apply these geographical deliverances to the child of God being spared from future wrath. But you shouldn’t develop a doctrine that says ‘Jesus comes back 2 more times, one to take away believers for 7 years and another to reveal himself’. Jesus will come back, but if you haven’t already been ‘delivered from Babylon’ by the time he comes, then be assured ‘the wrath of God abideth on you’.
(706) GENESIS 20- Abraham does it again! He travels to Gerar and tells the king ‘Sarah is my sister, not my wife’. This time the king takes her but before he sleeps with her God appears to him in a dream and tells him not to do it. In this chapter we see dreams, prophets and healing mentioned. All before Pentecost! In the following days we will cover Joseph and his dreams. I want you to see the reality of God communicating and interjecting himself into the human story as he wills. The fact that all thru out scripture AND CHURCH HISTORY we see an ongoing work of God in supernatural things shows us that God is still sovereign and can do all the things he has ever done. One of the big divisions in Christianity today has to do with the Charismatic movement and the more Orthodox/Reformed brothers. While I realize the Reformed brothers do accept the supernatural workings of God, some of them hold to cessationist views of the gifts of the Spirit. The Charismatics will accept the gifts, but often fall short in the simple teaching of scripture. I have been frustrated over the years in trying to tell Charismatic brothers that you can’t teach that Jesus was a very wealthy person who taught a money message. No matter how much proof from scripture or history you give them, they dismiss it as ‘that old tradition’. I can see why the more Reformed guys just avoid the whole deal. But to be honest to scripture we need to see and have a basic belief in a supernatural God who can communicate thru dreams and can use Prophets and does heal miraculously! Now after God appears to Abimilech and tells him ‘don’t do it, she is the mans wife’. The king is also told ‘restore her back to the man and he will pray for you and I will heal you, he is a Prophet’. So Abraham makes it right. Now, the king also gives restitution to Abraham. Lots of stuff. Does this contradict what I taught earlier about Abraham? We showed how he didn’t take free handouts. In this case this is really not a free handout, it is the biblical doctrine of restitution. Jesus taught this in the New Testament. When someone is wronged by you, do what you can to make up for it. So we leave this chapter with Abraham once again coming out on top, even though he messed up! This shows you that it is only by the mercy and favor of God that you are where you are today. You might think ‘you know, I really am a pretty talented guy. If I weren’t with the lord I probably would have succeeded in some other endeavor’ NOT! It is his grace alone that has exalted you to success. If it weren’t for the Lord you would be a big mess!
(707) GENESIS 21- God gives Abraham a child thru Sarah in their old age. Sarah was ‘beyond the time to have kids’ and it was truly a miracle. The child grows and Abraham’s son from Hagar, Ishmael, mocks Isaac. The scripture says ‘cast out the bondwoman’s son, he shall not be heir with Isaac’. This thing grieves Abraham but God says ‘listen to Sarah’ and he sends Ishmael and Hagar out. Once again in Galatians 4 Paul says ‘these things are an allegory’ [wow, talk about presumptuously spiritualizing the word! Many preachers believe doing this is wrong. They seem to not see the heavy amount of ‘spiritualizing’ that Paul does!] Paul says these are examples of how the legalistic Jews would persecute those born of the Spirit. Paul clearly says ‘just like Ishmael made fun of Isaac, so today [the New covenant] those who are born of the Spirit are being persecuted by those born ‘after the flesh’. There simply is no other way to see this. Paul flatly applies this story to law versus grace. Not Jew versus Arab [Muslim]. Paul will even call ‘natural Jerusalem’ Ishmael, who is under bondage with her children. And call those who are born of the Spirit children of ‘the heavenly Jerusalem’ who are born from God. For a first century Jewish former Pharisee to absolutely reject any glorifying of natural Israel, and to call her ‘in bondage with her children’ shows you the strong disconnect that the modern fundamental evangelist makes with scripture when he applies such honor to natural Jerusalem! In a previous chapter Abraham circumcises his son [Ishmael] and himself the same day. Paul will also teach that this shows Abraham to be the father of ‘many nations’. The fact that Abraham was declared righteous before he was circumcised shows you that Abraham is not only ‘the father of Jewish heritage’ but of ‘all who believe, even those who are not circumcised’. This might not mean as much to you today, but in 1st century Rome the Jews considered the uncircumcised as ‘dogs’. For Paul to say Abraham is the father of all who believe, even the uncircumcised, was a major break with ethnic tradition! Sort of like what I just showed you about the ‘natural’ versus ‘spiritual’ Jerusalem. It challenges the strong ethnic ties that believers hold to when they do not rightly interpret scripture. Paul was hated for this type of theology! So we see the Lord finally fulfill his promise to Abraham. The child has arrived! Boy is he gonna be surprised when God says ‘now, go and offer him as a sacrifice’!
(708) GENESIS 22- The big test day! It comes to all of us. A time in your life where you choose to obey or keep playing around the danger zone of disobedience. God tells Abraham ‘you see that boy Isaac, the one you have been doubting me about thru out this journey. You thought I would fulfill the promise thru your servant at first. Then for sure you had your hopes on Ishmael. Boy don’t you remember what we went thru in order to get you to the place of promise’? I could hear Abraham saying ‘I know Lord, forgive me for being so stubborn. I had a hard time believing Sarah could really have a son. She was ‘beyond the time of child bearing’ and I doubted it would happen. But now that it did happen, well I can see Isaac truly being the father of nations, just like you said’. God ‘yeah, it’s been a wild ride son. Oh yeah, one more thing. Take the child and offer him up on an altar!’ WHAT! I am sure Abraham thought the major days of testing were over. The miracle boy has arrived. Things are going well for Ishmael, he’s on his own and enjoying some bow hunting [he became an archer!]. And Abraham wants to settle down and enjoy the rest of his life. But the Lord says ‘let’s go for another round’. In Hebrews 11 the Word says Abraham at this point simply learned how to trust. He knew in his own mind that the only way to get any where was to obey. He tried all the other angles before and they just delayed the promise. He also knows that this child is the one that the promise will be fulfilled thru. Hebrews says Abraham just figured ‘what the heck. I got the boy by way of a miracle. He was as good as dead when he was born. He came from a ‘dead womb’. If God wants me to kill him, I guess he will just raise him up again!’ Abrahams mind was trained at this point in his life to fall down on the side of ‘I will do what God says, and he will do whatever needs to be done to bring the future to pass’. [Read my commentary on Hebrews 11 on this blog!] Often times this Isaac story is taught in a way that says ‘God will ask you to give up on the promise. You must ‘lay Isaac down on the altar’. While there is some truth to this idea, it really doesn’t grasp the full picture. I just showed you how in Abraham’s mind he didn’t think he was ‘giving up on the vision/destiny’ he just learned to allow God to do it the way he said. It is really not a test of giving up the vision, it is a test of how do you think it will come to pass! Have you learned to not try and organize and strategize and be ‘motivated’ enough to make it happen? We usually create idols out of the process, the way we think it should be done [wrong concepts of ‘Local church’] and God doesn’t say ‘lose the vision/purpose’ he says ‘quit trying to do it in ways that are heavily dependant on your own strength’. Abraham wasn’t giving up on the vision, he was giving up on his own wisdom!
(709) GENESIS 23- Sarah is old and dies. Abraham mourns for the loss of the ‘mother of many nations’. She was just as much a recipient of the promise as he was. Abraham offers to BUY a burial spot for Sarah and his family. He tells the people ‘sell me a place to bury my dead’. The sons of Heth say ‘you are a great and influential person. Take any spot you want for free’. Once again Abraham refuses a free gift. He did this earlier with the king of Sodom. Why is this important to see? While in today’s economy we allow for ‘churches’ to be tax free. Yet we need to be very careful about looking like we are freeloaders. I have heard unbelievers in the past say ‘these prosperity preachers are claiming God has prospered them. But they are getting tax free stuff’. While I believe it’s o.k. to use the benefits the government provides for advancing the gospel, we need to be aware of the impression this gives to the unbelieving world. Especially when we use the tax free status and at the same time amass wealth! So here we see Abraham purchase the land for the full price. He buys a field from Ephron and counts the silver in public [open books!] and lets everyone see up front that there are no secret financial dealings. I think Abraham would be a member of the financial accountability groups that oversee the ministries finances!
(710) GENESIS 24- Abraham sends his servant back to his homeland to get a wife for Isaac. The servant asks ‘what if the women doesn’t want to come back to the Promised Land, should I bring Isaac back to your original homeland’? Abraham is adamant ‘under no circumstances is my son to leave this journey and go back!’ the writer of Hebrews says ‘if they were mindful of the land they came from, they might have had opportunity to have returned’. The whole point is the idea of leaving the ‘homeland’ was a type of Israel [and you!] leaving the old ways and traditions that we are familiar with and to launch out into new things. Paul will often use this language in exhorting natural Israel to leave the old law and come into the New Covenant. We need to make sure that we don’t go back! [note: I am not saying all tradition is wrong, but sometimes we are so joined to past ancestry that this hinders the things God has planned for us]. The servant goes and finds a well and says ‘Lord, give me a sign. Let the woman who I ask to give me a drink. Let her also offer to water the camels and I will know she’s the one’. Is it wrong to ask for signs? Sometimes. But God wants us to succeed so much that he will show you beyond a shadow of a doubt what he wants! Sure enough Rebecca comes to the well and she fulfils the sign. They go back to Abrahams relatives [Labans house] and the servant tells the whole story. Rebecca goes back to the promised land with the servant and Isaac marries her. This story is often taught in Sunday school as Abraham being a type of God who sends his servant [Spirit] to get a bride [the Church] for his son [Jesus]. I think it fits. God also sends his Spirit to draw you away from the place of security into a new land. He knows that unless we leave familiar co dependant environments, we will never mature into the full functioning person that he intends for us. Often times the missing ingredient is ‘get up and get out’. We fail to launch!
(711) GENESIS 25- Isaac and Rebecca are married for around 20 years and still have no children. Isaac prays for kids and Rebecca is pregnant with twins! The first one out is Esau and then comes Jacob. Scripture says ‘the older will serve the younger’. Paul will quote this in Romans 9 to explain Predestination. The doctrine of God saving you based on total grace. He chose you before you were born! Now, I have said before that Christians have fought wars over this stuff. After all the studying I have done over the years, I fall down on the side of Calvinism [or Augustine or Paul!]. The critics of this doctrine have good reasons to be critical, there are some difficult questions that come with this teaching. For the most part you see Paul defending it in Romans 9 by using this story. He says God chose Jacob before the boys were even born, they had done nothing to earn Gods choosing. Now those who reject Predestination will say ‘God saw ahead of time the future decisions that the boys were to make’. Fine. But Paul still defends the doctrine from the point of view that ‘before the boys did right or wrong God chose Jacob’. Paul then says ‘you will then say to me, how can God find fault? People are just doing what they were predestined to do’. If God was just choosing Jacob based on his foreknowledge of their future choices, then Paul would have said ‘easy, God is being fair because he based this decision on his future knowledge of what the boys would do’. But Paul doesn’t say this. He answers the critics of predestination by saying ‘who are you to question God? Can the thing that God created question the creator’? Paul will go on in the rest of the chapter and defend classic Calvinism using this defense. I believe there are some real answers to be found thru out Romans that might be a little too ‘heavy’ for us to get into. Most believers who have argued over these 2 Christian views [Calvinism versus Arminianism] have argued over the seeming unfairness of the doctrine. There are things that we don’t fully understand or grasp as humans. When we try to ‘adjust’ scripture to make it fit our rational minds we err. I believe we should rejoice over the mercy of God, teach all people that Jesus loves them and Christ died for them. And thank God that you and I are in this thing because of Gods sovereign choice, it had nothing to do with what we did [or would do!] We also see Esau sell his birthright to Jacob. Paul uses this in Hebrews 12 to warn Jewish people not to despise the privileged position of ‘being first’. The gospel came first to the Jews. Jesus is the Jewish Messiah! The fact that they rejected Jesus has caused there to be a ‘despising’ of that which was originally theirs! Many Jewish people have fallen into the error of Esau. They have rejected something that was designed for their benefit. And while others have benefited from this rejection, they actually despise hearing about their rightful place in Messiah! Many Jewish families see it as heresy for a family member to convert to Christianity. Esau sold what was really his, and he hated Jacob because of it.
(712) GENESIS 26- There is a famine in the land and the Lord warns Isaac not to go down into Egypt. Isaac stays and dwells in Gerar and the surrounding area. He pulls the ‘this is my sister, not my wife’ thing. The king finds out she is Isaacs wife and rebukes him for lying. Isaac is really blessed in the land. Scripture says ‘he sowed and reaped a 100 fold’. Now, let’s do a little stuff. The modern church went thru a whole phase where believers were confessing and believing and doing everything [but working!] in order to get ‘the 100 fold return’. We have previously showed you how when Jesus spoke of ‘the 100 fold return’ in the parable of the sower, he in no way was speaking of money! [Read the chapter ‘twisting the parable of the sower’ the book is ‘HOUSE OF PRAYER OR DEN OF THIEVES’ on this site]. But because the Old Testament is the ‘shadow’ of things to come, and not the true riches. That’s why in this story it is speaking of natural stuff. Now the church went thru this stage of believers doing all they could to ‘reap the financial harvest’. We taught believers to think on money, confess it. Basically consume your thoughts with ‘money thoughts’ [all in violation of Jesus teaching on ‘the gentiles are always thinking about this stuff, let it not be like this with you’!] So we had a whole group of young believers violating the mandate in scripture to work and be diligent. And they often times were doing it by believing a distorted doctrine on the 100 fold return. Well Isaac reaped because HE SOWED. He planted that darn farmland! [To be nice about it]. So today we should teach the believer the responsibility of working and living diligently and being responsible. And we need to teach that the way you reap the 100 fold return is by actually planting that field! Isaac also will re open the wells that his father had dug. They were stopped up out of jealousy by the philistines. Sometimes people ‘who are not doing the work themselves’ [sowing] have a lot of free time. What do they do with this free time? Figuring out ways to stop up other peoples wells! Paul called them busy bodies in the New Testament. These brothers just make more work for those who are in the harvest field! Isaac opens up the wells and honors his fathers heritage. The church goes thru these stages every so often. A re opening of the church fathers. Studying Patristics again [1st 7 centuries of church history]. I think it’s a good thing to honor our spiritual heritage. These wells go deep and have been feeding people for centuries!
(713) GENESIS 27- Isaac is old and ready to die. He calls Esau and tells him to go get some deer and prepare him a good meal. Isaac is going to give the blessing of the firstborn to Esau. Rebecca hears the plan and when Esau goes hunting, she tells Jacob [her momma’s boy!] ‘Quick, go get some cabrito and let’s make some carne’! They dress Jacob in Esau’s hairy clothes and he goes to dad. Dad is a little suspicious but Jacob is a great liar. When Isaac says ‘son, how did you hunt and prepare the food so fast’? Jacob not only lies, but he even invokes the Lord! ‘God was with me and he helped me prosper’ OUCH! This boy likes to fib! The plan works and Isaac blesses Jacob instead of Esau. Notice the blessing, it is the actual blessing that Jacobs’s son Joseph will dream in the future. Isaac says your brothers will come to you and bow down and serve you, I have made you preeminent among them. Years later Joseph will tell these dreams to his father Jacob and Jacob will act surprised. ‘Are we all going to bow down to you, where in the world did you ever get such an idea’? I think Jacob knew where it came from, but he was playing the stoop! Esau comes in with the venison and finds out it’s too late, Isaac already gave the blessing of the firstborn to Jacob. But Isaac musters up a cheap blessing and gives it to him. Esau plots to kill his brother. Rebecca hears and says to Isaac ‘lets send Jacob away to Labans house. God forbid that he takes a wife from this place’! She wants her boy gone to protect him from his brother. Notice this whole story. God is using this family to fulfill his purpose in the earth. These are all the great heroes of the faith for heavens sake! You would be hard pressed to find a more dysfunctional family today. We have a tendency to present leaders and ‘movers and shakers’ as stage performers. They are seen at their best. The average saint feels he cant live up to the high powered models we present to them. That’s why when a book is written from the honest standpoint of failure and struggle, it is popular. The people of God want to know that they are not alone in their struggles and sins. They want to see that many of the ‘great Christians’ struggled like them. I think this story does a good job at accomplishing this purpose. Also in the last chapter I forgot to mention something. One of the wells that Isaac digs is named ‘Rehoboth’. Which means ‘the Lord has made room for us and we will be fruitful in the land’. I have already incorporated this into my prayer time. These chapters carry many tremendous promises of God giving you the influence of a true revolutionary. God telling Abraham ‘all the land you see you will inherit’ reaffirming these promises to his seed. ‘I will multiply you exceedingly, I will make nations out of you and kings will come from you’ ‘your children will inherit this land. They will prosper in all their ways’ all these themes can be found thru out these chapters. Remember Paul teaches these promises are being fulfilled thru the people of God. Claim these promises over you and your children. Claim them over both natural and spiritual offspring. God wants to bless you with the blessing of Rehoboth ‘he will make room for you in this land and make you fruitful’!
(714) GENESIS 28- JACOBS LADDER; Isaac sends Jacob off to Labans house. Esau sees that his father never dealt with Jacobs’s schemes and goes and TAKES A WIFE FROM ISHMAELS DAUGHTERS! A huge no no! Isaacs’s family knows this story like a family taboo. How many times has Esau heard how uncle Ishmael used to mock Isaac. And how ‘Father Abraham’ had to send Ishmael away. This story must have stuck like a thorn in the side of Ishmael and his family. Well, after all these years of family strife and division, old Esau goes and says ‘uncle Ishmael, can I have your daughters hand in marriage’? I am sure Ishmael thought ‘why what have we here, the precious heritage of beloved Isaac wants to associate himself with us. Sure I’ll help you old nephew’. Ishmael was more than glad to oblige. Isaac never really dealt with the inner strife in his family. King David and others would fall into this category as well. Esau did what he did out of spite, and it affected many others. Now on Jacobs journey he stops and sets up a bunch of stones [living stones- Peters epistle calls believers living stones] and makes a pillow for his head [a place to rest his head. Jesus is the ‘head’ of the church [authority!] and he ‘rests’ [abides] in the people of God thru his Spirit. We are the habitation of God!] As the sun sets [it got dark on Golgotha- the place where the sun went down] he falls asleep [Jesus ‘slept’ 3 days and nights in the grave]. During his sleep God appears to him and assures him that because of the journey he will become the heir and father of nations and peoples [Jesus is the actual seed of Abraham that would inherit all kindred’s and nations. He was faithful to go on a journey to earth, the incarnation. And the father made him heir of all things while he ‘slept’] Jacob wakes up [resurrection] and says ‘this is the house of God’ [Jesus made us the house of God thru his death and resurrection] and puts the stones together into a pillar. It actually calls the stones [corporate] ‘the stone’ [singular] at this point. We were all individual stones before Christ. But in him we have become one ‘stone’. The church, the Body of Christ. The pillar is made from the stones [Peter said we are the living stones who being formed together are an habitation for God- Paul said the church was the ‘pillar’ and ground of the truth] and Jacob pours oil on the pillar of stones [Jesus poured out his Spirit on all the living stones on the day of Pentecost, anointing us as his New testament pillar of stones]. Oh, by the way, the ladder that Jacob saw in his dream was a door of access from heaven to earth and earth to heaven, this is a wonderful type of the Cross. Bravo to the great victory of the Son of God!
(715) PARABLE FROM A WATCH- Recently there has been much public debate on the origins of life. Two famous atheists, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have written books on the subject. These books have been debunked fairly well by others in the scientific community as well as believers. Ben Stein, the comedian who used to be on T.V. and other various projects has made a movie called ‘expelled’. I haven’t seen it yet but it shows the very real discrimination that is played out against professors who even think to mention the theory of intelligent design. These professors are often silenced, not on the grounds of science, but because of the stigma that comes with being a contrarian when it comes to evolution. Now the parable; Say if 2 people were walking along the highway and stumbled across a watch. They have never seen one before. The materials of the watch are foreign to them. What is this strange thing? One of them espouses the idea that many billions of years ago nothing existed. You had no matter, no life giving entity. You believe that as billions of years went buy, out of nothing came something [a scientific impossibility!] but for the sake of argument, we agree. Now this ‘material’ that came into existence from nothing still had to be formed and designed into this complex watch that we have found. The materialist espouses another billion or so years go by and you had this explosion. Where did the explosion come from? Well lets stick with the same theory of where the materials came from. It just happened! No explanation at all. No scientific fore thought, everything just went ‘boom, boom’. At this point I begin wondering if my materialistic friend is off his rocker! But from this unexplained explosion we have billions of more years [he seems to think the simple concept of billions of years can itself create matter and cause action and create design. This idea is absolutely contrary to all true science. All true science, observable facts, show us that from points of disorder you do not get design! Say an explosion of some other thing, you do not derive order and complexity from the simple act of an explosion. An explosion can never in a billion years produce a watch. It would be like using the common example of an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of keyboards for an infinite number of years and producing the complete works of Shakespeare!] Now from this viewpoint the materialist says ‘this is how the watch got here, I am a man of knowledge and science’ now as the innocent bystander, I would say ‘you my friend are a complete and total idiot’ [I like using parables, you can have the characters say things that you personally would never say as a believer!]. The bystander says ‘as far as we can tell from all other observable data that we have around us, there has never once been a time where a complex machine like a watch could have simply appeared from nowhere and nothing. You had to have had some initiator [designer] somewhere along the way to have crafted the thing. This designer, be it aliens or whatever, had to have had the ability to also have created the elements of the watch. By sheer logic, this designer himself had to have been around forever or else you would come up with the same problem of ‘something/someone coming from nothing’. The bystander deducts that although he can not explain scientifically all the ins and outs of this designer, yet he without a doubt is much more ‘scientific’ than the materialists idea that all things came from no thing! So today, we have the ‘average Joe’ who simply believes that the materialistic scientist must have the real answers. The average Joe thinks ‘surely I haven’t been believing in a total absurdity my whole life!’ He takes ‘by faith’ the materialists explanation. Most average Joes have heard the argument ‘well, the schools teach science, not religion. Therefore we must believe this absurdity’. It is a proven fact that complex things, be they watches or humans or solar systems, must have come from a designer. How is it proven? It is proven in the sense that all observable complex things have never been shown to have appeared from nothing. Science has never once witnessed the arrival of a new species from nothing. Science simply shows us the factual data that all things that we can now observe coming into existence [births of animals, humans, etc] come into existence by the actions of other things that already exist. The belief the bystander has espoused! So in reality what the average Joe thinks is true science, that all things came from nothing, is not true science at all. As a matter of fact, that which he thought was ‘silly religion’ actually has been closer to the facts all along!
(716) GENESIS 29- Jacob goes on his journey after the Bethel experience and shows up at a well in Laban's land. As he is talking to the brothers who are sitting there at the well he scopes out the situation. He finds out that Rachel, the daughter of Laban, will be coming to water her dads sheep. Great, he is having some success in hooking up with a possible wife. As he is talking to the shepherds he asks ‘why don’t you guys water the sheep, there thirsty and it’s as good a time as any’? Jacob is pro active. His family history is digging up wells. For heavens sake water the ‘darn’ sheep already! The guys answer ‘O heaven forbid it! Our tradition is to wait for all the other brothers who are also bringing sheep. Then someone else rolls the stone away from the wells mouth [the ordained clergy ?] and then, and only then, do we water’. Well Jacobs a newcomer and he can’t figure out what’s wrong with these Yankees from the east. He just keeps his mouth shut. Sure enough Rachel shows up, and what do you know, he goes and rolls the stone away. That unordained rebel! Doesn’t he realize that he is violating the traditions of our fathers? The water in the well is precious, who does he think he is freely watering as if the water was ‘growing on trees’. Well it is! Or better, the ground is full of it. Jesus said ‘feed my sheep, the water that I give freely is available to everyone. This water will become a river in my people. For heavens sake the stone has been removed from my grave [well] for 2 thousand years, why don’t you water the sheep’? We are like the brothers waiting for the official ‘stone roller’ to tell us when it’s OK to water. Jacob was a go getter, if these other guys feel they don’t have the authority to roll away the stone and freely give access to the river of life, then that’s their problem. But ole Jacob is gonna provide that water whether they like it or not! Jacob goes to laban's house and they share the whole story. Laban says ‘just because you are my relative, doesn’t mean you are going to work for free. Tell me your price’. Well, I kinda like Rachel. We did smooch at the well. Sure enough Laban says work for me for 7 years and she’s yours. They sort of had a long time payment plan for stuff like this. Jacob works the full 7 years and scripture says it seemed like a few days to him. The 7 years are up, Laban says ‘your bride is waiting in the tent’. It’s late and dark, Jacob makes love to his wife, and sure enough in the morning its Leah and not Rachel! Jacob is incensed. Laban says ‘Oh, didn’t I tell you we have this custom that the older sister gets married first? But being I am such an honest broker. Just work another 7 years for Rachel’. We often see Jacob as a schemer. After all the whole reason he is at laban’s house is because of his past schemes. But in this instance, laban was the slippery character. This will be the beginning of many years of deceit. Jacob will go ahead and trick laban out of the good flocks. Eventually Jacob will leave under less than perfect circumstances and his wife, Rachel, will learn the supplanting ways of Jacob. We will read how Rachel steals laban’s idols and lies about them. But we leave this chapter with some deep-seated mistrust in Jacobs’s dealings with uncle Laban.
(717) GENESIS 30- I forgot to mention that in the last chapter Leah gives Jacob 4 sons. Now Rachel is barren. Notice how all these mothers of the faith are barren. What’s up with this? Sarah, Rebecca and now Rachel. Paul will quote Isaiah in the book of Galatians ‘more are the children of the desolate, than of the married wife’. Paul quotes this in context of saying ‘the spiritual Israel [church] will actually have more ‘children’ than the natural Israel’. He quotes it in a way to teach the reality of God bringing forth the promises thru the promised seed as opposed to the natural law. I hope you’re following me. It is consistent with everything I showed you when we covered Isaac as the promised seed. Now here we see a theme of the promised mothers as barren. And then God miraculously giving the mothers birth [remember Sarah was past the time of having kids?] So God is doing the same here, Rachel feels hopeless as each year passes and she is barren. Especially because Leah has given Jacob kids! So in this chapter the race is on! It’s actually quite funny. Rachel says ‘Jacob, sleep with my maid’ [A Hagar type thing] and sure enough Rachel starts the competition. Leah is also popping out more kids and is trying to keep up. Then Leah stops getting pregnant and enlists her maid. Sure enough the race continues. Then Leah starts getting pregnant again and names the kid ‘Gad’ which means ‘a troop is coming’ OUCH! Old brother Jacob must have been thinking ‘am I personally going to fulfill grandpa’s dream of populating the earth?’ Then Rachel gets pregnant for the first time. She has Joseph, thru him we will see the prophetic lineage carry on. He will have future dreams and fulfill great destiny. His role will be crucial to the survival of his whole family. Now Jacob tells Laban he wants to move away. Laban wants to work out a deal to keep him as his main worker. Jacob is an excellent employee! So Jacob does a famous scheme. This chapter is one of those stories that people use to try and discredit scripture. The reason is Jacob will take all the sheep with spots and stripes and remove them from the herd. He than tells Laban ‘now, I have removed the spotted sheep. All that is left are plain ones. From now on all the new sheep will be divided like this; those born with spots/stripes are mine. Those born plain are yours’. And scripture says Jacob peeled stripes in Poplar tree branches and placed them at the watering trough. When the sheep conceived while looking at the striped branches they had striped kids! Some have had a hard time trying to explain this story. Does science teach stuff like this? Not really. Some have come up with various excuses. Let me give you my explanation. In this whole story it does say ‘when the sheep mated in front of the branches they gave birth to striped sheep’ and when the weaker sheep were there mating without the branches that they gave birth to plain ones. The scripture doesn’t actually say it was because of the branches! Its obvious Jacob thought it was because of the branches, but if you read it carefully the guy might have been fooling himself! It’s sort of like these mafia guys from New Jersey. Lots of them ran construction crews or Pizza Parlors. They actually made great Pizza! They could have made it legitimately if they wanted. But they wanted their hands in the cookie jar. It’s possible that God was simply giving Jacob favor when the stronger sheep bred! God has been known to favor his kids. But old scheming Jacob needed some angle, like the mafia guys. He very well might have thought ‘look, my scheme is working’ scripture does say ‘when the stronger sheep mated in front of the sticks, they gave birth to spotted babies’. But the lord might have been making those babies spotted regardless of the sticks! It just said the sticks were there! So without being too dogmatic on this, lets say Jacob was the type of ‘supplanter’ [this is what his name means] that was always looking for an angle. He never could fully trust God to simply meet his needs without his own devising. Jacob struggled with ‘trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding’ he was a lot like us.
(718) GENESIS 31- As Jacobs flocks increase and he becomes highly successful, Labans family gets jealous. Scripture says Labans countenance changed. He began listening to what the critics were saying ‘look, this guy is getting all the credit/blessings that are rightfully yours, it’s coming at your expense’. Notice, Laban probably would have been content that his son in law was prospering. He even says this later in the chapter. ‘I am happy for you son, your wives and kids are part of me’. But the incessant jealousy that he was hearing day in and day out wore him down. Be careful that you aren’t upset about stuff that you shouldn’t be upset about! Jesus gave the parable of the workers who got their agreed wages, but then felt wronged because the master gave the same amount to others who didn’t work as long. Jesus says ‘is your eye evil because I have been extra merciful to others who you deemed less worthy’? Of course this theme fits in perfectly with the Jewish context of the gospels. The Jews would be incensed that Messiah offered the same forgiveness to those who they deemed less worthy, the gentiles. So here Laban has heard it long enough, his ‘countenance changed’. Jacob sees the writing on the wall and what do you know, just in time he says ‘I had a dream and God told me to leave’. Now, I will take the brother at his word. But he has already shown a history of saying ‘God told me, or helped me do such and such’ when covering up deception! [He told pops ‘I got the venison quickly because God helped me’, the brother was lying thru his teeth!] In the dream the lord tells Jacob ‘I am the God of Bethel, it’s time to journey again. Go back to Canaan’. Why would God remind him of this milestone of Bethel? Bethel was the place where Jacob earlier learned to commit all to God. He came to Labans land with nothing, God blessed him tremendously. It’s easy to begin trusting in the success and systems around you. You see your job and career as your source of security. God is reminding Jacob that he is still the God of Abraham and Isaac. Jacob is just a fulfillment of Gods previous decree to his forefathers! When God says it’s time to journey you journey! As Jacob gets his wives and family they sneak away. Laban comes chasing him down and is mad ‘now what, you left secretly at night! I didn’t even have a chance to kiss the kids’ he must have been battling with the gossip that he’s been hearing from his men. They did say ‘watch out for this guy, we don’t trust him’. Jacob makes his defense, even though he himself is not totally innocent. ‘How dare you question my integrity! I have done this and that…and on and on’ he makes laban feel guilty. Now Laban isn’t the brightest light bulb in the chandelier. He tells Jacob ‘someone stole my images [idols!]’ and Jacob says ‘search for them, whoever has them will be guilty’. Jacob does not know that Rachel has them in her tent. Poor Laban goes rummaging thru everything and comes to Rachel’s tent. Rachel says ‘forgive me father for not standing up, but the time of women is upon me. So I can’t get up and let you search the couch I am sitting on. You don’t have a problem with that, do you’? Old brother Laban obviously wasn’t a C.S.I. watcher! So at the end of this chapter they mend relations. Jacob leaves the land where he has been blessed, and now has to deal with some past demons. He will face Esau, the last person that wanted to kill him!
(719) GENESIS 32- Jacob makes the trek back home. He’s burned this bridge in the past, but now he has to go back thru the wreckage! He fears Esau, he thinks ‘does he still hold my trickery against me’? He sends some messengers to talk to Esau. They come back ‘what did he say’? Nothing, he’s just coming with about 400 men. O that’s all. He prays ‘God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and me!’ [Jacob- I fudged, he doesn’t say his own name] he says ‘you told me to go back to Canaan, I am just doing what you said. I trust you to save me and the kids. What in the world will happen if they all get wiped out? You promised…on and on’ Jacob is like me, an over reactor! You will see this thru out his life. He later will think all is lost when Joseph keeps one of the brothers in Egypt before he reveals his identity. He thought all was lost when his boys had those brothers circumcised that raped their sister. They tricked the pagans into circumcising themselves and when they were ‘sore’ the 2 brothers went in and slew the city! Jacob responds ‘what have you done! They will surely wipe us all out’ but instead it put the fear of God in the surrounding enemies. They all thought ‘what in the heck is up with this family. One of the guys from our area had ‘relations’ with the girl, and they go and trick them into mutilating themselves, then the next day they come and finish you off!’ It actually worked out pretty well. So here Jacob trusts the Lord and will commit it all to him, right? Not! Jacob says ‘Quick, split the women and children into 2 camps. Get some bribery packages together. Send a bunch of guys out to Esau and give him the bribes. If he doesn’t bite, and one camp gets wiped out, then the other group will go free’. Gee, I guess he thought the Lord didn’t hear him? Well Jacob finally meets up with Esau and all goes well. O, I forgot, Jacob has the meeting with the Lord. This is the chapter where he wrestled all night with the lord and receives the famous ‘Jacobs limp’. God changes his name to Israel, he will have influence with God and men and will prevail. Despite all his conniving and deal making, yet God sees him as a prince. A man who will influence nations and peoples. He has power with God himself! I guess that leaves room for the rest of us.
(720) GENESIS 33- Jacob finally confronts an old problem. He faces Esau. He has robbed him in the past, not just from his birthright, but from his dignity! Does Esau remember? I am sure. Will we find one of these new gospels some day [the fake ones!]? Will it be called ‘Esau’s revenge’ and tell a different story? Well the biblical one says Esau hugged Jacob and was overjoyed to reunite with his long lost brother. Esau learned the power of forgiveness. Jacob might have been carrying the baggage of his wrongdoing for many years. Esau dropped it long ago. So they have this great reunion, they settle old grudges. Esau says ‘come on brother, lets go back together’. I get the feeling that even though Jacob is back home, he really wants to maintain his own level of independence. He tells Esau ‘O, that’s all right. You go back. We will catch up later’. Esau offers to leave some of his men, Jacob refuses. I get the sense that Jacob is like one of the hometown boys who has been gone for years. Even though his family and friends have also grown and become responsible adults, yet he is different. It was Jacobs willing independence to leave his natural father and journey with God that has been key to his success. He really has found God as his Father. Now Esau was a good man, but over the years as times were rough, he had his family right there to help. Jacob had only God. Jacob didn’t want to sacrifice this precious gift. He’s back home, but he realizes his true home is Bethel! [The house of God].
(721) GENESIS 34- Jacob and the boys start settling down. Before too long one of the local men rapes the sister Dinah! Jacob hears and holds his peace. The boys come home and are livid. How dare these people disrespect us! You get the sense that Jacob is willing to let it slide. He is operating out of fear, self preservation. True courage demands a willingness to take the kingdom by violence! John the Baptist wasn’t weighing his options when he railed against the king’s sin. It cost him his life, but he knew he couldn’t let the injustice stand. So Jacobs’s sons are true warriors at heart. These are the 12 boys who are the beginnings of the heritage of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. These kids were like messing with the sons of Katie Elder [some old John Wayne western. To be honest I don’t think I ever watched it, but it sounded good to mention it] these boys have prophetic destiny written all over them. So here is the plan, they hear about Dinah’s rape. The father of the boy who raped her is the prince of the land. He comes and works out a deal with Israel. He says ‘my son loves the girl, lets be trading partners. We can all live together in harmony’. Jacob seems to think this is a good idea. The Boys have other ideas! They tell the father ‘sure, but we have this custom. We don’t deal with uncircumcised people. So go and circumcise all the men in your town and the deal is on’. Now, this is no small request! The father/ prince goes back to town. He gets together a city meeting. All the towns men are thinking ‘what’s it gonna be now? Another rate hike in our utility bill’. The meeting is held and he tells them the deal. ‘Oh, is that all. Just get circumcised. Doesn’t sound that bad. What does it mean I wonder? Sprinkle a little water on our heads. Some Episcopalian Baptism rite or something?’ Boy were they surprised. I can just see the look on their families faces when they got home to tell momma what the prince wants them to do. The wives must have thought ‘you gotta be kidding me, I want to move out of this county’ [and you thought Nueces county was rough!]. Poor Tommy hears the news from his dad and thinks ‘what in the heck kind of Waco cult are these people, they want me to cut what?’ So the deal is on, they go thru with it and 3 days later 2 of Jacobs sons [Simeon and Levi] get their swords and show up in the middle of the town and say ‘lets get it on’. They slew all the men. They spoiled the town and even took the women and children captive. And you think I’m an over reactor. Jacob is incensed ‘what have you boys done? You will bring the wrath of the whole area down on us. They will wipe us out’. He really was willing to do the fake deal and let his own daughter’s rape go unpunished. He believed the boys offer as much as the town’s people. The boys never intended to let their sister’s rape slide by, Jacob did. This shows you what fear can do, it clouds your thinking. Scripture says the fear of man brings a snare. Fear not the reproach of men. Jesus said don’t fear those who can kill the body only [men] but fear him who can destroy both body and soul [God! Some bad translators have said Jesus was speaking of satan, he was referencing God]. In the next chapter we will see God tell Jacob to go back to Bethel, and as they leave, the surrounding people didn’t lay a hand on them. They feared Jacobs’s boys more than Jacob feared the people of the land.
(722) GENESIS 35- As Jacob fears what will happen to him after his boys killed Hamor and ransacked his city, God tells him ‘calm down, return to Bethel. We need to get some things settled once and for all’. Bethel is the original spot where Jacob made God his Lord. He vowed earlier in his life that if God would be his provider then he would commit his life to him. God wants Jacob to settle down [spiritually!] renew his entire purpose and get his priorities right. As Jacob and the boys leave the area scripture says ‘no one dared touch them, the terror of the Lord was upon all the surrounding people’. I could just see one of the raiding tribes saying ‘hey, look at this group. They have lots of wealth and stuff. How come no one is raiding them? Lets get them!’ and one of the other tribal families says ‘That’s the family who tricked the entire city into mutilating themselves’ Oh yeah, I never heard the story. Tell me more. Where did they cut themselves? He tells them where ‘WHAT IN THE HECK!’ He continues ‘and then 3 days later 2 of the boys with swords show up in the city and announce ‘everybody up. The cuttings not over yet!’ and they killed all the men. Took the women and children and spoiled the place. The raiding group thinks ‘you know what guys, lets pass on this family’. The terror of God was upon them for good reason! At Bethel the Lord reminds Jacob of his calling ‘you are Israel, not Jacob. Don’t forget this, you are a prince and have power with God and men’! It was hard for Jacob to act like a prince. After the Lord instructs him and reminds him of the original destiny, Jacob once again builds a ‘pillar of stone’ and anoints it with oil. I sort of see a prophetic thing here. The first pillar did represent the church, the people of God. I think this ‘second pillar’ can also speak of Gods future purpose to bring ‘another flock’ [Gospel of John] into the fold. In essence this is a type of the church also. The ‘second pillar’ to go with the ‘second covenant’. God is showing Israel his intent to gather together a future community and to ‘re anoint’ [Israel were the first people to have the Spirit. Read Hebrews and Romans] this new people at Pentecost. Also in this chapter we see the birth of Benjamin and the death of Rachel, Jacobs ‘favorite’ wife. It then says ‘Rueben slept with his father’s concubine’ and in the very next verse ‘Rueben was the firstborn from Leah’. I see something here. Why did Rueben purposefully disgrace his dad? It came right after Rachel’s death. Ruben was conceived in a situation where his father was tricked into it. You remember the story of Leah. Now how many times over the years did Rueben witness the favoritism that his father showed towards Rachel’s son Joseph? How long was Rueben waiting for things to turn around? Maybe when Joseph gets older dad will pay more attention to me as the firstborn? Maybe this favoritism is a stage that dad is going thru? Well he hears of the death of Rachel, and also of another new born son! Oh my, will Jacob spend another 25 years pampering this other boy from his favorite wife? Ruben saw the writing on the wall. It was time to let dad know how he felt about this whole situation. He did.
(723) GENESIS 37- Chapter 36 has a lot of genealogies, so let’s skip it. In this chapter we see Joseph having the dreams that his brothers and father and mother will bow down to him. He makes the mistake of telling everyone about it! Rueben is already mad about the favoritism shown towards Rachel’s sons as opposed to him being the firstborn. The other brothers clearly see the favoritism too. Jacob made Joseph the coat of many colors. To me this represents the multi ethnic diversity of Christ’s church [body]. Skins represent ‘covering’ or flesh. All the animals sacrificed in the Old Covenant were a type of Christ. The tabernacle represented a living mobile dwelling place of God, the church. They used skins as a covering. So this coat of many colors is like the body of Christ. Joseph typifying Jesus as the favored son who will eventually bring together all tribes and nations into unity as Jesus ‘wears them like a robe’ [truly we are his dwelling place, covering of flesh if you will!] Jacob sends Joseph to ‘see how his brothers are doing and bring back the report’. Just like the parable Jesus gave about the king sending the servant to check up on the vineyard. Eventually the king says ‘I will send my son’. Jesus says they take the son and kill him. Joseph’s brothers see Joseph coming and say ‘here comes Mr. big shot, the dreamer’. Understand Josephs dreams were simply the destiny of God on his life. It is important to differentiate between ‘what I want out of life’ and Gods purpose. Joseph’s dreams did speak of exaltation and fame. But these were things he did not seek! Jesus gives instruction in the New Testament to actively pursue the lowest place. The teachings on taking the seat in the back of the room and not the front. The teaching against gentile ideas [Roman] of authority. So we must not read into Joseph’s story that God wants us to ‘be all we can be. Become great’. Greatness in Gods kingdom is backwards. You seek not to be exalted and exaltation comes! Now the brothers take him and throw him into a pit [grave] ‘without water in it’. A type of death. Water and spirit are interchangeable words. A pit without water is like the grave [body] without the spirit. James says this is what death is, separation of body and spirit. Now something is happening at this point. The brothers are falling into the trap of group think. Just going along with something because others are doing it. Rueben begins seeing this deception. He also despises Joseph, but begins realizing things are getting out of hand. He says ‘lets not kill the boy, just throw him in the pit’. Judah also speaks up on his brother’s behalf. So they take Josephs coat, put blood all over it. They sell Joseph into slavery and they bring the coat to Jacob. ‘Dad, we found Josephs coat with blood on it. I wonder what happened to him?’ Now, how many options do we have? Maybe the boy got into a scrap trying to save some sheep and that’s what happened, or maybe he hurt himself and used the coat as a tourniquet? Yeah, that’s possible! But Jacob is a pessimist ‘surely some wild animals got to him’ bad enough! But wait ‘and they tore him to pieces, devoured him and he’s gone’ Yikes! Then he says ‘I will be depressed about this for the rest of my life and go to the grave never getting over it!’ Boy, who would have thought the guy was gonna take it like this? We once again see the over reaction of Jacob. It’s so easy for leaders with destiny and purpose to think all is lost. Moses and others have thought the same. Elijah was ready for the Lord to take his life because some Jezebel was giving him a hard time! I want to encourage leadership, don’t make rash or major decisions when your emotions are out of whack. We have a tendency to take reproof or correction the wrong way. We want to quit and start all over. Find someone else to ‘take over the church’ so we can get out of dodge. Jacob thought the worst, but what was actually happening was Gods pre ordained plan that would actually be for his salvation down the road. Jesus is still thought to be dead by Jacobs descendants, they only see the ‘pit without water in it’. They don’t realize that Jesus [Joseph] is actually alive and waiting for them to come and bow the knee!
(724) GENESIS 38- Judah goes ‘down from his brothers’ [isolates himself] and sleeps with some women. He does have a history of ‘going in unto harlots’. This chapter will get graphic, just warning our younger readers! He seems to have a pattern with this. Now, one of the sons, Er, will marry a girl named Tamar. The son is wicked in the sight of the Lord and the scripture says ‘the Lord slew him’. Judah tells the other son, born from his playboy lifestyle ‘Go and have kids with your brother’s wife, and raise up children for your brothers name’. This was a custom of the time. If a brother died before his wife had children, then the other brother was supposed to do this. Now it wasn’t being Mormon! [The old time ones]. They wanted to make sure the lineage of the tribe from whom the son died continued to carry on a legacy. It was for the procreation of the children of Israel. Now Judah’s second boy, Onan, does not want to raise up seed to his brother. I see in him a sickness that plagues the Body of Christ today. Because of the way we have come to view local church as the separate 501 c3 organization, this tends to build a mindset into the clergy that says ‘are you with us [the so called 'local church’] or with the other team down the block?’ There is a strange concept that says ‘I will spend my time, resources and energies raising up seed to my name [my 501 c 3] but I can not give of my gifts and life to build into people who I do not derive some loyalty or benefit from’ [raising up seed to your brother]. Now Onan does something; here’s the warning about graphic language! He ‘goes in unto his brother’s wife and spills it on the ground’. I don’t think I should explain this. Years ago one of the Captains at the fire dept. would say ‘well, the bible says it’s better to spill it in a prostitute, than on the ground’. And he would look at me to confirm his translation. He really thought it was in the bible! I would ‘instruct him in a way more perfectly’. I also had a friend who said ‘well, the bible says “woman, if thy husband hitteth thee [notice how he used ‘hitteth’ as opposed to ‘hit’] divorce him, for he is lower than a rattler’. I would inform him I was pretty sure this wasn’t in the bible. He was adamant! I would tell him ‘besides it being contrary to scripture, I don’t think the Lord would say ‘rattler’ he would use ‘rattlesnake’. So Onan ‘spills it on the ground’ and guess what? The Lord kills him too! Now poor Tamar is real innocent in the deaths of the 2 boys. But Judah begins to wonder. Like the show I saw on some court channel. The woman accidentally shot her husband in the head. The defense had a hard time convincing the jury, being this was the second husband that she ‘accidentally shot in the head’! So Judah tells Tamar ‘go home to your dad, when my young son is old enough I will let him marry you’ sure! He of course tells his young son ‘stay away, you don’t want to die like your brothers’ [I added this part, but it sounds likely]. So one day when Judah is on a business trip, he looks around for the town prostitute. Tamar hears Judah is in town and puts a veil on her face and goes and stands on the corner. Judah doesn’t know it’s his daughter in law and sleeps with her. Judah agrees to pay for her services with a goat. Tamar takes his ring and staff and bracelet as a down payment. A few days later Judah sends his servant with the goat and he can’t find her. He asks the men of the town ‘where’s the harlot who was working the corner’? The men say ‘who’? They tell the servant they never had a harlot working the streets. Judah hears Tamar is pregnant and says ‘she played the harlot and should be stoned’! [He was a member of the Moral Majority]. Tamar sends the staff and ring to Judah and says ‘this is the man who got me pregnant’ and Judah admits his sin. I find it interesting that Judah will be given one of the best blessings from Jacob as Jacob is on his deathbed. Jacob will say ‘The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet. His hand shall be on the neck of his enemies, unto him shall the gathering of the people be. As a young lion he shall crouch down and go up from the prey’. We will read this later on in this study. These are Messianic prophecies. Jesus is called ‘the lion of the tribe of Judah’. God uses people who have done wrong. People who when confronted don’t try and cover it up. People who have made mistakes and are willing to admit them. This leaves room for the rest of us.
(725) GENESIS 39- Joseph goes into Egypt and is bought by Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh. The guy puts Joseph in charge of his entire household. Joseph truly excels in everything he does. The scripture says he prospered in everything he put his hand to! Just keep this truth balanced with all the undeserved suffering and afflictions he experienced. Now Joseph is so good at everything he does, that even Potiphars wife wants to ‘try him out’. She bugs him day after day to sleep with her! Joseph refuses. She gets him alone in the house, grabs his clothes and says ‘sleep with me’. He flees the house naked as she ripped his clothes from him. She then tells her husband ‘this Hebrew mocks you, he tried to rape me’. She lied and the husband puts him in prison. Notice something here, the wife’s accusation included racial stuff. Sort of like the racist movies from the 50s-60s. They played to mans inherent racism and would show the black man as wanting the white woman. These accusations were playing to the heart of racism. Some churches today still teach separation of the races, Christians look askance at mixed marriages. My position is in Jesus Christ these divisions do not exist and we should accept all races without prejudice. Now Joseph goes to prison and he excels again. The jailer makes him trustee of the whole place! You can’t stop this guy. In the next chapter we will see how it was part of Gods plan for this to happen to him. He did not go around rebuking the devil or claiming verses to get out of unjust persecution. He responded like Peter taught in his letter to the Christians ‘if any man suffers as a believer, let him praise God’. Peter makes a distinction between suffering persecution for wrongdoing and suffering as a believer. Peter experienced both. Even though he suffered shame by denying Jesus, God still turned it around and used it for his glory. Joseph understood the simple reality of a just man suffering unjustly. Now I want to emphasize the fact that Joseph was just! Peter also teaches us that we are partakers of the divine nature. John the apostle writes in his 1st epistle ‘whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin [habitually]’ ‘I write these things unto you that ye sin not, but if any man sins we have an advocate with the father’. Though I have shown you the many failings of the great heroes of the faith, I also want to show you the great walk that some of them had. You don’t have to have had a testimony of being a drug addict or ex con or some other terrible past in order to glorify God. It’s like my first Pastor used to say, his favorite song was ‘years I spent in vanity and pride, caring not my Lord was crucified’. But his testimony was getting saved at a young age. I would kid one of my buddies and say ‘Brother Skinners favorite song is about the years he spent in vanity and pride. I guess he meant all the times he acted out in recess!’ I know this is wrong, but it was too funny to leave out. So Joseph shows us the ideal can be achieved thru the wonderful grace of God. But if any man sin, you still have the advocate.
(726) GENESIS 40- Joseph is in prison and Pharaohs chief men get thrown in jail. His butler [the guy who tastes the wine before the king drinks it, to make sure it’s OK] and the baker. One day Joseph notices there sad faces ‘what’s wrong guys’? They tell him they both had dreams the previous night. They were troubled that they did not know what the dreams meant. Does Joseph say ‘O, you had too much pizza last night’ or ‘don’t you know we have the books of Moses completed! There are no more prophetic dreams.’ Instead he says ‘God is the one who can give the interpretation of dreams’. It is understood that some dreams have meaning and come from God. You find this all thru out scripture. I’ll be honest, I have recently had some prophetic dreams but have stopped sharing them on the site. Why? These last few years there have been so many prophecies shared and put on line and I feel the consumers of these words are not getting a steady diet of scripture and New Testament Christianity. I just read a ‘prophetic word’ that spoke of ‘why we are not getting the end time harvest of money yet’ it went into ‘targeting the demonic forces holding back the cash’ and other techniques to use to get the money. I have written and even sent some of our teachings to some of these brothers. Could it be the reason all the wealth hasn’t been released is because we are viewing the ‘end time transfer of wealth’ from an unbiblical standpoint? So I too have grown weary of all the ‘prophecies and dreams’ that seem to miss the mark. But here Joseph jumps write into the fray and interprets the dreams. He tells the butler ‘your dream means in 3 days you will be restored and hold the kings wine glass again’. The baker likes the word and asks ‘what about my dream’? ‘In three days Pharaoh will hang you on the gallows’ OUCH. Never mind Joseph, I don’t believe in prophecy any way. The dreams do have prophetic significance. The wine and bread [baker] speak of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The 3rd day speaks of the mighty resurrection of the Son of God. Jesus offered his Body [bread] as a sacrifice for all humanity. He ‘hung’ on the Cross for us, just like the baker hung on the gallows. Jesus also was ‘lifted up’ out of the ‘prison’ the 3rd day and once again was restored to his previous position at the right hand of God. He took ‘the cup of his Blood [wine] and presented it once again to his father’. I think these dreams were prophetic.
(727) THE DELUSION OF RICHARD DAWKINS, THE AUTHOR OF ‘THE GOD DELUSION’.
I have been wanting to write a few entries but have hesitated to break into the Genesis study. Recently a noted atheist/scientist Richard Dawkins has been making the rounds to defend the non existence of God. In his comments he has unwittingly defended the existence of God! He is on record as stating that it’s possible that there had to have been a pre existent being who started the ball rolling. He states that this being would have to have great ability and tremendous understanding, very advanced in wisdom. He also acknowledged that he would have had to have either been around forever, or some other being before this being who was around first. He even surmises that this being could be some type of extra terrestrial life. An alien for crying out loud! I am not kidding. Now, what’s wrong with this picture? He seems to not realize that he is making the ancient philosophical case for the existence of God! This whole train of thought is what the ancient philosophers used to prove the existence of God. Thomas Aquinas goes on for hours using this very reasoning. He doesn’t call the being ‘an alien’ but the whole theory of a pre existing intelligent designer is the exact case that Dawkins is making. He seems to be totally out of his league by making this argument. A knowledgeable atheist would never make the drastic mistake of arguing for a pre existent being who started the ball rolling. A true atheist knows that this is basically the proof for the existence of God! I do find it funny how so many people have fallen for Dawkins and the other recent atheists who have become popular. Its funny how one of their leading advocates has actually advocated for God.
(728) SNEAKING A JELLY DONUT- I have been updating the ‘comedy section’ and remembered something. Years ago at the fire house I had a buddy who was trying to lose a few pounds. Firefighters do have a tendency to put on weight if they don’t workout or limit their food intake. I eventually started eating once a day and have kept the habit up now for many years. So this friend stops by the bakery and picks up a dozen jelly donuts [we call them ‘sweet bread’ in south Texas. Which is also a name for a certain organ meat that people cook. It is good, I have eaten it plenty of times. I would kid my Mexican buddies and say ‘you think you guys could come up with anything more confusing than calling a meat product and a jelly donut by the same name!] So my buddy brings back the donuts to our little sub station where we are the only 2 guys working. I had a habit of sitting out in the truck stalls during lunch and reading for around an hour. I did this for 25 years. Sometimes I would sit by the ambulance or behind the fire truck. I would open the rear door and have a nice view of the yard. Well as we got back to the station my buddy would keep offering me a donut. He knew I didn’t eat during the day but was worried he would finish the whole dozen off by himself. I told him not to get the dozen but he didn’t listen! So as the morning rolls on he eats one, than another. Well in a few hours he must have eaten 6 by himself! I would kid him and say ‘brother, for someone whose trying to lose a few pounds, you sure have a strange way of doing it’. He fessed up that he knew he was blowing it. He swore ‘that's it, no more’ after he downed number 7. So as I go into the stalls to read, about 30 minutes go by and I hear the creaking of the dorm door open into the truck stalls. I am quiet and reading. This day I am sitting behind the fire truck reading. I hear someone sneaking around the truck, trying to be quiet. He squeezes his ‘belly’ between the wall and the truck sliding his way right to where I am sitting. He thinks I am sitting by the ambulance. As he slips into the spot where I am quietly sitting, I just wait for his face to pop thru so I can ask ‘what in the heck are you doing’. As his head appears he has the 8th jelly donut jammed in his mouth and the jelly ready to explode all over. He realizes he has been caught and says ‘I thought you were sitting by the ambulance’.
(729) GENESIS 41- Joseph is sitting in prison for 2 full years after he was promised by the ‘cup holder’ to advocate for his cause once he was released! The cup holder forgot to mention it! I think one of the most unjust things that has happened in society has been these brothers who have been falsely accused of some terrible crime and spent years in prison and then later were found to be innocent. I think this is why we need to really rethink the death penalty. Now Pharaoh has these dreams and he calls all of his wise men in and no one can interpret the dream. At this point the cup holder realizes his wrong. He tells Pharaoh that when he was in prison a guy interpreted his dream. Sure enough, after years in jail and having been persecuted by his brothers and sold into slavery, at the age of 30 he finally begins inheriting some stuff. Joseph was 17 when the problems started, he is now 30. 13 years of suffering and obscurity. Now, scripture says ‘see a man skilled in his work, he will stand before kings. He will not serve obscure men’ [Proverbs? It’s a newer version of the bible]. God was ordering things in Joseph’s life to ‘bring him before kings’ men of influence. He was 'accidentally' sold to an officer of pharaoh. He then gets thrown in jail and runs into the ‘chief butler and chief baker’ and now he gets a shot at pharaoh! It was the hand of God positioning him to be in a place of influence. Joseph will interpret pharaohs dreams to mean 7 years of famine will follow 7 years of plenty [read the chapter, I didn’t include the dreams in this entry]. Pharaoh says ‘great, what should we do about it?’ Joseph says ‘how about you find the wisest, smartest most impressive man in your country [gee, I wonder who this could be?] and put him in charge and have him collect a fifth of all the lands produce during the time of plenty and then he can distribute the food during the harvest’. Pharaoh says ‘sounds like a great idea! And who is wiser than you Joseph, you’re the man’. Joseph basically pulled a Dick Cheney [for those reading this in a hundred years, Cheney is the current vice president of George Bush] Bush hired Cheney to find the most qualified vice president he could recruit. Sure enough Cheney says ‘it’s me!’ So Joseph carries out the plan, Pharaoh puts him in charge of the whole country. Pharaoh says ‘only in my official title am I higher than you’. Joseph is truly running everything! He didn’t despise his day of ‘small things’. He ran Potiphars house, then the prison and now the country! Joseph is a type of Christ here. Pharaoh says ‘I give all authority to you, the nation will stand or fall on your word’. Jesus told the people in John’s gospel ‘My words will judge you in that day’. Joseph truly is a man of power and authority. He has 2 kids in this chapter. Manasseh and Ephraim. Their names mean ‘God has caused me to forget all my previous trials’ and ‘God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction’. Isaiah says ‘remember not the former things, nether consider the things of old, behold I do a new thing. Shall ye know it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Before these things happen I declare them unto you, so when they come to pass you will know I ordained it’. Also Joseph tells Pharaoh ‘God has revealed to you what he is going to do’ by giving him the dreams. Joseph understood that it was Gods purpose to reveal his plan ahead of time to Pharaoh. The coming to pass of these dreams on a national scale was proof positive of the ‘God of Joseph’ being the true God! I remember hearing a testimony of a Muslim tribe who all converted to Jesus in a single day. One morning one of the men woke up and shared a dream he had. He explained how he saw Jesus in the dream. As word spread they soon realized that every single person in the tribe all had the same dream the previous night! When God reveals himself on a wide scale like this it leads to whole nations [groups of people] converting. As Joseph stores up the food for 7 years he strategically puts the food in store house cities thru out the land. This is a type of Jesus future revolutionary movement. In Matthew 13 Jesus speaks of the kingdom as seeds. Both the people and the word are described as seed in this chapter. When Jesus sent out the disciples they were distributing seed [the message] as well as being ‘seed’ [Jesus says the good seed were the children of the kingdom planted and growing in the world]. In essence Jesus was placing garners [communities of people] filled with seed all over the region. Paul himself will target the influential cities of his day with the gospel. He knew if he could spread the fire to strategic places it would take root. So Joseph has all this ‘grain in the barn’ just waiting to bust loose during the famine. And sure enough the famine comes and everyone turns to ‘the garners of wheat in the storehouse cities’ for their sustenance. I believe the people of God, Gods ‘fine wheat’ are truly the ones with the answer to society’s ills. Jesus has planted us ‘in the world’ [not in the church building!] so when the times of famine come, people can run to us for the ‘bread of life’.
(730) GENESIS 42- The famine in the land gets severe. Jacob tells his sons ‘what are we doing, get up and go down to Egypt and buy some food’. This begins the process of Jacob and his boys submitting to God’s higher purpose that they would be saved thru Joseph’s authority. Now of course we see Jesus all thru out this scenario, but we also see the dynamics of prophetic ministries. Jesus said ‘a prophet has honor, except in his hometown and with his own family’. Though Joseph is revered and a man of great authority and gifting, yet it will take Gods sovereign work to bring his brothers to a place where they can benefit from that which was truly meant for their benefit! Jesus says this about Jerusalem ‘O Jerusalem, you kill the prophets and those who have been sent to you for your own benefit’. Joseph’s brothers should have been the first to have bought the food from their brother, but God is revealing a greater plan. Now when the brothers go to Joseph in Egypt, Joseph recognizes them. But he speaks in the Egyptian tongue and pretends he doesn’t understand them. He recognizes them, but they do not recognize him. The bible says ‘Jesus came unto his own and his own received him not’. Now Joseph works out a plan with his brothers trying to entice them to bring Benjamin back with them. He says ‘well, you guys are spies! You came to spy out the land’. They told Joseph that Benjamin [Josephs only brother from his mom Rachel] was still home with the dad. So Joseph keeps the boys in jail a few days and says ‘lets do this, go take the food back to your families. And I will hold one brother [Simeon] and don’t come back without the other boy’. So they leave and tell Jacob about the deal. Well of course Jacob goes overboard. ‘O my God, I have already lost one son [not really!] and now Simeon is gone and you boys want me to give you Benjamin too!’ Jacob says ‘all things are against me’. Gee, would you calm down for a minute pops! Here we go again with Jacob reading the worst into the situation. I forgot to mention that when the boys were talking in front of Joseph, Joseph hears for the first time that some of his brothers were really trying to help him. Rueben says ‘see, I told you we shouldn’t have done this wrong deed against our brother’. Rueben was the oldest brother who was jealous over the favoritism that Jacob showed towards Joseph. For all those years Joseph never knew that Rueben really cared for him. Joseph heard this and had to leave the room so his brothers wouldn’t see him crying over this revelation. Sometimes we don’t realize that people are actually for us. Elijah and others went thru times of feeling like they were all alone. The enemy’s strategy is to make you think ‘yes, everyone really is against me. The whole town hates me. All the people in the church are fighting me’. Joseph was not aware that some of his brothers were actually for him. We end the chapter with Jacob and the boys back in their land, never planning to return and see Joseph again. Jacobs fear almost cost him 2 sons!
(731) GENESIS 43- Jacob and the boys have not acted yet. They came back home and told their dad the situation and it seems as if Jacob is frozen with fear. Being in a place of stagnation. Proverbs says the righteous are as bold as a lion [Judah has lion imagery in the blessing that Jacob will give him!] but the wicked fleeth when no man pursueth. One of the strategies of the enemy is if he can’t out right stop you, then he will try to cause you to simply maintain. Don’t do anything to advance. So the food supply is low and Jacob must decide! He says ‘go back to the governor of Egypt [their brother Joseph] and just buy a little food’. His plan is no plan. He seems to think that if he limits the vision it will be all right! What good is getting a little food? He will be starving again soon. Judah basically says this ‘Dad, the man told us plainly not to return unless we bring Benjamin. If we hadn’t dilly dallied this long we would have already made the second trip and been back by now’! They flatly tell their dad ‘we aint going back without the boy!’ now Jacob agrees to send the boy. He once again falls into the worst case scenario in his thinking. Judah does something important here. He tells his dad ‘I will be surety for the boy. If anything happens to him let the blame be on me’. Why is this important? I mentioned earlier in this study that Judah is the special tribe from which ‘the lion of Judah’ [Jesus] will come. Hebrews says ‘it is evident that our Lord sprang from a tribe which was not represented at the altar’. Basically Jesus had to be born from another tribe that wasn’t a priestly tribe [Levi] in order to fulfill his new covenant priestly image. But why Judah? He doesn’t seem to be super holy, as a matter of fact we already discussed his playboy lifestyle! Judah is the only one in this scenario who sees ‘substitution’ as a viable answer to the problem. He basically says ‘I will be in the boys place’. Now we will see later that Judah will make this offer out right when Joseph attempts to keep Benjamin. But most of all I see Judah and his offer as a forerunner for the future act of Penal Substitution that will be carried out by Jesus, the lion who will spring from his loins. Now the boys pack up some stuff, bring extra money and head back to Egypt. They show up at Joseph’s house and are worried. They tell Joseph’s servant ‘we didn’t steal the stuff last time. When we opened the bags someone put the money back in our bags’. This was a trick that Joseph pulled on them earlier. So the servant says ‘don’t worry, the God of Joseph has shown you favor’. Interesting, though the Egyptians never converted en mass to Joseph’s religion, yet he was showing the reality of his God being the true God. He was a man of great influence who had attained a position of unbelievable authority and he was accepted by the government of his day. I think this is important for believers in our day to grasp. I feel we do damage to our testimony when we do ‘marches on Washington’ and stuff like this. While there might be times for things like this, the overall testimony of the church should be one of ‘the God of the Christians has shown you favor’. We should impact society thru our deeds and social justice concerns, not by our marching in the streets! Well Joseph sees Benjamin [his only other brother born from the same mom, Rachel] and has to leave the room because he almost cried right in front of his brothers. They still don’t recognize him yet. So as we end this chapter he makes all the brothers sit down at the table for a meal. He places them in order of their birth. The boys are thinking ‘how does he know the order of our birth’? They will find out soon enough.
(732) GENESIS 44- Joseph feeds his brothers and fills their bags with food and sends them off to Jacob. This time he put the food and money back in their bags, but also he put a silver cup in Benjamin’s bag. After they leave Joseph sends his servant to stop them. He searches the stuff and finds the cup with Benjamin. Now, Joseph is doing all this just so he could keep Benjamin and have the boys return with Jacob. But the boy’s know how nervous pops gets! Joseph doesn’t realize what a panic button pops has become. The boys realize how bad dad is and they tell the servant ‘well, you got us! I guess we will all go back together to Egypt’. These boys had the chance to escape without Benjamin, they figured they would rather face Joseph than dad, OUCH! If you read thru the story you will see that they really don’t want to go home. Joseph actually says ‘go back, leave Benjamin and see your dad’. Finally Judah says ‘look, our dad has been distraught ever since he lost the other boy [Which is the actual guy they are talking to!] and he took it hard. If we leave without Benjamin he will die. I will stay in the place of the boy’. Once again we see Judah offer ‘substitution’ as an answer to the problem. It seems as if atonement was built into the DNA of the tribe of Judah. Also during this whole scenario the servant mentions ‘divination’. The silver cup that was found in Benjamin’s bag was for the ‘purpose of divination’ [or so the servant thought/said!] Joseph tells his brothers ‘why did you steal from me? Don’t you know a man of my stature can divine’? The art of divination, or obtaining ‘secret knowledge’ thru spiritism existed in ancient times. The pagan nations even had priests for their false gods. All of this is Babylonian in nature and forbidden by God all thru out scripture. The fact that Joseph rose to fame because of his ‘interpreting of dreams’ surely put fear in people, they assumed he was a great ‘diviner’. Now Joseph has said all along that God was giving him the interpretations, but it’s likely that the broader culture just viewed Joseph thru the already existing paradigm of ‘divination’. All people are seeking for some spiritual meaning in life. They often flock to new age teachings or eastern religions. God condemns, in no uncertain terms, all uses of the horoscope and sorcery or witchcraft to seek ‘hidden sources of wisdom’. God does have prophets in the church [no new cannon, but true spiritual direction by those filled with the Holy Spirit] and of course God regularly gives directions to his kids by his Spirit. So I just wanted to clarify, just because this chapter says Joseph used the cup ‘to divine’ in no way means that Joseph was ‘divining’ in the mystical sense.
(733) GENESIS 45- Joseph could not restrain himself any longer and reveals himself to his brothers. His brothers are absolutely shocked. They are hearing him in his own voice [my sheep hear my voice- Jesus] for the first time, they are beginning to see the actual image of their lost brother in the face of this sovereign person who they have been coming to and bowing to and submitting to. They came late to the table, the entire gentile nation [Egypt and the surrounding nations] have already been submitting to him for a while [Christ and the church made up of gentile nations] but Israel has been slow to respond. And since they have been responding they had no idea of the actual identity of this great ruler. Sure, these gentile nations knew his name was Joseph and they heard all the great stories about his rise to power. But the brothers of Joseph were simply submitting to this governor out of necessity. They actually were learning the ropes of how to come to this sovereign and to bow before him with requests [The Jews sure know how to pray to Jehovah, they have the Wailing Wall!] but to hear this ruler say ‘I am your brother Joseph, who you betrayed’ is almost unbelievable to accept! Now Joseph sees the look on their faces. He tells them ‘come here, I am Joseph your brother’ he has to explain the enormity of this revelation. They can’t connect the ruler with their former knowledge of their own flesh! Israel [the nation] has stumbled over the reality of their home town boy actually being their Messiah. Scripture says Jesus is the actual image of the invisible God, we see God and who he is thru Christ. For the brothers to be looking at the actual lord of the land, someone who they have been ‘submitting to’ already [Jehovah] and then to hear ‘I am Joseph’ [Jesus] out of the actual lips of the ruling authority himself, is very hard to grasp. The nation of Israel has been waiting and believing for the Messiah for 2 thousand years. They pray to Jehovah. The stumbling block is in their inability to actually see the face of Jesus in their God! He truly is the image of the invisible God. Now Joseph reassures them that everything that happened to him was truly a sovereign act of God to preserve life. He holds no grudges! [Father forgive them, for they know not what they do]. Pharaoh hears about this great reunion and tells him to go get the rest of his family and bring them back [to Goshen]. Jacob hears the news of his son’s authority and is shocked. He learns that his son is alive, and Lord of the land, all in one day [Scripture says a nation will be born in a day. Referring to Israel’s national repentance and acceptance of Messiah at the second coming- Romans]. So they make preparations to come to Egypt and for all the family to settle down together. I want to stress the importance of seeing the reaction of Egypt [gentile nations] when they hear that Josephs blood relatives are coming to benefit from the lordship of Joseph. The gentile nations are happy and glad to see the reunion! Much like the reaction that Paul writes about in Romans ‘if their falling away [The Jews rejection of Messiah] was for the benefit of all the gentiles [just like Josephs rejection by his brothers was for the benefit of saving Egypt and the surrounding countries] so how much greater will it be when they are reunited with Christ’. Scripture teaches us that it was for the gentile’s salvation that the nation of Israel rejected Christ’s Lordship. So when Israel returns home to their true Messiah, the gentile church will rejoice! I also want to make a note here, you will notice that Jacob had to relocate from the promised land and move over into the region [church- made up of gentile nations] in order to benefit from Josephs rule. Make no mistake about it, at the time of Israel’s conversion she will see that her clinging on to the old culture of law and sacrifice will have to be left behind in order to benefit from the bread that Jesus [Joseph] will provide. Jacob and the boys will carry some degree of national identity with them, after all they are still ‘Israel’, but the relocation from their land speaks of the willingness to uproot and journey towards the messiah.
(734) GENESIS 46-47- Jacob and the family pack up and head to Egypt. They bring 70 ‘souls’ with them. Remember, Jacob is always thinking ‘dynasty’. He has a track record of worrying about his family getting wiped out. He is still relatively small for a ‘nation’ but getting bigger by the day. He enters Egypt and sees Joseph for the first time. What a reunion! I guess now that Jacob realizes all of his worrying was for naught, all the times he allowed his mind to think the worst about stuff, I guess now he learned his lesson? Not. Pharaoh asks him ‘so, how old are you, aren’t you glad to see Joseph? How has life been treating you?’ Jacob responds ‘my days are 130 years, not even close to my forefathers. And they have been short and evil’. Wow, Pharaoh thinks ‘sorry I asked’. Now as Jacob settles down in Goshen, all the nations are coming to Joseph to be sustained. The years of famine that Pharaoh dreamt about are here. Notice something; all the nations spend all their money and the ‘money fails’. Did you know that the overall theme of money taught by Jesus and the apostles was ‘it will someday fail’? James says ‘the rich mans money will evaporate in the day of judgment and it will be to no avail’. Proverbs says the rich mans wealth can not deliver his soul during trouble. Jesus over and over again used examples of people putting their hopes in riches and forgetting the reality of death and judgment. In this chapter the money failed! Now, the nations sell their cattle and lands and eventually themselves to Pharaoh [Joseph]. Joseph and Jacob as well as Joseph and Pharaoh [this one] are types of Jesus and the father. In this case Joseph ‘purchases’ all the people for Pharaoh. Jesus bought us all by his blood. Now, even though I go hard on the prosperity guys, here’s some practical financial advice. Joseph tells the people ‘take the corn [grain-seed] and use it to feed your families and cattle, but plant some of it in the ground for heavens sake!’ he is teaching the mentality of ‘feed a man a fish and you feed him for the day- teach a man to fish and you feed him for life’. Joseph is trying to break the entitlement mentality. Showing the people that a portion of their increase should be invested. Don’t take all your money every month and spend it all. Give a portion to God, and put some in a savings/investment. If you spend all the money you earn [eat all the seeds] then you will be living from paycheck to paycheck. ‘Well brother, I am trusting in social security’ not if you’re a cessationist [someone who believes miracles don’t happen any more] because it would take a miracle for the government to not bankrupt the thing! So we see balance in this chapter. Good financial advice along with the reality that some day ‘your money will fail’. Good Christians maintain good balance.
(735) GENESIS 48- Jacob is old and ready to die. He calls Joseph and his boys. Jacob reminds Joseph that God called him many years before at Luz [Bethel]. Jacob is instilling in his son the reality of him and his family being a part of the divine plan. In essence ‘God has called us to great things, he chose me for this many years ago, you my son are simply an incarnate part of his divine purpose’. Now Jacob does something interesting. Joseph’s boys, Manasseh and Ephraim, are here to see Jacob [grandpa] before he dies. Jacob gives the honor of making Josephs 2 son’s equal heirs with the other boys. Joseph’s sons share equally in the inheritance of the 12 tribes. Jacob also says the younger one [Ephraim] shall be greater than the older one. Joseph kind of says ‘dad, you have your hand of blessing on the wrong boy, your right hand should be on Manasseh’. The right hand denotes special authority and favor. Jacob says ‘don’t worry son, I know what I am doing. God will bless your oldest son, but truly the greater blessing is on the youngest’. Now, to be honest, as I study the history of these boys thru the scripture, it doesn’t seem to me that any thing ‘extra special’ happened to Ephraim. I think Jacob might have made a mistake common to people with destiny. He read his own story line into the lineage of his sons. He might have felt that because God showed him special favor by honoring him over his older brother Esau that this mode of operation was to become a long term thing. Many divisions exist in the Body of Christ today because of this reasoning. I have taught tons of stuff on the idea of local church and how many good men seem to mistake a ‘mode of operation’ that worked well for them, but to then try and read this into the up and coming generation in a way that might be wrong. Paul taught in Corinthians that though there is one Spirit, yet there are many different ‘administrations’ and out workings of the gifts. We often read that passage in a way that says ‘in the Sunday ‘local church building’ mindset, you have different ways God works’. But it is actually saying ‘the Sunday building mindset is only one of the various ways the Spirit works’. Now I know Paul wasn’t directly talking ‘Sunday church’ in the passage, but the point is when the New Testament speaks of different ‘administrations’ and ways the Spirit manifests thru the people of God, it is speaking of Gods ability to manifest himself ‘outside of the box’. Jacob experienced God thru a mode that said ‘the younger shall serve the older’ I think he might have over done it when he tried to project this ‘mode’ onto his posterity!
(736) GENESIS 49- Jacob gathers the boys together to give them a blessing. He realizes the importance of launching them with both blessings and rebukes! Why does he mention the mistakes and failures of the boys? Rueben is unstable like water; he acted spontaneously and out of jealousy. Simeon and Levi have an anger problem. In today’s ‘church world’ we focus and confess the desired outcomes of what we seem to want. We feel it is against a life of faith to even hear or receive reproof. I watched one of the fathers of the prosperity movement the other day. He was overseas doing a convention. I watch now out of prayer and agreeing as much as possible with parts of the meeting. I see this as a function of the prophetic, a willingness to intercede and agree as much as possible with those you have disagreements with. To be honest, you could see a real sense of uneasiness in the audience. It was almost as if these believers were somewhat familiar with this man, but the teachings were really off. During the service the speaker said how people have come up to him and said ‘did you read that book about you’? People who have begun to learn of the errors of this movement. The teacher said he never reads or listens to those who try to rebuke or correct him. This was obvious as to the fact that the meeting ended in the teacher saying ‘satan, get your hands off my money’ in a very aggressive and angry voice. He was leading the people in prayer and said this. The whole thing was very sad. Now Jacob flat out tells the boys where they have done wrong and went off course, he makes no bones about it. These boys heard criticism that was needful. But he also gives some great blessings. I have already internalized and added the blessings from Judah ‘the scepter shall not depart from you’ ‘your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies’ ‘as a young lion you will crouch down and go up from the prey’. To Joseph ‘you are like a bough [vine] by a spring of water, a well. Your branches flow over the wall’ a type of regional influence, reaching beyond your ‘city borders’. The archers hated you and shot at you but did not prevail, but to the contrary your bow has prevailed. The purpose of God for Joseph and his ‘targeting’ of prophetic arrows of destiny would win. These are great promises to these boys. Jacob speaks to his sons as he prepares to die. He wants more than just a successful career during his lifetime, he wants to launch a movement [dynasty] that for generations to come would carry the torch of the original purpose. Jacob tells the boys ‘I am now going to die’ and he instructs them to bury him in the dirt of destiny! He wants to lay in the ground where he first met and learned of the fatherhood of God. He ‘slept’ before in the land and had a true ‘out of body’ experience at Bethel [Not a new age thing, but a real visitation from God]. He will reconnect with this destiny even in death. We still have one chapter left in Genesis, but we have really closed the book for the most part on this entire journey of Jacob and his boys. There is a real sense of this family living and dying with Gods destiny upon them. I want to ‘charge’ all of our readers and ‘family’ to reassess at this point in life. Bring things back into alignment with the true eternal values that count. I know we have rubbed people the wrong way because of our strong stance on a lot of issues. I have been ‘shot at by arrows’ many times, but I feel the Lord has allowed our ‘bow to prevail’ not for the targeting or hurting of people, but for the target that the Lord wants to hit. Children are like arrows in the hand of a mighty man, when they launch in the right direction they hit the target every time.
(737) GENESIS 50- Jacob dies and Joseph buries him in the Promised Land. The cave that Abraham bought years ago as a sign that they would remain in the land of destiny, they even buried their bodies as ‘seed’ in the land! Now the mourning for Jacob is intense. All Egypt and the people of Canaan see what a great loss this is. After Jacobs’s death, the brothers fear Joseph will finally take revenge! They send a messenger to say ‘we are sorry for betraying you as a boy, please spare us’. Joseph is surprised his brothers are still afraid. He assures them all is well, as they come and BOW DOWN TO HIM. Wow, many years earlier it was this very dream ‘shall we bow down to you?’ that caused their jealousy and betrayal. Now that it is being fulfilled to the tee, they are happy to do it, and Joseph feels no glory out of it! This is how scripture is fulfilled when it says ‘you shall see your desire on you enemies’ ‘the sons of those who hated you shall bow down to you’ it is fulfilled not in a self glorying way, but in a prophetic way in order to benefit those who hated and despised you years earlier! I find it funny how some people thru the years will initially meet me at a homeless mission or some other venue where I am just hanging out with buddies. Sometimes I have been treated ‘less than honorably’ by the Christians who think I am just a homeless guy. Now I am not pretending to be homeless! It’s just these guys are really some of my best buddies who I have been around for years. Sometimes I have been yelled at ‘you idiot, get your hands off of that drink’ when I accidentally took a soda 2 minutes before the official lunch bell. Others who are Christians and treat disdainfully some guy who they hear ‘he thinks he is a preacher’ from the homeless guys. It’s a sad commentary on the way believers treat the down and out with such little respect. Now years later some of them actually become students of the ministry, at first finding it hard to associate the ‘radio preacher’ or ‘blog writer’ with the guy that they cursed out at one time. But they are glad to ‘bow down’ [submit] and receive from the ministry. Some will even give the feeling of ‘now that we realize he isn’t a homeless guy, lets get together and talk spiritual stuff’. Sort of the idea that ‘the elite class’ can now accept you, because we see you as elite too. I don’t push them away, I just treat them like any one else. Whether they are ‘elite’ or homeless. In Josephs case he wasn’t thinking ‘now I got you guys, you said you would never bow, well look at you punks now’. He acted right. Joseph also gives a prophecy that after many years God will bring them up out of Egypt and into the land of destiny. Jacob and his sons came into Egypt as a fairly small band of people, they will spend 400 years in difficulty and oppression. God will use this ‘furnace of affliction’ to bring them to a point of supernatural signs and deliverance under Moses. They will add an extra 40 years delay in the wilderness due to their rebellion, and they will once again enter into the land where years earlier Abraham bought the burial ground. The land where Isaac experienced his God, the place where Jacob dealt with his fears and inadequacy. They will come back like stromtroopers as they cross the Jordan and instill fear into the inhabitants of Canaan. God said he would give the land to their forefathers, he kept his promise!
ACTS study
Introduction; Yesterday I took my kids to the mall after church, I usually get lost in the book store. Even though I bought an entire shelf of books a few months back, I still can’t help from buying more books! So I picked up a few more and found a comfortable bench and started reading the History of Christianity. At the house I am almost thru with another ‘history of Christianity’ that covers the story of the church from Pentecost to the present day. I own a few complete volumes and have checked out many from the libraries over the years. I read from both the Protestant and Catholic [Orthodox] perspectives. I also read from the ‘out of the institutional church’ perspective. These are the histories of various groups of believers who never became Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant. I consider all these groups Christian and appreciate the tremendous wealth of knowledge that these communities provide.
Now, as we go thru Acts, I want to stay as close as possible to both the doctrine and practices of the early church as seen in scripture. We are not the first [or last!] study that has attempted to do this. That is attempted to ‘get back to the original design’ as much as possible. Historically you have whole categories of believers who fit into this mindset. They are referred to as ‘Restorationist’ as opposed to Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox. The Church of Christ, The Disciples of Christ, the Anabaptists and others fall into this class. I believe you find true believers in all of these groups.
As you read the history of Christianity as told by the other perspectives, you will find it interesting as to the way the institutional church describes these ‘out of church’ groups. Some are called heretics [Waldensians] others are simply seen as fringe groups. The strong institutional church has branded those who would reject her authority as schismatics and heretics on the grounds of their refusal to submit to the hierarchy of the institutional church.
As we go thru Acts, I want us to read carefully and see the story as told by Luke. We will not find ‘another more true group’ in the sense that I want to start some new denomination. I also don’t want to simply find proof texts to justify doctrine. Many well meaning believers can find the verses they like the most and use them to combat the other points of view. We will see verses emphasizing the importance of water baptism, or various truths on the outworkings of the Spirit. We will see prophets functioning and read texts that clearly teach Gods sovereignty [as many as were ordained unto eternal life believed]. Instead of getting lost on these side trails, I want us to read with an open mind and allow our beliefs to be shaped by ‘the story’.
I will spend time defending my own view of Local church. Not because I believe ‘my view’ is the only thing worth arguing about, but because I believe we see the intent of God for his people to be a living community of believers in this book. Right off the bat we will see giving taught in a radical way. The early church at Jerusalem will ‘continue in the Apostles doctrine and breaking of bread and prayers’. They then sell their goods and distribute to all who had need. Where in the world did they get this idea from? The Apostles doctrine obviously taught the plain teachings from Jesus on sharing what you have with others. So instead of seeing an early tithe concept, you see an early ‘give to those in need idea’ straight from the teachings of Jesus. We will see this early Jerusalem group meet daily, as opposed to seeing ‘Sunday worship’ as some sort of New Testament Sabbath. Of course this group will meet at the Temple [actually an out door courtyard called Solomon’s Porch] and from ‘house to house’. But the simple realty of Christ’s Spirit being poured out on them as a community of people will be the basic understanding of what ‘church’ is.
You will find citizens of many surrounding areas going back to the their home towns after Pentecost. These believers shared the gospel with those in their regions and this is how the early church would spread. Some commentaries will show you how when Paul will eventually show up in Rome there already was an established church there. They obviously heard the gospel from these early Roman Jews who were at Jerusalem during Pentecost. So we will see ‘church planting’ from the paradigm of simple believers going to areas with the message of Christ. Those who would believe in these locations would be described as ‘the church at Corinth’ or ‘the church at Ephesus’ and so on. So we see ‘local church’ as communities of believers living in different localities.
We will see the development of leadership along the lines of ‘appoint elders in every city’. Not a top heavy idea of ‘Bishop’ in the later sense of Catholic belief, but a simple ordaining [recognizing!] of those in the various cities who were stable enough in the basic truths of the gospel, that in Paul’s absence these elders were to be trusted as spiritual guides. Now, many of our brothers can trace the historic office of Bishop as a fairly early development in church history. Polycarp and others were considered direct disciples of the Apostles who would be seen as Bishops and even write of the importance of Bishops for the church ‘Where there is no Bishop there is no church’.
This will cause many well meaning believers to eventually become Catholic/Orthodox as they read the church fathers and see the very early development of Catholic Christianity. In many of the church fathers writings you will also see an early belief in the Eucharist as being the actual Body and Blood of Jesus.
To the consternation of many Protestants you even find Luther condemning fellow Protestants for not taking literally the words of Jesus ‘this IS my Body’. Now, I will not defend transubstantiation, but try to follow the trend lines in Acts as to the lack of this doctrine being a part of the early church. We will find Paul’s letter to the Corinthians addressing the Lords Supper, but for the most part we do not see a strong belief in the transmitting of divine grace to the soul thru the eating of Christ’s literal Body and Blood as they ‘broke bread’. We do see the sharing of the common meal and the ‘Eucharist’ as one meal called the ‘love feast’. Only later on in church history is there a division made between the full fellowship meal and the Eucharist.
So to be frank about it, I will challenge both our Catholic and Orthodox brothers on some very fundamental beliefs. Well I hope this brief introduction sets the proper tone for the rest of this study, God bless you guys and I hope you get something out of it. John.
(738) ACTS 1- Luke, the writer of this book, feels the need to document the ongoing work of Jesus and his revolution. He already wrote a gospel and believes this to be the beginning of the story. In essence, the reality of Jesus and his resurrection are just the start, we have much more to do and become on this journey. Most writers jump to chapter 2. We have churches and music groups called ‘Acts chapter 2’. Why does Luke seem to wait till chapter 2 before getting to ‘the good stuff’? Chapter one records the 40 days of Jesus showing himself alive after his death. Luke feels this singular truth to be important enough to simply stand alone [I do realize the early letters did not have chapter and verse divisions like today]. The real physical fact of Jesus bodily resurrection is without a doubt the foundational truth of the gospel. The outpouring of the Spirit and the whole future of the church depends on the reality of the resurrected Christ. Paul will write the Corinthians and tell them if the resurrection were not true then they are the most miserable of all people. Luke tells us Jesus gave instructions for the Apostles to wait at Jerusalem for the Spirit. They will be witnesses of him to all the surrounding nations after the Spirit empowers them. We also see Peter emerge as the key spokesman for the group. He quotes freely from the Psalms and reads their own history into the book. He sees the prophetic verse from David on ‘let another take his office’ as referring to Judas betrayal and death. They cast lots and choose Matthias as the one to replace Judas. Peter shows the importance of Judas replacement to come from one that was with them thru out the earthly time of Jesus. Someone who saw and witnessed Jesus after the resurrection. Scholars have confused this with the ‘ascension gift Apostles’. Some scholars have taken the truth of the early Apostles having the criteria of being actual witnesses of Jesus, and have said ‘therefore, you have no Apostles today’. Paul will teach in Ephesians that after Jesus ascension on high he gave gifts unto men ‘some Apostles, others Prophets, etc.’ The New Testament clearly speaks of Apostles as an ongoing gift in the church. Barnabas will later be called an Apostles [Acts 14:14] as well as many other references in the original Greek using the same Greek word for Apostle. But here we find Peter seeing the need to replace Judas. Other scholars think Peter might have jumped the gun. They see Paul’s apostleship as the possible person the Lord picked out as the replacement. You do find Paul referring time and again to his Apostolic authority as one ‘born out of due time’ who saw Jesus on the Damascus road. If Paul was simply an ascension gift Apostle, why would he refer time and again to his authority based on being a witness who also saw Jesus? It’s possible that Paul was in this group of ‘Apostles of the Lamb’ who had extra authority based upon their testimony of being eyewitnesses. So in chapter one we see that Jesus appeared for 40 days giving instructions to the early leadership and told them to wait at Jerusalem for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We see the incarnational purpose of God, Jesus was and continues to be the express image of God to man. He was not some ‘phantom’ like the Docetists will claim, but a very real physical resurrected Lord. Luke begins the early history of the church with this reality being important enough to stand on its own.
(739) ACTS 2- The Apostles are gathered together in the upper room. As they continue in unity and prayer the Spirit of God comes upon them like a rushing wind. There appear ‘cloven tongues’ like fire above each of them. Why this image? Why not ‘ears’ or some other sanctified body part? God is going to give supernatural power to the words that they will speak. In a few chapters we will read how an angel will supernaturally deliver Peter from prison and say ‘go, speak the words of this life’. These tongues are a precursor to the tremendous fire that will be loosed from their lips. James says the tongue is a little member but boasteth great things, it has the ability to start fires. Jesus said he came to earth to ‘start a fire’ and how he wished it were already burning. Here he gets his wish! Now the Apostles and early believers experience the gift of tongues. They begin speaking and prophesying in the unknown languages of all those who are gathered together to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. God ordained this event to be strategically done at this time. All the surrounding regions heard the believers speak the ‘wondrous works of God’ in their native tongue. Peter stands up and delivers a scathing message! He basically tells Israel ‘this is that which the prophet Joel spoke about’ he goes on and says this outpouring is part of Gods predetermined plan to pour out his Spirit on all flesh in the last days. He speaks of divine manifestations [dreams, visions] and carries the prophecy right to the end of the age. He then speaks the gospel of Christ and tells Israel ‘this is the Jesus you killed’. Wow, these guys are bold. Peter leads them to faith in Christ, their public baptism is the immediate sign of their willingness to be identified with Jesus and 3 thousand Jews become believers this day. Now, what is the church? This corporate group of first time followers do 4 basic things. They ‘continue in the Apostles doctrine and breaking of bread and prayers and share their goods with all in need’[true fellowship]. This early community was a brotherhood who actually gave priority to the teachings of Jesus passed on to them from the Apostles. Don’t miss this! Many will develop all sorts of practices and beliefs that ‘make up church’. Some will justify extra biblical beliefs under the guise of ‘the Apostles doctrine’ as in if it were something totally contrary or not known thru the gospels or the writing of scripture. Paul will tell Timothy to stay true to the traditions he passed on to him. But I want to focus on the fact that the Apostles doctrine was not something different then the basic instructions Jesus left us in the gospels. Paul will add to this basic body of Christian doctrine thru his letters to the churches, as well as the whole New Testament. But we do not see a bunch of strange or unknown doctrines that come from this time period. The basics are mentioned above. I do want to stress the fact that this early expression of church life had no ‘Pastor’ in the sense of their gatherings being a time where a singular authority figure had oversight of the entire community. They had strong leaders to be sure, but would avoid the Protestant idea of Pastor. They had no church building or belief in a strong liturgy. The ‘breaking of bread’ was a common meal where they all shared together in a real life setting. And of course their giving was radical, it was not ‘a tithe’ and it was done to meet the real needs of the community around them. All these elements are basic to what the New Testament church is. A functioning society of people in whom Christ Spirit dwells and who see themselves as a real spiritual community of people. As we progress thru out the history of the church as seen in Acts we will never lose this basic mindset. It will be carried into the epistles of the New Testament and remain the best idea of ‘local church’ as found in the first century. There is a trend going on right now in Evangelicalism that says ‘lets return to the ancient practices of the church and see what we can find’. As an avid reader of church history I am not totally against this movement, but I do see a danger in thinking ‘the ancient practices’ are the 2nd or 3rd century development of liturgy and Eucharist and other early ideas, and by passing the ‘real ancient’ story in the book of Acts. To put it simply, some of the Protestant and Evangelical ‘practices and beliefs’ that have developed since the reformation are ‘ancient’. I believe we all have a long way to go, but the ‘low view’ of the Lords Table [low as opposed to ‘high church view’. Though I personally believe in the Lords table as a memorial, not as the actual Body and Blood of Jesus. Yet I personally don’t like referring to such an important practice as low!] seems to be the true ancient practice as seen in Acts. The absence of the Priest officiating over the altar is no where to be seen in the actual ‘church’ setting. This ancient church is really a simple brotherhood of believers having all things common and having the resurrection of the Son of God as the central organizing principle of their lives.
(740) ACTS 3- Peter and John go up to the temple and heal the lame man. This stirs up a commotion and gives opportunity for Peter to preach Christ. I want you to see something here. The miracles of healing thru out this book testify of something specific. They do not simply prove the existence of God. These first century people were not ‘post moderns’ they had no pre enlightenment era that affected their minds. For the most part they were highly religious! Paul will tell them this later in Acts ‘you are too superstitious’ [religious]. The miracles are testifying to the fact that Jesus is alive, he really rose from the grave! Peter’s sermons are centered around the reality of Christ being the fulfillment of all that the prophets have spoken about! The church must not be ashamed of the gospel. Recently the ‘church world’ was up in arms over the Popes recent reinstating of the Tridentine Mass [the Latin Mass]. After Vatican 2 the Mass was done solely in the language of the hearers. Many old time Catholics were wanting the Latin too. So Pope Benedict said fine, you have the option to practice it either way. Now, this ancient Mass had a prayer that simply prayed for the Jewish people to come to know Jesus. Well, this upset the Jewish groups and they demanded a change in the prayer. At first the Pope re wrote it but it still asked for prayer for the Jews to come to Jesus. This still offended them. So finally the church produced some prayer less offensive. We should not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ and his resurrection! Peter was preaching the reality of the resurrection and was in their face about it! Jesus has proven himself to be alive, we are not just witnesses of the existence of God, we are witnesses that Jesus is the way to him. The only way! Now Peter ends this chapter in a unique way. He invokes the ‘blessing of Abraham’ and says it means ‘the blessing of Jesus in turning you away from sin’. We just finished a study in Genesis. I emphasized how the New testament apostles viewed the Abrahamic blessing thru the lens of redemption. They did not teach it in a materialistic way. Peter also quotes Moses [as well as David] and says ‘Moses said the Lord would raise up a prophet like myself, whoever doesn’t hear him will be destroyed’. Peter sees the fulfillment of ‘the Moses type prophet’ in Christ. Peter has a great gift of taking the old testament prophets and proving Christ from them. There is a young hearer in this early church. He will eventually become one of the first Deacons. His name is Stephen, boy he must be drinking everything in. He is seeing and hearing the testimony of Jesus straight from those who walked with him. He hears Peter’s teachings on Christ. He becomes familiar with the way Peter associates the ‘Moses prophet’ with Jesus. This young man will testify in Acts 7 of the reality of Jesus being the fulfillment of the Moses prophecy. He will give the longest recorded sermon in scripture. He will brilliantly trace the roots of Israel and show how Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophets. He will be accused of going against the law and the temple. He has the first grasp of ‘Pauline theology’ [actually Paul got it from him!] and does such a convincing job of proving Jesus to be Messiah that they stone him to death. He becomes the first martyr in the book of Acts. At his death he says ‘forgive them; don’t hold this sin against them’. A witness named Saul is sitting by. God answers Stephens’s prayer and Saul will become one of the greatest fire starters known to man.
(741) ACTS 4- The religious leadership at Jerusalem bring the Apostles in for questioning. The reality of the lame man being healed and the fact that Peter was doing it in the name of Jesus was an offence to them. Part of the group were called Sadducees. We often think of them as simple Pharisees who disbelieved in the resurrection of the body. While this is true, we must not overlook the demonic strategy behind the rise of a religious group, just prior to the resurrection of Jesus, who would imbed doubt in the minds of people concerning resurrection. Peter and John are questioned concerning the healing of the lame man. The leaders really had no problem with the healing, they did not want them doing this stuff in Jesus name! Why? Once again we see the fact of mighty works being done in Jesus name as proof of his resurrection. If the resurrection is true then Jesus must be the Messiah. If Jesus is the Messiah then this first century group of religious leaders killed the only Messiah that they will ever have! Peter actually tells them this in the chapter ‘you rejected the chief cornerstone’. Jesus was not simply one religious figure in a religion of many religious figures. Let’s see, we have Mary the mother of Jesus, a great woman to be sure. What about old John the Baptist, man was he a firebrand! And don’t forget Moses and the prophets. But Jesus stands out because he is the cornerstone. He alone is the mediator. Peter says ‘neither is there salvation in any other, there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved’. These religious leaders killed the main person! Once again we see the church practice ‘communal giving’. They sell their lands and houses and bring the money and lay it at the apostle’s feet. The money is used 100 percent for distribution to the communities needs. Why is this so important to see? As you read all my writings you will see me teach over and again this basic Christian principle, that giving in the New Testament churches was primarily focused on meeting the needs of people. There was no sense of tithing to the storehouse as being a practice of ‘giving to the church meeting on Sunday or you are under a curse’. Now, it’s fine to give 10 percent on Sunday, it’s just we shouldn’t by pass the actual documented practice of giving as seen in the New Testament. Now, we do have the advantage of hind sight. Paul will continue to write the epistles of the New Testament and never once stray from this principle. In every single case, bar none, is New Testament giving taught as a voluntary free will offering. It is radical, taught in proportionality [as God has blessed you lay by you in store- Paul] but never once is it taught as a compulsory tithe that if not obeyed will bring the curse of the law upon the believer. Now, in the very next chapter we will see 2 people die because of lying in the area of giving. But it’s not because they didn’t tithe. Nor is it because they didn’t give all the price of the land. It was because they were lying to the Holy Spirit, they were introducing a deadly poison into the fledgling church. Jesus warned them in the gospels to avoid this cancer. He told them ‘beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy’. He wasn’t saying ‘beware of their doctrine’ in the sense of don’t listen to what they teach. He was saying ‘beware of actual hypocrisy’! The leaven of trying to present an image of yourself contrary to truth. Faking it so you look good. Now the leadership will warn the Apostles not to speak or teach in Jesus name. Peter says ‘we ought to obey God more than you’. Was he being rebellious against God ordained authority? Jesus did teach in the gospels ‘they sit in Moses seat, do what they say, not what they do’. Paul will respond later ‘I didn’t know I was speaking against the high Priest, I know he should be treated with respect’ as he defends himself before this same group. Some believe Luther and the reformers and even people like me are rebelling against authority when we question the system. To be sure Peter was ‘rebelling’ against an authority system that actually served God to a degree. This religious system [Judaism] did preserve the writings of the prophets. Peter was quoting the Psalms and prophets and utilizing the actual writings the scribes passed on to him. But there comes a point in time where ‘we ought to move on with God, rather than man’ a radical break from past well meaning systems, and a moving forward with God and the working of his Spirit. We end the chapter with the Apostles and believers rejoicing over the fact that Jesus movement is winning and Gods word is being fulfilled ‘of a truth the kings of the earth and its rulers are coming against God and his holy Son Jesus’. They knew they were in some rough waters but heck, Jesus has been raised from the dead! What can they really do to us? We will soon see. We also see another description of early church life. The term ‘church’ is referencing a corporate group of people who are meeting daily, both at the temple and from house to house. They are sharing their material things with one another. The Apostles are testifying of the resurrection of Jesus and his Messiahship every where they go. A believer named Barnabas sells some land and brings the money for distribution. Another couple will make the mistake of trying to ‘be like the Joneses’ they will pretend to do the same, Peter will judge them severely!
(742) ACTS 5 – As the word spreads rapidly, all the surrounding towns bring the sick and vexed to lie in the streets. Even the possibility of Peters shadow passing over them for healing is hoped for. Notice the charismatic reality of this early church. I do realize the many reasoning’s that intelligent people use to explain the miracles as limited to the Apostolic period, but for the most part we see a supernatural church in Acts as well as thru out the epistles and well into the first few centuries of Christianity. The 20th century story of Pentecostalism and the awakenings just prior, seem to show the reality of a supernatural church existing alongside a theological one! There is much proof to the orthodoxy and giftings of the church all thru out scripture and church history. Peters shadow healed people, how can we explain this away? [p.s. Phillip, who is not an Apostle, will also perform miracles. Just thru this in for those who teach the Apostles were the only miracle workers!] Now, the immediate response of the high priest and religious leaders was ‘if we don’t do something about this, their movement will gain momentum’. They imprison Peter and the Apostles. An angel appears and frees them and tells them ‘go back to the temple and speak the words of this life’. When the authorities realize what has happened they once again warn them about using Jesus name in their ministry. They even say ‘do you intend to bring this mans blood upon us’. Basically Peter says ‘yes’. Peter has been ‘putting it in their face’ ever since Pentecost. He has blamed BOTH the nation of Israel and her leadership for the death of Christ. He does not worry about offending them! During this time some priests become believers. The majority of them do not. Why? What has happened is common among movements. When an initial movement starts up, there is always the question of ‘is it from God or not’? A few years back the church went thru a renewal movement. Some referred to it as ‘the Toronto blessing’ ‘the laughing revival’ and other names. You had those who were 100 % against it and those 100 % for it. Who was right? Well, to a degree both of them! The point is there were some things that were needing rebuke, but to throw it all out was wrong. The defenders appealed to Jonathan Edwards’s writings and how during the first great awakening he experienced many of the same manifestations as the Toronto movement. Edwards left quite a bit of room for God being present in the religious emotions of the people. The critics were offended that the revival guys were appealing to Edwards and they would appeal to other stuff Edwards wrote in concern over the religious affections. You also had the same manifestations a century later under the second great awakening. The revivals in Kentucky had laughter and ‘strange barking’ and other weird stuff. The point is you always have a response to a religious movement. Once the battle lines are drawn, it is very hard to switch sides. In this chapter we see Gamaliel, a very respected Pharisee, stand up for the Apostles and say ‘lets give them some room, others before them rose up and gained a following, they all passed on. If this work is of God you can’t stop it, if it’s of men it will fail’. There was some breaking thru to the religious mind that was taking place in the elite religious thinkers of the day. After all, Peter has been quoting Psalms and Joel in ways that were confounding the religious thinkers. Don’t forget, Peter is an uneducated fisherman. Jesus deposited some stuff in his men that was way beyond the basic understanding of the day. Some ‘thinkers’ and intellectuals were humble enough to listen, most were not!
(743) ACTS 6- There arises the first controversy in the Jerusalem church. The fact that they were doing this daily massive food distribution led to an area of prejudice. The ‘Grecians’ [Greek speaking Jews] were being neglected. They were seen as a little lower on the scale of racial purity. They were speaking a language less pure than the Hebrew tongue. So the Apostles heard of the problem and said ‘pick out 7 men of good report, who have favor and wisdom and put them in charge of ‘this business’. In essence these were the first Deacons. The business was simply speaking of the duty of serving the food. Up until now the Apostles were involved with the distribution. But they said ‘we will devote ourselves to prayer and the Word’. This chapter is important, many well meaning church communions trace their practices of church government to this time. Are Deacons positions who ‘do the business of the 501 c 3’? Not really. Well, not at all! Are there ‘Pastors’ here in the modern idea of the office of a person who is over the flock and is the weekly speaker whom the people see every ‘Sunday’. No. Are these practices all wicked and from the devil? Of course not! But it does help to see what is actually going on. This early community saw the need for the leaders to devote time to the word and prayer. Fulltime ministry? Really more of a community adjustment allowing those with greater insight to propagate the gospel. Paul will later show us this doesn’t mean each separate community had ‘full time ministers’ who were forbidden to work secular jobs. He will continue to make tents thru out his life. But he will also teach that it is all right to meet the material needs of those who are ministering spiritual food. We also see the Apostles lay their hands on these first deacons. Is this some type of official ordination [recognition, licensing] from a seminary? Of course not. Is it wicked to attend seminary and have an ordination? Of course not. The principle of the ‘school of the prophets’ in Elijah’s day shows the possibility of God working thru these universities. It’s just we need to be careful we are not reading ideas into the story that are not faithful to the text. My reading of this chapter shows an organic community of people who were ‘the church’. They did have leadership and sought God for direction and weren’t imprisoned by any specific form of ‘church’. The main ingredient was a group of people sharing the life of Christ and living this life out as a community. All church communions have a tendency to read there own story into ‘Gods story’. That is we find isolated verses of scripture and say ‘see, this is why our church government does it this way’. It’s OK to a degree, but then when you see ‘our church government’ as the only true church government, that’s where problems arise. I think we should avoid looking for prescriptive patterns of ‘church government’ from the book of Acts. We should read the story as a community of people who are experiencing God and learning to walk out this experience as the Body of Christ. The great mystery is that God is ‘no longer dwelling in Temples made with hands’ but in a vibrant Body of people! [p.s. Stephen will quote this prophetic scripture in the next chapter as he does one of the most masterful jobs of an Old Testament survey to be found in the New Testament].
(744) ACTS 7- At the end of chapter 6 we saw the accusation against Stephen ‘he teaches the temple will be torn down and that Jesus will change the laws and customs of Moses’. There are a few key chapters in Acts, this is one of them! Up until this point we have seen Peters message of the Messiah thru the lens of repentance and baptism. You will notice Peter is very strong on ‘you guys need to repent and show it’. Strong word indeed! Peter also introduced the scripture ‘the Lord your God will raise up a prophet like unto me [Moses speaking of Christ] whoever doesn’t listen to him will be destroyed’. But Stephen is the first one to teach publicly the passing away of the law and the temple and the new ‘house of God’ to be the people. It’s the beginnings of Pauline theology. Now I have read how this chapter was questioned and doubted as to why Stephen was teaching this. Some theologians thought the chapter was questionable as canon because of it’s seeming to be so out of context. These are the times where I do agree with the ‘seminary as being a cemetery’! This chapter is absolutely brilliant! I don’t want you to miss the main point. Stephen traces the history of Israel and uses the verse from Moses ‘the Lord will raise up a PROPHET LIKE ME’. Stephen explains that when Moses first showed up on the scene to deliver his people, that the people said ‘man, who do you think you are! Who made you the boss’? Then Stephen says ‘yet this Moses, who the people refused. He was actually the ruler and deliverer that they refused’. Stephen is showing them that the prophets actually prophesied of the first century reality of Israel rejecting Jesus because Moses said they would! Don’t miss this point. This is the main point of Stephens message. He is telling the religious leaders ‘you simply fulfilled prophecy by rejecting the Messiah’. He even compares the miracles and great works that were done by Moses to the great miracles Jesus did. Stephen ends the chapter by also tracing Jewish history to David’s son Solomon and how the future temple that he would build was simply a shadow of the New Testament house of God. He quotes David in Psalms ‘God will not dwell in temples made with hands’. Now, this has nothing to do with ‘church buildings’. This has everything to do with Stephen’s insight into the theological truths contained in Jesus teachings about the destruction of the temple. In today’s ‘church world’ we have a very unbalanced view of temple rebuilding and the significance of the passages in Matthew that prophesy of its destruction. In Stephen’s mind the future destruction [that is future from his time. A.D. 70!] showed the passing away of the old law and its entire system of worship. The first century Apostles and teachers saw the eschatological portions of scripture from a redemptive lens. Peter earlier said ‘repent and be baptized… so your sins will be blotted out at the return of the Lord’ ‘whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things’. He couched individual salvation in with Gods ‘full world’ purpose of redemption [Romans]. They saw it from a wider angle than just ‘me and Jesus’. Now Stephen is doing the same. The whole Apostolic tradition concerning the destruction of the temple showed the purpose of God in ending the old concept of law and ‘limited kingship’ [from Jerusalem’s throne] and how God raised up his Son and placed him at his right hand and made him Lord and Christ. The passing away of the temple and Stephens preaching on ‘the customs being changed’ was right on! When I taught Hebrews I tried to bring this out. I realize that some teachers say Paul didn’t write Hebrews. I attribute it to him simply because no one else had the revelation he had in these areas. But I wouldn’t argue with saying Stephen might have penned it [depending on the dates!] Now we end the chapter with Stephens’s famous martyrdom and him saying ‘lay not this sin to their charge’. Saul [Paul] is a witness to this killing, he will become the greatest advocate for grace versus law that the church will ever know. NOTE- I forgot to mention that Stephen even compares the mass killing of babies at the time of Moses with the mass killing done under Herod during Jesus time. He shows how Moses and Jesus were alike in many ways.
(745) ACTS 8- After the death of Stephen the church scatters thru out the region. We see Phillip being used and directed by God. An angel will speak to him, he will be supernaturally translated from one place to another. We see the simple reality of all believers having Gods legitimacy to function. This is important to see! Later on we see the first gentile church at Antioch being told ‘separate me Paul and Barnabas unto the work which I have called them to’[Acts 13]. Some will develop unbiblical restrictions from this verse. The strong ‘local church’ view [the view that sees local church thru the 501c3 Sunday building mindset!] will later teach ‘see, you can’t function on your own. If you are not under a ‘local church covering’ you are an independent rebel out of Gods authority’. Here we see the simple reality of God sending and communicating to Phillip on the basis of him being a child of God. In Acts 13 the Spirit communicated his purpose to an entire group, in this chapter he communicates to an individual. The legitimacy comes from the reality of God being the one who is giving the directions! Now, we see Phillip at Samaria preaching the Kingdom and doing miracles. The sorcerer Simon gets converted. The church at Jerusalem sends Peter and John to see what’s happening and they lay hands on the Samaritan believers and they ‘receive the Holy Ghost’. This is also described as the Holy Spirit falling on them. This chapter is used as a proof text for pro Pentecostal theology and anti! The Pentecostals say ‘see, believers don’t have the Holy Spirit until a separate Baptism takes place’. The anti Charismatics say ‘this is an anomaly. God did this because he didn’t want to have a competing church in Samaria that did not have the approval of the Jerusalem church’. I will agree and disagree with both of these propositions [yes, at the same time!] Paul will teach in his epistles that it is impossible to believe without having the Spirit. He will also teach a doctrine of being filled with the Spirit. The arguments over the terms used can be confusing. The fact is we see both the experiences of believers [who have the Spirit] still experiencing greater empowerments down the road. And we see believers ‘getting it all at once’ [Acts 10]. Theologically, you can’t be born again without having the Spirit. But you can call ‘the Spirit falling on you in a fresh way’ ‘getting the Spirit’. The different expressions people use do confuse the matter. The hard and fast Charismatics will not agree with me. And the old time Calvinists might disagree with me. I believe both sides have things to add to the debate. I want all of us to be open and daily expecting God to renew us with the Spirit on a daily basis. I know one thing for sure, Paul taught we can water and plant all day. But if the Spirit doesn’t do his work we will never see any real increase! Simon the sorcerer sees that thru the laying on of hands the Spirit is given. He asks ‘Hey, I will pay you money for the gift of being able to lay hands on people and have them receive the Spirit’. Peter responds ‘you wicked sinner! How dare you think you can purchase Gods gift with money! You and your filthy money will perish together! You better pray that God forgives you for this’. Simon says ‘can you pray for me’? He didn’t want to get struck down that instant! Peter will later teach in his letters ‘take oversight of Gods flock, not for filthy lucre. But of a ready mind’. James will write in his letter ‘woe to the rich, their day is coming’. John writes in 1st John ‘love not the world neither the things in the world’. Paul will pen ‘The love of money is the root of all evil. Some went coveting after it and have left the faith’. Where in the world did all these first century Apostles get this idea from? Was it the devil tricking them out of the truth of wealth? Were they under the spell of church tradition? Lets see, Jesus said ‘the rich man dies and goes to hell. The poor man to Abrahams bosom’ ‘it’s harder for a rich man to go to heaven than for a camel to go thru the eye of a needle’ ‘the rich man went away very sad because he had much riches’ [after Jesus said go sell all you have and give to the poor] ‘you can not serve God and mammon’ ‘the deceitfulness of riches choke Gods word’ ‘thou fool! This night thy soul shall be required of thee’ [to the rich man who was planning on building more storage for his stuff!] The simple fact is the early church had imbedded in their minds a non materialistic gospel. The modern church seems to read scripture thru the lens of the prosperity promises that you do find thru out scripture. The prosperity promises are true and should be understood, but we need to also see the reality of what I just showed you. The church will eventfully coin the phrase ‘Simony’. It will refer to those who use money to gain influence and official positions in the church. Simons name does become famous, but not in the way he wanted!
(746) ACTS 9- Paul gets permission from the high priest to go to Damascus and arrest the believers. On his way the Lord appears to him and Paul is told to go to Damascus and wait for instructions. He is blind for 3 days. God gives a vision to Ananias and tells him to go to Paul in Judas house, because he too had a vision of a man coming to him and laying hands on him. Ananias is afraid but does it at the Lords insistence. I want you to see the role of visions and divine guidance in this event. The purpose of the visions and supernatural events has nothing to do with the canon of scripture. Some teach that the only reason you had supernatural guidance in the early days was because the canon was not complete. But after its completion you no longer had these types of things. First, no where is this doctrine taught in scripture. Second, you did not have total agreement on ‘the canon’ [all the books that make up our bibles] until the 4th century! Now you did have a basic group of letters and writings that were accepted as authoritative, but there was not total agreement. Many early believers had the epistles of Barnabas and a few other letters that were accepted. Some did not include Revelation at all. Others questioned Hebrews and James. You also did not have a workable, readable ‘bible’ in actual book form until the 12th-13th century! That's right, the actual form of our modern books was not invented until that late date. Plus the availability of books on a mass scale did not appear until the Guttenberg printing press of the 16th century. Just in time for Luther’s Reformation! The first book printed on his press was the Guttenberg bible. So the point is, the idea that somehow right after the early Apostles died off you had all believers going to ‘their bibles for direction’ as opposed to having dreams or visions or other divine guidance, really isn’t a workable solution. In this chapter God needed to get orders to his people, he gave them visions! Now Paul immediately preaches Christ as the Son of God and Messiah. He stirs up the waters and they sneak him out of town and send him to Jerusalem. The church at Jerusalem are leery of him, Barnabas vouches for him and he is received. He starts preaching there and once again they want to kill him. He eventually is sent back to his area of Tarsus. Now Peter is still on the road preaching Christ. He heals a man at Lydda and many come to the Lord. A woman named Tabitha dies at Joppa, a town close to Lydda. They call for Peter to come and he does and raises her from the dead. What are we seeing here? An early church [community of believers] preaching the gospel and doing miracles and affecting large regions without lots of money. Without hardly any organization. Without setting up ‘local churches’ in the sense that each area has separate ‘places’ they see as ‘local churches’ with salaried pastors running the ‘churches’. You are seeing a radical movement of Christ followers who are sacrificially giving there lives away for the gospel. No prayer meetings on ‘how in the world are we going to reach the region for the Lord. We need tons of cash’! They believed the simple instructions Jesus gave to them on going into all the world and preaching the gospel. Sure there will be times where support is sent to help them make it to the next location. But the whole concept of needing tons of cash and to build huge ‘church buildings/organizations’ and to set up salaried ministers is not seen in this story. I do not think the development of these things over the centuries means ‘all the churches are deceived’ type of a thing. All ‘the churches’ [groups of believers who are presently identifying themselves this way] are great people of God. They are doing the works of Jesus and functioning to a degree in the paradigm that they were given [either thru their upbringing or training]. But today we are seeing a rethinking of the ‘wineskin’ [that which contains the new wine] on a mass scale. As we read this story in Acts I want to challenge your mindset. Don’t fit the story into your present understanding of ‘local church’. But let your understanding of ‘Local Church’ be formed thru scripture. This chapter said ‘the churches had rest and were edified and were walking in the fear of the Lord’. The ‘churches’ are defined as all the communities of believers living in these various locations!
(747) ACTS 10- This is another key chapter in Acts. Peter is still in Joppa and while praying on the roof he has a vision. God shows him all the non kosher animals that Jews were forbidden to eat and says ‘rise Peter, kill and eat’. Peter refuses and tells the Lord he has never allowed himself to eat unclean stuff. The Lord reveals to him the principle of not making judgments of what is ‘clean or unclean’ according to the old standards of the law. It is important to fully see this. God wasn’t simply saying ‘now all things are clean’ he was saying ‘the old prism of law and moral standards are no longer to be used as the measuring rule of clean or unclean’. Now, was God throwing out all ‘measuring rules’? No! He will flatly show Peter that ‘all who believe in Jesus are justified from all things that you could never be justified from BY THE LAW’. In essence God is saying to Peter ‘Jesus is the new measuring rule!’ [Actually he was the original one the law always pointed to]. Well at the same time Peter has this vision, a man named Cornelius has an angel appear to him and tells him to send men to Joppa and get Peter. So as Peter is wondering about his vision of the unclean animals, the brothers knock on the door and relate the angels message to him. Peter goes to Cornelius house and preaches the gospel and the Gentiles become believers. Is this the first time we see Gentile converts in Acts? No. Phillip converted the Ethiopian eunuch in chapter 8. But this is seen as the Lord giving Peter the ‘keys’ of the kingdom to the Gentiles. In the gospels we read how Peter was given the keys to the kingdom. Our Catholic brothers see the office of Pope as ‘the keys’. I think a better view is to see how the Lord used Peter in Acts 2 and here to be the one to ‘introduce’ the gospel to both Jew and Gentile. Keys open things. They open doors. Jesus is the open door that Peter walked them thru by faith. Now we also see Peter preaching justification by faith for the first time in Acts. His other invitations were legitimate, but they focused on repentance and baptism. Here Peter says ‘and to him give all the prophets witness that whoever believes in him shall receive remission of sins’. Now I have taught this before on this blog. I try not to make excuses for the teaching by Peter on baptism. He even says in his epistle ‘the like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us, not the washing away of the filth of the flesh but the answer of a pure heart towards God’ [quick quote, go find it for an exact wording!]. Now, if you do a word check on this blog, probably in the section ‘prophecies, dreams, visions part 2’ and you find the teaching on baptism from Acts 2:38, I do give an explanation on this. I believe we are seeing the natural progression of greater understanding that Peter and the brothers were attaining as they progressed on the journey. I showed you how Stephens sermon in acts 7 hit on Pauline theology for the first time in Acts. A few chapters later we see Peter quoting a scripture on ‘all who believe’ are justified. The first connection from Peter on ‘believe and be justified’. Now that Peter has opened this ‘door’ we will see Paul preach this thru out the rest of the book. We see the famous verse in acts 16 ‘believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, and your house’. The point is we are seeing not only the development of the Body of Christ in this book, but also the development of Christian theology. Many believers fight over these various verses and even trace the authenticity of their movements to these verses. Others try to brand you as a heretic over which scriptures you see as the ‘conversion text’. While I fully agree with the doctrine of Justification by faith as one of the foundational doctrines of scripture, I avoid calling the churches who trace their ‘altar call’ experience to water baptism as ‘Cambellites/heretics’. I also disagree with those who are strong water baptism advocates when they say those who do not believe in full submersion are not Christian. In this chapter these Gentiles were justified by passive belief! No evangelical altar call at all ‘the Spirit fell on all who heard the word’. Peter says ‘can we forbid water to those who received the Spirit like we did’? There was no altar call because Peter would have never given one! Even though God gave him the whole vision and all, yet they were shocked when God actually ‘saved them’. So we see the will of God in accepting all who believe in Jesus. The justifying of these Gentiles was passive, they had no ‘sinners prayer’ they were justified before they got in the water. So to all those Church of Christ [or even Catholic and Orthodox brothers] it is not totally wrong to trace your outward experience of becoming a Christian to the time of baptism [I will not get into infant baptism here!]. But it also is not wrong to trace it to the time of simple belief. Gods purpose is to save people. Acts is revealing to us the progressive journey of man with God. God does put down the requirement to ‘believe in Christ’. The entrance into communion with God is limited to all who believe in him! But don’t make it harder than this. NOTE- I didn’t get into all the particulars of repentance and baptism and exactly how many ‘steps’ you need to ‘get saved’. Seeing Acts this way misses the main thrust of the book. But let me add, why don’t we see Peter mention repentance here? Cornelius is called ‘one who feared God’. This description didn’t just mean ‘he prayed and fasted’ it actually described Gentile converts to Judaism. These were called ‘God Fearers’. They practiced Judaism already, except for the rite of circumcision. So this fact meant they ‘already repented’ to a degree. The law did teach repentance well. It had a system that engrained the moral concept of sin and repentance into man. Hebrews chapter 6 teaches this. So you can say Cornelius and his relatives were already aware of sin and the need to turn from it [also the basic elements of John’s baptism] so here Peter bypasses the repentance part and simply shows them the missing ingredient, which was faith in Christ.
(748) ACTS 11- Peter recounts his vision and experience he had at Cornelius house. The Jews at Jerusalem were upset that he went and ate with non Jews. He explains that the Lord showed him not to view these gentiles as unclean. They were accepted and made clean thru Christ’s blood. The leadership at Jerusalem agree [for now!] We begin to see the tension that will play out thru the rest of the New Testament. This struggle between Jewish law and grace will become the number one issue of contention in Paul’s letters. In this chapter we see Barnabas go down to Antioch and eventually get Paul from Tarsus to help him establish the fledgling church at Antioch. After Peters experience they began preaching to gentiles and Antioch becomes the counterbalance ‘church’ [community of believers] to Jerusalem. I want you to see something important here. The church at Antioch does not have ‘Temple worship’ along side ‘home meetings’. The believers ‘assembled’ as a brotherhood. They met in homes to be sure, but ‘the church’ was simply a description of a called out group of people who continued in grace and lived as a fellowship community. The reason I emphasize this is because we grasp limited ideas of church and then we try and make others fit our ideas. The church at Antioch [and Corinth, Ephesus, Galatia, etc.] will continue to maintain this basic identity all thru out the New Testament and well into the second century. The earliest archeological find of a ‘church building’ is found in the 3rd century. There was an inscription discovered that spoke of the ‘church’ meeting here. The ‘here’ was the home of a believer! [I think the find was ‘Europa/duropa’ or something to that effect]. The point here is I want you to see the original design of the church. Up until this point we see the early church evangelizing large regions by simply being led of the Spirit. The finances are simple, this chapter will end with the believers at Antioch pooling their resources to send relief to the church in Judea. It will be the beginnings of Paul’s ministry of relief that we read about in 1st Corinthians 16. This chapter says Prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. Agabus prophesied of a famine to come, the church made arrangements to send relief to their brothers. One of the main Apostles at Jerusalem, James, will oversee a group of poor saints thru out his life. There is no early doctrine seen of rebuking the poor saints and teaching them how they were redeemed from poverty and the curse of Deuteronomy in a way that poverty was see as a sin. James will actually pen his letter and say ‘God chose the poor of this world [not just ‘poor’ in spirit] rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom’ he will also rake the rich over the coals! The whole point is as we read the bible, we need to read it in context and allow the story to shape our views, not the other way around. This Antioch community received New Testament prophets, they did not view the verse in Hebrews ‘God spoke to us in the past by prophets, but in these last days by his Son’ they didn’t see this as meaning there were no more prophets. These believers were not tithing, they did not have a church building, not ordained clergy or ‘high church’ model. They were a vibrant bunch of grace believers who will be told they don’t have to keep the law to be saved! From this point forward, no New Testament church in scripture will lose this basic idea. Some will struggle [Galatians, Corinth] but the basic truth of ‘the church’ being the people of God justified freely by grace, will remain strong. They are still living a communal type of idea, and giving is still radical, done to meet the real needs of people, and is not a tithe!
(749) ACTS 12- Herod kills James [not the brother of Jesus who is one of the lead Apostles at Jerusalem] and puts Peter in jail. The church has a prayer meeting for Peter and an angel goes into the cell and wakes Peter up. He leads him outside the city and frees him. Peter thinks it’s a vision and realizes it really is happening! Note how real their visions and dreams must have been, Peter at times can not determine fact from vision! He shows up at the prayer meeting and a girl named Rhoda hears a knock at the door. She asks ‘who is it’? He says ‘It’s me, Peter!’ She can’t believe it and leaves him standing at thee door! She tells the prayer group ‘it’s Peter’ they tell her ‘no way, maybe his angel?’ Funny, you can believe his angel showed up, but no way could the Lord deliver him from jail. At the end of this chapter we see the return of Paul and Barnabas after they brought the relief money to the saints at Jerusalem. It calls it ‘their ministry’. This early church did not see ‘the ministry’ as the actual business and the need to raise funds for the ‘church’. Now, it’s fine to pool your money for good cause’s with other believers. When I teach we are not ‘under the tithe’ this does not mean we shouldn’t support good ministries with 10 percent or more of our money. The point is, here we see Peter going back out to the field, Paul and Barnabas returning back from ‘the field’. Spontaneous prayer meetings. No set time or way to give offerings, just a true freedom of giving themselves away for the cause of Christ. Leadership does exist, but the normal function and flow of this church is not centered around ‘the Sunday Sabbath’ [EEK!] There is a real sense of this community of believers being led by the Spirit. It would be wrong to say ‘hey, Phillip went out on his own! He is not under the local church covering’! Or ‘now that we are back from Jerusalem, lets ask Pastor so and so [the supposed Pastor of the ‘church at Antioch’] what's next’. There were no ‘Pastors’ in the sense of the fulltime Christian minister who oversees the ordinances on Sunday. Now, these developments will arise as the centuries progress. Many good Pastors and Priests will function this way for centuries. They will see the church ‘building’ as ‘the church’. Our Catholic brothers will begin to see ‘the altar’ as the actual place ‘in the church’ that Jesus Body is ‘re offered’ [presented] as a ‘bloodless sacrifice’ for the salvation of the world. All developments that are not seen in Acts. The point is, we limit the flow of Gods Spirit thru his people when we regress from ‘the true has now come’ [the whole reality of Jesus and the church being the real image of things. The law and it’s shadows were only an incomplete picture]. When we as believers go back to ‘the shadows’ thinking that form and ‘pictures of things’ [symbols] are the way we will touch the world, then we lose the reality of us being the actual people of God showing the world Christ thru our unselfish lives. Jesus said when the people of God love each other and lay their own desires and goals down for his Kingdom, then the world will see our actions and believe. Jesus did leave us memorials ‘do this in remembrance of me’ ‘as often as you do this you SHOW the Lords death till he come’. I do realize that the church does have an element of ‘presenting thru picture [art] the Lords death and resurrection’ [passion plays and so forth] but when we lose the real fellowship mentality of this first century church, we then lose the greatest picture of all. Being the actual functioning Body of Christ on earth. John writes ‘how can you say you love God, who you don’t see. When you can’t love your brother, who you do see?’ [1st John] the New Testament clearly shows us that the love we have in word and deed is the greatest ‘sacramental’ picture we can declare to the world. Our Catholic friends have a song ‘they will know we are Christians by our love, by our love. Yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love’. I agree.
(750) ACTS 13- The believers at Antioch were praying and fasting and the Holy Spirit said ‘separate me Paul and Barnabas unto the work which I have called them’. Then the whole group laid their hands on them and sent them out. Notice, there was not a singular authority figure who was the overseer of this church [community of believers]. It is important to see this, because when you share the oversight of a body of people with a plural team [Elders/Pastors- the title you use is insignificant] then there is less of a chance of one person becoming too elevated in the minds of the group. There is also a dynamic of the group coming to maturity as they see themselves as being able to ‘ordain-lay hands’ and send out. Now Paul and Barnabas begin their missionary journeys. At Paphos Paul casts blindness on a sorcerer and the chief deputy believes. At Antioch [Pisidia] they preach in the synagogue. Paul does a good Old Testament survey and mentions ‘Saul from the tribe of Benjamin’ as being part of Gods plan. I always wondered if Paul saw himself in this image [Saul from Benjamin]. Jesus did tell Ananias that Paul was a chosen vessel to bear his name. Notice also that Paul's message saw the promise to David in Psalms ‘the sure mercies of David’ as being fulfilled thru Christ’s resurrection. The theme of the message was not ‘Jesus rule is delayed’ [dispensational teaching] but that thru Jesus the promises to the fathers have come to fruition. While it is true that the Jewish hearers will reject their Messiah as a people, yet this did not mean that the Kingdom was delayed or that the ‘church age’ was a parenthetical time until the ‘Kingdom age’ reconvenes. The whole tenor of Paul’s message is the reality that Jesus resurrection and being seated at Gods right hand is the promise being fulfilled that God made to the fathers. It is important to see his theme all thru out the Apostolic writings. The following week after Paul delivers his message, many gentiles come back to hear the word again. The leaders get jealous and Paul rebukes them. He tells them it was necessary for the Jews to have heard the word first, but then in fulfillment of the prophets, Jesus will be a light to the gentiles also. Paul and Barnabas sail off to Iconium next. An important theme in all the sermons in Acts is how the main message is that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Prophets. Paul tells them that they heard the readings from the prophets [Old Testament] every Sabbath day, but they also fulfilled the prophetic word by not being able to understand what the prophets were saying. So they crucified Jesus because of their blindness to the meaning of scripture. We need to see Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophets. The ultimate end of our purpose. To become like him in every way. In today’s church world it is so easy to see the word and ‘church attendance’ as a means to self fulfillment. But we need to re focus on becoming more like him. I am sure it was a shock to Paul when he realized all the time and study he did as a Pharisee was missing the main intent of scripture. It was humiliating to find out that the simple men who became these followers of Christ were closer to the truth than the theological doctors of the day. Jesus said we must become like little children again in order to see Gods kingdom.
(751) ACTS 14- Paul and Barnabas continue going thru different cities [Iconium, Lystra] Paul heals a man who was lame from birth and the whole city says ‘these men are gods who have come down in human form’. Paul barely stops them from offering sacrifices to them! In each city they travel to, they have a routine. They go into the synagogue and speak to the gathered. Both Jews and ‘God fearers’ [gentile followers] the pattern of some believing and others resisting becomes routine. Paul also has to deal with the Jews who were following him from past cities. They were sort of 1st century ‘apologists’ who made it their purpose to simply stop Paul. I want you to see that the ‘churches’ were the various groups of people who believed. They did gather together [Ecclesia] but they did not see ‘church’ as a place they went to for religious instruction. They did not start ‘gentile synagogues’ in competition with Judaism. Now Paul goes back thru the cities and at that point ‘ordains Elders in every church’. This is important to see. The ordaining of Elders was the simple process of seeing who had the maturity of understanding in the gospel and could be looked up to as a spiritual guide. Any questions or new converts in the towns would know ‘so and so’ is a responsible believer who Paul put his stamp of approval on. Why even do this? Remember, the enemies of Paul [Jewish law keepers] are going behind Paul’s back and trying to undo all the work that Paul was doing. Elders were gifted men who had the ability to push back against those whose ‘mouths must be stopped’ [Paul’s future language against false teachers]. These Elders were not full time Pastors in the modern sense. They were not singular authorities who ‘cover the flock’. They were not hired clergy! The reason why it is important to see this is because we want to stay as close as possible to the historic picture of the church as we read thru Act’s. These ‘local churches’ were caring communities of Christ followers who did have spiritual oversight that were to be respected and held in high esteem. Paul and Peter will teach the concept of giving honor to those who have spiritual accountability for you. But we can’t apply this to unbiblical forms of ecclesiology/hierarchy that will develop over the centuries. In Luther’s day many well meaning men felt Luther [the 16th century reformer] was rebelling against God ordained authority by going against the Pope. We need to understand that John the Apostle rebuked the rise of singular authorities who would seek to have the preeminence amongst Gods flock [Diotrephes- 3rd Jn]. Paul will warn the Ephesian church [later in Acts] that after his departure men would rise up seeking to make disciples after themselves. The point is any future use of the teaching of Elders/Pastors and the true responsibility to honor and submit to godly authority has to be seen in context with the complete story. While Luther’s [and Paul’s] critics could make the case that they were rebelling against God ordained authority, yet at the same time true revolution always carries an element of casting off old systems and restraint. Paul will confront Peter openly over his hypocrisy between treating Jewish believers different than Gentile believers. Peter was an Apostle before Paul and the argument could have been made ‘who does Paul think he is, going over the head of Peter’. So we need to see the biblical truth of God ordained leadership. The fact that many good Pastors and men of God have faithfully served Christ’s church. But we do not want to develop mindsets contrary to the freedom that we have in Christ while teaching the truth of godly leadership. Paul ordained ‘Elders’ on his way back thru Lystra and Iconium. He sails back to Antioch and recounts all the wonderful success that they had with the gentile believers. Antioch has this free flowing spirit amongst the church. They are gentiles and are not keeping the Jewish law. Paul and Barnabas were getting a reputation amongst the Jewish leadership in the cities and towns. Word gets back to Jerusalem and we will see whether Paul’s gospel will prevail before the ‘church authorities’? I believe we could describe Luther’s response before the Catholic church as fitting Paul’s spirit ‘unless I am persuaded by scripture I can not go against my conscience. Here I stand, I can do nothing else’.
(752) ACTS 15- Some brothers from Judea came down to Antioch and taught the believers that they had to be circumcised and keep the law in order to be saved. These are the Pharisees out of Jerusalem who became believers. They tried to put the gentile believers under the yoke of the law. Paul and Barnabas disagree strongly with this teaching. They decide to bring the question before the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem. This is the first ‘church council’ in history. The ‘Jerusalem council’. At the meeting the dispute arises. Peter speaks up and recounts his experience at Cornelius house. How God showed Peter that he would justify people by faith, without having to become converts to Judaism. James chimes in and quotes a famous verse [famous now!] from the prophet Amos ‘in those days I will rebuild David’s tabernacle and all the gentiles upon whom my name is called will see me’. I want to stop here for a minute. On this blog I wrote a chapter on David’s tabernacle. It is in the booklet ‘The great building of God’ you might want to read it if you are not familiar with David’s tabernacle. I want to note that scholars disagree on what James means here. Some see ‘David’s tabernacle’ as the house or dynasty of David. Like Paul saying ‘house of God’ when speaking of ‘the family of God’. Others say this verse teaches the rebuilding of the Temple. The main reason James is quoting this verse is really not for the ‘rebuilding of David’s tabernacle’ section. It is for ‘all the gentiles who call upon my name’ part! James is agreeing with Peter and taking the side of grace when he says ‘look, even Amos said gentiles would call on Gods name’. Paul does this in Romans, he quotes the Old Testament prophets in context of the gentiles being accepted. So I wanted to just put some context to why James is bringing up this verse. But I also give credence to seeing ‘David’s tabernacle’ as speaking of the New Testament house of God [the Body of Christ] and Gods intent to ‘tabernacle in his people’. Acts does teach that Jesus has ascended and is seated on a throne that includes Israel as well as the whole universe! So in this context Christ can be seen as ‘building the tabernacle of David’ [spiritual temple of believers] that includes all ethnic groups. Yes, gentiles too can call upon his name! The Apostles and Elders and brothers all reach agreement and write a short letter and send Judas and Silas along with Paul’s group back to Antioch to read the final decree. They told the gentile believers they were not under the law and did not have to convert to Judaism to be saved. They did give four simple restrictions. Don’t eat meat with the blood in it, don’t eat food offered to idols or strangled animals. Don’t commit fornication. Basic requirements that later on will lose their emphasis as the church grows in grace [accept for fornication! God does require believers to walk in holiness]. Now this chapter is vital for every believer. The 16th century reformation restored the truth of people being saved freely by grace. Many Christians were lost in the legalistic requirements of religion. Many believers thought they could buy their way out of purgatory with money! Others thought they would be saved by keeping church law. This early church council gave freedom to the church in seeing herself accepted by grace. The church grew in her understanding of Gods grace. As God’s revelation of himself progressed thru out the early church, they saw him as being ‘inclusive’ not exclusive! The more they learned about God, the more they understood him justifying people freely. It is easy to lose the reality of God justifying man freely thru grace. No excuses for living in sin, but true acceptance and forgiveness because of Christ. This is truly the heart of the gospel. The first church council laid the foundation of Gods free grace. The gentiles at Antioch and the other towns were ecstatic over this decision. Truly the gentile churches are experiencing more freedom than the church at Jerusalem, after all they had the ‘Pharisees who believed’ at Jerusalem, and they weren’t willing to give up on their belief of the importance of the law and circumcision. They will haunt Paul thru out his life. After the letter is read, Paul and Barnabas continue to teach at Antioch and the 2 brothers who were out of Jerusalem are free to leave. Judas goes back, but Silas likes the freedom at Antioch and decides to stay. Paul says ‘lets go visit all the brothers in the cities where we preached’ Barnabas says ‘great, lets take John Mark!’ Paul doesn’t want him because he abandoned them on an earlier missionary journey. Paul takes Silas and John goes with Barnabas. The ‘visiting of all the brothers’ is also described as ‘visiting the churches’. Once again, the brothers [and sisters] in the cites are defined as ‘the churches’. They were called out groups of believers who were recognized not because they ‘attended church on Sunday’ but because they were followers of ‘the way’.
(753) ACTS 16- Paul and Silas hit the road. They are being led by the Spirit and are evangelizing large regions without a lot of money, organization or ‘corporate help’. Now, these things are permitted, but we need to make sure we are seeing this story right! Jesus imbedded a mindset into the Apostles, he told them ‘don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment! No special appeals for funds [ouch!], keep it simple’ [Message bible- Jesus instructions when he sent them out by two’s]. So here we actually see the Apostles living the vision. Paul by the way has a vision! He sees a vision of a man in Macedonia saying ‘come and help us’. Luke writes ‘we took this as a sure sign of God sending us’. Wow, what childlike simplicity. The great theologian Paul, the man who could argue orthodoxy all day [and win]. He has a vision and says ‘we took it as Gods will’. Don’t develop doctrines that cut you off from God’s supernatural guidance. Sure, people have gotten into trouble with visions. Cults have ‘prophets and apostles’. But the church also had these things and it helped on the journey. Now at Philippi they convert a woman down by the river. They cast out a demon from a fortune teller. The ‘masters’ see they lost their ‘money maker’ and stir up trouble in the city. Paul and Silas get thrown in jail. They praise God and sing, an earthquake happens. The doors swing open. The jailer thinks they all escaped and is going to kill himself. Paul and Silas preach the gospel and he asks ‘what must I do to be saved’ they say ‘believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, your family too!’ The whole house gets baptized and the city leaders send word ‘tell them to leave’. Now, Paul is a lot like me. He doesn’t let stuff slide. He says ‘they beat us unlawfully, we are Roman citizens! Now they want us to leave secretly. Let them come and tell us publicly’ the leaders hear they are Romans and are worried. Paul made them squirm! Let’s do a little overview. We are halfway thru the book of Acts and we see the ‘churches’ as these free flowing believers carrying out the gospel. Baptisms and healings and visions. We also see doctrinal growth. We challenge the mindset of many evangelicals, baptismal regeneration is not taught [at least I don’t see it] but baptism in water is the immediate outward identification of the believer. In essence it was the New Testament ‘altar call’. Our Catholic friends will eventually develop an idea of baptism as washing away original sin. But sometimes we miss the other idea of putting off adult baptism because of fear of future sins. Saint Augustine, the emperor Constantine and others delayed their baptism thinking they would use it to ‘clean them up’ after any future faults. The doctrine of baptism in Acts is seen as an immediate rite that does affect the believer [as do all outward acts of obedience! Even the Lords Supper strengthens the faith of the believer]. But justification and believing are prior to baptism. But not two weeks or two years prior! But a few minutes. I also forgot to mention that Paul has Timothy circumcised in this chapter. The great Apostle Paul, who will eventually pen the words ‘circumcision means nothing, but a circumcised heart is what matters’ here he gave in. Paul and Silas are fresh off the recent Jerusalem council. They have been accused of teaching Jews ‘abandon the law and circumcision’. The decree from Jerusalem said the gentiles don’t need to worry about these things. But they were still teaching Jewish converts to maintain Jewish law and custom. Timothy was not circumcised, and everyone knew it! His mother was Jewish but his father was Greek. So Paul realized that the judiazers would eventually say ‘see, Paul is even teaching Jews to break Moses law’ so Paul gives in and compromises here. Do the restrictions at the Jerusalem council still hold sway over Jewish believers today? No. Paul will eventually abandon all Jewish law and custom from his doctrine of justification by faith. But at this stage they are still learning and growing. The mindset of ‘God’ in this book is one of ‘less restrictions’ and more acceptance as time rolls on. We see enough stuff on baptism to not call the churches who emphasize baptism ‘Cambellites/heretics’ [the term Cambellite comes from the founder of the Church of Christ/ Disciples of Christ groups. There founder was Alexander Campbell. He falls into the restorationist camp. He saw the emphasis on adult baptism in scripture and many of his followers see the act of water baptism as the moment of conversion]. But we also see the basic ‘ingredient’ for acceptance as faith. So God is not excluding those who focus on baptism [Peters initial converts] but showing us greater acceptance among ‘those who believe’ [Acts 10]. This is what I tried to say in our introduction to this study. As we read we shouldn’t be looking for formulas or hard and fast verses to simply justify our churches beliefs against the church down the block. But we need to see the heart and mind of God. We also shouldn’t trace our peculiar belief to this historic church and say ‘see, our group is the most accurate one’. Why? Don’t I believe my idea of simple church is closer to the historic church? Yes. But the ‘church’ will develop in good and bad ways as the centuries roll on. The fact that many Catholics and Orthodox and future Protestants will grow and fight and reform, means the church herself has within her the inherent ability to ‘get back to the Cross’ or the reality of all of these groups believing in Jesus causes there to be a fundamental unity that exists because we all possess Christ’s Spirit. So even though I personally see the organic church in Acts, this doesn’t mean that I see the other expressions of church as totally illegitimate or lost! So let’s end this chapter rejoicing with the jailer who heard the gospel and ‘believed with all his house’.
(754) ACTS 17- Paul heads to Thessalonica and preaches 3 Sabbath days in the synagogue. Once again the unbelieving Jews follow him and stir up trouble. Paul heads to Berea and speaks the word. The Bereans are said to be more noble because they heard Paul out and then searched the scriptures to see if he were telling the truth. The message he preached is that Jesus is the Messiah that the Old Testament prophets spoke of. In 1st John, John says ‘whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God’ Paul was showing them that Jesus was the Christ. Again trouble arises and Paul sails off to Athens and sends for Timothy and Silas later on. Now, Paul spent 3 weeks at Thessalonica. No huge budget, no message on ‘how can we reach Thessalonica without lots of money’ [I have heard it taught that you cant even begin to think about planting a church unless you have $250,000 dollars!] Paul believed in the power of the gospel. It took 3 weeks of simply sharing the gospel to plant this church! He will write them a few letters and give them some instruction, but the simple truth is every believer has the ability to ‘plant churches’ [speaking the gospel to people groups and those people believing and becoming ‘the church’]. At Athens Paul is troubled by all the ‘superstition’ [religion]. He runs into the philosophers. It said the people there spent all their time in either telling or hearing some new thing. An ancient form of ‘the view’ [the television show where the ladies talk about nothing all day long!] So Paul disputes with them and uses their own altar to ‘the unknown God’ and declares Christ unto them. Recently a Catholic priest made headlines because he advocated for Christians to use the name Allah instead of God. He felt the name was referring to the same God. Does Paul’s use of the ‘unknown God altar’ fall into this category? No. When any religion names their god and defines him, then this god is a false god [unless your speaking of the true God]. So in this case Paul was simply saying ‘this altar to the God you don’t know, I will show you how to come to know him’. Now, why were these philosophers in Athens? A few centuries before Christ you had the rule of Alexander the great. The Old Testament prophet Daniel speaks in detail of his rule. Alexander ruled one of the greatest empires known to man. He established the greatest library of the ancient world. He made Greek the common language. This is why the New Testament was written in Greek. Though Rome was the ruling empire of Jesus day, the culture was still Greek to a degree. This is called ‘Hellenization’. The Greeks even translated the Old Testament into Greek before the days of Christ. This translation is called the Septuagint, which means 70. This comes from the supposed number of scholars who worked on the translation. This period just prior to Christ was the time of the great philosophers. Plato, Aristotle and others. These Philosophers laid down a foundation of sorts for morality and the cultures that would develop down the road. The church fathers disagreed somewhat to the degree of mixing Christian faith with the thought of the pre Christian philosophers. Origen thought these men were Christian to the degree that God used them to instill types of thought and belief in the immortality of the soul and other concepts as a precursor to Christ. Others thought they were competing worldviews for the religion of Christianity and should be rejected. Paul himself will write the Colossians and warn them of the philosophies of men. Many thinkers were affected by the ‘new age’ concepts that came from these groups. Augustine, the great 4th-5th century Bishop from North Africa was into Manichaeism prior to his conversion to Christianity. He eventually would sit under the sound teaching of Ambrose and leave his former ideas. These groups had strange beliefs and concepts that would sound like the scientology adherents of our day. Others were not as drastic but would still be seen as on the verge of Christian truth. Marcion was sort of in this class. The point is Paul will take advantage of the philosopher’s willingness to delve into all types of ideas, and use this as an open door to preach Christ. Some breakaway groups from the more Orthodox churches will claim that the Catholic churches belief in the immortality of the soul is not scriptural. These groups teach that the ancient church picked these beliefs up from the philosophers of the day [some of the seventh day brothers say this]. You also find some Protestant brothers challenge the authenticity of various bible translations based on the Septuagint translation from ancient Greece. The church father Jerome will use the Septuagint in his popular translation of the Latin Vulgate. Some Protestants see Jerome’s version as less than pure. This is also why the Catholic bibles have the Apocrypha in them [The books between Malachi and Matthew that the Protestant bibles don’t have]. When Jerome translated his vulgate, he brought these books over from the Septuagint version. Jerome did put an asterisk next to the apocryphal books, he noted they were included from the Septuagint, but were not seen as authoritative. Simply added for historical content]. So we see the tremendous influence that Greek culture and philosophy played in the early stages of the church. Paul knew their thought, but his gospel was founded on more than some new belief system. Paul claimed that Jesus had been raised from the dead!
(755) ACTS 18- Paul goes to Corinth, he meets Aquila and Priscilla. They are all tent makers and he stays with them and does some manual labor! Poor Paul, he just didn’t understand that when we read earlier in Acts, that the Apostles at Jerusalem devoted themselves to prayer and the word, that this meant they were in ‘full time ministry’. I am being sarcastic! The point is Paul did not see his very gifted apostolic ministry as a ‘ministry’ that would be run like a modern business. He certainly did not see manual labor as some type of lack of faith. In today’s environment you can ask a brother ‘how are you supporting yourself’ and many times the answer is ‘we are a faith ministry’ kind of saying ‘I don’t work, but I ask for money’ [Ouch!]. Now, Paul will say it’s good to meet the material needs of laboring elders/pastors, but don’t develop more into it than this. At Corinth Paul teaches for a year and a half, one of the longest recorded stays at any of his ‘churches’ [cities with believers in them]. He goes to Ephesus and back to Antioch. Then makes a tour of the cities where he originally preached. Basically going back and strengthening the churches. The Lord speaks again to Paul in a vision while at Corinth, he says ‘don’t be afraid to speak, no one will lay a hand on you. I have lots of people here’. Simple encouragement by divine means. Why, or how Christians can develop doctrines that say ‘these things don’t happen any more’ is beyond me. At Ephesus Aquila and Priscilla hear a great preacher. His name is Apollos and he is very well spoken. He is also limited in his understanding of the gospel. They take him and ‘expound unto him the way of God more perfectly’. It took humility on both sides for this to happen. Over the years I have had good friends who were/are pastors. As the Body of Christ goes thru transition it is becoming very well known that the development of the full time clerical office of Pastor was really not a scriptural development. Sort of like realizing during the reformation that there were limited teachings from the church that were simply wrong. As the people of God become more aware of ‘the more perfect’ things [more mature understanding on stuff] there is a humility that needs to be present in order for the proper change to occur. In many cities across the nation [and world] there are structures of church and practice that are limited. As Gods people [both pastors and parishioners] see this, then there is a process of change that occurs. In the more limited ‘churches’ you have scenarios where well meaning men often rebuke any freedom of growth along the lines of ‘I am your pastor, your role is to come to the Sunday [they view it as some type of Sabbath] service, pay your tithe to the storehouse [which they actually see as the church building!] and any rebellion against this order is like rebelling against Moses in the wilderness!’ Now, all good pastors obviously are not like this, but there are more situations that fit this example than you realize. So like Apollos [a good public speaking ministry- Pastor] he simply had to go thru a stage of seeing things at a deeper level. Simply submitting to the gifts that exist in the Body of Christ and being humble enough to learn. After Apollos learns, he is even stronger than he was before!
(756) ACTS 19- Paul runs into some of Apollo’s disciples at Ephesus, he asks them if they received the Spirit ‘since they believed’ [Notice what they were believing!] And they said they have never heard about the Holy Spirit. He questions them on what they are believing in. They answer John’s baptism. They only knew the message of John the Baptist on repentance. The basic preaching from Apollos before he was ‘instructed in the way of the Lord more perfectly’. Paul does not say ‘now, believe in the Holy Spirit and you will have the baptism in the Spirit’. He says ‘John [the Baptist] preached that you should believe on him, that is JESUS, who would come after him’ after hearing THIS [the basic message of Jesus!] they were baptized in Jesus name and Paul laid his hands on them and they received the Spirit. There are lots of things here that different groups use to justify there beliefs. I fully believe in all the gifts and workings of the Spirit, but once again many well meaning pastors [from Pentecostal backgrounds] teach this chapter as saying these disciples were believers in Jesus and did not have the Spirit. This is not true! They were not yet believers in Jesus and the actual person they believed in to get the Spirit was Jesus, not the Spirit! But all in all we see the laying on of hands, prophecy and tongues happen. So these guys are charismatic! But also Calvinist [in my mind- I believe Paul was strong in predestination, but also operated in the gifts]. Now Paul goes and ruins his reputation! Can you believe he is actually sending handkerchiefs to sick people and they are getting healed and delivered from evil Spirits! Old Jonathan Edwards would never do that! [Or Calvin or Luther…or would they?] Paul casts out some demons in Jesus name [that’s it, he is cancelled from speaking at our reformation conference!] and 7 sons from a Jewish family try to cast out a demon from some guy using Jesus name. The demon says ‘Jesus I know, and Paul too! But who in the heck do you think you are’ and the guy who’s possessed beats the hell out of them! Ouch! I find it funny that the demons knew Paul by name. They must have heard how Paul was one of the deadliest enemies to satans agenda. The demons who were showing up for orders were scared they would be assigned to Paul, they knew he had some strong handkerchiefs! Demetrius, a guy who made his living building idols to Dianna, a false goddess, realizes that if Paul keeps preaching about Jesus that his living will be threatened. So he stirs up trouble. He says ‘if we don’t stop these guys, our shrine making business will be in jeopardy, oh, and the great goddess Dianna will also lose her honor’ He couldn’t give a rip about the fake god, he was worried about the bottom line! I find it funny how people will choose which image of ‘God-Jesus’ they believe in based on the bottom line. Some choose to grasp an image of Jesus contrary to the New Testament, if you challenge this belief, they will simply ignore you based on the bottom line. The Jesus of scripture challenges the materialistic gospel that permeates many in today’s church. Some grasp this modern image of Jesus because they can’t let go of the possibility that there ‘trade’ [belief system of profit] is going away!
(757) ACTS 20- Paul travels with some brothers on the journey. This mode of visiting different regions and bringing brothers with him is exciting! They are truly seeing the Kingdom of God becoming established in the earth. Scripture says ‘they broke bread on the first day of the week’ we read later in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians that when they met on the ‘first day of the week’ he asked them to take up a collection before he arrived [so he could take the money and meet the needs of the poor saints at Jerusalem]. Do we see here some type of Sunday Sabbath, that is the ‘church day to pay tithes’ so you don’t get cursed? Of course not. You are seeing the simple practical outworking of a people who are becoming the people of God. It’s fine to meet on a Sunday and to ‘break bread’. Hey, the group needs to know when to meet for the meal! But don't develop liturgical/sacramental ideas out of this. You say ‘hooray for John [me], he is really giving it to those Catholics’ well, don’t say hooray yet. Now he calls for the Elders at Ephesus to come to Miletus so he can give them some instructions and a farewell. This address from Paul is one of the best in the New Testament. He covers the basics for leadership and church growth. Now, he tells them ‘all the time I was with you guys I was upright. I taught you publicly and from house to house. I showed you repentance toward God and faith towards Jesus Christ. I worked and did not covet your money. I did this to prove I was not there to gain financially from you. To give you an example as Elders yourselves, so you would not see the responsibility of oversight thru a covetous mindset. Beware! After I leave you there will be an attempt by the enemy to undo the work of the Cross. Some men, even from your own group will rise up and speak twisted doctrines. They will try to become eminent in the group, drawing away disciples after themselves. Don’t become sidetracked and become followers of men! Guard the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Feed them Gods good word’. Paul lays down strong guidelines here. He actually teaches the elders that he worked when he was among them to leave this example of leaders not seeing ministry as a means to get gain. In one of his future letters [Timothy or Thessalonians?] he actually says this ‘working’ that he did was a tradition for them to keep. He said this in context of those who refused to work. Very strong indeed. Peter also will teach the Elders to take oversight of Gods flock ‘not for money, but out of a pure motive’. In the wars that rage over ‘simple church’ versus the modern 501c3 model, both sides have shot at each other wrongfully at times. There are very intelligent brothers who will take this chapter and teach that the modern Pastor has fallen into the trap of ‘making disciples after themselves’. They see the development of the role of Pastor as becoming the fulfillment of this. Now, I do see some merit to this, but I see most pastors [all the ones I know and have known personally over the years] as Elders who are striving to help Gods People. I see a real need for all leadership to see that ministry is not a fulltime clergy type office that has developed over the centuries! Paul is simply addressing the Elders [more mature ones- in the gospel, not necessarily old!] and showing them that their purpose is to help the people of God grow in grace and make it to a place of self sufficiency in Christ. Paul is pretty much laying down the gauntlet that leadership is not some ticket of ‘now that I am in ministry, my income comes from the God ordained tithe’. This is never taught as a means of support for New testament ministers. These ideas have developed out of the Old Testament idea of the tithe supporting the Levitical Priests. In the New Covenant all are Priests and we don’t practice this type of thing. But Paul does teach that it’s good to support materially [financially] those who are feeding you spiritual food. He does teach ‘don’t muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn’ [he called us ox's!] seriously, he lays down the biblical guideline of supporting those who minister the word. But it is important to see he was not establishing some type of clergy system, the fact that he was working while with these Ephesians and actually used this as an example for OTHER ELDERS as well as the believers shows you this. All in all the main point Paul is getting across is he wants the basic truth of the gospel to prevail and he does not want top heavy leadership to come in and draw away disciples after them. That is for strong gifted leaders to become the main focus of these Ephesian believers. So this chapter is important because we see Paul address these elders that he has been ‘ordaining’ in the churches [groups of believers]. We see the basic character and function of these men. We see the warning that cults will arise. In Paul’s day groups did come forth from the basic Christian communities [Gnostics and Docetists] that had a basic understanding of certain Christian things, but would deny the reality of Jesus. Paul bids them Farwell as they all embrace on the shoreline. The Elders were heartbroken over Paul’s words that he will probably see them no more. He wanted to keep the upcoming feast at Jerusalem and eventually preach at Rome. He was on this obsession to carry this gospel to the seat of the empire, even if it means his life.
(758) ACTS 21- Paul goes to Tyre and the saints prophesy for him not to go to Jerusalem. He makes it to Caesarea and Phillip has 4 daughters who also prophesy. Agabus shows up, he is a prophet, and he takes Paul's garment and does one of those weird prophetic actions and wraps it around him and says ‘the Lord says whoever owns this garment will be bound like this at Jerusalem’. A few things, many good men teach that the word for ‘Prophecy’ [to prophesy] is simple preaching. Now, true simple preaching of the gospel is a function of the prophetic. Paul says in Corinthians that whoever says the name of Jesus is speaking mysteries that only the Spirit knows. So preaching does fall into this category. But a simple reading of the text shows you that Agabus, who functioned in the office of a Prophet, was doing more than simple preaching. There obviously was a predictive element to what he did. Agabus is an ‘ascension gift Prophet’. In Ephesians Paul teaches that after Jesus ascended he gave gifts unto men. Some of these gifts are Prophets. Why would Jesus establish an entire class of New Testament Prophets, and take them away as soon as the New Testament was complete? Now Paul makes it to Jerusalem despite the warnings. Right away James and the Elders call him to a meeting. They rejoice over all the Lord is doing with Paul’s gentile outreach, but they tell him ‘look, we have many Jews. They are all believing in Messiah, and they all keep the law’. There is a fundamental rift between James and Paul. Most preachers do not say or admit this, they feel to admit it would violate the Canon of scripture. First, read my commentary on Hebrews 11 on this site. Second, I believe we are simply seeing the historic development of truth as we progress thru Acts. Peter, James and Paul [later we read Johns epistles] never contradict each other as far as the overall message of the Cross is concerned. But God does allow us to peer into the different insights that these key 1st century elders were seeing. So James might really be seeing things from a different vantage point than Paul. Paul might not fully see James reasoning. They are both being used of God, their writings will harmonize. But they don’t necessarily see it yet! James pressures Paul to take a vow with some brothers to basically show he isn’t teaching Jews against the law. Paul does it. The city finds out Paul is in town and they drag him out of the Temple and they beat the guy! The local police come and rescue Paul. As he is being carried away he speaks Greek to the soldiers, they are surprised he speaks Greek. He then addresses the Jews and speaks Hebrew. Paul used positioning and all the influence he had in any area [even language] to make his point. In the next chapter we will read his defense. I want to close with us seeing that Paul was being accused of teaching Jews against Moses and the law and Temple. Was he? Actually as Paul’s understanding of the gospel of grace increases, he does teach this. If you believe Paul wrote Hebrews [the letter] then you see it there. But Paul initially was only preaching grace to the gentiles. James even says ‘show the people that the rumors about you are wrong, show them that you too are keeping the law like all Jews’ and basically Paul gives in by agreeing to join in the vow with the brothers. Some times we read Acts [as well as the bible] as if it were a single book written at one sitting. When you do it like this you don’t leave room for the development and growth of the characters themselves. God is allowing Peter to preach in a more limited way in the first few chapters, after Peter hears from Stephen and Paul he seems to leave more room for believing and being justified. He is learning and growing as the story progresses. The same with James. His epistle is obviously a different view point from Paul. Do they contradict? No. But some commentators do not honestly look at the different angles. James will actually say ‘see how a man is justified by his works, and not faith only’. Now, he does say ‘faith without works is dead’. And many good teachers say ‘all James was saying was you need active faith at the time of conversion’ [James isn’t speaking about the ‘time of conversion’!] Well actually , he was saying more. Was he teaching justification by works? No, at least not in the way most theologians see ‘justification’. But James was seeing justification thru the lens of the future result of the believer actually becoming just! [What some believers call sanctification] He was seeing the Genesis 22 justification of Abraham offering Isaac, not the Genesis 15 account that Paul emphasizes. So James is teaching ‘justification by works’ that is, Gods grace that legally justified you when you believed, actually changes you to the point where you do good works, and at that point God continues to say ‘good job son- you are doing what’s right’ [another word for doing what’s just/right- justification!] Now, I can’t explain the whole thing here, the point is James is dealing with Jewish believers and he is seeing things from a different timeline than Paul. The strife between the early Jewish believers and Paul is intense. Ultimately the Temple will be destroyed and the future of the Christian church will be shaped by Paul’s theology. James writes a great letter! But Paul will carry the day. NOTE- I see James saying ‘see how a man is justified by works’ meaning the future act of God being pleased with the changed life of the believer. We see ‘see how a man is justified by works’ and try to make that fit ‘see how a man is initially saved/born again’ but James, in my view, is not speaking of the initial act of justification [which is solely by faith] when he says ‘see how a man is justified by works, and not by faith only’ James is working on a different timeline!
(759) ACTS 22- Paul makes his case before the Jews at Jerusalem. As he speaks in Hebrew, they give him special attention. We learned earlier [Acts 6] that Hebrew speaking Jews were looked upon as better than non Hebrew speakers. Paul tells the Jewish people that he too used to be zealous of the law and also hated the new movement of Messiah. He informs them that he was raised under Gamaliel’s school of Phariseeism! You had different schools of learning, even within the class of the Pharisees, Paul was what you would call a Harvard man. He explains that on his previous trip to Damascus he encountered Jesus. He gives his conversion testimony, which by the way contains most of the elements of all the various conversion accounts in Acts ‘arise, be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord’. Paul was such an anti Christian that the Lord made sure he would cover all the angles![and also be received amongst all the different groups of believers thru out the church who will claim strong baptism verses, or calling on the Lord verses. In essence you can find in him the varied experiences of believers thru out the centuries]. Now Paul recounts how after his conversion he had a vision in the Temple at Jerusalem. He has his audience captivated until he says how Jesus appeared to him and told him to go to the gentiles. This was too much for the elite Jewish mind to grasp. The people chant ‘away with him’ they want him killed! As the soldiers are getting ready to beat him some more, he says ‘is it lawful for you to beat a Roman citizen like this?’ Paul was quite a guy, he used any advantage he had to win the argument. The soldier's enquire how he obtained Roman citizenship, he tells them he was ‘free born’. All people under the rule of Rome were not Roman citizens. The region of Judea and the area of Jesus and his men were considered the ‘wrong side of the tracks’ Galileans were a low class. Most scholars believe Jesus spoke Aramaic, the language from his area. Paul was the first out this bunch of radical followers who had an upper class image. His pedigree was good. He surprised his opponents by having a good education and being a Roman citizen. Paul also wrote [Corinthians] how not many noble and educated people were chosen by the Lord. It wasn’t because the lord didn’t want the upper class folk! It was the fact that education and ‘class’ can be such obstacles in the minds of those who posses it. It’s the sin of pride. Also in this chapter Paul describes his vision at the temple as ‘being in a trance’ the same language used of Peter in chapter 10. A trance is a different type of experience. St. Thomas Aquinas, considered by many to be the most intellectual apologist of the latter middle ages [scholastic period] shared experiences he had right before his death. He would call them ‘being in a state of ecstasy’. These were sort of ‘trances’ where he would experience the presence of God so mightily that he would describe it as almost unbearable. He would say that the Lord revealed so much to him during these times that all he had ever written or taught in the past seemed trivial compared to what he was ‘seeing’ during these events. Paul himself will write about being caught up into the 3rd heaven and not knowing whether he was in the body or out of it. He would say he saw things that were impossible to explain in human words. In this chapter Paul says Jesus appeared to him at the beginning of his journey, it seems as if this wasn’t the only time he saw the Lord.
(760) ACTS 23- Paul continues his defense before the council and chief priests. He realizes that the council is divided ‘politically/religiously’ along the lines of the Pharisees versus the Sadducees. Though these were both religious groups who were Jewish, yet they had major disagreements. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection or spirit or angels [why in the heck would you even want to be religious if you rejected these things? ‘Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die’! The philosophies that rose out of the enlightenment era and the French revolution were based on ‘nihilism’ the idea of having no moral compass. The rise of Marxism and other communist expressions of Government had good intentions at times! The problem was they espoused the atheistic philosophies of the time and ultimately this leads to a total loss of purpose and meaning. Though these philosophers tried to say that religion and the ‘God delusion’ were the cause of all the ills of society, there grand scheme would ultimately lead to forms of human government that disrespected human life. Hitler of course was an extreme example. He did embrace eugenics, the idea that the stronger races will eventually win and the weaker races/classes will die off. He simply thought he was speeding up the process by exterminating Jews. Though the philosophers of the enlightenment fall into different groups. Some for example did believe in deism and they felt God could be proved from natural means. Others saw religion as the ‘opiate of the people’ and ultimately did disgrace unto the human race!] The Pharisees believed in resurrection. So good old Paul stands up and says ‘I am a Pharisee, and the very reason I am in trouble is because I believe in the hope of the resurrection’ Paul knew how to ‘triangulate’ [politically]. Well of course the Pharisees say ‘well, we see nothing wrong with this man. If an angel or spirit appeared to him, then Gods will be done’. So the group splits. Paul is put under guard and eventually appeals to the next step. The authorities send him to Governor Felix in Caesarea for the next appeal. Why is it important to see the legal maneuverings of Paul? Jesus even appears to him again and says ‘you will testify of me in Rome’. The religious leaders of the 1st century did all they could to not report the facts of the early followers of Christ. The gospels tell us that they even resorted to outright lying to cover up the fact of the resurrection. Paul’s interjection into the legal arena caused there to be a written record of these events! The historians of the day were covering the legal events of the day. The record of Jesus and his followers would be forever imbedded in the historic records of the time. God wanted Paul in this system as a sure testimony of the witness of Christ’s resurrection. We end the chapter with Paul waiting at Caesarea for the accusers to come and make their case.
(761) ACTS 24- Paul’s accusers come down from Jerusalem. They hired a lawyer [orator] to accuse him! Tertullus gives a speech to the Governor that could be defined as the classic political ‘suck up’ speech of all time. Paul defends himself and says ‘I am not guilty of these so called accusations. But I am guilty of believing the law and the prophets. I believe that what they spoke of [the shadows] have happened! I believe in the resurrection. Jesus has fulfilled the promises of the prophets!’ I had a discussion with a good friend the other day. We have a mutual friend who is really into Messianic stuff. He has espoused the idea that the feasts and images of Israel are EXACT PICTURES that give us a detailed road map to Christ’s return. Basically the friend believes that all the shadows and images are exact descriptions of all future events. I shared with my friend that I too believe that the feasts of Israel are prophetic signs of things. Surely Passover and Pentecost have had great meaning for the people of God. Paul says ‘Christ our Passover died for us’. Some see the end time feast of the latter harvest as having future fulfillment in the ingathering of the nations to Christ. I have taught some of this on the radio before. The problem with this other stuff is it takes the feasts and shadows and tries to ‘detail’ every little thing. Paul understood the prophets and law having been fulfilled thru the present work of Christ and his resurrection. I can’t stress enough how the apostolic witness in Acts sees Jesus as the fulfillment of these things. They do not preach a heavily nationalistic [Jewish] message, though they are all Jews! [The Apostles] As Paul defends himself, the governor listens and trembles! Paul spoke of judgment and temperance and the reality of a future resurrection of the just and unjust. The basic apostolic message as seen in the classic creeds of the church. Paul will sit under house arrest for 2 years until another person takes over Felix’s position. The guy’s name is ‘Porcius festus’ [I think I would prefer the name Judas over Porcius!] We end the chapter with Paul waiting to give another witness of Jesus before another ruler. The legal problems of Paul were Gods providence to give Paul opportunity to speak the gospel all the way up the chain. The chain ends at Rome.
(765)ACT 25- Festus hears the Jews at Jerusalem, they want him to bring Paul to Jerusalem. Festus goes back to Caesarea and asks Paul ‘why don’t you go back with me’? Paul appeals to Caesar! Of course going to Rome was part of the plan. Now King Agrippa [another one of the many ruling authorities that Rome had over the people!] comes to Caesarea and Festus tells him about Paul. Agrippa will get a strong word in the next chapter. Also the Jews come down from Jerusalem and accuse Paul of many things. I want to make a note here. In the area of apologetics, which we do a lot of, you need to be careful that you don’t jump on the bandwagon of unfounded accusations. There are and have been real doctrinal heresies that needed to be dealt with, but some of the apologists really get personal. Even calling family members degrading names! In Paul’s case he had accusations that were not true. He does defend himself against the false ones, but also admitted that he believes in Christ’s resurrection and that this is considered heresy among certain Jews. Paul’s main message was Christ and the resurrection! As we get ready to close our study in a few more days, I want to recap the importance of seeing Jesus and his fulfillment of the Old Testament prophets as the main message of the Apostles. This early teaching by the Apostles needs to be the ‘tradition’ if you will, once again. We [believers] have a tendency to delve deeply into all sorts of stuff. Paul will warn his spiritual sons ‘don’t get lost in endless genealogies and debates about the law’ and Hebrews says ‘it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace, not with meats [legalistic doctrines] which have been unprofitable to those who have gone that route’. Now, you guys know I believe in correct doctrine, and Paul wasn’t advocating ‘no doctrine’. But it is easy to get lost in endless debates that lead to nowhere. Ultimately our goal is to present every man perfect in Christ. Paul will stick with this message all the way to Rome!
(766) ACTS 26- Paul makes his case before Agrippa. Paul says that he is being accused of the hope that all the Jews are waiting for and serving God day and night to receive! It’s funny how all the religious requirements of the law and temple, the whole culture of Judaism. All the symbols that made up their heritage. All the times they would quote Moses or Abraham ‘we have Abraham as our father’ ‘we know God spoke to Moses’ all of these things were for THE SOLE PURPOSE of coming to a point in Jewish history where the Jews would receive their Messiah. Paul states ‘this actual hope and reason for our existence as a Jewish nation is the cause of contention that the Jewish leaders have against me’. What an amazing thing! Now once again Paul will state the basic Christian doctrine of Jesus and his resurrection ‘king Agrippa, why would it be so hard to believe that God can raise the dead’? Did you ever ponder this question? A few years ago you didn’t exist [30-50-70?] since you were born you have been taught that you exist because of certain natural means. You learned the process of birth, and some of you have actually had kids yourselves. During your life you have heard and learned about the universe, planets, the history of man. We have lived thru an industrial and technological revolution. We put men on the moon, we splice genes, we take men’s hearts out of their bodies and put pumps in there place! Plus all these things came from a point in time where there was no thing! Hebrews says God made every thing from nothing! Science actually does agree with this [read my section on Evolution] and after all this experience and knowledge you have attained in your very short life, yet if God were to say ‘I will raise the dead’ people say ‘now, how can you expect me to believe that?’ We do have pea brains at times! Paul also retells his conversion and says how Jesus told him he would be a witness of the historical events of Christ and his resurrection, but Jesus also said ‘and you will testify of the things I will reveal to you in the future’. Now we have to do some stuff. What were the things that Jesus was going to reveal to Paul in the future? We read these things in Paul’s letters. Basically the great reality of our sharing in the divine nature [actually this is Peter] our sonship. The great mystery of God making one new man out of Jew and Gentile. Truths concerning the ascension and the heavenly realities of redemption [Hebrews]. The point is the ‘future revelation’ of Jesus to Paul was not some knowledge outside of the boundaries already laid down in the gospels. The doctrine of the Apostles was already being taught thru out the book of Acts. God simply gave Paul greater insight and revelation into the truths that already existed. The Gnostics [early second century cult of Christianity- the word comes from the Greek term ‘Gnosis’- knowledge]. They taught a type of special knowledge that said the basic Christian who only has the historical truths of Jesus are at a lower level. Once you become a Gnostic, you then have special revelation that can’t be learned thru normal means. A popular Christian teaching comes close to this ‘revelation knowledge’. Many years ago I was a student of E.W. Kenyon and the word of faith movement. Brother Kenyon taught a type of mystical teaching that said God can reveal things to people outside of the 5 senses, and this is ‘revelation knowledge’. Can God do this? To a degree, yes. We actually read how Agabus gave Paul a prophecy about being bound at Jerusalem. Or Paul dreaming about a man in Macedonia asking for help. I see the reality of God being able to reveal things to us supernaturally as a gift of the prophetic. We are born of Gods Spirit and we do receive understanding from God as his Spiritual children. But yet Paul will write ‘study to show yourself approved’. So Jesus told Paul he was going to show him stuff in the future. Paul based his apostolic authority on this fact [Galatians 1-2]. He would say ‘the gospel I preach was not given to me by men, but God revealed it to me’ what gospel is Paul talking about? The gospel [good news] of the grace of God. Jesus revealed the more important stuff to Paul as time went on, Paul was seeing more and more grace!
(767) ACTS 27- Paul heads to Rome! He sets sail under guard and has a few harrowing experiences. He warns the ships captain not to sail at one stop, the time of severe weather is at hand. They refuse to listen, they set sail and wind up almost dying. Paul gives them a classic ‘I told you so!’ and says ‘don’t worry, an angel from God appeared to me and told me your lives will be spared’ [poor Paul, when is he going to see that these prophetic experiences are ruining his ministry!] they all swim to shore after the ship gets stuck off shore. At one point while still stuck in the water Paul tells them ‘you guys have not eaten in 14 days, have some food’ he breaks bread, thanks God and invites them to eat. I really see this as a type of ‘Lords supper’ thing. I have showed you guys in the past that the early church practiced a type of ‘common meal’. They seemed to take Jesus words in John 6 [Paul in Corinthians too] to teach that ‘as oft as you do this’ [do what? As oft as you get together and eat a meal from this time forth, you will remember that your actual spiritual life is pictured by you eating and drinking for physical life. I am your daily bread of life. You live because I live!]The early believers seemed to take it in this ‘buffet style’ way. So Paul seems to be holding some type of ‘invitation Lords meal’ and saying come and dine! At the end of this chapter Paul’s life is spared by the favor he had with the centurion Julius. God gave him protection to complete the mission. Paul has been witnessing of Jesus to all these gentile [Roman] authorities and he will take it to Rome. Ultimately it will take 3 centuries before the whole kingdom [Roman Empire] will bow the knee, but Paul was the firebrand who set the match.
(768) ACTS 28- After the shipwreck they wind up on an island called Melita. Paul meets the barbarous people and they welcome him. During a bon fire type thing, Paul is collecting wood and a poisonous snake bites him. The people think ‘surely this man is a murderer and ‘vengeance’ got him!’ Notice the fact that moral/natural law was imbedded in the consciences of these savage like people. Where in the world did they come up with such an idea of right and wrong and justice? The atheists say ‘well, all people simply come up with some type of code to live by. This is really not proof for moral law’. The Christian answers ‘so how come you never find some isolated tribe who rewards murder and punishes goodness’! Now, I realize there are distant tribes who practice violent stuff. The point is in all of these societies, there is a basic right and wrong that is honored. If the tribe is violent, they still don’t reward the cowardly killing of one of their own kids! These savages had the built in conscience of moral law that Paul teaches in Romans. Now after Paul doesn’t get sick or die from the bite, they ‘change their minds’ and say he is a god! People are fickle. Paul heals the father of the chief of the island, a small healing revival breaks out. Paul demonstrates the power of the gospel in word and deed. Even today, in many 3rd world countries you see healings and miraculous signs along with the preaching of the gospel. They launch off and land in a few more spots and finally make it to Rome! Paul calls the Jewish leaders and makes his familiar defense. He lists the accusations against him and defends himself. He thought the whole Jewish world knew about the gossip! The leaders tell him ‘we haven’t heard any stuff about you, but tell us more about this sect’. Leaders, don’t make the mistake of defending yourself over personal stuff from the pulpit! Often time’s people don’t now what you are talking about. Paul does set up a day and teaches the Jews in Rome from morning till evening showing them all the scriptures that testify of Jesus in the Law of Moses and the prophets. He ‘testified of the Kingdom of God and Christ’ [they go hand in hand!] Some Jews believe, others don’t. Paul then quotes the most quoted verse from the Old Testament in the New Testament ‘Isaiah was right about you! Having eyes you can’t see, ears you can’t hear…’ Luke ends the chapter [and book] with Paul living 2 years in a rented room and preaching the kingdom of God to all who will listen. Paul finished his days infecting the capitol city of the empire with the gospel! Church history tells us that Paul [and Peter] were martyred under Nero’s persecution. John [the apostle] writes about the beast making war against the saints and killing them. No wonder why the early church called Nero ‘the beast’. Paul writes one of his best letters to the Roman saints and the church will forever have an ‘eternal witness’ in the city of Rome. Paul got his wish.
(769) ACTS CONCLUSION- As we finish our study in Acts, I want to review a few things. The ‘church’ [ecclesia] as seen in Acts are without a doubt ‘organic’ this term describes the community of people in the various locations who believed the message of the Messiah. These people were not establishing ‘church meetings at the church on Sunday’ to compete with the Jewish meetings at the synagogues on Saturday. The transition from the old law into the new covenant was not only one of a change in message [law versus grace] but also a transition from shadows to reality. All the ways of worship and ‘liturgical’ form were part of the old law. The temple and priest and altar were important types and symbols of what was to come. But in the New Testament communities these ideas of physical worship changed. The actual praise of Gods people and doing good deeds will become the sacrifices that God is well pleased with [New Testament]. The Lords meal was actually a meal! The gathering on the first day of the week became a good tradition in memory of Christ’s resurrection. But as time went on many well meaning believers would return to the symbols and incorporate them into their worship. The church would be seen as the ‘church house’ the altar would be seen as a real place upon which the ‘bloodless sacrifice’ [Eucharist] would be re offered again for the sins of the world. The priest would be seen as having special powers given to him by Jesus, that during the mass the host becomes Jesus flesh and blood and as the people ‘eat’ him they are partaking, literally, of Jesus flesh and blood. Now, are all these believers wrong? Should we see the development of sacramental theology as pagan? I personally don’t think so. I prefer to view the changes that took place in the church as part of a process of Gods people grappling with doctrines and beliefs while at the same time struggling to maintain unity as the centuries progressed [I am not making excuses for wrong doctrine, I think well meaning church fathers grasped wrong ideas out of a fear of loosing their identity. The idea of a strong magesterium [teaching authority] gave room for wrong doctrines to become firmly entrenched in the collective mind of the early church]. For the first 1000 years of Christianity the people of God were primarily seen as Catholic. In 1054 the official split between eastern and western Christianity will take place. Another 500 years until the Catholic Church split again [1517]. The host of churches that came out of the Protestant Reformation are too innumerable to mention. Should we view all of these groups as deceived religionists? Of course not. Do we find a pattern in Acts that would allow us to trace ‘the true group’ and lay claim to being the most authentic? I don’t believe so. But as all the people of God strive for the unity that we actually posses in Christ, we have the great resource of the church fathers, the wisdom and insights of the reformers. The heritage of the outgrowth of the restorationist movements. The excitement of the Puritans as they launched out to found a new world free from religious persecution. If it weren’t for the strong institutional church we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to have even had a Luther [Wittenberg] Calvin [first Paris then Geneva] or Zwingli [Zurich]! Or the ‘pre reformers’ Wycliffe, Huss and Knox. These men were products of Catholic higher learning! It was the reality of Catholic institutional Christianity that allowed for these men to be trumpets of truth in their day! The university cities that they taught in as Catholic priests allowed for their influence to spread far and wide. In each generation of believers you have had Gods people progress so far and leave us with great treasures that were intended to be passed on to future generations If we severe ourselves from historic Christianity, then we lose the great gains that have been made in the centuries gone by! The book of Acts shows us the freedom of the people of God. ‘Where 2 or more are together in my name, I am in the midst’ isn’t some description of ‘local church’. As in if we copy the formulas of what happened in Acts [break bread, prayer, etc.] then you ‘have a church’. Jesus promise to be with us when we are together is the act of brotherhood. Surely we saw Jesus going along with the people of God all thru out Acts. The Spirit of God that indwelt them in chapter 2 was the promise that he would be with them. He legitimized them! Not some institution [‘local church’] that they were to start! So today all the people of God are striving to find a closer identity with each other as fellow believers in the Lord. I believe the book of Acts gives us a beautiful picture of the church in her infancy stage. I also believe the growth seen as we read Paul’s letters to these churches indicates the heart of God for his people to remain in grace. Paul warns the churches to not fall into the legalism of observing days and regulations and legalistic requirements. He wants them to live simply, free from sin and to be the people of God in society. Some branches of Christianity took hold of the strong ‘we are pilgrims’ view [which is true to a degree] and would separate from society. Not realizing we are pilgrims and strangers to the worlds system, but our Father is God of heaven and earth! We are here to impact this planet! So let’s run with the exciting message and revolutionary mindset that the early church possessed. They weren’t in this thing for what they could get out of it, they were really laying their lives down for the gospel. They were sharing their stuff with each other. They were loving God and their fellow man in ways that were uncommon for their time. It wasn’t only what they said that allowed them to ‘turn their world upside down’ it was who they were, the People of God.
[These next 3 are out of order, I penned them during our study in Acts but wanted to separate them from the study]
(762) ZECHARIAH 3:4 ‘I HAVE CAUSED THINE INIQUITY TO PASS FROM THEE, AND I WILL CLOTHE THEE WITH CHANGE OF RAIMENT’. SPECIAL NOTE- I have been hesitating to break into our study in Acts. But I felt the Lord wanted to do a few prophetic things. The other morning I woke up and did the usual prayer, study and writing. I basically read and meditate for an hour or so. Then I pray for an hour and teach [write/make radio stuff] for an hour or so. This usually starts at around 3:30 am and by 8:00 or so I have done all the teaching. Some days I just wait on the Lord and rest. I will spend the day just praying, more like being in the yard and not reading or doing any outward stuff. It feels like a ‘prayer day’ when this happens. I felt the Lord communicate the verse ‘in the day I deliver you from all of your iniquities I will cause you to dwell in the CITIES and the wastes shall be built’. I have memorized this years ago. At around 3:00 p.m., after sort of sensing the whole day as kind of an offshoot of this verse. Sort of just resting and not putting your hand to the ‘cart’ [trying to figure things out or make stuff happen]. I prayed ‘Lord, show me a miracle right now’ [hey, sometimes this does work!] I really didn’t expect one to be honest. But at that moment a page from some paper flew over the roof and into my yard. I immediately got up and thought ‘I bet this thing is prophetic’. Stuff like this has happened before. The paper was an old page torn out of some tourist magazine, on one side it had every city in the state of Texas just listed with no explanation. Of course I just spent the whole day praying about having an effect in all these cities! Many of the cities I was naming were right there in print. Of course stuff like this could be a coincidence, but try it yourself and see how long it takes for a page to blow in your yard? A few verses ‘THIS MAN IS LIKE A STICK [BRANCH] PLUCKED OUT OF THE FIRE’ ‘I have taken away your iniquity, I will clothe you in clean clothes’ these are references to Joshua the high priest [not the other Joshua!] in Zechariah 3. The Lord rebukes satan who was standing at his right hand to resist him. Joshua was also standing and fulfilling his priestly purpose. The Lord allows him to function initially in a state of uncleanness. He is doing it by the righteousness of God. The resistance is coming as a direct result of him fulfilling the purpose of God. The filthy clothes and the resistance of the enemy are direct results of his calling and purpose. The enemy has spent extra time trying to soil his garments. The Lord supernaturally removes his iniquity in a day. It also says the nation’s iniquity was removed at the same time. The corporate purpose of God was fulfilled thru his ministry at the same time he experienced individual cleansing [Paul Cain and others who represent the former times?] the Lord puts a turban on his head and he fulfils his purpose in God. I simply felt like the lord was speaking to many of us at this season, he is going to do a ‘sudden work of cleansing’ on many of his prophetic voices as a precursor to his corporate purpose in the earth.
(763) ZECHARIAH 3:7 ‘IF THOU WILT WALK IN MY WAYS AND KEEP MY CHARGE, THEN THOU SHALT JUDGE MY HOUSE AND SHALL ALSO KEEP MY COURTS, AND I WILL GIVE THEE PLACES TO WALK AMONG THESE THAT STAND BY’- I felt like the Lord was saying to take advantage of this special season of change. Sort of like the Lord saying to Abraham ‘if thou will obey me’. God is saying it’s up to you to avail yourself freely of this time of grace that he is making available. The imagery of the ‘stick/branch plucked from the fire’[Zechariah 3] fits with the study we did in Genesis. Jacobs blessing on Joseph was he would ‘be like a bough [vine] planted by a well [source of life giving water] whose branches go over the wall [influence beyond the ‘wall’ group you associate with]. The archers shot at you [Joseph] but did not prevail. Yet your bow prevailed and I strengthened your arms’. Also the blessing on Judah ‘the scepter shall not depart from Judah [the authority to carry out the mission at this time] nor a lawgiver from between his feet [the means by which he communicates the message thru you] unto him shall the gathering of the people be [many will come to see this new strange work] and his hand shall be on the neck of his enemy [the evil one will lose authority] and as a young lion [the youth will play a major role!] he shall crouch down and go up from the prey’. In this chapter [Zechariah 3] Joshua is a type of Christ who is THE BRANCH. Jesus is the vine/bough [John 15] planted next to the spring/well, he ‘grows’ thru out the earth. Of course we are his body [‘ye are the branches’ Jn. 15] so the well of life giving water in us will be life to the nations. I felt like the Lord was saying this is a set time for many of us to access the flow that is going forth at this time and be a part of ‘the man whose name is the branch, he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the Lord’. NOTE- Because I have been doing a chapter by chapter study in the book of Acts, I haven’t shared prophetic stuff in a while. I recently had a few dreams that I felt were significant. I dreamt again, for the second time, that I was laying hands on a Catholic bishop and he was being filled powerfully with the Spirit. I feel this speaks of God doing a special work amongst the Catholics. I also dreamt Billy Graham, I can’t recall everything about it. But he does represent a sort of passing of the torch from our father’s generation to the next. This could signify the younger generation that God is going to use in this next step.
(764) ISAIAH 22:23- I took a 3 day excursion away from our study in the book of Acts, this should be it for now ‘AND I WILL FASTEN HIM AS A NAIL IN A SURE PLACE’. In our look at the ‘stick/branch’ verses in Zechariah, I felt the Lord wanted us to mention this as well. The stick plucked out of the fire [Zechariah 3] was dressed in dirty clothes and yet continued to stand and perform his function as God required. The resistance he was feeling was a direct result of his prophetic calling [priestly]. The fact that he was ‘plucked’ from the fire speaks of him having been in a place of judgment/purging. Jesus spoke of sacrifices being purged with fire. Joshua [the priest who is referred to as ‘the stick/brand’] will eventually be like ‘the nail in a secure place’ some versions say ‘tent stake/peg’ [stick!] God has allowed you to go thru a purging/burning period of your life. The fact that your ‘rod will bud’ [divine production] in itself will be a sign to others. When the rod budded as a sign under Moses leadership, it was a stick that was ‘from dry ground’. That is a plain stick without any roots. Isaiah says this about Christ ‘root out of a dry ground’. The fact that many of you have been thru this process has qualified you to be ‘a peg/stake in a secure place’. Everything that God will produce thru you at this point will obviously be a work of divine grace, there will be no other way to explain it! Also we quoted ‘if you walk in my ways AND keep my commands, then you will judge my house and keep my courts and have a place among these’. I felt like the Lord was speaking ‘process and conduct’. Some of you [us!] have had process; you knew the ways/methods of the Lord, but lacked conduct. Others had good conduct, but had no vision or purpose. God wants to tear down old methods [processes] that have hindered your walk. He wants to uproot demonic strongholds in your thought processes. Don’t be deceived! The renewing of your mind is not a legalistic work of you trying to change your own thoughts. Scripture says ‘you who were enemies and alienated IN YOUR MINDS by wicked works, now hath he reconciled thru the body of his flesh by death’ the work of redemption is what reconciles your mind. Jesus blood didn’t just ‘save your spirit’ but you now have to redeem your own mind. Jesus blood radically affected your mind! Renewing your mind means living and acting out based on this truth of grace! As you meditate on the Cross and the grace of God, then the stronghold of the enemy will be rooted out. At that point you will also have ‘good conduct’. ‘Commit your works unto the Lord and your thoughts will be established’ God will plant you like a tent stake that is secure for expansion. ‘Strengthen thy stakes and lengthen thy cords, for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left… your seed will inherit the gentiles and make the desolate cities to be inhabited’ Isaiah.
(770) JUDGES 1-2 This part of the story of Israel’s walk with God is a stage where God ‘raised them up judges’. When God initiates divine leadership, it works. Don’t confuse the act of God with the ideas of men. There will come a time where Israel tells God ‘we want a king like the other nations’ and God says by asking this they rejected his headship over them. Being we are coming off of our study in Acts, I want you to see these judges thru the lens of God ordained Elders [leaders]. In Acts, God used men. He even allowed Paul to tell the Christians ‘ordain [recognize] elders in every city’. So it is fine to have a recognized leader in the community [actually in Acts it’s ‘leaders’ plural!] Now the children of Israel ask the Lord ‘who should go up first?’ and the Lord says ‘Judah’. Remember, Jacob blessed Judah and said ‘the scepter shall not depart from Judah’ Judah [praise] is ordained for battle! They start inheriting the land and they leave a remnant of the old ‘ites’ in the land. They basically are so excited about the amount of ground they are covering, that they fail to maintain what God is giving them! ‘Strengthen the things that remain, that are ready to die’ REVELATION. An angel rebukes them in chapter 2 for failing to fully [with all their heart] follow the Lord. Caleb’s daughter asks Caleb ‘you have given me a southland, give me also springs of water’. Let’s read this thru the eyes of ‘LECTIO DIVINA’ , an ancient way of reading scripture in a devotional sense. You basically try to hear God personally speak to you thru the text. This ‘way’ of reading is not in context, you shouldn’t develop doctrines from it, but it is useful for personal stuff. I just finished praying for ‘the southland’, all the regions in South Texas that we are reaching out to. I [we] need ‘springs of water to go along with the land’. Paul said we can plant and claim and confess all day long, but if Gods Spirit doesn’t fall [water] we will never see a harvest! Israel catches a king on the run and chops off his big toes and thumbs. The king says ‘God paid me back, I too have done this to other kings’. What’s up with this? Basically the guy without thumbs and toes is simply surviving. He can fetch you some water, hold the bucket and all. Or walk around and be your ‘go- for’ guy. But don’t dare try and wield one of those heavy swords, it will come out of your hand! Or don’t try any quick foot moves, you will fall in an instant. The enemy wants to ‘immobilize you’. Give you a retirement mentality ‘sit back and worry about whether or not you have enough resources to make it to 76 and die’. Geez, get up out of that Lazy boy and act like you got some big toes and thumbs! The Israelites also catch some guy fleeing one of the cities and they make him tell them how to get into the city. They then raid the city and take it. Work smarter, not harder! Sometimes we have the mindset of ‘If we just had more money we could change the world’ they could have beat on the walls of the city all day, hired guys to bang on it with hammers! But once God shows you the entrance [key to get in] it goes much smoother. God can knock the walls down [Jericho] but seek him for the process he wants to give to you. Don’t assume the pattern that so and so used will automatically work for you. Don’t confuse the goal [taking the city] with the procedures of the past. God just might want to give you a secret entrance into the city, and you are praying for ‘more wall breakers’ [didn’t me to be crude!].
(771) JUDGES 3- The Lord allows the enemies to remain partly in the land to ‘prove [test] the children who saw not the wars of Canaan’. God allowed the younger generation to learn what it meant to overcome some stuff. We live in a day where many believers are used to sitting in ‘church’ and being passive listeners their whole lives. They are all good people, it’s just they have never really learned how to war. To go out on their own and experience the kingdom. God taught the younger generation how to war. They cried unto the Lord during their oppression and the lord raised up Othniel. [Just a note, the way I do all our teaching (radio/blog) is I read the stuff ahead of time and when I teach I do it from memory. So sometimes you will see a misspelled name!] He is the younger brother of Caleb and he delivers the people. They soon back slide after his death and Eglon, the ‘fat king’ of Moab oppresses them. The Lord raises up Ehud. Notice the Lord is raising these judges up from the community! [Like the elders in Acts]. These judges experienced the same oppression as all the people around them. They lived with the complaints and bitterness of a people oppressed ‘geez, what does Eglon want now!’ The deliverers also didn’t carry all the weight, they simply showed the people that it’s possible to stand up for yourself and fight! Ehud goes to Eglon with ‘a present’ [tribute, the payment for being under him. But Ehud’s present doesn’t end there!] Ehud enters the king’s chamber. He says ‘I have a secret message from God for you’ and Eglon thinks he is going to get a little something extra. He does. Ehud takes his dagger out and shoves it all the way into Eglons fat belly! The handle and all. He escapes thru the porch and locks the doors behind him. He runs back to Israel and blows a trumpet and all the people descend upon Moab and slaughter 10 thousand mighty warriors. God gave them peace for 80 years. The description is graphic. The reason why Eglon is described as ‘fat’ is to show how this rule of lethargy and gluttony was suffocating God’s people. It took a risky, radical act of one man to say ‘I have had enough of this guy, I don’t care if I get killed, I am going to take him down!’ Sometimes it takes radical action to overthrow the spirit of mammon off of Gods people [you fight covetousness, not people!] After the violent [prophetic] act of Ehud, the people gained enough courage to cast the entire ruling nation of Moab off of them. Sometimes God will raise up a singular voice [John the Baptist was a voice in the wilderness] to stir up the people to action. The individual can’t do it alone [he might take down an Eglon] but the people have to cast off the oppressors themselves [or at least finish the job].
(772) JUDGES 4- Deborah judges Israel. Let’s get into the role of women in the ‘church’. Wow, talk about being a glutton for punishment! First, the New Testament clearly teaches that in Christ there is neither male or female, Jew or Greek, bond or free. Paul also lays down some guidelines in Corinthians and his pastoral epistles [Timothy, Titus] on the role of women and leaders in the church. We taught the book of Acts and saw that Phillip had 4 ‘virgins’ who prophesied. Peter quotes the famous Joel prophecy and says ‘in the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, your sons and DAUGHTERS will prophesy’. So we see two themes in the New Testament on women. One, they most certainly can be used in spiritual gifts, even ‘speaking ones’. While at the same time Paul tells the Corinthians to not allow the women to have authority over the men. He even says ‘let them keep silent in the ‘church’. [note- as you read all my teaching on this blog on what the church is, this will answer many questions on this subject. I also am aware of those who make a distinction here between ‘women’ and ‘married women’, the idea that the wives were asking their husbands questions during the meetings and how this could be seen as disorderly and out of custom for the time. The same idea on the subject of women and ‘hats’ in church. Were these instructions dealing with certain customs at Corinth that were peculiar to that city? Corinth was a wild place, the ‘women’ on the streets had customs that went along with ‘their trade’. Some think this played a role in Paul’s guidelines in this letter]. So obviously Paul did not see the reality of all being equal as meaning all have the same roles and responsibilities. Would it be wrong for God to not make everyone an Apostle or Prophet? Of course not. Does this mean that all cant prophesy? No. But God given roles and being equal [in value] in Gods eyes are different things. Would a father be fair if he let 2 of his boys join the football team [or boxing] and discouraged his daughter from doing the same? Just because people have different roles does not mean they do not share equal value. Now, we could go on forever with this. Some used arguments like this to justify slavery, I certainly disagree with that! But I also believe we have gone overboard [certain church ideas] in introducing Pastors as ‘Pastor Bob and Pastor Betty’ to the degree where we feel it would be bigoted to not see them as having the same role. Now, as you understand that the church is the corporate people of God, you will see that God is not ‘restricting’ the function of women as much as it might seem. The fact that the New testament did not have the singular role of ‘The Pastor’ as the primary functioning gift in the Local churches, would show you that even if women were not seen as Elders or Pastors [they were not by the way] would not mean they couldn’t function in spiritual gifts. But because we practice Local church in a way that has a few main leaders doing most of the functioning, this does seem to tell the women ‘you cant be one of us, you cant function’. While in reality this limited view of Local church not only restricts the function of women, but of most of the men as well! So here we see the Lord use Deborah in a leadership position, but even she seems to think that Barak is shrinking back from the role of leadership. She tells him ‘the Lord wants you to go up and defeat the Canaanites’. He is fearful and says ‘I will go if you go too!’ She agrees and also gives a prophetic statement ‘this journey will not be for your glory’. I think the present mindset of church and modern ministry needs to get back to this principle. Jesus told us we are to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily and follow him. We often approach Christianity with the mindset of ‘I will achieve great goals and dreams by using God and scripture to attain all that I want out of life’. While it is true that God loves us and has good plans for us, we also need to see the virtue of actually denying ourselves for Christ. There are [and should be] real things that you desired to do or be at one point in your life, that you consciously laid down for Christ. This is a very real practice that most believers in today’s church environment don’t hear about. What have you given up for Jesus? Even saying it like this sounds strange to our ears! So ‘this journey is not for our glory’. Deborah tells Barak to go and defeat Sisera, the leader of Jabins army [geez, I am quoting all these names as I write, double check the spelling for yourselves]. He goes and defeats the mighty 900 steel chariot army of Jabin. Sisera escapes and hides in Jaels tent [the wife of Heber, descendants of Moses in laws]. He asks her to hide him, she covers him with a blanket. She gives him some milk, as he is sleeping she drives a tent stake thru his head! [Ouch] She then shows Barak that he is dead. God used women to help with the cause. He always has and always will. Jesus broke the etiquette of his day by allowing women to be ‘on his team’. He spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, a huge no no! He allowed Mary Magdalene to be part of the group. Prostitutes received mercy and wiped his feet with their hair! Jesus broke barriers and used women, but staying within the basic guidelines of ones calling [like women not being elders in the new testament churches] should not be seen as chauvinistic, but as simply submitting [both men and women!] to Gods basic order laid down in the new testament. NOTE- A few years back the southern baptist convention reaffirmed the basic truth that wives should submit to their husbands and husbands should love their wives as Christ loves the church. Boy did you have a firestorm in the liberal media over this. Both sides [even in the church] have a tendency to use the verses that seem to present their side the most. Paul actually referred to a woman [Junia- Romans 16:7] as a possible Apostle ‘who are of note among the Apostles’[depending on how you read the text]. So I believe the scriptures give us much leeway way in God using women in the church, but we should not think it ‘progressive thinking’ to simply by pass all the other portions of scripture that teach the different roles of men and women.
(773) PATRICKS STORY! This is a testimony from the prayer request section. Patrick is my sisters boyfriend. He is around ten years younger than me [I am 45 right now] my sister is a few years older than me. I have no other siblings. Patrick has struggled with drug addiction for many years. My sister became an addict at a young age and has been on the Methadone treatment stuff for years. Most addicts that are on Methadone [a manmade form of ‘heroin’] say it’s worse than the real thing. They often do both at the same time. Being on the ‘maintenance program’ basically means you are addicted to the drug. It eventually ruins your mind. My sister has had dramatic effects from the drug, she comes off as someone with severe mental problems. I met Patrick a few years back on one of my visits back to Jersey. He hung out with me for a week or so, we visited different churches on Sunday and just became buddies. I taught him stuff about the Lord. He is very smart, watches all the shows from the history channel and stuff. Was also aware of all the skeptics arguments against God. I basically gave him the other side. Though I never actually ‘led him to the Lord’ I realized he was affected by my visit. I really only saw him one more time after that. I spoke to him a few times over the phone, but I could tell he was like ‘one of my sons’ [referring to all the brothers that I have known over the years]. There was that ‘brotherhood connection’ that started. Well about 2 weeks ago when I was talking to my mom on the phone, I asked how Patrick was [he lives in my old house where I grew up as a boy in Jersey]. She admitted to me that he overdosed pretty bad and has been in the hospital for a few weeks. He was off of drugs for a while and was doing very good. He was attending the N.A. meetings [that’s the equivalent of A.A. for addicts] and was doing well. My mom told me how they thought he was dead when he was found, he was put on a respirator, had damage to his lungs and his kidneys quit working. I immediately knew his chances were slim. I have had friends die from overdoses before. When you are at this point your odds are not good! So I told my mom I would put him on the prayer list on this blog and we’ll see what happens. To be honest I thought he was gonna die. During this time I happened to do a study from Zechariah 3 and Isaiah 22 [you can go back 5 or so entries from here and find them]. The verses in these chapters include ‘your sons shall be as signs’ and ‘this iniquity shall not pass from you until you die’ [ouch!] I wasn’t looking for ‘signs’ so to speak, but when stuff like this happens it’s hard to ignore! Also during these few weeks I had 2 cats die and a strange appearing of a beautiful red cardinal [bird] in my yard. I have only seen a few down here over the years. I don’t think I have ever seen one in my yard before? Well I felt the bird might have represented ‘new life’ it could have meant my friend died, or maybe a second chance. I remember hearing the testimony of Joel Osteen’s mom, how before her husband died [John] she noticed this pretty bird at her window as she did the dishes. Then after a year or so it stopped coming around. When John died she felt lonely, and sure enough one day the bird showed up. She saw it as a sign from the Lord. So as I prayed for Patrick, he became part of the brotherhood of friends I regularly pray over. Also my mom had told me how when they first saw him at the hospital he was asking ‘where’s John’. My mom thought this strange, like why would someone who is on his deathbed, half conscious and half awake, ask for her son. I knew the connection thru the prayers and few visits over the years was real. Also he was in between life and death and I was doing the early morning prayers. It’s like if you are on the verge of dying and someone else is regularly interceding for you, you really can’t pass on without ‘permission’. So I didn’t call home [Jersey] in a few weeks and I really thought Patrick died. I finally told my wife ‘I better call, if he died then my sister must be really flipping out’. Before I called I prepared myself for the news. I even felt like if the Lord spared him [which would truly have been a miracle] that it would be a second chance for Pat to sell out for the Lord. Sure enough as I called and talked to my mom, she tells me ‘Patrick came home a few days ago, you wanna talk to him’. I knew it was a miracle. As my mom is telling me he made it, the red cardinal flew right into my yard [I was on the cell phone in the yard]. I had a long talk with Pat. He told me how they said ‘you will always need to be on dialysis from now on’. But after a few days they said ‘well, your kidneys are back to normal, you can go home’. When I first read the verses on ‘your sons are for signs’ and ‘this sin will not pass till you die’ [strong stuff!] I felt like the signs were saying we were going to lose Pat. During my prayers I invoked the Lord on Pats behalf, telling the Lord ‘you already lost a Son, thru that loss I reclaim Patrick’s life’. I felt the bird could have been a sign of Patrick dying, or a second chance at life. The lord gave us the better option. NOTE- I definitely credit your prayers as a direct cause of Patrick’s healing! Thank you.
(774) JUDGES 5-6 Deborah sings a victors song in chapter 5. I only want to mention one verse, she says ‘the mountains melted before you, even Sinai’. In the beginning of Judges I skipped the part where Judah defeats Jerusalem. This wording sounds strange in a way! Jerusalem of course was inhabited by the Jebusites and Judah took it. Sinai represents the law and Moses, grace and truth come from Jesus. I simply felt these ideas to be prophetic, speaking of a time in the future [Now, the New Covenant] where these natural identities will bow before the King! ‘The law came thru Moses [Sinai] but grace and truth came from Jesus Christ’. In chapter 6 we see one of the famous stories of a judge, Gideon. At this time in Israel’s history the Midianites were coming up every year during the harvest and wiping them out. It’s not that Israel wasn’t sowing [planting] it’s just they weren’t enjoying the harvest! The enemy left them enough freedom to plant and work the fields, it was just at harvest time when he gave them a hard time. Now Gideon is threshing wheat at ‘the winepress’ which is basically a hole in the ground. You can’t really thresh wheat in a cave! You need a ‘thresingfloor’, an open area where you can throw the wheat in the air and let the wind blow the chaff away. But all the children of Israel were doing this in secret spots to hide from the Midianites. So once again the people call out to God and he does it a little different this time. He sends them a Prophet first who says to them ‘God delivered you from Egypt and bondage, yet you feared the enemy and served false gods’. They were living in fear and permitted idolatry to become part of their worship [covetousness is the New Testament equivalent to idolatry]. Then the Lord sends an angel to Gideon and he tells him ‘you mighty man of valor, God is calling you to lead the people’. Gideon says ‘I come from poverty, I am the least in my family. How can I be the one’? The Lord doesn’t say ‘don’t worry, I will make you rich’ he simply tells Gideon ‘I will go with you’. Jesus used a rag tag team of disciples to turn the world up side down. They would ask ‘how can we feed this multitude, we don’t have the cash’ Jesus was with them! Gideon does this prophetic act and destroys the altar of Baal that was in his city. At night [because he was afraid] he takes 10 guys and they tear it down and erect an altar to God right in the city square. In the morning the men of the city say ‘who in the heck did this’? They are infuriated that someone would disturb the system that they became comfortable with [ouch!] They find out it was Gideon and they go to his house and want to kill him. The dad says ‘hey, if Baal is so offended, then let him do something about it’. Gideon’s dad had a little bit of the Elijah thing going on. Elijah tells the false prophets of Baal ‘where’s Baal? How come he can’t come and consume all this wood? Maybe he’s busy with some other stuff?’ One translation actually says ‘maybe he is on the potty’ these idol destroyers seemed to have no respect for the scared cows of the day. So Baal leaves Gideon alone and Gideon blows the trumpet and sends word to the various tribes. God is raising up Gideon to ‘come upon the enemy as one man’. We will later see the enemy have a dream of Gideon and the people rolling into the enemy’s camp as a Barley loaf. These are prophetic images of the Body of Christ. We are ‘one bread’ so to speak. Notice how the people became accustomed to the altar of Baal in their midst. They were irate that someone came along and shook the apple cart. At first they wanted to kill the guy, but then they recognized [grudgingly!] that Gideon was right. Sometimes the Lord will speak a word into the church that at first seems unbelievable. ‘Who does so and so think he is?’ But if the word is from the Lord, the people will eventually get on board with it and even partake of the benefits from the word. Gideon didn’t turn the troops on the men from his city who wanted to kill him. He simply fulfilled his prophetic destiny and attacked the enemy, not his fellow citizens! He allowed them time to get on the bandwagon, they eventually did.
(775) JUDGES 7- God calls Gideon to the battle. He rounds up the troops and is ready to storm the enemy. One thing, God says ‘you have too many resources’. What? I thought you were the God of abundance, don’t you want to multiply everything? Well he is the God of abundance, but that doesn’t always mean ‘more is better’. So God instructs Gideon to simply say ‘we have too many people, so whoever is afraid can go home’. 22 thousand walk out. Ouch! I think Gideon would have snuck out with the crowd too if he wasn’t the Pastor. So they have 10 thousand left. Gideon brings them to the water and God shrinks the group down to 300. So Gideon is supposed to defeat the Midianites and Amalekites and some others with 300 men. He feels ill. The Lord tells him to sneak into the enemy camp at night and listen to what they are saying. He sneaks in and hears one of the guys telling a dream how he saw a Barley loaf [a type of the Body of Christ- we are ‘one bread’ who partake of the bread of life] roll into the camp and flatten a tent. The other guy says ‘this is the sword of Gideon, God has delivered us into his hands’. Gideon hears this prophetic word [from the enemy! I guess Gideon didn’t have any prophets on his team?] and stirs the troops up and says ‘here’s the plan’. He lays out a strategy of splitting up into 3 groups of 100 each, and having them hold a lamp in a pot in one hand and a trumpet in the other hand. They go down into the enemy camp and surround the camp. Gideon’s group breaks the pots and blows the trumpets, the others follow. They all shout ‘the sword of the Lord and of Gideon’. This causes fear in the enemy camp. They panic and start turning on each other in order to escape. They pulled a ‘George’ from Seinfeld! George is at this kid’s birthday party and someone burns some food on the stove. They think it’s a fire and George panics and knocks the kids over in his attempt to save himself. He even pushes an old grandma out of the way in the process! So the Midianites pull a George and flee at the expense of their own people. Gideon calls the other tribes to join in on the route and they defeat the enemy. Notice that God didn’t use the 300 hundred to do all the work, they simply were the brave ones who were willing to risk everything for the cause. Ultimately the rest of the nation had to get on board with the program. There are times in church history where God will raise up radical groups who are pursuing hard after God. Initially they will be the igniters of the fire. But for the full purpose of God to prevail others will have to join in. This dynamic has a tendency to cause jealousy in the church. We will see this in the next chapter. Note- The lamps [oil-Spirit] in the clay pots [we are called earthen vessels in Corinthians] represent the Body of Christ. It was in the breaking [repentance, brokenness] of the vessels that allowed the light to shine forth. God used an army of broken light bearers who trumpeted his word to take the enemy. The same idea of the ‘fiery tongues’ on the early church. The fire from their mouths [the preaching of the gospel- Revelation says ‘fire proceeds out of their mouths and devours the enemy’] went forth like a trumpet and took over the entire roman world!
(776) JUDGES 8- As Gideon routes the enemy, the children of Ephraim got in on it. Were they thankful that Gideon gave them a shot? No. They were mad that he didn’t let them in on it from the start! Gideon appeases their jealousy and says ‘you guys have done more than me. I take no personal glory from this’. Gideon saw his calling as one that would benefit the other ‘tribes’ [denominations]. He knew his purpose was not to start his own tribe! Now as Gideon is pursuing the 2 kings of Midian [Zeba, Zalmunna? In keeping myself honest, I did not just check the spelling] he comes thru 2 cities [Succoth, Penuel?] and asks the men ‘can you help us out? We are pursuing the kings of Midian and the troops need some food’. The men of Succoth say ‘why should we help? We don’t see them in your hands yet’. In essence, they were not sure if Gideon and his personal little ‘vendetta’ was going to prevail. We need to be careful that we don’t judge a prophetic act of God and take things personal. These cities needed to get on board when it counted. Gideon is not going to need their help after the job is done! So he tells them ‘fine, but when I’m done with the job, I will come back and whip your Elders with thorn bushes’. Gideon is treading dangerous territory. He actually is setting his judgment up against the God ordained elders of this city [Romans]. But like the Apostle Paul, his unique calling was unstoppable. They would go against elders or whoever they needed to, in order to complete the mission. So Gideon catches the 2 kings and tells his son ‘fall upon them with the sword’. His son hesitates out of fear. The 2 kings actually rebuke Gideon’s boy and tell him to have courage. Gideon takes the sword and kills the kings. A few interesting notes. The people are so overjoyed with Gideon’s authority that they say ‘Be our king, rule over us as a dynasty’. Gideon refuses and says this would be a rejection of Gods authority. Eventually Saul will become the king that fills this role. Even though God raised up strong authority figures, yet there was a distinction between over doing mans rule and recognizing Gods authority. Paul will teach the concept of God recognized elders in the New Testament church. But will also warn of men wanting to draw away disciples after themselves. Some will fall into the snare of ‘becoming kings’. Also Gideon took all the gold jewelry from the Midianites and made an Ephod [a priestly object] and it became an idol to the people. They fell into the snare of covetousness/idolatry that would become a hallmark of Israel’s rebellion.
(777) JUDGES 9- Gideon died in the last chapter and his 70 sons were to rule as a plurality of elders. The same picture we see from Moses and the 70 elders. In Judges we see the dynamic of a plurality of leadership, along with the input of strong Apostolic/Prophetic voices. The same idea we saw in the book of Acts. Now Gideon previously refused the role of singular kingship over the people. It took both courage and humility to say ‘I will not be a king over you’. In the struggle to return back to a more biblical example of Christian leadership functioning in the ‘local church’ you need both humility and courage to resist the impulse in man to want a ‘famous leader’ to ‘rule over them’. Now Abimelech, Gideon’s son, was born from one of Gideon’s mistresses from the town of Shechem. Do you remember when we studied this town in the past? It was the town where the son of the prince raped Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. Jacobs’s boys had the towns men circumcise themselves and they went in and slew the city. Well, the boy who raped Dinah was Shechem. The town is named after him. So the history of this city is one of humiliation. Like Germany after WW1, they felt humiliated as a people. The maniac Hitler used a false ethnic nationalism to mobilize the people under him. This is what Abimelech does. He tells the men of Shechem ‘do you want the 70 sons of Gideon to rule over you [plurality] or one king?’ Here you have the temptation of power and authority seen in Abimelech. He does contrary to his father’s rejection of singular headship and thru deception takes a position that was never originally intended [he falls into the trap of singular authority over the people. A trend that the Christian church will also develop over many centuries] so the men of Shechem agree and Abimelech goes and kills the 70 sons of Gideon. But the youngest one escapes. His name is Jotham. He gives this prophetic speech from a hill [God ordained forum] and tells a parable. The parable has these trees asking the olive tree ‘come and reign over us’ and the tree says ‘should I leave my God ordained place and be promoted over other trees’. The same thing happens with the fig tree and the vine. They recognize the futility of leaving their God ordained position and trying to become a ‘ruler of other trees’. Finally the bramble [weed] rules over them. Jotham sees the rule of Abimelech as a twisted distortion of Gods authority. For three years Abimelech rules Israel and a local guy says ‘why should we have him rule over us? I can do a better job’ notice, just because Abimelech is ruling outside of Gods order, does not mean that any ‘Tom, Dick or Harry’ can come along and mount a successful over throw! This local stirs up the men of Shechem and turns the city against Abimelech. Another local resents this and sends word secretly to Abimelech ‘Hey, some guy is telling everybody he can do a better job than you. Come and put him in his place’. Sure enough a few days go by and Abimelech descends the hill with his troops. The rebel who is trying to displace Abimelech says ‘what’s that? I see men coming down’ the other local says ‘you must be seeing things’. Finally the rebel says ‘no, I see an army’. The secret confidant of Abimelech says ‘It’s Abimelech. Where’s you big mouth now! You talk a tough talk, let’s see some action’. Sure enough he realizes that this guy set him up. So Abimelech, even though he is operating unlawfully [outside of Gods original purpose] mounts a strong attack. He has resources and ‘supporters’ who took pride in his ruthless rule. Much like the mafia guys who would help their neighborhoods and gain the support of others, even though they were ruthless murderers! Abimelech defeats this challenge to his rule, but chases the enemy into a city and this lady from a tower drops a stone on his head from the tower and kills him. God did avenge the ruthless slaughter of Gideon’s 70 sons [Gods relational/plural plan of ruler ship] but the immature challenge to Abimelechs rule from an inexperienced local was not going to cut it. I see a lot of pictures from this story. The parable of Jotham really has some spiritual meaning to it. The idea of the trees rejecting false promotion has elements of Jesus teaching in it ‘the gentiles exercise authority by being promoted over people, this shall not be so with you’. The power struggles between those who resent all authority! Some simply challenge the present authority structures in Christianity out of an immature spirit [like the local guy in Shechem]. Over all we see the rebellion in Abimelechs rule and taking a position that his father had previously rejected. Just because someone might be in a position of promotion that God doesn’t want, this does not mean that all challenges to this authority are God ordained. As the Body of Christ struggles to get back to a more biblical idea of Christian leadership, getting away from the strong ‘I am your Pastor’ mentality and returning to a respect and honoring of spiritual elders in your midst [the term pastor is fine by the way] we need to recognize both sides of the coin. Don’t simply follow anyone who says ‘why should so and so think he can tell us what to do’. Some of these voices speak out of immaturity and rebellion. But in Gods timing the mature ‘trees’ will be wise enough to say ‘why should I go and be promoted over other trees’. Leaders will learn to blossom and produce fruit while not taking positions of promotion contrary to their nature.
(778) JUDGES 10- The children of Israel forsake the Lord and he delivers them into the hand of the enemy. They do the usual ‘Lord, help us!’ But this time they get a different response. The Lord says ‘I am tired of helping you guys time and again. Every time I come thru for you, you eventually go back to your former ways. Go and cry unto the gods you are serving, see if they can help you!’ Wow, they never got a response like this before. They decide to clean up their act anyway, they put away their false gods and ask the Lord ‘How about helping us one last time?’ The King James Bible says ‘Just this day’. You can take it as ‘one more time’ or ‘help us in this immediate situation’. Jesus taught us in the Lords prayer to pray ‘deliver us from evil, give us this day our daily bread’. Sometimes the view gets so dark that even if you have lost faith for the ‘long term vision’ you can at least ask the Lord ‘what about intervening for the simple fact that we can’t make it today unless you move’. The daily Manna was Gods help and sustenance on a daily basis. He purposely set it up like this so they would learn to depend daily upon him. We all have a tendency to develop systems and ideas about God. The whole concept of ‘ministry’ entails a system of function that we expect God to bless. It’s easy to lose sight of the sovereignty of God and come to depend on the system. Some teach that God has done all he can do to save you, or help you in this present life. That the answer to your problem is to learn the ‘system’ he uses from the bible and implement it. In essence ‘God is continually transmitting what you need, the trick is getting your spiritual antenna in the right direction’ [I just heard it preached on radio a few days ago]. While there are some applications of truth to this idea, it can also lead to a legalistic road of thinking that the answer to your problem is found in you DOING SOMETHING. Ultimately the answer to our problem is WE NEED GOD TO ACT ON OUR BEHALF! So the children of Israel say ‘Lord, how about helping for just this day’. Well we already know the answer. He will raise up another judge in the next chapter. But he wants us to learn the lesson. He does want us to get to a stage where we don’t keep falling into the same rut [iniquity- patterns ‘ruts’ of sin]. God will come thru for you today, Jesus ‘ever lives to make intercession for us’ he will help you if you ask.
(779) JUDGES 11- The children of Gilead [Israelites] live in an area named after their father. They have a brother who was born from ‘a harlot’. The brothers kick him out of town and tell him ‘you will have no inheritance with us’. He is seen as illegitimate. He gathers a ragtag team of ‘vain’ men around him. He is despised and rejected of men. He is a type of Jesus. He reminds me of King David and his disgruntled men. This mans name is Jephthah. In process of time the children of Ammon harass the sons of Gilead. They posses the ancient land of Ammon. The king of Ammon lets Gilead know that he is re-staking his claim on his forefather’s territory. Gilead is scared and feeling threatened by Ammon. The king of Ammon knows it, he is like the bully in school who makes his first threat and realizes that he can get away with it. Now, the Elders of Gilead have a little council meeting. They discuss the situation. Sure enough a motion is made ‘I move that we hire our brother Jephthah to become our leader’. What! We kicked him out, we judged him illegitimate. Don’t you remember his bad upbringing? They bite the bullet and send word to Jephthah. Now Jephthah will take the job, but first he makes them eat a little crow [very unkosher!]. He says ‘now you guys need me, what happened to all the talk of me being a trouble maker and some unordained rebel?’ They swallow the crow. Jephthah agrees and signs a contract [of course I am ad libbing here]. Now the king of Ammon has been getting away with his bravado for a while. Jephthah takes the job and immediately sends a response to Ammon. ‘Why are you messing with me? I am giving you fair warning to back off’ Huh? The king of Ammon thinks ‘who in the heck is this guy? Oh well, I guess someone from Gilead finally got some courage’ [I’ll be nice!]. Ammon responds and sends word back ‘I am reclaiming the land of my forefathers; you are dwelling illegally in my territory’. Now an interesting thing happens, though Jephthah is deemed ‘uneducated’ he responds with a strong historic apologetic for their right to the land. He knows the history well! He says ‘a few hundred years ago our forefathers were leaving Egypt and as they came to your father’s territory they simply asked for safe passage. They were denied. Eventually you fathers started a fight [they had the bully blood of Ammon!] and our fathers got into it with them and ‘beat the dung’ out of them. Therefore we rightfully own this land. Who in the heck do you think you are anyway buddy, are you better than the kings before you? You need to back off now!’ Well, Ammon is not used to getting a response like this. The brothers of Jephthah knew all along that he was a hothead, that’s why they hired him. So Ammon gets word from Jephthah and has a meeting on what to do next. I am sure Ammon is a little scared by now ‘who in the heck is this new comer? Who does he think he is to challenge me like this?’ Before he gets a chance to find out, someone says ‘hey look, here he comes now’. The Spirit of God came upon Jephthah and he stormed in and kicked Ammon's butt. He did a repeat of years gone by. Don’t you just hate getting beat up by the kid who beat you up before? Jephthah repeated history. Ammon got whupped. The men of Gilead renewed the 2 year contract with their brother, even though he was the black sheep of the family.
(780) JUDGES 12- Jephthah has a great victory over Ammon. Ephraim confronts him and says ‘why didn’t you tell us you were going to battle? Who do you guys think you are, hogging up all the glory’? Jephthah responds ‘I did ask you guys to help! You guys are always talking a big game, but you never show up when we need you!’ Ephraim does have a history of doing this. They said the same thing in an earlier chapter, I think to Gideon? There is a Psalm that says ‘Ephraim turned back in the day of battle, even though they were fully armed’. They truly were a legitimate tribe, who had the goods to war, but they seemed to be more concerned about ‘their image’ and what so and so was doing down the road, than in actually going out and winning some wars! Jephthah is the type of brother you don’t want to mess with. He is mentioned in Hebrews 11 among the great heroes of the faith. Why would he be in there? He led a tribe that was insignificant, yet he rose to the occasion and displayed great courage, at the risk of his own life, and was a true warrior. Jephthah responds to Ephraim’s big words by ‘beating the hell out of them’. He strapped it on! Ephraim was one of the big 12, a legitimate warring tribe from Israel. Jephthah made a name for himself and his people. He was like the Arturo Gatti’s [Jersey City] who were simple hometown boxers who rose to fame and put his town on the map [even though Gatti was out of his class against De Lahoya]. Or a Bret Favre from Green Bay [Packers] who in the heck ever heard of ‘Green Bay’? Jephthah put Gilead on the map of history. I just recently studied some stuff on the Jesus movement of the 60’s -70’s. One of the interesting characters was a brother by the name of Lonnie Frisbee. Someone just made a documentary on him [Life and times of a Hippie preacher] and tried to show how he had a lot of influence in the beginnings of the Calvary Chapel and Vineyard movements [2 of the most successful Church movements that came out of this time]. The brother who made the documentary felt like the leaders of the movement did not give him due credit because he died of Aid’s. Lonnie struggled with homosexuality for most of his life. Many of the people who were interviewed gave strong testimonies of Lonnie’s influence in their lives. While looking up some stuff on U Tube I found a few videos of him sharing his testimony, there seems to be no doubt that he was a child of God. Some apologists [Hank Hannegraff] attribute Lonnie’s ‘anointing’ to the demonic realm. They brought out the fact that Lonnie’s initial conversion took place while he was high. They showed how some of the Shamans shared the same types of things that Lonnie operated in [Jim Morrison of the doors is thought to have been a Shaman, the name ‘Lizard King’ spoke to this]. I for the most part accept Lonnie’s own testimony of believing in Jesus. I know it’s difficult to understand how the Lord could have used someone who struggled like this, but some of these judges [Like the next one we will discuss- Samson] had many struggles along with their victories. I don’t want to give people excuses for sinning, but I want to encourage you to allow God to use you right where you are at. With all the faults of Lonnie Frisbee, the Lord still used him to play a key role in the early Jesus movement.
(781) JUDGES 13- We begin the story of Samson. While all the judges are called by God, Samson has this prophetic type calling from birth. An angel appears to his mother and foretells of his birth. She is barren and it is one of those Divine pronouncements like the birth of Jesus or John the Baptist. These types of callings have special meaning to them. You can study the callings of contemporary prophets and see many of these same characteristics. Though the critics have found faults with many of these men, yet they have had supernatural occurrences surrounding their births and destinies that cannot be explained away. When these children are growing they are surrounded by the stories of these supernatural events. They often do not realize the special signs that accompanied them. When John the Baptist was asked ‘are you the prophet that was spoken about, the ‘Elijah type prophet’ that appears before the Messiah’? John says no. But later the disciples say to Jesus ‘before the Messiah comes, the Elijah type prophet is to come first’ and Jesus says it was John. I think the Lord will allow certain prophetic people to not realize the impact of their destinies during their lives, they will see some day, but not now. So Samson’s mom has this special angelic visitation and the husband hears about it from his wife. They pray and ask the Lord to come again and give them more instructions about the boy. The Lord sends the angel back and they receive instructions about the boy. His calling is special, he will be dedicated to God from birth to death. The parents are to raise him in a way that will simply facilitate the gift. This is important to see. Often times we see ministry as ‘look what God is doing with Corpus Christi outreach ministries’ [or any other name!]. Or ‘God, please use this ministry for this purpose’ God gifts people with special callings and giftings. ‘Ministry’ is simply the parameters, the borders that help facilitate the gift. We too often confuse Gods sovereign gift with the ‘procedures’. God uses people [individuals and groups] to carry out his purposes, all ministry structures should be seen as simple instructions to properly ‘harness the gift’. Samson’s parents receive the instructions and raise him according to the angel’s directives. The Spirit of God will come on him at set times and he will begin to display the anointing at a young age. We will learn from Samson that the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. God will continue to use him thru out his life even though he will stray from the guidelines of his parents. Of course there will come a day where he loses the special ability that God gave him, but his willingness to lay it all down at the end will gain him a place in the great faith hall of fame! [Hebrews 11]
(782) JUDGES 14- Samson goes to the Philistine area and sees a woman who he likes. He tells his parents ‘get her for me’! He does seem spoiled. Now his parents have good reason to be a little intimidated by him, after all they know the miraculous events surrounding his birth. They tell him ‘look at all the great women from our own ‘ethnic background’ why do you want this stranger’? The scripture says they did not realize that this thing in Samson was FROM THE LORD. The scripture says the Lord did this so Israel could have an occasion/situation to go to war. Paul says in the New Testament ‘there must be heresies among you’. Some see this as meaning God allowed certain things to go wrong so he could create a situation where ‘war’ would occur. Then out of chaos and violence truth would be more clearly defined. Romans does say ‘all things eventually work out for the good to those who love God’. In Samson’s case his family didn’t understand why he was so adamant about this girl, but God was seeking ‘an occasion’. Now Samson and his family make a visit to the area [Timnath] and he hooks up with the woman. During one of Samson’s trips he comes upon a lion and the Spirit of God comes upon Samson and he tears it to pieces with his bare hands. I’m sure even Samson was a little surprised about this supernatural anointing. On his way back thru the area he finds that a bee hive formed in the dead lion and made a bunch of honey, he takes a scoop of the honey and gives some to his family but never reveals the source. He keeps the story to himself. At the wedding party he tells the guests ‘I have a riddle, if you figure it out I will give you the garments of 30 men. If you don’t guess it in 7 days you pay me’! He tells the riddle ‘out of the eater came forth food, out of the strong came forth sweetness’. The riddle speaks of the honey that Samson found in the dead lion. After a few days the locals can’t figure it out. They beg the wife for her to tell them the secret. She gives in and the men tell Samson the answer. He tells them ‘if you didn’t plow with my heifer, you would have never found out the answer’. This is the beginning of an area of weakness that will dog Samson thru out his life. He will experience defeat in the future on these grounds. Well Samson is furious, he goes and kills 30 men from some nearby town and pays off the bet. I see Jesus ‘the Lion from the tribe of Judah’ in the riddle. Jesus will eventually come and die on a Cross, from his ‘dead Body’ sweet honey and meat will flow to the nations. It was the death of the lion that created an environment for honey and food to come forth. Gods Word is described as honey and meat. Jesus death created ‘an environment’ for life to flow to the nations.
(783) Let me interrupt our Judges study a little. Right now [2008] there is another renewal/revival movement taking place in Florida [Lakeland]. The brother who was used as the ‘fire starter’ is Todd Bentley. I have tried to catch the services on T.V. and appreciate the presence of the Lord. Of course you can go on line and read terrible stuff about the revival. Once again some are 100 % against it, others are a little too exaggerated in their language in defense of it. What I mean is it’s easy to see a move of God and believe ‘this is the final move that will out do all other moves in the history of the church’ the ‘latter glory’ if you will. Let’s do a little history on moves of God. The present Pentecostal movement started at the beginning of the last century [for the most part]. You had a brother by the name of Charles Parham in Topeka, Kansas who had this little bible school. One day they experienced an unusual event. Gods Spirit fell on the students and they all ‘began to speak in other languages’. Now, to those who reject the modern gift of tongues as ‘gibberish’, I want you to see something. The ‘tongues’ [languages] of this experience were actually real foreign languages that the speakers never learned. They were very much like the ‘tongues’ at Pentecost! Parham took this as a modern day Pentecost and began sending these students to foreign countries, believing that they would be able to evangelize the world without having to teach the students/missionaries the foreign language of their field. Well this experiment flopped! Even the accurate Pentecostal historians will tell you this. But we are still left with the supernatural account of the kids having spoken in languages that they never learned. Parham was a strange type of fellow. He believed in the ‘seed of the serpent’ doctrine and a few other weird things. He was also very racist! He allowed a black student by the name of William Seymour to sit out in the hall and hear his teaching. He could not ‘intermingle’ with the white students in class. Seymour was a humble uneducated man who had a heart for God. Seymour would eventually find his ‘harvest field’ in Los Angeles. He began preaching at different churches and would experience strange manifestations equal to the things that Parham experienced. The churches did not appreciate this unlearned, one eyed black preacher introducing these strange ‘manifestations’ into their congregations and eventually Seymour rented a building on Azusa street. In 1906 this Azusa street mission would become ground zero for the outpouring of the modern day Pentecostal movement. Seymour was a very humble man by all accounts. He was known for sticking his head inside a box on the pulpit so the people wouldn’t see him instead of the Lord. The L.A. papers would run front page stories on ‘the strange tongues of Babel’ and stuff like that. Though Seymour was young and inexperienced at ‘running a revival’ he tried to the best of his ability to follow the Lord. He would contact Parham and ask him to come and check out the move. Parham came and totally denounced the wild meetings as spiritists run amok! Even though Parham had himself experienced the gift of tongues at his bible school, he saw the unrestrained nature of Azusa and condemned it. Seymour would never invite him back. The little mission building at Azusa would become the place of pilgrimage for 20th century Pentecostalism. Some were adamantly opposed to the outpouring, others 100 % supporters. After 100 years of seeing what the outcome would be, the historical significance is hard to refute. Some still see the worldwide spread of Pentecostalism as error. Others see it as a fulfillment of the scriptures that in the last days God would pour out his Spirit on all flesh. I see Pentecostals as part of the Body of Christ and in no way reject them as heretics. This doesn’t mean I agree with them in every doctrine! [As you can see when you read this site]. I feel we need to keep things in perspective when we feel God is moving in a new way. Is it possible that ‘this move’[any move that you happen to be in at the time] will have worldwide historic results? Sure. But because the Body of Christ is so wide and diverse in our day, it is harder for a single move to have the same type of impact as the original Pentecost. Should we judge the initial outpouring at Parham’s school as demonic? I don’t think so. The fact that they mistakenly took the gift as being missionary in nature does not disqualify the gift. In Act’s chapter 2 the gift of being able to speak in a language never learned did allow the immediate hearers to hear the gospel in their distinct languages. But the actual ‘missionaries’ [the hearers who went back to their towns] spread the message in their own known language. So in all types of moves you can find real fault, as well as real truth [most of the time]. We as the people of God should ‘test the spirits, because every spirit is not of God’ [1st John] while at the same time keeping an open mind like the head leader of religion in the book of Act’s, Gamaliel. He said ‘let’s leave the disciples alone for now, if this work is of God you will not be able to stop it. If it’s not of God it will fall by itself’. I personally believe in most of the renewal and revival movements of our day. I try not to get over excited by some of the language that tends to see these moves as ‘the last and greatest move of all time’. But I also avoid the constant attacks by the apologists who seem to never find a move they can agree with. [see entry # 844]
(784) Let’s stick with a little contemporary church history. In the last century you had what many believe to be one of the missing ‘planks’ of restoration of truth. The renewed emphasis on spiritual gifts, the idea that Apostles and Prophets were still gifts that people walked in. During the middle of the century you had the ‘Latter Rain movement’ and the rise of platform healing evangelists. The popular T.V. movie Elmer Gantry showed how the various church communions reacted to some of these evangelists. Many ‘old time’ churches were shocked at the persona and public display of these men [and women!] Some were shown to be outright hucksters! But others did have quite extraordinary gifts. The ‘most gifted’ brother was William Branham. William was a simple uneducated man who grew up in squalor conditions. The story of his birth and the supernatural signs surrounding his life are pretty interesting [look it up on Google, you will find tons of stuff on him]. Branham was gifted with the supernatural ability to know things about people, he had the singular ability to read the exact details of people’s lives. While many brand him as a false Prophet, he did seem to be a humble man that was doing his best to serve the Lord. This does not mean that I agree with all of Branham's teachings or gifts! Other Christians who worked with Branham at the time would eventually leave his ministry out of a concern that his gifts might have been ‘mixed’ with other spiritual means of obtaining knowledge [like fortune telling and soothsaying]. Things that scripture forbids. I personally don’t know whether or not these accusations have merit to them, but it is important to see that these concerns were not coming from those who simply oppose all supernatural gifts. These concerns were voiced by some of Branham's friends. During this time you had a few famous traveling ministers. A.A. Allen, Jack Coe and a few others became famous on the circuit. Many today testify of how the Lord used them in their lives. There were also many rumors [some true] that these men struggled with Alcohol and other vices. The Assemblies of God denomination would eventually openly rebuke a few of them who had credentials from their denomination. Brother Branham [he did believe in Jesus!] would embrace some weird doctrines. He had questions about the Trinity [well, he actually denied the doctrine] and would be impacted by the ‘Jesus only’ Pentecostal movement. He eventually felt like the death of his wife and child was a result of him not being more willing to minister among the oneness groups. As the century progressed you had the waning influence of the platform preachers. Some would still function from this paradigm, but for the most part the men and their movements passed on. You do still find a sort of cultic following of believers who remain loyal to brother Branham. Some believe he is one of the 2 witnesses spoken about in the book of Revelation. How come Branham had such influence over people’s lives? There is no doubt that this can be attributed to the actual real manifestations that took place under his ministry. Even the critics agree that there was some very unexplainable stuff going on. Some of the teachings of this period still influence believers today. The ‘Manifest Sons of God’ doctrine taught that there was coming a generation of saints who would walk in the fullness of all that God has promised, some believed that this group would even attain immortality in this life. The book of Romans does say that the whole creation is groaning and waiting for the day the Sons of God would fully manifest, but in context this is speaking of the resurrection. So the Lord used some of these brothers in a limited way. For the most part they suffered from a lack of a good education [don’t want to be demeaning] but were avid students of the Word. But as you can see this combination of knowing bible verses outside of the historic context of Church history [how others viewed these verses before them] can lead to dangerous conclusions. I for the most part do not condemn these brothers as outright fakes [some were, but not all] but I see in them a willingness to do their best in serving the Lord, but to a degree became victims of the fame and style of public platform ministry. Jesus taught the danger of our own personalities becoming too central to the people we are ministering to. Some of these brothers fell into this ditch!
(785) Let’s end this little excursion from our study in Judges and finish our look into the 20th century as one of ‘the Spirit of Pentecost’. During the 60’s you had what was known as the Charismatic Movement. On the west coast there was an Episcopal Priest who announced to his congregation that he experienced the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and began speaking in tongues. The area Bishop forbid the Priest to introduce his experience as one accepted by the denomination. Some of his congregants disagreed with this decision and took it upon themselves to contact the media. Soon word spread like wildfire. You also had an outpouring of the Spirit at Duquesne University. Some see this as the historic beginning point of the Charismatic movement. Basically the movement speaks of the gifts of the Spirit, specifically Tongues, breaking into and across denominational lines. Eventually the Catholic Church would put her stamp of approval on the movement. Which after all would be in keeping with their official doctrine. They have always believed the gifts of the Spirit to be available to believers in all ages. During the late 60’s early 70’s the Jesus Movement would spring up on the west coast and many hippies and flower children would ‘turn on to Jesus’. Chuck Smith and John Wimber [initially Ken Guliksen] would lead 2 of the most successful church movements of the late 20th century. Smith would head up Calvary Chapel and Wimber would take the lead in the Vineyard churches. You had Keith Green [musician] room mating with Randy Stonehill at the time. Keith was searching for answers, Randy would recommend him to attend a Vineyard bible study led by Ken Guliksen. Keith would finally accept the Lord at the study and become this on fire musician for the Lord. Though the music industry saw him as ‘a prize’ Keith would start ‘Last Days Ministries’ and relocate to Lyndale Texas [across the road from Youth with a Mission- YWAM]. He would sadly die in a plane crash with 2 of his children on board. In 1989 you had the mixing of the Vineyard with some of the Prophets known as ‘the Kansas City Prophets’. These were the brothers out of Kansas City who were part of Mike Bickles church. Now Metro fellowship in Kansas City. Mike is no longer the lead Pastor, he heads up ‘I.H.O.P’ International House of Prayer, a great group of young people who take turns praying 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Now Paul Cain would meet Wimber and declare that Wimber was the Apostle that the Lord was going to use for the ‘great end time revival’. Paul Cain was so accurate in his ability to know the details of people’s lives, and to predict earthquakes and supernatural signs, that many were convinced that what Paul said was 100% accurate. The ‘marriage’ between the Vineyard and the modern prophetic movement [which is usually seen to have started out of Kansas City with Mike Bickle and Bob Jones, Paul Cain and a few other Prophetic brothers] was debatable. Some Pastors in the Vineyard churches [Tom Stipe among others] would eventually feel their churches were suffering from a lack of true biblical Christianity. Many new believers were looking too much to dreams, visions and personal prophecies as the normal guides for their lives. These believers were straying from the more sure path of prayer, bible study and simple trust in God. Chuck Smith would early on disassociate from the more flamboyant signs of the movement. He would take charge and let his churches know that they were to stick with the verse by verse exposition of the word at the normal church meetings. The Vineyard would run with the ‘go with the Spirit’ type mentality. Eventually the split between the movement known as the ‘Toronto blessing’ ‘Laughing revival’ would occur when John Arnott, Pastor of Toronto airport Vineyard church [in Toronto Canada] would break away from the Vineyard oversight. John Wimber would sadly pass away and the leadership of the Vineyard would return back to a more scripture oriented church [note- John Wimber himself was going this direction before his death, it seems as if he saw too much into the words that were being spoken to him from Paul Cain. Paul is a very humble man, who has fallen on some very hard times these past few years. It was easy for Wimber to believe all the wonderful words given to him from Paul, Paul was operating at a level of gifting that was unheard of for the time. Paul was the only ‘throwback’ from the mid century latter rain movement. He was a student under William Branham and sometimes would fill in for him at his meetings. By all accounts Paul received much of the anointing that Branham operated in]. The century will close out with the Toronto movement, as well as the Brownsville revival [Florida] having a fairly large impact on the church at large, as well as having many critics of the more extreme manifestations of the revivals [Toronto- people barking like dogs and stuff]. I do find it interesting that the century began with a movement that was for the most part associated with crying and repentance and would end with one of laughter and revival. In the restoration books of the Old Testament you have a seen where the foundation is being laid for the rebuilding of the temple. You have the younger generation happy and excited over the prospects of a new temple, but the older generation is standing there and weeping because to them it doesn’t seem to live up to their memories of ‘the good old days’. You had weeping and laughing as legitimate reactions to a real work of God. I think the ‘new’ moves need to be careful that they don’t read too much into the historic aspects of their movements until history itself writes the final chapter. But the ‘old timers’ also need to be open to the possibility of God ‘rebuilding the temple’ [spiritually speaking here!] and allowing the ‘latter house to receive more glory than the former’.
(786) JUDGES 15- Samson cools down and goes back to see his wife. As he tries to make things right her father reveals to him that she is now married to his best friend! What? Yup, the dad said they thought he was so mad that he gave up on her. Well Samson goes and ties the fox’s tails together and sets these torches on fire between their tails. He lets them run thru the fields of the Philistines and burn up the crops. The Philistines say ‘who did this’? They find out Samson did it because of the wife thing. So they blame it on the wife and her father and go ‘burn them’ [ouch!]. Samson doesn’t stop! He gets into it with a few more guys and whips them good. He escapes to this stronghold in Judah’s territory and the Philistines are looking for him. Judah finds Samson and says ‘why are you hiding among us? Don’t you realize the Philistines rule over us?’ Samson says ‘I’ll let you tie me up if you promise not to kill me yourselves’ so they promise. When the Philistines get him, the Spirit comes on Samson and he breaks the cords and ‘beats the hell out of them’. He finds this jawbone from a donkey and kills a thousand of them with the jawbone. He then gets thirsty and says ‘I need something to drink, why would you let me have such a great victory and feel like I am going to die of thirst’? God breaks a hole in the jawbone and Samson finds water from the instrument he used to defeat the enemy. Now, notice the unbelievable amount of war, division and devastation that is coming from one man! He is actually negotiating like he is an army! God knew what he was doing when he raised Samson up ‘because he wanted an occasion to deal with the Philistines’. John the Baptist was like this. A single prophetic voice who had the gall to tell Herod ‘you can’t have your brother’s wife!’ How do these guys do stuff like this? In Samson’s case he got away with it because he had the goods to back it up! He was like the other judges who knew how to strap it on. But this guy seems to be a one man steamroller. Notice that the Lord refreshed him from the same tool he used to war with. Paul tells Timothy ‘preach the word, in doing this you will save yourself and those who hear thee’. Paul says ‘woe to me if I preach not the gospel’. Over the years I will listen to our radio messages one time before I broadcast them. I am so far ahead of schedule that I will preview the message about a year or more after I make them. Yet I actually will get ‘a prophetic word’ that I never even knew I spoke! God will allow you to be refreshed from the refreshing you give others. Don’t be too self absorbed, but recognize that ‘he who waters will himself be watered’ [somewhere in the bible].
(787) JUDGES 16- This is the famous ‘Samson and Delilah’ story. Samson once again falls for some strange woman. The philistines ask her to find out the secret to Samson’s strength. She goes thru this procedure of ‘bugging him to death’ until he spills the beans. Scripture says ‘she pressed him until his soul was vexed unto the point of death’ double ouch! Well she finds out the strength is in his dedication unto God, shown thru the act of not cutting his hair. She shaves his head and he is taken captive. Scripture says he woke up and thought ‘I will fight the enemy as usual and win’ and he didn’t realize the Lord wasn’t with him anymore. Now Samson becomes a source of entertainment for the lost world. They bring him out every now and then and parade him around as a ‘jack ass’. Do you remember how the media and late night comics just couldn’t get over the fact that Christian celeb’s have fallen? Re running the crying videos of Brother Swaggart and Bakker. Parading the ‘lover’ of Ted Haggard on all the shows. The Philistines loved using the ‘big buffoon’ as sport. So one day they take him out of his cell and have him stumble around at some party. Samson has some kid place his hands on the 2 main pillars that are holding up the building. He asks the Lord ‘Lord, please return my strength this one last time’ and he pushes on the pillars and the whole corrupt society around him comes down and they all die as one big happy family! Samson killed more of the enemy in his death than thru out his life. Just a few thoughts; right now in the present ‘media church’ there is another tragic situation of a famous celebrity couple who have divorced. Sad story, God will forgive people for their mistakes. But the problem is the wife feels like she should maintain the whole public persona. Now I like these people. I am not a fan of their teachings at all, but the wife has come a long way from a difficult life. When I first read about these things I always pray for the people. But we [the people of God] need to seriously re evaluate the whole ‘celebrity persona’ that allows good people, who seemingly represent the church to society at large, to do stuff like this. Its like the world tunes us in every now and then ‘for sport’. Also Samson used wisdom in avoiding a direct shot at a few Philistines, and placed himself in a position where he could bring down the whole corrupt group at one time. We need to avoid individual skirmishes with people. God is working in our day like he has in every other generation. There are some serious things that the previous generation wrongfully built into the church. The younger generation sees the absolute absurdity of some of these things. Prophetic voices need to ‘position themselves strategically’ and take out some of these pillars [doctrines, not people!] so we can give the next generation a fresh start.
(788) I just remembered a story for the ‘comedy section’. Years ago at the fire department we had a few guys who would come in to work and the first thing they would do is read the run reports from the previous day. They would get a kick out of the misspelled words and stuff. Though all of our guys were smart guys, some of the brothers couldn’t spell well. One time one of my buddies got a hold of a report [or maybe some type of test the volunteers took?] One of the answers to a question was ‘he died from loss of blood’. The poor volunteer wrote ‘it means hims bleeds to dead’ [sic].
(790) JUDGES 17- This is quite an interesting chapter. Micah steals money from his ‘mother’. He tells her ‘I took it’ [managed to gain precious riches from you] and she commends him. He then says he took it from her to give it back to her. Let’s spiritualize a little. The ‘sons of the church’ [the New Jerusalem is the corporate church, the ‘mother of us all’] some times take by violence the hidden riches that were contained ‘in the church’ [which possesses the mind of Christ!] so they can ‘give the riches back to the mother’ [feed my sheep!] and receive commendation from her. Now, all analogies eventually break down. Micah’s mom says she was going to build an idol [institution?] with the money. Micah becomes the overseer of this ‘false system of worship’. He actually ‘hires’ [hireling mentality- seeing ministry as a profession] a legitimate priest from the tribe of Levi to call ‘father- priest’ [ouch!] Micah pays him a salary [double ouch!] and says ‘now I know the Lord [God of the Christians] will bless me seeing I have a priest under my authority’. [Rome and her emperors?] Lots of imagery here. First, Micah felt like he would gain Gods blessing if he ‘hired’ and institutionalized the real priesthood. We must see that what happened during the first 4 centuries of Christianity was a type of ‘hiring’ and legitimizing the ‘priests of God’ for the purpose of favor and unity within the Roman Empire. It is no secret that the emperor Constantine looked for unity in his empire by embracing and professionalizing the ‘priest hood’. They will actually be called ‘fathers, priests’. Also, this priest that Micah hired was a real representative of God! He did come from a true tribe. It is difficult for Protestants to see that although the institutional church ‘married’ Rome, yet she still contained part of the real people of God. This is not to say all that happened in the first millennium [thousand years of Christianity] was of God, but it also means we need to understand that there are some ‘precious riches’ [1100 pieces of silver!] that are hidden within her for the purpose of ‘true sons’ to go and take these riches and re distribute them back to her for her own benefit. You would be surprised by the amount of spiritual truths contained in the writings of the Catholic [Orthodox] fathers. Many of these truths are being ‘re found’ by protestants! And some of these Protestants have given them back to the church and shown her ‘look, even your own church fathers saw such and such’. I see the whole concept of Micah hiring the Priest as a type of ‘hired clergy’ mentality that all the people of God wrongfully took hold of. We need to recognize that just because this Levite went down this road, this does not mean he was not a true Levite [person of God]. It just meant he allowed his gift/office to be used in a wrong way to bring legitimacy to a form of worship that had vestiges of idolatry contained within.
(791) JUDGES 18- The tribe of Dan sends 5 spies to check out the land of Laish, it was supposed to be part of their inheritance. On the way they pass Mount Ephraim, where Micah and the ‘hired priest’ live. They enquire in the house of Micah about their journey. They are assured God is with them. They see Laish and return with the good report. Laish is a land where the people are ‘isolated’ they do no business with any other tribes. Too sectarian in their little community [ouch!]. So the tribe of Dan hears the report and arms 600 men for battle. As they go to get their land, they once again stop at the idolatrous house of Micah. They make a ‘job offer’ to the ‘hired priest’ and appeal to success and status among clergy ‘do you want to come and be our hired priest? Wouldn’t you rather be priest of a whole tribe instead of one household’? He takes the job promotion and on their way out Micah tries to stop them from taking his priest but doesn’t have the manpower to do it. Dan introduces this false priesthood on a large scale to the people of God. Scripture says while they were involving themselves in this false worship, the House of God was still in Shiloh. Now we have covered a lot of ground here. I want to be careful but truthful about wrong worship in the church. First, I do find it amazing that the Lord did not cut Micah off originally when he got into his stuff! The history of Israel includes a time period where they thought the high places in their land were a sign of true religion. When some of the kings institute a return to the Lord, they leave the high places alone. Although these high places were idolatrous, yet in their ignorance they really thought they were honoring God. I see a degree of this here. Now the hired priest continues to represent the mentality of the hired offices of the clergy. All good people, but often operating in systems that lend themselves to the co dependency of Gods people. It is easy to see the idea of false worship and simply use this to bash Catholics. I prefer to see the false worship of Dan as a mark of all wrong tradition and teaching that come to us from the mind of man. Jesus rebuked the traditions that made void the Word of God, but Paul will tell his spiritual sons ‘hold to the traditions you have been taught by me’. Some traditions are needful. Things that our spiritual fathers have passed down to us. Don’t despise all tradition! Don’t see ‘the ministry’ as a way to gain status and climb the ladder in the corporate world. This priest of Micah took a position based on gentile authority. Something Jesus forbid for the leaders of his church. This priest saw self advancement in moving ‘his ministry’ to oversee the tribe of Dan. This root of pride will cause the limited idolatry at Micah’s house to leaven an entire tribe. Often times well meaning people become part of ‘extending wrong ideas’ thru out the church as they seek fame and recognition. Jesus taught us that true servants will not make decisions based on ‘how will this move promote me, how will I gain a name for myself’ these motivations blind us to the idolatry that exists in the church in our day. The New Testament equivalent of idolatry is covetousness. Leadership often overlooks the blatant abuse in this area as they pursue a name and advancement for ‘their ministries’. It’s easy to not want to hear Paul’s strong words in 1st Timothy 6 concerning leaders. We want to be able to ‘seek fame and fortune’ because it does feel good to be famous! Hebrews says ‘sin does have pleasure for a season’. So I see the whole scenario of Micah’s hired priest in all of us. I see the idolatry of Dan and false worship as leaven that affects all of Gods people [Protestants and Catholics alike]. I see the fact that God still used Micah to be a voice and instrument to the people of God even though he thru ignorance allowed idolatry to be entrenched in Israel. God is merciful and he will put up with our ignorance for a season, but I think that season has already passed. [Though his mercy endures forever!]
(792) CHICKEN BREATH- Strange place to write one for the comedy section! I just remembered a funny incident at the Fire House. When a call would come in for an ambulance run, it would come over a loudspeaker. This gave the guys time to prepare and get ready for the accident. Sometimes you could hear the caller a little differently than the guy who picked up the phone. You could also hear the firefighter talking and asking questions ‘what’s your address, give me your phone #’ and stuff like that. One time the firefighter asked the husband [who was calling for an ambulance for his wife] ‘Sir, what’s wrong with your wife’ and the poor guy says something that sounds like ‘chicken breath’ to the firefighter on the phone. He asks again ‘what!’ sure enough he hears ‘chicken breath’. So he goes thru this for a few seconds and asks the guy ‘what do you mean she has chicken breath’ and finally the guys in the station who are hearing this yell at him ‘he is saying ‘she can’t breathe’ you idiot’! [Chicken breath- shicken breath- she can’t breathe. I guess?]
(793) HELP! One more from the Fire Dept. Over the years when new guys would get hired, they would ride the Fire Trucks and Ambulance to get a feel for the job. When they are rookies we don’t let them do any major stuff. Maybe get a stretcher or call the station for backup, simple stuff. So one day they go on an Ambulance run and take one of these rookies. Sure enough it’s a code [heart attack] and they use the rookie to get the equipment and stuff from the ambulance. They have him running back and forth doing errands. Of course he is fairly new at this. The guys tell him ‘go call for help’ [we need backup]. So he runs to the Ambulance and gets on the radio. The guys at the station are eating dinner or watching T.V.? As they are sitting there, they are getting a kick out of hearing some guy over the speaker say ‘HELP, HELP, HELP’ They are thinking it’s some inexperienced sheriffs deputy or something. As they listen for a few more ‘HELP’S’ they realize it’s one of us! Hey, they did tell the rookie ‘call for help’. [He should have said ‘unit 162 to Central, we need backup’].
(794) JUDGES 19- We have another strange story. There is this Levite who has a concubine [servant-wife]. She plays ‘the harlot’ on him and goes back home to Judah. The Levite goes to get her. He shows up at her dad’s house and the father welcomes him [Judah- Israel loved the law- Levite]. The Levite informs him that he came to take back his wife and the dad won’t let him go! He keeps holding on and for a few days convinces him to ‘just stay for one more night’ [Israel’s mindset in the first century. They tried to hold on to the law past it’s time]. The Levite leaves and on his way back to Ephraim they need a place to spend the night. They show up at Gibeah, where the Benjamites dwell. As they are on the street all day, no one offers to take them in. This younger generation forgot all the ‘elementary’ teachings of the Law of Moses [Hebrews 5]. An old man who was from Ephraim was living there. He sees the Levite and his wife and servants on the street. He asks what’s up and the old man offers to take the Levite in. He says ‘don’t worry about the cost, I will cover it’ [The Good Samaritan]. At night the men of the city knock on the old mans door and want the Levite to come out ‘and play’ [The sin of Sodom!] the old man offers the men the women instead of the man. They take the wife of the Levite and abuse her all night long. She shows up at the door in the morning and is dead. The Levite takes her dead body home and cuts it into 12 pieces and sends them to Israel as a witness. This drastic symbol shocks the nation. There are lots of spiritual points that could be made. The law [Levite] was welcomed for a time [Galatians 4] but when it’s time t let it go don’t keep holding on. The old man in Gibeah practiced the art of hospitality to strangers/aliens that was contained in the original precepts from Moses. The younger generation forgot the true principles of their law. Paul will argue over and over again from the law to persuade Israel to come to Messiah. They forgot the basic truths of their own law and this made it harder to show them that Jesus was the fulfillment of their law. Of course the old man taking in the Levite is like the story of the Good Samaritan who took care of his neighbor at his own expense. Paul told the Corinthians that he would ‘spend and be spent’ for them. And the drastic act of the Levite cutting up the wife and sending her body parts to Israel shows the utter terror of the law. The law ultimately demands justice, it shows no mercy. Israel might have had an affinity for the law, but if you keep it around too long it can really ruin the party! [The New Covenant is one of joy and peace in the Spirit. We are at Jesus ‘wedding party’ if you will].
(795) JUDGES 20- The nation of Israel gather together as ‘one man’ to figure out what is going on. They all received the body pieces of the concubine as a sign of judgment. Remember, the law [Levite] can not give life to that which is ‘dead in trespasses and sin’ [the dead wife!] but the law can only reveal sin and call for justice. So the tribes are gathered to meet out judgment! They decide to get an army together, 400,000 men. They go to the town of Gibeah, where Benjamin [the tribe] lives. They tell the people ‘you have done wickedly, give to us the men who have infected this whole tribe [denomination/whole groups of believers who have been affected in a wrong way by certain teachers who have ‘crept in unawares’]. Benjamin says no! There is a strange dynamic that takes place in the Body of Christ. Whenever the Lord moves in a big way to correct or reform wrong doctrine, very rarely do the victims of the wrong doctrine want to admit that they were wrongly influenced. The sin of pride says ‘are you telling me that I was duped’? Benjamin actually goes into this protection mode and defends the wicked doers in their midst! So Israel encamps against Benjamin and they fight. Sure enough Benjamin wins! Wow, they must have thought ‘see, we were correct in refusing to deal with the wrong stuff in our community’ [whole groups of believers who harbor false things]. Israel is distraught, were they wrong in going against Benjamin? You honestly have to ask yourself this question at times. God might really have raised you up to deal with some stuff. You might actually lose a battle or two! The Lord tells them ‘No, you weren’t wrong in dealing with the false stuff in the tribe of Benjamin, go back and give it another shot’. The next day Israel attacks again, and again they lose! They ask the Lord about it and he says keep trying. On day three they adjust their procedure; they set an ambush and eventually overthrow Benjamin. Now, this is no great victory, God actually called the rest of the people of God to deal with an aberrant tribe. The church goes thru reformation seasons where she needs to deal with wrong stuff on a global scale. The history of Christianity shows us the great ecumenical councils of the church. Times where the whole Body of Christ had to agree that certain things were right or wrong. It is only natural for those being rebuked to fight back and not admit their fault. This process is very difficult. Paul wrote the Galatians and told them if a brother is in a fault, that the more mature [spiritual] ones should correct it in love. Over the years I have been involved with trying to explain to sincere believers, some of them who hold positions of leadership, how we can’t keep teaching things that have been shown to be blatantly wrong. Often times the ‘tribes’ [groups] will fight back, and win a war or two! Understand, Benjamin was running their tribe as an efficient unit to a degree. Even though they had ‘bad seed’ in their group, yet the fact that they did exist as a functioning unit allowed them to successfully resist a few previous challenges to their tribe [belief system]. But ultimately there came a challenge that was too hard to resist, the rest of the nation joined as ‘one man’ to say ‘enough is enough, we love you as a brother tribe, but this stuff has gone on way too long’. It was the radical act of the Levite that brought the attention to the rest of the tribes of what was going on. It was the responsibility of the nation as a whole to deal with the ‘lost tribe’.
(796) PARABLE OF TARES AND WHEAT- I just had a dream [about an hour ago] and I was with an old friend from New Jersey. We were both going to join the high school football team. I remember saying ‘wow, weren’t we doing this 25 years ago? Can you believe after all this time we are partnering again?’ Yesterday I spent a lot of time re reading the parables of Jesus. His mindset in the parables are so much different than ours. He says ‘The good seed that God planted grows up among the weeds that the enemy plants’ and they ask him ‘should we root out the bad tares?’ and he says ‘no, leave them alone. Let them grow together until the harvest [end of the age] and then the reapers [referring to the angels] will come forth and separate them’. Do we think like this? How many times has the ‘good wheat’ [believers] tried to root out the bad? We start movements that seem to tell the lost world ‘we don’t want you influencing our kids, we want your lifestyle as far away from us as possible’ in essence we try to ‘root them out’. Jesus said the field in this parable was the world. He told us to stop trying to pull the weeds out of society! Now, we are here as salt and light. We are supposed to have an effect on society. But the message and spirit that the lost world ‘feel’ from us should be one of reconciliation, not condemnation. We offer hope and forgiveness to the unbeliever. At the end of the day after all the sides are taken and the arguments are over. It’s up to us to be there for the unbeliever when his life and philosophy fail him. I just heard a testimony on how one of the most famous atheists of the last century, Anthony [Antony] Flew rejected his former belief and had to acknowledge the absolute scientific impossibility of all existing things having come from a point in time where no thing existed. Now, most unbelievers do not realize the total absurdity of holding on to a belief like this. Flew was considered one of the top intellectual atheists of the 20th century. He debated the best of them. But the simple reality of his false belief system finally was too much to bear. In his book explaining why he changed positions, he had to admit that the unbelievable intricacy of man. The complexity of human DNA. All of these complex systems that science has shown us over these last 25 years. They are proof of someone having to have a hand in designing the things. To believe that such unbelievable complexity could have arrived from NO THING is absolutely scientifically impossible! You can not get life and the universe and all other things from NO THING. He agreed. Jesus told us there would come a time at the end of the world where God would separate the good wheat from the bad. Until that time comes we need to let both grow together, some times what we thought were weeds turn out to be wheat.
(797) -INTRODUCTION TO THE PARABLES- I was going to finish our study in Judges today, but I felt like sharing something else. Recently I have been reading the parables of Jesus out of my first King James Bible. Even though I give away lots of my books and stuff, yet I managed to hold on to this keepsake. Actually I did give it away and eventually got it back! That’s why I am writing this entry. If you read the first 50 or so entries [1-50!] from the section ‘Prophecies, Dreams, Visions part 1’ you will read the story of my journey to Texas as a young rebel and how after I became a believer I led one of my old buddies from Jersey to the Lord. This friend became a believer and we learned and grew as Christians. Eventually he would die of Aids. I had given him my first bible and years later got it back. As I read thru it I realized he made notes and stuff in it. Things like ‘ask John about this?’ and other interesting stuff. Of course this bible is special to me because it contains personal insights from my first convert to the Lord. So let me share a few things I recently read. He wrote ‘God will take care of you if you have faith’ and ‘the presence of contrary winds does not mean you are out of Gods will’. Hebrews says ‘though he is dead he yet speaketh’. I consider this a privilege of being part of a Christian communion that all believers belong to. We have brothers who are looking at us from heaven right now. We truly belong to a ‘communion of saints’. After all these years, for you to get something from this simple sharing of my brothers thoughts is part of the process of being in this communion. Look at the simplicity of these words ‘God will take care of you if you have faith’ ‘the presence of contrary winds does not mean you are not in Gods will’. As I finish our study in Judges I think I am going to share a few of Jesus parables. In these parables we see Jesus ethos of the Kingdom, the things he puts value on. These things are contrary to what we value, especially as we look at ‘modern ministry’. Jesus will teach the value of not being famous or recognized! The value of becoming ‘the least of all’. Things like the mustard seed being the least of all seeds, but when it is sown it becomes the greatest. We often see faith from this. While this does apply, we also see Jesus ‘the grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying’ [John’s gospel] Jesus, who Isaiah prophesied ‘I am a WORM AND NO MAN’. The Son of God who would become the least of all ‘seeds’. Who actually experienced the accumulated feelings of unworthiness and absolute condemnation that all the sins of the world could bring upon a person. He personally experienced the actual act of being forsaken and told by God ‘you are now a worm and no man’. You think ‘how could this be’ this was an aspect of bearing the sins of humanity on himself. Jesus will teach us the importance of being last, how it is of great value if in the eyes of man you look like a failure, but in the eyes of God you lived humbly. Jesus even values the words of people who lived sinful lives and failed often. He never condones sin, but he still values these ‘little ones’ [in the eyes of men] he will even use the words of one who died of aids.
(798) JUDGES 21- We end the book of Judges with the nation of Israel mourning over the fact that they had to deal with one of their own tribes who left the true path of God. They vowed ‘not to give their daughters any more to them’. They made a determination ‘no matter how much we personally like them, the many good memories of days gone by. The good old stories of our past heritage together. The actual good things that we all shared over the years’. Yet they decided this was the generation that would make the break. By not giving their daughters unto them they were in essence saying ‘we will no longer allow your tribe to effect the whole nation’. Tough stuff, Paul does this with the Corinthians; he says ‘remove the wicked from among you’. Now, Israel does not want the total destruction of the erring tribe! [nor Paul, read 2nd Corinthians]. They work out a deal where the ‘virgins’ of the tribe that did not show up for the initial battle [Jabesh Gilead] would become the wives of the surviving Benjamites. They allowed the tribe to survive, post judgment day! I see lots of spiritual meaning to this stuff. Often times we as believers do not want to deal with ‘errant tribes’. We prefer to think ‘well, we all believe in Jesus. Lets just love each other’. Hey, I am all for love. I have come to realize many well meaning Christians really don’t like dealing with stuff because it gets rough. Jesus said ‘do you think I have come to bring peace? No, I tell you I have come to bring division. Homes will be divided. Brother against brother and family member against family member’. Now, we know Jesus is the prince of Peace. The angels would say ‘peace on earth and good will towards men’. But Jesus was speaking of the reality of having to take sides at certain times. The inevitable conflict that comes with saying ‘this is true, this is false’. Israel dealt severely with a brother tribe, it would not have been ‘love’ for them to have ignored the problem! Let’s end Judges with a brief overview. Why did we see all the problems in this book? Time after time God would deliver them and time after time they would fall back into sin. God knew all along that this would happen. The intent of the law was to reveal to man his inability to ‘self reform’. The season of judges was simply a foreshadowing of a future day [now] where there would be a ‘judge’ [Jesus] who would be able to continually save the people because he would have a rule that would not end. Israel did fine as long as the judge was alive, after his death they would fall. So today we have Jesus, the Great High Priest who is able ‘to save to the uttermost, those who come to God by him. For he ever liveth to make intercession for them’ [Hebrews].
(799) JESUS PARABLES- Well I already covered the ‘mustard seed’ in the introduction and spoke on the Tares and Wheat. I forgot to mention that we see a simple end times teaching from Jesus in these parables. Now I realize the many varied views on the subject of the parables and end time dispensationalism. Good Christians [I find myself having to say this a lot!] at times have taught a type of scenario where many of the sayings of Jesus about the end times seem to refer only to the Jewish people and they have ways of ‘watering down’ the many plain statements of Jesus about the final judgment. But notice how he says ‘at the end of the world the angels go forth and separate the good from the bad’. The ‘tares are taken away’ and the good wheat remains. In the parables you see both the believers and unbelievers together right up until the second coming. You don’t see a time where there are ‘no good wheat’ and the tares are saying ‘hey, where did all the good wheat go? Maybe the aliens took them’? [I know this sounds silly, but many believers espouse stuff like this!] So anyway we see the idea of Jesus people being present right up until the judgment. The ‘bad seed’ are taken away first, then the righteous shine forth in their fathers Kingdom. Also we see the value that Jesus places on ‘nothingness’ that is becoming least, giving up the pursuits of glory. He is not looking for ‘great faith and men of great stature’ he is looking for ‘the mustard seed mentality’. Now in the introduction I hit on the idea that Jesus himself embodies the mustard seed. He was truly ‘the least of all seeds’ and buried himself in the ground. He has become the greatest ‘tree’ in all the earth! The Christian church [his Body!] is the biggest worldwide movement today [I know Islam is trying hard to catch up]. Jesus ‘smallness’ allowed him to attain greatness. In Philippians Paul says Jesus emptied himself and became the lowest of all, and because of this the Father gave him a name above every name. Jesus taught this to the disciples when James and John were looking for advancement. Their mother requested that they would have high positions of authority in his Kingdom. Jesus would respond that authority and influence come from servant hood and ‘being least’. Jesus would say of John the Baptist ‘he is the greatest of the prophets, nevertheless he that is least in the kingdom is greater than John’. Some have taught this to mean John was the last of the Old Testament order of prophets, and therefore even the smallest ‘born again believer’ is better than John. But you could also take it as Jesus saying ‘John, you have a great calling. You opened the way for the Messiah. You truly are one of the greatest Prophets of all time. But I, the Messiah, am the least of all seeds to ever be in the earth. I have emptied myself more than any other person. I John, am greater than you’.
(800) PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN- I guess we need to do a little more ‘teaching’ than I planned on. I am using the parables from Matthew’s gospel. Matthew uses ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ instead of ‘Kingdom of God’. I have heard different ideas on why Matthew said ‘heaven’ instead of ‘God’. The idea that I need to correct is that Matthew was speaking of something totally different than ‘The Kingdom of God’. This belief rose up among the 19th century Dispensationalists, it basically says ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ means the world of Christendom [all religions that make up Christianity] and the Kingdom of God is that future thing that happens some day. Well, both of these are not real good. Most of all you should reject the first idea. The simple reason is that the other Gospels have these same parables with the term ‘God’ in place of ‘Heaven’. For this interpretation to be true [the Christendom one] you would have to believe that Jesus spoke about an entirely different thing, at an entirely different time and setting in Matthews gospel. When believers interpret stuff like this, it is simply not in keeping with ANY of the previous ways believers saw these verses in 1800 years. Plus it seems odd that Matthew would be the only writer who recorded the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ parables while the other writers recorded the Kingdom of God ones. So for whatever reason you think Matthew said ‘Heaven’ and not ‘God’ you should at least understand that he was not speaking of different parables. Now ‘the Kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened’. Most of the brothers who believe the ‘heaven-Christendom’ idea teach that Jesus was speaking of sin and wickedness invading the world of Christendom. They get this idea from the fact that leaven does describe sin in most [if not all?] of the other pictures of leaven in scripture. First, leaven [yeast] is something that God created. In and of itself it isn’t ‘wicked’. Second, Jesus can use any physical thing he wants to use in any way he wills to use it in his teachings, he is God after all! And third, I think it fitting that Jesus would take a term used to describe sin and turn it around and ‘redeem’ its use to describe righteousness. After all ‘where sin abounded, grace did much more abound’. Now to the meaning. Jesus values ‘least ness’ in his teachings. He absolutely challenges the present idea of Christianity in many of the American churches. He time and again lets his followers know that they must die to their own agendas and ideas. They must put priority on eternal versus material riches. They must seek to become small and last in order to be first. In all of these teachings he also rewards those who follow his ideals with great influence. The things they do ‘will go far’. Their children will impact society [Genesis 12 and 15- Abrahams seed touching nations]. Jesus calls for carrying our cross daily, dying to our own desires and dreams so his purpose thru us can reach all nations. The ‘hiddeness’ of the yeast speaks of this aspect of kingdom living. You don’t take yeast and ‘spread it all over the outside of everything’ [modern ideas of ministry- ‘get our name out, have everyone know about us’. Hire an image consultant!] Jesus says ‘hide the yeast inside of stuff’ package the gift and talents in such a way that they will ‘secretly’ be in many places. You will hardly even know its there, it’s hidden! Then after a while the effect of the yeast will be so hard to stop you will have a revolution on your hands! ‘Who in the heck started this ball rolling?’ The effect will be great, the fame and recognition will be minimal. Now Jesus taught in all of the parables that his kingdom would be like this. It would be silly to apply the yeast here as wickedness taking over Christendom, he doesn’t use these explosive images to describe sin in his other parables. They speak of small things becoming large in righteous ways [note- the tares are an exception, they are the full harvest of unbelievers along with believers. But the kingdom images [seed and stuff] speak of the radical explosive nature of the kingdom of God in the earth]. So lets look for ways to ‘hide the leaven’ in stuff. Is the most effective way to either write a book? Start a blog? What do you think it is for you? I feel many talented Pastors limit their voice by spending the majority of their teaching efforts on preaching to a room full of people and never even recording [in writing or by voice] the teaching. Make it available in various forms. If you saw some great insights from your study time, why have it taught in a forum where only a limited amount of people will hear it one time? We read of Jesus and Paul and think that they taught a form of ‘local church’ that says ‘give priority to the Sunday pulpit’. Now Paul did say ‘how can they hear without a preacher’ [Romans]. But this applies to hearing Paul’s letters as they were ‘re read’ in the churches. We are right now reading the recorded parables of Jesus that millions upon millions of people read every year! Be wise in putting leaven [good leaven!] in places where it can multiply good things. NOTE- leaven represented sin during the Passover feast. That’s why they couldn’t have it in their meals. But it was permitted during Pentecost. Why? Pentecost would come to represent the outpouring of the Spirit and the intended growth of Christianity, at Pentecost God wanted a massive explosion. Leaven was allowed!
(801) TREASURE IN A FIELD- Jesus said the Kingdom is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man finds it, he hides it and goes and sells all that he has and buys the field. One of the main values of the kingdom is having a willingness to ‘sell all that you have’ make sacrifices and give priority to God’s purpose. In the history of Christianity you have had famous stories of people who felt like the Lord was requiring them to actually do this. They would take vows of poverty and forsake a life filled with the pursuits of things and self, and would make Gods calling number one. We need to be more in tune with this mindset than we are presently at. It is common to read all the statements from Jesus on forsaking all to follow him, and to say ‘well, in so and so’s case [rich man stories and stuff] money was his idol. But Jesus really isn’t talking about money, he is showing us that you can’t put other things ahead of God’. I think we are missing stuff when we do this. In many of these stories the reason Jesus says ‘he sells what he has’ or ‘leave your nets and follow me’ was because he was showing the natural tension that arises between living ‘our dream’ or fulfilling his purpose. A big part of ‘our dream’ is imbedded with ‘stuff’ ‘more stuff’ ‘more stuff than you could ever imagine’! Jesus taught a mindset that said ‘give and it will be given to you, pressed down shaken together and running over’ but along with this he teaches ‘the world is pre occupied with stuff [what should you wear and eat] and I don’t want my followers to be pre occupied with stuff’. The value of the Kingdom is so great, that Jesus said this man sold all that he had to purchase the true riches. Sometimes it is our unwillingness to ‘sell all that we have’ that keeps us from the true riches.
(802) U.F.O.’S AND THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT! Hey, I needed to get your attention! A few years back I took a few weeks off from the Fire Dept and drove to New Jersey [or Florida?]. I didn’t keep up with the news and all, but I would catch glimpses every so often. The movie ‘Blair Witch Project’ had come out during my trip. I heard that it was supposed to have been a real documentary film that some kids found, but I wasn’t sure of the whole story. When I got back to work some of the guys were discussing it and I naively said ‘I heard that it was real’ [note to self, don’t blurt stuff like this out]. Sure enough I experienced the portion of scripture that says ‘he was despised more than any man’. I wasn’t alone in this mockery, one of my other buddies at the station said ‘yeah, I heard that too!’ For full disclosure I am going to have to share his first name. It was Sammy! [Sorry Sam, but I need to use your first name for a reason]. So after a few weeks of ridicule we repented of our false belief and accepted the fact that the movie was fake. Then the guys rented ‘The Jersey devil’ and sure enough the talk was ‘this one is real’. As a joke I told Sam ‘Yeah, this is the one we meant. This one is real! Right Sam?’ he wanted nothing to do with it. I remembered a funny story while writing this. The reason I had to use Sam’s name was he had an Anglo sounding first and last name. He was light complexioned and would easily pass for a white guy. One day it slips out and Sam says at some class he told the instructor he was Mexican. Me and my other buddy [a Mexican] said ‘what do you mean you’re Mexican’? And he fessed up, although he looked white and had a white last name, he was 100% Mexican. He admitted that when he was in school some of his friends didn’t know he was Mexican until years later. So I tell Sammy ‘you know I also had that problem growing up’ [he looks at me real seriously! He was still fairly new to the fire Dept. at this point] I said ‘many of my buddies didn’t realize I was black’ [P.S. I am Italian, could pass for Mexican, darker skin than most whites. But it would be a stretch to pass for Black!] Now to the U.F.O.’S. Do I believe in them? No. Do I believe people have seen things in the sky that are unexplainable? Yes. You have had reputable people see things that were unidentified. So I believe in the fact that there are unidentifiable things people have seen. I also do not totally discount the possibility of increased angelic activity as the Second Coming of Christ nears. Now, over these last five years I had a ‘sign’ that kept reoccurring. I would often notice the digital clock time of ‘8:44’. It was so noticeable that I have even written before on this blog about it. Thinking of verses that are ‘8:44’ and stuff like that. It never dawned on me that it might actually be a sign about the time ‘8:44’. So a few nights ago I am watching Larry King on CNN. He was doing a show on the most witnessed UFO event since the famous ‘Phoenix Lights’ where many witnesses saw lights in the sky. Now the one Larry king is showing is the event in Texas. I think the date was 1-2008. As I am watching they have real clear video of these multicolor lights. It simply looks like a glorious light show. There were parts of the video where I thought ‘there is no reason why this couldn’t be an angel’. Sure enough the UFO guys got the government to release the radar from that night. It showed lots of points where something was in the air. Things that were unidentifiable. Now the interesting part was, the radar showed all these things flying towards Crawford Texas where President Bush lives. The many witnesses, along with the actual video, do seem to show real activity. The most prayed for person in the world today is very likely to be the President. God does send angels in scripture to help people who are praying. Is it possible that a bunch of angels were sent on assignment that night? Wouldn’t the Lord give some kind of sign or warning if he were to send an angel? The thing that really caught my attention was as I am watching the repeat of the video during the program; it has the time the video was taken- at exactly 8:44 P.M.
(803) Let’s throw in one on Evolution. The dating of the earth and universe and when man appeared in modern form vary somewhat depending on who you listen to. But for the most part you have these brothers who think the earth is under 10 billion years old while the universe is over that [around 13 billion or so, give or take a few billion!]. Now, these brothers also espouse the idea that man in his present form evolved around 150 thousand years ago. At least this is the official stuff you’re taught in high school. Now, according to the atheistic scientist [There are tons of Christian scientists by the way, who reject Evolution as a theory that has been unproven!] man showed up 150 thousand years ago. At the present population growth rate of a little less than one half percent growth annually, do you know how many people would be on the planet by now? A number way over the present population [around 6.5 billion is the present population of our planet]. The number you would get by estimating the 150 thousand date would be so great that you wouldn’t be able to fit all the people on the planet [this of course includes the death rate as well]. Well say if you lowered the evolutionary number and said man showed up around 100 thousand years ago? Still too high. What about 50? Nope. 25 thousand years ago? Still too high. Well let’s see what these silly ‘bible Christians’ believe. The bible gives the date of mans appearance on the planet to be around 6 thousand years ago. But wait, these silly Christians also believe the story of Noah and some huge ark that held all these animals and stuff, along with eight people. The date for Noah’s ark is around 4,500 years ago. Lets say we used the present growth rate for the human population [a little under 1 half percent annually] and ran the numbers from 8 people who left the ark 4500 year ago. I wonder what the number would be. Between 6.4 and 6.5 billion! Wow, for a bunch of people who believe these silly stories in the bible, they keep ‘getting lucky’ when it comes to the facts. NOTE- In keeping myself honest, I am not necessarily a ‘young earth creationist’. I believe it’s possible for the earth to be a lot older than 6 thousand years old. Now, you have varying views among Christians on this. You have ‘young earth creationists’ ‘old earth creationists’ [which I lean towards] and ‘Theistic Evolutionists’. The Theistic Evolutionists basically believe the naturalists timeline on man evolving from primitive life forms. The main problem with this theory is most of the recent [last 50-75 years] discoveries in Paleontology, Biology and Physics absolutely prove otherwise. The ‘Cambrian explosion’ is the earliest fossil ‘level’ [some say 540 million years ago]. This level contains multiple life forms and structures appearing in complete form. This fact is an admitted problem among evolutionists. They know this does not line up with their theory. In the world of Cosmology [Cosmos!] we have discovered an unbelievable amount of ‘fine tuning’ in the universe and solar system. Our Solar system contains 9 Planets [well, I think they dropped Pluto off the list?] In this system you have a Planet, Jupiter, that is larger than all the other planets combined. We now realize that this creates an effect that cause’s meteors to either be deflected by the strong gravity of Jupiter, or to be drawn in to it. This formerly unknown reason for the size of Jupiter now has a reason. In the past you had one basic scientific theory on the universe. It was the ‘static theory’. All scientists held this theory for thousands of years. You had Greek thinkers who espoused this before Christ. The only people who had a theory that the universe had a beginning were the Christians, Jews and Muslims. Basically all who believed in the Old Testament. You were considered ‘loony’ to have believed this. In the last century [1900’s] science came to the conclusion that this silly ‘religious belief’ was correct. You have a very small number of scientists who deny that the universe had a beginning [Stephen Hawking has a ‘multi-verse’ idea. He believes that our universe is part of a series of never ending big bangs. That from all time there have been big bangs that have birthed universes and then this kept repeating from eternity past. It should be noted that very few, if any, other scientists believe this. Some hold to the old steady state theory and deny the big bang]. So anyway after all these year’s science has got it right again! Sort of like Jack Blacks wrestling partner in the movie ‘Nacho Libre’. Black asks him why he never got baptized and the brother says ‘ I believe in science’. Then Black [Libre] forces his head into a pan of water. Hey, they were going up against ‘satan's kids’ that night! [In the ring]. So we now have the young versus the old earth creationists. Let me say even though I lean towards a possible older earth, I do not see a gap theory [a belief that between ‘in the beginning God created’ and ‘the earth was without form’ that you had a pre adamic civilization]. I believe it’s possible to simply have an extended time from ‘in the beginning’ [Gen 1] and the 6 days of creation. I do not see a race of men that had ‘no souls’ and then later another human race. Some old earth brothers espouse this idea. The young earth brothers simply see the 6 days of creation literally [as I do!] but leave no room for any time period for an older earth. To be honest they have some very good proof that has come out to defend this argument. And some of the proof for an old earth is not as strong as you might think! But I want to stress that all the proof shows that there was a beginning to our universe, and that fact alone is one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time. This fact also backs up what the Christians were teaching all along.
(804) A BUNCH OF PEARL HUNTERS! As long as I can remember I have been a ‘pearl hunter’. You too! I don’t mean literal pearls, but things that we fixate on. I would venture to say that all you male readers [most all] have been on the B.B. gun hunt at one time. I still remember seeing my buddies at grade school with the cherished pearl! [actually the pearl handles were nice] I eventually persuaded my dad to convince my mom that I would not shoot my eye out. It was not too longer after that I possessed the precious object. [To me it was like getting that special thing, even though hundreds of thousands of other boys were presently shooting birds, windows and all sorts of things on a daily global scale]. Then came the go-cart. I learned from this experience that if you can’t get your own hands on the coveted material object, that the next best thing is to become friends with the kid who has it! I made lots of new friends. I must have bought and sold 8-10 dirt bikes before the age of 16. I loved them. I also noticed something with these toys, the moment you fixate on a ‘new toy’ you lose interest in the old one. There seems to be a thing in man that says ‘I must acquire that special object that is so coveted, that it deserves to be on a pedestal by itself’. How dare that go–cart take up all that room in the garage, I need that space for the dirt bike! Jesus said ‘The Kingdom is like a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, when he finds one of great price, he sells everything [get that go cart out!] so he can purchase that one pearl’. There is just something that takes place when you stumble across the kingdom. It offers eternal life for free to everyone who believes. As you journey along the road you learn that the actual choice that you thought you made to ‘purchase the pearl’ was really pre ordained of God! In essence it is so secure that you didn’t even have the option of not purchasing it! How do you know when you have found it? Easy, you see all the other ‘toys’ as being not worthy to compete with it. You sell out because of its significance. I thank God that as men [40-60 years old] we grow out of that childish stage of wanting silly toys. Or do we? A few years back I was shopping at our local flea market [it’s named ‘the trade center’] and as I hit all the ‘men’ booths, Knives, Guns, Etc. [toy guns] I saw the booth that had the blow guns and crossbows. I of course had to stop there. You never know, maybe there was some responsible purchase to be made? They did have every imaginable blow gun to fit any future scenario. As I am asking the lady ‘how strong is this one’ [a small hand held crossbow] she says ‘well, my husband shoots the arrows thru a steel shed in our yard’. The lady had to be nearing 65 years old!
(805) A BIG NET- Jesus said the kingdom was like a net that was cast into the sea and caught all types of fish [people]. After it was full they pulled it to shore and put the good fish in baskets and thru the bad out. He explains that at the END OF THE WORLD the angels come forth and separate the wicked from the just and cast them into a fire, there will be ‘wailing and gnashing of teeth’. Again we see the simple end time teaching of Jesus. Don’t overlook the truths in Jesus simple sayings! He was a master teacher not because he was one of those theological brains that you could never fully grasp, but because he communicated tremendous truths thru simple stories. For those who fight and argue over whether or not Jesus will ‘rapture’ all the believers away and then the unbelievers have a time by themselves on earth before the final judgment. All you need to do is look at Jesus sayings. He teaches again that both good and bad fish are on the shore together. The bad fish are the ones who are separated and removed, the good get to stay [new heavens and new earth]. Jesus says this happens at the ‘end of the world’. So you see the believers being here right up until the end. Now the main point is Jesus wants the message of the kingdom to go out into all the world. The fact that this net ‘catches’ all types of fish signifies the very broad casting of the message. All people have heard and been effected in some way by Christ’s message. This does not mean all make it into the new heaven and earth! Jesus shows that the full net is a time of full harvest. There comes a real future time of judgment. Jesus teaches the good will be spared, the bad will suffer. When we studied Acts we showed how judgment was part of the message. I had a discussion the other day with a well meaning person. They shared a belief like ‘well, it doesn’t matter what type of religion you are, God just wants us to treat others right’. They were sincere and asking me questions about the Lord. I simply shared the historic Christian belief that even though you have differing religions and different types of Christian churches, yet Christianity teaches that salvation comes exclusively thru Christ. There is coming a time when the bad fish get thrown out. Now God most certainly wants good fish [treating people right]. The way this is accomplished is thru faith in Christ. God ‘imputes’ righteousness to those who believe [not trying to become ‘good’ by their works!] and this imputed righteousness eventually makes them good [note- at the moment of belief you are completely good and righteous. The process of this being made evident, sanctification, is showing a real distinction between the ‘good versus bad fish’]. What about the bad fish? A famous preacher a few years back was branded as a heretic because he publicly came out and rejected the doctrine of hell. I sent him some stuff at the time [books]. He did attend Oral Roberts University and stirred up a lot of stuff. Many Pentecostals distanced themselves from him [rightfully so]. As I heard him speak [T.V.] about his reasons for rejecting the doctrine, I realized he suffered from a lack of historical thinking. Now I don’t want to be mean, but as he questioned his own beliefs he came to see for the first time that other Christian thinkers of the past also embraced a ‘no hell doctrine’. This seemed to confirm in his mind that the ‘no hell’ belief was an historic belief that traditional Christianity suppressed. If he had a rounded education from the start, he would have learned this early on. The fact that hell and other historic doctrines have been questioned and debated for centuries should have come as no surprise to him. But in his area of learning and the churches he was familiar with he never found any need to venture out into the world of theology and church history. And when he finally did venture out he saw these beliefs for the first time. He was also very inconsistent in his thinking. He shared how he found in the Hebrew and Greek languages that the bible says different stuff than in the English [true to some degree- some words for hell speak of the grave, others of judgment]. But this also is no real secret. Then the conversation jumped to ‘John the Apostle was delusional when he wrote Revelation’. Geez, you don’t have to reject the Canon of scripture to be a universalist! The point here is the historic Christian doctrine of eternal judgment comes from the basic themes of scripture. Sure, some have studied the various texts that speak of judgment and have come to differing ideas. But the historic belief is hell is a real place of eternal separation from the presence of God. The rejection of Jesus Christ as the Son of God who died for your sins, was buried and rose from the grave is the only sin that will send a person to hell. As much as we should love people of all religions, we also need to let them know there is coming a time where the bad fish get cast out of the net. NOTE- Jesus referred to hell as ‘a furnace of fire’ here. There are other descriptions of ‘hell fire’ in scripture. This is why hell has been historically seen as ‘a place of fire’.
(806) WHY A ‘MULTI-VERSE’ THEORY IS FALSE. Jumping back to apologetics. Some atheists have espoused the ‘multi-verse’ idea to try to explain away the unbelievable complexity of the universe and our galaxy and solar system. The further along we advance in the study of Physics and Cosmology, we find a degree of ‘fine tuning’ in the universe that is incomprehensible. We have learned things about our universe that were previously thought of as mere chance. Even though we theorize that there may be millions or billions of planets in the universe, as far as we know the only one that has the unbelievable delicate balance of air and atmosphere to support life is ours. Our unique placement in our galaxy [Milky Way] allows our solar system to be in a position where we can ‘see’ our actual location in space [thru telescopes of course!] there are many other ‘spots’ that we could have been placed in that would not have allowed our own viewing of our position. Did God realize [did!] that there would come a time in human history as man advanced in wisdom where he would figure out the absolute need for a designer to have done these things? Richard Dawkins and other atheists realize what a losing game they are playing. They see how it is impossible for all of this complexity and design to be in our universe and for all of this to have happened from no thing! So in sheer fantasy they have come up with a solution. A ‘multi-verse’. That is if the probabilities of our existence in our own universe are so complex, then instead of admitting the astronomical odds [impossibility!] of all this happening by chance, they just ‘changed the odds’. How so? If you flipped a coin and it landed on heads, all day every day for the rest of your life. What conclusion would you come to? You would check out the coin to make sure it doesn’t have 2 heads! Or in other words the first reasonable, logical conclusion would be ‘someone designed the coin to make this happen’. Now say if you had someone who said ‘I don’t believe that someone designed this to happen’. I would ask ‘than how else can you explain, that by pure chance this unbelievable result has occurred’ he could then say ‘well, say if right now as you were flipping the coin, at the same time there are an untold number of other people all over the world right now flipping coins. Let’s say the whole population of 6.5 billion people on the planet are flipping coins!’. Well, I would have to admit that the odds of one person getting heads every time just went up. Even though it would still be highly unlikely that out of all 6.5 billion people you would still have one who hit heads non stop for 25 years in a row, yet the fact is the odds have changed in favor of my friend who does not believe in ‘an intelligent designer who caused the unbelievable odds to happen’. This in a nutshell is what the ‘multi verse’ brothers believe. They have simply changed the odds by saying ‘there are an infinite number of universes’. Now, what evidence do we have that there are multiple universes existing outside of our present universe? None! No wait ‘absolutely none’. ‘Well John, do you mean to tell me that these geniuses of intellect are trying to pass off something as ridiculous as this without any evidence’? Yes. The fact is by definition there can be no evidence. Our universe is described as all that is presently existing in our space/time continuum. Anything that we could ever learn or see is by definition ‘in our universe’. This is why science has proven that for all things [space and time included] to have had a beginning [which is scientific fact!] then there must have been an outside causal agent, who himself was not limited by time or space [our universe!] who acted upon his own purpose and will to bring into existence all things. For Dawkins or Hawking to simply say ‘well, we believe there are untold numbers of infinite big bangs and infinite universes’ is as ridiculous as saying ‘everyone else on the planet are flipping coins’! NOTE- the ‘multi-verse’ idea is gaining ground as an answer to the intelligent design problem seen in our universe. The increased complexity and fine tuning that science is discovering in our universe poses a tremendous threat to the old ‘it just happened’ theory. The obvious ‘silliness’ of the multi- verse theory is its absolute contradiction. In essence it says ‘we have been saying for years that the high improbability of our universe coming into existence from a ‘big bang’ which has no prior cause, is next to impossible’. But this ‘impossible’ supposition is now explained by saying ‘there have been an infinite number of big bangs and an infinite number of universes’. If the odds on all of this coming into existence from ‘nothing’ are small [impossible] what are the odds that this next to impossible phenomena has been going on for ever?
(807) THE WEDDING SEAT- Jesus said when someone invites you to a wedding, don’t sit in the place of promotion/honor. But sit in a low place. If you seek power and position the man who invited you will come and say ‘please give up your place for this man’ and you will be humbled and lose significance. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but he that humbles himself will be exalted. Once again Jesus contrasts the idea of ‘being all you can be’ ‘being the most motivated person in the room’. All natural tendencies that well meaning people fall into when they fail to follow the actual precepts that Jesus gave us for the Christian life. It’s only natural for up and coming ‘ministers’ or believers who feel called to ministry to begin to seek position and prominence. Now most of the time we don’t realize this is happening, it can be a tricky balance to keep. Sometimes it happens, not out of pride but insecurity. People want to be affirmed. If I feel like my position and success are indicators of God being pleased with me, or outward signs of Gods vindication ‘wow, wait until my enemies see me now!’ This can become a trap. The fundamental truth of our acceptance with God is proven by the death and resurrection of his Son. ‘God loved us and he gave his Son to prove this’. Now Jesus showed us the process of being a child of God. His ultimate act of emptying himself [Kenosis] would seem to be contrary to completing his mission. If you possessed all the attributes of God and were given a task of supreme importance [redeeming man] the last thing you would want to do is give up the position and power that you have. It seems contrary to fulfilling the mission! Jesus would ask ‘father, if this is the path to completing the mission, then so be it. But if there is any other way possible, besides me drinking the cup, show me’. It’s only natural for us to want to hold on to power and prestige, to go for ‘the chief seat’. Now in the parable Jesus said the man who invited you will come and say ‘give this man place’ [position]. When the Father exalted the Son and seated him at his right hand, it was after extreme humility. The man who Jesus takes by the hand and says ‘come, sit here in the front’ isn’t jumping up and down and saying ‘I was waiting for this my whole life. I knew if I waited my turn I would be exalted’. He is simply fulfilling the course that was his destiny. He already has learned the futility of trying to gain acceptance and honor from other men. He simply allows the master to move him from a place of insignificance to one of influence. This process is played out time and again in God’s kingdom. We rarely see the practical aspect of truly being Christ like. We think things like ‘God has great plans for me. I am the head and not the tail’ while these things are true, we often mistake the values of the world while seeking ‘headship’. Being the ‘head and not the tail’ means growing up into ‘him’ who is the head! [Jesus]. It is using his own kingdom values as a measuring rod. It means facing the most important decision of your life and saying ‘if you want me Father to give up my position and glory, if you tell me that this path is the one to fulfilling ‘my dreams’. Then even though it seems contrary to all that I see and understand, yet I will do it. Father, your will, not mine be done’.
(808) PLANT THOSE SEEDS! - Jesus uses the idea of seeds again. The kingdom is like casting seed into the ground. You plant it and go to bed and get up and live a consistent life, before you know it the seed grows. The earth brings forth fruit OF ITSELF. You ‘knoweth not how’ this is happening. Much of kingdom living is simply trusting in God to produce after you obey. Our natural minds say ‘well, it will take so much money and resource to do this. How in the world can we expect the ‘seed to grow’ unless we all become millionaires’ there goes that ‘stinkin thinkin’ again! Hey, the thing will grow while you are sleeping! Our natural talents and abilities [even to raise funds!] has nothing to do with it. Now, after the process of natural [supernatural] growth takes place, you then can harvest it. The seed goes thru growth stages. The blade, ear and ‘full corn’. Here in South Texas we have these beautiful wild flowers that grow every year. In the wild they grow great, but it’s hard to get them going in your yard! The reason is the flowers need to make it to ‘full growth stage’ and then the seedlings die and fall. If you mow them down before full seed stage they don’t reproduce. There are things in your life that God wants to bring to ‘full harvest stage’ [or dying stage!] A place where you don’t know or even care how the thing will grow, you simply cast the seed because you have learned if you ‘don’t cast it, you will be miserable’ in essence you are obeying out of sheer experience! [Paul- woe is me if I preach not the gospel]. Jesus said ‘I have given them the words that you gave me’ [John 17]. There are so many ‘seeds’ that you have been entrusted with. Some have more than others [30,60,100 fold]. God is not holding you accountable for the ‘size of the harvest’ he is holding you accountable for what you did with the handful of seeds he gave you. When Jesus returns he asks 'what did you do with the talent I gave you’? Some times we fail to plant out of fear ‘I need the land, then some equipment. How much money will it take to plant the first field?’ Just simply plant what you have right now! Jesus said ‘he knoweth not how it is growing, the earth brings forth fruit of itself’. Once you reach the ‘full harvest stage’ the thing looks like its dead [it is] but what do you know, next year you have a yard full of the stuff!
(809) GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER? Jesus said when you have a feast, don’t invite your friends, neighbors or rich people. For they can benefit you in some way, you can get ‘repaid’. But instead invite the down and out, because they can’t repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection and return of Christ. Once again Jesus precepts are so contrary to the engrained mindset of ‘getting a reward’. We have an endemic problem in the American church. We do most everything with ‘repayment in mind’. We want it, we want it now and we want an overabundance of it! Heck, didn’t Jesus teach this? Well yes he did ‘give and it will be given unto you….’ Hebrews says ‘those who come after God must believe that he is and that he rewards us’. The point is a great body of Jesus teachings show us that this life and all it can afford are temporary riches. Paul said in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 1 that God will repay us at the appearing of Jesus. We need to re- tool our motivations for ‘ministry’ [service] and understand that our real reward is at the end [or beginning!]. Do we really live like this? Do we give and serve with the expectation of getting our rewards soon? Do we ‘sow seed’ [give money] with this very understanding as the primary motive for giving? Jesus said ‘when you do charitable deeds [note- he is not addressing this responsibility to the mission outreach of ‘the church’ or the barrio ministry!] do it with the mindset of not receiving a reward until I return’. Well brother, what’s the use of doing good stuff then? Well its service to our King, its part of counting the cost. It’s part of taking up our cross daily. Make no bones about it, there is an aspect of service to Jesus that says ‘we do not live for present rewards, but our lives show thru word and deed that there is an afterlife. We fully expect to be rewarded then’. I realize that we have focused and gone way overboard on the reality of God blessing us in this life. I understand why people do not like to hear this stuff. But the time has come for the American church to repent of our idolatry and get on board with the rest of the Body of Christ. Our brothers and sisters worldwide have learned to live [and die!] for the cause of Christ, and we can’t even hold a free B.B.Q!
(810) WHY SO MANY THEORIES? I know I jump around a lot! Recently I have been reading some stuff on all the recent [50 years] evidence of God coming from the study of the Cosmos. I have mentioned that the accepted science for the existence of our current universe is ‘the big bang theory’. Now, the reason this theory is ‘accepted’ by well over 90 percent of the scientific community is because as time progressed after it’s initial discovery, all the evidence kept pointing to an initial event [big bang] that was the beginning point of all matter, time, energy and space. For many thousands of years thinkers and scientists did not believe this. It was considered ‘ignorant’ to hold to an idea that said ‘there was a beginning point to time and space’. To many of you this sounds strange even now! But be assured, science has proven this to be true. One of the great intellects of the 20th century, Albert Einstein, who came up with the ‘theory of relativity’ introduced new concepts of time and space that were revolutionary breakthroughs in thought. After a multiple of new discoveries [Hubble- the expanding universe] the century progressed to a point where that which was seen as ignorant in days gone by [that time and space actually had a beginning point] was now accepted mainstream science. Now, all scientists were not so willing to give in to the accepted theory. Many of them openly said ‘if this theory [big bang] is true, then God is a necessary being’. Many realized that for all things to have had a starting point, especially time and space, that the only reasonable explanation for the existence of all things is ‘God’. I know it’s hard to grasp the concept that God exists outside of the parameters of time and space. We often see God as this being who was ‘floating around’ in eternity in some empty void, who one day said ‘Let there be light’ and he began creating things. But in all actuality God wasn’t ‘floating in space for all time’, he simply WAS. That is there was no time or space for him to have been floating in! His omniscience and omnipresence was all there was! Now, as hard as it is for us to grasp this concept, I want you to see that the only people who held to this idea of a transcendent being [someone who transcends time and space] were people who believed in God! It seemed humorous and ignorant to believe in a pre existent being who was self existent and lived outside of time and space. But be assured, this ‘silly’ belief in Gods characteristics, as revealed thru scripture, is now absolutely proven to be the most feasible solution to the existence of our universe! That’s why Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins and others have tried very hard to introduce other views of the existence of our universe [multi- verse, oscillating, steady state, ‘vacuum’] all attempts at trying to undo the majority accepted view. The problem is at this point they are not fighting the Christians as much as their fellow colleagues! After a hundred years of true science, we now know that all things [except God] had a beginning point. The atheist knows if this is true he will have to admit God. They should listen to one of the great thinkers of all time who when trying to come up with an overriding answer that would ‘unify’ [explain] all the various fields of science, said ‘God doesn’t roll dice’. Einstein was too smart to leave God out of the equation.
(811) HE SPENT HIS MONEY ON PROSTITUTES AND GOD THREW HIM A PARTY! In Luke 15 we have the famous parable of the Prodigal Son. The chapter begins with the religious leaders becoming offended that Jesus was receiving sinners. This is the backdrop to why Jesus gives the story. He starts with 2 other brief parables of lost sheep and coins. The themes of these are ‘just like a man rejoices over finding something that was lost, so likewise God rejoices ‘throws a party’ when a sinner comes home’. This begins the story. Jesus says a man had 2 sons [Jew/Gentile] and one son said ‘Father, give me the inheritance that is rightfully mine’ [the immature son learned the truth of ‘requesting his inheritance’ –money, and getting it rightfully. This did not mean that he was mature or correct in doing what he did. Even though the father had prepared it for him, the son was preoccupied with getting it NOW!] The father divides the inheritance to both boys. The young son goes off and lives it up. He spends all his money and ends up eating pig food. He comes to his senses and says ‘I will return home, my father has servants living better than this! I will request a job from dad’. As the boy nears the house the father runs and grabs the boy. He tells his servants ‘go, kill the calf and let’s have a party!’ He puts a robe on him and gives him a ring. Now the older son [Israel- she has been struggling for centuries to try and please God. Sure she has failed, but heck these other nations weren’t even trying!] hears the uproar and says ‘what’s going on?’ They tell him ‘your brother returned and your father has thrown him a party’. He sulks in his room. The father asks what's wrong and the older son says ‘I have tried my best to live up to your standards [Law] and yet my younger brother spent all his money rebelling against you. Where was he when things got rough? I was here to give you a hand, not him! And as soon as he shows up you are overjoyed about it. What about me?’ Remember, Jesus is giving this story in response to the offence that the Jewish leaders had at the beginning of this chapter. The father says ‘son, you have always been with me [God made his covenant available to Israel for many years. Just because he was opening it up to the ‘sinning nations’ didn’t mean that he cared less about them]. The father tells the son ‘you have always had access to my covenant, this other son [gentile nations] went astray for many years. Don’t take it wrong that I am happy over his return. He was lost and now he’s home’. Jesus challenged the mindset of Israel in this parable. It was only natural for the nation of Israel to have been offended. Jesus even taught ‘offenses must happen’. But they were going to reject their Messiah because of this offense. They couldn’t believe how Jesus treated the outcasts ‘they wasted your money on harlots’! was the corporate cry of Israel. ‘How could you even think of eating with them’. Often times we get offended because God is merciful. Jesus gives other parables along these lines. The hired workers who worked all day felt like they got cheated when the master paid them all the same. In that parable Jesus has the master saying ‘are you mad because I did what I wanted with what was mine? I didn’t cheat you , I gave you what I agreed to pay you’ once again they were offended that Jesus was offering equal access to those who were deemed ‘less worthy’. Jesus did tell the older son ‘all that I have ever had has been made available, don’t let your offense keep you from enjoying the party’.
(812) NEW WINE NEEDS NEW BOTTLES- Jesus said no man takes a piece of new cloth and sews it onto old clothes. Or no one takes new wine and puts in into old wineskins. If you do the wineskins will break and the wine is lost. Jesus was a radical revolutionary, his message and Kingdom were one of tremendous change and transition. The New Testament calls this ‘the time of reformation’. In John chapter 3 he told Nicodemus ‘unless a man is born again he cant even see or begin to perceive this new thing’. We often seek for new understanding, trying to improve our lives and callings. Sincere people who are looking for innovation and trying to be on the ‘cutting edge’. One of the common mistakes we as believers make is we often approach ‘new ideas’ with ‘old structures’ in mind. Much of the stuff I have written on ‘local church’ fits into this category. Jesus is primarily teaching the reality of his New Covenant being one of complete transition and change. He knew that the old mindset of law and legalism would not be able to contain the New Covenant. The Spirit of God needs ‘new’ [born again] vessels to be poured into. Jesus also said those who have been ‘drinking the old wine’ have a natural tendency to resist change. They are comfortable with the traditions and form that have surrounded them for most of their lives. There is ‘special value’ on ‘wine that is old’. Jesus told the disciples ‘I have many things to teach you, but you are not able to hear them right now’ in essence ‘their old wine skin mentality’ couldn’t handle the new things. In all growth and maturing there also needs to be a basic understanding that it does no good whatsoever to change or introduce reformation to the degree that both the wine and the wineskins are lost. Jesus realized there were certain things that the disciples just couldn’t handle, and it would have been pointless to have ‘cast the pearls’ at that time. I want to challenge you, God often holds back the answer to a question or problem because he realizes we need to be re-positioned before we can receive it. He doesn’t simply communicate ‘new and deep revelation’ for the sake of making us smarter! He wants the people of God to come to maturity so he can be glorified in all the nations. New wine is good, in fact it is a necessity! But it does absolutely no good if it’s spilled all over the ground.
(813) I was going to do the parable [some say story! - I explain it later] of the rich man and Lazarus, but felt we should go another way. Yesterday I was reading some stuff on line and learned of the book Frank Viola wrote ‘Pagan Christianity’. I have not read it, but I have read other books from Frank and I think he is an excellent teacher. As I was ‘perusing’ the comments from Pastors and others who read the book, I realized that it stirred up a controversy in many circles. I thought it interesting that a big part of our teaching has been debated recently and I wasn’t even aware of it. Let me make some comments about ‘the comments’. The title might be a little strong, I understand the actual fact of many modern Christian practices arising from ‘pagan’ sources. But this in itself was no secret to the believers who willingly did this at the time! I remember reading one of my ‘history of Christianity’ books and hearing a Catholic author explain why the 4th century church did embrace, to a degree, certain pagan things. Some Protestants seem to think that the fact that Christmas and Easter have obviously pagan histories is a secret known only to them [them being protestants]. But the Catholic author explained that ‘changing’ pagan holidays into ‘Christian ones’ was done on purpose. The intent was to allow the pagans to keep their special days, though the institutional purpose of those days was changed, as the Emperor Constantine was legitimizing Christianity [his brand of it]. Now was this ‘compromising’? Sure. But was this a secret pagan take over of Christianity? Probably not. So when we see ‘pagan’ things [cultural changes] being mixed in with Christianity, sometimes it doesn’t mean what we think. Paul teaches in Timothy to give honor to Elders and respect those in authority. Paul says ‘I am writing these things so believers will know how to behave in the House of God’. In context, the elders and the ‘House of God’ are simply speaking about the mature saints who were living and dedicating their lives for the propagation of the gospel and spending extra time ‘building Gods House’ [the actual community of believers in their midst]. But later on as Christianity developed the ‘House of God’ would be seen as the ‘church building’. The hired positions of clergy were seen as ‘Bishops, Pastors, and Priests’. So when you would have a reformer rise up [Luther] it was easy to initially brand him as a heretic who was ‘going against Gods House’. Who was ‘not honoring’ the Elders [Pope and Bishop]. The mistake was reading the New Testament and simply applying the names [House of God- church building. Bishop [of Rome] - Catholic apostolic succession from Peter] of things to the present understanding. So the Protestants would have their Reformation and only go so far. For all practical purposes the ‘House of God’ was still seen as ‘the church building’. And the Protestant Pastor was still seen as the office of someone who ‘oversees the church’. There really was no reformation of ‘church practices’ or the way ‘we do church’. Now, are all of these practices inherently wicked? No. Do they hinder growth and maturity among believers? To a degree, yes. Paul's words to Timothy on honoring Elders, giving them ‘double honor’. This speaks about actually sharing your material goods with those in the community who were dedicating themselves to learning and teaching this ‘new way’. All believers did not have access to scripture like we have today. The scrolls of the Old Testament and the letters of Paul were circulating, but some of the new believers couldn’t even read! So in these communities of people, which Paul describes as ‘The House of God’ you had ‘spiritual parents’. More mature Elders who had a stable grasp of doctrine. They would help keep the believers on course in a day where there was no internet, libraries [available to the general public at large] no radio or T.V. [this one could be a blessing!]. In essence these Elders, Bishops [overseers] were simple believers who were worthy of ‘double honor’ [feed them, help them out materially, they are meeting a real need and for all practical purposes they are needed!]. But as Constantine would ‘marry’ the Empire and institutionalize the church, the ‘double honor’ portions of scripture were used to justify a ‘tithe system’ that would support ‘the church’. Priests and Bishops took on a different meaning than the way Paul would use the term. The development of hired clergy and the overall institutionalizing of the church used common New Testament terms, but for the most part these terms were taken out of context. The Protestant Reformation dealt with important doctrinal issues, but this basic ‘way of seeing church’ did not change. While I haven’t read Franks book yet, I plan on reading it in the future. Understand I am not commenting on what frank Viola means when he says ‘Pagan Christianity’. I am simply sharing my thoughts on the development of Christianity.
(814) OUR WE A BUFFET OR A PARK? I guess we need to do some more on ‘the house church movement’. First, the New Testament addresses ‘the church’ as the corporate people of God. The great mystery is that Christ is dwelling in our hearts by faith. That all believers are walking around as ‘the mobile dwelling place of God, THE HOUSE OF GOD!’ Now, from this standpoint we live and function as the people of God. As we learn and grow we realize that ‘along the way’ we have grasped on to limited ideas about who we are and what the church is. Many of these concepts are shared by both Catholic and Protestant believers. Some who have been helpful in showing us the limited perspective of ‘church at/as the building’ as being silly, seem to have grasped on to the idea that ‘church at the house’ is the basic organic nature of ‘church’. I disagree. In society today you have all sorts of family units. Kids are being born and leaving home and going out into this ‘brave new world’ and imprinting their name on the world. All over the earth you have parents who are writing and keeping in touch with their offspring as they learn and grow as people. These kids are doing all sorts of things [shopping, eating, going to movies, going to the buffet on Sunday]. Now say if you as a parent changed the way you wrote your letters; ‘Dear Johnnie and family’ turned into ‘dear kids who meet and eat every Sunday at the buffet’. The kids would be wondering ‘what’s up with dad, why does he see us only thru the lens of us eating on Sunday’ [or whatever day you eat]. The basic mistake that dad is making is he is seeing one of the functions of his kids [meeting for the purpose of eating] and mistaking that function for ‘the kids’. That is he is beginning to identify his kids in a limited way by viewing them only thru this lens. Now say if dad does some research and finds out that the first century ‘kids’ were having their meals in the park. It was only as time progressed that they built ‘buffets’ and places to go on Sunday to eat. And as time progressed all the kids from future generations starting viewing themselves thru the lens of ‘we are families, we are people who eat at buffets on Sunday’. Now say if the researcher who has discovered that the early families really never ate at buffets [met in buildings!] begins to teach that ‘true family’ are those who meet at parks. The fundamental mistake, in my mind, would be defining ‘the people’ [church] as the kids who eat/meet at the park. While in reality, these first century ‘kids’ were defined as being ‘real kids, who were living and ‘eating’ and functioning as real people as a result of really being born by real parents’. That is the real definition of ‘being kids’ is neither ‘meeting at the 4th century church building’ [or calling the actual building ‘the kids’!] nor is it ‘meeting at the first century park’ [home meetings]. The researcher, as helpful as he has been in showing us the limited model of 4th century ‘buffet eating’ has also been limited in his replacing of ‘the church’ as building based versus home based. Would you address your kids as ‘buffet based’ or ‘park based’? That is would you define them by using the measuring rod of ‘where they met to eat’? Of course not! They are ‘kids’ [children of God] because they have been born into human [spiritual] families. Their fundamental nature as ‘children of humans’ [of God] is what makes them ‘kids’. So today I wanted to re focus our attention on what the ‘church’ actually is. The church are all the people of God [both those in buildings, parks and any where else they happen to be] who are alive because they have been actually born from God the father. Our identity is not based on 4th or 1st century ‘ways of meeting’. Our identity is based on being ‘born from above’.
(815) It seems as if every time I take an excursion from a ‘study’ I do 3 or so posts. So let’s see if I can close here. There are obviously major hurdles and feelings at stake when any body says ‘look, I have found some great stuff in the bible. Lots of it has to do with the fact that what you thought was ‘church’ is not ‘church’. What you thought was a fulltime position of ‘Pastor’ is no where in scripture. And what you have been doing for the past 20 years is off track’. Any job description [Prophet!] that carries this type of function is not going to be well received! [I am not talking about me]. So as we examine and learn about the church and the role of leadership, we must realize that feelings are going to get hurt ‘who does he think he is! Man that guy is threatening my livelihood!’ Well, yes it is possible that the fact that there were no 1st century ‘Pastors’ in the context of what that word means today, can be threatening. So do we never address the issue because it is threatening? But do we go around and teach all the believers that they should abandon all present structures? I appreciate all the good teachers I have learned from over the years. Real insights into things that I would have never seen without their help. Some of these teachers have been excellent on revealing the fact that the 1st century church did not have the office of Pastor as the weekly speaker to the ‘local church’. This was not the normal way believers met. The 1st century gatherings were corporate ‘body life’ experiences. People learn and grow in a conversation with others. They stagnate by sitting in an audience [both the pastors and the spectators]. Now, some have argued that Elders, Pastors and Overseers in general had a very limited, if not non existent, role in the first century churches. This can be debated somewhat. I don’t want to argue the point, but simply say that there is enough evidence in scripture to believe that Elders [basic oversight] existed as a regular part of the communities of Jesus in the first century. These leaders were simply more mature men who gave direction and oversight to the flock as God ordained. They were not ‘Pastors’ in the sense of today’s Pastoral office. But they did exist in scripture. So in all of the well meaning efforts of returning back to a more biblical form of church life, I think we need to leave room for leadership to exist and function to some degree. Some of the brothers seem to have gone a little too ideological in the area of ‘no human headship’. They teach that the 1st century churches declared the headship of Jesus by having no human ‘control’ at all in the meetings [communities]. I kind of see their effort as noble, but a little too impractical. Some of this teaching goes along the line of ‘the biggest hindrance to the Body of Christ are the Pastors/Elders’. While I do see a negative result from believers overly depending on the present pastoral office. Yet I do not see a type of New Testament ecclesiology that was absent all human leadership. Leadership is there, it is plural [obey THEM that have the ‘rule’ over you- by the way ‘rule’ here is different than ‘rule’ when referring to human govt. and kings. Jesus did teach that Kingdom leadership would be thru care and oversight] and it is communal. It exercises itself thru leaders [Apostles, Prophets, Elders, etc.] as they live together as a community of people. So the basic reason I am bringing this up is I feel some have drawn a little too idealistic picture of ‘the local meetings’ in the first century. Sort of like the meetings were very spiritual because of a total lack of oversight. I don’t see this description at all. I see Paul writing the Corinthians and rebuking them strongly for having terrible meetings! Now his solution isn’t ‘have everyone one shut up and listen to the Pastor’ [there was no ‘Pastor’!] but there certainly wasn’t some type of purposeful ‘leaderless’ church that had no recognized leaders. To the contrary Paul will give specific instructions in his pastoral epistles [Timothy, Titus] to make sure the local saints knew who were recognized Elders. Paul was not afraid of saying ‘these guys are leaders, if you have problems and situations that arise in my absence, don’t be afraid to go to them. They are stable in the faith’. So while it is true that the first century churches did not have the office of Pastor as we have come to define it today. Yet they weren’t a bunch of ‘leaderless’ people. Elders existed and Paul seemed to have no problem with everyone knowing who the Elders were.
(816) Okay, I lied! Just to clarify, these last few entries are dealing with years of studying and dealing with ‘organic church’. Many fine authors; Austin Sparks, Gene Edwards, Watchman Nee, Robert Banks, etc. There are varying themes and ideas that arose out of the ‘Rethinking the Wineskin’ mentality. One of the other areas of concern has to do with the understanding of ‘Apostles’ [itinerant workers] as it relates to the ‘Ecclesia’. I am grateful over the amount of believers in general who have recently come to grips with the fact that Apostles do exist today according to the plain reading of the New Testament. The ‘older idea’ of dividing up the portions of scripture that say ‘after Jesus ascended he gave gifts to men, Apostles, Prophets, etc.’ it is fairly obvious that these ‘Apostles’ were made after Christ’s ascension [Ephesians] and that they exist alongside the other gifts. Now, with all the recent dialogue on Apostles and ‘church planting’, do you know how many times the command is given in the New Testament to ‘start churches’? Zero! That’s right, no where in the New Testament are we [or Apostles] commanded to ‘go and plant a church’ Huh? All Christians [Apostles too!] are commanded to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. It is obvious that in the New Testament the Apostles did have a strong gifting to present the gospel and the gospel taking root in the people [which is what ‘church planting’ is!] But there is no reason to believe that as we challenge the idea of ‘hired clergy’ and the average believer’s dependence on them, that at the same time we should teach a concept that says ‘it is impossible to have a true ecclesia without the extra local worker’. This has been taught many times over the years as I have studied this movement. I feel the mistake is in seeing the power of ‘church planting’ residing in a specific role, and ONLY that role, while at the same time trying to free Gods people from the un biblical role of ‘full time Pastor’. As far as I can tell the church at Rome was ‘started’ by the Diaspora who were scattered sometime after Pentecost. Paul wrote them a letter [Romans] but did not arrive there until later. The point I want to make is this, as we challenge the present ideas and limitations that the ‘institutional church’ has put on the people of God, we don’t want to make the mistake of telling them that ‘the Apostle’ is now the ‘office’ that is indispensable to your healthy existence! The power of the gospel is what makes ‘healthy churches’ [communities]. Sure Apostles are important, but it is the power of the Spirit in the work of regeneration that ‘plants churches’. Now, someone does have to get the message to them! But whether that’s an Evangelist, Prophet or little old grandma! Once the gospel is proclaimed to a group of people, all the essential elements of life are present.
(817) ARE CHURCH BUILDINGS, PAID LEADERS AND PUBLIC SCRIPTURE READING PAGAN PRACTICES? There are a few reasons why I avoid ‘going too deep’ on this site. The obvious one being I can’t do it very well! Plus it has its ups and downs. I turned 46 the other day. I like taking the kids to the beach and all, growing up in Jersey it was cool to ‘show off’ and ‘go deep’. I have this inner temptation to ‘go deep’ in the Gulf. But there is also a restraining factor; It works like this- I can risk looking cool at the age of 46 and swim out real far, it might be over my head, but heck the kids will think ‘wow, he is really deep’! Then this nagging fear pops up in my mind. I see my self being pulled to shore by some 18 year old lifeguard. I am strung out on the beach with a group of spring breakers hovering over me with Budweiser cans. The local news channel has their cameras in my face as the lifeguard explains how they ‘brought me back with C.P.R.’ and the college kids are saying ‘are you all right old man’? As you can see ‘going deep’ has its risks! Now, what does the bible teach about ‘church [sacred] buildings’ ‘paid clergy [leaders]’ ‘the public reading of scripture’ ‘meeting on Sunday’ and all the other practices associated with ‘the institutional church’? Well actually these things are not as ‘Pagan’ as you might think! In fact the public reading of scripture is commanded in scripture. The ‘paying money’ to Elders is taught. Christians meeting in ‘sacred buildings’ actually did happen to a degree in scripture! Both the Temple and the Synagogue continued to be places where early Jewish [and some Gentile- ‘God- fearers’] believers ‘met’. The point is these actual practices are not necessarily ‘Pagan in origin’. Am I defending the later development of ‘the church being the church building’ along with the clergy system and all that it entails? No. I believe Christians have been confused on what the ‘church is’ and how we as the people of God should function in society. But I also believe that a strong case could be made that the present ‘ideas’ about church that are unbiblical could be traced to ‘Judaism’ instead of ‘Paganism’. The development of the church [sacred] building along with the Altar and officiating Priest can be seen as Legalistic [law mentality] as opposed to Pagan. Now I see both of these developments as bad, but the basic idea of believers having recognized leaders [Elders] who are supported financially [free will –no tithe or ‘salary’] is in scripture. The fact that Paul rented a building in the book of Acts [hall of Tyrannus- Acts 19:9] to teach in a public forum is not pagan! The whole point being we as the Ecclesia are the actual dwelling place of God. As we learn and grow as believers we have tremendous freedom to have public places dedicated to God, scenarios where leaders speak to us in a public forum. Actual ways of supporting leaders who are dedicating their time to teaching and preaching. These things are permitted and at times commanded in scripture! Where we need to re examine our beliefs is when we see the ‘church building’ and the ‘Sunday message’ and all of the things associated with ‘Sunday church’ as actually being ‘the local church’. It is the limited mindset that hinders us. Now, to simply replace the ‘Sunday church building mindset’ with ‘the house church mindset’ doesn’t necessarily fix the problem. Some teach the idea that the ‘natural habitat’ of the believer is the ‘open meeting’. That when you remove the believer from the open meeting format, that in essence you have taken him out of his natural setting and therefore he cant develop right. If you read the teachings of Jesus on how the believer is to ‘act’ and function in society. If you follow the ministry of Jesus and imitate as much as possible his life and precepts. If you do the things Jesus said to do, then you are ‘living in the designed natural habitat’ of the believer! The idea that the ‘open house meeting’ versus the ‘Sunday public meeting’ is the answer for the modern believer is very limited. The problem with most of us is not how or where we are meeting, it is our natural instinct to not want to carry our cross. To live an unselfish life. To give ourselves away for a higher purpose. The main body of the New Testament has very little to say about ‘how to meet’. Sure we have a few well-known scriptures that we are all familiar with ‘forsake not the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some’ [Hebrews]. In context this is speaking of the ‘open meeting’ idea. It speaks of exhorting one another. More like Paul’s instruction to the Corinthians. But the point I want to make [without the risk of getting pulled to shore!] is that the answer to the present day dilemma of ‘non functioning’ believers is not going to be found in changing the way we meet. Our natural habitat is not sitting in someone’s living room! It is going into all the world and preaching the gospel to every creature. It is being an example of living a sacrificial life as much as possible. Trying to follow the admonition of James on pure religion ‘to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and keeping yourself unspotted from the world’ [not how you meet!]. In a nutshell the problem is most of us are falling short in actually living the life! So I don’t want to contradict all the writings that I have done on this site about the need to change our mindset on ‘what is Local church’. But I feel some have tried to replace the way believers meet, thinking that this in itself is the main problem with modern Christianity. I see it a little differently.
(818) The recent discussion over ‘pagan church practices’ and the organic versus the ‘church building’ model have been good. It might have surprised some of you to see me ‘defend’ to a degree the ‘church building’- let me explain. Some teach a type of ecclesiology [church govt.] that says ‘you have the institutional church’ [church building, denominational, organized] and the ‘organic’ church. The distinction they seem to be making is ‘although there are Christians in the institutional model, the ‘out of church’ brothers are really the ‘truest form of church’. Sort of like trying to trace ‘your roots’ thru out church history. I covered this concept in the study we did on the book of Acts [read the intro and conclusion]. The problem I have with this is it seems to trace the ‘truer church’ as to a specific historical group of believers, who thru out the centuries resisted the ‘intuitional church’ and these ‘out of church’ believers have really carried the torch for the Gospel. I see this idea fundamentally flawed. It seems to not take into account that many of these groups were outright heretics! It also seems to miss the fact that many believers who were in the ‘organized church’ were actually part of the ‘organic church’ in the sense that they were a living, breathing functioning part of Christ’s church! So you might very well have had a true believer in the ‘organized church’ and an unbeliever in the ‘unorganized church’! That is you really can’t trace ‘the true church’ along these lines. Now, I believe there is a fundamental fault line that does run thru the collective mind of many Christians. Too many of us seem to not make the functional distinction between ‘Ecclesia’ versus ‘church’. We do need to be challenged in the way we read the New Testament and apply current miss-concepts of ‘the local church’ to the text. It is a fact that as far as we [we being those who try their best at studying the history of the 1st century church] can tell, the idea of the modern Pastoral office, along with the strong ‘go to church’ idea was absent in the 1st century church. Some scholars have made a noble effort to present the other side [institutional] but the weight of historical evidence falls on the ‘organic church’ model. As we struggle to become ‘the church’ in a more biblical way in the 21st century, we need to be careful that we don’t give Christians the idea that all ‘church building’ churches are outright pagan! The fact that many true believers worship according to this model shows us that the ‘organic Body of Christ’ is truly being represented in them. I thank God for all the recent discussion over these issues. It was a much needed ongoing conversation. We need to have this conversation with much grace!
(819) THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS- Let’s try to get a few more parables in before we start the book of Romans. In Luke 16 we have the Rich Man and Lazarus. First, some say this is not a parable, but a true story. Why? Well in all the parables Jesus never uses proper names, here he uses the name ‘Lazarus’ so this cant be a parable! Let’s see, if this is a parable [which I believe it is] then Jesus does use proper names in parables! I realize that many well meaning believers hear things thru out their lives, we all want to do our best in life. We grasp on to certain things out of good intentions, it’s just we need to allow our minds to be ‘molded’ by Gods Word. Now Jesus says there was a rich man who had it made, he ‘fared sumptuously every day’ [he had more than enough all the time!] and a poor man at his gate [border]. The poor man begged for help and was desperate. The rich man, by law, had no responsibility to help. He didn’t! The poor man dies and goes to ‘Abrahams Bosom’ [I really don’t want to do the whole thing to be honest. I believe this is simply a figure of speech. He is in ‘Paradise- Heaven’ I know some have really built some doctrines from this parable]. The rich man dies and ends up in Hell. The rich man asks Father Abraham if he can send Lazarus to give him some water. Abraham replies he can’t, there is an impassible gulf between them. Plus the rich man was rewarded in life and now he is suffering. Lazarus suffered in life and is now rewarded. The rich man asks ‘well, at least send Lazarus back [raise him! –note, I do find it interesting that Jesus is the one ‘making up the names’ in this story. He picks the name ‘Lazarus’ a real name of one of his friends, Mary and Martha’s brother. Jesus also chooses to speak about him being ‘sent back’ [raised from the dead] in this story. Of course Jesus actually does raise Lazarus from the dead, and some Jews- i.e.; the rich mans ‘5 brothers’ still don’t believe!]. Jesus says let the 5 brothers hear Moses and the Prophets [the law for Jews, Jesus showed here that eternal judgment was a foundation of the Old Testament law -Hebrews 6]. The rich man says ‘no, they will believe if one comes back from the dead’. Jesus says ‘if they don’t believe the testimony from scripture, they will not believe even if one comes back from the dead’! This could be one of the most prophetic statements Jesus ever made in a parable. This chapter [Luke 16] also has Jesus famous saying ‘you cannot serve God and Money’ and right after he says it the next verse says the Pharisees, who were covetous, heard him. Jesus once again is dealing with the responsibility that ‘wealthy people, nations’ have towards ‘poor neighbors’ [at your gate- border]. This was one of the fundamental violations of the religious development of Judaism. The Pharisees loved the technicality of scripture and religion, but they found ways to justify not ‘caring for their neighbors’ [or families- Corban!]. This parable warns the rich not to allow himself to become arrogant and uncompassionate. Even though Lazarus [Mexico- illegal aliens] did not have the legal right or power to get the food from the rich man, yet this did not excuse the rich man from the fundamental ‘take care of your neighbor’ ethos. He should have still treated his neighbor with respect and compassion. Though legally it was not required, yet ethically it was. And Jesus once again portrays material wealth in a negative light. Now, I didn’t say he condemned the rich man because he was rich! But he was held to a higher standard because ‘to whom much is given, much is required’. Paul and James will use this same mindset in their letters [Timothy and James]. They will warn the rich to not be ‘high minded’ but to be willing to ‘communicate’ [distribute what they have] to help others. You never see a teaching from the Apostles that says ‘seek to become wealthy so you can use your wealth to advance the Kingdom’. Sorry, it just isn’t there! The principle of God using wealth is found in scripture ‘The Lord gives you the power to get wealth so he can establish his covenant in the earth’ [Deuteronomy]. In context God is speaking to Israel as a nation and is telling them he is going to economically bless them for his purposes. But Paul will actually teach that ‘they that desire to become rich will fall into a snare’ 1st Timothy 6. The point is Jesus often used wealth in a negative way in his parables. His teachings affected the writings of the Apostles. They never praised wealth! [Also the earliest ‘Apostolic’ writings apart from scripture are called the Didache, if you want a real negative view of ‘filthy lucre’ read this!]
(820) ROMANS 1: 1-16 many believe this letter to be Paul's best, I wouldn’t disagree. The letters of the New Testament do not appear in chronological order, some feel this to be a huge obstacle in understanding scripture. I think it helps to know the times when Paul wrote the letters, but this in itself doesn’t prevent us from learning scripture. Romans is addressed to the church at Rome and is significant in that Paul did not ‘plant this church’. Unlike the other letters of Paul, he is writing to the believers with whom he had no strong prior relationship. He roots his gospel in the historical facts of history and scripture. ‘The gospel of God that the prophets foretold- Jesus of the seed of David who was proved to be the Son of God by the resurrection’. Make no bones about it, Paul is coming down strong on the gospel of Jesus Christ and he positions himself well right at the start. There were ‘other gospels’ [Galatians] that were circulating and at times might have even outnumbered Paul's message! The Jewish sect from Jerusalem who embraced both Jesus and the law were very influential in Paul’s day. When Paul combats a legalistic gospel, at times he is running ‘neck and neck’ with the Judaizers. Paul will make a foundational statement that will run true thru out the rest of the New Testament. ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is the power of God unto Salvation to everyone who believes. For in it is the righteousness of God revealed’. Now, I have hit on this theme before, but it is so fundamental to the rest of this study that we need to spend some time with it. I always wondered why so many Evangelicals, and scholars, could not ‘rightly divide’ this biblical doctrine. I am speaking of ‘Righteousness by faith’ as being the root of all other ‘Salvation’. What I mean is many have confused the doctrine of ‘the salvation of the righteous’ with the salvation of the sinner. The reason why the gospel is one of salvation, is because this is the tool that God has ordained to administer ‘righteousness- justification’ to the believer. When God ‘saves- delivers’ a sinner from an ‘unjust state of being’ this act can be called ‘being saved’ [Ephesians 2]. Also thru out the scriptures you have people who are ‘just- righteous’ who experience ‘continual salvation’ because of the fact that they are righteous. This doctrine can be called ‘the salvation of the righteous’. David in Psalms says ‘the righteous cry and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles’ ‘The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord’. Peter speaks of God delivering the ‘just- righteous’ from wrath. Both Lot and Noah are said to have been ‘saved’ because they were righteous. The whole point here is as we progress thru Romans Paul will use the term ‘salvation’ and ‘righteousness’. Whenever [chapter 10] you have a combining of the righteous [believers] calling, crying out to God for ‘salvation’ it needs to be understood that this does not mean ‘salvation’ in the sense of the initial act of justification. While the two are closely related, the testimony from scripture does make a distinction. So Paul shows us that the reason the gospel is Gods power ‘unto salvation’ is because this is the way God chose to ‘make people just’. Paul will spend a few chapters [3 and 4] laying the foundation of righteousness by faith. But first he will argue his case for why all men need to have this righteousness. [ see entry # 704 for more comments on ‘the salvation of the righteous’]
(821) ROMANS 1:17-21 ‘for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness’. Now, we have already established the ‘mode’ by which the gospel ‘saves’ us. Once we believe in the gospel, it immediately, and progressively ‘saves’ us. The immediate act of justification can be described as ‘getting saved’. But there is also a large amount of scripture that speaks of ‘continual and future salvation’. Now Paul begins showing us how this salvation works. He says ‘the wrath of God is revealed against unrighteousness’ the previous verses showed how the believer is made righteous. So we are ‘delivered from the wrath to come’ [Thessalonians] ‘saved by wrath thru his life’ [Romans 5:9] ‘he will appear from heaven the second time to bring salvation to those who look for him’ [Hebrews] and many other verses testify of this theme. Paul is showing us one aspect of this ‘ongoing, future’ salvation by saying ‘see, since Gods wrath is promised to come upon the unrighteous, once you believe with the heart unto righteousness, you then become someone who is off the radar screen from wrath’ [John 3- the wrath of God abides on the unbeliever, but the believer is in a state of ‘no condemnation’]. This understanding will be important as we get to the later chapters in Romans. Now I also want to share a somewhat ‘unique’ interpretation of the following verses ‘that which may be known of God is manifest IN THEM [some say ‘to them]; for God hath showed it unto them [not necessarily meaning ‘showed it to them from created things’!] For the invisible things of him [his attributes! Invisible stuff] from the creation of the world [since the beginning of time, that is since God created all things he has imbedded a witness of himself into all creation; ‘all creation groans and travails’ Paul will attribute ‘human like’ characteristics to all creation. In essence all creation has this testimony and yearning for God in it] are clearly seen [not with the natural eye, but thru this ‘imbedded testimony of Gods attributes that he has placed in all creation’] being understood by the things that are made [not understood by ‘looking at the things that are made’; creation. But actually being understood ‘by them’] so that they are without excuse’. The normal way of seeing these verses says ‘God has left a witness of himself thru his creation. All people are without excuse because they can see his creation and know he is’. Now, is this concept true? Of course! David says ‘the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament SHOWETH his handiwork’. The only problem is ‘all men can’t see!’ I don’t mean to be trivial here; I want to show you that if you read this passage like I just taught it, that it basically is saying ‘since the beginning of Gods creation he has left man without excuse. He has always revealed his inner attributes to man. The witness of moral law and conscience is imbedded in the creation. All men ‘hold’ [possess] the ‘truth’ [this inner moral witness] in unrighteousness, therefore they are without excuse’. I don’t want to be a contrarian simply for the sake of being one. But if you see what I just told you, this fits in with Paul’s understanding of salvation. God’s wrath is revealed against all unrighteousness, yet those who say ‘that’s not fair, God made us this way!’ have no excuse, because God gave all men [and creation] an inner witness that they could have acted on- ‘when they knew God, they glorified him not as God but became vain in their imaginations’. All men have at one time ‘known God’ even those who have never seen Gods testimony from creation! Therefore they are without excuse.
(822) ROMANS 1:21-32 the scripture says that all creation ‘knew God’. The indictment is ‘there is no excuse’. The previous verses proved that God not only made man, but that because man was made in Gods image, he therefore had an ‘inner imprint’ of his maker inside him. Now man chose to ‘change the image of God into that of animals’. Man could not escape this inert desire to worship, this thing in him that said ‘there’s more to life than simple flesh’. So he didn’t just become an atheist [though that’s what they would have you believe] but they became ‘changers of Gods image’. They came up with an alternative ‘religion’. Scripture says they changed God's image into that of an animal [idolatry] and worshipped and served the creature more than the creator. Evolution was Darwin’s feeble attempt at ‘changing the image of God into that of animals’. How so? Modern man was too enlightened [after all we had the enlightenment!] to actually go out and make an image of an animal and bow to it. Instead he bought into the idea that he evolved from animals. Scripture says we are made in Gods image, evolution says ‘we are made in the image of an animal’. Men did not ‘like to retain God in their knowledge’. They had to have some controlling worldview, they came up with one. Now Romans says God gave them up to become like that which they chose to worship. Man was designed to worship God, in seeking and going after God they would become more like him. When man chooses to empty his mind from the creator, God allows him to fill it with what he wants. He receives a ‘reprobate mind’. He fixates on the animal instincts that are a natural result of ‘worshipping four footed beasts’. Now man has no choice but to be formed into the thing that he worships. Paul is here telling us that man became immoral as a result of his own choice to eradicate God from his thoughts. Man received the just recompense of his choice. At the end of the chapter Paul closes with ‘they know that those who do these things are worthy of death’. Once again the idea of judgment ‘the wrath of God is revealed from heaven’. Paul’s summary; Man is unrighteous. God is righteous in punishing man. Man chose to become like this. The only way to escape an inevitable meeting with wrath is to ‘become righteous’. This is accomplished thru believing the gospel. When you believe you become righteous and are no longer on Gods radar screen for judgment.
(823) ROMANS 2:1-13 ‘Therefore thou art inexcusable, o man, whosoever thou art that judgest’. Now, this chapter will run with the theme ‘who do you think you are to judge, you do the things that you say are wrong’. Yikes, this type of preaching convicts us all. But we need to understand that Paul is saying a little more [well, a lot more!] than this. Here’s where we need to do some history. This letter is addressed to believers in Rome, those ‘called to be saints’. Paul is also giving one of his strongest defenses of his theology, he realizes that a large Jewish population are also at Rome [Acts 28]. By the time of this letter the lines are being drawn between ‘Paul’s gospel’ [the true gospel] and the ‘Jewish law gospel’ coming from the Judaizers out of Jerusalem. The main fight is over whether or not Gentile believers need to be circumcised and come under the law in order to ‘be saved’ [Acts 15]. Now the mentality of the Jewish mind was ‘we have been given Gods precepts [true] and because we are the inheritors of the law and moral standards of God, this puts us in a better class than the Gentiles’ [false]. In essence the law was supposed to reveal mans sin to himself, it was to show us our need for a Savior. But in the legalistic mind it created enmity between Jew and Gentile. This is what it means when Paul writes the Ephesian letter and says ‘the middle wall of partition has been removed in Christ’ this ‘middle wall’ is referring to the law and how it divided Jew and Gentile. So here Paul is saying ‘you Jews who are trusting in the fact that you were the recipients of the law, who use the law as a measuring rod to justify yourselves. This measuring rod was actually given to show you your sin. Did it never occur to you that the very fact that the ‘rod’ says “don’t commit adultery, don’t steal” that these things are actually sins that you yourselves do [the legalistic Jews]. And yet the very rule [law] of God that you are using to justify yourselves, this law you actually break!’ Now you are beginning to see the context. And not only were they breaking the law, but at the same time they were saying to Paul's Gentile churches ‘unless you get circumcised, you are not accepted with God’. The Gentile believers were actually born of God and stopped doing the things that the law commanded them not to do. They were ‘fulfilling the law by nature’. So Paul is really rebuking this hypocritical mindset that said to the Gentile believers that they weren’t saved. And at the same time the ‘judgers of the law’ were actually breaking the law, while the Gentle converts were keeping it by nature! In this context verse one means a lot. Now to an important verse ‘for not the hearers of the law are just before God, BUT THE DOERS OF THE LAW SHALL BE JUSTIFIED’. Just the fact that this statement is made by Paul in this letter is amazing. Paul will spend lots of time in this letter saying ‘those who try and become justified by keeping the law are missing it’. He will go over and over again stating that trying to become righteous by works and law keeping are futile. Yet here he says ‘the doers of the law SHALL BE JUSTIFIED, not the hearers’. Keep in context what I just showed in the beginning of the chapter. The New Testament has a theme that I have hit on before [read the Hebrews 11 commentary on this site]. The theme is ‘men are justified’ [declared legally righteous] by faith. This faith also ‘sanctifies’ [which can also be called ‘justified’ a sort of progressive justification. James uses this in his letter. Paul says in Galatians ‘having begun in the Spirit [legal justification] are you now made perfect by the flesh’ [law keeping]. Now the New Testament teaches that God wants people to actually ‘be righteous’. Johns 1st epistle uses this as the marker of whether or not you are a child of God ‘by this we know… those that do what is righteous are born of God, those that do evil are not’. In Jesus judgment scenarios ‘those that have DONE good are raised to life, those that have done evil to damnation’. So Paul in essence is saying ‘God ‘justifies’ [using the term in a ongoing- futuristic sense] the righteous, not the ones who only hear the law [the Jewish legalists] but those who by nature do it’ [Paul’s gentile converts]. Got it? This distinction is very important. One of the historic reasons why the Protestant and Catholic churches are divided is over this issue. The Catholic Pope [Leo] who initially condemned Luther did so on grounds like this. The Pope who succeeded Leo re-read all of Luther’s documents, in an honest effort to bridge the schism, and came to the same conclusion. Now I like Luther and side with him more so than the Pope, but one of the problems was some of Luther’s writings seemed to say ‘Justification is solely by faith [true] therefore sin hardily’ [false]. Now Luther didn’t intend to come off this way, but that’s the way it sounded. So the Catholic doctrine fell more on the side of ‘Gods grace makes you righteous, God cant declare people actually righteous until they actually are righteous’ this is called the ‘Legal fiction’ argument. They said Luther’s idea was a ‘legal fiction’. In essence some of what the Catholic scholars were saying was correct. Now God does declare us righteous at the moment of belief, before we actually ‘become totally righteous in practice’. But the error of the Catholic argument saying ‘God cant declare you righteous until you are’ was missing the point. When God says ‘you are righteous’ then you are! God doesn’t lie. But I understand the Catholic point. I think Paul understood it too. In this chapter Paul says ‘not the hearers of the law, but the doers shall be justified’.
(824) ROMANS 2:14- 3:18- Paul says ‘you are called a Jew and are confident that you are a teacher and an instructor of the law’. Read my Hebrews commentary, chapters 5 and 6. It is interesting that Paul understood the teaching role that the Jewish nation was to play among the Gentile nations. In Jesus parables he also hits on these themes. Hebrews says ‘when the time has come [the appointed time of Messiah- Galatians 4] that you ought to be teachers, you have need to be taught the first principles again’. Here Paul tells them they are proud to be the ‘possessors’ of the Old Testament, yet thru their disobedience to it the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles [ouch!] Paul fully acknowledges the privileged role that Israel had, he himself was brought up with this ‘elitist/intellectual’ mindset. But here Paul rebukes them for not fully living up to the law. ‘Well brother, how could they live up to it? Paul himself says that this is impossible.’ If they carried thru with the receiving of Messiah, which their law spoke and testified of, then truly they would have been fulfilling the law as new creatures in Christ. In essence their indictment is ‘you never fully followed thru with your own law’! Now Paul will flatly say that circumcision and being the guardians of the law profit nothing. That the ‘circumcision of the heart’ is what matters. He says if the gentiles, who have no historical attachment to the law, if they do by nature the things in the law then they are ‘spiritually circumcised’ [set apart unto God]. But if the circumcised do not obey the law and character of God [thru the new birth] then it profits nothing. I want to note the strong disconnect between the way Paul speaks about natural Israel and her heritage, and how some in the American church present her. Paul, who himself is a Jew, makes it very clear that Israel is in a state of ‘danger’ by not receiving Messiah. Though he will admit their special place and role in history, yet he refuses to exalt her in her natural ‘state’ [of being]. Now Israel’s response to Paul [which by the way Paul interjects himself. I want to make a note here. Paul will give ‘both sides’ of the argument in his letters. He will say things like ‘and you will say to me such and such’. He actually try’s to add both sides of the conversation in his letters. Recently there has been some discussion on whether or not we can really understand the New Testament without fully knowing all the background and history of the letters. Some have said just knowing the letters are like hearing only one side of a phone conversation. To be honest this isn’t really true. The writers of the letters and the gospels lived in an ‘oral culture’. This is why Paul himself gives instructions on his letters being read- as opposed to saying ‘pass the letters around for everyone to personally read’. The point is we can understand a whole bunch of scripture just by reading it!] Now Israel asks ‘what good is the whole thing, why even have Jews or circumcision or any history with God at all’? Paul realizes that his whole argument for law and circumcision meaning nothing without a changed heart, that some would respond back like this. He in turn says ‘the law and all the history of Israel with God were very important! It was Gods way of getting his prophetic word [oracles] to man’. In essence God chose to ‘start a conversation’ with Abraham and extend it forward to his children. Over a long history of God interacting with Israel, God would speak thru prophets and ‘wise men’ and these prophetic words were being recorded [meticulously by the way!]. God would reveal himself and his purpose of Messiah thru these writings that came from this relationship [though rocky!] that he had with Israel. Now Paul will say ‘does their unbelief negate Gods promise’? No! Let God be true and every man be a liar. The fact that Israel as a nation were ‘not believing’ in their Messiah, didn’t effect the actual power of the Messiah to be believed on among the Gentile nations. A couple of things here; dispensational theology teaches that the Kingdom of God has been postponed until Christ’s return. I think this contradicts Paul's argument. Paul said Israel’s unbelief could not negate the full purpose of God. The fact that Jesus rose from the dead and is presently seated at God’s right hand proves this. Also Paul will teach later in this letter that the actual reason why salvation has gone out to the gentiles is because Israel rejected Messiah. In essence Israel’s unbelief could not negate what God purposed to do all along.
(825) ROMANS 3:19-31 ‘Now we know that what things the law says, it says to those who are under the law… that every mouth may be stopped and all the world becomes guilty before God’. One of the questions that arise as a response to Paul’s gospel is ‘if the law cannot make us righteous, then why even have it’? Paul will consistently teach the concept that Gods intention for the law was simply to reveal mans sin to him. Man would have this ‘form’ of the law written on stone tablets and as he tried to live up to God’s standards he would come to the proper diagnosis that all men are sinners. This diagnosis would then lead him to a place of faith in Jesus. After he believes in Jesus he then fulfills the law naturally, out of having a new nature ‘yea, we establish the law’ [3:31]. I have found it interesting over the years to teach people this. To explain to sincere people, church goers. To say ‘did you know the bible says that no man can be saved by trying to obey Gods Ten Commandments’? I will always explain that this doesn't mean that God wants us to break them! But when we come to the Cross we by nature keep them. These verses lay down the foundation of ‘justification by faith’. He that believes is righteous. To declare Jesus righteousness for the remission of sins that are past. Having faith ‘in His Blood’. Both Jews and Gentiles need to be made righteous thru faith/belief in Jesus. I want to establish this fact in your mind. Paul without a doubt describes this experience as being ‘justified by faith’. This is the same as saying ‘believing with the heart unto righteousness’. Later on [chapter 10] this needs to be understood when parsing the verses that say ‘with the heart a man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation’ many are confused about this, to get it right you need to see that Paul spends much time early on establishing the fact that ‘those who believe unto righteousness’ are justified by faith already!
(826) ROMANS 4: 1-12 Now, Paul will use one of his most frequent arguments to prove that all men, both Jews and Gentiles, need to be justified by faith and not ‘by works’. The most famous singular figure that natural Israel looked to as the ‘identifier’ of them being a special people was ‘Father Abraham’. Paul does a masterful job at showing how Abraham was indeed justified by faith and not by works. The ‘work’ of circumcision came before the law. It would later become synonymous with law keeping [Ten Commandments] and Paul can certainly use it here as implying ‘the whole law’. But to be accurate this work of circumcision was a national identifying factor that Israel looked to as saying ‘we are better than you [Gentiles]’. Paul is showing Israel that God in fact ‘made Abraham righteous’ before he circumcised him! [Gen. 15] And the sign of this righteousness was circumcision. This meaning that Abrahams faith in Gods promise [a purely ‘passive’ act! This is very important to see. Later on as we deal with the famous ‘conversion texts’ we need to keep this in mind] justified him without respect to the law. God simply took Abraham outside and said ‘look at the stars, your children will be this abundant’ and Abraham simply believed this promise to be true. Much like the passive belief of Cornelius house at their conversion [Acts 10]. The simple belief in the promise of Jesus justifies the sinner! Now this fact of Abraham believing and being made righteous, before being circumcised, is proof [according to Paul] that Abraham is the father of ‘many nations’ not just natural Israel. All ethnic groups who HAVE THE SAME FAITH AS ABRAHAM are qualified to be ‘sons of Abraham/ heirs of God’. The fact that Abraham carried this justification along with him as he became circumcised, shows that all Jewish people as well can partake of this ‘righteousness by faith’ if they have the same faith as Abraham had. Jesus did say ‘Abraham rejoiced to see my day’[ John’s gospel]. In Gods promise to Abraham of a future dynasty of children, this included the promised Messiah. So indirectly Abraham’s belief in the promise of being the father of ‘many nations’ included belief in the coming Messiah. So according to Paul, all ethnic groups who have faith in Jesus are justified/made righteous. The very example Israel used to justify ‘ethnic/national pride’ [Father Abraham] was taught in a way that showed the truth of the gospel and how God is no respecter of persons.
(827) ROMANS 4:13-14 ‘Now the promise that Abraham would become the inheritor of the world was not going to be fulfilled thru the law [natural Israel] but thru faith [all who believe, both Jew and Gentile]’. I have spoken on this before [see note at bottom] and will hit on it a little now. The historic church can be defined for the most part as ‘a-millennial’, that is they interpreted the parables on the Kingdom of God and the promise of ‘inheriting the world [which includes the Promised Land]’ as being fulfilled thru the church. That Jesus established Gods kingdom and the church basically fulfills these promises by expanding Christ’s ‘rule’ thru the earth. Some historians saw the 4th century ‘marriage’ of Rome and Christianity as a fulfillment of this. During the 19th and 20th century you had the rise of Dispensationalism, a ‘new/different’ way of interpreting these land promises. Many good men showed the reality of Christ’s literal coming and pointed to a future time where Jesus literally sits on a throne in Jerusalem and rules all nations. These brothers are called ‘Pre-millennial’, they believe that Jesus comes back first [pre] and then establishes his ‘millennial rule’ on earth. The Premillennialists would see the Amillennialists as ‘replacement theologians’. They said that these brothers were taking the actual promises that God made to Israel and ‘replacing’ Israel with the church. In essence they accused the Amillennialists of spiritualizing the promises to Israel and saying the church would be the recipients of the promises. Now, both sides have truth to them, I personally believe the Amillennialists have a lot more truth! But I do see some of the good points that the Premillenialists made. I want you to simply read these verses [Romans 4:13-14, Galatians 3:18] and see for yourself how Paul does teach the reality that the promises to Abraham are to be fulfilled thru the church [spiritual Israel]. This does not mean that there is no future physical return of Jesus. But the body of scripture leans heavily on the Amillinnialists side. [see entry 703] NOTE- To be fair, some historic thinkers held to the Premillennial position. The majority were Amillennial.
(828) ROMANS 4:15-25 ‘For the law worketh wrath, for where there is no law there is no transgression’. I simply want to touch on the concept of ‘wrath’ being a very real part of judgment. One of the ways the gospel ‘saves us’ is by promising a future [and present!] deliverance from wrath. While death ‘reigned’ before the law was given, it wasn’t until the law where you had a clear picture of transgression and atonement. We will deal with this later in Romans. Now Paul once again hits on the theme of Abraham being the ‘spiritual father’ of many nations [all who believe] and how the promises of God to Abraham were to be fulfilled thru this ‘new race of people’ [the church]. Paul is careful to not demean Israel; he couches his terms in a way that says ‘God will fulfill these things thru the circumcision who believes [Jews] and the un-circumcision who believe’ [Gentiles]. I want to stress the very plain language Paul uses to show us that we should not be seeing Gods ‘covenant promises’ thru a natural lens. Christians need to be careful when they support [exalt!] natural Israel in a way that the New Testament doesn’t do. ‘To the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is the faith of Abraham’. Now Paul tells us that when God made promises to Abraham that Abraham believed against hope. When all things looked really bad, he still believed. When he was 100 years old and Sarah around 90, he held to the promise [read my commentaries on Genesis 15-18 and Hebrews 11] and therefore God imputed righteousness to him. How closely are you paying attention to Paul’s free use of Abraham and Genesis? If you carefully read this chapter you see Paul ‘intermingle’ the story of Abraham being ‘made righteous upon initial belief’ [Gen. 15] and the later story of Sarah having Isaac [Gen. 17]. I think Paul was simply using the description of Abrahams faith, as seen in the Gen. 17 [and 22!] accounts of his life, to show the type of faith he initially ‘exercised’ [I don’t like using this term to be honest. God actually imputes faith to the believer at the initial act of regeneration]. The important chapters from Genesis that we all need to have a ‘working knowledge’ of are Chapters 12 [the initial promise], 15 [the oft mentioned ‘imputed righteousness’ verse], 17 [the receiving of the promised seed- Isaac], and 22 [the ultimate act of obedience that Abraham showed in offering up Isaac. This will be described in James epistle as ‘righteousness being fulfilled’. James, who is concerned about ‘works’, will say that when Abraham offered Isaac he was fulfilling the ‘imputed righteousness’ that God gave him earlier. James actually describes this as ‘being justified by works’ {James 2:21} and James says ‘the scripture was fulfilled that saith Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness’… ‘see how that by works a man is justified and not by faith only’. The classic view taken by many confuses the ‘justified’ part with the initial act of justification that Paul centers on. James uses ‘see how he was justified by works’ in a future ‘judicial decree’ sense; that is God having the ongoing ‘freedom’ to continually say ‘good job son, you did well’. The word justification is used in a fluid sense much like salvation. Christians need to be more ‘secure’ in their own assurance to be able to see these truths. When we approach all these seemingly ‘difficult passages’ in a defensive mode, then we never arrive at the actual meaning]. When we see the overall work of God in Abraham’s life we see the purpose of God in ‘declaring people just’ [initially ‘getting saved’]. The purpose is for them to eventually ‘act just’ [obey!] ‘Jesus was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification’ thank God that this process is dependant on the work of the Cross! [see entry # 758]
(829) Romans 5:1-9 ‘Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God thru out Lord Jesus Christ’. There are certain benefits ‘results’ of being ‘made righteous by faith’, peace being one of them. Paul goes on and says we glory in hope and also trials, because we realize that thru the difficulties we gain experience and patience. Things that are needed for the journey, we can’t substitute talent and motivation and ‘success principles’ for them. We need maturity and God produces it this way. Those who teach otherwise have a ‘self inflicted wound’ their teachings are very immature! That is there was a ‘strain’ of teaching in the church that said ‘we don’t learn thru difficulty and suffering, we learn only thru Gods word!’ [that is reading it]. Those who grasped onto this false idea have produced some of the most unbalanced teaching in the church, stuff that even the younger generation is saying ‘what in the heck are these guys preaching’? If you by pass the difficult road, you will be shallow. Now Paul says ‘God commended his love toward us, that when we were sinners Christ died for us’ ‘being now justified by his death, we shall be saved thru his life’ [saved from wrath thru him]. Once again this theme pops up; ‘since we are justified, made righteous by believing with the heart, we shall be saved [continual, future deliverance] from wrath thru him’. I don’t know if you ever realized what a major theme this is in Romans? The ongoing, future ‘being saved’ is a result of ‘being made righteous’. Later on in chapter 10, when we read that the righteous call for salvation, we need to understand this context. Remember, when the two are linked together in the same verse, it is not saying ‘saved’ in the sense of some sinner’s prayer. It is speaking of the ongoing, promised deliverance [from many things, not just wrath!] to the ‘justified caller’. We have access ‘by faith into this grace wherein we stand’. Wow! That's some good stuff, Jesus ever lives so that those who come to him are ‘being saved’ to the uttermost. This grace we are in is available to us all of the time, are we availing ourselves of it?
(830) ROMANS 5:10-21 ‘For if, when we were enemies of God, we were reconciled to him by the death of his Son… much more we shall be saved by his life’. Now, some have ‘divided’ the role of Jesus death and resurrection in salvation. I heard a radio preacher teach that all the people who think they are ‘saved’ because Jesus died for them were deceived. He used this verse to say they need to believe in his ‘life’ [resurrection] to ‘be saved by his life’. Well I get the point, but he was missing the meaning of the verse. Why? Because once again we see ‘saved’ as initially ‘getting saved’ while here it is in a continual sense. Paul is saying ‘if God reconciled us [justification] while we were deadly enemies, how much more shall the actual ministry and life of Jesus at Gods right hand do for us!’ The New Testament teachers that we have actually entered into an eternal covenant with God thru his Son. Jesus ‘ever lives’ to make intercession for us [Hebrews]. Therefore he is able to ‘save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him’. The bible teaches an ongoing ‘saving’ relationship that believers have with the Messiah. This ‘relationship’ would not be possible if he were dead. Now we ‘joy in God thru Jesus Christ from whom we have received the atonement’ good stuff! Isaiah says God will meet with those who ‘rejoice and do what is right’. We have both of these ‘abilities’ because of the atonement. The rest of the chapter teaches the Pauline doctrine of original sin. That because Adam sinned, death and sin passed to all men. So likewise the ‘righteousness’ of one man [Jesus- the last Adam] has passed upon all men [those who receive of the abundance of grace and the gift of life]. This is an interesting angle that Paul uses to teach redemption. He shows the reality that there are only 2 ‘federal heads’ of mankind. You are either in the first or last Adam. The ‘righteous act’ is speaking of the Cross [Philippians says Jesus was ‘obedient unto death’. The singular act of obedience that allows this righteousness to pass to all who believe is the Cross. Some have misunderstood this chapter to teach that the obedient life of Christ, his sinless life, saves us. I feel this is a wrong reading of the chapter. The sinless life of Jesus, pre Cross, made him the true candidate to be the substitute for man. He was able to die in our place [obedience unto death] because he was the sinless Son of God. We are now ‘saved by his life’ because he ever lives to make intercession for us]. All who believe in Jesus can now trace their lineage to the ‘last Adam’ [Jesus] and be free from ‘original sin’.
(831) ROMANS 6- Lets talk about baptism. To start off I believe that the baptism spoken about in this chapter is primarily referring to ‘the baptism of the Spirit’, that is the work of the Holy Sprit placing a believer in the Body of Christ. The Catholic and Orthodox [and Reformed!] brothers believe that Paul is speaking about water baptism. The MAJORITY VIEW of Christians today believe this chapter is referring to water baptism. Why? First, the text itself does not indicate either way. You could takes this baptism and see it either way! You are not a heretic if you believe in it referring to Spirit or water. You are not a heretic if you believe in Paedo baptism [infant baptism]. ‘What are you saying? Now you lost me.’ Infant baptism developed as a Christian rite over the course of church history. The church struggled with how to ‘dedicate’ new babies to Christ. Though the scriptures give no examples of infant baptism, some felt that the reason was because the scriptures primarily show us the conversion of the first century believers. There really aren’t a whole lot of stories of ‘generations’ of believers passing on the faith to other generations. So some felt that the idea of dedicating babies to the Lord through infant baptism was all right. The examples they used were the circumcision of babies in the Old Testament. Infants were circumcised [a rite that placed you under the terms of the Old Covenant] though they weren’t old enough to really understand what they were doing! This example was carried over into the Christian church and applied to infant baptism. Now, I do not believe in infant baptism. But I can certainly understand this line of reasoning. As Christian theology developed thru the early centuries, particularly thru the patristic period, you had very intellectual scholars grapple with many different themes and ideas. Some that we just studied in chapter 5. Some theologians came to see infant baptism as dealing with original sin. They applied the concept of infant baptism as a rite that washes away original sin. The church did not teach that this meant you did not have to later believe and follow Christ. They simply developed a way of seeing baptism as ‘sanctifying’ the new members of Christian households. This basic belief made it all the way to the Reformation. The Reformers themselves still practiced infant baptism. It was the Anabaptists [re-baptizers] who saw the truth of adult baptism and suffered for it, at the hands of the reformers! Ulrich Zwingli, the Swiss reformer, would have them drowned for their belief. Some Protestants stuck with the infant rite, while others [the Restorationists] would reject it. Today most Evangelicals do not practice infant baptism, the majority of Christians world wide do. Now, the reason I did a little history is because Evangelicals [of which I am one] have a tendency to simply look at other believers who practice this rite as ‘deceived’. Many are unaware of the history I just showed you. The reasons the historic church developed this doctrine are not heretical! They used scripture and tradition to pass it down to future generations. I do not believe or practice infant baptism, many good believers do.
(832) ROMANS 6: 1-11 ‘shall we continue to sin, so grace may abound? God forbid! How shall we, who are dead to sin, live any longer therein?’ Now begins the ‘actual part’ the result, if you will, of being ‘made righteous by faith’. One of the main accusations against Paul, by the Jewish believers, was that he taught ‘sin a lot, because you are no longer under the law’. Paul spends time defending himself against this accusation thru out the New Testament. Here Paul teaches that the believer has been joined unto Christ [baptized, immersed into him] and this ‘joining’ identifies him with Christ’s death. So how can ‘we, who are dead to sin, live any longer in sin’? Paul’s argument for righteous living comes from the fact that we have died with Christ unto sin. ‘We have died with him, and we have also been raised with him to new life’. In Ephesians chapter 2, Paul says we who were dead in sins have been made alive in Christ. Now, we live a new life, free from sin [practically speaking- not absolute sinless-ness!] because we are identified with Jesus in his new life, we are ‘alive with and in him’. ‘Since we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection’! Jesus died once, and now he lives forever unto God ‘likewise count yourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God thru Jesus Christ our Lord’. Paul’s basis for the transformed life is Grace and being ‘in him’. Paul does not appeal to the law to try and effect holiness in the believer, he appeals to Christ ‘in him you have died to legalistic practices, trying to earn salvation and acceptance; and now because of this new position [placement] you too have died to the old man [lifestyle] and are alive unto God’. Paul obviously did not teach ‘sin hardily’ to the contrary he taught ‘live unto God’.
(833) EVOLUTION- I hate to interrupt Romans, but I needed to share some stuff while it’s fresh. I also finished Frank Violas book, Pagan Christianity, and have put off commenting on that as well. For all my Atheist and Agnostic readers, it absolutely astounds me to read the research and evidence coming from the scientific community against evolution. Many hold to very outdated theories and ‘religiously’ will not let them go! One of the most famous experiments that has been touted for years as evidence for evolution was the ‘Stanley Miller experiment’ [1953]. This experiment used the supposed atmosphere of the early earth and created a scenario using electrical sparks, to simulate the possible environment of lightning causing human cell life. During the experiment, Miller was able to produce a ‘goo’ that contained Amino acids [basic building blocks of life]. Now, don’t get too excited. Even if this were possible, it’s quite a leap to start with an ‘atmosphere and lightning’ as well as an unexplained earth! The experiment would only prove the possibility of naturalistic life, it would not be able to explain the intricate design of the planet and universe that Miller assumed were ‘just there’ [besides the fact that Miller spent hours technically designing this ‘atmosphere’ in the laboratory- this is what we call ‘intelligent design’!]. But for years this experiment was used to ‘prove’ evolution in the classroom. Now as time has passed since Stanley’s experiment, science has discovered that the atmosphere that Stanley used could not have been the atmosphere of the early earth. While there still is disagreement on the exact atmosphere, there is agreement that Stanley’s model got it wrong. If you used the current accepted model, do you know what you would get? You get Formaldehyde and Cyanide. Hum, what do they do? They make it impossible for actual cellular life to co exist! The real experiment would prove contrary to evolution. We use these chemicals today, they are called ‘Embalming Fluid’. God does have a sense of humor.
(834) Romans 6:12-23 ‘Let not sin therefore rule in your mortal body’ if we have died with Jesus, we are ‘dead with him to sin’. If we are risen with Jesus ‘we are alive unto God thru him’ for this reason don’t sin! Paul makes sure his readers understand him, he in no way was teaching a sinful gospel. He encourages the believers to renew their minds to this truth. ‘For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace’ Paul clearly saw the dangers of legalism [living under strict ‘do this, don’t do this’ guidelines] he saw that the law actually quickens the fleshly nature and brings to the surface mans sin. Now, because we are under grace, does this mean we get to keep on sinning? ‘God forbid!’ Paul launches into the explanation of sin and bondage. Remember, sin was in the world before the law. Men were dying ever since Adam sinned. So for Paul, this means even though we are not under the restraints of law, yet the reality of sin, bondage and punishment still exist. Paul says ‘if you yield to sin and allow it to rule you, you will become its slave’. There will be a penalty and price to pay ‘the wages of sin is death’. But because you are identified with Jesus ‘sin shall not have dominion over you… you have been made free from sin’. Paul teaches the victorious Christian life. He does not deny the struggle [next chapter!] but he shows the reality of redemption. He obviously never taught the concept of ‘sin more, so grace can abound’. He understood the dangers of preaching ‘we are not under the law’ but he also understood the reality of ‘being under grace’ he figured it was worth the risk of being misunderstood if he could truly imbed the gospel into the believing community.
(835) ROMANS 7:1-4 Paul uses the analogy of a married woman ‘don’t you know that the law has dominion over a person as long as he is alive’? If a married woman leaves her husband and marries another man she is guilty of breaking the law of adultery. Now, if her husband dies, she is free to marry another man. The act that freed her from sin and guilt was death! Every thing else in the scenario stayed the same. She still married another, she still consummated the new marriage. But because her first husband died, she has no guilt. I always loved this analogy. For years I wondered why these themes in scripture are for the most part not ‘imbedded’ in the collective psyche of the people of God. We have spent so much time ‘proof texting’ the verses on success and wealth, that we have overlooked the really good stuff! Now Paul teaches that we have been made free from the law by the ‘death of our husband’ [Jesus] so we can ‘re-marry’. Who do we marry? Christ! He has not only died to free us from the law, he also rose from the dead to become our ‘husband’ [we are called the bride of Christ]. Paul connects the death and resurrection of Jesus in this analogy. Both are needed for the true gospel to be preached [1st Corinthians 15]. Notice how in this passage Paul emphasizes ‘the death of Christ’s body’. The New Testament doesn’t always make this distinction, but here it does. In the early centuries of Christianity you had various debates over the nature and ‘substance’ of God and Christ. The church hammered out various decrees and creeds that would become the Orthodoxy of the day. Many of these are what you would call the ‘Ecumenical councils’. These are the early councils [many centuries!] that both the eastern [Orthodox church] and western [Catholic] churches would all accept. Some feel that the early church fathers and Latin theologians [Tertullian, Augustine and others] had too much prior influence from philosophy and the ‘forensic’ thinking of their time. They had a tendency to describe things in highly technical ways. Ways that were prominent in the legal and philosophical thinking of the West. Some of the eastern thinkers [Origen] had more of a Greek ‘flavor’ to their theologizing [Alexandria, named after Alexander the great, was a city of philosophy many years prior to Christ. This city was at one time the center of thinking in the East. That’s why Paul would face the thinkers at Athens, they had a history in the east of Greek philosophy]. Well any way the result was highly technical debates over the nature of God and Christ. The historic church would finally decree that Christ had 2 natures, Human and Divine. And that at the Cross the ‘humanity of Jesus’ died, but his ‘Deity’ did not. I think Paul agreed by saying ‘we are free from the law by the death of Christ’s Body’ here Paul distinguishes between the physical death of Jesus and his Deity.
(836) ROMANS 7: 5-13 ‘But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of the Spirit, not in the oldness of the letter’. This is such a powerful statement! WE ARE DELIVERED FROM THE LAW, surely Paul must mean ‘the fleshly law [carnal nature] in our members’? No, he means ‘the law’, the actual moral code that was contained in the Ten Commandments. He writes to the Colossians ‘Jesus took the handwriting of ordinances that were against us [the real law, not the sinful nature!] and nailed it to his Cross’. He tells the Ephesians ‘the middle wall of partition [law] has come down in Christ’. I know it’s easy to develop ideas that justify this radical grace concept in our minds, it’s just part of mans nature to want to be able to do something, contribute some way to our salvation. ‘Surely the law helps me stay in line’? No it doesn’t! You are 'dead to the law by the Body of Christ’. We now live and are regulated by the ‘Spirit of life in Christ Jesus’. It is the fact that we have been raised to life in Christ that frees us, not the law. Paul goes on and explains that there was a time when ‘he was alive without the law’ but when the commandment came ‘sin revived, and I died’. Paul was a strict Pharisee, the further he advanced in law, the more he found himself to be ‘exceeding sinful’. The more he learned, the worse he got! It’s sort of a catch 22, you see and hear the ‘do not do this’ portions of law, and it stirs up the sinful nature to ‘do it’. Now Paul recaps an earlier theme of the law serving the function of revealing sin to man. He defends the law by saying ‘was that which is good [law] death unto me’? No, but the law simply ‘awakened’ the sin that was always there, hiding under the covers. It brought to a head the ‘disease’. The law revealed the underlying problem of sin, and made it ‘exceeding sinful’. The law is good, we are bad! [apart from Christ and the Spirit of life].
(837) ROMANS 7:14-25 Paul now shows us the reality of Gods law and its effect on man. ‘When I do something that I DON’T WANT TO DO, then I consent unto the law that it is good’. Did you ever think of this? The fact that you [or even the atheist!] have done things that ‘you don’t want to do’ proves the existence of God and natural law [which the 10 commandments were only a glimpse, they reveal a small part of Gods character and nature]. So if you, or anybody else, have ever struggled with ‘I am doing something that I hate’. Then why do it? Or better, why hate it? You yourself are an actual living testimony of ‘the law of God’. Your own conscience testifies that there are ‘good things’ and ‘bad things’. You also testify of the fact of sin ‘why do you keep doing the bad things’? Alas, that thing called ‘sin’ does exist! Paul shows us that the experience of every human member on the planet testifies to both the righteousness of God and the sinfulness of man. Freud [the father of modern Psychology] saw this war rage in the psyche of man, he came up with an idea that we need to ‘free man’ from this inner moral struggle. He espoused the idea that in mans ‘head’ he has this preconceived image of ‘God’ and right or wrong. Being Freud was a child of the Enlightenment, as well as a student of Existentialism [though the Father of Existentialism was a Christian, the Danish theologian/ philosopher Soren Kierkegaard] he taught that if we could just eliminate this ‘God idea’ and ‘church moral code’ from mans mind, then all would be well! Geez, I could hardly think of a more destructive thing than to tell man ‘if it feels right, do it’! Paul taught ‘if you can’t stop doing something that ‘feels right’ then you are sinning!’[if that which ‘feels right’ is making you miserable!] And the very fact that you can’t escape the guilt, proves that God exists and that his law is this unstoppable force that invades all human consciences. Paul knew the struggle, he testifies thru out scripture that he tried to become right with God over and over again, but the ‘law of sin’ [the sinful nature. Here ‘law’ is speaking of the ‘principle of sin’ and the fleshly nature] prevented him from keeping the ‘law of God’ [doing what’s right], he then found the ‘righteousness of God that comes thru faith in Christ’. Paul ends the chapter ‘O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death’? ‘I thank God thru Jesus Christ my Lord’. Paul found the answer, his name was Jesus.
(838) FINE TUNING IN THE UNIVERSE- Over the last 20 years or so, science has discovered such overwhelming evidence for an ‘intelligent designer’ that even the naturalistic scientists have said ‘the level of fine tuning in our universe cant be explained in any other way, except for the fact that some one has been messing around with the controls’! What exactly is fine tuning? In the field of Physics [which can get complicated!] scientists have discovered these unbelievable ‘measurements’ that exist in the universe, that previously were unknown. One of these is called the ‘Cosmological Constant’ [the measure of energy density in empty space]. This measurement has to be so finely tuned, that if it were just off a tiny bit, life could not exist in the universe. It has been explained like this; if you took a ruler [12 inch kind] and extended it lengthwise thru out the whole universe, and then had a random penny fall from space. If the penny did not land exactly on a specific ‘inch measurement’ on the ruler, life could not exist! Now, what are the odds that a ‘random penny’ would hit this spot? The odds of this happening by pure chance are next to impossible. But you say ‘well, it might have been an accident’. The problem is this isn’t the only measurement you need to get ‘right on target’ in order for life to exist. You have the same problem with Gravity. Science has also discovered the same unbelievable measurement with Gravity. A small degree off of the present measurement would crush everything. It would prevent the actual ‘combining’ of mass and material where you couldn’t even have a universe! This measurement has been found to simply be exactly correct. There are no laws of nature that make this measurement exact. In fact, logic would dictate that if everything is random, that the measurement would be at the higher end of the spectrum, but instead it is very low on the scale. Now, putting these 2 unbelievably precise things together [both the Cosmological Constant and Gravity] would make the odds next to impossible that this just ‘happened’. It would be like you walking into a Museum and finding a pre built enclosed ‘world’. As you entered the model you saw all types of very technical gauges on this control panel. Say around 30 gauges. These were precise settings that all had to be exact, set to the smallest possible place on each dial. Now, if before you left the room, little Johnnie went over and messed up each dial, he spun them around and screwed up the entire display. You would quickly tell Johnnie ‘let’s go see the Dinosaur exhibit’. You got out of there as soon as possible! Now say if little Johnnie insisted that he left one of his favorite toys in the ‘fake world’. You finally take the risk of getting caught and go back to the model world. Surprise! All of the very technical gauges have been set and put back in order. Did this just happen by mere happenstance? Of course not. Obviously some knowledgeable person [an intelligent designer] found out about the problem and put the gauges back in their proper setting. This is basically what Physics has found out over the recent years. And the finely tuned measurements that need to be set just right keep going up! That is we keep finding more things that need to be ‘just right’ in order for life to exist. Many in the field of Physics realize that these discoveries are a huge ‘smoking gun’ that backs up the argument for intelligent design. They realize that if this knowledge ever becomes public, to the degree where the average person grasps and understands this truth, that the reality of an intelligent designer being behind it all is the only explanation for it. Contrary to public opinion, science is getting closer and closer to proving the existence of God [though ultimately he can’t be totally proved by science, he exists outside of the physical realm]. I just wish the Atheists would quit trying to convince everybody that they are the ones who are on the side of true science!
(839) ROMAN 8:1-4 ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh [sinful nature] but after the Spirit [new nature]’. Now, having proved the reality of sin and guilt [chapter 7] Paul teaches that those who ‘are in Christ’ are free from condemnation. Why? Because they ‘walk according to the Spirit’ the ‘righteousness of the law is being fulfilled in them’. Having no condemnation isn’t simply a ‘legal function’ of declared righteousness, and Paul didn’t teach it that way! Paul is saying ‘all those who have believed in Jesus and have been legally justified [earlier arguments in chapters 3-4] are now walking [actually acting out] this new nature. Therefore [because you no longer walk according to the flesh] there is no condemnation’! This argument helps bridge the gap between Catholic and Protestant theology, part of the reason for the ongoing schism is over this understanding. After the Reformation the Catholic Church had a Counter Reformation council, the council of Trent. They dealt with a lot of the abuses of the Catholic Church, things that many Catholic leaders were complaining about before the Reformation. They did deal will some issues and reformed somewhat. To the dismay of the more ‘reform minded’ Catholics [with Protestant leanings] they still came down strong on most pre reform doctrines. This made it next to impossible for the schism to be healed. But one area of disagreement was over ‘legal’ versus ‘actual/experiential’ justification. The Catholic position was ‘God can’t declare/say a person is justified until they actually are’ [experientially]. The Protestant side [Luther] said ‘God does justify [legal declaration] a person by faith alone’. Like I taught before, both of these are true. The Catholic view of ‘justification’ is looking ahead towards a future reality [The same way James speaks of justification in a future sense- He uses the example from Genesis 22, when Abraham does a righteous act] while the Protestant view is focusing on the initial legal act of justification [Genesis 15]. Here Paul agrees with both views, he says ‘those who walk after the Spirit [actually living the changed life] have no condemnation’.
(840) ROMANS 8:5-13 Paul will teach the impossibility of the ‘carnal minds’ ability to submit to Gods law. Those who are ‘in the flesh’ [the unregenerate nature- not simply ‘in the body’. We will get into these distinctions in a minute] can’t submit to God. Society spends so much time and effort trying to get the ‘lost man’ to do what's right. The prohibition movement [outlawing liquor], the increase in the severity of punishment for crimes dealing with drugs. Making the child kidnappers crime punishable by death. While all these laws are necessary and good [though some debate the wisdom of the kidnapper one, they think the kidnapper might just go ahead and kill the victim if the same punishment applies to both crimes] they have little effect on getting ‘the carnal man to submit’. Paul also says ‘if the Spirit of him who raised up Christ from the dead dwells in you, then he that raised up Christ from the dead shall quicken [make alive] your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you’. Let’s do a little teaching here. Most commentators see this as speaking of the promise of the resurrection ‘your mortal bodies’. I see this more in line with the context of chapter 7. The discussion of ‘mortal bodies’ [your actual body, the flesh- which is different than ‘the fleshly nature’ which refers to the sinful nature] speaks of your actual life now ‘let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies’. Also in verse 13 of this chapter the same theme is seen ‘if ye thru the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live’. I believe Paul is primarily saying ‘if you are in the Spirit [born of God] the Spirit of life will make alive your physical life in such a way that you will glorify God in your body and spirit, which are Gods’ [Corinthians]. Chapter 12 says your bodies are living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. Now later on in this chapter [8] we do see the resurrection, which is called ‘the redemption of the body’ [verse 23] so these two concepts work together. The fact that the believer is ‘training his mortal body’ for God [thru obedience] is sort of a precursor to the resurrection! Now, some believers confuse the resurrection of the body and the work of regeneration in ‘making you alive’ [Ephesians 2]. The work of regeneration brings your dead spirit back to life [born again] when you believe [which is a Divine imputation of faith at the moment of conversion, a sovereign act]. This ‘coming alive’ is purely spiritual. This qualifies you for the future physical resurrection of the body [Ephesians calls this the ‘down payment’, the ‘earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession’. The word ‘earnest’ here is used in the same way as ‘earnest money’ in a real estate transaction. The fact that we have been ‘sealed’ with the Holy Spirit is our ‘guarantee of future bodily resurrection’]. Bishop N.T. Wright, the bishop of Durham [the church of England- Durham is the 3rd most influential post in the Church of England. Canterbury is at the top] has recently written on the truths of the resurrection of the body. He is an excellent scholar, way way above my league. He has been instrumental in ‘re introducing’ the reality of Christ’s resurrection as well as our future resurrection as a very real Christian belief [and historic truth as well]. I have read some of Wrights stuff and am a little surprised at some of the ideas on ‘soul sleep’ and the immortality of the soul. Bishop Wright seems to side with some of the ideas that certain restorationist groups [7th day Adventists] espouse, that the Catholic Church kind of corrupted the ideas of heaven and the soul by being overly influenced by Greek thought. While it is possible for Bishop Wright to have come to his understanding entirely thru scripture and history, yet I felt it a little strange to see him make these arguments. For the most part I like brother Wright and totally agree with his stance on the future ‘new heavens and new earth’ as the final place of rest [as opposed to dying and going to heaven now, which is a temporary place] but there is the biblical reality of a present ‘heaven’ and this doesn’t only come from Greek thought. I have often used the Christian doctrine of the new heavens and new earth while speaking with the Jehovah’s witnesses, I always agree on the reality of a future kingdom on earth. I simply steer the conversation back to ‘who qualifies for it’ and get straight to the gospel. Well anyway we have a promise of a future resurrection, and also a ‘quickening of the body now’ [God actually using our physical life to glorify him]. These are both great truths!
(841) ROMANS 8: 14-18 ‘For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the Sons of God’. Many of us are familiar with this verse [I hope!]. We often see it as saying ‘Gods direction in our lives is proof that we are Christians’ true enough. But in context ‘being led by Gods Spirit’ means living the new life thru Christ. The putting to death of the old man and being ‘made alive’ thru Christ is what this is saying. Paul agrees with John [1st John] ‘those that do what is right [led by the Spirit] are of God’. Paul says ‘we have received the Spirit and a natural result of this is crying “Abba, Father”. I don’t want to do too much here, but Paul sees the ‘confession’ and heart cry of the believer as proof, a result of being ‘a habitation of the Spirit’. A sign, if you will, of being born of God is confessing/ praying to the Father. Paul quoted David in chapter 4 ‘for this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found’ [Psalms 32- actually Paul quotes a different section from the Psalm, but this theme is consistent with Paul’s view]. Paul knew the reality of ‘the godly calling upon God’ they have an inner cry of ‘Abba, father’. ‘We are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ’. For many years this has been a popular verse among many believers, often times it is used to say ‘God owns the cattle on a thousand hills’ [which he does] therefore if we are heirs ‘give me some cattle’! [stuff]. Here Paul uses this term in speaking of our identification with Christ’s sufferings. ‘If we suffer with him, we too shall share [joint heir!] in his glory’ [future glorification at the resurrection- we shall see him and be changed in a moment, at the twinkling of an eye. This mortal shall put on immortality]. It’s a symptom of modern American Christianity to view all these scriptures thru a materialistic lens, Paul held to the promise of a future reward [at the resurrection] that enabled him to go thru great difficulty and suffering in this present life. He counted the suffering as a privilege that he shared with Christ.
(842) PROOF FROM DNA- One of the other fields of science that has radically identified ‘intelligent design’ in creation is the study of human DNA. Scientists have discovered [to the dismay of the Atheist!] an unbelievable amount of ‘data’ that has been stored in DNA. They have found a code consisting of four basic parts [referenced by 4 letters] that is much like the computer programs of our day. This information that is stored in DNA has no rational [or scientific] explanation of how it got there! Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection can not explain how this massive amount of information has been stored in DNA. As scientists have racked their brains in trying to come up with an explanation, some have simply said ‘all evidence points to an intelligent being who had to have had a hand in this’. Even those who are not believers in God have said stuff like this. The point is that as science advances, there is more evidence of a designer, not less! To add this information to the other fields of science is no doubt causing great consternation to the atheistic scientist. He can no longer reject the proof of intelligent design as seen in science. God is proving himself a better ‘chess player’ than they thought.
(843) ROMANS 8: 19-25 ‘the sufferings of this present time [are you ‘presently’ suffering?] are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us’. Paul compares the difficulty to the reward. The reward here is the future resurrection. Paul did not see suffering as ‘from the devil’ or the reward as something material [monetary stuff! The resurrection body will be ‘material’ - real]. Paul teaches that the whole creation is waiting for this day. Not only will we get a ‘makeover’ but there will be a new heaven and a new earth! The creation itself longs for this [almost as much as Al Gore!] This resurrection is called ‘the redemption of our body’. The next verse says ‘we are saved by hope’. John also says [1st John] that the future reality of the resurrection ‘causes us to be pure in this life’ [every one that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure]. Why? Because we know God has a purpose for our bodies as well as our spirits! The ‘getting saved by hope’ simply means the future hope of the resurrection ‘encourages’ us to live clean now. Once again ‘saved’ is a neutral term. In can apply to all sorts of things. I always found it funny how when you read certain commentaries, that you see the difficulty Christians have when coming across these types of verses. There’s a verse that says ‘the woman will be saved thru childbearing’ geez, you wouldn’t believe the difficulty some writers have when they come across this stuff. Some teach ‘she will be ‘saved’ thru the birth of a child [Jesus]’ and all sorts of stuff. I think if we simply changed the word ‘saved’ for ‘delivered’ [which are basically the same thing] that maybe this would help. But thank God that we have a future resurrection to look forward to, let this truth ‘deliver’ you from the temptation to think ‘what’s all this suffering worth, why even go thru it?’ Because we have a great promise at the other end!
(844) UPDATE- TODD BENTLEY AND THE LAKELAND REVIVAL- Well, sad to say, but I just found out that Todd and his wife are separating. I feel I need to speak a little on this [not the separation, but the whole Lakeland Revival] because I spoke on it before. What happened? First, those of you who read this site realize that I believe in the supernatural gifts of the Spirit. Second, you also realize that I am not a fan of the fame and image that go along with many contemporary expressions of ‘church and ministry’. I am not one of those critics who simply jump on the bandwagon either. Did God do some things at Lakeland? I think so. Were there lots of mistakes made? I think so. I was really uncomfortable when some very ‘well known prophets/apostles’ spoke of the revival in very ‘exalting’ ways. Some went to endorse it at the beginning and went way overboard in their language. I feel the ‘platform’ persona and the absolute lack of discernment from God T.V. in broadcasting something beyond the intended parameters led to this fall. I appreciate the willingness of Christian networks to want to get the Word out, but most all of the networks have no [or very little] discernment on what they do! So as of now I think believers should pray for Todd and his family. I think the networks should simply stop broadcasting it altogether. And the people of God need to re-focus on Christ and his Word.
(845) ROMANS 8:26-28 ‘Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities’ why does Paul say ‘likewise’? He is saying ‘not only does the future hope of the resurrection sustain us, but also Gods Spirit helps us’! He knows how to make intercession for us in ways that we cannot. I just finished an hour prayer time, not an ‘official’ intercession time [which I do a few times a week now]. But an ‘unofficial’ time where I try and hear what the Spirit is speaking. When you are ‘praying in the Spirit’ [which can include the charismatic expression of tongues] you are depending upon the Spirit to transcend your limited ability to articulate what needs to be said. ‘All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are ‘the called’ according to his purpose’. A very famous verse indeed. What does it mean? It means what it says! Over the years I have heard so many excuses for trying to get around difficult things. Why do the righteous suffer? Some taught it was because of their ignorance of scripture. Why did the things that happened to Job happen? Some said it was because he ‘feared’ that the things would happen [this group seems to miss the whole underlying reason for the book. Job’s friends are continually looking for a reason thru out the book. The point is, sometimes there is no reasonable explanation. I realize you can pick apart certain statements from Job and come up with ‘reasons’, but the meaning of the book is God is sovereign and we shouldn’t always think we can figure him out or ‘work the system’]. Here Paul says ‘whatever is happening to you right now [even very bad stuff!] will eventually work out for you benefit’. What about Hitler? Did he love God? I don’t believe so. This scripture says ‘to them that love God’. Your only responsibility thru the difficulty is to ‘love God’.
(846) ROMANS 8:29-30 ‘for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed into the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: whom he justified, them he also glorified’. Let’s talk a little. When I first became a Christian I began a lifelong study of scripture, where I continually read a certain amount of scripture every day for many years. Over the years I have varied on how fast I should read [that is how many chapters per day and so forth]. But during the early stages I always took these verses to teach predestination in the classical sense. Simply put, that God ‘pre chose’ me [and all whom come to him] before we ‘chose him’. The Fundamental Baptist church I began to attend [a great church with great people!] taught that ‘classic Calvinism’ [predestination] was false doctrine, and they labeled it ‘Hyper Calvinism’. I simply accepted this as fact. But I never forgot the early understanding that I first gleaned thru my own study. I also was very limited in my other readings outside of the scripture. I did study the Great awakenings and Charles Finney. I read some biographies on John Wesley and other great men of God. These men were not Calvinistic in their doctrine [which is fine], as a matter of fact Wesley would eventually disassociate from George Whitefield over this issue. Whitefield was a staunch Calvinist! Over time I came to believe the doctrine again, simply as I focused on the scriptures that teach it. Eventually I picked up some books on church history and realized that Calvinism was [and is] a mainstream belief among many great believers. I personally believe that most of the great theologians in history have accepted this doctrine. Now, for those who reject it, they honestly struggle with these portions of scripture. Just like there are portions of scripture that Calvinists struggle with. To deny this is to be less than honest. The Arminians [Those who deny classic predestination- the term comes from Jacob Arminias, a Calvinist who was writing and studying on the ‘errors’ of ‘arminianism’ and came to embrace the doctrine of free will/choice] usually approach the verses that say ‘he predestined us’ by teaching that Gods predestination speaks only of his foreknowledge of those who would choose him. This is an honest effort to come to terms with the doctrine. To be ‘more honest’ I think this doesn’t adequately deal with the issue. In the above text, as well as many other places in scripture, the idea of ‘Gods foreknowledge and pre choosing’ speak specifically about Gods choice to save us, as opposed to him simply knowing that we would ‘choose right’. The texts that teach predestination teach it in this context. Now the passage above does say ‘those whom he foreknew, he also did predestinate to be conformed into the image of Christ’ here this passage actually does say ‘God predestinated us to be like his Son’. If you left the ‘foreknowledge’ part out, you could read this passage in an Arminian way. But we do have the ‘foreknowledge’ part. So I believe Paul is saying ‘God chose us before we were born, he ‘knew’ ahead of time that he would bring us into his Kingdom. Those whom he foreknew he also predestinated to become like his Son.’ Why? So his Son would be the firstborn among many. God wanted a whole new race of ‘children of God’. Those he predestinated he ‘called’. He drew them to himself. Jesus said ‘all that the Father give to me will come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no way cast out’. Those who ‘come’ are justified, those who are justified are [present tense] glorified. Gods design and sovereignty speak of it as a ‘finished task’ like it already happened. God lives outside of the dimension of time. I believe in the doctrine of predestination. Many others do as well. You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to, but I believe scripture teaches it.
(847) ROMANS 8: 31-39 ‘What shall we say then to these things? [what things? The fact that God predestined us and has guaranteed completion of the purpose he has designed us for!] If God be for us, who can be against us?’ Paul teaches that Christ is the only one with the ‘right’ or authority to pass judgment. If the only person in existence who can ‘officially’ condemn and pass legal judgment has actually died for us for the purpose of ‘freeing us from a state of condemnation’, then who ‘gives a rip’ about others opinions and views of us? Most of us struggle with how others view us. Paul did teach that Elders should have good character and a fine reputation in the community. But there is another type of ‘persona’ that preachers can fall into. A sort of ‘concern’ about what the critics are saying. In this context Paul says ‘If the opinion of the only person in existence whose opinion really matters, is one of “I accept you unconditionally, I declare you free from what others think, you are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Ever since I have known you, you have been pleasing in my sight” [all true scriptures by the way] Then who cares what others think! Paul also teaches that nothing can separate us from Christ’s love ‘not tribulation or distress or famine or persecution’ IN all these things we are more than conquerors thru him who loved us. Most times we view this passage from a ‘Calvinistic’ lens. I want you to see the impact of this statement thru a different lens. In the American church we have taught people ‘would a good father not pay the bills of his kids? Would a good father allow his kids to suffer? If you were really partaking of the New Covenant you would have it made’. While I do realize that many well meaning ministers have taught these viewpoints with honest and sincere hearts, I also have seen how this mindset accuses the saints. It basically tells the struggling believer ‘what kind of father do you have? If he really loved you would you be going thru these things’? In essence we are saying ‘tribulation and distress and persecution’ are all signs that ‘you have been separated from Gods love’! Paul blows this false [materialistic] mindset out of the water. He says it is thru these things that we are more than conquerors. It is the ability to look into the face of Pontius Pilate and say ‘you have no power over me, my father has permitted these things to take place. I am here to lay my life down for his glory’. Paul said all these things we are suffering are opportunities to glorify our father. To look into the face of society and say ‘nay, we are more than conqueror's thru him that loved us’. The early church set the world on fire when they were laying their lives down for the cause, refusing to deny their Lord even at the point of death. They were ‘more than conquerors’.
(848) ROMANS 9: 1-8 Paul returns to an earlier theme ‘Christ came, as pertaining to the flesh, in response to the covenants that God made with Israel’ [my paraphrase!] Paul says that natural Israel played a very important role in the coming of Messiah. He was [is] the fulfillment of the prophecies that came as a result of Gods interaction with ‘the commonwealth of Israel’. Now Paul again says ‘they are not all Israel, which are of Israel, but “in Isaac shall thy seed be called’”. Understand something here, Paul is not teaching ‘another’ natural lineage to Christ. The mistake of the worldwide church of God [Herbert Armstrong] which teaches British Israelism, trying to trace the natural lineage of Europeans and saying ‘these are the lost tribes’. Paul is simply saying ‘those who are of the Law, the natural tribe of Israel [Jews] are not automatically counted as ‘the seed’ [children] but those who ‘are of promise’. Paul also uses this in Galatians 3 and 4. ‘Of promise’ is simply saying ‘those who have been born of Gods Spirit [Jew or Gentile] are the children that God promised to Abraham’ he is the father of ‘many nations’. All who would believe. These themes are building upon Paul’s earlier theology in this letter. This letter [Romans] has a little more ‘weight’ than say a pastoral epistle [Timothy, Titus]. Now, I am not saying it is ‘more inspired’ but I want you to see that even in the book of Acts you see Paul place special emphasis on ‘I must make it to Rome’! Paul fully realizes that this letter will be read among the believers and Jews at Rome. Rome is the capitol city of the Empire. He wants the early believers to understand the role and purpose of God for Israel. Paul’s efforts are being seen by some Jewish believers [Jerusalem] as antagonistic. Paul wants to make it clear that he was not trying to start some type of movement that rejected natural Israel. At the same time he wants natural Israel ‘my kinsman according to the flesh’ to receive their Messiah! So in this context Romans is a theological treatise saying ‘God wants to bring both Jew and Gentile together as one new man in Christ [Ephesians]’. When he argues ‘they that are the children of the flesh ARE NOT THE CHILDREN OF GOD[verse 8] but the children of the promise are counted for the seed’ he is simply saying ‘all people, both Jews and Gentiles [which includes all races that are ‘non Jews’ even Arabs!] can partake of this free gift by grace’. The promise is to all who ‘will believe’.
(849) ROMANS 9:9-23 now we get into predestination. Paul uses the example of Jacob and Esau [I spoke on this in the Genesis study, see chapter 25], he says God chose Jacob over Esau before they were born. He also uses the story of Pharaoh and says God was the one who hardened his heart. Paul says these things show us that God’s mercy and choice are a sovereign act. He specifically says ‘God chose Jacob, not on the basis of any thing he did [or would do!] but because of his own sovereign choice’. Now, this is another one of those arguments where Paul says ‘you will then say to me, how can God find fault? If everyone is simply doing the things he preordained, fulfilling destiny, then how can God justly hold people accountable’? First, I want you to see that this statement, that Paul is putting into the mouths of his opponents, only makes sense from the classic position of predestination. Second, if predestination only spoke of Gods foreknowledge of the choices that people were going to make [like asking Jesus into their heart!] then the obvious response to the argument would be ‘Oh, God chose Jacob because he knew what a good boy he was going to be’. Not only would this be wrong, Jacob [the supplanter] was not a ‘good boy’, but Paul does not use this defense in arguing his case. He simply says ‘who are we to question God? Can the thing formed say to him that formed it “why have you made me like this”? It seems as if Paul’s understanding of predestination was in the Augustinian/Calvinistic Tradition. A few years back a popular author on the west coast, Dave Hunt, wrote a book called ‘what kind of love is this’? He took on the Reformed Faiths understanding of predestination. Dave was a little out of his league in the book. He seemed to not fully grasp the historic understanding of the doctrine. He quoted some stuff from Charles Spurgeon that made it sound like he was not a believer in predestination. Spurgeon did make strong statements against certain ideas that were [are] prevalent in classic Calvinism. Some taught that Christ’s Blood was shed only for the elect. This is called ‘particular redemption’ or from the famous ‘Tulip’ example ‘limited atonement’. Spurgeon did not embrace the idea that Christ’s Blood was not sufficient to cover the sins of the whole world. The problem with Hunt using this true example from Spurgeon, is that he overlooked the other obvious statements from Spurgeon that place him squarely in the Calvinistic camp. Some refer to this as ‘4 point Calvinism’. I myself agree with Spurgeon on this point. The reason I mention this whole thing is to show you that major Christian figures have dealt with these texts and have struggled with the obvious difficulties involved. I think Paul does a little ‘speculative theology’ himself in this chapter. He says ‘what if God willing to show his mercy and wrath permitted certain things’. He gives possible reasons for the seeming ‘unfairness’ of this doctrine. The point I want to stress is Paul never tries to defend it from the classic Arminian understanding, that says ‘God knew the way people were going to choose, and he simply ‘foreordained’ those who would choose right’. To be honest, this argument does answer the question in the minds of many believers, I simply don’t see it to be accurate.
(850) PROPHETIC UPDATE! As of today [8-08] enough has happened in the last few years to kind of encapsulate the state of the church [Gods people] and where we are heading. Whenever you have ‘prophetic people’ and movements make some real obvious mistakes, I always feel tempted to go thru this site and delete everything that deals with ‘prophecies, dreams and visions’. This has happened to me on more than a few occasions. But the Lord kind of stops me. Now, why do I mention this? Because these last few years the charismatic/prosperity churches have gone thru some turmoil. The ‘Emergent’ movement has also struck a nerve with the Reformed defenders of the faith, and they have also had some battles. In the midst of it all you also had a resurgence of Catholic apologists [Scott Hahn] and ‘the defend the fullness of truth’ conferences. First, I felt the Lord was going to deal with the more obvious abuses of the prosperity movement a few years back. I even ‘prophesied’ that this would happen [on this site!]. So this is a legitimate ‘correction’ that is taking place as of this year. Some of the main leaders of the movement have come under some serious ‘judging’. Also, the more theological/mature Emergent movement has come under fire by the Reformed preachers because of some real problems. Some in the Emergent church have espoused ultra liberal ideas on the Atonement, Hell and other basic Christian doctrines. The problem is the older reform minded ‘correctors’ are for the most part absolutely ignorant of their own ‘blind spot’ in the area of Ecclesiology. They seem to think ‘defending the historic faith’ includes defending a ‘limited’ Ecclesiology. It’s too easy to just believe that Edwards, Luther, Calvin and all the other great minds of their eras must have been right on Church government and structure. For the most part they were not. So this part of the ‘emergent church’ have it right [those who challenge limited ideas of ‘church’]. Now, the recent ‘fiasco’ of the Lakeland revival. I believe the whole ‘group’ of Apostles and Prophets [?] that initially gave their approval are very questionable. Some of the men I do like [Rick Joyner], but the whole ‘apostolic network’ that some of these brothers belong to is very questionable [when I say ‘questionable’, I do not mean they are frauds or fakes. I mean the whole idea of having an ‘apostolic network’ seems to be missing the target]. I believe most of Gods true Apostles and Prophets today are men of great humility, they suffer persecution [like Watchmen Nee] and for the most part are serious students of the Word and ‘followers of the way’ [Christ’s example of a servant]. So today [2008] we need to be open to correction in the areas that are off base. We also need to be careful not to reject all ‘prophetic things’ out of a feeling of being embarrassed to even use the same terminology as some of these guys. And we need to recognize that some of the old time defenders of the faith [Sproul, Macarthur, Colson] do have very good points they are making when the emergent brothers reject the very basis of ‘knowable truth’, but they also have a huge blind spot in their ecclesiology [thinking defending the truth includes ‘Sunday Church’]. Also, the Catholic resurgence is important not to discount, some Evangelicals are becoming so frustrated with the Protestant ‘craziness’ and divisions, that they seem to find refuge in joining this ancient expression of Christianity. Let’s have a good vigorous debate, let’s strive for unity. The prophetic movement needs to receive correction. The prosperity movements more extreme elements need to be rejected outright. At the end of the day God is still going to do a great work in the earth. His people will show forth his glory and truly be the glorious temple that he desires.
(851) ROMANS 9:24-29 Paul quotes Hosea and Isaiah to show that God has a purpose for both Jew and Gentile. He uses a few verses from Isaiah 10 and 13 to say ‘except the lord had left us a remnant, no one would be left’. Now, once again we come up against the mindset of always reading ‘saved’ as meaning ‘born again’. In context, God ‘saving’ a remnant simply means ‘he spared them from ruin and total destruction’. There is a verse in Revelation that says ‘the nations of them which are saved shall enjoy the new heavens and earth’. Some commentators will show you how some versions leave out ‘which are saved’ which would leave the text as saying ‘the nations [that are left, remain!] shall walk in it’. This is the context here. Paul is saying God always had a few from Israel that remained, he didn’t utterly wipe them out. Now, this of course fits in with ‘having sins forgiven’, being ‘saved’ or redeemed. There are prophets who say ‘the Lord will turn away ungodliness from Jacob’ [delivered from sin] and ‘the lord comes to those who have turned away from their sin’ speaking of Israel. So I want you to grasp the biblical concept of God saving [sparing] a remnant. The word ‘remnant’ actually speaks of the part of cloth/ material that is ‘left over’ from the whole piece. Jesus also said ‘unless those days were shortened, their would no flesh “be saved”’. Once again meaning ‘no human would survive unless God cut short his wrath’. Paul also uses this language here ‘the lord will do a quick work on the earth and cut it short [shortened!] in righteousness’.
(852) EVOLUTION AND RACISM- Jesus said if you call someone a fool ‘without a cause’ that you would be in danger of ‘hell fire’. One of the most famous ‘Evolution versus Christian’ cases in the 20th century was known as ‘The Scopes Trial’ [monkey trial]. I remember as a boy watching the made for T.V. movie ‘Inherit the Wind’. The movie portrayed the Christians as ‘ignoramuses’ while showing the defense side as ‘enlightened’. The key figures were Clarence Darrow [1857-1938] and William Jennings Bryan [1860-1925]. John Scopes was the teacher accused of teaching evolution from the book ‘Civic Biology’ by George Hunter. Tennessee had recently passed a law forbidding the teaching of evolution in their schools [Butler act]. Scopes was found guilty and fined 100 dollars, but the intent of trying to show the Christian fundamentalist as ‘backwoods idiots’ was achieved. Darrow managed to get Bryan to admit that the creation account of Genesis might be speaking of ‘ages’ when it says ‘days’ [the very popular gap theory was accepted by many fundamentalists at the time. C. I. Scofield's bible popularized this belief in the notes]. After the trial the fact that the A.C.L.U. lost the case was insignificant, they won in the media. Till this day many people see this event as a victory for freedom and human rights. What is not commonly known is that the book Scopes taught from was one of the most racist books of the age. It freely taught Eugenics [the stronger more ‘nobler’ races winning out over the less valuable inferior races!] it even had a scale showing the 5 races of humans from the most valuable and intelligent, to the least valuable and ignorant. The book had whites at the top and blacks at the bottom. Bryan was a defender of civil rights for all humans, he stood on the side of blacks and minorities being equal. The so called ‘advanced’ bunch [the evolutionists] were on the side of the K.K.K., they espoused the doctrine of white supremacy as taught in the book Scopes used. Bryan felt the danger of this so called ‘scientific theory’ was that it would lead to disaster and the degrading of human dignity. It is an historical fact that Hitler read and believed in Eugenics and Evolution, he felt his atrocities against the Jews were simply mans way of ‘wiping out the inferior races’. His demonic attack would occur a few years after Bryan’s warnings. Now, for those who view the famous ‘Monkey Trial’ as a great victory for humanity, I have one response ‘the men who wrote and espoused such racist beliefs were quite obviously FOOLS!’
(853) ROMANS 9: 30-33 ‘What shall we say then? That the Gentiles which followed not after the law of righteousness have attained it, even by faith’. Paul concludes the chapter by summing up his ‘righteousness by faith’ argument. Natural Israel, who sought to become righteous by law, who were always striving for perfection thru the keeping of the law. They did not attain that which they sought after. Why? Because they sought it ‘not by faith, but by law’. No law could ever make a man righteous. The Gentiles, which were not even looking! They got it. Why? Because they simply believed in the Messiah, it was the best message they ever heard. They were told their whole lives ‘you are separated from Gods promises. You are not included in the commonwealth of Israel’. They never dreamed that the Jewish Messiah would say ‘neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more’. They received Gods righteousness by faith. Israel ‘stumbled’ at the stumbling stone. Jesus is called a precious stone and also a rock of offence. To those who believe, he is great, precious. To those who don’t believe he is this tremendous obstacle. The unbelieving world doesn’t know what to do with him. I was watching Ravi Zacharias the other night. He is a good Christian apologist. He was telling the story of being in Russia and speaking to a large group of Atheists. During his talk they were really aggressive, making motions with their hands and all. He was told ahead of time to be prepared. At the question and answer time a Russian Atheist asked ‘what are you talking about when you say God? I have no idea what you mean by this false concept’. Ravi asked him ‘sir, are you an Atheist?’ He replied yes. ‘What is an Atheist’? Ravi asked. The man responded ‘someone who denies God’. Ravi said ‘what exactly is it that you are denying’? The unbeliever has come up against this ‘rock of offence’. He tries to get around it, to develop all types of systems and philosophies to deny it. The rock is there, you can either ‘fall on it’. That is admit he is who he claims to be. Submit and be ‘broken’. Or it will eventually ‘grind you to powder’. You will pass from the scene and the next crop of Atheists will rise and face the same dilemma. This rock ‘aint going away’.
(854) ROMANS 10: 1-13 Many years ago I referenced all the back up scriptures for this chapter [and book!]. The study was intense because I saw a fundamental ‘fault line’ that ran thru many in the Evangelical church [the revivalist tradition]. The ‘fault line’ was reading this chapter as in if it were saying ‘ask Jesus into your heart, or you won’t be saved’. Now, I have no problem with those who trace their conversion to an experience like this. But I want to give you my understanding of this chapter, based on the exhaustive study I did years ago. Also, I will probably quote some verses and you will have to find them later [I forget where they all are]. Paul begins with his desire for ‘all Israel to be saved’. I taught in chapter one how come the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Because all who believe ‘become righteous’. After 9 chapters of Romans, we have seen that when Paul refers to ‘justification by faith’ this is synonymous with ‘believing with the heart unto righteousness’. Here Paul’s desire is for Israel to experience ‘all facets of salvation’ [present and future] to ‘be saved’. Now, he will say ‘Christ is the end of the law to all who believe’ Israel did not attain unto ‘righteousness’ because they sought after it by trying to keep the law. But it comes only by faith. Then Paul quotes a kind of obscure verse from Deuteronomy saying ‘Moses says the righteousness which is by faith’ [note- this whole description that follows is describing ‘the righteousness that comes by faith’] and says ‘the word is near thee, in thy mouth and heart’. Paul then says ‘whoever calls on the Lord will be saved, with the heart a man believes and becomes righteous [which according to Paul means ‘justified’] and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation’. In this text, Paul once again is ‘dividing’ the common understanding of ‘salvation’ meaning ‘getting initially saved’- which is ‘believing and being justified’. And simply saying ‘believers will inevitably call and be saved’ [in a generic sense]. Why would he do this? In the context of his argument, he is simply showing the ‘righteousness which is from the law’ [the man under the law is described as ‘doing something’ continuing under the load and strain of law] versus the ‘righteousness which is by faith’ [described as a person who believes and speaks, as opposed to ‘does stuff’]. It is not inconsistent for Paul to use the term ‘confessing and being saved’ as speaking of something different than meaning ‘accepting Christ into your heart’. Paul is simply giving a description of those who believe ‘all who believe will call’. And yes, they will and do experience ‘salvation’. It’s just in this example Paul is not saying ‘they are saved initially upon confession, calling’. At least not ‘saved’ in the sense of ‘getting justified by faith’. Why? Because the rest of the chapter doesn’t make a whole lotta sense if he were saying this. ‘How can they call on him in whom they have not believed’? He already showed us that ‘believers are justified’. The very argument Paul makes distinguishes between ‘believing unto righteousness, and calling unto salvation’. You can see it like this, there is a verse I stumbled across years ago. It is in one of the prophets [Old Testament] and it says ‘Gods wrath will come upon all them WHO HAVE NOT CALLED UPON HIM’. In this context Paul can be saying ‘whoever calls upon God will never enter judgment/wrath’ [a description of a particular lifestyle, remember Paul said Gods Spirit makes us cry ‘Abba Father’] in this light Paul can be saying ‘all who call [both Jew and Gentile- simply making an argument for inclusion. God accepts ‘all who call’] will not come under future [or present!] wrath’. This would be in keeping with Peters scathing sermon in Act’s where he quotes the Prophet Joel and says ‘whosoever calls upon the Lord shall be saved’. If you go back and read Joel you will see that in context he is saying ‘at the future time of God’s revealed judgment, those who cry for deliverance will be spared’. Peter quotes it in this context as well. He shows Gods future time of judgment and ends with ‘all who call will be saved’. How do we know that Peter was not quoting Joel for some type of ‘sinner’s prayer’ thing? Because after the Jews say ‘what should we do’? He doesn’t lead them in a sinners Prayer! I don’t want to be picky, I simply want you to see context. Paul has already established multiple times thru out this letter how righteousness comes to those who believe. One of the descriptions of ‘those who believe’ are they ‘call upon God’. They even call upon God ‘to save them’. In this chapter the reason Paul uses ‘whosoever calls upon the lord will be saved’ is to simply show God will deliver both Jews and Gentiles. His promise of salvation is ‘to all’. When he uses ‘believing and being made righteous’ along with ‘calling and being saved’ he obviously can not be speaking about the same thing! He even states it this way in his argument. ‘How can they call unless they already believe’? He was simply giving a description of ‘those who believe’. This ‘calling for salvation’ that ‘all who believe’ partake of can speak both of a ‘present tense’ being saved, that is from any and all types of bad things, and a ‘future tense’ deliverance from wrath. Even when Paul quoted David in Roman’s 4, he is ‘describing the blessedness of the man unto whom God will not impute sin’ [Psalms 32] if you go back and read that psalm David says ‘for this shall EVERY ONE THAT IS GODLY PRAY UNTO THEE’. David uses this in the context of his confession of his sin. So the ‘everyone that is Godly’ describes ‘the righteous’ and they WILL CALL! Also in 2nd Corinthians Paul quotes Isaiah ‘now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation’ in the context of ‘God heard you and saved you’. Why would Paul use this in 2nd Corinthians? They need not be told ‘pray and get saved’. In context he used it to encourage them to return back into full communion and fellowship after their restoration and reproof he gave them in the first letter. He is saying ‘I rebuked you guys harshly, you repented and asked for forgiveness. God ‘heard you’ in his acceptable time, now get over it and ‘be restored’. Salvation to them came by ‘calling’ but it was not describing an initial conversion experience. Well, I didn’t realize I would go so long, but this is a good example of having a ‘holistic view’ of scripture. You try and take all the quotes the writers are using, put them in context of the broad themes of scripture. Add that to the immediate context of the letter [Romans] and then come to a deeper understanding of truth. I am not against those who see this chapter thru an evangelistic lens, I just think the way I taught it is more faithful to the text. [NOTE- Thru out this site I have taught the doctrine of ‘the salvation of the righteous’. I mentioned it earlier in Romans and have spoken on it before. If you can find these entries they will add some insight to this chapter. NOTE- verse 20 actually has Paul quoting Isaiah ‘I was found by them who did not ask for me’. This would sure seem strange to say in the same chapter that taught a concept of ‘all who ask for me will enter the kingdom’. It is quite possible to ask and pray and confess everything ‘just right’ and still not find him. And according to this verse, the ones who did ‘find him’ [Gentiles] did not ask! After years of coming to the above understanding I read a church council [Council of Orange?] and I was surprised to see how they actually dealt with the issue of believing versus ‘calling upon God’. They quoted some of these texts to show that before a person could call upon the Lord, he first needed faith. They used this example to show Gods sovereignty in salvation. I thought it interesting that they came to the very same conclusions that I did. They even used the same examples! This shows you how the corporate mind of the church is manifestly expressed thru out the ages. I think the council was in the 8th or 9th century?
(855) ROMANS 10:14-21 [Just a note for the previous entry. In the conversions recorded in scripture [Acts] do you know how many times there is a reference to ‘calling upon the Lord’ during the conversion? Surprisingly one time. The conversion of Saul [Paul]! During one of the ‘re-tellings’ of his own story he says ‘I was told to arise, and be baptized. Washing away my sins while calling upon the Lord’. Wow, could we have arguments over this one! Do you identify the ‘washing away of sins’ with baptism or the ‘prayer’? I actually previously taught [somewhere on this long blog!] how in the 1st century Jewish mindset ‘washing from uncleanness’ and water were related. I taught it in a way that did not teach ‘baptismal regeneration’ but more along the lines of ‘discipleship’ you might find the entry under ‘my statement of faith’. The point I want to make here is Paul spent 3 days after the Lord appeared to him before he actually got baptized and made an open confession of faith. Paul’s reputation was so bad [he killed Christians!] that his conversion and confession needed to have all the weight possible. Others needed to know that he now ‘confessed Christ’. Most commentators will look to the appearance of Jesus to Paul on the Damascus road as his conversion. The point I want to make is in the book of Acts, the main ‘altar call’ was actually baptism. This was the normal means to identify with the believing community. We also see the fact that once people believed, they then were baptized. The same distinction can be made with ‘confessing’. Neither can take place until one believes. I would assume that Paul said something like this at his baptism ‘O Jesus, please forgive me for what I have done. I killed your people and have committed a terrible crime’. There obviously were some serious things he needed to confess! But the overall view of conversion in Acts does not show a ‘sinner’s prayer’ type conversion.] Paul indicts Israel ‘The word did come to you, you didn’t believe’. He also quotes Moses ‘God said he would provoke you to jealousy by a nation who were “no people”’. We are beginning a portion of Romans where Paul will try and explain the dynamic of Gods purpose for Israel, and his ‘use’ of the Gentile nations to ‘make them jealous’. When we studied the parables we saw this dynamic at work. Israel was offended that God [Messiah] was offering equal access to the promises of Israel thru Jesus. Israel was jealous of this free grace. Paul shows them that Moses prophesied that this day would come. You also see this in Stephens’s sermon in Acts chapter 7 ‘Moses said the Lord would raise up a prophet like me [Jesus!]’ and then Stephen shows how Israel also did not recognize that Moses was the intended deliverer of the people. So likewise 1st century Israel also did not recognize their Messiah [the first time around!]. God’s acceptance of the Gentiles was difficult for Israel to embrace. It took a divine vision for Peter, and he still ‘fell back’ into a caste system mentality. God is not finished with these dealings [Paul will say in the next few chapters] and he will make every effort to show both Jews and Gentiles that they are both important pieces to this ‘divine puzzle’. He will even warn the Gentiles ‘don’t get proud, if God cut off the true branches to graft you in, watch out! He might do the same with you.’ Paul is striving for both Jew and Gentile to live in harmony as much as possible, he did not want to come off as a defender of the Gentiles only. He was ‘defending the gospel’.
(856) PARABLE FROM A PLANE [or any other mode of transport!] this parable is in response to all the various ‘Calvinistic’ sites I have read from in the last few years. I believe in the doctrine of classic predestination [Calvin, Augustine, Paul] but I feel there are some problems with the way believers approach this issue. Say if you were taking a flight from New York to Texas. You have been on this flight hundreds of times. In fact your father is the pilot! Now, when you were growing up you were reassured that the plane was safe, the pilot is well trained and for all practical purposes you know nothing can go wrong [I realize this analogy isn’t perfect, but just pretend that this flight is guaranteed not to have any problems]. Over the years you have enjoyed the journey. Then one day you meet a fellow passenger [an Arminian- Someone who does not believe in the doctrine of predestination, at least not in the way you do]. You begin having some good discussions, he espouses his belief that it is quite possible for something to go wrong. He agrees that the plane itself is safe and the pilot is qualified. But he states ‘if you want to jump out you can’. This idea never entered into the original passenger. He always believed that the security of the flight was so ‘secure’ that even if he tried to jump, he couldn’t open the exit. Now, the Arminian says ‘I think you could’ the Calvinist says ‘no way’. During their discussion they disagree, but no one attempts to actually ‘jump’. Now a few weeks later the Calvinist is afraid to get on the plane. He has taken the flight many times, but now he wonders ‘What if the Arminian was right? Say if the pilot [his dad] actually has the ability and power to open the hatch and throw me out? The possibility of this actual thing has now frozen me with such fear that I will not get on the plane’. The father [pilot] would seem offended. How many times have children fallen asleep in the car when their father was at the wheel? Even though it’s in the realm of possibility that dad will ‘throw you out’ [I don’t embrace this, but follow me] it would still seem dysfunctional for the child to say ‘I refuse to drive with dad until I have some guarantees that he will never open the door and dump me’. As a matter of fact, I feel so insecure of the possibility that dad can throw me out, that I even hate the other kids [or passengers!] that even brought it up! As I have read from some ‘Reformed sites’ I have seen this type of dynamic more than one time. Some of the brothers see the Arminian camp as heretics. I think we need to step back and take a breath. Even in the Arminian camp, they have faith that ‘dad isn’t going to stop short and open the exit’ [for the most part]. Most simply believe that ‘dad’ leaves this option open for the ‘jumper’. I know this silly parable doesn’t do justice to the whole issue of Gods sovereignty. I just find it disturbing how some of my fellow Calvinists seem to view the other side as ‘the enemy’.
(857) ROMANS- Let me overview a little. This entry goes along with the last one [#856- those of you reading this straight from the Romans study will need to find it under one of the ‘teaching’ sections]. Paul deals with the issue of ‘being provoked by/to jealousy’. Many times believers remain divided because of pride and jealousy. We often do not want to accept the fact that God actually is working thru other camps, groups of Christians who are ‘not like us’. It challenges our very identity at times! We feel like ‘well, my whole experience with God has been one of coming out of [name the group- for many it’s Catholicism] and I KNOW that I have found and experienced God by leaving mistaken concepts about God. Therefore any other ‘defender’ of Catholics is challenging my core experience’. I myself attribute my conversion to ‘leaving religious ideas’ and reading the bible for the first time. Though I had various believers witnessing to me, it was the actual reading of John’s gospel [and the whole New Testament] that clinched it for me. The reality of ‘whoever believes’ as opposed to religion. But my own experience should not limit [in my mind] the reality of others who also embraced the Cross without ‘leaving’ their former church. It is quite possible that other ‘Catholics’ arrived at a serious level of commitment to the Cross, while remaining faithful to their church. Now I realize this in itself can become an issue of contention, all I want to show you is we should not limit the power of the gospel to our own personal experience. During the recent controversy [2008] over certain Pentecostal expressions of ‘revival’ some old time churches simply made a case against all the Charisms [gifts] of the Spirit. The fact is most theologians accept the gifts of the Spirit as being for all ages of the church. Sure, there have been problems with them, even early on [the Montanists] but the fact is there has always been some type of Charismatic expression of Christianity thru out the church age. But the more Reformed brother’s sound [and are often!] more ‘biblical’ than some of the crazy stuff that happens under the banner of ‘Pentecostal/Charismatic’. So the divisions exist. In this chapter [Romans 11] Paul is dealing with a very real dynamic that says ‘I find my whole identity in the way God has worked with me for centuries [Judaism]. The fact that he began a new thing with other groups who I detest [Gentiles] has offended me to the point where I can’t even experience God any more’. Israel could not see past her own experience with God. The fact that God was ‘being experienced’ by other groups in ways that seemed highly ‘unorthodox’ did not mean that their former experience was illegitimate. It simply meant that Gods experience with them was always intended to ‘break out’ into the broader community of mankind. They lost this original intent and used their ‘orthodoxy’ as a means of self identification. An ‘elite’ religious class, if you will. I find many of these same dynamics being present in the modern church. We should stand strong for orthodoxy, we also need to expose and correct error when it gets to a point where many believers are being led astray. But we also need to be able to see God at work in other groups, we should not use our own experience with God [no matter how legitimate it is!] as the criterion of what’s right or wrong.
(858) EVOLUTION- I just read another one of those articles in the news paper. How Florida just mandated the teaching of Evolution in their public schools [I figured it already was mandated?]. They of course described the theory as the ‘central organizing principle of life science’ BULL! Now, I have heard scientists say ‘what in the heck do you mean by this’ [the so called idea that evolution is this amazing ‘organizing principle’]? The truth is evolution has fallen so badly in recent years that many scientists are scrambling for alternative theories. The ones that disbelieve in creation or intelligent design are even looking for a way out of evolution! The old theory has no more legs to stand on. Let me try and show you the desperation of some. Stephen Hawking has espoused various theories on the universe. One of the theories [which is difficult to describe without diagrams] basically looks like a ‘funnel’ or ‘cone’. The present accepted scientific theory of Big Bang Cosmology would look like a cone, with a minute starting point that grows wider as you pan to the top. This accepted theory shows a ‘point of singularity’. This is basically the point on the diagram that says ‘all things started here’. Now, even though this is accepted science, the ‘contrarians’ are desperately trying to come up with other alternatives. Why? Because if the ‘big bang’ is true, then God is a necessary being! So how does the brilliant Hawking get around this? He comes up with a theory [besides the ‘multi-verse’ one!] That says ‘my cone/funnel has a round indistinguishable knob for a point’. Sort of like a dunce cap with a ball at the end [Prophetic? Just kidding]. Hawking espouses that there is no discernable ‘edge’ or starting point. He feels that this concept can explain away the ‘point of singularity’. Why is this absolutely ridiculous? It would be like me trying to prove to you that this roll of duct tape that I hold in my hand ‘had no beginning’. And if I was able to ‘hide’ the starting point of the tape, where you couldn’t peel a piece off, that this would prove ‘walla, the tape has no starting point’ [that is it was never made]. Absolute lunacy! You say ‘well, John, who are you to question the intellect of such an austere man as Hawking’? Many other Physicists have said the exact same thing. It’s simple logic that tells you this. Just because you can hide the beginning point of a thing, this does not mean the thing had no beginning! I just get riled up when I read these news paper articles and they espouse some of the most ridiculous stuff. Maybe their world really does look like a ‘dunce cap with a knob on the end’. God created the one I live in.
(859) NOTE TO THE PASTORS IN CORPUS CHRISTI- I need to do a little ‘local stuff’. First, when I first came to corpus [1992] there were many areas of ‘lack’ in the preaching. Too much materialistic stuff. After a few years of public teaching [first radio, then the blog- as well as actually publishing books] we made enemies. Some who disliked us later became advocates of what I was teaching. I am speaking of key leaders in our region. They realized the damage that the prosperity message caused abroad [Africa and other nations [though Africa is a continent!]]. There came a strong return back to the message of the Cross. How much effect we have had in other regions, I don’t know for sure. But in our region [Corpus and the surrounding areas] we had an effect. Good. Some felt that I was a little too strong in that I mentioned actual names of other preachers. Let me say this; if a preacher endorses, by name, another teacher from his pulpit. He then later needs to ‘un-endorse’ him ‘from the pulpit’ if he has now come to reject the preachers doctrine. I realize some preachers accept our stand now, but disagree with me because I mentioned names. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to ‘mention names’ if preachers did not publicly endorse these same men? Also, I am glad that many In Corpus Christi are really preaching the biblical gospel in a stronger way than before. This was imperative for the purpose of our city to be carried out. There have been many prophetic words over Corpus Christi stating that we would be a ‘representative city’ to some degree because we bear the name ‘The Body of Christ’. I realize that some who finally came along [after many years!] to seeing things ‘my way’ have now been challenged all over again in other areas. This can cause another ‘rift’ like the first stage. I simply want to commend my ‘fellow elders’ for the great changes that they have made. Don’t feel like ‘geez, we can never please this guy [me!]’. I understand that many of you [key leaders] have made real adjustments as a result of reading/hearing our teaching. I commend you all.
(860) WHAT WAS IN THOSE DARN BUCKETS? Imagine yourself sitting on some roadside and you witness way up on a mountain the sight of an old man throwing a bucket of some unknown substance off the cliff. You then assemble a group of detectives and begin researching what was in the bucket. You interview eyewitnesses who say ‘we saw a bucket full of numbers’. Some say the bucket had even and odd numbers, others say only odd numbers. Well, now we have a dilemma. Both sides are adamant about their belief! They will not budge. So you begin an exhaustive 150 year archeological dig to find the numbers. After 150 years you have found ones and threes and sevens and so forth. You have found thousands of these odd numbers. What would your conclusion be? The evolutionist has had 150 years since Darwin to ‘unearth’ all the ‘missing numbers’. We have found fossils of all different kinds of life forms. The problem is there are no ‘even numbers’ [transitional species]. How do we explain the absence of all these so called ‘transitional species’? The intelligent thing to do is admit there were no ‘even numbers’ [transitional species] from the start? But the evolutionist can’t admit ‘the old man had a bucket full of odd numbers’. So he comes up with all types of explanations for the ‘missing numbers’. The problem is there is absolutely no reasonable explanation for why all the odd numbers survived [fossils of complete things, structures] and not a single even number has been found! [Though some clever ‘number hunters’ will try to pass off a broken odd number every so often]. They have even found so called ‘missing even numbers’ and later discovered that they were fakes! I think its time to admit that the old man on the hill had a ‘bucket full of odd numbers’ [there never were any so called ‘missing links’!]
(861) Romans 11:13- ‘For I speak to you Gentiles, in as much as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my office’. Let me just make a few comments today. How is Paul 'exercising’ his apostolic authority over the Gentiles in Rome? We know he hasn’t been there yet [since becoming a follower of Jesus]. He did not have some type of relationship with them where they contributed to him. He was holding no ‘church services’. He exercised it by speaking into their lives and caring for their welfare. He did this by WRITING THIS LETTER! Recently there has been some discussion on ‘Gods government’ and the apostles ‘bringing things into alignment’ [dealing with the mistakes at Lakeland]. Lots of talk that I am familiar with. What is Gods government? In the world we have 2 competing ‘world views’- systems or modes of operation. You have God’s kingdom, and then the worlds system. When the apostle John said ‘love not the world, neither the things that are in the world’ he was referring to this system of lies and pride and sin. In Gods kingdom you operate under his laws ‘love the Lord thy God with all thy heart… and your neighbor as yourself’. In this family [children of God] you have different types of ‘gifts’. Some are apostles, others prophets, etc. All these gifted ones are given for the singular purpose of building you up so you can have a mature faith grounded in Christ and be the ‘glorious temple’ of God in the earth. Paul was playing his part by communicating Jesus to these Roman Gentiles. He did not have some type of a corporate relationship with them where he said ‘commit to my authority over you. Either I will be your ‘covering’ or someone else!’ These are mans ideas. Now, we often say ‘Paul didn’t receive money from the Corinthians, but he did from the other churches’. I have said this myself. Paul did receive support from the Philippians, but that was support for his traveling ministry. To get him to the next place. If you read carefully you will see Paul telling the Thessalonians ‘when I was with you I did not eat, or take stuff for free. My hands ministered to both me and those that were with me’ I think he even said he worked night and day. When he spoke to the Ephesian elders in the book of Acts, he also said ‘I labored when I was with you, I did not take support from you when I was there. I did this to leave you ELDERS an example’. Now, the point I want to make is it seems as if Paul did not take money when he was actually living among the saints. It seems he took it only for traveling expenses [and of course for his ministry to the poor saints at Jerusalem]. Now, I believe and teach that it is scriptural to meet the needs, financially, of laboring elders. The reason I mention this is to show you that being an ‘apostle’ or any other gifted minister in the church simply means you bear extra responsibility to bring Gods people to maturity. It was not some type of office where you were a ‘professional minister’. When I hear all the talk of ‘Gods apostles are bringing Gods government back into alignment’ for the most part these are men’s ideas being applied to an American corporate 501c3 ministry. Gods ‘government’ operates along different lines. So in this example Paul said ‘I magnify my office’ he was simply imparting some truth to them for the purpose of their own edification. Paul did not see them coming under ‘his covering’.
(862) ROMANS 11- let me make a note on the previous entry. Over the last few years, as well as many years of experience with ‘ministry/church’, I have seen how easy it is to fall into the well meaning mindset of ‘I am going into the ministry, this is my career choice. My responsibility is to do ‘Christian stuff’ and the people’s role is to support me’[ I am not taking a shot at well meaning Pastors, I am basically speaking of the many friends I have met over the years who seemed to think ministry was a way to get financial support]. In the previous entry I mentioned how Paul seemed to have a mode of operation that said ‘when I am residing with a community of believers, I refuse to allow them to support me. I will work with my own hands to give them an example, not only to the general saints, but also to the elders. I am showing you that leadership is not a means to get gain’. It does seem ‘strange’ for us to see this. Of course we know Paul also taught the churches that it was proper and right to support those who ‘labor among you’. I have taught all this in the past and I don’t want to ‘re-teach’ it all again. The point I want to make is we ‘in ministry’ really need to rethink what we do. How many web-sites have I gone to that actually have icons that say ‘pay me here’. The average person going to these sites must think ‘pay you for what’? Paul did not teach the mindset of ‘pay me here, now’. Also in this letter to the Romans we are reading Paul’s correspondence to the believers at Rome. He often used this mode of ‘authority’ [writing letters] to exercise his apostolic office. Of course he also traveled to these areas [Acts] and spent time with them. And as I just showed you he supported himself on purpose when he was with the saints. Basically Paul is carrying out the single most effective apostolic ministry of all time [except for Jesus] and he is doing it without all the modern techniques of getting paid. He actually is doing all this writing and laboring at his own expense. He told the Corinthians ‘the fathers [apostles] spend for the children, not the children for the fathers’. So in todays talk on ‘apostles’ being restored. God ‘bringing back into alignment apostolic government’ we need to tone down all the quoting of verses [even the things Paul said!] that seem to say to the average saint ‘how do you expect us to reach the world if you do not ‘bring all the tithes into the storehouse’! When we put this guilt trip on the people of God we are violating very fundamental principles of scripture. Now, let’s try and finish up chapter 11. Paul is basically telling Israel and the Gentiles that God’s dealings are beyond our understanding [last few verses]. God is using the ‘unbelief’ of Israel as an open door to the Gentiles. He is also using the mercy that he is showing to the Gentiles as an ‘open door’ to Israel! He will ‘provoke them to jealousy’. There are a few difficult verses that would be unfair for me to skip over. ‘All Israel shall be saved’. Paul uses this to show that God’s dealings with natural Israel as a nation are not finished. Who are ‘all Israel’? Some say ‘the Israel of God’ [the church]. I don’t think this fits the text. Some say ‘all Israel that will be alive at the second coming’ I think this is closer. To be honest I think this can simply mean ‘all Israel’ all those who are alive and also raised at the return of the Lord. Now, this would be a form of universalism [all people eventually being saved]. I am not a Universalist, but I don’t want any ‘preconceived’ mindset [even my own!] to taint the text. I think God has the ability to reveal himself to the whole nation of Israel in such a way that ‘they all will be saved’. If I were a Jewish person I wouldn’t wait for this to happen! Just like the Calvinists argument of ‘why witness’? Because God commands it. So even though you can make an argument here for a type of universal redemption at Christ’s revealing of himself to Israel at the second coming [which is in keeping with this chapter, as well as other areas in scripture; ‘they will look upon him whom they have pierced’ ‘God will pour out the spirit of mourning and supplication on Israel at his appearing’. Which by the way would fit in with ‘whoever calls on the Lord will be saved’ which I taught in chapter 10. This is a futurist text implying a time of future judgment and wrath’]. So God’s dealings with Israel are not finished. Paul also warns the Gentiles ‘don’t boast, if God cut out the true branches [Israel] to graft you in. He can just as quickly cut you out too’! It would be dishonest for me [a Calvinist] to simply not comment on this. You certainly can take this verse in an Arminian way. Or you can see Paul speaking in a ‘nationalistic sense’. Sort of like saying ‘if Germany walks away from the faith, they will be ‘cut out’. [France would have been a better example! Speaking of the so called ‘enlightenment’ and the French Revolution]. In essence ‘you Gentiles, don’t think “wow, look at us. God left Israel and we are now special!”’ Paul is saying ‘you Gentiles [as a whole group] stand by faith. God could just as quickly ‘cut you out’ and replace you with another group’. I also think the Arminians could use this type of argument for the previous predestination chapter [9]. But to be honest I needed to give you my view. One more thing, Paul quotes Elijah ‘lord, I am the only one left’. He uses this in context of God having a remnant from Israel who remained faithful to the true God. God told Elijah ‘there are 7 thousand that have not bowed the knee to baal’. Paul uses this to show that even in his day there were a remnant of Jews [himself included] who received the Messiah. An interesting side note. The prophetic ministry [Elijah] seems to function at a ‘popular level’. Now, I don’t mean ‘fame’, but Elijah was giving voice to a large undercurrent that was running thru the nation. If you read the story of Elijah you would have never known that there were ‘7 thousand’ who never bowed the knee! Often times God will use prophetic people to ‘give voice’ or popularize a general truth that is presently existing in the ‘underground church’ at large. Sort of like if Elijah had a web site, the 7 thousand would have been secretly reading it and saying ‘right on brother, that’s exactly what we believe too’!
(863) INTELLIGENT DESIGN- In some of my recent posts on Evolution, I have tried to show the desperation that many scientists are experiencing because of the evidence that is mounting on the side of Intelligent Design. All scientists have ‘preconceived ideas’ that affect the way they view the evidence. Some hold to a theory [note- this is only a theory!] that all things ultimately have to be explained thru naturalistic means. For instance, no matter how much evidence arises on the side of intelligent design, they will continue to reject the theory. Why? Because they are approaching modern science from a naturalistic perspective. They will say ‘if it can’t be explained by natural means [things that can be examined physically- Physics] then we must continue to look for other theories’. This mindset is not necessarily scientific. Nor have all scientists, past and present, assumed this position. So, first we need to understand that the view of science that says ‘no matter how much evidence points to intelligent design, I will never accept it’ is an actual bias on the part of the scientist. Also some of the most ‘notable’ critics have actually embraced this same ‘metaphysical concept’ [that which can’t be seen or measured thru naturalistic means] in trying to refute a creator. [Note- intelligent design and creationism are not the same thing. Intelligent design is simply the discovery of complex information and fine tuning in both the Cosmos as well as created beings. There are so many factors that lead us to believe that a ‘higher intelligence’ had to have been involved. Some espouse other ideas on what/whom the higher intelligence is. For Christians, Muslims and Jews he is God]. Hawking [Stephen] has espoused a ‘multi-verse’ concept of the universe. I have explained it before and wont do it here again [It’s under the evolution section]. The hypocrisy of this theory is it is by definition ‘metaphysical’. It is a theory based, by definition, on ‘supernatural/other than natural’ explanations. It theorizes that there might be an untold number of universes out there, and therefore we are not as unique as we think. The problem is this theory could never be proven by way of using the ‘naturalistic mindset’ that Hawking espouses. By definition ‘any thing that we could see or ever examine by natural means would be in our universe’ [Physics]. So in essence those who hold to a natural explanation to all things are actually contradicting themselves when they espouse this theory. They are using the same scientific logic as the ones who embrace intelligent design. They are saying ‘since we can not come up with a naturalistic explanation to the existence of all things. We too are espousing a ‘metaphysical theory’. The only difference is there god is called a ‘multi-verse’.
(864) ROMANS 12:1-8 ‘I beseech you by the mercies of God to present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service [spiritual worship]’. Most times we see ‘by the mercies of God’ as a recap of all that Paul has taught from chapters 1 thru 12. This is true to a degree. I think Paul is honing in on the previous chapters that dealt with the purpose of God specifically seen in the resurrection of the body. As we read earlier ‘for we are saved by hope’ [the hope of the resurrection]. Basically I see Paul saying ‘because of what I showed you concerning Gods redemptive purpose for your body, therefore present your body now, in anticipation of it’s future glorious purpose, as a living sacrifice ‘holy and acceptable unto God’. Why? Because you are going to have that thing [body] forever! [in a new glorified state] Paul exhorts us to be changed by the renewing of our mind, the way we think. I have mentioned in the past that this renewing is not some type of legalistic function of ‘memorizing, muttering the do’s and don’ts all day long’. But a reorganizing of our thoughts according to this new covenant of grace. Seeing things thru this ‘new world’ perspective. A kingdom view based upon grace and the resurrection of Jesus. This resurrection that is assured to us because we have the deposit of the Spirit which is our guarantee that God will complete the work that he has begun in us. And Paul will jump into one of his ‘Body of Christ’ analogies which he uses often to describe the people of God. Because we are all one body, we should think soberly about our different gifts and purposes. God gave some ‘better’ [or more noticeable] gifts for the overall edifying of the body. So don’t boast about it. All have varying gifts, freely given. Administrate them with much grace. Do it with humility and cheerfulness. We are simply children thru whom Gods Spirit manifests himself in different ways. Don’t boast that ‘Wow, daddy gave me a bike’. Or look, I got a more expensive Christmas present than you. Daddy distributes the gifts freely as he wills. They are for everyone’s benefit. Don’t use this grace gift as a means of self importance or prestige. It would be like ‘prostituting’ a gift for self aggrandizement. People have done it, but it displeases the giver of the gift.
(865) ROMANS 12: 13 Paul continues to give some basic guidelines on practical Christian living. Notice his teaching on financial giving ‘distribute to the necessity of the saints’. This basic Christian doctrine from Jesus teachings has become the premier act of giving for the New Testament saint. The reason I have stressed this teaching as opposed to the more popular view of tithing, is because the scriptures place such a high priority on Christian charity. As I have mentioned before, Jesus even uses this basic description to describe those who ‘are righteous’ or ‘unrighteous’. He teaches the final judgment will be based on this outward identifier of ‘what we did to the least of these’. If you read carefully the New Testament epistles you will see a picture of ‘local church’ as a caring community of people who show their love for one another thru these acts of kindness and compassion. None of the New Testament letters teach a type of financial giving that focuses on ‘support the ministry/institution’ as being ‘the new testament church’ that replaced the ‘old testament temple’. For example a tithe system that supports the ‘pastor/priest’ in the same way the Levitical priests were supported under the law. It’s so vital for us to see and understand this. Because the average believer is taught thru out his life that his primary expression of giving is to ‘bring the tithe into the storehouse’ in such a way that it violates the actual primacy of giving as taught in the New Testament. Which is to regularly give to meet the needs of those around you. The fact that there were instances in the book of Acts or the letter to the Corinthians where believers gave an offering in a corporate way [the collection for the poor saints- 1st Cor. 16, or the laying of the money at the apostles feet in Acts] does not excuse the believer from the teaching that we should all regularly give to meet the needs of those around us. This is flatly taught as a regular part of the Christian experience. The other fact that Paul never once teaches the tithe as a function of giving for the Gentile churches should cause us all to take another look at the way we teach giving in the church today.
(866) ROMANS 12:14-21 Notice how Paul puts such a high priority on the principles of Jesus. He exhorts the saints to live by the precepts of the great ‘sermon on the mount’. Often times believers try and make a division between Paul’s revelation of justification by faith and the ‘liberal moral teachings of Jesus’. I see no division here. Paul actually quotes Jesus ‘if you’re treated badly, respond in love. By not getting even you heap “coals of fire on your enemies head”’. Actually, I remember how a few years back, when everybody was coming up with their ‘new revelation knowledge’ ideas on scripture. Things like ‘the camel going thru the eye of the needle’. Some taught Jesus was not really rebuking wealth, he was simply talking about a ‘low gate’ thru the wall of the city that was called the ‘eye of the needle’ and the camels had to crouch a little to get thru, true silliness! This verse ‘coals on the head’ was taught as saying Jesus was simply saying you were helping your enemy on cold nights by ‘keeping his head warm’! Sad. Jesus said don’t avenge yourselves, God will avenge you. Doesn’t sound like the lord is talking about ‘head warmers’! Look at these verses carefully. Paul incorporates the teachings of Christ as having a very high priority for the believer. We are often inundated with modern concepts of ministry. How to raise funds [or amass wealth]. Paul ‘locates’ the important thing as being centered on Christ. He knew if the churches [believing communities] of the first few centuries would follow this idea, that they would truly turn their world upside down for the cause.
(867) ROMANS 13:1-6 Paul teaches that believers should ‘be subject’ unto human government. He shows us that ‘the powers that be are ordained of God’. All human leaders are given their position of authority, ultimately, from God. What about Hitler? Or evil Pharaoh? Did God ‘put them there’? If God is sovereign [which he is!] then he permits all things to transpire, that actually transpire! He does not ‘ordain evil’ in the sense that he initiates unrighteous things. But because he has the power to prevent anything from happening, if ‘it happens’ that a wicked ruler is in authority, then he in that sense ‘ordained it’. Understand Paul is writing this at a time in Roman history where the leaders were quite wicked. They worshipped false gods, and even claimed to themselves the title of ‘a god’. For Paul to use this language in this chapter, he even says ‘they are the ministers [servants] of God to thee for good’ is strong. Paul is also not teaching that there is never a cause for civil disobedience, in the sense of ‘whatever the government says, we will do’. In the New Testament we have Peter resisting the order to ‘not teach or preach in Jesus name’ [Acts]. He even says ‘should we obey God or man’ in his defense. Of course today we have legalized abortion, and in the case of later term abortions, the practice is equal to infanticide. We should do all that is in our legal power to stop the murder of unborn children. This law violates Gods law, from whom all human government is derived.
(868) ROMANS 13:7-14 ‘For this cause pay your taxes also, for they are Gods ministers’ I noted earlier how Paul taught ‘give to those around you that are in need’ [chapter 12] and here he teaches the importance of ‘paying taxes’. Where is the exhortation to ‘pay tithes’? In the ecclesiology of Paul, the ‘corporate community of people’ are the ‘new testament temple of God’. Therefore you see the need to ‘pay tribute’ to only two ‘institutions’. One being the ‘local church’ [as seen in simple giving to the needs of the community around you] and the other being ‘the government’. Paul sees no 3rd ‘institution’ that is called ‘the local church’ to which the tribute of the tithe belongs. To correctly apply the verse in Malachi [if you were going to use it at all. It is obvious that the prophet is directing the rebuke towards natural Israel] you would simply see the ‘bring all the tithes into the storehouse’ as ‘give to meet the needs of the community [Gods new testament storehouse] around you’. Now Paul teaches the primacy of the law of love for the believer. If we walk in Jesus command to love, we fulfill the law. And again Paul uses the language of ‘fluent soteriology’ [salvation]. He says ‘now is our salvation nearer than when we believed’. Paul comfortably jumps in and out of ‘being saved’ and ‘will be saved’. It is this free use of the term that we need to become familiar with. The New Testament clearly teaches a future salvation. And it is not as simple as ‘My spirit is saved, my mind [soul- which is really a very weak translation for soul. The soul is much more than the mind, emotions and intellect!] is ‘being saved’ and my body will be saved’. It is not his cut and dry. Your spirit is saved, your spirit will be saved and is being saved [he ever lives to make intercession to God for us- this ongoing intercession deals with all aspects of the humans salvation. Not just the body!]. All 3 modes of salvation [past, present and future] can apply to ‘all of you’ [spirit, soul and body]. Don’t think future salvation only deals with the ‘salvation of the body’.
(869) ROMANS 14:1-9 Paul discusses Christian convictions. Things that are personal habits of discipline where the scripture is silent on. Some believers abstain from certain types of food. Others see certain days as ‘more special’ than the others. It’s important to see that in this discussion Paul is not concerned with ‘who is right’. Though he will describe the legalistic believers as ‘weak in the faith’. And he himself will say he is convinced that ‘nothing is unclean in and of itself’. He is speaking about the convictions mentioned above. When I first became a believer I attended a good church. It was a Fundamental Baptist church that was a little legalistic in these areas. I remember a funny story, some of the brothers went on a canoe trip. We had a blast. One of the guys was wearing these old cut off shorts that looked like ‘blue jean hot pants’ [who wears short shorts, we wear short shorts!] the pants were old and the ‘fly’ kept unzipping. We told the brother ‘hey James, your gonna get us arrested or something if you can’t keep your shorts on!’. He got mad and called us a bunch of legalists! As you can see there are times where this accusation can simply be an excuse. But seriously the church was old fashioned [though well meaning]. I had another friend of mine that I led to the Lord and he asked ‘what’s wrong with the Christian rock, I like it’? He had heard some songs from the group Petra and he thought they were great. He also questioned why it was wrong for his boys to play mixed sports in public school. He was taught that the boys and girls wearing shorts in mixed company was wrong. So things like this are personal convictions that believers should not use to judge others. I want to stress that Paul does not condemn the more legalistic brothers, but he does make it clear that this is a sign of ‘weaker faith’. A faith that looks at the insignificant things and makes them significant. Many ‘Emergent’ church folk [of which I am one to a degree] seem to have had this type of background. Or at least are familiar with the classic evangelical message and preaching. Some have found a revolution in their thinking by re-organizing their lives around the actual lifestyle and teachings of Christ [which is a very good thing!]. But some seem to despise the older type churches and expressions of Christianity that they experienced while growing up. Some even cast away the good with the bad! Though many of the more legalistic churches practiced this type of Christianity, yet I commend them on spreading the gospel of Gods grace. Taking seriously their faith in the Lord. And being historic defenders of the faith at a time when the more liberal universities were throwing out the baby with the bathwater [the 20th century fundamentalist movement].
(870) ROMANS 14: 10-23 ‘As I live…every knee shall bow and every tongue confess’. Paul teaches that we will all give an account of ourselves to God. He shows that one of the proofs that ‘he lives’ rides on this fact. How? The context of every one giving an account of his life is speaking of a future judgment day. But we also see the reality of Gods existence in the fact that most people [even atheists!] have at one time or another ‘spoken to God’. I was listening [or reading?] a testimony of a woman who was an atheist. Her child became critically ill and as the days went by in the hospital she had a conversation that went like this ‘I cant pray to God now. I would be a hypocrite. I have denied him my whole life’. The point is she actually knew that in time of need you should pray to God. This universal reality that most people on the planet have at one time or another ‘confessed to God’ is proof of his existence. Paul says because of this fact that we all will give an account to God, therefore don’t judge other people [motives] before the time. If you have the freedom to ‘eat meat’ [less legalistic] then by all means do so. But if this freedom causes another to stumble, then your first priority as a Christian is to live your life in an unselfish way for the benefit of others. So do not let your freedom become an offence to those who have ‘weaker faith’. Do all things with the benefit of others in mind. When Paul says ‘don’t judge your brother’ he is not saying there is never a time for correction and reproof. Paul used very harsh language when dealing with the Judaizers. These Jewish legalists did believe in Christ, they just mixed the law in with the gospel. Paul rebuked them harshly [just like Jesus and the religious leaders of his day]. But when dealing with new believers, those who are ‘weaker in the faith’ you don’t want to overload them with too much stuff. You want them to grow and mature in the proper time. If you used to be legalistic [not going to movies, not eating pork, all types of stuff] and now are more mature in your thinking [though some movies are bad and pork isn’t real good for you!] you should not despise those who still see the practice of their faith thru this lens. Paul said ‘he that eats, eats unto the Lord. He that abstains does it also to the lord’. In these less important restrictions that some believers abide by, most of the times their motives are pure. We shouldn’t demean them. We should try to live peaceably with all men as much as possible, we will all give an account some day.
(871) ROMANS 15:1-7 ‘we then that are strong [more mature] ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not please ourselves’. In Philippians we have the ‘KENOSIS’ the act of Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not something to be used for his own advantage. He did not see his purpose in the kingdom as one of ‘let’s find out our rights in the covenant and posses what’s rightfully ours’. A few years back it was common to hear ‘God told me his people don’t have a problem with giving [oh really?] but they need to learn how to receive’. While their might be a ‘speck’ of truth in this, the overall ethos of the kingdom [according to Jesus and Paul] is ‘we are not here to please ourselves, but give up our rights and blessings for the purpose of pleasing others’ [building them up, edifying them]. Paul makes this statement right after the chapter on Christian convictions. He shows us that even if we are right on a particular issue, it is ‘more right’ to not offend or put a stumbling block in our brother’s path. It is possible to ‘be right’ in a particular doctrine or truth, and yet ‘be wrong’ in that we might have used it in a way that destroyed the purpose of God in building others up. Many in the church [at large!] have unwittingly ‘tore down’ the poor and oppressed by seeking ‘their own pleasure’. Many overseas countries have been hurt by the amount of pleasure seeking doctrines that went into their countries. Many 3rd world Pastors gave sacrificially out of their extreme poverty to rich American ‘pleasure seekers’ and their poor people suffered greatly when they did not get a literal 100 fold return as was promised. Paul said ‘we that are strong ought to help the weak, and not please ourselves’.
(872) ROMANS 15: 8-14 Paul freely quotes from Psalms and Isaiah [the 2 most quoted Old Testament books in the New Testament] and shows how God always had a future plan to include the Gentiles. In the first century mindset, ‘salvation’ was seen more in a nationalistic sense than an individual ‘me and Jesus’ type thing. The messianic promises were for the ‘commonwealth’ of Israel. As the gospel would expand into the Gentile nations, Peter would call us ‘a holy nation’. Still couching the purposes of God and his kingdom in a nationalistic way [not human ‘nations’ but Gods people]. So for Paul it is significant to show how King David [the greatest king Israel ever had] actually prophesied [Psalms] of the future inclusion of the Gentiles into the corporate ‘nation of God’. Also Paul says ‘you are able to admonish one another’. A theme in Paul's writings is the ability of the ‘local believers/church’ to have within them a corporate ability for self edification. He teaches an idea that says ‘you are all able members of Christ’s Body, therefore build each other up’. Notice how Paul is not speaking into the modern day concept of ‘the Pastor’ who is usually seen as the main ‘builder’. In all of Paul’s letters he addresses the entire body to carry out the function of the church. He tells the Corinthians ‘when you are all gathered together, commit the unrepentant believer over to satan for the destruction of the flesh’. He gave this very heavy charge to the church. He did not see it as something that was to be carried out by a singular office [Bishop or Pastor]. So here we see Paul admonish the local believers to build each other up.
(873) ROMANS 15: 15-20 Paul appeals to his apostolic authority as ‘the apostle to the Gentiles’ in defense of his strong letter. He also says ‘I dare not use any thing that Christ has not wrought by me to make the Gentiles obedient’. Was Paul saying he would not speak about his past testimony and struggles with sin? I don’t think so. He already spoke of these struggles in this letter [chapter 7]. If you keep reading he says ‘thru mighty signs and wonders, by the power of Gods Spirit’. If you read Galatians, Paul says ‘how did you receive the Spirit, by the works of the law or the hearing of faith’ [P.S. for those still stuck on chapter 10 of Romans, see here how Paul saw the passive hearing as the only outward sign of receiving the Spirit- not calling!] here Paul appeals to the Galatians and says they received the Spirit and God wrought miracles among them [mighty signs and wonders] thru faith. In Acts we saw how the primary purpose of the charismatic signs and wonders was for the proclaiming of the gospel. The signs testify of Jesus being the Messiah. So here in Romans I think Paul is simply saying ‘I will not resort to the preaching of the law’, the main tool used by the Judaizers to try and gain ‘obedience’ among the Gentiles in order to make the Gentiles obedient [these are the things that Christ has not wrought by him. They represented Paul's past experience in Judaism]. But instead he will declare the gospel of God’s grace. He will lean on the Cross of Christ as the functional tool to ‘bring obedience to the Gentiles’.
(874) ROMANS 15: 20-33 ‘Now I go to Jerusalem to minister to the saints’ ‘my service to them’. Paul tells the Romans that he is going to ‘minister’ and have ‘service’ towards the Jerusalem saints. How would you take it if I said ‘I am going to New York to minister, hold a ‘service’ in the church’. You would see me as saying I was going to preach in a building, do my best to encourage the people. And before I left I was going to receive an offering. Paul is saying nothing of the sort! His ‘ministry and service’ are speaking of his charitable work among the poor. He received gifts from the churches for the sole purpose of meeting the needs of the poor. He even says ‘if you Gentiles have been made partakers of their blessings, you should help them out financially’. We are familiar with this terminology when Paul uses it to speak of meeting the needs of Elders, but we very rarely apply it to the meeting of the needs of the poor. Paul had a ‘service’ for the saints, and he was not speaking in terms of going to some town and preaching a message and taking an offering. Service in the first century context was giving of your time and resources for the benefit of others. Doing things at your own expense, not always receiving a recompense yourself. I wonder where they got such an ‘unbiblical idea’. It reminds me of the time when Jesus put on a towel and washed the disciples feet. Another one of those strange passages that seem to teach that leadership is here to serve, not be served. These kingdom precepts do not fit in with the modern idea of ‘ministry/service’.
(875) ROMANS 16- Some debate the ‘canonicity’ of this chapter. They feel that all the personal greetings from Paul are too personal. Let’s talk a little about the Canon [inspiration of the scriptures]. First, I am a ‘bible believing Christian’ who holds to the historic doctrine of scripture. But you do have varying views on what the historic doctrine is. I hold to the idea that God never intended for the letters that were written in the first century, which have become our New Testament, to be writings that were pulled out of time. That is the writers had to have been writing with a contextual purpose in mind. The recipients of the letters had to have had some type of practical instructions that they could wrap their minds around. So for John to say something to the seven churches in Asia Minor [Revelation] it was just common sense that the actual recipients of the letters would expect something practical for their day. This of course does not mean there are no further applications or instructions for us today, but we need to have a more personal understanding of the give and take between the Apostles and the people they were writing to. So this is how I think we should view the personal stuff in the Canon. This also needs to be understood when interpreting scripture. I have made the argument before for the 1st century belief in Christ’s literal second coming. I have also taught how the early church had no concept of a Rapture that was separated from the return of Christ. The event spoken of by Paul in Thessalonians chapter 4 is a real thing that takes place at Christ’s return. We get ‘caught up to meet him in the air’. Now how confusing would it be for the first century readers of Paul's letters, to have one letter that speaks of a second coming, and another that spoke of a rapture? It would be next to impossible to have any coherent view of scripture if they did stuff like this. You could then make an argument for any doctrine. There would be no coherent thinking if you were living in Thessalonica and read a letter from Paul that used the same terminology about the return of Christ as he used in a letter to the Corinthians. And if you relocated to Corinth and said ‘Oh, yes. Paul wrote to us about the resurrection and return of Jesus. But when he wrote to us he was speaking of the rapture, but when he wrote to you he was talking about a different event called the second coming’. This type of thinking would have been disastrous for the early church. They were all receiving letters from Paul that contained basic truth. The fact that these letters were not included in an entire collection [as we have today] leads us to believe that the basic message had to stay the same in all of these letters, or else you would have had havoc in the early church.
(876) ROMANS 16- CONCLUSION Okay, lets try and finish up Romans. We do see some good stuff in this last chapter. We see Paul addressing women as functional ministers in the church. Phoebe is a deaconess, Junia an apostle! I still believe that Elders were only men, but women did function in the first century Ecclesia’s. Paul also says ‘mark those which cause divisions contrary to the doctrine you have learned and avoid them’. Now, I have heard the strict Baptists use this against the Pentecostals, and it did put the fear of God in you! But then I heard the Pentecostals use it against the strict Baptists, and it also put the fear of God in you! [maybe another fear?] The point being you could use this to defend any doctrine you ‘have been taught’ by well meaning men. Here Paul is warning against those who were early on departing from the faith [the basic elements of the gospel and Gods grace]. The apostle John addresses those who ‘went out from us, but were not of us’ ‘whoever rejects Christ as come in the flesh is anti christ’ [1st John]. You did have those who rejected the basic elements of the gospel and the incarnation of Jesus. Paul warned the Corinthians not to depart from the reality of Christ's resurrection [1st Corinthians 15]. And of course Paul openly rebuked the Judiazers for trying to put the gentile believers under the restrictions of the Mosaic law. So even though these types of verses seem to fit in to our present day controversies and differences among various denominational groups, yet in context they refer to those who were rejecting the basic tenets of the faith. Paul also encourages ‘God will crush satan under our feet shortly’ ‘God is able to establish us thru the gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ’. Let me defend the concept of ‘old fashioned preaching’ a little. While I and many others have publicly taught a type of new testament ecclesiology that is absent the ‘weekly pulpit Pastoral office’. Yet there is biblical precedent for the preaching of the Word. Paul taught in chapter 10 ‘how can they hear without a preacher, and how can they preach unless they are sent’? God strengthens believers thru the preaching of Gods Word. While it is wrong for the average believer to depend solely on this preaching to become educated in the things of God, yet there is a strengthening that God gives to the believer when he comes under the pure preaching of Christ. As we end Romans, I want to re emphasize the major doctrine of justification by faith. The reformation of the 16th century did not happen in a vacuum. God restored a very vital truth back to the people of God. All Christians should be grounded and well versed in the reality of God freely accepting us based on simple faith in Jesus Christ. Now, I realize that many are returning to a more 'sermon on the mount’ orientation of the Christian lifestyle. As I have taught before I think this is a good thing. A ‘re-focusing’ on the teachings and instruction of Jesus. But I think we also need to emphasize the many statements from Jesus himself on those who believe having everlasting life [John’s gospel]. Romans is a masterpiece letter from Paul, one of his main points was justification by faith. God wants believers to be grounded in this truth.
(877) HURRICANE IKE- It’s 9-12-08, 6:20 am. I want to be careful in sharing this entry. We have friends in Houston who read our blog and hear our radio stuff. This week we had one of the worst predicted hurricanes to hit Texas in many years. For the first time since I have lived in Corpus all the projections had us as a direct hit. I have never seen the local officials ‘fear’ one as much as this one. Now, before I retired as a fire fighter I always stayed for the storms. It was part of your job. Of course as this last week progressed I made a few preparations and had plans to go inland [to stay at my daughter’s ranch]. I also prayed for the thing to ‘go north or south’ or at least not be a direct hit. Also a few weeks back as I was reading Isaiah I added a new prayer verse to my weekly intercession, it went ‘hear me oh islands, and you from afar’ [Ike?]. I simply felt the lord wanted me to start praying this. This was a week or two before any signs of a hurricane [I didn’t even connect it until this morning!]. Now as all the locals were in sheer panic, I kept up my routine. As many were evacuating I mowed the grass. I told my wife I think I am going to go down by the water and try and record the thing. I regularly pray outside during storms [and yes lightning!] and I was getting mad about all the fear. I told my wife ‘you guys go inland, I just might hang out and see what happens’ [I live in a flood zone very close to the water]. I did not want to change my schedule because of fear. Now, here’s where it gets tricky. There are some very accurate prophets [internationally known] who have been right on concerning natural disasters. One lives in the Dallas area. A few years back he predicted the tsunamis and where they would hit. He did gain national attention. I sent him some ‘reproof’ a year or so ago. He was quoting ‘the wealth of the wicked is for you’ a little too much. I have read his stuff and do like his ministry. I also noticed he quit using the verse after I sent him some stuff [I don’t know if he read it or not. I might have just emailed him our stuff? I have sent both hard copies and email at times]. I haven’t gone to his site in over 6 months. A few weeks back I went to his site and read ‘get ready Corpus, your gonna get hit!’ I felt it to be prophetic because it was the only thing he wrote about Corpus, and it was the first day I went to his site in many months. Then I opened one of my bibles [their laying all over the place!] and opened to a page in Isaiah that said ‘I am going to change your scenery’. This was a notation I put in a few years back. It was a simple prophecy I had read somewhere [or heard]. These things led me to believe we were gonna get hit. Then as I woke up yesterday, a couple of days before land fall. I took the prophecy about Corpus personal. I had corrected this brother somewhat and felt it to be a little personal. I am not saying that’s why he prophesied it, I just took it personal. So as I prayed I was wishy washy about where to ‘send it’ [in a decree type thing]. But was mad and said ‘I decree in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth that you turn north. I forbid you [Ike!] to come within 100 miles of Corpus Christi’. Now, I felt I needed to be specific about it, so I was. Sure enough after I finished my prayer and writing time, I checked the coordinates, and to the surprise of everyone in Corpus, it turned north! Now, I am not saying it was because of my prayer [though it might have been!] but the indicators that I had all along, before any hurricane was in the gulf, seemed to connect this whole event with national prophetic things. I feel the spiritual callings on our city do play a major role in events like this. Jesus commanded the winds and seas and they obeyed. I feel the Prophetic/Apostolic callings have a role in stuff like this. As of right now the storm is predicted to be severe in Houston. I don’t want that! I even prayed ‘Lord, keep it away from the more populated area’. But I couldn’t help shake the feeling I had when I ‘aggressively’ rebuked it, by name. And said ‘go north’. I just felt like there was a little prophetic vindication in some of this. NOTE- The storm has passed, and it has caused the most destruction to the scenery of Texas since I have been here [28 years]. I just want you to see the reality of prophetic things. When I woke up one day and turned to the prophetic word in my bible that said ‘your scenery is about to change’ I felt it to be a warning about the change of scenery/landscape as a result of a hurricane. Within a few weeks [or less! It might have been a few days to be honest. But I try to go the extra mile in not over exaggerating these types of things] it actually happened. We don’t rejoice over the ‘accuracy of a prophetic word’ while people have lost their lives and homes. We should simply recognize and pray when God reveals stuff like this. UPDATE- I just remembered something. About a week or so before the storm hit, I drove to port Aransas [a beach town] and bought a souvenir picture of a huge wave coming over a pier. I hung it up in my yard where I pray. I also felt like the Lord was telling me to lie on the beach and pray while face to face in the sand. So we went to the same beach a week later and I did it. This day there was another storm just leaving the gulf and as I was in the ocean I got caught in a storm surge type wave. It was simply the sensation of a huge amount of water coming to shore. Not a high wave, but the tide came in a few hundred feet past the normal line. I feel like the Lord prophetically had me pray this day to avert our area from a direct hit. Our local pier was struck by a huge storm surge [just like the picture I bought] and caused massive damage to the pier.
(878) RUTH 1- During the time of the judges there was a famine in the land. A Jewish couple, Naomi and Elimelech, leave their home land and travel to Moab. They take their two boys. During their time in Moab the boys marry. The girl’s names are interesting. One has the same name as a famous TV talk show host, Oprha! [actually it’s Orpah] the other is Ruth. Elimelech dies and eventually the two boys die as well. You have to stop and think of this tragedy for a moment. Is it possible that relocating to Moab was rebellion against the Lord? They did leave the promised land because things got tough. How often do we relocate under these types of circumstances? Naomi is left with her two daughters in law and she decides to return to the homeland. The girls want to go with her, but Naomi tells them ‘why go with me? I am too old to give you any more husbands. Stay in your own land and culture’. Orpah stays and becomes a very popular woman talk show host [okay, that’s it. I won’t do this again] and Ruth says ‘I will return with you and your family and culture AND GOD will be mine’. She chooses the true God of Israel over the pagan gods of Moab. Now, Naomi has suffered tragedy, she refers to herself as bitter. By all outward appearances she has failed in life. But wait, one of the most coveted things to happen for a woman of Israel was to have a part in the role of the Messiah. Ever since the promise in Genesis ‘the woman’s seed shall bruise the serpents head’ [the earliest evangel in scripture] all women from Israel wanted to be the mother of ‘that seed’ [Messiah]. If you weren’t the mother, the next best thing was to play a role in the lineage. Naomi will be the matchmaker of a couple that the lineage of messiah will be traced thru. God often used barren women, women who were deemed ‘cursed’ to play a major role in his purposes. I do realize that in the natural it did not look good for poor Naomi. I am sure all her friends gave her the standard ‘Oh dear, we are so glad to see you’ but later on must have thought ‘what on earth happened to that family? She left with big dreams and came back a widow!’ Are you feeling barren right now? Do you feel humiliated because the vision and purpose you told everyone about has not come to pass? Now is the time to find your purpose and destiny in God. You might just be in line to fulfill a greater, less obvious destiny. It might not look so glorious now, but maybe one day when the history books are written, your role will outlive the naysayers of the present hour.
(879) RUTH 2- Ruth goes out during the Barley harvest and gleans in the field. Gleaning was engrained in the law of Israel. It allowed for the poor of the land to gather up the leftovers from the initial harvest. The land owners had to leave the corners of the field ‘un reaped’ as well. Ruth ‘happens’ [by chance] to glean in the field of Boaz, a next of kin. He is called the ‘kinsman redeemer’ this speaks of being a close relative [from the Hebrew word ‘go’el’] who had the right to redeem the goods of a relative who had died. Their stuff would go up for public auction and the redeemer had first shot at it. He also had the right to buy back a fellow relative from slavery, or even avenge the blood of a relative who was murdered. Ruth just happened to come into his portion of the field. He was a relative of her father in law Elimelech who had died in Moab. Boaz asks who she is, the men tell her she is the Moabite who came back with Naomi. Boaz tells his men ‘take it easy on her, let her get a good portion of barley. Even let some extra fall for her’. He favors Ruth. She even asks why he is treating her so well and he tells her it is because he heard how she did such a noble thing in staying with Naomi after no one was left. It kinda reminds me of the good works of Cornelius in Acts chapter 10. Scripture says his alms and prayers came up before God as a memorial. Boaz didn’t simply treat Ruth well for no good cause, she reaped what she sowed! Ruth goes home and tells Naomi about the situation and she says ‘great, he is a next of kin. Keep working with him’. Naomi realizes that if things work out that Boaz just might claim Ruth for himself. The Kinsman redeemer is a type of Christ. He needed to have the substance to ‘buy back’ the possessions. He needed to be related [by blood] and he needed to be willing. Unlike the mandate for a brother to marry a sister in law and raise up children to his dead brother, the Kinsman redeemer had free choice. He could pass up on the offer if he wanted. Jesus chose to go to the Cross for all humanity. He had the ‘substance’ [he had the perfect life to lay down] and the willingness to purchase us. In this chapter we see the sovereign hand of God at work. Though the scripture says ‘she happened’ by chance upon the field, yet we realize that in Gods plan nothing ‘just happens’. God was directing the course of Ruth to meet up with Boaz, God knew that he would use their eventual marriage as a tool to bring forth the messiah.
(880) RUTH 3- Naomi advises Ruth to go to Boaz at night and lay down beside him. Boaz is at the threshing floor, a place where you went to thresh the wheat/barley. Threshing was simply the process of sticking a pitch fork type instrument into a bushel full of wheat and throwing it into the air. The wind would blow away the chaff [bad stuff] and the good stuff would fall onto the floor. Sort of like sifting for gold. In the New Testament Jesus is said to be coming with the pitchfork in his hand and he is going to thresh his wheat. This was a symbol to natural Israel that the time of judgment and cleansing had arrived. Jesus would spiritually shake things up and allow the wind of the Holy Spirit to cleanse away that which was useless. Ruth lays next to Boaz and Boaz wakes up startled. He realizes that Ruth is basically showing that she wants Boaz to redeem her. For him to function as the kinsman redeemer and marry her. Boaz informs Ruth that he will do it, but first he has to make sure the closer relative to Ruth doesn’t want to perform the task. Boaz was second in line as the redeemer. He asks Ruth for her veil and he fills it up with barley [like a sack] and she returns to Naomi. Let’s spiritualize a little bit. Often times the lord will take the ‘veil’ [darkness/depression] and turn it into a full harvest. The very thing that seemed to be a dark period in your life becomes the actual capacity for a full reward. Scripture commands us to come out from a place of mourning and darkness and to put on a new veil of rejoicing. Ruth’s experience was one of difficulty. She originally married into what seemed to be a stable family. After the death of her Father in law and husband [and brother in law!] things were not looking too good. Ruth persevered and transitioned into a new culture and environment. A very difficult thing to do during a time of upheaval and disappointment. The scripture says ‘if your strength fails in the day of adversity, it is small’. Don’t feel condemned, but if the truth be told it really isn’t our knowledge and natural ability that brings us into success, it is the maturity that God builds into you thru out your life. The ability to face difficult situations and to press ahead. Ruth prevailed thru some tuff stuff, she got a ‘veil full of barley’ in return.
(881) RUTH 4- Boaz tells Ruth that he must first ask the closer relative if he wants to inherit Ruth and her husband’s inheritance. The closer relative turns down the offer, he can not harm his own inheritance by building up the heritage of Ruth. Boaz goes thru the public act of calling ten elders of the city together to witness the passing of the title deed to him. He marries Ruth and they have a son named Obed. He will become the father of Jesse who is the father of King David. The Lord used the tragedy of Naomi to carry thru her a divine link to the Messiah. The women of the town praise Naomi and tell her how blessed she is to have obtained an inheritance for her son and lineage when all hope was gone. There was a time in Naomi’s life when all looked lost. The odds of her pagan daughter in law Ruth, to have actually returned with her to the land and to have married back into the family were next to zero. Naomi reminds me of the verse in Isaiah that says ‘when I was in oppression and unstable I had all these children. How could this have happened’ [my paraphrase!] This was speaking of Israel’s fruitfulness despite her own trials and difficulties. In Isaiah 53 it says of Jesus ‘thou wilt see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. Thru his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many’. God often sees us in the midst of adversity and watches to see how we will respond. He is not looking for perfection, never stumbling. He is looking for a willingness to continue to trust in him thru it all. These are Divine tests. Naomi prevailed thru great difficulty, she will forever be named as someone who had a role in the history of the Messiah.
(882) 1ST SAMUEL; INTRO, CHAPTER 1- Originally the books of 1st and 2nd Samuel were one volume. When the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament was made [the Septuagint] they were added with 1st and 2nd Kings and were called ‘The books of the kingdoms’. In order to keep this volume from becoming too big, they were divided into the present divisions. In chapter one we see the family of Elkanah and Hannah [and wife #2 Pininnah!]. They go up to the Tabernacle of the Lord in Shiloh to worship the true God. Hannah has no children while wife # 2 does. This becomes a point of contention and jealousy between the two wives. Hannah pours her heart out to the Lord and makes a vow. She tells the Lord if he gives her a son that she will dedicate him to the Lord. Eli the priest sees Hannah praying silently [her lips moving but hearing no voice] and he assumes she’s drunk! Why? Was she stumbling and acting drunk? No. It was because he thought she was mumbling [speech] like a drunk. In Acts chapter 2 the same thing is assumed. Those who received the outpouring of the Spirit were thought to be drunk. Why? Were they stumbling and falling? No, once again it was a speech thing. They were speaking all types of unknown languages [known to the various groups their that day] and people thought they were acting like drunks when they can’t talk clearly. I emphasized this because it’s common today for renewal movements to associate the Spirit with people actually stumbling and driving in a drunken type state. While I don’t want to be dogmatic and say this can never be of God, yet many of these believers will use the Acts chapter 2 example to justify their belief. Act’s 2 does not teach ‘being drunk in the Spirit’ in this manner. Now the Lord hears Hannah’s request and she gives birth to Samuel. She keeps him until he is weaned [2 or 3 years old] and then she honors her vow and dedicates him to the Lord. She actually gave him up to become a full servant of God at Shiloh. It was not an easy vow to keep. As we go thru this book we will cover lots of interesting history. Samuel will become a mighty prophetic leader in Israel. He will be the one to introduce king Saul as Israel’s first king. The last verse in Judges says ‘there was no king in the land in those days, every man did what he thought was right in his own eyes’. It’s common to think this means God punished Israel for not having a human king. In actuality God will tell Israel that they were rejecting his kingship over them by wanting a ‘king like the other nations’. We will learn that God did not originally intend for Israel to have a singular human king. The description from judges simply shows us that sinful people, who reject God’s law, will go astray. In these instances a king can bring some sort of stability and government. The kings of Israel will serve in this capacity.
(883) WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE THE CATHOLICS/ANGLICANS THINKING? Our readers realize that I am not anti catholic at all. Some believe I am too pro catholic! But these past few weeks have been horrendous for Intelligent Design proponents [like me!]. First, a bunch of Catholic statements have been made that are pro evolution. While nothing is ‘Ex- Cathedra’ [the official stamp of approval from Rome] many Catholic statements have been made in defense of evolution. The Anglican Church just officially apologized to Darwin for heavens sake! What’s going on? You have many good Catholic scientists who do lean toward Darwin’s theory in the sense that they view all the GOOD science that has come from the reality of grappling with the issue. And there have been great strides made. The fundamental error of Darwin is there is tremendous scientific evidence against all life forms having evolved from one common cell. Even if a person wanted to believe that living cells erupted spontaneously from a pre biotic soup, the honest reality is that it is absolutely unproven that humans themselves can be traced back to a single pre biotic living cell. Now a few years back you had the major scientific finding that all humans shared a common human parentage. The secular media actually reported this story as ‘the genetic Eve’ [the mother of all living]. This scientific breakthrough showed us that the ‘silly’ bible story of Adam and Eve might actually be literal! Yes folks, science says that we all have a common mom and pop! But can we trace a common ancestry to a single original cell from which ALL LIFE came from? Absolutely not. To the contrary you would be better off trying to make an argument for multiple ‘first cells’ instead of one. The study of DNA absolutely shows us the impassible gulf between human and animal life. No matter how hard science tries to bridge this gap, it can’t. They have tested monkeys that seemed to show human traits, hoping that the link between human and monkey could be made. What have they found? To their dismay, it was a monkey. All science shows us that human beings and animals are of distinct origin. If one wants to reject the literal reading of creation in the Genesis account [which seems to be what all the recent fuss is about] you still cannot teach Darwinian Evolution as a viable alternative. True science will not allow it.
(884) SAMUEL 2- Hannah gives great praise to God for Samuel. This prophetic utterance is a lot like Mary’s ‘Magnificat’ in Luke chapter one. She says ‘God brings low the rich and helps the poor’. This week we had one of the worst financial disasters in U.S. history [9-2008]. It could have been worse, the government took over some major financial [and insurance] institutions. One of them was A.I.G., a major insurer. A day or so before they were taken over I asked my wife ‘did you take out the girls trust money’. We had a lot of money for our girls in the company [lets say between 50 and 100 thousand dollars]. My wife says ‘no, not yet’. I was a little perturbed to say the least. My wife is the trustee for the girl’s accounts, and I have been telling her for about a year to take the money out. So the day she makes the request all the talk on the financial shows is ‘will A.I.G. declare bankruptcy today’? I was upset. Another day went by and they said ‘overnight they will declare’. And we still didn’t get the money. Well the government stepped and basically took the company over and we got our checks. I was talking to my homeless buddies and they were somewhat aware of the crisis, but they could care less. Their lives were not tied up in these systems. They were still going to live the way they were living for most of their lives. Trusting God daily to meet their needs. It made me think of Hannah’s prayer. Also we see the first use of the word ‘Messiah’ [anointed] in the bible. ‘God will strengthen his king and exalt the horn of his anointed’. I read this yesterday and was quoting it all day. It’s appropriate that Mary uses this prophetic utterance while speaking of Jesus, the Messiah. The sons of Eli the priest are wicked. They are robbing the people and sleeping with the women at the tabernacle gate. Scripture says ‘the people abhorred the offering of the Lord’ because of their abuse. For many years I heard ‘if people are offended because the church emphasizes money so much, well let them be offended’. I never really questioned this reasoning. Then I began to see how the majority offence to unbelieving friends and family was the money issue. While most of the pastors were well meaning, they seemed to not realize that we do have a responsibility to not offend in the area of offerings. The apostle Paul adjusted his ministry in such a way that he would not allow the churches to support him while he was with them. [Not just Corinth either, but Thessalonica and Ephesus! Read Thessalonians and the chapter in Acts that deals with the Ephesian elders- 22?] The point being the church bears much responsibility to how the world views us in the area of offerings to God. Eli's sons abused the system to their own benefit and the people began to despise the whole concept of ‘church and money’. A prophet will pronounce judgment on Eli’s household and Samuel will ‘grow in favor with God and men’. Just like Jesus. Samuel is a type of Christ who knew his prophetic/priestly destiny from a young age. Jesus was in the Temple questioning the leaders at the age of 12, Samuel was serving the Lord at an even younger age.
(885) SAMUEL 3- Samuel is laying down at night and hears someone call him ‘Samuel’. He thinks it’s the voice of a man [Eli] and he goes to him and says ‘what’s up, why did you call me’? Eli tells him he didn’t call him. This happens 3 times and finally Eli realizes that the Lord is speaking to Samuel [though Samuel doesn’t realize it!]. Eli tells Samuel to simply reply ‘speak Lord, for thy servant heareth’. Sure enough the Lord returns and reveals to Samuel that he is going to judge Eli’s house and dynasty. Eli asks ‘what did the Lord tell you’? And Samuel tells it all. A few things. First, it’s possible for gifted young prophetic people to mistake men’s leadership for God. In Samuels’s case the Lord purposely bypassed human leadership. Even leadership that was God ordained to a degree! When we become over dependant on human leadership God will shake up the apple cart. Also Eli was still mature enough to direct Samuel towards the Lord. He knew it was not his job to mediate this gift. He could have been jealous and said ‘well, I guess you need to ignore the voice. After all who do you think you are trying to hear God while bypassing the official channels’. But Eli directed Samuel to the Lord. Also this chapter says ‘God let none of Samuels words fall to the ground’ all the people from Dan to Beer-Sheba knew that Samuel was a prophet. I have said in the past that true ministry does not seek fame and recognition. This does not mean that these things won’t happen! Often times God will elevate a prophetic gift while the person themselves are not seeking it. Jesus was a great example of this. He said in John’s gospel ‘I don’t seek the recognition from men, I know what’s in man’. What was in man? The same people who were extolling him would be part of the crowd who would yell ‘crucify him’ later on. The vanity of men’s glory is a shameful thing. Yet Jesus became the ‘most famous’ prophet in the history of the world. Samuel had a divine mission to accomplish, he was well recognized as a prophet sent from God for a particular season. Even Eli [the recognized official leadership] saw something special with Samuel, he was humble enough not to stand in the way.
(886) SAMUEL 4- DOES TRUE SCIENCE BACK UP BIBLICAL CREATIONISM? The reason I stuck this in here is because this chapter deals with the Ark of the Covenant [the box that ‘contained God’ or his ten commandments!]. I want to deal with the biblical revelation of Gods character and how it relates to creation. Do you remember the Indiana Jones movies? The Raiders of the Lost Ark. They showed a view of the Ark of the covenant as God being this super energy/light force that if ‘unleashed’ would completely decimate everything around it. Sort of like an Atomic bomb. The biblical account of creation is that in the beginning [of time and all matter and everything else, except God] that all you had was this self existent all powerful being who is Spirit [not matter]. And that by a singular act of speaking he created all matter and everything else in our universe. This concept was rejected by philosophers and scientists for over 2 thousand years. Even Saint Thomas Aquinas, the premiere apologist of the Catholic Church, believed that the universe always existed. He chose to defend God from the idea of ‘prime mover’. That is God is the initiator of all motion. He accepted the basic belief that the universe always existed. So you had the biblical world view, as seen in those who said ‘all matter and existence came into being at a point in history where God [this being of infinite energy and light] spoke and unleashed his creative power’. The majority scientific view was ‘this is impossible’. The 20th century will go down in history as the century that made the most breakthroughs in scientific thought up until the present time. Michael Faraday [the 19th century] would unlock certain keys that would become the groundwork for Einstein’s breakthrough in Physics. Up until that time all science treated energy and matter as separate fields. Faraday discovered that light itself was a beam of energy. He discovered Electro Magnetism. Einstein had an obsession with light as a little boy. He wanted to know what it was, how it functioned. Einstein’s famous theory E= MC 2 combined energy and matter in a way that was revolutionary to the scientific world. For the first time science would view energy and matter as co related fields. What worked in one field was true for the other. His theory stands for ‘Energy = Matter times the square of the speed of light’ C represents the speed of light- 670 million miles per hour! Einstein unlocked a tremendous secret that was hidden to the world of science up until his day. He showed that time itself is relative. Until that time Newton’s view was if you could actually travel at the speed of light and ‘catch up’ to the end of a beam of light, that it would still be moving away from you at the speed of light. Einstein believed this didn’t make sense. But the laws of physics up until his time did not leave room for a reasonable explanation. His breakthrough idea was that if you could actually catch up to the speed of light, you would theoretically be at a point where time stood still. These concepts seemed ridiculous before. The only place where you would find such silly ideas as ‘time being no more’ or as ‘all matter came into existence by this supreme light force’ were in the ancient biblical texts. So true science was getting closer to biblical revelation, not the other way around. Now Einstein’s theory meant that if you not only caught up to the speed of light, but actually surpassed it, what would happen? The energy used to surpass the speed of light would turn into density, matter. So you would actually be able to get matter [Hebrews 11] from ‘things that are not seen’ [immaterial]. This theory also meant that if you could unleash the potential energy from matter, you would be unleashing one of the greatest forces known to man. The Atom Bomb. Einstein’s theory has been measured and been proven to be true. As hard as it is to wrap your mind around, studies have shown that things do not age as fast when traveling at high rates of speed for extended periods of time. Einstein’s theory has made possible the belief that all things came into existence at a specific point in time. This supreme being of light and energy had the potential to create all the matter in the universe in a matter of seconds. This ‘super fast light being’ also transcends time, a thing thought to have been impossible in the past. Einstein enabled man to come closer to the ‘stuff of God’ more than at any other time in history. One other thing, Einstein’s theories break down right at the point of ‘singularity’. The exact moment of creation. Hey, God isn’t going to let you see it all without having some faith! NOTE- I am not advocating Pantheism here [the belief that the universe and the creation itself are actually God]. Light and energy [power] and ‘Logos’ [The Greek word for ‘Word’] are all descriptions of God, that he himself uses to reveal himself to finite man. But because he is the creator of light and energy and all things, he is revealed to man by his creation. But God himself is a personal self existent being. In his revelation of himself thru Jesus Christ he also exists in a bodily resurrected state at the right hand of the majesty on high.
(887) SAMUEL 4 CONTINUED- Okay, let’s finish it up. In this chapter we see an important historical event, the capture of the Ark of the Covenant [the box that held the 10 commandments, not Noah’s Ark!] The children of Israel fight with the Philistines and take a loss of 4 thousand men. They go back to camp and regroup. They decide to take the Ark of God and involve it with human warfare. A big mistake! This speaks of the sad history of the crusades and other mistaken ideas of ‘holy war’. God does not involve himself in mans efforts of domination thru power. So the Philistines hear that the Ark is in the battle and they fear. ‘Oh my God, this is the God of Israel who defeated the Egyptians’. They knew the history of Israel and how the God of Israel was great. The battle rages and Israel takes a greater loss of 30 thousand men. Plus the Ark is captured and the two sons of Eli are killed. The runner runs back to Shiloh [the headquarters of the Ark, where the tabernacle of Moses still stood] and brings the terrible news to Eli [the high priest]. Eli hears about the Arks capture and falls back and breaks his neck and dies. One of the daughters in law to Eli goes into labor and delivers a boy. She names him Ichabod, which means God's glory has departed. She did this because the Ark was taken. The Ark represented Gods glory and presence among the people. It seems as if Israel began to treat it in an idolatrous way. Sort of like what happened with the brass serpent that Moses made in the wilderness. God has to step and rebuke his people when they mistake the true worship of God with religious objects. The history of the Christian church has been divided over this for centuries. You can have religious art, it should not become a thing of worship. The iconoclast controversy of the Catholic and Orthodox churches have gone to extremes on both sides. At times believers would go into the ‘churches’ and destroy all the religious art they found. Others would hold to a view of icons [religious paintings] and statues that would seem to cross the line in areas of worship. I remember hearing a story about a prophet who stood up in a church meeting and said ‘thus saith the Lord, I have judged this church and people. My glory is no longer here. I have written ‘Michelob’ on your door posts’. Well, after he sat down he realized he mistook the word ‘Michelob [beer]’ for 'Ichabod’. He then stood up again and said ‘Thus saith the Lord, I meant to say Ichabod’.
(888) SAMUEL 5- The Philistines take the Ark back to their cities and every city the Ark is taken to experiences judgment. They get ‘tumors’ [hemorrhoids!] and rats. At one point they put the Ark in the ‘house of Dagon’ [a false idol. A fish head type thing with a human body] and the next morning their idol is found lying at the feet of the Ark. They set him up again and low and behold, the next morning the fish god is found at the foot of the Ark with his head and hands chopped off! Hey, if your god started as a fish and turned into a stump, then it’s time for a new god! Eventually they decide to send the Ark back to Israel. Let’s do a little history at this point. The Ark of God is the box that contained the 10 commandments. God had Moses make a box to put the tablets in [the 2 tablets that the commandments were written on]. The reason destruction will happen to those who ‘peak in the Ark’ is because the cover of the Ark was called ‘the Mercy seat’. This was the place where the high priest would make a yearly atonement [the Day of Atonement] for the sins of the people. The sacrificial blood was placed on the cover to be for a covering of sin. The Ten Commandments represented Gods Holy character, and the only way he could dwell with the people was on the basis of this atoning blood [a type of Christ]. When you remove the cover [the mercy seat] in essence you are causing the absolute righteousness of God to come into contact with the absolute sinfulness of man. That’s why those who peak in it are destroyed. Now the Ark was originally carried around with the tabernacle system in the wilderness. A sort of movable tent that was set up and taken down as God willed. A mobile piece of furniture. When the children of Israel came into the Promised Land it was placed in Shiloh. After it’s capture and return [which we will read about in the coming chapters] it will eventually be placed in the city of Jerusalem under King David’s rule. This tent that David puts it in is referred to as ‘David’s tabernacle/tent’. It will be a type of the new covenant ministry of Jesus. The tent of David will have no tabernacle structure like Moses tabernacle in Shiloh. There will be no veil or holy of holies or any other impediment to God’s presence. All you have is the Ark and the mercy seat. This showing us that in Jesus priesthood [typified by David’s kingly/priestly ministry] all you need is Jesus atonement and Gods glory. All have equal access to God, not just the priestly class [or another way to put it is all are priests!]. So as we progress thru these books keep your eyes open to the prophetic pictures that are being painted by the Spirit. All scripture testifies of Christ. He is the underlying figure that the Spirit is continually pointing to.
(889) SAMUEL 6- The Philistines are reeling under the judgment of God. They call a meeting of their priests and diviners, and they ask what they should do. Their ‘religious’ leaders advise them to send the Ark back to Israel and make an offering. They were to make gold images of their judgments, rats and tumors, and place them in a box with the Ark and send it on a cart being pulled by two cows. They would take the cows calves and bring them home, but place the cows and cart on a road to Beth Shemesh. If the cows go down the road, they took it as a sign from God. Sure enough the cows take the Ark to Beth Shemesh and dump the cart in a field belonging to Joshua. Israel rejoices that the Ark is back and sacrifices the cattle with the wood from the cart. Their joy is short lived. They peek in the Ark and are destroyed. They removed the ‘Mercy seat’ [see last chapter-#888]. Over fifty thousand men from Beth Shemesh are killed. They decide to send it to the men of Kirjath Jearim. Over the years I have seen this story used in various ways to justify different ‘ways of doing church’. Some taught how God judged Israel because they didn’t follow the prescribed methods of Ark handling. We will see this happen with David and his men later on. Then the teacher would relate how important it is for us to follow Gods prescribed method, but then teach ‘Gods method’ is their various slant on how ‘we should do church’. I see some good stuff from this story, but I don’t see it in that light. The Philistines were advised by their own pagan priests ‘don’t harden your hearts like Pharaoh’. The story of Gods miraculous intervention in Egypt became lore of the day. All the surrounding nations knew that you don’t mess with the God of Israel. God didn’t destroy the men of Beth Shemesh because they didn’t fully follow prescribed law [though later on this will be part of the problem with David’s men] but they died because they took themselves out from under the covering of Gods mercy as represented in the Mercy seat [the lid on the Ark]. A few years back a famous believer, Reggie White [former football pro.] was known for his Christian faith. He was later influenced by Muslim teaching and made the statement ‘I am going directly to God, without a ‘go between’ [meaning Christ]’. He obviously was influenced by Muslim teaching and was coming out from the ‘covering of Christ’ [mercy seat]. Sadly, Reggie tragically died not too long after this from a sickness. He died in the prime of his life. I do not want to judge Reggie. I simply want to show you the danger of sinful men [all of us!] trying to approach a Holy God without the ‘mercy seat’ [Cross]. The men of Beth Shemesh removed the covering, and they suffered for it.
(890) SAMUEL 7- The Ark arrives at Abinadab's house in Kirjath Jearim, it will remain there until David retrieves it [it was there for around 100 years in total-1100 BC- 1004 BC]. Samuel calls the people to repentance and makes intercession for them at the same time. This leads to great victory over the enemy. Jesus ‘lives forever to make continual intercession for us’. We need to combine repentance and dependence upon Christ’s mediation in order to gain victory. This chapter also has the famous name ‘Ebenezer’ that makes it into the history of the church. Both songs and churches will use it in their names. Martin Luther King preached at Ebenezer Baptist church. This stone was simply a rock of remembrance for the victory of God. It spoke of Gods help for man. Jesus is the ultimate ‘stone/rock of defense’ for man. Scripture says ‘there is no rock like the Lord’ ‘Jesus is the precious stone, all who believe will be delivered’. The imagery of Jesus/God as a rock of defense is all throughout scripture. We see Samuel as the key leader of Israel and scripture says he judged them at this time. He lived in Ramah and ‘rode a circuit’ between the various cities on a rotating basis. He was the first ‘circuit rider’! The circuit riders were the famous American evangelists during the 19th century. As the Puritan east coast churches were becoming well established in the original colonies, there was a need to reach out to the West [and south] with the gospel. The circuit riders were the evangelists who traveled to various areas preaching the gospel and establishing churches [The great Methodist Frances Asbury became famous for his circuit riding and church planting]. During this time you had the famous ‘camp meetings’ where many believers from all over would gather at these outdoor ‘brush arbors’ and hear the gospel preached and commit their lives to the Lord. Over time the more staid Reformed churches of the east coast would view the ‘camp meeting’ brothers as a little ‘un hinged’. You would also have some of the ‘Spirit led’ groups condemn the old time reformed brothers as ‘unconverted’. There was a tendency to lean towards one side or the other. The various Quaker [shaker] type groups would emphasize the Spirit being premiere in all Christian understanding. While this is of course true, this in no way means believers do not learn thru the normal means of study and reading. Some of the more ‘Spirit minded’ believers would come to view the more ‘head knowledge’ brothers as ‘unconverted’. One of the worst cases was the Ann Hutchison controversy. She was a believer who began teaching under the ‘Spirits guidance’ and would give the impression that the more refined ministers were not of God. She would ultimately pay with her life for her beliefs. NOTE- The terminology of ‘New lights’ versus ‘Old lights’ was often used to describe the different emphasis between these 2 camps. There was a brother by the name of Davenport who would travel around and accuse all of the old time preachers as being unconverted. While it is possible for a minister to have never truly made a strong commitment to Christ, to paint them all with this broad brush was very unbalanced.
(891) SAMUEL 8- Samuel’s sons are appointed as judges over Israel [leaders]. They are wicked, just like the sons of Eli. I find this interesting, Samuel was a product to some degree of his ‘spiritual elder’. Even though Samuel himself was a righteous man, yet he passed on to his kids the same leadership style that he tutored under. The children of Israel come to him and request a king ‘like the other nations’. It is important to see that God states clearly that this is not part of ‘the original plan’. God will tell Samuel that this desire for human leadership, along the lines of other ‘gentile nations’ is rebellion. Jesus will tell the disciples ‘the gentiles exercise lordship over one another, it shall not be like this with you’. Israel wanted to be dominated by a king! God tells Samuel to show them what they are asking for. And then goes thru a long list of things ‘he will take the best of your people and use them for self advancement. He will require a tenth of all you have. He will build a legacy for himself and his name by using you as resources to attain a personal goal of achievement’. In essence the lord is warning them that when you raise up human leadership in a singular way [one king] that violates the plural mindset of scripture, then you inevitably will become a servant to human institutions and purposes. I find it interesting that the Lord mentions the tithe and how this will arise as a result of wrong ideas on what leadership should be. Historically the early church did not practice tithing. As the centuries rolled along tithing was originally instituted as a ‘tax’ from the church/state on the people to support the institutional purposes of the church/state. In essence the tithe/tenth did become a means whereby human government would obtain power and prestige among the gentile nations. The word of the Lord was true! [It’s okay for believers to give 10 % to the church on Sunday, the curse of the law on those who do not do this should not be invoked from Malachi. The appeal should be based on grace giving]. Israel will get her king, God will eventually use the Kings of Israel for his prophetic purposes. David and Solomon will be pictures of Jesus and his future rule. Just like the temple, God will initially tell David ‘who do you think you are trying to build a house for me’? [Thru the prophet Nathan] but will still use the temple as a prophetic type of the people of God being a ‘holy temple’. So the Lord will allow sinful man to obtain things contrary to his original purpose, and yet still be glorified thru these requests. Also the sons of Samuel went astray ‘after lucre’ [verse 3]. Just like Paul and Peters warnings in the New Testament ‘taking the oversight, not for filthy lucre’ ‘some have strayed from the faith while coveting money’ so Samuels boys fell to this temptation. I know it’s popular in today’s circles to simply overlook all these verses from scripture. Many sincere men do not see them because their ‘grid’ of interpretation won’t allow it. I just wanted to note how this theme of covetousness is a scarlet thread that runs thru out the entire body of scripture.
(892) SAMUEL 9- This is a prophetic chapter that parallels the book of Acts to a degree. Remember when we did Acts I showed you how it seemed that Paul [Saul] from Benjamin might have seen some prophetic significance to the fact that he too shared the same name and heritage [Benjamite] as Israel’s first king? Here we see Samuel play a roll similar to Ananias [Acts 9] in hearing the lord give instructions concerning Saul. Both Paul and Saul were told to go into a city and receive instructions. The lord confirms his word to Samuel that ‘this is the man I told you about’. Both Ananias and Samuel have prophetic signs that confirm the sovereign choice of God. Saul in this chapter is seeking for his fathers lost donkeys. They are about to give up and Saul’s servant says ‘there is a man in the city who hears from God’. Samuel had a reputation of being a prophet [seer]. Seers [another word for prophet. There is some distinction between a ‘prophet seer’ and ‘prophet’. But they are basically the same thing in my mind] were able ‘to see’ into the future about things. Samuel is said to be able to ‘tell Saul the secrets of his heart’. His words ‘come to pass’. He has God communicating to him in a direct way. Samuel is like Agabus in the book of Acts. A prophet who experienced God in supernatural ways. Samuel confirms Gods call on Saul’s life and tells him ‘I have some instructions to give you’ [next chapter!] What role did Samuel play in Israel? He obviously functioned in a prophetic gift that not only predicted what would come to pass, but also gave direction and spiritual oversight to Gods people. The New Testament teaching on prophets clearly teaches that they are part of the functioning ministry of the church. There have been many heresies and mistakes and even cultic ‘prophets’. But the basic teaching in scripture is they are a God ordained ministry that never passed away. We should approach prophets as we do pastors or teachers or any other gift. Are they stable in the faith? Do they have a good grasp of scripture? Good character? All the same principles that apply for Elders. The idea that after the canon of scripture was complete there were no more apostles or prophets has no scriptural support [read my section on apostolic, covering, shepherding]. Both church history and scripture support the ongoing role of prophets in the church. Now, I really doubt that all the fine brothers who declare themselves as prophets are. Some are learning about the gift. Some are functioning at various prophetic levels. But the office carries a lot of weight with it. I see Martin Luther King as a prophetic voice to our nation. He actually spoke of his death in a prophetic way the night before he was assassinated. There are also prophetic voices in history who spoke to their nation and people at crucial times. Alexander Solzenitzen [Russia] would speak out against repressive regimes. But we need to understand that the basic revelatory element of the prophetic [to be able to see and know things supernaturally] was included in the biblical gift of the prophet.
(893) SAMUEL 10- Samuel anoints Saul with oil. He gives him very specific prophetic direction ‘you will meet 2 men, then 3. They will be carrying 3 loaves of bread and give you 2’. Very particular information. Saul will meet a company of prophets and prophesy with them. The scripture says the Lord changed Saul into another man thru this prophetic experience. Once again we see not only the significance of Israel being under the divine direction of the prophetic [thru Samuel]. But his prophetic office also opened the door for a ‘whole company of prophets’ having freedom to function in their gifts. Over the years I have found it interesting to see how easy it is to live your entire Christian experience in different camps. Some of the more refined brothers [Reformed, Orthodox] have a great advantage in the field of intellectual pursuit [which is a good thing!] but might not be aware of the sector in the church that deals with the prophetic. The prophetic ministry has grown and even produced some fine intellectual material [some bad stuff too!] The point is we need to try and be aware [at least have a working knowledge] of the many streams that operate in the Body of Christ. You might not agree with a lot of the doctrinal positions that these various groups hold to, but as members of Christ’s church they do represent a certain sector of the church. Saul will follow thru and see all the prophetic signs come to pass in one day. Samuel instructs him to wait for him to come and publicly recognize him as king. After 7 days Samuel comes to town and Saul is hiding. He feared all the things that were coming upon him. Samuel finds him and publicly recognizes him. Also Samuel told the people that their choice of a human king was rejection of God. Some of the people are glad about Saul, others despise him from the start. There is a strange dynamic that I have seen at work over the years. When individual personalities and goals pit themselves against other people’s visions, there seems to be a division that is not healthy. I have had good friends who wanted to publicly join and be identified with ‘my ministry’. I would simply tell them ‘there really is nothing to join, we are simply believers trying to live out the Kingdom of God’. Then other pastors would see that some of the homeless people that they are working with have become ‘joined’ to us in a strong relational way. Then I would sense a kind of mindset that would say to the homeless person ‘well, if brother John has such good influence with you, maybe you should be with him instead of us’. They would not say this in a bad way, just in a way that is prevalent in the present mindset of ‘doing church’. I see all these divisions as silly, they come from an idea of local church that has many various ‘local churches’ [Christian ministries] as seeing themselves as independent entities who are trying to instill loyalty in people. ‘Are you with us or against us’ type attitudes. In Saul’s case he had friends and enemies right from the start. When individual personalities and agendas [which God warned them about!] become preeminent in the minds of the people [contrary to the corporate comminutes as seen in the local churches in scripture] then there is a natural tendency to take sides.
(894) SAMUEL 11- Saul will face his first major test. Nahash the ammonite comes up against Jabesh Gilead, a fellow tribe in Israel. He encamps against them and the men of Jabesh say ‘make a deal with us and we will be your servants’. Nahash says ‘under one condition, all your men need to have their right eyes poked out’. ‘Oh, is that all’. Sure enough Jabesh says ‘well, let us think about it. Give us seven days respite that we can send messengers to all the coasts of Israel. Maybe they will come and help. If not, then sure, we are willing to lose the eyes’! Now the messengers go to all Israel, and Saul hears the story. The scripture says he got angry and Gods Spirit came upon him. Saul will eventually become known for his temper. He will make rash decisions out of anger and jealousy. I want you to see that part of his anger was actually God ordained. Sort of like a Jehu [king of Israel] who rode furiously. Or a John the Baptist who took the Kingdom by force and violence. Saul was initially scared to become the king, God gave him a degree of righteous fury to be able to enter the fray without fear. Now Saul sends word back to Jabesh ‘by the time the sun is hot tomorrow, you will have help’. He takes these oxen and cuts them in pieces and sends the parts to the rest of the nation ‘whoever doesn’t come and help. God so help me, I will do this to your oxen too’! [ It would have sounded better if he said ‘so will I do to you’. But Saul is still kinda new at the prophetic stuff]. So Israel rallies, Saul splits the men into 3 groups [did he get this idea from Gideon’s army?] and they storm Nahash and save Jabesh. A few things. Saul is better at this king thing then originally thought. The men are so overjoyed that they say ‘hey, who were those guys that rejected Saul the other day? Lets go and slay them’. Saul steps in and acts righteously and says ‘no, today is a day of great victory, we will not kill our own men’. Saul had the potential to be a good king, he will succumb to pride and jealousy down the road. Also the men of Jabesh were in trouble. They were running out of options. They were contemplating losing their eyes for heavens sake! ‘Just give up part of your vision’ was the threat. The enemy often intimidates us because of the vision/purpose that God places on our lives. If he can just get us to ‘lose the vision’ and live in bondage [servitude] he will be happy. What did the men of Jabesh do? They simply bought some time ‘give us 7 days respite and we will see what we can come up with’. There are times in the journey where we simply need ‘7 days of rest and rethinking’. When you are right up against a seemingly impossible struggle, it’s hard to see any light. You simply need to be able to sit back and tell the Lord ‘give me a little season of rest, help me refocus on some things’. Do a little regrouping and reconnecting to the original purpose. Don’t think you need to come up with an answer on day One! Often times the stress and pressure of the initial attack is too much for you to think clearly on day one. Don’t make major life changing decisions while under stress. After the 7 days pass, you will be able to review the counsel from the Lord and see if the situation has improved. Make your decision then.
(895) SAMUEL 12- Samuel is getting old. He calls the people together and reviews his life before them. His defense sounds a lot like Paul's defense to the Ephesian elders in the book of Acts [chapter 20]. Samuel tells the people ‘all the time I have been with you, did I ever take your goods to enrich myself? Did I use my authority in a way to advance myself?’ he basically witnesses before the people that he was not in this for self gain. He also reviews the history of Israel. He reminds them of their past and how the Lord delivered them from Egypt. It is important to see that although Samuel was a great prophet who operated in tremendous gifts, yet he saw the need to also ground the people in history and doctrine. He knew the importance of remembering past events. Both the Passover and the Lords Table are Divine instances of ‘remembrance’ that God has ordained for his people. Samuel will once again rebuke them for rejecting God by choosing a king. He will call down thunder and rain during their wheat harvest as a sign of Gods anger. The people see this and fear greatly ‘pray to the Lord for us Samuel, we have sinned’. He encourages them and tells them ‘even though you have done lots of wrong stuff, yet it’s not too late to turn to the Lord from this day forward and make a course correction’. In all reproving and correcting we need to always leave room for repentance. Some will never change the way ‘they think and act’ [message bibles version of repentance] but we need to understand that this is the goal of all correction and judgment. Samuel tells the people he will ‘not cease praying for them’ and continue to teach them well. Jesus told Peter ‘if you love me, feed my sheep’. John says ‘this is how we can tell we love God, when we love his kids and obey his commands’. What is Jesus command? ‘Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and might. And thy neighbor as thyself’. Samuel realizes that his faithfulness to God is directly related to his treatment of Gods people. Though he is a gifted prophet, yet he prays and teaches and remains consistent in the more mundane areas of ‘the ministry’. I have found that God looks for faithfulness in the mundane things before he honors the more flagrant gifts. It’s good to have the ability to speak or prophesy or sing for the Lord, but the need to be a consistent intercessor for God’s people takes priority. Samuel taught them history. He oversaw the problems and situations they went thru. He did not become wealthy from the people. He served the lord faithfully from his youth. Hannah gave him to the Lord at a very young age, God took what was given and made the most out of it.
(896) SAMUEL 13- DON’T RETREAT TOO MUCH! In this chapter we see the famous story of Saul offering a burnt offering at Gilgal. He was supposed to wait for Samuel and he got impatient and offered it himself. Samuel tells him that the Lord will judge him severely for this and raise up a man after his own heart [David]. In the beginning of the chapter we see Saul and Jonathan separate into 2 camps, Saul keeps 2 thousand men and Jonathan a thousand. Jonathan is a capable warrior and has some good victories. The Philistines say ‘enough is enough!’ and mount a counter attack. They muster so many resources that Israel fears. They retreat into the rocks and hills, some go back over the Jordan! I read a recent Christianity today article that had one of the leaders of the Emergent Movement speaking with one of the more Reformed defenders of the faith. It was a sincere meeting between two seemingly opposing camps. The Emergent brother questioned the Reformed guy ‘what did you tell the people about what was taught in the first thousand years of Christianity before Anselm’? Anselm is the great Christian theologian who is often credited for ‘coming up’ with the ‘theory of Penal substitution’. Now, I love church history and do understand that this is an idea that many good men have espoused, that Anselm came up with the doctrine of Penal substitution. The point I want to make is this fundamental doctrine was taught by the first century Apostles. Our scripture is filled with the doctrine of Penal substitution! So in these cases I think the Emergent brothers have ‘retreated too much’. In their honest and good efforts of changing the way the church interacts with society, they have damaged their movement by doing stuff like this. Challenging too many core beliefs of the faith. In essence they went ‘all the way back over the Jordan’. The Philistines learn a trick from Israel and divide up into three groups and send out ‘raiders’ my King James says ‘spoilers’. They begin chipping away at the confidence of Israel. Saul has 600 men left with him and they are all trembling. Saul himself must be in tremendous doubt about his own life. He just received a strong rebuke from Samuel. He might have been preparing for the worst. But we will find out that there are still more battles to be won, Jonathan will make his dad proud of him.
(897) SAMUEL 14- Saul and the people are hiding in fear, Jonathan tells his armor bearer ‘Lets go up to the enemy and show ourselves. If they tell us ‘come here’ we will take it as a sign from the Lord and fight. God can save by many or by few’. They go up and defeat around 20 men in half an acre of land. The scripture says the enemy trembled and the earth as well! It seems like the Lord shook things up, literally! [Another reminder of the book of Acts]. Saul and his people see the enemy fleeing and can’t figure out what’s happened. He takes a quick roll call and realizes Jonathan is gone. They figure out what has happened and enter the fray. The people pursue the enemy and have great victory. Saul says ‘let no man eat today until the sun goes down’. He begins making community wide decisions that are harmful to the people. Jonathan doesn’t hear this rash decision and eats some honey. The people are shocked. They know the curse of Saul. They finally win the battle and they seek the Lord for further instructions. God is silent. Saul figures it’s because there is sin in the camp and they find out that Jonathan was the one who ate the honey. Jonathan says ‘yea, I did eat it, and now I must die’? Sort of like ‘what a stupid and rash thing for you to have said! The people were all tired and drained because of following your singular ideas that were pronounced to the whole community. They would have gained strength if they simply did what was natural and ate when they were hungry’. Saul honors his stupid agenda over his own son and says ‘that’s right, you must die’. He was more willing to kill his son then to admit he was wrong. The people stand up with one voice and say ‘no way Saul, Jonathan has won a great victory. You will not get away with this’! What happened here? Was Saul so inherently evil that he couldn’t help himself? I think what we see here is the result of the mistake for Israel to have wanted a king like the other nations. When the church historically began to be centered around singular authority figures [monarchial episcopacy] you began to loose the freedom and health of the people of God to ‘feed themselves when hungry’. They began to become dependant upon the institutional church to tell them about God and his truth. Eventually you would have the modern expression of highly entrepreneurial ministries that would find well meaning Pastors trying to make corporate wide decisions in ways that were absent from the local churches in scripture. When the people of God lean too heavily on the gifts and leadings of one man, there is a tendency for the leader to come up with goals and decrees that are contrary to the full purpose of God. It is inherent in man to set goals and make broad decisions. That’s not wrong in itself. But the people of God in scripture are formed along the lines of a community of people, not a 501c3 corporation. So the well meaning Pastors have a natural tendency to say ‘what decisions should I make for the church this year? What goals and dreams should we put before the people’ and this inevitably leads to entire communities of believers being too focused on the singular directions of well meaning men. I think Saul simply came up with things to say because he felt he needed to exert leadership. God’s people really didn’t need Saul from the start! As far as I can see from reading the New Testament, the only corporate ‘goal’ or project that Paul would put before the people was his collecting of money for the poor. Now of course there were many spiritual goals of growth and becoming mature believers who praise and glorify God. But I don’t see any other ‘project’ that Paul was regularly laying before the people to join. No structure in the churches of scripture where Paul would say ‘Now Corinth, when I come back next year lets see 50 house churches, reaching 48 % of this region. And oh yes, lets raise this much money for this project’. Much of the modern church is too centered around these types of pleas. The many well meaning men who are operating out of good intentions for the most part are ‘just doing what kings [leaders- C.E.O.'s] are supposed to do’. The fundamental flaw is God never originally intended for his people to be structured along these lines. Many up and coming believers are seeing this and coming out of these limited structures. They are telling Saul with one corporate voice ‘you wont get away with this anymore’. [‘Saul’ in this scenario is not your individual Pastor, who for the most part is probably a good man who loves God. But ‘Saul’ is speaking to the whole concept of modern pastoral ministry that is absent from the churches in scripture].
(898) SAMUEL 15- Samuel instructs Saul to go and wipe out the Amalekites. He goes and conquers the city but saves the sheep and oxen and other valuables. Samuel confronts Saul and says ‘you disobeyed the Lord by not totally destroying everything’. Saul says ‘Well, we saved the good stuff so we could sacrifice it to the lord’. Samuel tells him ‘to obey is better than sacrifice’. God wanted obedience more than religious worship. The writer of Hebrews quotes David in the Psalms ‘sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a Body hast thou prepared me’. Jesus obedience to the father by dying on a Cross trumped the sacrificial system of the law. Saul messed up the picture! Samuel calls for king Agag, the Amalekite king who Saul captured. Agag thinks ‘great, they aren’t going to harm me now. After all the Pastor wants me’! Well surprise, Samuel takes out his sword and hacks old Agag in pieces! Saul must of thought ‘Gee, I really messed up this time. I never even knew the Pastor carried a blade’. A few things. Over the next century or so [if the Lord tarries] I believe the church is going to go thru a type of modern reformation. Today we see many well meaning believers ‘sacrificing’ their time and money and lives into a system of church that is fundamentally disconnected from the picture and nature of church as described in the New Testament. Now, I am not calling for an iconoclastic tearing down of all church buildings! But if the American church stopped all new building programs [finish the ones that are in transit, but no more!] and if we all began actually, daily giving of our time and resources to helping the poor and reaching out to the lost. We would need a hundred years at least in order to bring the balance back to the New Testament [where over 90 % of all giving was charitable]. Jesus and the disciples practiced a lifestyle where all were responsible to lay their lives down for the gospel. There are actual commands in scripture that say ‘you who are not working, get a job so you can have something to give away to those who are in need’. These are real commands that should be ‘obeyed’. But what we have taught Gods people is if they work real hard and sacrifice [as compared to obeying !] then they can put lots of money in towards the next project or building or whatever. Now some of the resources being gathered in this way are used for good things, but the underlying problem is we have given the average saint the impression that this way of sacrificing is more important than actually obeying. I cant tell you the number of believers who simply do not see it as their personal responsibility to ‘give to him that asks of you’ ‘how does Gods love dwell in you if you see a brother in need and don’t help’ ‘if you do it to the least of these my brethren you do it to me’. But there is not a single command in all of the New Testament to bring a tithe for the purpose of building a church facility. Now, it’s okay to build them to a degree, but are we teaching people that this type of sacrificial giving [towards the machinery of modern ministry] releases them from the primary command to obey? The church will go thru a rethinking of what church means, as we travel along this road we need to obey more than to sacrifice.
(899) SAMUEL 16- Samuel is coming from the recent ‘hacking incident’ of king Agag, and the Lord tells him to go to Bethlehem and anoint a new king. Samuel is afraid ‘what if Saul hears about it? He will kill me’. Notice, Samuel feels intimidated and fearful. When he gets to Bethlehem the scripture says the Elders were all in a panic, they said ‘are you come in peace’? Hey, they just heard about the hacking incident, word spreads fast when a prophet straps it on with some pagan! They must have been thinking Samuel was on a warpath. He tells them he is come in peace and wants to sacrifice with them and worship. As a little aside, when you have prophetic ministers in a city, it’s only natural that Elders [pastors] are going to feel intimidated. Why? Are prophets better men? No, but the prophetic operates under a different type of anointing. Don’t forget you already saw Samuel gain a reputation among the people because of his strong prophetic gift. Sometimes pastors can feel intimidated ‘geez, that guy hit the nail on the head. I hope he doesn’t call me out by name too!’ Samuel doesn’t ‘call them out’ but says ‘hey Elders, where all in this together. Let’s worship God’. Samuel finds David and anoints him. Saul is battling with all sorts of personal issues [evil spirit]. Even his close associates can pick up on it. The servants recommend for Saul to get a worshipper who can play music and minister to Saul. They tell him ‘yeah, there is this guy named David. He’s real good at playing music. Plus he is a valiant and mighty warrior’. We often see David as a ‘mamby pamby mamma’s boy’ at this stage of his life. But scripture says he already built up a reputation as a fighter. David takes the job and becomes a musician for Saul. A few thoughts. In this chapter we see Gods Spirit [anointing] leaving Saul and going with David. David himself in Psalms pleas with the Lord ‘take not thy Holy Spirit from me’ after his sin with Bathsheba. Let me encourage some of my Pastor friends. It’s easy to read stuff like this, or for some ‘prophet’ to pronounce stuff like this to a pastor. I really don’t see applying this scenario to modern day ministers. God’s Spirit in the Old Testament was operating differently than today. Only one king at a time could have the ‘kingly anointing’. When the Spirit left Saul for David it was because God was only anointing one person for the job. Today, while it’s possible for a pastor/minister to mess up and ruin his ministry, I still wouldn’t apply stuff like this in too much of a personal way. Sort of like ‘The Lord must have left me and now he’s chosen so and so on the other side of town’. The Lord ‘doesn’t leave you’ in this way under the New Covenant. Paul said the gifts and callings of God are without repentance, in context he is speaking of natural Israel, but you can also apply it to believer’s gifts today. How much God uses you does depend on your willingness and obedience to his call, but don’t think he left ‘your church’ and went to the other one down the street! [he hasn’t written ‘Michelob’ on your door! See entry 887]
(900) SAMUEL 17- David goes down to the battle front and hears Goliath mocking God. The Philistines are confronting Israel and they have their champion giant [almost 10 feet tall! Like the Roman emperor Maximus, he was huge] Goliath. David hears the enemy challenge Israel day after day and he decides to take him on. Saul tells him ‘you can’t do this, you are too young and inexperienced, he is a man of war from his youth’! David insists that he is able, he killed a lion and bear while defending his father’s sheep, why not ‘this uncircumcised rascal’! Saul says ‘fine, hears my armor’. David tries it on and realizes it’s not his style of armor. He goes back to the simplicity of a sling and stone. He goes out to the battle, Goliath can’t believe his eyes ‘did you send me some mammas boy with a stick? I am not some dog that you can tame with a stick’! Oh really? David says ‘sir, not only will I win this thing, but I will remove your stinking pagan head from off that 10 foot frame and feed you and your buddy’s carcasses to the animals’! Old Saul must of been thinking ‘what in the world did we get ourselves into’? Sure enough the battle begins and David runs up to the giant and sinks a stone into his head. He stands over him and severs his head with his own sword. Now the poor Philistines heard the whole conversation and didn’t want to hang around for the rest of David’s mission statement to be fulfilled. They fled! Israel pursues and has a great victory. A few things; David show us the necessity and simplicity of warfare. Jesus taught the disciples that they had what it took to carry out the mission. He warned them not to fall for the wrong headed idea of ‘God has called us to start an organization, and the organization will accomplish this noble task’. After all the years of befriending and working with the homeless and down and out. I realize that many well meaning believers will see the needs of people, but then want to ‘put on Saul’s armor’ to effect change. Try and start another mission ministry, or make others aware of the problem. I have found the biggest need to be that people are simply not willing to actually give their time and substance and get involved. Jesus told the disciples ‘don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this, you are the equipment. No special appeals for funds!’ [Message bible]. We get lost in trying to put on Saul’s armor [lot’s of complicated ministry ideas] when Jesus says ‘just use the stone and sling that I have given you’. The church of Jesus needs to realize that the power to effect society is in the hands of simple followers, truly the meek will inherit the earth.
(901) SAMUEL 18- David is accepted by Saul and seen as a hero. Upon his victory over the giant all the women begin praising and worshipping in the streets with tambourines and musical instruments. Why this exuberant awakening of the women of Israel? It seems to me that David’s skill as a warrior/worshiper brought a degree of respect to the ministry of praise and music that might have been lacking up until this time. Even though the Lord instilled worship as an intricate part of warfare [Judah=praise], yet it seems likely that being a musician during a time in Israel’s history where violence and war were respected might have been seen as a less than noble pursuit. So David restored a sort of freedom and respectability to praise. Now Jonathan, Saul’s son, becomes ‘linked’ to David in a strong way. Some advocates of the gay lifestyle have actually tried to use this scripture to defend the gay lifestyle, but it seems to simply be saying that Jonathan and David became best of friends. What might have caused this initial bonding? Don’t forget Jonathan himself was a warrior who was willing to lay it all on the line against great odds. He already confronted the enemy single-handedly and won! It’s possible that during Goliaths 40 days of mocking and tempting Israel that Jonathan said ‘I’ll do it dad’ and Saul would have never allowed his own son to face the giant. If so then the victory of David was even sweeter to Jonathan than the others. David begins receiving praise from the people because of his wisdom and skill on the battlefield. Jealousy arises in Saul and he tries to kill David with a spear. This begins the history of Saul trying to kill David on various occasions and David’s noble responses. Never trying to hurt Saul himself. Let’s end this chapter with a re-cap of the open type worship that is happening with the women under David’s ministry. It is much like the taboo that Jesus broke in the gospels. Jesus ministry was revolutionary in the way he welcomed and allowed women to be an open part of his ministry. The other written works of the day did not see women from this open standpoint. This is one of the proofs used to defend the canonicity of the scripture. If the stories were all being made up, then you would never include women in this way. Because it would tend to discourage others from believing the story! Jesus broke barriers, David’s ministry and rule will be a picture of the restoration of the dignity and usefulness of women in society. David’s Psalms were actually the song book of the nation. These songs were written during the time of David’s ministry in Jerusalem when the tent of David was the only thing containing the retrieved Ark of the Covenant. A type of the open access that would come to all people under the future ministry of Jesus. David was not only a great warrior, he was a passionate worshipper of his God.
(902) SAMUEL 19- Saul puts out the word to his men ‘if you see David kill him’! Jonathan tells David ‘go hide in the field and I will go out where you are and speak on your behalf to my father. Then I will come and tell you all the words he has spoken’. Jonathan speaks well to Saul on David’s behalf and David is restored back into the presence of the king. I see Jesus intercession ministry here. Jesus goes to the father on our behalf, we ‘rest in a hiding place’ [in Christ] while he speaks well of us to the father. He ‘gives us the words that the father has given him ‘[Johns gospel] and we are restored back into the ‘presence of the king’. But in David’s case the restoration doesn’t last long. David will flee to Samuel in Ramah, Saul sends his men to get David. Each time they show up they are confronted with this prophetic weapon of intercession in the hand of the lead prophet, Samuel. Samuel is prophesying over a company of prophets and Saul’s men ‘fall under the Spirit of prophecy’ and prophesy too! This happens with 3 different groups of men until Saul himself comes. The same thing happens with him. The ministry of prophecy testifies of Christ. The gift itself is a Divine mechanism in the community of God that protects/defends Gods anointed king [David/Jesus]. Samuels’s gift was meant for more than just personal fulfillment, a ‘my ministry’ mentality. He was overseeing a company of prophets and instilling this dynamic into the broader community of Israel. In the church today prophets should function along the lines of building into the broader community for the overall benefit of the church. There have been good men who have operated in the prophetic gift for many years. They have raised up younger prophetic ministries under them and have lived very effective prophetic lives for many years. It is sad that many in the Body of Christ have no idea of this entire section of the church. Because of abuses and flagrant bad doctrine, many simply live their entire lives without ever experiencing the prophetic aspect of Christ’s church. In this story we see the prophetic ministry, under Samuel, playing a key role in the life of Gods people. NOTE- One example of a modern day prophetic ministry that has been stable and has launched many young prophets would be Bishop Bill Hammon out of Florida. He has been around for years and has had a very influential ministry over the lives of many good young men.
(903) WHY BELIEF IN GOD IS PROOF AGAINST EVOLUTION- The theory of evolution is an attempt to explain all human life and interaction from a naturalistic perspective. The theory not only attempts to say ‘we came by way of natural selection’ but if this theory were true, it would by necessity have to be able to explain the totality of the human condition. His reason for life, his emotions and goals, even his ‘irrational’ belief that God is! Now, if you were studying a tribe of isolated pygmies, and time and again you noticed that they all gravitated towards a belief in a supreme being. If natural selection were true, then the ‘more advanced’ this tribe became, you would find less of a belief in a supreme being. But instead, as many has ‘evolved’ the process of natural selection [which would mean the inferior species are falling away] has not been able to produce this superior race of beings who have advanced to the point where evolution itself has become the obvious explanation of all things. The fact is, the more man ‘evolves’ the more religious he becomes! The mere fact that human beings have this inner belief and desire for a supreme intelligence can not be explained away by saying ‘well, this silliness will eventually pass away’. The facts show us that this ‘silly belief in God’ is increasing at an alarming rate among the most ‘advanced peoples’ of the earth. If natural selection were true, then the end result is ‘God exists’.
(904) SAMUEL 20- David is on the run, he tells Jonathan ‘why is your dad trying to kill me? I have done nothing wrong!’ Jonathan tells David that he knows nothing about it, it must be a rumor. David says ‘no, your dad knows you like me, he isn’t telling you because he thinks you will reveal it to me’. Jonathan says ‘my dad does nothing unless he reveals it to me’. A type of Jesus in John’s gospel. David says ‘I’ll prove it. Tomorrow is a feast day, I am supposed to sit at the kings table. Instead I will hide in the field for 3 days [a type of Jesus in the grave] and when you are eating with Saul, if he says ‘where’s David’ and gets irate, then the cat is out of the bag’. So the plan is launched and Saul holds the dinner. On day two he asks Jonathan ‘where’s’ old David today, I noticed he has been missing’. Jonathan says ‘Oh, I let him go to his home town for a special family thing’. Saul says ‘thou son of that rebellious women’! You think he went for the bait? Sure enough Jonathan confirms to David that he was right and they make a covenant to always respect and protect each other and their future kids. This will come back to David down the road when he spares a relative of Jonathan. Saul confronted Jonathan and said ‘why are you protecting David? As long as he lives you will never be established’. Saul knew that Jonathan’s success was dependent on David’s downfall. Jonathan was very noble, he didn’t see the success of another Israelite as something to compete with. Leaders often fall into this trap of comparing their ‘ministries’ with so and so. I feel the wrong idea’s of local church breed this attitude. When we see ‘local church’ as the various independent Christian businesses that are all trying to accomplish tasks, then this breeds this competitive spirit. When we see ‘local church’ as the entire family of believers in our city [Jonathans family mindset] then we will overcome the spirit of competition.
(905) SAMUEL 21- David is fleeing from Saul and he goes to the priest at Nob. The priest wonders what’s up. David tells him he is on a special assignment from the king and he and his men need food. The priest tells him the only food available is the consecrated bread that is only for God and the priesthood. David convinces the priest to let them eat and David asks ‘do you have any weapons here’. The priest says ‘I have the sword you used to kill the giant’ David says ‘great, that will work just fine’. Jesus used this story to describe himself and the disciples [Mark 2]. One day Jesus and the disciples were going thru the grain fields and the disciples picked the grain and ate it on the Sabbath. The Pharisees said ‘your disciples are breaking Gods law by picking it on the Sabbath’. Now, to be honest they were breaking the over extended ideas that the religious Pharisees came up with thru their legalism. But Jesus still used this example as a defense. He says ‘have you not read what David and his men did? They ate the ceremonial showbread that was not lawful, only the priests could eat it’. David and his men are a symbol of Jesus and his men. While it is true that the bread was only lawful for the priests, David is a king/priest who gets away with doing ‘priestly things’ because of his picture of Christ. Scripture says he put on an ephod [priestly garment] which only priests could do. David functioned before the open Ark in Jerusalem. He did things that other kings were punished for [Saul, Uzziah]. Jesus in essence was saying to the Pharisees ‘I am the new priest/king from which all future law and worship will be measured by. Me and my followers are not under the law, the law serves us’! In Christ we are free from the guilt of the law, we live above legalism and follow the master. David and his men were acting like priests and kings contrary to the economy of their day. David was a type of Jesus whose future priestly ministry would ‘out trump’ the law.
(906) SAMUEL 22- David escapes to the cave at Adullam. As he is in hiding the scripture says ‘when his family and friends heard where he was, they gathered to him’. Notice, David is beginning to enter into a time of rule and authority. He was already anointed by Samuel, but this is where the rubber meets the road. He already won some battles, but that was still under Saul’s reign. Now he’s on his own. It’s not that easy! Sort of like when the sparring partners turn pro and think ‘I can whip the champ, I’ve done it already in the ring’. But then when they get in for real, it’s another story. The prophet Gad tells David ‘don’t stay in the place of hiding, get out and go to Judah’. Judah is a place of praise. When we are on the run and are not sure what’s going to happen next, we have a tendency to ‘go into hiding’. Now, sometimes it’s good to find a place of rest and hiding, but these are not permanent positions! We eventually need to escape to a place of praise. At this point David’s men are at around 400 strong, just the right number to start a movement! I believe we all have the potential to be ‘church planters’. If you have the tools to effectively speak into at least 400 people on a consistent prophetic basis, then you can do it! Hey, start a blog, it’s free! Now Saul finds out where David’s at and goes after him. He tells his men ‘why did none of you take my side, or feel sorry for me? Can David give you stuff like I can?’ The brother was making campaign promises for heavens sake! Notice how fear and paranoia were affecting Saul’s mind. He was having a pity party. He is told by one of his men how the priests at Nob helped David, and Saul calls for them and kills the entire company of priests. One son escapes, Abiathar, and tells David what happened. David takes him under his wing. A few things, when we are in the battle and are not sure what’s happening, we have a tendency to draw back. Now, it’s fine to have a period of rest and renewal, it’s just not supposed to be a permanent place! You also have to fight some battles first. We live in a day where people want to ‘be retired’ at the age of 21! I like the commercial I saw a few years back, the parents are at their son’s college graduation and they ask him ‘so son, what’s next’. The boy compliments his dad on his sweater vest and says ‘I think I am just going to retire and move back home’. Let me challenge you, get out of the place of fear and anxiety and by Gods grace start a revolution. You leaders who are reeling because of the battle, enter into Judah. Begin praising God again like in the early days. I just finished a prayer time, I incorporate lots of thanksgiving when praying for stuff. Do you have a regular time of thanking the Lord on a consistent basis? When leaders feel overwhelmed and ‘in the cave’ it’s easy to forget praise. I adjure you ‘get out of the cave and flee to Judah’!
(907) SAMUEL 23- David hears that the Philistines are fighting against another town, he asks the Lord ‘Lord, should I go and fight against them’? This is the beginning of David’s secret campaign against the enemy. As he flees from Saul he also fights the enemy secretly. Now the Lord says ‘go, fight them. I have given them to you’. Now his men are scared, they tell David ‘geez, we are in distress now, in our so called ‘home land’ and you want us to go and fight on foreign ground’! One of the characteristics of Gods heroes of the faith was a willingness to uproot and travel ‘to a place that God will reveal to you’ often times you have no idea where you are heading! You just start the journey in faith [Abraham- Hebrews 11] and learn as you go. Now David’s men caused David to ask the lord again ‘Lord, are you sure you want us to do this’? The Lord reaffirms the plan. Sometimes we need confirmation for the mission. It’s alright to have second thoughts, as long as you obey at the end! Remember Jesus teaching on the 2 sons? One said ‘yes father, I will obey’ [Jews] and didn’t. The other said ‘no, I wont obey’ [gentiles] and later obeyed. David stumbled a little here in doubting the first word, but the lord said ‘that’s alright son, I will give you some reassurance.’ David goes and Saul finds out and traps him in some town. David seeks the Lord and the Lord says ‘yes, Saul is coming and these people will turn you in’. David flees and Saul surrounds him. Then Saul hears word that the philistines have invaded their land and Saul leaves the area. Sometimes we get into situations where we truly don’t have what it takes to win. Even though David is God’s anointed man, yet he would not have been able to withstand Saul at this early stage of his ‘ministry’. God realizes what we can handle, sometimes we survive because the Lord divinely manipulates the circumstances to our advantage! In this case David would have been thinking too highly of himself if he thought ‘well, I am up here with the big boys now, I can take him’. God might be using you in a special way, this doesn’t mean you are advanced enough in everything to ‘go it with the big boys’. Wisdom allows us to recognize whether or not we should take on all the tasks that we think are needed. I enjoy studying from many other web sites and reading books and hearing good teaching. But there are obvious times where I realize ‘geez, was this brother really called to speak to such a large sector of the church at this time in his growth’? It’s not demeaning, we just need to recognize that all battles are not our battles. Sometimes the Lord says ‘David, you really can’t handle this fight right now’ and he diverts a possible tragedy.
(908) SAMUEL 24- Saul heard that David is at Engedi, he pursues him. When they get in the area Saul goes into a random cave to ‘use the restroom’. Lo and behold, this just happens to be the one cave that David and his men are hiding in! David’s men tell him ‘see, the lord has delivered your enemy into your hand’. David secretly cuts a piece of Saul’s robe off. As Saul leaves the cave David reveals himself and bows to the ground and tells Saul ‘see my father, today I had the chance to kill you, but instead I spared your life. Why are you listening to all the rumors that people are saying about me?’ Notice, Saul was being fed gossip about David, and this was affecting David! We need to overcome the reality that part of the cost of ministry is people are going to lie about you and other people will believe it. Yes, Jesus did say this was part of the cost ‘if they spoke falsely about me, then they will about you. But when this happens rejoice! For this is also what happened to the prophets’. Hey, if you want to run with the big boys, then this is part of the price. Now David’s men also were affecting his thinking ‘Look, now’s the chance to get your enemy. After all if God didn’t want you to get even he would have never brought Saul into the cave’. Leaders have to be worried about their own men’s advice as well! It’s hard to walk this fine line at times, but true leadership listens to council and should err on the side of mercy. This is a good rule of thumb. Saul tells David ‘forgive me son, this day you have proven me wrong. Surely you will eventually become the king’. Saul goes home and David goes back to the stronghold in the wilderness. David realized that no matter how many times the lord would defend him against Saul, that Saul would be a permanent obstacle. Why? It’s in mans nature to want to retaliate against change. Especially change that involves a removal of authority that was at one time used by God! Saul was not the original intent of God [or David!] but once God’s people traveled down the road of kingship, God did use this mode of authority. Now Saul did become addicted to power. Even though leaders have good hearts and mean well, when there comes a change of authority [like the movement of communal church where there no longer is the role of ‘the pastor’] this challenges leadership at its core. Even if leaders become convinced that a change is coming [like Saul recognizing David’s destiny] still the sinful nature of man will come back and rears it ugly head. David knew that Saul would be back on his trail soon.
(909) SAMUEL 25- THERE ARE MANY SERVANTS THESE DAYS WHO BREAK AWAY FROM THEIR MASTER! We see the death of Samuel and the story of David and Nabal. When David was on the run with his small army, he had provided shelter for Nabal's men while in the fields. So David figures it’s time to cash in on the goodwill that he showed to Nabal’s men. He sends some servants to Nabal’s house to remind him of the favor that was done, and to humbly ask ‘can you in return show us some favor and provide us with some supply’? Nabal is considered a fool and replies ‘Who is this David, another one of the many rebels of this day?’ and Nabal refuses to help. Now David hears of the response and decides ‘I have had it! Let’s strap it on’. On the way to wipe out Nabal the servants of Nabal tell his wife Abigail what happened. They speak well of David and Abigail quickly puts together a supply and sends it to David. She averts the disaster that was imminent. The next day Nabal hears what happened and falls into a stroke type condition and dies within a few days. David takes Abigail to be his wife. I sort of see in Nabal a type of response to the new authority structures that God is raising up in the kingdom. David of course is a type of Jesus, but we also see all leadership types in David. In the present system of ‘local church’ there is a legitimate challenge to the ‘old type pastoral model’. Now, some in the past have challenged leadership out of rebellion. But there are very scriptural questions to the development of the one man leadership model that prevails in today’s idea of church. It is easy to mistake these challenges as ‘another rebellious movement like the others of days gone by’. During the reformation of the 16th century you also had this response. But there actually are real times of change and upheaval that come from God. Nabal stuck David in a category of ‘another one of those rebellious types’ but his judgment was way off. Nabal did not act righteously in this challenge to Godly authority. He used ‘rebellion’ as a false defense of his unwillingness to give David and his men their due. There are good men who are seeing the legitimacy of the present challenges to the old authority structures. But then there are others who are not even willing to give a fair hearing to the ‘David’s’ and just assume all new ideas are acts of rebellion. This can breed dangerous responses from both sides. Out of frustration David, who was right in this case, almost committed an act of retaliation that would have forever scarred his ministry. Nabal realized what a foolish judgment he had made and lost his life over it. It would have been better if the old guard recognized the legitimacy of the new guard and tried to hammer out an amicable solution.
(910) SAMUEL 26- Saul pursues David in the wilderness of Ziph. David hears that Saul is still on his trail, and he tells his men ‘who wants to go down with me and see if we can spy on Saul’? Abishai goes. They sneak into Saul’s camp and find the men sleeping, they steel Saul’s spear and water supply. They go to the other side and yell 'what's up, why couldn’t a man like Abner protect Saul’? David reveals the stolen stuff and Saul realizes that once again David had the chance to kill him but let him go instead. Saul goes thru the whole ‘you are a better man than me’ thing. But the problem is no matter how many times God vindicates David, Saul still goes after him! I think David would have preferred for Saul to really learn the lesson instead of just making these worthless treaties. It’s like signing these treaties with North Korea on nuclear stuff. Then a few years go by and they say ‘well, you caught us, we were cheating’ and then we go and sign another one! David wasn’t putting much stock into Saul’s words. David also says ‘if God has told you to get me, than explain the reason, I will try and make any fault right. But if it’s these gossiping people that have turned you into my enemy, then let them be cursed’! Notice, it wasn’t just the fact that Saul was pursuing David, it was the reality that David’s secret enemies were the deceivers behind the whole thing. It’s like David has more respect for Saul, because he at least is open and willing to confront him publicly. But the troublemakers spend all their time poisoning the minds of others against you. They are too scared to confront you themselves. Bunch of wimps! Once again Saul recognizes Gods calling on David ‘you will do great things and prevail’. David is Gods new order of leadership, Saul is stuck in the old school. It was obvious that Saul was never going to transition and live peaceably with David as the king. Saul had his ways and he basically was going to live out his days functioning in the comfortable patterns of kingship that he was familiar with. He also could see the writing on the wall. He saw that David had the lord helping him, he was still humble enough to have glimpses of clarity. Being able to see the future and what God was going to do. Saul just couldn’t get to a point where he would peacefully accept the new king.
(911) SAMUEL 27- David realizes that as long as he stays in the area, Saul will never change. He goes to Achish, king of Gath, and asks if he could stay there. David is given Ziklag and it becomes a permanent possession for Israel. David recognized that no matter how many efforts he made to show Saul that the rumors about him were false, that this was going down a dead end trail. Sometimes we need to simply ‘walk away’ from some stuff. It’s not like David was hating Saul, he just recognized that all his efforts to try and get Saul to approve of him were vain. Jesus told the Pharisees that they were seeking glory and acceptance from men. He said those who seek to please men in this way could not please God. He challenged their core reason for being ‘in the ministry’. They wanted to be accepted and successful in the eyes of others. They did not realize that their ideas of ministry strayed so far from the intent of God. Jesus showed them that if their motivation was how others viewed them [they loved to make long public prayers and show themselves to be spiritual] then God was no longer in it. David quit trying to spend so much time and effort in getting Saul to like him, he fled to Gath. Now the king of Gath is overjoyed to get such a talented member ‘on staff’. He believes David is now with him as opposed to Israel. We will see later that this trust he places in David blinds him from David's real motives. The king’s men will advise against using David in a key battle against Israel. Leaders need to be careful in seeing the talents and gifts of people as simple additions to their ministries. Because we live in a day where church and ministry are so intertwined with corporate ideas, this leads to a dynamic of pastors looking for ‘the best men I can find’. In actuality Jesus was seeking the worst! Now, I realize Paul wanted good men to work with him and he rejected those who would quit half way thru the task. But don’t view ministry thru the lens of ‘great, David is now with me instead of Saul’! In Gods kingdom we are all equal as brothers and sisters, we should not allow the talents and gifts of others to cause us to favor them more than others. David stayed in the philistine’s area for around a year and a half, sort of like Paul’s time at Corinth. The whole time he is secretly fighting the enemies of Israel while Achish thinks he is fighting against Israel. Notice also that Ziklag became a permanent inheritance in Israel. A city that David didn’t even fight for! Sometimes when we simply recognize the transitions that God is leading us into, we yield and at the same time take ground. I used to make decisions quickly, recently I had to make some ministry decisions. Changes that I would have preferred not to have made. In the old days I would have jumped thru these changes without really waiting on the Lord. Or I would have persisted to not change and struggle along the sure path. But now I try and wait and decide as a few days go by. If things look like the new direction is the way to go, then I go with it. David left the territories of his homeland for a while, he hooked up with Achish and during this seeming distraction he possessed some territory peacefully. Sometimes we need to relax during the distraction, and allow the lord to give us some easy land.
(912) SAMUEL 28- Saul prepares for battle against Achish. The philistine king thinks David is with him. Saul seeks God and doesn’t receive an answer by ‘dreams or prophets’. Saul expected to get some kind of supernatural sign. Samuel is dead, but he released a prophetic mantle/anointing into the community that showed the people that God can reveal himself in these ways. Saul goes to a witch who works with familiar spirits, a thing forbidden for Gods people! I have had friends ask me about reading the horoscope and going to palm readers. God forbids his people to dabble in sorcery and witchcraft, don’t do it! Saul manages to bring back Samuels spirit from the grave and Samuel rebukes Saul and tells him he and his sons will ‘be with me tomorrow’ [dead!]. Saul is reproved for two things. He didn’t fully obey God, and he refused to carry out judgment/justice [when he was supposed to wipe out Amalek]. I have seen many well meaning men in ministry. Good people who mean well. Ministry can be a tough thing. When people feel intimidated they have a tendency to not want to ‘execute judgment’. To only teach and preach good things, never dealing with error or blatant heresy. God wanted Saul to obey AND do judgment. Not judgment in a wrong way, but a willingness to see things that are out of alignment and to deal with them. God wants truth, truth in love, but truth. When Gods leaders get to a point of both obedience and justice, then we will experience his presence in a strong way.
(913) SAMUEL 29- The philistines go up against Israel. David is with his men and Achish, king of Gath, wants him to join the battle. The other kings say ‘what in the heck were you thinking? You can’t bring David to fight against Saul. What better opportunity than this will he ever have to reconcile with Saul? Surely he will kill us and reconcile!’ Now, Achish disagrees and says ‘David’s been with me for a while and he has been perfect’ actually not. David was secretly fighting the enemies of Israel all along. We have already seen David’s penchant for trying to vindicate himself. How many times has he taken opportunity to say ‘see Saul, I had the chance to get you but I didn’t’. Achish tells David ‘sorry David, I trust you but the other kings don’t’ David makes this defense and says ‘why, what have I done’ [he knows what he’s done! Achish doesn’t]. So David goes back and the philistines proceed without him. I really think David was going to do what the kings thought. He probably was going to try and reconcile with Saul one more time. In this case the other kings had it right. Scripture says in the multitude of counselors there is safety. Achish was so enamored with David’s skill that he wasn’t thinking clearly. The council of others was right. Also David would have interfered with this battle, this is the battle where Saul will lose his life and David will take over as king. In essence David’s idea was to eventually reconcile with Saul and Israel and have a wonderful time of transition. God had other plans. The time for David to step up to the plate and rule was now. Not a few more years of trying to ‘make things right’. Samuel and David mourned for Saul and over did their loyalty to him. God told Samuel at one point ‘quit crying about it son, I have rejected the man. Get over it for heavens sake!’ David’s good intentions were well meaning, but God had another plan. It wasn’t going to work as smoothly as David wished.
(914) SAMUEL 30- David returns from the battle lines and finds out his town was sacked by the Amalekites. They took everything and spared the lives of the women and children. David’s men see the disaster and cry bitterly. They have a deacon board meeting and contemplate stoning him to death. Things were bad, David encourages himself in the Lord. He asks the Lord ‘should I go after them and try and recover our families’? The Lord says ‘go, you will recover all’. David pursues and gets his people back and kills the enemy. Four hundred young men escape. The same amount of men that went with David, 200 stayed behind out of weakness. Why did the 400 Amalekites flee? It’s possible that the Lord used these 400 survivors to spread the word about David’s fierceness. This battle was pumped up, David showed no mercy! After they return, the 400 man army of David despises the 200 who stayed behind and say ‘we will give you your families, but no goods!’ They treated them as lesser men. David would have none of it and says ‘we can’t withhold the things the Lord has freely given us [freely you have received, freely give- Jesus] but we will treat everyone alike’. I see the New Testament ministry of giving and sharing as a community here. What happened in this chapter? David experienced a tremendous possible loss this day. His men were at the lowest point of ‘the ministry’. All seemed lost, they even feared the loss of their families. The Lord does restore to David that which seemed gone for good, and David’s men regroup. All this happens at the next to the last chapter of Samuel. In the next chapter Saul dies and David becomes king. Everything seemed hopeless right before the greatest victory of all! David was soon to enter into his prophetic destiny in God. There is a theme in scripture that goes like this ‘right before, and right after great victories there are great trials’ geez, that means there are always trials! Yes, to a degree this is true. I also want you to have a biblical perspective on what it means to ‘recover all’. The church went thru a stage where we learned all the verses on ‘the enemy must repay 7 fold’ and other themes on ‘all the years the locust hath eaten will be restored’. I like and have used these themes in my own life over the years to claim victory. But I want you to see from an eternal perspective. The theme of the New Testament is one of eternal rewards. Not so much focused on ‘what we get here and now’ but on us having a ‘better reward in heaven’ [Hebrews]. Those of you who have lost loved ones, finances [we just had a tremendous stock market crash 10-08]. What if I were to tell you ‘you are not really much worse off than those who haven’t lost all’. In a few short years all our loved ones will be gone. We will have lost control over all of our wealth and riches. We will all be gone [in the natural!]. But yet there awaits a real future resurrection where we will all get our loved ones back. Where we will reap eternal rewards for a life well lived. In the eternal perspective we do ‘recover all’, all isn’t lost! I want to encourage you today to believe God to restore some things in the here and now. Yes, God can bless you and restore to you wealth and health and family and many good things. And for those who have lost some of these things permanently, God will restore to you real soon.
(915) SAMUEL 31- The Philistines pursue Israel and Saul and his sons are killed. Saul tells his armor bearer to kill him, the armor bearer is afraid to do it. So Saul falls on his own sword. The enemy takes Saul’s body and cuts off his head and they pin him and his sons up on a wall for public humiliation. The inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead hear of it and they get his body and give him a proper burial. David will soon become the king. It’s kind of a sad way to end 1st Samuel. Saul and his sons really die, Jonathan was killed. A true warrior with a pure heart. I think we need to recognize the danger involved with the kingdom. There are times where men and woman of God have come under attack and have fallen. A few years back there were a few public scandals of believers who fell. Some just go away, others try and get back into the ministry. Often times there is no real facing up to the issues and an honest appraisal of what happened. I think many of these believers would be helpful if they wrote a book or shared openly about their struggles and difficulties. But the church has a tendency to cover up the real dangers involved in the ministry. Also Saul commits suicide. There are few suicides in scripture. We know Judas killed himself as well. If I remember right there is a Psalm that speaks of the sword of your enemies entering into them! A basic reality of a curse that comes upon those who fight believers [Gods anointed ones] that they will die at their own hands [or you don’t have to ‘get them’ yourself!]. Jesus taught us to not resist and take out vengeance on our enemies. It seems as if in both of these cases [Saul and Judas] that they fell victim to this judgment from God. How should we view this? Jesus and David were Gods ‘anointed ones’. Can we say that those who challenge present authority structures are rebelling against ‘Gods anointed’? This challenge has been made many times over the years. The two great divisions of western Christianity, the ‘Great Schism’ of 1054 [where the Eastern church- Orthodox, split from the Western branch] and the 16th century Reformation. Both had to do with believers resisting what they felt to be unscriptural authority as seen in the doctrine of apostolic succession thru Peter to the Popes. In both of these cases the ‘rebels’ were considered to be resisting ‘Gods authority’. I see it a little different. In Saul’s case he actually was the old order authority who was resisting change to the ‘old way’. God was bringing in a new anointed one thru David, and Saul was fighting the change. And of course Judas was coming against Jesus, who would institute the most radical change to mans approach to God that would ever come on the scene [in essence Jesus was eliminating the old order priesthood and making all believers priests!] I feel that these truths can apply to the current of change in our day. As the people of God transition from an ‘old order’ idea of leadership, to a more communal concept, both sides need to have respect and appreciation for each other. The new order [organic ecclesia] needs to appreciate all that the old order accomplished, and the old authority structures need to see the writing on the wall.
2ND SAMUEL
(916) 2ND SAMUEL 1- David returns to Ziklag after recovering everything and a messenger from the battle with Saul comes thru. David asks ‘what happened at the battle’? David hears for the first time that Saul and Jonathan died. He asks for details and the Amalekite tells the story of Saul’s death. This story is a little different from the one previously recorded. In the previous chapters Saul is said to have fallen on his sword. Here the Amalekite says ‘I saw Saul wounded and he asked me to slay him. He was at the point of death so I killed him to take him out of his misery’. Some feel this is a lie, that the brother was trying to make himself look good by fudging. I think he might be telling the truth. After all if he were trying to make himself look good, you probably wouldn’t say ‘I killed a wounded guy’. Either way he tells the story. David responds in anger ‘why do you think your bragging about this is noble! You killed a leader who God used mightily’ and David instructs his men to kill him. David finishes the chapter with a song of praise and remembrance for Saul and Jonathan. He extols their virtues in battle ‘swift like eagles, strong like lions’ and he invokes Israel to mourn for the great loss. I see a noble thing here. Even though Saul was rejected and his leadership style was being removed, yet the ‘new order’ [David] refused to despise the reality of the good times that were initiated under Saul. He still showed respect for ‘the old order’. Many times in studying church history you read of ‘the dark ages’. The centuries that are between the intuitional period of Christendom and the renaissance/reformation era. Often times this period is looked at as a period of ‘no value’. But in reality there were some spiritual things that came forth from the ‘old order’ that were of great value. The desert fathers and other great Christian mystics. The reality that the church became the sole arbiter in many international disputes of the times. Yes there were some bad things, but good stuff too! David was smart enough to begin his dynastic rule with crediting his former enemy with the respect and honor he deserved.
(917) 2nd SAMUEL 2- David inquires of the Lord if he should go up into the cities of Judah. The Lord tells him to go to Hebron. David becomes the king of Judah and rules from Hebron for 7.5 years. From this point on the southern portion of Israel will be referred to as ‘Judah’ and the northern tribes are called ‘Israel’. Abner, king Saul’s commander, anoints another son of Saul as the king of the other tribes. So you have Joab, David’s commander and Abner, the military leader of the opposing king. Joab and Abner meet up on the field. Abner suggests a sort of competition between the men. A fight ensues and good men die needlessly. Joab pursues Abner and his men and Abner winds up killing a brother of Joab. He did not want things to escalate to this degree! He tried to spare the brother, but in self defense he killed him. Abner tells Joab 'stop chasing us, why should there be more bloodshed between us, we are all brothers’? I see here the ‘innocent’ spirit of competition that got out of hand. When God’s leaders begin comparing the skills of their people against the skills of others, then people become pawns on a ministry chess board. Competition is a deadly thing that exists in the church, the lines between successful corporate ideas and Gods communal church have been blurred for a long time, this causes us to be vulnerable to this type of thing. Joab and Abner retreat and go home. David becomes king of Judah in Hebron. He will eventually consolidate the kingdom under his rule [he will reign for 33 years out of Jerusalem. A type of Jesus, who walked the holy land for 33 years until the Cross] and the kingdom will split again under Solomon’s sons rule. The divided history of the northern [Israel] and southern [Judah] tribes are seen as a judgment from God for various reasons thru out Israel’s history. For the most part the kings of Judah are better than the kings of Israel, but they will both have good and bad kings over time. I see a picture of the historic divisions of Christianity thru this history. Eventually you will have some who feel they have a ‘more pure religion and priesthood’ under the Orthodox and Protestant expressions of Christianity [I too hold to this to some degree] but yet God will eventually rebuke Judah as being worse than her northern ‘sister’! As we teach the Old Testament in the years to come I will try and trace these developments as we get to them.
(918) 2ND SAMUEL 3- Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, king of Israel. He accuses Abner of sleeping with one of his fathers concubines [second wife type thing]. And Abner, the military leader who for the most part propped up Ishbosheth as a puppet king for his own sake, gets irate and says ‘who do you think I am that you accuse me like this? I am not some dog that you can mistreat! I will now turn over the kingdom to David. If it weren’t for me you wouldn’t even be a king!’ and Ishbosheth remains stunned and silent. What happened here? When men join a ‘team’ [church-organization] out of jealousy and competition, they see themselves as helping the leader as a by-product of there own selfish motivations. We often see churches/organizations compete with one another like professional ball teams ‘how many games did your team with this season/ what was your average attendance this year?’ and stuff like that. When ministry leaders/staff see their ‘church’ from this type of perspective, then as soon as the leader offends you, you respond like Abner ‘how dare this guy speak to me like that! Doesn’t he know if it weren’t for my support he wouldn’t even be here!’ Now, I am not defending either side in this scenario, I feel for the most part that both of these responses/attitudes are not found in the churches of the New Testament. Because the churches in scripture were communities of believers who lived in your city. They weren’t established along these corporate ideas at all. Now Abner goes to David and tells him ‘I am now with you [people can be fickle!] and will do my best to bring all Israel to you’ David makes the deal and Joab, David’s military man says ‘what did you do? Abner was here simply to spy on you, his motives are wrong!’ Joabs brother was killed earlier by Abner himself, Joab was not willing to make peace with Abner. After all there is only room for one military commander, and Joab is not about to accept a demotion for this late comer to the party. Joab calls Abner back and kills him. David hears what happened and washes his hands from the whole matter. In this chapter we see how the motivations and selfish intentions of people cause strife. I feel the whole scenario of ‘whose side are you on, which ‘local team’ [church] is your team?’ leads us into these types of positioning and intrigue. In the New Testament you did not see Paul interacting this way between the local churches [communities of believers] he was establishing. For the most part he was teaching them to be faithful to the gospel and would only exercise apostolic authority when things got out of hand. He would appeal to his proof of who he was by saying ‘I am the one who brought you the gospel in the first place, don’t listen to these false teachers who are drawing you away from the truth’. But you did not see a dynamic of ‘are you supporting my apostolic ministry or not? If you are not faithful to my ministry then I no longer have time for you’. These limited ideas cause us to compete with one another. Abner and Joab were men who wanted self advancement and recognition, they aligned themselves with various leaders for their own purposes, this is not the family mindset that Jesus will instill in his future leaders.
(919) EVOLUTION AND THE EARTHS AGE? One of the difficulties in harmonizing the biblical record of a 6 day creation with modern science is the measured age of the earth and universe. Christians and scientists have debated this issue for years. Some believers explain away the seeming contradiction by challenging the science used to estimate the age of things. There are a few separate ways science measures this. The problem with challenging the actual science is these different ways of measuring do seem to confirm the long age belief [universe around 13-15 billion years old. The earth less than 10 billion]. One of the ways science measures this is thru carbon dating. All living things have radiation remnants in them. When you measure the carbon ratings [carbon 14 and carbon 12] that are in fossils, you can come up with an approximate age based on the ‘half life’ of carbon 14. Basically it looses so much carbon after so many years. If you assume this loss to be at a constant level you can approximate the age of the fossil. Some young earth creationists say this science is questionable [possibly so] and they simply say the amount of radiation that was lost in the early days could have been much greater than what is being lost now, therefore it ‘looks’ like the fossil is millions of years old, but in actuality it is young. Some teach that God could have made the original young creation with ‘age’ already planted inside the creation. I do not hold to these ideas myself, but I understand the possibility of these things being so. Now, if you trace the biblical history of man and compare it with modern archeology. You find surprising agreement between the two. The biblical record of the Bronze Age speaks of Tubal- Cain as the inventor of bronze instruments. The archeological record dates the Bronze Age to be around 4500 years ago, the same date of Tubal Cain. True archeology confirms biblical dates. Now, after the creation of Adam on day 6, most all of the known ages of man are in line with the bible. The problem arises when you try and date the previous 5 days of creation. The bible says God did this in ‘6 days’. Some teach the ‘day-age’ theory. The bible says a day with the Lord is like a thousand years, and they teach that these are simply descriptions of long ages. Others say there was a gap between verse one and two of Genesis and you had a whole pre-Adamic race of men. And of course some say they literally believe the 6 day account and all science that points to billions of years is either wrong, or that God tested man by putting fossils in the earth with ‘pre-programmed’ age already in them. Let me espouse another way to look at this. In the field of theoretical physics, Einstein came up with the single most amazing breakthrough in time and matter, the famous E=Mc2. This theory [which is no longer theory, but proven law] showed that time itself is relative. Up until Einstein’s day, the accepted law on time was Isaac Newton’s understanding that time was absolute. No matter where a person was in the universe, time was always the same. Now Einstein challenged this and taught that time itself, depending on who is ‘holding the clock’ actually changes. You can have a single event in history, and 2 different people can actually have 2 real different measurements of the same event. If one of the clock holders is approaching the break neck speed of light, his actual measurement of the one event will be different. We are not saying it simply seems different, but there actually are different times that the same exact event transpired in. This has been proven to be true. This opens the door for a possible real 6 day creation [not spiritualizing days into ages] and also the scientific measurement of a 15 billion year old universe. The difference is between who is ‘holding the clock’. After man was created on day 6, it seems as if man was holding the clock. And that’s why most biblical and archeological dates are the same. But before day 6, who was holding the clock? Now, I am not saying the 5 days prior to day 6 have to be taken as ages. It’s scientifically possible for the actual 5 day event to have taken place in 5 literal 24 hour days, but the fact that God is ‘holding the clock’ can explain the seeming contradiction between 6 thousand and 15 billion years. This is an actual scientific possibility that was made understandable because of Einstein’s break thru theory. I am not saying this explanation is the correct one, but I am trying to show you that we are not as smart as we think we are.
(920) 2ND SAMUEL 4- Ishbosheth hears of Abners death and falls into a state of fear and depression. Even though Ishbosheth was the king, Abner was the power behind the scenes. He is lying on his bed at noonday [a bad thing to do! Start your day early and don’t sleep until the evening, this would eliminate most of the sleeping and anti anxiety pills that are prescribed today]. Two of Ishbosheths men come in and kill him while lying down on the job. They cut off his head and bring it to David. They assumed David would rejoice over this act of vengeance. After all don’t you feel good when God avenges you? Jesus taught us not to rejoice over our enemy’s downfall. Scripture says God sees it and it displeases him. David was not happy about the news and killed the two guilty messengers. In this chapter we also see Mephibosheth, a son of Jonathan who is lame. The story goes that when he was 5 years old and the news of Saul and Jonathans death came back, that the nurse fled and dropped him and he has been crippled ever since. Some of us have had ‘crippling’ experiences that have permanently sidetracked us. Now Jesus is the master at healing people who can’t walk. In John’s gospel he asks the lame man ‘do you really want to be healed’ and Jesus heals him. Sometimes we allow past experiences to permanently affect our future. Have you ‘been dropped’ by somebody who was supposed to take care of you? Have any of your inner circle betrayed you while ‘lying on your bed at noonday’ [in a position of intimidation and weakness]? I want to exhort you to let Jesus heal you. Jesus told the blind guy to go ‘wash in the pool of Siloam’. Siloam means ‘sent’, you have been destined to be sent on a mission from God. ‘Get out of the city and dwell in the fields, there I will deliver you from the enemy’ [bible!] I think some of us have been waiting for perfect conditions before we act, God says get out of the bed while there’s still time. If not you are in danger of ‘losing your head’ [losing the authority of a leader].
(921) 2ND SAMUEL 5- David consolidates the northern and southern tribes and they find unity thru his reign [in Christ 2 are made one- Ephesians]. Israel says ‘we are part of your bone and flesh’. Wow, what a picture of the New Testament church. Jesus actually uses these exact words when speaking of himself after his resurrection ‘bone and flesh’. David takes the capital city of Jerusalem. He defeats the Jebusites who are mocking his ability. Scripture says ‘David dwelt in the fort and called it the city of David. And he built round about from the surrounding areas and inward’. I have been quoting this for 15 years now. I saw it as a personal word to me when moving to Corpus Christi. The principle is God will give you a home base of operation, and from that base you establish and branch out to the surrounding areas. Sort of an apostolic calling, Paul did this in the book of Acts. David ‘perceived that the Lord had established him for the sake of his people Israel’. David understood that the Lord gave him special favor, not for his own benefit but for Gods people. Other scriptures speak of God telling his people ‘remember the word which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you. The Lord hath given you rest and this land. Your wives and little ones and cattle shall remain in the land that the Lord gave you, but you shall go before your brethren armed, all the mighty men of valor, and help then until the Lord establishes them like he did for you’ [The word to the children of Israel who received the territories before crossing the Jordan]. God establishes leaders [and saints!] so they can branch out and have the security to move forward. All of us live in areas of the world where a mission field is right outside our door. If people simply reorganized their lives around the priorities of Jesus as seen in the gospels, we would have a great impact in society. But instead we are inundated with this political class warfare message that estranges us from the ones Jesus died for. God blessed David with wealth and affluence. He was to use this great influence for ‘the least of these my brethren’.
(922) 2ND SAMUEL 6- David attempts to retrieve the Ark and bring it to the new capital city of Jerusalem. On the way back one of the brothers tries to steady the ark as it was about to fall. They were carrying it on a ‘new cart’ with oxen pulling it. This was not the way the law prescribed carrying it! This was the formula that the Philistines used earlier. So David’s man touches the Ark and is killed. They leave it at another brother’s house for three months and the brother is blessed, David goes and retrieves it. This chapter doesn’t say what changed, but obviously David went back to the law and used the prescribed manner this time around. As he enters Jerusalem with it there is this joyous picture of everyone leaping and dancing and praising the Lord. Sort of like the triumphal entry of Jesus [Gods ‘fleshly’ ark, who had all the fullness of God dwelling in his physical body!] to Jerusalem when the people shouted ‘Hosanna’. David places the ark in a tent/tabernacle that he personally made for it. I wrote earlier how this was an open tent that had no barriers between the ark and Gods people, a contrast between Moses tabernacle where God and the people were separated [law versus grace type thing]. David’s wife mocks him because he took off his royal robes and wore an ephod [priestly garment] and danced and humbled himself before the Lord. David says ‘I will even be more lowly than this’. His wife is barren for the rest of her life as a judgment for mocking David. What ever happened to the ark? Well let me give you some history. The ‘story’ [tradition] says that when the queen of Ethiopia visits Solomon to see his wealth, that eventually he ‘marries’ her and they have kids. The queen goes back to Ethiopia and supposedly takes the ark from Solomon as a gift. The Ethiopian orthodox church claims to have it in the main ‘church’ in Ethiopia. Because of this history all the Ethiopian churches have replicas of the ark in their buildings as well. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is one of rich tradition. They are technically not considered ‘Catholic’ [western] or ‘Orthodox’ [eastern]. They are part of the church who are sometimes referred to as Oriental. This referring to the historic churches [not necessarily Oriental in geography] who never accepted the traditional churches belief in certain expressions of the Trinity and the relationship between Jesus and God. They stuck with the Arian view of Jesus deity and are not considered ‘orthodox’ in this area. As the centuries developed and various barbarians who were raiding the empire were converted, they also believed in a Christianity that would be more aligned with this type of belief. Now, I know Christians do not consider this to be correct doctrine, but I am simply sharing the history with you. I am not siding with their belief! We really have no idea where the ark is today, to be honest it doesn’t matter. We ‘see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the purpose of dying, and he was raised again for us’! [Hebrews]. We have the real McCoy!
(923) 2ND SAMUEL 7- As David’s house is becoming established, he says to himself ‘I live in this great cedar house, and God is dwelling openly in this tent. I know what I will do; I will build a house/building for God also’. Good intent, bad imagery! David tells the plan to Nathan the prophet and Nathan says ‘go, do all that is in your heart’ and everything seems fine. That very night the Lord appears to Nathan in a vision and rebukes the whole scheme ‘Have I ever asked for someone to build me a house? All the years of journeying with my people, don’t you think if I wanted to dwell in some temple that I would have already done it!’. Basically Nathan and David get reproved big time. Why? Up until now God ‘dwelt’ in 2 separate tabernacle/systems. The Mosaic one was a type of law and separation between God and men. You had the classic veil separating God from the people. The ‘holy of holies’ [back room] was a type of mans separation from God because of mans sin. Now, after David retrieved the ark and brought it to Jerusalem. He set it up under an open tent called ‘the tent/tabernacle of David’. From this vantage point you had a beautiful picture of the future Messianic reign under Christ [of whom David is a symbol] where the people would all have open access to God. In essence ‘no more veil’. So even though David’s intentions are good, he is messing up the image. God still confirms his calling on David and his family/dynasty and we see one of those dual messianic prophecies that speak of Solomon and Jesus at the same time. God says he will raise up a permanent throne thru the loins of David and David will have a never ending rule. For this to happen someone obviously needs to be born from the lineage of David who will ‘have the power of an endless life’ [Hebrews]. Gee, I wonder who that could be? God’s intricate plan of salvation that is contained in these Old Testament books, written many years before Christ, couldn’t have been some made up 1st century story. It would have been impossible to have coordinated all the prophetic portions of scripture that tie together in Christ. Even the original writers and readers of Israel’s history could not have seen the unfolding of prophetic events that were to be fulfilled in Christ. We finish the chapter with David praising God and recognizing in humility that God has spoken about his family and purpose for ages to come. David sees that God is calling him to something greater than just being a human king, having a brief political history. God has plans for David even after David’s death! God spoke of David’s ongoing effect thru his seed [kids] that would continue for many generations to come. God wants all of us to live with a kingdom [not human!] legacy in mind. Paul the apostle built a gentile church that has lasted for 2 thousand years, he was a man of humble means. He left behind no edifice or bulky institution. But his ‘seed’ [spiritual kids] have outlasted him for many generations to come.
(924) 2ND SAMUEL 8- As David extends his rule he allows the defeated territories to maintain a level of self governing. The military principle is defeat [demoralize] your enemy, but don’t totally wipe him out. Either put a puppet king over them [Israel’s enemies will do this to her down the road!] or allow the ruling leaders to stay under tribute. Why do this? Some feel our country violated this principle in the present war with Iraq [2008]. The pundits say ‘why did Bush dismantle the Iraqi army, they should have simply allowed them to remain under U.S. rule’. First, the talking heads would have never been satisfied. I could hear Chris Matthews now ‘why in the world did Bush leave the army in place! Doesn’t he know that they were infiltrated with terrorists?’ But David allowed the defeated areas to exist under his rule. He wiped out some of their men, but not all. I think the modern concept of ‘extending Christ’s rule’ thru church planting can learn some lessons here. In the first century ‘church planting’ was the simple process of preaching the gospel to regions of people. Those who believed were baptized and continued in the apostle’s doctrine and the ways of Jesus. The first century ‘church planters’ were not trying to provide buildings and weekly ‘preaching services’ and long term dependence upon the Pastoral ministry. For the most part these new converts were to ‘self maintain’ under the direction of more grounded brothers in the Lord [elders]. This allowed for the ‘conquered territories’ [conquered by the sword of the Spirit, not the sword of man!] to function relatively easily on their own with out a lot of heavy financing and building programs and all sorts of stuff that the modern concept of ‘church planting’ has brought along for the ride. David simply put troops in these conquered cities [Jesus sent them out 2 by 2] and these areas of people understood that they were servants to the king! They paid tribute [I would associate this with the New Testament doctrine of giving as a community, not the Levitical tithe] and the Davidic kingdom [gospel] could spread rapidly in a short period of time. David had men working along side him; priests and scribes and stuff. He did ‘justly’ and ruled with integrity. He exemplified the character of a true leader, but did not back down from his God given authority. God established him as a leader in Israel. The boy did his job!
(925) 2ND SAMUEL 9- David inquires if there are any sons of Jonathan still alive, he wants to keep his oath to Jonathan that he would treat his offspring well when he became the king. Sure enough they find out that Mephibosheth, the crippled son, is still alive. David tells Ziba, former servant in Saul’s house, to become the servant of Mephibosheth. Later on we see Ziba speak badly about Mephibosheth; he will tell David that he was unfaithful to his rule. It’s possible that Ziba resented this new position of servitude that David put on him and his house. We read stories in the New Testament how the mercy Jesus shows to certain groups of people [lame and crippled and poor] will create a dissension among the others. David’s treatment of Mephibosheth is much like Jesus treatment of the down and out. David honors this lame boy, he allows him to sit at the kings table [Jesus in the parables calls people to ‘his dinner banquet’] and he outwardly, publicly associated himself with the sick and disabled. Truly David is fulfilling his role as a type of Christ. The jealousy of Ziba [down the road] reminds me of the story of Haman in the book of Esther. Haman was this wicked brother who hated the Jews. He particularly loathed this brother named Mordecai. This Jew refused to bow down as Haman rode by. Haman was close to the king [non Jew]. So Haman devises this plot to kill all the Jews and ultimately Esther saves the day [thus the name of the book]. But at one point the king asks Haman’s advice ‘what should I do for the man I respect and like so much’? Haman thinks the king is talking about him, so of course he says ‘Well, have him exalted to the highest position next to the king, let all the kings servants bow down and respect him…and on and on’. Haman thinks ‘Now I’ll get that rat Mordecai to bow!’ And the king says ‘sounds like a great idea, now go and make all this happen for Mordecai’. This was not Haman's day. Jesus challenges our hidden agendas. How do we respond when other ministries excel? Do we secretly feel good when we hear about the failure of a ministry that never honored us? Do we root for the church we attend and kind of have an attitude of ‘we are doing better than the other guys’. All these attitudes violate the family mindset of the Body of Christ. When David, or Jesus or any other king show special favor to another subject, our ‘eye shouldn’t be evil because the king did what was his right to do with what was his’. David honored his former vow to his best friend Jonathan, he kept his word.
(926) 2ND SAMUEL 10- The king of Ammon dies and David sends messengers to show due respect. The son, who is now the new king, receives David’s men. But the princes of the land say ‘what in the heck were you thinking? Surely David has sent these men to spy on us’. Why would the princes say this? Possibly because the king treated David well when he was alive. He sent David materials and workers to help. Sometimes people resent it when they feel others are getting the favor that they really deserve. They poisoned the mind of the new king. Now he takes David’s men and shaves half of their beards off and cuts their robes in half. An act of public humiliation. David hears about it and the fight is on. Ammon requests help from Syria and Syria says ‘sure, why not?’. I’ll tell you why not, because the scripture says don’t get involved with fights and issues that don’t concern you, that’s why! Well David confronts the armies and wins. Syria winds up surrendering and making a treaty with Israel. What happened here? Once again we see the poor decision making of a younger king. He took the advice of the other princes who were speaking out of wrong motives and intentions. Solomon’s future son will do the same and it will lead to another division in Israel. Paul instructs Timothy [or Titus?] to not allow a novice to be an elder. Does this mean young men can’t be spiritual leaders? Not necessarily. Timothy was fairly young at the time of getting this instruction. But new believers [leaders] have a tendency to grasp doctrine and ideas that might not be totally wrong, but they have a tendency to emphasize them in a distorted way. How many times have I heard teaching on the ‘importance of money’, or some other single issue. The preacher will often defend his distortion by saying ‘look how many times this subject is mentioned in scripture’ not realizing that this in itself does not justify the wrong emphasis. For instance many of the times this subject is mentioned it is in the context of warning believers to not become side tracked with seeking wealth! I could start a doctrine on the importance of ‘water’ or ‘bread’. Look how often water is mentioned! We have it in Genesis and Revelation. Jesus speaks of the waters of life. And I could go on and on. But the fact that this subject is found in so many various ways, doesn't mean we should exalt it into an idol. So young [new] believers do have a tendency to lift things out of proportion at times. The new king acted foolishly and the Syrians came along for the ride. Wisdom would have said ‘let the king of Ammon do what he thinks he should, we will sit this one out’.
(927) 2ND SAMUEL 11- David sends Joab and his men out to war. He stays home and takes a walk on his roof and spots Bathsheba. He sends a servant to contact her and he sleeps with her. He finds out she’s pregnant and the gears in his mind start moving. He calls her noble husband, Uriah, from the front lines of battle and pretends he just called him to inquire about the battle. He sends him home, hoping he will sleep with his wife, and then David will be off the hook. Sure enough Uriah is so noble that he refuses to sleep in his house when his men are in the battle. So David gives it a second shot and gets the brother drunk. He sends him home again and Uriah refuses to sleep with Bathsheba. So David calls for Joab, the lead commander of his army, and says ‘put Uriah in the front lines and draw back and let him die’. Something interesting happens. Joab carries out the plan but also allows some of David’s other men to die. Then he sends a messenger to tell David ‘we were at the front lines, close to a wall, and some of our guys were killed’. Joab tells the messenger ‘if David gets mad and says “what were you thinking by getting close to the wall? This is a basic mistake that should have never been made!”’ Joab says if David asks this, then say ‘Uriah is dead too’. It’s possible that Joab stuck it to David here for making him partake in his personal problems. Military men do not like carrying out personal political vendettas. Either way the messenger goes and tells David and David feels he covered up his sin. Of course we will soon find out the cover up didn’t work. Bathsheba does move in with David and they make plans for the coming baby. A few things; David was a great man, he followed God as a man ‘after Gods own heart’. David was also human. Hebrews says ‘every high priest taken from among men must make sacrifice for his own sin as well as the peoples’. I don’t want to excuse sin, but I want you to see that all of us have ‘feet of clay’. Modern ministry has a system where we present the best image of leadership to people. We feel this is part of the role of leaders. The scriptures show you ‘the good, the bad, and the ugly’. We just saw the ugly.
(928) 2ND SAMUEL 12- Nathan confronts David over his sin. He gives a parable about 2 men in a town, one owned lots of flocks and sheep, the other owned one precious lamb. The man with all the sheep had a visitor come to him in need. So instead of sacrificing his own sheep, he went and took the precious ‘only lamb’ from his neighbor. David is incensed over this injustice, he declares ‘This man will pay back what he did and also die for this sin’! Nathan says ‘you are the man’. David realizes he did this very thing with Bathsheba and Uriah. Notice how we have a tendency to be enraged over the sin and faults of others, but we make room for ourselves when we are guilty of the same things. Jesus confronted the religious hypocrisy of his day when he showed the Pharisees that they were guilty of lust and anger and jealousy, the same root causes of murder and adultery. They wanted strict judgment on others who were guilty of the same sins that they were guilty of. Also the fact that the man with one little lamb lost his favorite, this speaks of the great sacrifice of giving up the ‘only begotten Son of God’. Jesus sacrifice was great because the father gave his only Son. Now David receives the reproof from the prophet and Gods judgment is pronounced ‘the sword will never leave your house. From within your own family treachery shall arise. Your wives will be taken from you and publicly disgraced. The son from Bathsheba will die’. Very strict judgment indeed, yet the Lord says ‘nevertheless, I will spare your life’. This was something David did not leave room for in his earlier judgment on the sheep stealer! David mourns and fasts for the child’s life, but the child dies. David has another son with Bathsheba and his name is Solomon. One of the greatest/wisest kings Israel will ever have. A few things; in David’s earlier scenario he said the ‘sheep stealer’ should pay restitution. He wanted the man to right the wrong. In David’s case he killed the very man whom restitution should have been made to! In essence his sin was so severe that it actually cut off part of his future reconciliation. Unforgiveness towards others falls into this same category. God requires us to forgive those who have wronged us. We often do every thing else under the sun to get back on track, but we ‘eliminate’ the very person that stands in the way of total reconciliation! That person is often times the offender. Also at the end of the chapter David is told by Joab that he is on the verge of taking a city and David should come and finish the job so Joab won’t get the credit. David musters his forces and finishes the job. One of the hardest things to do in ministry/service is to regroup and move forward again. David had some very serious issues he had to deal with. The situation with Bathsheba was not going away. He couldn’t completely resolve this issue. But he still needed to function and carry out his responsibilities. Faithfulness means sticking it out even thru your own personal failures. Completing the task to the best of your ability. At one point they asked David ‘why were you grieving and fasting while the boy was still alive, and after he died you ate and functioned again’? David said ‘who knows, when the boy was alive there was a possibility that God would change his mind and let the boy live. After he died there was nothing else I could do’. Most of us would have been angry at God. David didn’t have all the answers, he knew Nathan was an accurate prophet. The things Nathan said were from the Lord. But David also was ‘from the Lord’. He too had a relationship with God. He depended on this relationship to guide him thru stuff. Maybe God would do something? David did not have all the answers. And when God didn’t do what he wanted, he didn’t take it personal. He moved forward the best he could. God showed tremendous mercy in allowing this sinful situation to produce a future king. Solomon was born from this turmoil and he was a great man of God. Look to the lord to bring forth wisdom from the failures in your life. The ‘first son’ might not have survived, but the second son just might be a prodigy.
(929) 2ND SAMUEL 13- In this chapter David begins reaping the judgment on his household. Amnon, David’s son, falls for Tamar. Tamar is the sister of Absalom, another son of David. David had kids from various wives, so you had sons and sisters who were not from the same mother. Amnon devises a scheme and sleeps with Tamar. Then he rejects her. Absalom is incensed over this. David hears about it but doesn’t deal with the problem. Two years go by and Absalom gets even. He tricks Amnon and his other brothers to come to his territory. Then he kills Amnon. Word gets back to David ‘all your sons have been slain by Amnon’. David thinks ‘surely, this is my punishment’. He mourns and is shaken to the core. Now, the report was false. It really wasn’t as bad as David thought. Leaders, don’t always believe the initial report. The first intuition might be wrong. It’s difficult for leaders to recognize that something needs to happen, and then to wait on the Lord for clear directives. Leaders often want action, so they will respond and act based on the initial report. It’s better to sleep on it for a few days. David finds out that all the sons are not dead, just Amnon. Absalom flees to another king and is gone for a few years. David is distraught over the loss of one son and the reality that the other son is estranged from him. Could David have prevented this whole scenario? Maybe not, we do know the Lord said a sword would be in his family. A division and fighting would arise from within. But David also failed in that when he heard of the situation he never dealt with it. Sort of like Samuel and Eli. Eli let his boys run wild and they ruined Gods house. Though the Lord ‘promised’ David would reap what he sowed earlier on, yet the reaping was not as severe as he initially thought. Absalom could have very well killed all the brothers, but the Lord only allowed a limited judgment. Sometimes we mess up and make wrong choices, remember; God is for us. He is on our side. All chastening and discipline are for our ultimate benefit. What good what it have done for David to have been totally wiped out? God was disciplining David and his family, but God was still on David’s side.
(930) 2nd SAMUEL 14- David is broken over the estrangement of his son. Joab realizes that the kingdom can’t function to its full potential under this strain. But he knows he can’t confront David himself. Why? Maybe it’s because of the nature of leaders. It’s a very rare thing for one leader to confront another leader over an issue. The natural response is to look for ways to justify ourselves. So instead Joab finds a ‘wise woman’ and gets her to put on this act for the king. She tells him this sob story about one of her sons killing the other one. She is a widow and is left with only one son, but all the other relatives want justice! They can’t forgive the only heir. Well David falls for this scenario again! He did this with Nathan and Bathsheba. So he tells the woman ‘God forbid that someone takes vengeance on the only son. Over my dead body…. on and on’. Now the woman says ‘can I say one last thing’? Knowing David’s history of getting trumped at the end of these things, I would have said ‘no maam, you’ve said enough already’. But David says ‘go ahead’. She tells him ‘you’re the man!’ [Ouch! I wonder if this woman was the wife of Nathan?:-)] So David realizes he’s been duped again. The woman says ‘O, you are so wise and smart and….’ Gee, for someone who is so swift, he sure falls for these stories a lot. David sends Joab to get Absalom and Absalom returns to Jerusalem but the king avoids him for 2 years. Finally he sees his son. All is not well, Absalom resents the fact that his father called him home but never really made things right. Joab is glad that David gave it a shot. And the nameless wise woman gives us a quote worth remembering ‘For we must needs die, and are as water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means [the Cross], that his banished [humanity] be not expelled from him [reconciliation]’. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
(931) 2ND SAMUEL 15- Absalom sits daily at the city gate and when the people come to the king, Absalom ‘steels their hearts’. He says ‘o, if I were the king I could do such a good job. I am better than the one God appointed’. Avoid trying to gain peoples acceptance by comparing yourself with others. God might use you to be an example in some way, but this is a matter of grace. Paul said he excelled more than the other apostles who were ‘in Christ’ before him, but nevertheless it was Gods grace that caused this to happen. Absalom slowly wins the hearts of the people and stages a takeover. Some men go willingly, others followed ‘out of simplicity’. They were led astray like sheep. Remember, when dealing with followers of groups who have ‘rebelled’ [classic cults] some have been raised innocently with their beliefs. Try and honestly talk to them and treat them courteously. God can give you an open door with them if you see them as people who have value and worth. We see David as a type of Christ in this chapter. He is forsaken by the city of Jerusalem and loses his following. He even ascends the Mount of Olives while weeping! He says ‘If God chooses to forsake me, so be it. But if he brings me back again [resurrection!] and allows me to see the Ark in Jerusalem, then let his will be done’. Jesus said ‘not my will, but thine be done’. The Father, who forsook his Son, did delight in him and ‘brought him back again’ to see ‘the Ark in the city of Jerusalem’. Jesus saw the tabernacle of God [Gods people, the dwelling of God] in ‘the city of God’ [the church is called the city of God that comes down from God out of heaven] and he was restored to his former place of exaltation at the fathers right-hand. David is reaping some stuff here. He makes some plans for a future return to leadership, but recognizes when it’s time to retreat. Now, I realize that God wants us to move forward and ‘take the kingdom by force’. But Jesus also gave us a principle; he said ‘when one king is facing another king. He sends out messengers to check out the opponent. If word comes back that you are really out of your league in this battle, then try and come to terms of peace if possible’. In essence there are times where taking a step back and re-evaluating is a wise thing. David plants a few spies in Jerusalem who will report back to him every now and then. David also finds out who his true friends are. Some follow him instead of Absalom, even though Absalom is the ‘hot ticket item’ at the time. These brothers who stick with you till the end are true friends, but they aren’t always the most encouraging. Thomas [one of Jesus disciples] says at one point ‘Lets go, we might as well follow him all the way to our deaths’. Thanks for the willingness to follow Thomas, but you think you could change the attitude a little! So David is doing the best with what he has, Gods people are surviving, but they are being used as pawns on Absalom’s chess board. Absalom looked good at the start, but he will not finish well.
(932) 2ND SAMUEL 16- As David flees Jerusalem, Ziba, the servant that was under Mephibosheth joins with him. David asks ‘what are you doing here? You should be home with your master’. Ziba says ‘as soon as Mephibosheth heard about the take over, he said “I will stay in Israel and become the new king, God will restore to me Saul’s throne”’. Now David believes it and says ‘I now put you in charge of all the household of your former master, it belongs to you’. Later on Mephibosheth will deny all of this. Its possible Ziba made this up for his own benefit. Leaders, be careful of advice from people with a personal agenda. They often make themselves look better than others. Now as David flees another enemy comes out and curses and throws stones at him along the way. This guy says ‘look at you now, you rebelled against the old king [Saul] and now you are receiving the just reward’. Now David responds with a Christ like attitude and says ‘let the guy curse me, I will not retaliate. Maybe God will look on this persecution and reward me’. One of David’s men wanted to ‘take his head off’. Gee, David has all types in his leadership circle! Did this guy who was cursing David misread the whole situation? Yes, but don’t forget we are reading this story from the real perspective, some people living at the time of David and Saul saw this new king [David] as a threat to the old ways. It’s only a few days after the 2008 presidential election. Barack Obama won. Though there were many reasons for and against him, now that he won we ALL need to pray for him. But some of the supporters of McCain sincerely saw this ‘new kind of person’ as a rebellious threat to the ‘old order’. Sincere people who saw things from a different angle. So David’s accuser sees the story from a wrong lens. David was being judged by God, but not because he toppled the old order of King Saul. Back at Jerusalem Absalom listens to the advice of Ahithophel and sleeps with his fathers concubines. The advice was that when all Israel heard about it, they would realize that this rebellion was a real rebellion and the people would unite under his illegal rule. Scripture says Ahithophels counsel was like ‘hearing from God’ in those days. Leaders, be open to the counsel that is coming forth from particular streams at certain times. It is not only important for believers to ‘learn the bible’, but also to be able to discern the signs of the times. Specific things God is saying and doing in our day. If you were living in the 16th century the issue of the reformation was vital for every one who was a believer. Whether you were Catholic or Protestant, you needed to be up on the issues. Erasmus, the great Catholic scholar and humanist [not ‘secular humanist’] wrote insightful criticisms against his own church, yet remained within her fold. So matter what Christian tradition you align yourself with, you need to be aware of the seasons and purposes of God for your generation. In Absalom’s day, Ahithophel was the go to man.
(933) HAS MODERN SCIENCE PROVEN THE EXISTENCE OF GOD? Does the long age theory of the earth and universe disprove God? After the enlightenment era and the general scientific/industrial revolution, many people were taught that science held to ‘real truth’ while scripture dealt with ‘myth’. Myth in this context did not mean ‘fake’ but simple stories that conveyed spiritual meaning. In the field of theology you had what was called higher criticism. Well intended theologians tried to come up with liberal ideas that could join science and theology together in a compatible way that would suit the modern man. Many people grasped a naturalistic explanation to the universe and world and life on our planet. After Darwin advanced his theory of Macro- Evolution, science began a long haul survey of the data and came up short. After 150 years of honestly searching for the proof of Evolution, the sincere scientists [many of whom are Atheists] have seen the writing on the wall. What they were told to look for is not there! The data show that even if you were to follow the old age theory of the earth and universe [15 billion for the universe, 5 billion for earth- approximately] this in no way would leave enough time for the random development of life on our planet. Even the old age model doesn’t work. The evidence for the old earth perspective shows that life appeared on our planet around 3.5 billion years ago. Even if you believe in the spontaneous generation of the living cell [which is actually very difficult to believe in!] the short time period between the earth’s age and the first appearance of life [according to the science itself] is in no way enough time for the random development of life to have occurred. In actuality the 15 billion year old date of the universe would still not be enough time, according to the scientific statistical odds, for life to have spontaneously developed by mere chance. The problem is the average public school taught citizen does not know this! He thinks that science has somehow proven that all life and existence has come about by naturalistic means. Science has PROVEN this to be impossible! Even unbelieving science. In 1980 you had the famous conference on macro evolution held in Chicago, the famous paleontologist from the Museum of natural history in New York, Niles Eldridge, said ‘the pattern that we were told to find for the last 120 years does not exist’ [New York Times- Nov. 4, 1980]. He was stating the obvious findings of the scientific community, that Darwin’s ideas, no matter how noble and ‘enlightening’ they seemed to be, were completely shown to be false. Some from the scientific community were willing to accept this truth and begin a new journey for a different explanation of life. Some espoused that life could have started some where else, and wound up on our planet by chance [or design!]. This explanation seemed to give a little room for the impossibility of random chance to have brought about life in the short timetable and constraints of earth. Simply put, this idea acknowledged that life could in no way have developed on its own; therefore some other set of circumstances that might exist in some other place [extra-terrestrial] might have done this. Of course this idea is getting very close to the biblical world view of life having started with a creator. In essence the ‘extra terrestrial’ is actually God! The whole point is the ‘average Joe’ simply believes that science has answered all the questions of the origins of life, but the scientific community knows otherwise.
(934) 2ND SAMUEL 17- Absalom is strengthening his position as the new king. Ahithophel, his chief counselor, advises to strike while the irons hot. He tells Absalom ‘let me gather a 12 thousand man army and quickly pursue David. I will come upon him and his men while they are tired and fearful, then I will kill David only and bring the people back to you’. Now, this advice was the best, but Absalom asks for the advice of Hushai also. He was the secret spy that was really on David’s side. He advises Absalom to wait and gather all the people and mount a broad attack. God put it in the heart of Absalom to believe the bad advice [bad for Absalom, good for David!]. So Ahithophel sees that his counsel is rejected, he goes and hangs himself! Once again we see the ‘sword of David’s enemies enter into their own heart’. Remember what we said earlier about this? So Hushai sends word to David about the plan and David responds accordingly. Leaders, understand the strategy of our mortal enemy [satan]. He wants to target you when you and your people are weary and tired. He wants to take you down more than any other thing. The bible teaches ‘smite the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered’. Now this is a Messianic prophecy with a lot of meaning, but one of the points is the lead ‘point man’ is usually the main target of the opposing side. How can we mitigate this factor? Practice plural leadership as much as possible. The new testament churches were not ‘run by a Pastor’ in the way we do it today. So adjust your leadership paradigm and bring it more into alignment with scripture. Also, spread ‘the wealth around’ [a recent key issue with the newly elected president, Barack Obama]. If you can get the wisdom and truth that God has communicated to you into the hands of many others, then you have accomplished a lot. Paul told Timothy ‘the things that you have learned and been assured of, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also’. This is true apostolic ministry. David will survive this rebellion against his kingdom, but if Absalom listened to the best counsel David would have been finished for sure.
(935) 2ND SAMUEL 18- David and his men regroup and mount a counter attack against Absalom. They divide into 3 groups and go for it. David tells his men ‘take it easy on Absalom’. Why? Understand that David is seeing the prophetic judgment upon his family that was a result of his own sin. I wonder how many times David saw the fulfillment of this former word [the sword will never depart from your house] thru the seeming insignificant acts of Absalom along the way. David felt guilt over this whole rebellion mounted by his son. Now the battle rages and David and his men kill around 20 thousand troops of Absalom. Word gets back to Joab that Absalom got his hair caught in some tree and is hanging in the tree. Joab says ‘why didn’t you kill him!’ the messenger says ‘God forbid that I should kill the king’s son! I heard the strict orders from the king for no one to take his life’. My King James Version says Joab responded with ‘I may not tarry thus with thee’ in today’s terms ‘I can’t waste time listening to your reasoning’. Joab goes and kills the king’s son. When I read thru this chapter earlier this morning I saw 2 possible things here. First, Joab and his history with David are one of Joab being a ‘bloody man’. He killed Abner against the king’s wishes, and now Absalom. Why in the world did David not remove Joab from this position earlier? One reason, Joab knew how to war. The boy was capable; he knew how to get the job done. In ministry [or business] loyalty is important; people need to be able to carry out the decisions of leadership. But loyalty in and of itself doesn’t cut it, you need skills and abilities as well. You say ‘that’s not fair’ well if you don’t have the skills go get them for heavens sake! Proverbs says knowledge is in the street corners calling out to the simple and saying ‘come, receive of my learning’. The resources are there, laziness prevents people from accessing them effectively. Now Joab also acted responsibly to some degree. He realized that Absalom would be a permanent threat to David’s rule, he killed him and saved many. Right after his death Joab blows the trumpet and the battle is called off. 2 Messengers run to bring the word to David. Ephesians says ‘blessed are the feet of those who bring the gospel’ Gospel simply means ‘good news’. In the New Testament this good news was the reality of Jesus death, burial and resurrection [1st Corinthians 15] but in the Old Testament it was simply the news from ‘the runner’. You could tell from the way the runner was running whether the news was good or bad. How? Say if your wife took a lotto ticket that said ‘you one a million dollars’ and said ‘I am going to ask the store clerk if it’s real’. As you are waiting in the parking lot you see her coming out of the store. Do you think you would be able to tell if the news was good or bad by watching the way she approaches the car? So this was what the king looked for as the messengers came running. If they bore good news their feet had this special pep to them. News gets back to David and he is broken over the death of his son ‘O Absalom, my son Absalom. Would God I had died in your place’ I always stop and meditate this verse every time I read it thru my yearly reading thru the bible. This contains the heart of the Father in redemption. A few more things; in this chapter it said that Absalom raised up a monument/pillar after ‘his own name’. Because he didn’t have any sons to carry on his legacy, he left ‘a thing’ that would honor his name after he died. Absalom didn’t simply have a rebellion issue against his father, he really wanted to build for himself a legacy. His motivations were self serving. Jesus warns the leaders of his movement not to approach ‘church and ministry’ with the same ‘gentile’ [worldly] concepts of leadership. The world often succeeds thru the motivation of greed and lust and power. It’s very easy to fall into the Absalom mindset and take it out on Gods people when the ‘pillar’ [the thing of ministry] doesn’t ‘go up right’. Many well meaning sincere men have been side tracked into seeking fame and acceptance by seeing ministry thru the lens of ‘I want to leave some institution that will bear witness to my name after I am gone’. Ministry, according to Jesus, does not operate along these lines. In Absalom’s obsession to become famous in the eyes of men, he went down a path that did leave a memorial to his name for generations to come. We just read it.
(936) 2ND SAMUEL 19- David sends word to the elders of Judah ‘why are you guys so late in receiving me back to Jerusalem as your king? I am your own kin for heavens sake!’ After the death of the rogue king Absalom, Israel came to her senses and began saying ‘you know, when David was our king things weren’t all that bad, now that Absalom is dead, what are we waiting for, lets call David back’. So David sends word back that he is reuniting with the people again. He also makes some strategic moves; he tells Amasa ‘when I get back, you get Joab’s job’ Ouch! David finally dealt with the talented, yet self willed commander of his men. On the way back one of the first guys that greets him is the same brother that cursed him and threw stones at him earlier. David lived to see the day of Gods vindication. The brother repents and David forgives him. Also the son of Jonathan, Mephibosheth, greets David with great joy. The first thing David says is ‘why didn’t you leave with me at the beginning?’ The earlier slander of Ziba stuck in David’s mind. Mephibosheth swares that Ziba tricked him. David forgives him and says ‘enough! You split the inheritance with Ziba’. Mephibosheth replies ‘Let him keep it, I don’t need the material wealth. I am just glad to be with you again’. The church does not see the reality of this test contained in scripture. There are times where ‘David’ does offer opportunities of self advancement that are simply a test to see what our motives are. In this case David rightfully gave material stuff to Mephibosheth, it was the maturity and character of Mephibosheth to say ‘thanks, but no thanks’. The scripture contains many examples of Christ followers forsaking things for his cause. Just because the bible ‘offers opportunities for wealth’ does not mean Gods best is for you to ‘go for the wealth’. Now that David’s back in Jerusalem, the divided tribes [Israel-10 tribes, and Judah] have a squabble. Israel says ‘Judah, who do you think you are in being the first ones to escort the king back, he is our king too’! And Judah replies ‘yeah, but he is our blood kin, David is from our tribe. We hold a ‘special’ relationship with him because of natural heritage’. It’s funny, these guys were on Absalom’s side a few days ago, now they are fighting over him! I kinda see Jesus and natural Israel in this story. The nation of Israel became offended over the fact that they were ‘blood heirs’ of the Jewish Messiah. They held to this ethnic pride that would be destroyed thru the Cross. It offended the natural mind to see this ethnic figure [in the historic mind of Judaism] to be accepted by ‘all the tribes’. They wanted him solely for their own purposes. So here we see Judah and Israel fighting over David, he will unite them both under his rule [Ephesians ‘the 2 are made one, Jew and Gentile, and God hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us] and Jerusalem will once again be called ‘the city of the great king’ [we are the ‘city that comes down from God out of heaven’ the bride, the Lambs wife!]
(937) 2ND SAMUEL 20- Now David comes up against another short rebellion. Sheba, a Benjamite, blows the trumpet and says ‘what part have we in David, every man for himself’. Sheba draws Israel away from her king and Judah remains loyal. David quickly tells his new commander, Amasa, ‘go and gather Judah together and meet me in 3 days’. He takes longer than 3 days and David says ‘surely this Sheba is going to be trouble’ and he sends Joab out too. What’s going on here? First, David removed Joab from the commander position and replaced him with Amasa. For whatever reason Amasa is taking longer to gather Judah, David is reading into it thru the paranoia of Sheba’s rebellion. Was Amasa turning against him too? David then turns to his former commander Joab and seems to be using him as the back up ‘go to man’. Leaders, if you changed the staff for a reason, don’t keep going to the former guy for advice. It only creates tension with the new team. If you think the new guy isn’t working well, then give him a little time and if you have to then go and make the change. But don’t simply give him a title and then undercut his job. Now Joab goes out after Sheba and finds Amasa and kills him. He then chases down Sheba into a city of Israel. Joab comes against the city and a wise woman says ‘why are you trying to destroy us, we are a special town in Israel’? Joab says ‘we just want Sheba’. Sure enough the woman says ‘wait a little bit’ and next thing you know Sheba’s head comes over the wall. You don’t want to mess with these Israeli women! So Joab gets his job back, thru violent means. David puts down this short rebellion. And he has to regroup big time. Leadership means being able to function in the midst of turmoil and inner strife and infighting. That’s part of the cost. There is a verse that says ‘rule thou in the midst of your enemies’. God doesn't tell us ‘I will remove all the problems so you can rule’. He tells us ‘lead right thru all the stuff’!
(938) 2ND SAMUEL 21- After David gains back his kingdom, there is a 3 year famine in the land. David seeks the Lord about it. God tells him it is a result of the violence that Saul committed against the innocent blood of the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites were the people who tricked Joshua [Joshua 9] into staying in the Promised Land. After Joshua gave his word, they later found out that they were tricked. Well Saul obviously went back on this promise of protection and came against them. When ever there is a nation wide judgment, we need to see what the possible causes might be. We just elected a new president of the U.S. [11-08]. While there are obviously great historic realities to our new president being the first Black man to attain this honor, yet we also need to seek God over the way we treat the ‘innocent blood’ in our land. Barack Obama has already floated the idea that he will overturn the executive decision of President Bush on our foreign aid being used for abortions in other countries. To be honest it surprised me that he even floated this idea so soon. This is a direct contradiction to the statement he made at the forum at Rick Warrens church earlier in the year. He said he would work to reduce abortion and that the goal of reducing them would be part of his governing philosophy. He simply mislead us on this issue. Also the Gibeonites were ‘illegal aliens’ in the sense that they were the only people group allowed to remain in the Promised Land along with Israel. Our country has had open borders for many years. True, we do have procedures to go by if you want to come to our country. But we have previously promised ‘protection and safety’ to those who wanted to come. Much like the Gibeonites we began to resent the aliens in our midst. We now treat them with less respect and honor than was originally promised. We told the tired masses at one time ‘to come’ but now we want to build fences to keep them out. On both of these issues our country needs to seek God, we are just beginning a few years of very bad national economic times. For those who think this president [or any other!] has the ability to turn this economic disaster around, you are only kidding yourself. The next 4 years will not be good. We need to pray for our president and honor him, but in reality our economy is very bad. Also in this chapter we see David and his men fight the sons of Goliath, the giant who David defeated earlier in his life. Old enemies are resurfacing. David is in a battle with one of them and is almost killed. To the rescue comes Abishai, the brother of Joab. These were the brothers who gave David ‘hell’ all thru out his reign. Self willed, violent. This time David was grateful for the violent ability of these brothers. Sometimes we have to put up with people in our cities, areas. We might not always agree with their style. But when things get rough, we can count on them to get the job done. David and his men wipe out the rest of the giants sons and they tell David ‘you can’t war with us any more, it’s too dangerous’. David recognizes it’s time for a personal transition, he likes being in the battle front, but he is risking too much to think that time has not affected his ability. God leads us thru various stages of growth and development thru out our lives, the bible says ‘there is a time and season for everything’. We need to be able to follow the course as God directs. David was a true warrior, he did not want to adjust his procedure. Wisdom allows us to do what’s best for the overall community and not to please ourselves.
(939) 2ND SAMUEL 22- David exalts the Lord and mentions many themes that are found thru out scripture. He also says ‘the Lord has rewarded me according to the cleanness of my hands… he has recompensed me according to my righteousness’. Though David is renown for his sin with Bathsheba and the killing of her husband, yet we must see that David’s repentance was real. Ultimately David turned from his sin and God did bless him. We don’t want people to get the impression that repentance did not matter, in David’s case it made all the difference in the world. David also says ‘the Lord is merciful to those who are merciful…and hard with those who are hard’ Jesus says this in Matthew 5. David says ‘God took me and placed me in a large place’. One of the most frustrating things is to be operating from the wrong paradigm. Too often we leave the impression with young Pastors that their ‘job’ is to preach to 30 people a week for 30 years, marry them, bury them, perform the job of the ‘hired clergyman’ and this is what it means to be faithful. While I recognize that many well meaning men are functioning out of this mind set, yet God puts in people [all of his people, not just ‘full time ministers’!] a ‘large place’ to function out of. Now, when I say ‘large place’ don’t think building, think ‘the area, groups of people that I will influence thru out my life’. Scripture says God took David from ‘following the sheep’ [small pastoral mindset] to being king over the nation. God simply gave David great influence and stature for the sake of his people. Jesus said ‘you have been faithful over a little, I will now give you authority over 10 cities’. Are you frustrated because you are supposed to be ‘over 10 cities’ and are still dealing with ‘the little’? Be faithful to the day of small things right now, promotion comes from God alone. ‘You have made me the head of the heathen…strangers shall serve me. As soon as they hear me they will submit’. These are Messianic themes found elsewhere in scripture ‘ask of me and I will give you the heathen for your inheritance, the ends of the earth for your possession’. Jesus became the ‘head of the heathen’ he is Lord over the gentile nations, John calls this ‘the other flock’ in his gospel. God gave both David and Jesus authority for the benefit of people. What kind of people? The lost, down and out. Those who society rejected. God gives us authority for the ‘sake of the heathen’. Don’t see your ‘ministry’ as a gift to the ‘upper class’ only, spend some time ‘with the heathen’.
(940) 2ND SAMUEL 23- David recounts his life and the mighty men who were with him thru the ups and downs. He says ‘God raised me up on high, the anointed of God. He spake his words thru me’ Jesus was raised up ‘on high’ he was/is Gods anointed one [Messiah] and he spoke only the words that the Father gave him. Now David has some valiant men to mention. Some fought the enemy against all odds. One was in a lentil field and the rest of the people fled. This brother stood his ground and won! This characteristic is important for leaders; there are times where you must stand, even if the rest of your people are afraid! If you start running, then forget it, there isn’t a ‘snowball’s chance in Hades’ that the job will get finished. Also David was in the cave Adullam, and he longed for the water at Bethlehem. His 3 mighty men heard him and they secretly snuck out and broke thru the Philistines front line and got the water for David! A valiant deed. Then they bring it to David and he pours it on the ground! He says ‘God forbid that I should drink the water that you risked your lives for’. I don’t know about you guys, but if I were one of the mighty men, my next valiant act would be ‘watch me make the king drink water off the ground’. One of the brothers killed a lion in the snow. I grew up in New Jersey, when it’s freezing out its hard to carry out tasks. You really don’t want to fight battles and ‘slay lions’ in difficult environments. The mighty men were able to function well, even in harsh conditions. The rest of the chapter is simply the naming of all the others. A few things; God raises up leaders and ‘kings’ at various times in history [Luther, Calvin, Graham, etc.] these men make their mark on history with the help of many other valiant men. In David’s case one of the men saved him from sure death in an earlier fight with the giant’s sons. The point is we are not in this thing to make a name for ourselves or to think ‘I could do a better job than David’ [Absalom] and go and start our own ‘kingdom’. God places key people in key places at certain points in time. It is vital for all the ‘actors’ [those who act/function!] to be courageous, take risks as God ordains, and fulfill the mission to the best of your ability. There are times where leaders WILL HAVE TO LEAD! That means you sought God, you heard what he said, and you followed thru on it. Many sincere men try all sorts of ‘new ideas’ in an attempt to get something off the ground. A year goes by and they have a new idea their working on. What happened? Ultimately you have to lead. You have to follow thru on the directives that God gave you. The problem isn’t with the plan [most of the times] but it’s with the faithfulness to follow thru with the mission. David’s men had the character to stick things out when others fled. Sure, those who flee will be back to check things out every now and then. Don’t despise them, but you know who can be trusted with the next mission. These are the noble warriors who acted valiantly in the face of great odds. These are the ‘go to men’ if you will.
(941) 2ND SAMUEL 24- David numbers the people. Joab and his men tell David not to do it. Why? Well to be honest we really don’t know for sure, but let me give you my spin on it. The nation of Israel were very religious and sticklers for specific things. You see this development years later with the religious Pharisees, a tendency to focus in on specific instructions and these ideas becoming obsessive in their minds. All Israel knew the original promise that God made to Abraham. God told him that his ‘seed would be like the stars for multitude and the sand by the shore’ [Genesis 15] included in this famous promise were the words ‘go, see if you can count them’? It was understood that God was saying to Abraham ‘go, if you want to test me, try and count them’ [the stars]. It’s possible that the counting of the people was considered a taboo for this reason. Now David does count them and his ‘seer/prophet’ Gad tells him ‘you messed up, you have 3 choices of judgment that will come on you’. David picks the 3 day judgment under Gods hand and 70,000 Israelites die. The census David took showed that Israel had 800 thousand people, Judah 500 thousand [1.3 million total] without counting the women and children! So you can multiply this number by at least 3 to figure the actual size of the nation. God stops the judgment short and David builds an altar at the place where he saw the destroying angel. David also pleads with the Lord ‘why kill the people, let the judgment be on me and my family instead’. David shows the heart of Moses here. Also David had a ‘seer/prophet’ that was part of his ‘ministry team’. In the prophetic churches it is common to have real prophetic people [not flakes!] who are stable in the word, and also give good advice to the leadership. There are real life prophets/seers who function in the church and can play a key role in the future of the church. We end Samuel with David overseeing a large kingdom. The people were the prophetic fulfillment of Gods purpose in the earth at that time. The letter of Peter says we are Gods holy nation today. The Father promised the Son that he would give him ‘the heathen for his inheritance and the ends of the earth for his possession’. Just like David, the anointed king/priest of Israel, Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father and sees the great multitude of people on the earth [and in heaven] that are the fulfillment of the promise of God to him. We are living proof of the faithfulness of God to his Son.
(942) 1st CORINTHIANS INTRODUCTION- Out of all of Paul’s letters, this one is ‘the most verified’ as being his. Of course we know this because Paul says so in the letter! But for all those intellectual higher critics, this helps. Corinth was a city of great influence and trade, many land and sea routes converged at Corinth and her port. The city was also known for her philosophers and ‘preachers of wisdom’ [Rhetoric]. They actually had a custom at Corinth in which you could ‘hire’ your own ‘preacher of wisdom’. These were the traveling teachers who made a living at speaking. This also might be why Paul specifically said ‘when I was with you I did not take money from you’. The custom of the traveling preachers was you could pay a one time honorarium for a single speech, or you could actually hire a regular speaker and have him ‘on salary’. Paul did not want the Corinthians to think that he was their hired preacher! How much influence this type of trade would have on the later development of the ‘hired clergy’ is unknown, but the similarities are striking. The famous 5th century bishop of Hippo, North Africa, Saint Augustine, made his living as one of these traveling teachers of philosophy before becoming a Christian. It’s believed that Paul wrote a 3rd letter to the church at Corinth, so what we know as 1st, 2nd Corinthians might actually be letters 2 and 3. I personally think Corinthians holds special value for the church today. The 21st century believer is being challenged on her Ecclesiology, the whole idea of what the church is. In Corinthians we see a specific picture of what the church is and on how she should meet. Paul will not address ‘the Pastor’ [there was none in the modern sense of the office] but he will speak directly to the brothers at Corinth and give them some heavy responsibilities to carry out [like committing a brother to satan for the destruction of his flesh! Ouch]. Paul went to Corinth on his 2nd missionary journey and spent 18 months with them [Acts 18] one of the longest stays at any church. Because of the pagan background of the city Paul will address specific issues related to believers and certain practices of idol worship. Eating meat offered to idols and stuff like that. Corinth also practiced a form of idolatry that included prostitution, so he will deal severely with the loose sexual morals of the people at Corinth. Well we have a lot to cover in the next few weeks, try and read Corinthians on your own as we plunge into this study, it will help a lot.
(943) 1ST CORINTHIANS 1:1-17 Paul greets them as an apostle called by God, he affirms his authority and ‘fathering ability’ as coming from God. He tells them he thanks God all the time for the fruit that he sees in their lives, the thing that made Paul rejoice was the work God was doing in the communities he was establishing as an apostle. Today ministers have a tendency to ‘rejoice’ over the Christian enterprise that we oversee. Whether its’ how well the budget went this year and stuff like that. Paul’s joy wasn’t in the fact that God called him to some great personal ministry where he would find self fulfillment. His joy was in the actual growth and freedom that ‘his churches’ [communities of people] were experiencing. He also defines them as ‘those that call upon the name of the Lord like all the others’. Remember what we said when studying Romans chapter 10? One of the signs of the believer is ‘they call upon Jesus name’. They are believing communities of ‘Christ callers’. Not so much a one time evangelical altar call, but a lifestyle. Jesus said we are ‘a house of prayer’. A spiritual community/house who intercedes for all nations. It’s in our very DNA! Paul also commends them as being enriched by God in all ‘knowledge and utterance’ [speech]. It seems funny that he would say they were blessed and enriched in speech. Paul will give some of his strongest rebukes over speaking gifts [tongues, prophesy] to this community. Yet he does not approach it from the strong anti charismatic view. He doesn’t say ‘your speech is demonic’ he says it is enriched by God! We will deal with the gifts later on. Now for the first real rebuke. Paul says he has heard reports that there are divisions and strivings among them. They are already dividing up into various sects. Some follow Paul, others follow Cephas, some say ‘we are the true Christ followers’. Paul rebukes them sharply over these divisions, he does not want the early church to identify with individual personalities and gifts at the expense of true unity. Was this the early development of denominationalism? To a degree yes. But I also don’t think we should view the various Christian denominations as deceived or ‘lost’. The modern church has become what we are thru many struggles and difficulties over a 2 thousand year history. My personal view is we should strive for unity, not by trying to dissolve all the various ‘tribes’ that exist in Christ’s church, but by growing into a more mature view of all who name the name of Christ as being fellow believers who partake of a common grace. I applaud all the efforts being made by various Christian churches today to come to a greater outward unity [for example the Catholic and Orthodox dialogue] but I also believe as we see each other as fellow believers and learn to appreciate our different emphasis, that this approach can also lead to greater unity among believers today. Paul saw the beginnings of division in the early Corinthian community, he did his best to quell the coming storm.
(944) 1ST CORINTHIANS 1:18-31 Paul declares the actual preaching of the Cross to be the power of God. The Jews sought for a sign [remember the sign of Jonas?] and the Greeks prided themselves in wisdom. Paul declares that Jesus IS the wisdom and power of God. In Christ is contained all the wisdom and power [signs] in the universe! Paul says God destroyed the wisdom of unregenerate man and that Gods foolishness is wiser than men’s greatest achievements apart from God. Wow, what an indictment on enlightenment philosophy. Man goes thru stages of learning and knowledge [renaissance, enlightenment. Industrial, scientific revolution] these are not bad achievements in and of themselves. Many of the greatest scientists and scientific discoveries were made by men of faith [Newton, Pascal, Faraday, etc] the problem arises when men think that sheer humanistic reasoning, apart from God, is the answer. Right now there is a movement [11-08] going on where some atheists bought ad space on the sides of buses that say ‘why believe in a god? Do good for goodness sake’. So they had both sides [Christian /Atheist] debate it. The simple fact is, sheer humanism cannot even define ‘what good is’. ‘Good’ becomes a matter of what serves me best at the time of my decision. Without God and special revelation [scripture-10 commandments] good can be defined by Hitler’s regime as exterminating one class of society for the benefit of the whole. Only Christian [or Deist, Jewish, Muslim] beliefs place special value and dignity on human life. It is a common misconception to think that all the enlightenment philosophers were atheists; this was not the case at all. Locke, Hume and others simply believed that thru human logic and reason people could arrive at a sort of naturalistic belief in God. This would form the basis of Deism, the system of belief in God but a rejection of classic Christian theology. Benjamin Franklin and other founding fathers of our country were influenced by this style of belief. Now, getting back to the Greeks. Paul says ‘God destroyed the wisdom of this world’. What wisdom is Paul talking about? The enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century had nothing on the Greek philosophers going all the way back to a few centuries B.C. Plato, the Greek wrestler turned philosopher, had one of the most famous schools of Greek philosophy. At the entrance of the school the words were written ‘let non but geometers enter here’. Kind of strange. Geometry simply meant ‘form’ in this use. Most of the great theoretical physicists were also great mathematicians [Einstein]. The Greek philosophers were seeking a sort of ‘unified theory’ that would explain all other theories and bring all learning together under one intellectual ‘roof’. Sort of like Einstein's last great obsession. The Greeks actually referred to this great unknown future ‘unifier’ as ‘the Logos’. Now, some atheists will use this truth to undercut the New Testament. They will take the common use of these words ‘The Logos’ and say that Johns writings [Gospel, letters] were simply stolen ideas from Greek philosophy. This is why believers need to have a better understanding of the inspiration of scripture. John’s writings were no doubt inspired, he of course calls Jesus the ‘Logos’ [word] of God. But he was simply saying to the Greek/Gnostic mind ‘look, you guys have been waiting for centuries for the one special ‘Word/Logos’ that would be the answer to all learning, I declare unto you that Jesus is this Logos’! So eventually you would have ‘the wisdom of the world’ [both Greek and enlightenment and all other types] falling short of the ultimate answer. They could only go so far in their journey for truth, and ultimately they either wind up at the foot of the Cross [the wisdom of God] or the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’. God said this ‘tree’ [sources of wisdom and knowledge apart from God] would ultimately lead to death if not submitted to ‘the tree of life’ [the Cross]. You would have some of the enlightenment philosophers eat from this tree all the way to the ‘death of God’ movement. Man in his wisdom would come to the conclusion that ‘God is dead’. If this is true, then the slaughter of millions of Jews is no moral dilemma. If God is dead then man is not created in his image, he is just this piece of flesh that you can dispose of at will. To all you intellectual types, it’s Okay to have a mind, but you must love God with it. If all your doing is feeding from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die.
(945) 1 CORINTHIANS 2- Paul tells them that when he came to them to declare Gods wisdom, that he did not do it with excellency of speech or with enticing words of men’s wisdom. What is he saying here? Remember, Corinth had the background of traveling philosophers of rhetoric who could ‘dazzle the average folk’. Sort of like the role science would come to play with modern man. All science is good, it’s when man in his arrogance begins to espouse or ‘twist’ things to his advantage that the problem arises. That’s when the arrogance of mans wisdom simply says to the average Joe ‘who do you think you are to question me! I am a man of wisdom’ Phooey! [I know it’s corny]. The fact is that natural man has always had the ability to deceive or come up with ‘evidence’ just in the nick of time. Did you know there was/is an entire cottage industry in ‘finding’ fossils to prove evolution is true? Do you really think men were above deception in the 1800’s? That they were above the temptation to come up with findings so their funding would not be cut off? Darwin wrote his famous book ‘the Origin of Species’ in 1851. Right after the book became popular there was a race among the archeologists to find the missing link. It just so happened that within a few short years they found it! [or something they thought fit]. It was also a ‘coincidence’ that some of the findings were discovered right before the grant/funding would run our for the researcher. Now, don’t you think the poor brother was tempted to fudge? Do you think that some of these findings, which later fell into the category of various bones simply being found in one location, were simply hyped for the benefit of the researchers to continue their work? You bet stuff like this happened. Some of the discoveries of skeletons that looked a little different were determined to be modern humans that simply suffered from various growth deficiencies. Scientists said this publicly! But this finding didn’t ‘fit’ all the excitement that was happening around the ‘new knowledge’ of Darwin. And the fact is that some of these early findings, with all of these obvious opportunities for fraud, stand today as the best evidence for evolution. After 150 years, these guys just happened to come up with the best evidence under these highly suspicious circumstances. But the average man, like the brothers living in Corinth, were simply dazzled by all the technical jargon. ‘Neanderthal man’ wow, that’s scientific brother! The name comes from a Christian whose name was ‘Neander’ and the famous discovery of the bones were in a field where he lived. Now that’s what I call the wisdom of man! So Paul lets the Corinthians know that his gospel isn’t some fabricated wisdom that has no basis in reality, he was preaching the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ! [chapter 15]. He does say this wisdom and truth of Jesus is ‘hidden wisdom that the princes of this world can’t grasp’. He teaches that only God himself can teach a person this true wisdom of the gospel. But when Paul says ‘hidden wisdom’ he is not talking about the Gnostic belief [early cult of Christianity] of ‘special wisdom that only an elite few have’. Paul is saying mans unregenerate nature cannot grasp the great riches of the gospel. God regenerates us and gives us freely of his Spirit so we can ‘know the things of the Spirit of God’. Make no mistake about it, in Christ there are tremendous sources of riches and wisdom. This wisdom is sound and sure, not like the wisdom of the philosophers. There wisdom often times was based on sheer fantasy.
(946) 1 CORINTHIANS 3:1-10 Paul tells them that because of their immaturity he has ‘fed them milk, not meat’. He continues to correct them on their penchant for ‘men worship’. He says ‘I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase’. He even says ‘we are nothing, its Gods Spirit that counts!’ I guess poor Paul wasn’t up on the contemporary self esteem movement in the church? Paul says ‘as a wise masterbuilder I have laid the foundation and others have built upon it’ also ‘ye are Gods building, Gods garden’. I have studied this concept of the ‘wise masterbuilder’ a lot over the years. The Apostle is known for his wisdom. Jesus said ‘I have sent you [Jerusalem] wise men and prophets’. The Apostles are the ‘wise men’. If I remember I will try and paste some entries on the reality of the apostolic ministry today. That is the teaching from scripture on the ongoing apostolic ministry. Don’t mistake it for the original ‘apostles of the Lamb’. They were special eyewitnesses of the resurrection. The ongoing gift which is spoken about in the New Testament plays a different role, yet we can glean things from Paul and others on this ministry gift. Paul was primarily a ‘foundation layer’ he spent no time building ‘buildings’ or human institutions, but he knew the reality of foundation laying. His proclamation of the gospel had the inherent ability to change a region for Christ and his kingdom. He had the wisdom to build into the communities a self sustaining mentality. A few months to a few years was the amount of time Paul spent in these communities. When he left them they were for all practical purposes self sustaining communities of Christ followers. How in the world did he do this on such a shoestring budget? The reality of Jesus and his resurrection was tremendously good news. Paul started them right. In today’s church world we seem to lay all sorts of other ‘foundations’. Faith, prosperity, healing, the ‘house church’; all good things in their proper place, but the reality of Christ seems to take second place. Also, Paul did not institute the pastoral office that we have come to depend on in the modern church. He did establish Elders, but he did not leave a ‘professional minister’ as the primary functioning ‘elder’ in their midst. Why is this important to see? Because when people are given ‘crutches’ they will use them! If momma eagle never kicks baby eagle out of the nest, then baby eagle will wind up on food stamps [Don’t feel bad if you are on them, I am just using this as an example]. In essence Paul built into the first century churches a self sustaining mindset. They were the church and they had the responsibility to represent Christ in their locals. They couldn’t pawn it off on ‘the pastor’. Paul would also do some writing. These letters would circulate throughout the communities and were regularly read by a literate believer in these churches. I know it’s common to think that the early believers ‘had bibles’ but this wasn’t the case. Paul’s letters were part of the early ‘canon’ but you wouldn’t have total agreement on the canon until around the 4th century. But these letters played a major role in ‘foundation laying’. The modern believer is primarily educated thru the sermon. Sermons are okay, but without literature, the job won’t get done. Say if your doctor, or mechanic or tax man told you ‘I have never been educated in school, but every Sunday I attended a lecture at the local lecture hall. I did this for 50 years. So let’s get on with the operation.’ Ouch! But we approach Christianity with this mindset. Paul wrote letters, short booklets if you will. These letters could be looked to as a stable source of doctrine for the early church. They would eventually be canonized and would be passed down to us 2 millennia later. We are reading from one right now.
[These 2 entries simply give scriptural evidence for the ongoing function of Apostles/Prophets today]
(739) ACTS 1- Luke, the writer of this book, feels the need to document the ongoing work of Jesus and his revolution. He already wrote a gospel and believes this to be the beginning of the story. In essence, the reality of Jesus and his resurrection are just the start, we have much more to do and become on this journey. Most writers jump to chapter 2. We have churches and music groups called ‘Acts chapter 2’. Why does Luke seem to wait till chapter 2 before getting to ‘the good stuff’? Chapter one records the 40 days of Jesus showing himself alive after his death. Luke feels this singular truth to be important enough to simply stand alone [I do realize the early letters did not have chapter and verse divisions like today]. The real physical fact of Jesus bodily resurrection is without a doubt the foundational truth of the gospel. The outpouring of the Spirit and the whole future of the church depends on the reality of the resurrected Christ. Paul will write the Corinthians and tell them if the resurrection were not true then they are the most miserable of all people. Luke tells us Jesus gave instructions for the Apostles to wait at Jerusalem for the Spirit. Thy will be witnesses of him to all the surrounding nations after the Spirit empowers them. We also see Peter emerge as the key spokesman for the group. He quotes freely from the Psalms and reads their own history into the book. He sees the prophetic verse from David on ‘let another take his office’ as referring to Judas betrayal and death. They cast lots and choose Matthias as the one to replace Judas. Peter shows the importance of Judas replacement to come from one that was with them thru out the earthly time of Jesus. Someone who saw and witnessed Jesus after the resurrection. Scholars have confused this with the ‘ascension gift Apostles’. Some scholars have taken the truth of the early Apostles having the criteria of being actual witnesses of Jesus, and have said ‘therefore, you have no Apostles today’. Paul will teach in Ephesians that after Jesus ascension on high he gave gifts unto men ‘some Apostles, others Prophets, etc.’ The New Testament clearly speaks of Apostles as an ongoing gift in the church. Barnabas will later be called an Apostles [Acts 14:14] as well as many other references in the original Greek using the same Greek word for Apostle. But here we find Peter seeing the need to replace Judas. Other scholars think Peter might have jumped the gun. They see Paul’s apostleship as the possible person the Lord picked out as the replacement. You do find Paul referring time and again to his Apostolic authority as one ‘born out of due time’ who saw Jesus on the Damascus road. If Paul was simply an ascension gift Apostle, why would he refer time and again to his authority based on being a witness who also saw Jesus? It’s possible that Paul was in this group of ‘Apostles of the Lamb’ who had extra authority based upon their testimony of being eyewitnesses. So in chapter one we see that Jesus appeared for 40 days giving instructions to the early leadership and told them to wait at Jerusalem for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We see the incarnational purpose of God, Jesus was and continues to be the express image of God to man. He was not some ‘phantom’ like the Docetists will claim, but a very real physical resurrected Lord. Luke begins the early history of the church with this reality being important enough to stand on its own.
HEBREWS commentary copyright 2007 John Chiarello www.copruschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com P.O. box 181256 C.C. Tx. 78480
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CHAPTER 1:
‘God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the Prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds’ Many years ago when I was going to a fundamental Baptist Church, they would interpret this passage in a ‘cessationist’ way. They would say because God says in the past he spoke by prophets, but now by his Son. That this means he doesn’t speak thru Prophets any more. The Prophets here are Old Testament voices. In Ephesians it says after Jesus ascended up on high he gave gifts unto men, some Apostles, some Prophets, etc. The fact that Jesus made Prophets after the ascension teaches us that there were to be a whole new class of New Testament Prophets that were different from the old. I find it strange to believe that Jesus would create a whole new class of gifts, and then take them away as soon as the Bible is complete. Why would Paul give instruction in the New Testament on how Prophets would operate [Corinthians] and then to say ‘as soon as this letter is canonized with the others, all this instruction will be useless’ it just doesn’t seem right.
The reason Paul is saying in the past God used Prophets, but today his Son. Paul is showing that the Jewish Old testament was a real communication from God to man. But in this dispensation of Grace, God is speaking the realities that the Prophets were looking to. Paul is saying ‘thank God for the Old Jewish books and law, they point to something, his name is Jesus’! The Prophets [Old Testament] served a purpose; they brought us from the shadows to the present time [1st century] now lets move on into the reality. Now you must see and hear the Son in these last days. ‘Who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person…when he by himself purged our sins SAT DOWN on the right hand of the majesty on high’ here we are at the beginning stages of themes that we will see later in the letter. The significance of Jesus ‘sitting down’ will be contrasted with the Old testament priests ‘standing up’. Paul [for the record I think Paul wrote this letter, from here on I will probably just refer to the writer as Paul] will teach that the ‘standing up’ of the Levitical Priests represented an ‘incomplete priesthood’ the reason Jesus sat down was because there would be no more sacrifice, and no more priesthood made up of many priests who would die year after year. This doesn’t mean there would be no more New Testament priests as believers, but that there would be no more Old Testament system. Paul will find spiritual truths like this all thru out the Old Testament.
Some theologians feel that Paul is a little too loose with these free comparisons that he seems to ‘pull out of the hat’, for the believer who holds to the canon of scripture, it is the Word of God. ‘Being made so much better than the angels…but unto the Son he saith “thy throne O God is forever and ever, a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy Kingdom”. Here Paul introduces another theme that will be seen thru out this letter. The superiority of Jesus over angels. Why is this important? Most believers know that Jesus is greater than angels, don’t they? Here we see why context is important to understand this letter. In Jewish tradition it is believed that the law was given to Moses by God thru the mediation of angels. Some say ‘well, we don’t use Jewish tradition, we use scripture’. First, Paul used anything he could to win the argument. Second, if we believe Hebrews is an inspired book, then when we read later on that the law given thru angels received a recompense if broken, then right here you have scripture [Hebrews] testifying that God did use angels to ‘transmit’ the law to some degree. Now, why is it important for gentiles to see this? Well it really isn’t! But it is vital for a first century Jew to see it. If Paul can show that Jesus is greater than the angels, then he is beginning to make the argument that the New Covenant is greater than the Old.
Here is the context. Moses law is highly revered in the first century Jewish community, so here Paul says ‘how much better is the law/word given to us from Gods Son’. Since Jesus is much better than the angels, therefore pay closer attention to the words spoken thru Gods Son, he is greater than the angels! ‘But to which of the angels said he “sit at my right hand until I make thy enemies thy footstool” we end chapter one with the theme of Jesus being better than the angels, yet in chapter 2 something funny happens, Paul will make the argument of Jesus being “a little lower than the angels” lets see what this means.
(947) 1ST CORINTHIANS 3:11-23 Paul teaches that once the foundation of Jesus is laid, that no other foundation can come in and replace it. Remember, Paul is speaking about a spiritual foundation. He is not building ‘a literal building’! I know we know this, but for some reason modern church planters can’t seem to break the mindset of having a building ‘to do church’. Now we begin to get into some doctrine. I believe Paul begins a New Testament doctrine here that could be called ‘the sin unto natural death’ or the judgment of a believer when he falls into open sin and rebellion and refuses to repent. Now, I have looked at this doctrine from different views over the years. I try not to allow my own leaning towards reformed theology to effect me. But I have come down on the side of ‘eternal security’ in viewing these verses. Paul teaches that even though the foundation of Jesus is laid, it’s still possible to build a life of worthless things upon it. He says ‘if any man defiles Gods temple, him will God destroy’. This same language will be used in chapter 5 ‘deliver the sinning brother to satan for the destruction of the flesh so the spirit may be saved’. Paul also uses the term again here in chapter 3 ‘yet he will be saved as by fire’. Also in chapter 11 ‘for this cause many sleep [physical death] and are sick among you’ he uses this as a judgment that came upon them for their abuse of the Lords table. So reading this in context it sure seems that Paul is saying ‘if you, as a believer, allow yourself to fall into sin in such a way that you are doing permanent harm to the temple [which he describes as their bodies, both individually and corporately] than God will destroy you’. This seems to fit all these other verses. The apostle John also speaks on the ‘sin unto death’ [which I see as physical death] in his letter. He says ‘if any one sees his brother sin a sin unto death, I do not say you should pray for them’. Now, the Arminian brothers [those who do not believe in eternal security] obviously see these a different way. They would apply some of these verses as meaning the loss of salvation. Though I personally do not see it this way, yet they have some of their own scriptures to back up their belief. They are certainly not out of line with historic Christian belief to hold to this view. So Paul introduces [in my mind] the concept of the possibility of the rebellious believer falling into such a sin that he can ‘be destroyed’ [lose his life] while at the same time saying ‘yet his spirit will be saved’. This ‘in house’ instruction [in house meaning Paul’s dealing with them as believers who fall into sin] should not taint the overriding view of Paul in his entire corpus of teaching. His main teaching on ‘those who live in constant sin’ is they will not inherit the kingdom of God. John also teaches this doctrine in his epistle. So we begin to see the ‘minefield’ we can get into as we tread thru the New Testament. It will be important to make these distinctions with much grace as we continue our journey thru the New Testament. Many well meaning believers view the ‘other camps’ as heretics over these issues. I see it more as a matter of believers being influenced to see these verses from a sincere standpoint of their upbringing. If you were raised Baptist, you more than likely view them from a Calvinistic lens. If you were raised Pentecostal [or Methodist], from an Arminian lens. Both good camps, with their own ‘slant’ affecting their view. I don’t think we should call each other heretics over stuff like this.
[#’s 942-1073] TEACHINGS PART 6
(942)1st CORINTHIANS INTRODUCTION- Out of all of Paul’s letters, this one is ‘the most verified’ as being his. Of course we know this because Paul says so in the letter! But for all those intellectual higher critics, this helps. Corinth was a city of great influence and trade, many land and sea routes converged at Corinth and her port. The city was also known for her philosophers and ‘preachers of wisdom’ [Rhetoric]. They actually had a custom at Corinth in which you could ‘hire’ your own ‘preacher of wisdom’. These were the traveling teachers who made a living at speaking. This also might be why Paul specifically said ‘when I was with you I did not take money from you’. The custom of the traveling preachers was you could pay a one time honorarium for a single speech, or you could actually hire a regular speaker and have him ‘on salary’. Paul did not want the Corinthians to think that he was their hired preacher! How much influence this type of trade would have on the later development of the ‘hired clergy’ is unknown, but the similarities are striking. The famous 5th century bishop of Hippo, North Africa, Saint Augustine, made his living as one of these traveling teachers of philosophy before becoming a Christian. It’s believed that Paul wrote a 3rd letter to the church at Corinth, so what we know as 1st, 2nd Corinthians might actually be letters 2 and 3. I personally think Corinthians holds special value for the church today. The 21st century believer is being challenged on her Ecclesiology, the whole idea of what the church is. In Corinthians we see a specific picture of what the church is and on how she should meet. Paul will not address ‘the Pastor’ [there was none in the modern sense of the office] but he will speak directly to the brothers at Corinth and give them some heavy responsibilities to carry out [like committing a brother to satan for the destruction of his flesh! Ouch]. Paul went to Corinth on his 2nd missionary journey and spent 18 months with them [Acts 18] one of the longest stays at any church. Because of the pagan background of the city Paul will address specific issues related to believers and certain practices of idol worship. Eating meat offered to idols and stuff like that. Corinth also practiced a form of idolatry that included prostitution, so he will deal severely with the loose sexual morals of the people at Corinth. Well we have a lot to cover in the next few weeks, try and read Corinthians on your own as we plunge into this study, it will help a lot.
(943)1ST CORINTHIANS 1:1-17 Paul greets them as an apostle called by God, he affirms his authority and ‘fathering ability’ as coming from God. He tells them he thanks God all the time for the fruit that he sees in their lives, the thing that made Paul rejoice was the work God was doing in the communities he was establishing as an apostle. Today ministers have a tendency to ‘rejoice’ over the Christian enterprise that we oversee. Whether its’ how well the budget went this year and stuff like that. Paul’s joy wasn’t in the fact that God called him to some great personal ministry where he would find self fulfillment. His joy was in the actual growth and freedom that ‘his churches’ [communities of people] were experiencing. He also defines them as ‘those that call upon the name of the Lord like all the others’. Remember what we said when studying Romans chapter 10? One of the signs of the believer is ‘they call upon Jesus name’. They are believing communities of ‘Christ callers’. Not so much a one time evangelical altar call, but a lifestyle. Jesus said we are ‘a house of prayer’. A spiritual community/house who intercedes for all nations. It’s in our very DNA! Paul also commends them as being enriched by God in all ‘knowledge and utterance’ [speech]. It seems funny that he would say they were blessed and enriched in speech. Paul will give some of his strongest rebukes over speaking gifts [tongues, prophesy] to this community. Yet he does not approach it from the strong anti charismatic view. He doesn’t say ‘your speech is demonic’ he says it is enriched by God! We will deal with the gifts later on. Now for the first real rebuke. Paul says he has heard reports that there are divisions and strivings among them. They are already dividing up into various sects. Some follow Paul, others follow Cephas, some say ‘we are the true Christ followers’. Paul rebukes them sharply over these divisions, he does not want the early church to identify with individual personalities and gifts at the expense of true unity. Was this the early development of denominationalism? To a degree yes. But I also don’t think we should view the various Christian denominations as deceived or ‘lost’. The modern church has become what we are thru many struggles and difficulties over a 2 thousand year history. My personal view is we should strive for unity, not by trying to dissolve all the various ‘tribes’ that exist in Christ’s church, but by growing into a more mature view of all who name the name of Christ as being fellow believers who partake of a common grace. I applaud all the efforts being made by various Christian churches today to come to a greater outward unity [for example the Catholic and Orthodox dialogue] but I also believe as we see each other as fellow believers and learn to appreciate our different emphasis, that this approach can also lead to greater unity among believers today. Paul saw the beginnings of division in the early Corinthian community, he did his best to quell the coming storm.
(944)1ST CORINTHIANS 1:18-31 Paul declares the actual preaching of the Cross to be the power of God. The Jews sought for a sign [remember the sign of Jonas?] and the Greeks prided themselves in wisdom. Paul declares that Jesus IS the wisdom and power of God. In Christ is contained all the wisdom and power [signs] in the universe! Paul says God destroyed the wisdom of unregenerate man and that Gods foolishness is wiser than men’s greatest achievements apart from God. Wow, what an indictment on enlightenment philosophy. Man goes thru stages of learning and knowledge [renaissance, enlightenment. Industrial, scientific revolution] these are not bad achievements in and of themselves. Many of the greatest scientists and scientific discoveries were made by men of faith [Newton, Pascal, Faraday, etc] the problem arises when men think that sheer humanistic reasoning, apart from God, is the answer. Right now there is a movement [11-08] going on where some atheists bought ad space on the sides of buses that say ‘why believe in a god? Do good for goodness sake’. So they had both sides [Christian /Atheist] debate it. The simple fact is, sheer humanism cannot even define ‘what good is’. ‘Good’ becomes a matter of what serves me best at the time of my decision. Without God and special revelation [scripture-10 commandments] good can be defined by Hitler’s regime as exterminating one class of society for the benefit of the whole. Only Christian [or Deist, Jewish, Muslim] beliefs place special value and dignity on human life. It is a common misconception to think that all the enlightenment philosophers were atheists; this was not the case at all. Locke, Hume and others simply believed that thru human logic and reason people could arrive at a sort of naturalistic belief in God. This would form the basis of Deism, the system of belief in God but a rejection of classic Christian theology. Benjamin Franklin and other founding fathers of our country were influenced by this style of belief. Now, getting back to the Greeks. Paul says ‘God destroyed the wisdom of this world’. What wisdom is Paul talking about? The enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century had nothing on the Greek philosophers going all the way back to a few centuries B.C. Plato, the Greek wrestler turned philosopher, had one of the most famous schools of Greek philosophy. At the entrance of the school the words were written ‘let none but geometers enter here’. Kind of strange. Geometry simply meant ‘form’ in this use. Most of the great theoretical physicists were also great mathematicians [Einstein]. The Greek philosophers were seeking a sort of ‘unified theory’ that would explain all other theories and bring all learning together under one intellectual ‘roof’. Sort of like Einstein's last great obsession. The Greeks actually referred to this great unknown future ‘unifier’ as ‘the Logos’. Now, some atheists will use this truth to undercut the New Testament. They will take the common use of these words ‘The Logos’ and say that Johns writings [Gospel, letters] were simply stolen ideas from Greek philosophy. This is why believers need to have a better understanding of the inspiration of scripture. John’s writings were no doubt inspired, he of course calls Jesus the ‘Logos’ [word] of God. But he was simply saying to the Greek/Gnostic mind ‘look, you guys have been waiting for centuries for the one special ‘Word/Logos’ that would be the answer to all learning, I declare unto you that Jesus is this Logos’! So eventually you would have ‘the wisdom of the world’ [both Greek and enlightenment and all other types] falling short of the ultimate answer. They could only go so far in their journey for truth, and ultimately they either wind up at the foot of the Cross [the wisdom of God] or the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’. God said this ‘tree’ [sources of wisdom and knowledge apart from God] would ultimately lead to death if not submitted to ‘the tree of life’ [the Cross]. You would have some of the enlightenment philosophers eat from this tree all the way to the ‘death of God’ movement. Man in his wisdom would come to the conclusion that ‘God is dead’. If this is true, then the slaughter of millions of Jews is no moral dilemma. If God is dead then man is not created in his image, he is just this piece of flesh that you can dispose of at will. To all you intellectual types, it’s Okay to have a mind, but you must love God with it. If all your doing is feeding from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die.
(945)1 CORINTHIANS 2- Paul tells them that when he came to them to declare Gods wisdom, that he did not do it with excellency of speech or with enticing words of men’s wisdom. What is he saying here? Remember, Corinth had the background of traveling philosophers of rhetoric who could ‘dazzle the average folk’. Sort of like the role science would come to play with modern man. All science is good, it’s when man in his arrogance begins to espouse or ‘twist’ things to his advantage that the problem arises. That’s when the arrogance of mans wisdom simply says to the average Joe ‘who do you think you are to question me! I am a man of wisdom’ Phooey! [I know it’s corny]. The fact is that natural man has always had the ability to deceive or come up with ‘evidence’ just in the nick of time. Did you know there was/is an entire cottage industry in ‘finding’ fossils to prove evolution is true? Do you really think men were above deception in the 1800’s? That they were above the temptation to come up with findings so their funding would not be cut off? Darwin wrote his famous book ‘the Origin of Species’ in 1851. Right after the book became popular there was a race among the archeologists to find the missing link. It just so happened that within a few short years they found it! [or something they thought fit]. It was also a ‘coincidence’ that some of the findings were discovered right before the grant/funding would run our for the researcher. Now, don’t you think the poor brother was tempted to fudge? Do you think that some of these findings, which later fell into the category of various bones simply being found in one location, were simply hyped for the benefit of the researchers to continue their work? You bet stuff like this happened. Some of the discoveries of skeletons that looked a little different were determined to be modern humans that simply suffered from various growth deficiencies. Scientists said this publicly! But this finding didn’t ‘fit’ all the excitement that was happening around the ‘new knowledge’ of Darwin. And the fact is that some of these early findings, with all of these obvious opportunities for fraud, stand today as the best evidence for evolution. After 150 years, these guys just happened to come up with the best evidence under these highly suspicious circumstances. But the average man, like the brothers living in Corinth, were simply dazzled by all the technical jargon. ‘Neanderthal man’ wow, that’s scientific brother! The name comes from a Christian whose name was ‘Neander’ and the famous discovery of the bones were in a field where he lived. Now that’s what I call the wisdom of man! So Paul lets the Corinthians know that his gospel isn’t some fabricated wisdom that has no basis in reality, he was preaching the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ! [chapter 15]. He does say this wisdom and truth of Jesus is ‘hidden wisdom that the princes of this world can’t grasp’. He teaches that only God himself can teach a person this true wisdom of the gospel. But when Paul says ‘hidden wisdom’ he is not talking about the Gnostic belief [early cult of Christianity] of ‘special wisdom that only an elite few have’. Paul is saying mans unregenerate nature cannot grasp the great riches of the gospel. God regenerates us and gives us freely of his Spirit so we can ‘know the things of the Spirit of God’. Make no mistake about it, in Christ there are tremendous sources of riches and wisdom. This wisdom is sound and sure, not like the wisdom of the philosophers. Their wisdom often times was based on sheer fantasy.
(946)1 CORINTHIANS 3:1-10 Paul tells them that because of their immaturity he has ‘fed them milk, not meat’. He continues to correct them on their penchant for ‘men worship’. He says ‘I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase’. He even says ‘we are nothing, its Gods Spirit that counts!’ I guess poor Paul wasn’t up on the contemporary self esteem movement in the church? Paul says ‘as a wise masterbuilder I have laid the foundation and others have built upon it’ also ‘ye are Gods building, Gods garden’. I have studied this concept of the ‘wise masterbuilder’ a lot over the years. The Apostle is known for his wisdom. Jesus said ‘I have sent you [Jerusalem] wise men and prophets’. The Apostles are the ‘wise men’. If I remember I will try and paste some entries on the reality of the apostolic ministry today. That is the teaching from scripture on the ongoing apostolic ministry. Don’t mistake it for the original ‘apostles of the Lamb’. They were special eyewitnesses of the resurrection. The ongoing gift which is spoken about in the New Testament plays a different role, yet we can glean things from Paul and others on this ministry gift. Paul was primarily a ‘foundation layer’ he spent no time building ‘buildings’ or human institutions, but he knew the reality of foundation laying. His proclamation of the gospel had the inherent ability to change a region for Christ and his kingdom. He had the wisdom to build into the communities a self sustaining mentality. A few months to a few years was the amount of time Paul spent in these communities. When he left them they were for all practical purposes self sustaining communities of Christ followers. How in the world did he do this on such a shoestring budget? The reality of Jesus and his resurrection was tremendously good news. Paul started them right. In today’s church world we seem to lay all sorts of other ‘foundations’. Faith, prosperity, healing, the ‘house church’; all good things in their proper place, but the reality of Christ seems to take second place. Also, Paul did not institute the pastoral office that we have come to depend on in the modern church. He did establish Elders, but he did not leave a ‘professional minister’ as the primary functioning ‘elder’ in their midst. Why is this important to see? Because when people are given ‘crutches’ they will use them! If momma eagle never kicks baby eagle out of the nest, then baby eagle will wind up on food stamps [Don’t feel bad if you are on them, I am just using this as an example]. In essence Paul built into the first century churches a self sustaining mindset. They were the church and they had the responsibility to represent Christ in their locals. They couldn’t pawn it off on ‘the pastor’. Paul would also do some writing. These letters would circulate throughout the communities and were regularly read by a literate believer in these churches. I know it’s common to think that the early believers ‘had bibles’ but this wasn’t the case. Paul’s letters were part of the early ‘canon’ but you wouldn’t have total agreement on the canon until around the 4th century. But these letters played a major role in ‘foundation laying’. The modern believer is primarily educated thru the sermon. Sermons are okay, but without literature, the job won’t get done. Say if your doctor, or mechanic or tax man told you ‘I have never been educated in school, but every Sunday I attended a lecture at the local lecture hall. I did this for 50 years. So let’s get on with the operation.’ Ouch! But we approach Christianity with this mindset. Paul wrote letters, short booklets if you will. These letters could be looked to as a stable source of doctrine for the early church. They would eventually be canonized and would be passed down to us 2 millennia later. We are reading from one right now.
[These 2 entries simply give scriptural evidence for the ongoing function of Apostles/Prophets today]
(739) ACTS 1- Luke, the writer of this book, feels the need to document the ongoing work of Jesus and his revolution. He already wrote a gospel and believes this to be the beginning of the story. In essence, the reality of Jesus and his resurrection are just the start, we have much more to do and become on this journey. Most writers jump to chapter 2. We have churches and music groups called ‘Acts chapter 2’. Why does Luke seem to wait till chapter 2 before getting to ‘the good stuff’? Chapter one records the 40 days of Jesus showing himself alive after his death. Luke feels this singular truth to be important enough to simply stand alone [I do realize the early letters did not have chapter and verse divisions like today]. The real physical fact of Jesus bodily resurrection is without a doubt the foundational truth of the gospel. The outpouring of the Spirit and the whole future of the church depends on the reality of the resurrected Christ. Paul will write the Corinthians and tell them if the resurrection were not true then they are the most miserable of all people. Luke tells us Jesus gave instructions for the Apostles to wait at Jerusalem for the Spirit. Thy will be witnesses of him to all the surrounding nations after the Spirit empowers them. We also see Peter emerge as the key spokesman for the group. He quotes freely from the Psalms and reads their own history into the book. He sees the prophetic verse from David on ‘let another take his office’ as referring to Judas betrayal and death. They cast lots and choose Matthias as the one to replace Judas. Peter shows the importance of Judas replacement to come from one that was with them thru out the earthly time of Jesus. Someone who saw and witnessed Jesus after the resurrection. Scholars have confused this with the ‘ascension gift Apostles’. Some scholars have taken the truth of the early Apostles having the criteria of being actual witnesses of Jesus, and have said ‘therefore, you have no Apostles today’. Paul will teach in Ephesians that after Jesus ascension on high he gave gifts unto men ‘some Apostles, others Prophets, etc.’ The New Testament clearly speaks of Apostles as an ongoing gift in the church. Barnabas will later be called an Apostles [Acts 14:14] as well as many other references in the original Greek using the same Greek word for Apostle. But here we find Peter seeing the need to replace Judas. Other scholars think Peter might have jumped the gun. They see Paul’s apostleship as the possible person the Lord picked out as the replacement. You do find Paul referring time and again to his Apostolic authority as one ‘born out of due time’ who saw Jesus on the Damascus road. If Paul was simply an ascension gift Apostle, why would he refer time and again to his authority based on being a witness who also saw Jesus? It’s possible that Paul was in this group of ‘Apostles of the Lamb’ who had extra authority based upon their testimony of being eyewitnesses. So in chapter one we see that Jesus appeared for 40 days giving instructions to the early leadership and told them to wait at Jerusalem for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We see the incarnational purpose of God, Jesus was and continues to be the express image of God to man. He was not some ‘phantom’ like the Docetists will claim, but a very real physical resurrected Lord. Luke begins the early history of the church with this reality being important enough to stand on its own.
HEBREWS commentary copyright 2007 John Chiarello www.copruschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com P.O. box 181256 C.C. Tx. 78480
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CHAPTER 1:
‘God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the Prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds’ Many years ago when I was going to a fundamental Baptist Church, they would interpret this passage in a ‘cessationist’ way. They would say because God says in the past he spoke by prophets, but now by his Son. That this means he doesn’t speak thru Prophets any more. The Prophets here are Old Testament voices. In Ephesians it says after Jesus ascended up on high he gave gifts unto men, some Apostles, some Prophets, etc. The fact that Jesus made Prophets after the ascension teaches us that there were to be a whole new class of New Testament Prophets that were different from the old. I find it strange to believe that Jesus would create a whole new class of gifts, and then take them away as soon as the Bible is complete. Why would Paul give instruction in the New Testament on how Prophets would operate [Corinthians] and then to say ‘as soon as this letter is canonized with the others, all this instruction will be useless’ it just doesn’t seem right.
The reason Paul is saying in the past God used Prophets, but today his Son. Paul is showing that the Jewish Old testament was a real communication from God to man. But in this dispensation of Grace, God is speaking the realities that the Prophets were looking to. Paul is saying ‘thank God for the Old Jewish books and law, they point to something, his name is Jesus’! The Prophets [Old Testament] served a purpose; they brought us from the shadows to the present time [1st century] now lets move on into the reality. Now you must see and hear the Son in these last days. ‘Who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person…when he by himself purged our sins SAT DOWN on the right hand of the majesty on high’ here we are at the beginning stages of themes that we will see later in the letter. The significance of Jesus ‘sitting down’ will be contrasted with the Old testament priests ‘standing up’. Paul [for the record I think Paul wrote this letter, from here on I will probably just refer to the writer as Paul] will teach that the ‘standing up’ of the Levitical Priests represented an ‘incomplete priesthood’ the reason Jesus sat down was because there would be no more sacrifice, and no more priesthood made up of many priests who would die year after year. This doesn’t mean there would be no more New Testament priests as believers, but that there would be no more Old Testament system. Paul will find spiritual truths like this all thru out the Old Testament.
Some theologians feel that Paul is a little too loose with these free comparisons that he seems to ‘pull out of the hat’, for the believer who holds to the canon of scripture, it is the Word of God. ‘Being made so much better than the angels…but unto the Son he saith “thy throne O God is forever and ever, a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy Kingdom”. Here Paul introduces another theme that will be seen thru out this letter. The superiority of Jesus over angels. Why is this important? Most believers know that Jesus is greater than angels, don’t they? Here we see why context is important to understand this letter. In Jewish tradition it is believed that the law was given to Moses by God thru the mediation of angels. Some say ‘well, we don’t use Jewish tradition, we use scripture’. First, Paul used anything he could to win the argument. Second, if we believe Hebrews is an inspired book, then when we read later on that the law given thru angels received a recompense if broken, then right here you have scripture [Hebrews] testifying that God did use angels to ‘transmit’ the law to some degree. Now, why is it important for gentiles to see this? Well it really isn’t! But it is vital for a first century Jew to see it. If Paul can show that Jesus is greater than the angels, then he is beginning to make the argument that the New Covenant is greater than the Old.
Here is the context. Moses law is highly revered in the first century Jewish community, so here Paul says ‘how much better is the law/word given to us from Gods Son’. Since Jesus is much better than the angels, therefore pay closer attention to the words spoken thru Gods Son, he is greater than the angels! ‘But to which of the angels said he “sit at my right hand until I make thy enemies thy footstool” we end chapter one with the theme of Jesus being better than the angels, yet in chapter 2 something funny happens, Paul will make the argument of Jesus being “a little lower than the angels” lets see what this means.
(947) 1ST CORINTHIANS 3:11-23 Paul teaches that once the foundation of Jesus is laid, that no other foundation can come in and replace it. Remember, Paul is speaking about a spiritual foundation. He is not building ‘a literal building’! I know we know this, but for some reason modern church planters can’t seem to break the mindset of having a building ‘to do church’. Now we begin to get into some doctrine. I believe Paul begins a New Testament doctrine here that could be called ‘the sin unto natural death’ or the judgment of a believer when he falls into open sin and rebellion and refuses to repent. Now, I have looked at this doctrine from different views over the years. I try not to allow my own leaning towards reformed theology to effect me. But I have come down on the side of ‘eternal security’ in viewing these verses. Paul teaches that even though the foundation of Jesus is laid, it’s still possible to build a life of worthless things upon it. He says ‘if any man defiles Gods temple, him will God destroy’. This same language will be used in chapter 5 ‘deliver the sinning brother to satan for the destruction of the flesh so the spirit may be saved’. Paul also uses the term again here in chapter 3 ‘yet he will be saved as by fire’. Also in chapter 11 ‘for this cause many sleep [physical death] and are sick among you’ he uses this as a judgment that came upon them for their abuse of the Lords table. So reading this in context it sure seems that Paul is saying ‘if you, as a believer, allow yourself to fall into sin in such a way that you are doing permanent harm to the temple [which he describes as their bodies, both individually and corporately] than God will destroy you’. This seems to fit all these other verses. The apostle John also speaks on the ‘sin unto death’ [which I see as physical death] in his letter. He says ‘if any one sees his brother sin a sin unto death, I do not say you should pray for them’. Now, the Arminian brothers [those who do not believe in eternal security] obviously see these a different way. They would apply some of these verses as meaning the loss of salvation. Though I personally do not see it this way, yet they have some of their own scriptures to back up their belief. They are certainly not out of line with historic Christian belief to hold to this view. So Paul introduces [in my mind] the concept of the possibility of the rebellious believer falling into such a sin that he can ‘be destroyed’ [lose his life] while at the same time saying ‘yet his spirit will be saved’. This ‘in house’ instruction [in house meaning Paul’s dealing with them as believers who fall into sin] should not taint the overriding view of Paul in his entire corpus of teaching. His main teaching on ‘those who live in constant sin’ is they will not inherit the kingdom of God. John also teaches this doctrine in his epistle. So we begin to see the ‘minefield’ we can get into as we tread thru the New Testament. It will be important to make these distinctions with much grace as we continue our journey thru the New Testament. Many well meaning believers view the ‘other camps’ as heretics over these issues. I see it more as a matter of believers being influenced to see these verses from a sincere standpoint of their upbringing. If you were raised Baptist, you more than likely view them from a Calvinistic lens. If you were raised Pentecostal [or Methodist], from an Arminian lens. Both good camps, with their own ‘slant’ affecting their view. I don’t think we should call each other heretics over stuff like this.
(948) PROOF FOR GOD FROM THE LAW OF CAUSALITY- One of the foundational laws of man and physics is the law of causality [cause and effect]. In essence this law teaches us that every effect has a cause. Nothing can just happen on it’s own, some previous thing [or series of ‘things’] had to precede the event. This is basic scientific reality that cannot be denied. Now, this truth allows for only 2 possible scenarios to explain the existence of man and the universe. One idea says ‘there was no initial cause, or being who started the ball rolling. All you have had is an infinite number of past caused events’. This idea is contrary to the laws of logic and math. For instance, today we live in a certain time in history [11-2008]. There are real phenomena that surround us. Existence is without a doubt real. Now, for us to logically have arrived at this point in time, you had to have had a beginning point. If you hold to the old earth theory, you say the earth ‘happened’ around 5 billion years ago, the universe around 15 billion. Logically, this leads us to a future point in time where we can ‘be here’. There were so many events of the past that brought us to this time. No matter how you measure this, it can be measured. Now for the concept of an infinite number of past causes and events to have occurred, logically you could never arrive at ‘now’. Why? Because how many previous billions of events have to have occurred to bring us to the present? If there was never any starting point, then today could never have arrived! [I don't want you guys to think I am nuts and making all this up, many brilliant thinkers use this as proof for Gods existence. It is an argument made that is consistent with the laws of logic]. In essence the only workable solution to this problem is there had to have been a ‘prime mover’ [Aquinas]. Someone who actually ‘caused’ the first event. Now don’t make the mistake that some smart men have made. They mistook the law of cause and effect to mean ‘every thing, or being had to have had a cause’. This is not what the law says. It says ‘every effect had a cause’. These two are not the same. So the belief that there was an infinite, eternal being who was around forever allows for there to be an initial ‘causer’. This idea is in keeping with the current accepted science of ‘big bang cosmology’ [that every thing started at a specific time in history]. This view allows for there to have been a definite first cause, which according to the laws of logic allow for us to ‘be here today’. Got it?
(949) 1st CORINTHIANS 4: 1-7 Paul says we are ‘stewards of Gods mysteries’. This hidden knowledge of the gospel that can only be revealed by divine revelation has been committed to us. These great treasures of God’s wisdom are not products of our own intellect, therefore there is no reason to glory in men! Paul says stuff like this in Romans 4 ‘if it is by grace that Abraham became righteous, then there are no grounds for boasting.’ Now, because of this reason we ‘ought not to think of each other in an exalted way’. All men [apostles, prophets, teachers] that you have received truth from are simply ‘carriers of a gift freely given’. When you check out a book from the library and it contains great truth, do you exalt the librarian for it? Of course not, she is just a ‘steward of the book’. So Paul says this about him and Apollos and all other human teachers. Paul also teaches that we all will be judged according to the motives and intents of our hearts. He could care less about the private judgments that others made of him, he realized that all men would give an account some day. Therefore why waste time trying to impress people, it is about the most useless thing a person can do. Why? Because all men are like grass, we are here today and gone tomorrow. How much effort would you make in trying to impress your lawn? It’s all wasted time. Paul is not degrading human dignity, he is battling with the mindset of men worship that the church was falling into. Jesus himself said he would not commit himself to man because he knew what was in man [John’s gospel]. What’s in man? Do you ‘know yourself’? Have you ever tried to impress people? Did you later realize what a useless waste of energy this endeavor was? Well all men are like you [and me!] so why waste your time doing something that has no lasting value. Paul said it concerned him very little, he knew God would some day see all of our motives. He focused on stuff that mattered for eternity.
(950) 1ST CORINTHIANS 4: 8-20 Paul tells them he’s glad they have an abundance of material things, though he as an apostle is lacking. He’s happy about their sterling reputation [among the elite, though a bad reputation as believers- see chapter 5!] though he is mocked and treated badly. He even says ‘till this hour I labor, working with my own hands trying to make ends meet’. I don’t want to harp on this too much, but I am trying to show you one of the themes that we overlook in today’s pastoral ministry mindset. When we taught the book of Acts [chapter 20] I showed you how Paul purposely worked to leave an example TO THE ELDERS at Ephesus. He called them over to Mellitus and gave them these instructions as he was about to depart. Here we see Paul telling the Corinthians, in a letter [he is not with them at this time] that he is STILL working with his own hands. We often think Paul only worked while at Corinth, in order to not take offerings from them. But a careful reading of the New Testament will show you that Paul made a habit of working all thru out his life. He never became ‘a fulltime apostle’ who was supported thru his apostolic gift. Now we also see Paul send Timothy to them as a ‘carrier’ of doctrine and order. Paul wrote 3 pastoral [I prefer to call them apostolic] epistles. Titus and 1st and 2nd Timothy. These brothers were Paul's apostolic co-workers. They deposited the faith [basic Christian truth] into the communities they were overseeing. Paul knew he could trust them to ‘set things in order’ [an apostolic characteristic]. Some teach that in today’s ‘church world’ you can’t ‘have a church’ without the interplay of an apostle. That basically you need an apostle [in person] to interact with your community to keep things in order. Now, I think apostolic men are needed and helpful, but we also need to realize that we live in a day of mass communication like never before. The web, telecommunications. All sorts of stuff that Paul didn’t have. So let’s not be too dogmatic on stuff like this. I am sure Paul would have used these things if he had them. The basic thrust of Paul having a Timothy who could be sent to a community was for the purpose of seeing and impacting them in a ‘real time’ way. Paul was hearing rumors about their conduct, he is writing these letters to them. But he really needs to have ‘boots on the ground’, he needs to know firsthand what’s going on. Today this real time knowledge could be gained with a simple phone call, or e-mail. Paul also says Timothy will bring them into remembrance of his ways/teachings that Paul teaches ‘every where in every church’. Paul was depositing a consistent message of ‘faith and rule’ with all the churches he was planting. This of course didn’t mean the gentile churches had no individual expression of church life, but it did mean there were some consistent ‘rituals’ they were to follow. Things like we read in Acts ‘continued steadfastly in the apostle’s doctrine and breaking of bread and prayers’ simple instructions on living as a community of people. The historic church has a tendency to use these verses to say ‘Paul taught high church liturgy’ well, not really. The ‘radical house church brothers’ [they describe themselves this way!] tend to teach that any consistent rule, or way ‘to act’ violates the ‘no leader rule’ [no pastor] and prohibits the free expression of the ecclesia. Well, this sounds noble, but Paul told the Corinthians ‘Timothy will show you my ways that I teach in all the churches’. It’s not wrong to have some basic order and instructions on ‘how to act, function as the New Testament ecclesia’.
(951) MORE PROOF FROM SCIENCE- Yesterday I went to pick up my daughter from the airport and picked up a science magazine to read while waiting. The magazine was the December 2008 issue of ‘Discover’. They had a real interesting article on the reality of ‘fine tuning’ in the universe and how the only viable alternative [apart from God] to try and explain this fine tuning is this theory of multiple universes. The article kept referencing God! The interviewer went into all the unbelievable scientific discoveries that have been made in the field of Physics these last few years. He explained how these truly unbelievable measurements that must exist in order for life and man to exist, that these measurements have no naturalistic rational explanation of how they ‘just happened to be exactly right’ [I explain fine tuning in the Evolution section]. The article quoted other scientists as saying ‘even though the concept of a multi-verse is very, very doubtful, yet it is the only excuse for not having a creator in your system of belief’. The person being interviewed admitted that he did not want to accept the God explanation. The interviewer challenged him on the absolute shallow idea of a multi-verse [this is absolutely not true science!]. The scientist admitted the doubtfulness of the whole theory, but then said ‘what other options do we have? It must be true, because there is no other explanation apart from God’. The article was very revealing. The obvious bias of the defender of the multi-verse concept came thru clearly. The other scientists admitted the possibility of God as being the only true answer to the problem. They even showed the utter foolishness of the multi-verse theory as being true science. The fact that the ‘God question’ came up over and over again made me stop and look at the cover of the magazine to make sure I wasn’t reading this article from Christianity Today [Okay, I am exaggerating for effect]. The interviewer [also a scientist] explained the anthropic principle to the tee! This principle being the fact that the universe and all of its unbelievable components seem to be existing for the sole purpose of serving man. Returning to the old idea that things exist for mans benefit, man isn’t simply a blip on the cosmic radar screen. This concept was supposedly ‘undone’ by the Copernican revolution when he revealed that our Solar system was Heliocentric as opposed to Geocentric [the earth revolves around the Sun, not the other way around]. But all the recent developments in cosmology have turned the tables back to the idea that the universe really does exist, and has been designed for the purpose of mans survival. The multi-verse concept is a theory without any proof. Even if it were proven to be true, it still does not explain the obvious problem of ‘where did this universe spewing machine come from? How in the world did we ever arrive at a time in history where some unknown, non existent universe duplicator simply popped into existence from nothing?’ the multi-verse in reality is a desperate attempt to not believe in a creator. Even if it were proven true, you still haven’t really solved the problem.
(952) 1ST CORINTHIANS 5:1-7 Okay, now we get into some tough stuff. Paul tells them that he has heard about a situation where one of the brothers is sleeping with his step-mom [fathers wife, though probably not his mother]. And the rebuke is they are not repenting over it, but instead are kind of proud of the whole thing! Paul says to ‘deliver him to satan for the destruction of the flesh so the spirit may be saved’. Now I already showed you the way I view this verse. I tried to follow the other times where Paul speaks this way in this letter and when using this type of language I see him speaking of physical death [chapter 11- sleep-death as judgment to a believer who sins]. I often ‘day dream’ how bout you? I’m not sure if it’s the lord at times trying to tell me stuff. One of my noble fantasies is I can picture myself as the sole Christian preacher who has survived some nuclear holocaust and I am responsible to train the survivors. In this scenario [I am kinda ad libbing here, I don’t day dream this much!] I have both Catholic and Protestant believers. Although I am tempted to raise this new generation of people as Protestants, I instead teach the Catholics true Catholic doctrine [though I don't fully agree with it all] and I teach the Protestants their stuff. Now, I think this little day dream in some way speaks to what I need to do at times on this blog. I need to honestly tell both sides! In this verse ‘commit to satan for the destruction of the flesh’ some do see it a little differently. You can read ‘flesh’ as meaning ‘fleshly nature’. Paul does use the word this way at times. You can’t really make the distinction by going to the Greek. Instead you have to simply look at the context. So this view would be saying ‘deliver this believer to the enemy, don’t allow him to remain ‘in the camp’ and continue to receive the benefits of the believing community. As you ostracize him he will feel the effect of not being with you, he will come to his senses and leave his sin’ [which in this scenario is ‘his fleshly nature’] so the ‘destruction of the flesh’ in this interpretation would fit in well with Arminians. Now, do I believe it this way? No, but I sure feel noble, sort of like the Protestant preacher in my ‘day dream’. [p.s. if you tell anybody about this day dream, I will deny it!]
(953) Yesterday I managed to catch a few TV shows that were good. National geographic did a special called ‘the first Christians’. It was excellent. They covered more historic truth in one hour than you would get from years of sermons. They basically taught the New Testament word for ‘church’ [Ecclesia] and showed how because the early Christians did not believe the ‘church’ was a building, that therefore they spread rapidly without lots of money. They then covered the historic development of the ‘church building’ and the effect this had on them. They also got into the ‘end times’ scenarios that are played out over and over again by today’s prophecy teachers. They interviewed true theologians who put Johns Revelation in historical context. Just an excellent job overall. I also caught the show ‘Journey Home’ on E.W.T.N. [the Catholic channel]. I do like the show, it often gives good historical stuff. Last night they were a little ‘too Catholic’ [I know, what should I expect]. They had a good brother on who left ‘non-denominational Christianity’ and became Catholic. Now, most of these brothers are very intelligent believers who make this choice out of sincerity. They usually study the early church fathers and realize the ‘Catholic tone’ of these early believers. I simply felt the brother who spoke last night was a little too critical of his former church experience [Willow Creek]. I then caught Scott Hahn [an excellent Catholic scholar and apologist], he always has stuff that interests me. He brought up an argument I have heard before on how the early church saw the ‘real presence of Christ’ as being in the Eucharist. Others have made this argument before from the Catholic perspective of Jesus being with us, as opposed to the detractors arguments that he misled the early followers to think that he would soon return and set up a literal earthly kingdom. I have heard and do understand this reasoning. In essence it defends Jesus and his followers by saying ‘Jesus didn’t let down the early church by not returning and ‘being with them’ he was with them all along thru the Eucharist’ good intentions. I would prefer to argue the same point thru the fulfilling of the Fathers promise and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. Jesus says in John’s gospel ‘I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you’ it is understood by most theologians [Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant] that Jesus is speaking of the Holy Spirit. Jesus actually refers to the Spirit as ‘One just like unto myself’. The new testament very Cleary speaks of the Holy Spirit as Gods presence tabernacling among us in a real way. So in my thinking I would prefer to argue the real presence of Christ as being among the early believers as fulfilled thru the Comforter. Overall it was a good night of viewing some good teachers. I also couldn't help but notice how I have been skipping over the ‘more popular’ preaching shows of the day. I did click on one of the prophecy guys, he was defending ‘the rapture’ and I couldn’t help but notice the difference between the good theological discussions from the earlier shows, and the ‘silliness’ of what this brother was teaching. I don’t want to demean you if you hold to the rapture theory, it was just such an obvious ‘step down’ from the level of theologian to the level of popular prophecy preaching. In our current study of Corinthians we just went thru the verse ‘though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you have only one father’ [Paul referring to himself]. I couldn’t help but get this sense of the modern seen. You could flip thru all the religious broadcasting of our day and get every possible conceivable viewpoint on some subject, ten thousand of them! But there is a consistent voice of truth and wisdom that comes to us from both scripture and church history/tradition. I think we would be better off sticking with ‘the father[s]’.
(954) NOW IT’S A PARALLEL/BUBBLE UNIVERSE! I watched the first TV special I ever saw on the multi-verse theory. I think it’s the first one of its kind by the history channel. It was very eye opening. It seems as if its defenders have been told ‘your initial argument is nonsensical’ and they have made some adjustments. As you read down thru the Evolution section you will see that one of the arguments against a multi-verse is that it is a ‘non physical’ argument. It is metaphysical. This meaning that you could never truly prove the existence of another universe thru the science of Physics. Why? Because the original definition of ‘the universe’ was every thing that exists in the time/space continuum. If by definition, all that can be seen or detected is ‘part of our universe’ then how in the world can you detect something outside of it? [they have some ideas on this, but its pure speculation as of right now] Once you detect it, it, by definition is in our universe! Well the brothers now realize that they fell into this obvious contradiction, so they seem to be moving the goal posts a little. In the special I just saw, they now seem to be saying that our universe is simply one ‘bubble of universes’ that’s floating around in space [before, space and the universe were synonymous!] so they seem to be simply shrinking down the definition of universe and making it mean ‘our closed existing time space continuum, which is simply one of many’ Ahh, you guys are cheating with his one! But hey, how many viewers realized this? That’s the problem with these theories, they come up with them for the purpose of having another explanation for existence, but they then get into more trouble trying to keep their theory alive. Remember, the reason this theory started in the first place was to come up with some type of explanation, apart from God, to explain the fine tuning of the Cosmos [read my sections on fine tuning under Evolution]. The unbelievable fine measurements that have been found to be exactly right to support life have no other real explanation apart from a creator. The multi-verse theory simply says ‘well, if you have millions and billions of unseen universes [pure speculation!] then the odds on one of them getting it right just went up’. So this theory was originally floated for this reason. Now, even if this theory were ever proved [according to the new definition of the universe!] it would simply mean that instead of trying to figure out how ‘our universe got here’ [the original question] now we have to figure out how they all got here! It really proves nothing. But I thought it interesting to see how these giants of Academia now realize that they were violating the basic laws of logic by espousing the theory in its original form! [In essence, all these so called floating, bubble like universes would have originally fallen under the heading of ‘the universe’. You wouldn’t have seen them as a bunch of separate universes. But they had to change the definition in order to keep their argument in the boundaries of logic and common sense]. They also borrowed from Einstein’s theory on worm holes. But Einstein surmised that worm holes might be these tunnels in space/time that one could travel thru and exit at another dimension, a different location of the universe. He did not use this idea as traveling from one ‘bubble universe’ into another, like the proponents of the multi-verse were doing. The show then got too silly to even give it a speck of serious thought. They then theorized that there are possible duplicates of us, and duplicates of other sports teams and presidents and all types of stuff. They thought it possible for the Giants to have won the super bowl in one universe, though losing it in ours [and you call this science!] they even said that this theory has moral implications. How did they come up with this? One of them explained that you could be ‘good’ in one universe, but if you realize that this holy altar image of yourself is doing good somewhere else, then this might effect your choice of being righteous in ‘this universe’ WOW! As we continue our study thru the book of Corinthians, keep in mind Paul’s teaching on the foolishness of men’s wisdom, I think we just saw a good example of it. There is this stature that we give in our modern day to any ‘Tom, Dick or Harry’ that comes down the pike with any nonsensical idea. We see them as a special class, the Academics can’t be wrong! After all it sounds intellectual. A few centuries before Christ you had the great philosopher ‘Philo- Betto’ [O wait, that was Clint Eastwood's character in ‘every which way but lose!’] I mean Plato. Truly Plato and Aristotle and Socrates have had tremendous influence on Western thought. You would be hard pressed to find other later philosophers who have had the same influence [maybe Immanuel Kant]. Plato built this great school of learning in ancient Greece. He bought the land from a man by the name of ‘Academe’. Eventually we would call this pursuit of knowledge ‘the Academic world’ or Academia. Hey, don’t be intimidated by these guys.
(955) 1st CORINTHIANS 5:6-8 Okay, lets get back to Corinthians. ‘Your glorying is not good, get rid of the old leaven. Don’t you know that a little yeast can affect the whole lump? Get rid of it, you are all unleavened, Christ is our new Passover Lamb who has been sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth’ [my own paraphrasing]. A few things. I want you to see something here, over the years I have read and studied lots of great theologians. It is common for these brothers to go back to the reality of the early church fathers belief in the ‘Real Presence’ of Christ in the Eucharist [Lords supper]. It is also becoming less common [in theological circles!] to defend the symbolic view of the Lords Supper. I believe Paul is presenting the idea of all believers spiritually sitting at the ‘table of life’ on a daily basis and receiving from Christ’s new life in a spiritual/symbolic way. He clearly says ‘let us keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth’ [clearly symbolic!] Peter writes of the new sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. Jesus speaks in an interesting way about this in John chapter 6. The Jews ask him ‘show us a sign, Moses gave us bread to eat from heaven. If you’re from God then prove it like Moses’. I find it interesting that in the key chapter of Jesus being the bread that comes down from heaven, the conversation turns to Moses. The beginning of the chapter does say the Passover feast was getting close, but the imagery is Moses and Manna. Moses represented the Old system of law and works, John’s gospel tells us that ‘the law came from Moses, but grace and truth from Jesus’. Jesus contrasts himself with Moses. He says ‘I am the real bread that has come down from heaven, if men eat my flesh and drink my blood they will live’. Now we must understand the tremendous offence this statement caused. The Jewish people had Levitical laws [commands in their law] that forbid the drinking of any type of blood, never mind the blood of a person! But yet Jesus would speak this way to them. In the conversation the hearers acknowledge the difficulty of the saying, Jesus will say ‘the flesh profits nothing, it is the Spirit that gives you life. The words I am speaking to you are Spirit and life’. At the last supper [which was the symbolic end of the Passover and the beginning of a new celebratory meal centered on the final scarf ice of Jesus, the Lamb of God] Jesus seems to be saying ‘from now on, as long as you do this, you are showing my death until I come again’ [we get this from Paul later on in Corinthians]. As you put all of this imagery together, you get the sense of the New Covenant being one of an ongoing continual New Covenant meal from which all believers daily eat from and ‘keep the feast with the new leaven of truth and sincerity, not the old leaven of sin and wickedness’. You clearly see a symbolic element in this language. Now, I do not discount the importance of the actual ordinance of the Lords Table. I recently defended the Catholic idea to an ex Catholic who is now Protestant. They said ‘how can people believe something so silly’ I had to say that many serious intellectual believers accept the Real Presence doctrine by faith in the literal reading of Jesus words. Luther himself believed it, he made no bones about it when he slammed his fist on the table in his dispute with Zwingli and said ‘this IS MY BODY!’ Standing for the literal interpretation of the sacrament. John Wesley, the founder of the great Methodist movement, wrote many hymns speaking of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. So make no mistake about it, many good believers hold to the literal belief. I just wanted you to see that it is also in keeping with the scripture to see the entire Christian walk as one huge ongoing ‘feast’ that is kept with spiritual sacrifices and symbolic language. Jesus is the bead that came down from heaven, those who would stay with ‘Moses bread’ [law] would die, those who would eat from this new table would live forever.
(956) EMERGENT STUFF- yesterday I spent most of the day reading up on the Emergent movement and its trends. I am not one of those critics who never actually reads the books that these brothers put out. Nor am I one of the guys who simply reads to find fault. A few years back I read ‘The sacred way’ by Tony Jones. I enjoyed the book. I incorporated some of the ideas [Jesus prayer] into my prayer time. And I even begin my intercession time with the historic crossing of myself [in the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit] this was nothing new to me, I did grow up Catholic and was confirmed and made my communion in the church. Now, what do I see as a little dangerous [others see a whole lot that’s wrong]. Some of the teachings say ‘Jesus really didn’t come to start a new movement, he was a Jew who was simply incorporating others into Judaism’. Also lots of talk on the Sabbath and the religious rhythm of the ancient church. Fixed time prayers and stuff like that. Okay things that many believers practice. But all of this type of talk needs to include why so many Evangelicals do not practice these rituals. One big reason is because the New Testament has a theme of grace that teaches us that Jesus did institute a ‘new religion’ [new covenant] that fulfilled all the types and symbols of the old. Paul would rebuke the early believers for wanting to return back to these things [Galatians, Colossians]. He would say ‘you are observing days and seasons and old covenant rites, I fear for you’. Paul did not teach the Sabbath as an ongoing practice for the Gentile churches. There were SOME symbols left to us [Lords Supper, baptism- I wouldn’t argue with other Christians who have a few more] but the overall Ethos of this New kingdom was not one of liturgy and symbol, it was one of fulfillment. I liked Tony’s book, but some of the ideas could easily lead a new believer down the road of legalism. If we put [or offer] too many ritualistic practices back into the New Covenant community of grace, then we are in danger of going back under a legalistic mindset. Now, what about the issues of slavery and women in the church and homosexuality [gee, you think I might be biting off a little too much?] This conversation says ‘just like preachers used scripture to defend slavery, but later the church needed to shape her overall view by the broad themes of scripture, as opposed to any single verse. So likewise we need to approach the issue of women in the pulpit and the ordaining of homosexuals thru the same lens’. Okay, I see some merit to this argument with the ordaining of women [some!] but the issue of sexual morality is different. The scripture never said ‘slavery is good, freedom is bad’. To the contrary scripture teaches the opposite. Now I have mentioned how you could justify slavery from certain passages, but freedom itself is never explicitly condemned. The scripture specifically condemns the sin of homosexuality, no bones about it [not just the Old Testament either]. Does this mean we should be mean and discriminate against the gay community, no. But we need to be open and honest about the way scripture deals with this issue. Some challenge the idea of scripture being authoritative in this way for our day. Well that’s an argument some make, but the Orthodox view of scripture doesn’t see it like that. So basically I think we need to be careful when telling new believers that Jesus never intended for the old rituals to pass away, he was starting a new revolutionary kingdom movement that would be free from the former restraints of the law. This is basic to the whole teaching of the NEW covenant.
(957) 1ST CORINTHIANS 5:9-13 Now Paul clarifies what he meant when he said ‘don’t associate with those who sin sexually’. He wants to be clear that his instructions on ‘not being with sinners’ is not misunderstood. After all we are called salt and light, Jesus himself was accused of spending too much time with the lost. So Paul says ‘what I meant was don’t keep ongoing fellowship with a brother who is practicing unrepentant sin’. He also says ‘if you thought I meant all sinners in general, then heck you wouldn’t be able to live in society this way’. Some believers have taken a stand on ‘separation from the world’ in such a way that they have no unbelieving friends. Others seem to view the unbeliever as the enemy. Sort of like we are in this culture war and the enemy is YOU! I can’t even watch the O’Reilly factor [Fox news] too long, he says he’s fighting this culture war and then in the ads for upcoming shows he shows the raciest pictures on any news show. What’s up with that? I feel we need to make the distinction between separating from a sinning brother [for his own good] and having friendships with unbelievers. People you can influence down the road. Paul also says if we judge our own [by shunning them for their own good] that this is a type of ‘present chastening’ that believers do experience. But those who are ‘outside the camp’ [unbelievers] are left to be judged by God. We see this same theme in chapter 11 ‘when we are judged we are disciplined by the Lord so we will not be condemned with the world’ [at the final judgment]. I believe that this idea is one of the best arguments for eternal security [once saved, always saved. Though I don’t like this language, you get the hint]. The concept of believers being presently dealt with for sin, even to the possible point of physical death, seems to indicate that they will not face a future judgment like the lost [eternal damnation]. When we recently did one of our Old Testament studies, I overlooked a verse that said to King David ‘I will raise up one of your sons [Solomon/Jesus- dual Messianic prophecy] and he will build this new temple/people. The way I will deal with the people under this new covenant is, if they commit sins, I will chasten them, but I will not utterly take my mercy from them’ [my paraphrasing- it is said to the actual son, Solomon/Jesus, but in the New Covenant revelation of the church actually being part of the Body of Christ, this is how you could apply it]. You can also read this idea in a few other places. I think Jeremiah uses it ‘I will give them a new heart and I will put my Spirit in them’ and he also speaks about not being totally rejected if they commit sin under this new covenant. So the point is, if there is a mechanism under this new covenant whereby sin is dealt with in the present time, and if this is compared to the other choice which is ‘judgment at a later time’. This would seem to indicate a type of ‘in house discipline’ that says ‘if you openly sin now, God will judge you now. He does this for your own good, so you won’t face the judgment of the unbeliever at the end’. So the fact that some were sinning, even pretty badly! Did not mean that they were expelled completely from the benefits of the covenant. As a matter of fact, temporal excommunication itself was one of the benefits! I don't want to be too dogmatic on this, I just want you to see a repeated theme in scripture that says God will deal with his kids in the here and now [no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous- Hebrews] but this in itself is a blessing that is designed to ‘produce the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby’ Hebrews.
(958) 1ST CORINTHIANS 6: 1-7 Paul rebukes them for taking each other to court. He tells them ‘don’t you have any wise people among you who could handle this? Why go before unbelievers!’ he also tells them ‘plus, why even fight for your rights, if you think you have been wronged in some way by your brother, then simply see it as part of the cost of carrying your cross’. Paul contradicts the prevalent mindset in much of Christianity today. He doesn’t teach ‘get what’s yours, know your rights!’ he teaches the ethos of self denial, of living with the expectation of giving up your rights and dreams. Of taking loss, if it glorifies the Father. Now we get into some ‘stuff’. Paul appeals to them by saying ‘don’t you realize that we shall judge angels some day, we shall judge the world’. A few years back there was a debate going on in theological circles. Some theologians popularized a new way to look at God’s sovereignty. This new system was called ‘Open Theism’. Scholars like Clark Pinnock and others held out the possibility that God doesn’t foreordain all future events, they actually went further and said ‘he doesn’t know all future events’. Well of course this sparked off a firestorm among the Calvinists. Does scripture teach that God is sovereign and does know all that will happen? To be honest about it, yes. But the idea of open theism was saying ‘because God has chosen to give man free will, he, by his own design, has chosen to limit his knowledge in the area of knowing all of mans future choices’. In essence that God purposely ‘does not know’ the future outcomes of decisions that have not been made by humans. If free will is real [of course the Calvinists say no] then God must limit himself to knowledge in these areas. I personally do not believe this, but I think I needed to share it to explain this section of scripture. Paul does tell them they will judge the world and angels. In second Peter 2, the apostle says the fallen angels are being held for a future day of judgment. In Matthew [19-?] Jesus says those who follow him will play a part in a future ruling over human government. These scriptures do indicate that believers will play a role in future judgment scenarios. So if we ‘judge angels and the world’ we should be able to arbitrate between ourselves! Now, in the world of theology you have sincere questions on ‘is it fair for God to judge people who have never heard the gospel’ or ‘if God is truly sovereign in all things, even in predestinating certain people to salvation, then this is unfair’. Many have turned to universalism, or a belief in ‘no hell’ in order to quell these questions. I want to simply float a scenario to you. Jesus says ‘whosoever sins you remit [forgive] they are forgiven. Those you retain [not forgive] will be retained’ while there are differing views on these verses, I want you to see how these scriptures, in keeping with all that I just showed you, might leave us room for another possible way out of all the so called questions on Gods ‘fairness’. Say if at the judgment, we are all gathered [Calvinists, Arminians, Catholics,…] and say if we are all waiting to see who’s right ‘I’ll show that Arminian…I’ll show that Catholic…’ and we are at the day where the future destinies of millions are at stake. What will God do? It’s possible that much of the final decision will rest in the hands of the church. I know it sounds heretical, but keep in mind all the verses I just quoted to you. Say if all of our pompous pontificating [wow!] amongst varying theories of the atonement and universalism and all the other stuff. Say if Jesus turns to us and says ‘You are now going to make the most important judgment of your lives, you shall judge the world and angels’ and all of a sudden all of our scrutiny of God’s fairness turns on us. We see in the crowd of masses, faces of people who we hate. People who have been demonized by history [Darwin, Hitler]. Those we always wondered about [eastern religions] and now much of their final destiny rides on us. Even the possibility of fallen angels being forgiven! [Hey, maybe Origin was right?] The whole point of this scenario is to simply say we might have been asking the wrong questions all along. Now for sure, no one gets in without Jesus and his blood! But there are also a few other verses [Peter] that seem to indicate a second hearing [or first!] of the gospel before the final day. The point being how willing are you to really carry out something like this? Are you really ready for the great responsibility of having someone’s destiny depend on how forgiving you are? I really don’t believe 100 % in this scenario I just floated. But Jesus does put us in positions of responsibility all thru out our lives. He does say ‘whoever’s sins we don’t forgive, these sins will be held against them by your own choice’ we keep people in ‘chains of bondage’ today! Never mind the future. God has committed to us great responsibility as believers, if we are still fighting each other over insignificant things [taking our brothers to court, if you will] then we are truly not ready to ‘Judge the world’.
(959) 1ST CORINTHIANS 6: 8-20 Paul paints a ‘canvas’ of those who will not inherit the Kingdom. The list not only includes the big ones, but also the ‘average Joe’. Homosexuals, covetous, straight people who commit sexual sin; just the whole gambit. I do want to stress that Paul is not politically correct, he does categorize homosexuality as sin. He is not simply saying ‘non monogamous homosexuality’ but all types. I know there is an honest effort being made to try as much as possible to be more inclusive of other people’s views and lifestyles. I am for this approach as much as possible, but we also need to be honest about sin, all sin. Now covetous is that strong desire to amass wealth, it is the daily longing and confessing and believing for more material abundance. Yes folks, it’s what many of us have been duped into thru wrong teaching. I had a homeless friend who used to tell me how his dad, who was retired, used to wake up every day and simply consume his day with the stock market and how his retirement was going, he didn’t realize that he made the funding of his retirement [an okay goal] the main thought pattern of his life. I also just saw a story similar to this on some business channel. We need to be ‘ware’ of covetousness. Now Paul makes special mention of the destructive nature of sexual sin, he says ‘it destroys you’. I have been reading Proverbs the last month or so and there are many warnings about sexual sin. It says ‘he that does this destroys his own soul’. A few years back I watched [or read?] a local story of a professor who came down with a disease called Dementia. As they shared his story they described the progressive nature of him slowly losing his mind, and how his family eventually brought him back home [he was not married, his parents took him in] as they shared the sad story, they kinda of tactfully said ‘one of the possible signs of this disease is obsessive compulsive sexual behavior’. They basically were saying part of this mans history included obsessive sexual sin. I wonder if the dementia in some way is a result of the behavior, as opposed to a symptom. There was also as study done years ago that showed the difference in the brain scans of Homosexuals and Heterosexuals, they seemed to have found some real physical brain distinctions. But once again, is it possible that sexually engaging in certain sinful behaviors is actually ‘destroying the soul’, or causing a change in the brain? Paul singled out this sin [not just Homosexual behavior, but all sexual sin!] as causing actual damage to a person’s physical make up in a way that was more damaging than other sins. I think we all need to heed his warning. [note- sexual sin is a common struggle in life. Many believers do struggle and have fallen into this sin. Paul actually is addressing these sins because of the prevalence of the problem. I don’t want to condemn any one who reads this site and struggles this way, Paul is offering hope and forgiveness thru out this letter. He seems to be extra harsh with the Corinthians because of their lax attitude towards this sin].
(960) MATT 24:36-39 what in the world does ‘as it were in the days of Noah’ mean? Let’s go on a rabbit trail today. The other day I took my daughter to the Laundromat [our dryer broke!] and had some ‘down time’ to kill. So I grabbed a few news papers and sat in the truck while listening to Christian radio. I heard an old time brother who has broadcast on the station I am on for years. They are good Christians, from the ‘tribe’ of dispensationalism. The fundamentalist ‘King James only’ type. They taught a little on the verse above. I also recently saw a TV evangelist [may there tribe decrease] deal with the verse. The TV brother, who by the way also had the same type of fundamentalist background, taught his own spin on the verse. He said ‘just like in Noah’s day, you had aliens/fallen angels visit the earth and cohabitate with women, so Jesus taught that near the end time there would be an increase in u.f.o. sightings’ [ouch!] The radio brothers have taught that just like Noah entered into the ark, so the church would be raptured before Christ comes, because Jesus said ‘just like the days of Noah’. If you read the passage [Matt. 24:36-39] Jesus plainly tells you what he means. He is not talking about aliens or ‘raptures’ he is simply warning the people about the suddenness of the coming judgment day. Jesus is saying ‘just like in Noah’s day, the people were marrying and partying and living it up, right until the day when Noah entered the ark, and then the flood came and caught them off guard. So shall it be in the day when the son of man returns’. Basically Jesus is saying the people of Noah’s day didn’t give heed to the warnings of Noah, they probably looked at him as some nut! But their lethargy and sinful state put them in a position that caught them off guard. Sure enough the judgment that Noah warned about did come. So Jesus is warning people not to be caught off guard like the people of Noah’s day. Now, why would preachers take these types of verses and teach aliens and raptures? For the most part this branch of Christianity means well, there are times where I have learned interesting facts and stuff from them. But there is an approach to scripture that says ‘because Gods word [King James] is perfect [true] therefore we can find all these hidden meanings that are not in the original context’. Is this what the historical doctrine of verbal inspiration teaches? Not in a million years. The reformers taught that scripture still needed to be seen thru the historic churches understanding. They did teach that all believers had the right to expect God to speak to them thru his word, but they did not teach the type of private interpretation as seen above. To the contrary you had other radicals who were reading the book of Revelation [or more commonly known as ‘the Revelations’J] and began seeing themselves as the end time witnesses who were to establish the New Jerusalem on the earth. They would mount a violent rebellion and get killed! These groups were straying outside of the magisterial reformers ideas on scripture. Though it seemed silly to hear some of the recent preaching on Noah’s day, these types of ideas can become dangerous if they lead us away from the actual meaning of Gods word. Even though these brothers highly value the doctrine of verbal inspiration [their view of it] they do a disservice to Christian learning when thy do stuff like this.
(961) 1ST CORINTHIANS 7:1-15 Paul addresses divorce. It is interesting that Jesus himself actually raised the bar from the Old Covenant practice to the New. In most other areas he emphasized grace as opposed to law ‘the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath’ but in this area Jesus said ‘Moses made an exception under the law for divorce, but from the beginning this was not Gods plan’ and Jesus restricted divorce to the cause of adultery only. Here Paul gives some direction. First, you shouldn’t divorce. You also shouldn’t be married to an unbeliever. Well, what should happen to those who were unbelievers when they married, but now one is a believer? Paul says if the unbeliever is ‘pleased’ to stay in the union, then that’s fine. Well what does ‘pleased’ mean? If the unbeliever is physically abusing his spouse, then that doesn’t seem ‘pleasing’ to me. Paul will say if the unbeliever departs, let them go. The believer should not feel condemned by this. He/she had no control in this case. But if there is a divorce, let the one who left remain unmarried. So what happens if you were forced into it, can you re marry? Paul does not specifically say. He does say to the one who left the marriage, they should not remarry. Divorce is a tricky issue. When attending the fundamental Baptist church they taught that if one were divorced they could never be ‘a Pastor’ [even though no one was ‘a pastor’ in this way in the first century church!]. Many teach that Paul’s instructions on Bishops/Elders said a divorced person should not be an overseer. Paul actually said ‘they should be the husband of one wife’. This most certainly could simply be saying they shouldn’t be in a plural marriage. This was common in the first century, so you could take it this way. Overall I find it strange that someone could have been a murderer [Paul] or any other type of sinner, but the divorcee' seems to be the only sinner that is excluded. The other problem is how much of ‘a believer’ were you at the time of your divorce. There have been well known preachers who initiated the divorce from their wives, they remarried and later wanted this to be treated as any other sin, just forgive and forget. The problem is if you were wise enough in the lord to have known better, then true repentance would entail making things right. Whether that’s reconciliation or simply remaining single, but it sure seems like these types of brothers who went into the whole remarriage thing with their eyes wide open, they should be held to a higher standard. Overall, we should not be in bondage to things that were out of our control. Those who were victimized and the partner left you, you should not be condemned for something that was out of your control. Believers who initiate the divorce from someone who was willing to stay in the marriage, they should not remarry. There have been too many cases where believers divorce other believers, without biblical grounds, and then remarry someone from the church. These situations are not permitted. If the believing spouse was simply ‘difficult to live with’ then that doesn’t cut it. In situations where there was actual physical abuse, well I don't believe the Lord wants you to stay in the house under these circumstances. But the only biblical excuse for divorce, according to Jesus, is adultery. In all of these gray areas, wisdom must be applied. The high profile ministers who have initiated their divorces and remarried, without the proper biblical grounds, should not be simply ‘forgiven’ and permitted to continue in their public role in ministry. True forgiveness and restoration would entail some sort of repentance and a public change in the situation. Like Paul says ‘to the rest speak I, not the Lord’. I am giving you my opinion on some of this stuff, but I too think I have the Spirit of Christ.
(962) 1ST CORINTHIANS 7:16-24 ‘Were you circumcised when you were called into the Christina life? Then don’t become uncircumcised’ [that would be quite a feat!] ‘Were you uncircumcised when called? Don’t get circumcised’. What’s Paul saying? Basically he is keeping the decrees that were made at the Jerusalem council [Acts 15]. He is stressing the importance of Christ’s spiritual kingdom. To the Jew, he is not saying ‘keep trying to become justified by the law and sacrifices’ but he is saying ‘I am not trying to wipe out your culture and heritage, I am trying to bring you into the fullness of what the Prophets have foretold’. This is Paul’s ongoing defense in the book of Acts ‘I stand condemned because I believe that what the prophets said would happen, did!’. Paul says the thing that matters is ‘the doing of Gods commandments’. When we studied Romans I showed how Paul did say ‘the hearers of the law are not justified, but the doers shall be’. Here again Paul stresses the importance of the Christian life being one of true conversion. Those who believe are changed and become doers of Gods law by nature. The mechanism of conversion is Faith, the outworking of that conversion is obedience. So even though Paul is not putting the law on the gentile converts, yet he does teach that they will by nature keep the law [Romans again]. Now he says ‘were you a slave when called? Seek not to become free. Were you free? Don’t become a slave’ and ‘be not the servants/slaves of men’. We actually have hit on this a few times in recent months. Once again Paul says ‘don’t see this new faith as an opportunity to mount a civil disobedience campaign’ but at the same time he makes it clear ‘don’t put yourself under servitude either!’ The New Testament does not justify the institution of slavery or racism! The basic ethos of this new kingdom is freedom from bondage, it was only a matter of time before this new movement would shake the foundations of society and uproot this evil. Make no mistake about it, the anti-slavery movement was instigated by the people of God [William Wilberforce, Charles Finney and many others].
(963) 1ST CORINTHIANS 7: 25-40 let’s be a little unconventional today. This passage deals with Paul’s counsel on celibacy and marriage. The historic church has had a bad rap on this issue. It is common today to say the church devalued marriage [and sex] and therefore we should exalt it. Sometimes this attempt at trying to correct the perceived imbalance puts a stumbling block in the way of those who are truly called to live the single life. Though marriage is an honorable thing, a true gift from God, yet living the celibate life can also be considered a very noble thing. It is rare in contemporary evangelicalism to leave this option open. Paul does say this option is not only available, but a noteworthy calling! He also makes it clear that only those who are called to this single lifestyle should attempt it. The church should not force celibacy on people. Now, do our catholic brothers force it upon the Priests? In a way, yes. But don’t forget that no one is ‘forced’ into the priesthood. Some feel like the scandals of catholic priests who abused children can be blamed on forced celibacy. The problem with this idea is many protestant ministers have also fallen sexually, and they were not celibate! The point being we need to be careful when we brand any Christian denomination with an accusation. Now, Paul also makes an interesting statement that we need to look at. He says ‘for the present distress I give these guidelines’. Is it possible that Paul's seeming harshness on marriage was due to the fact of some type of distress that he saw coming? Possibly the Neronic persecutions? If so, Paul could be saying ‘because of the upcoming severe persecution I recommend everyone just laying low for the time, if married, seek not to be single and vice a versa’. This is possible, we need to keep this in mind when reading this section of scripture. But most of all I think the modern evangelical church needs to retool her message in this area. Marriage and sex are good, God ordained these things in their proper place. But living single and celibate is also considered a very noble calling, we do not normally reflect this balance in the present atmosphere. Also as an aside, a few years back it was common to teach ‘the world/public schools have taken sex and taught it to our kids. They have usurped the job of the family/church’ while there is some truth to this, the problem was some well known TV evangelists began to discuss sex in the Sunday morning setting that was improper in a way [If you local Pastors who read this have done this, be assured I am not talking about you!]. I remember watching a national minister speak openly, with grandma’s and children in the service, and say ‘now speaking about sexual climax’ Yikes!! Just because the family/church dropped the ball on these issues, this doesn’t mean there are no barriers at all while dealing with these issues. Those who do this type of stuff seem to be saying ‘sex is not a dirty thing, therefore we need to bring it out into the open’ while this is true to a degree, there are also age appropriate subjects that should be taught in a private setting. If the church feels the need to delve into these subjects, we need to be careful that we are not crossing boundaries when doing it.
(964) MORE PROOF FOR GOD- Okay, what’s up with ‘dark matter’? In the 20th century the amazing breakthroughs in science showed us that what we thought was a limited universe, was actually a growing universe that was expanding at a faster rate every day. The further out you got, the faster it was expanding. This discovery [Hubble] worked in harmony with Einstein’s theories. This discovery also created a problem. If the universe is so much more vast than previously thought to be, then the amount of known matter needed in the universe in order to maintain the proper gravitational force was not there. Basically you need so much matter to exist in order for this newly discovered expanding universe to hold together and function right. The problem is that the matter is not there![some say it is still not detected]. So the theory of ‘dark matter’ [unseen, undetected matter] has been floated. This invisible matter is supposedly the single greatest matter in existence, though we have no proof that even one tiny particle exists! Ahh, when stuff like this happens, we need to pay close attention. Why? Well some who defend the young earth theory of creation use this to back up their claim of a young universe. It’s kinda technical stuff, but this ‘dark matter’ has to be there to defend the old age theory [for some!]. Another problem is we have absolutely no proof that this dark matter exists. It is simply believed in because the naturalistic explanation demands it! Sort of like coming to a part in a puzzle where a piece doesn’t fit, so you simply make something fit. Now, the bible does teach that the vast universe is held together [a key role of so called dark matter] by Christ’s absolute power. The other explanation for how the vast universe is able to function smoothly, without the needed matter to create the huge amount of gravity, is that God himself is holding all things together by his omnipotence. In essence, we need God for this puzzle to fit. I am not saying the idea of dark matter is totally false, but as far as we know today, there is no proof that it exists. We as believers should not take an anti scientific stance on everything, to the contrary, true science always backs up the Christian world view [in general] but we also need to be suspicious when science floats an idea that can be explained by the existence of a creator. If the idea is simply out there, with no proof at all [the multi-verse] then we certainly have the right to challenge whether the whole thing is a bunch of ‘dark [invisible] matter’!
(965) 1st CORINTHIANS 8- Once again Paul will deal with the issue of what’s clean or unclean, the Christians convictions. Corinth not only had low sexual standards, but also much idolatry. This led to a problem of whether or not believers should purchase the meat sold in the market that was used for idol worship. After the sacrifice was made, whatever good meat was left could be sold on the streets. Now, Paul says the believer knows there is only one true God, so with this knowledge you are not sinning because you know the meat really wasn’t used to worship other gods, because there are no other Gods! But he also says that every man does not have this knowledge. So just like he taught the Romans, he teaches the Corinthians that in all of your freedom, the highest standard is whether you are building others up or tearing them down. If you have a free conscience to eat the meat, then fine, it is no sin to you. But if this liberty is offending the minds of those who are weaker in the faith, then your freedom just became a stumbling block and worked against the main goal of building others up. So the real question isn’t ‘can I do this with a clean conscience’ but ‘does my practice offend or build others up’? Many years ago I had a friend who smoked cigars, he was a believer and simply saw nothing wrong with it. We had a mutual friend who found out about it and bought some cigars and gagged on them. His conscience was emboldened to ‘eat the meat’ and by doing it he sinned. Why was cigar smoking sin to the weaker brother? Because he really wasn’t doing it out of a pure heart with a clean motive. Though the cigar smoker felt he had the freedom to smoke [it wasn’t an every day thing] yet his freedom caused another to fall. So Paul consistently takes this position in his letters. Some day we will get to other verses like ‘the things the gentiles offer to idols are being offered to demons, so don’t partake with them at the same table’ this is dealing with a different thing, I’ll explain it at another time. Paul also says ‘knowledge puffs up, but charity builds up’. One of the side trails believers can easily fall into is thinking the Christian life is simply an exercise is learning things. That is knowledge for knowledge’s sake. While Paul was not advocating ignorance, he was dealing with carnal believers who walked in pride. He was showing them that those who think they stand should be careful lest they fall. Paul was calling them to a higher purpose than just learning scripture and applying it for personal satisfaction, he was calling them to live sacrificially, to take the wrong done to you [legally in court stuff]. To give up the freedom to ‘smoke cigars’ if you will, for the sake of others. Paul was teaching them that it was possible to be right and have the answers to back up your position, but if you are truly not dieing to self, you are simply getting ‘puffed up’.
(966) 1ST CORINTHIANS 9:1-14 Paul defends his apostleship and gives a strong defense for the New Testament doctrine of financially supporting Christian leaders. Now, I never want to be one of those types of teachers who skews or bypasses scriptures that seem to contradict previous teachings. It’s common for good men to do this, all leaders need to avoid doing it. Recently I added my comments to a debate that raged in the blogasphere. You had Frank Viola put out the book ‘Pagan Christianity’ [good book, I read and do recommend it] and another good theologian, Ben Witherington, gave a good critique [I also recommend Bens site, you can find both Frank and Ben’s sites on my blog roll]. Part of the debate hinged on the financial support of elders/ministers. I must admit I fell on Ben’s side in this argument, though I probably would agree with Frank around 90 % of the time on all the other stuff. Ben argued for the biblical mandate to support elders, frank seems to teach the support of apostles [itinerant workers] is okay, but does not leave room for the support of elders who live in the community. Now, you really need to read all I have written under the ‘what in the world is the church’ section of this blog to get my full view on all of this stuff, but this section of Corinthians makes this stuff pretty clear. Paul says ‘I have the right not to work and only live off of the offerings of the people’. So Paul defends this practice, but he also says ‘I choose not to use it’. He also uses two interesting examples from ‘the law’ [Old Testament] to defend the financial support of leaders. ‘The Ox who is treading out the corn shouldn’t be muzzled’ and ‘the priests who serve at the altar get to eat the meat from the sacrifices’. What is the most obvious example that he does not use? The tithe! I would say this is one of the best proofs for the tithe not being a normative practice of the early church. But Paul does use the other examples to say its right to financially support those who labor among you. But Paul has also given examples to elders [read my Acts 20 commentary] to show them that they are not in this for the money! Paul will actually defend the practice of working and not taking money from the believers. So we see a wide range of freedom in this area. I feel the biblical example is it is fine to financially support Christian leadership who are dedicating their lives to teaching and ministering the word. It is also fine to not use these ‘rights’ as a Christian leader. But nowhere are we taught a type of Levitical tithe system for the support of Christian leaders. Why? Paul’s main message was one of grace and coming out from the requirements of the law. To have used the tithe as an example to give financially would have been counterproductive to his whole message. Eventually believers would come to view ‘the church’ and ‘the priest/pastor’ as the single head of ‘the church building’ who would be supported like a Levite who served as a priest under the old covenant [bring all the tithes into the storehouse type concept]. This legalistic view of ‘the church’ is prevalent today in much of Christendom, both Catholics and Protestants seem to cling to this limited view of the church. The modern house church movement is giving the old view quite a run for its money! But let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. Paul said its okay to financially support Christian leadership among you, just don't see it as a tithe that is supporting some type of Christian New Testament Levitical priest!
(967) PROVERBS- Up early praying and stuff. A few years back when I started writing this blog I never thought I would write so much! I just took the spot where I was reading thru my yearly schedule and began teaching it. It’s really easy to be honest. Sometimes I just do a brief reading and then sit down and write [actually all the time- note that I always pray/meditate for at least one hour prior to writing. Scripture [actually Proverbs!] says ‘write the commandment on your heart [teachings of your father- Gods Word] and bind the tradition around your neck’ [teaching of your mother- church history and stuff]. When you do this it will ‘keep you when you lay down, guide you when you go out, and speak/talk to you when you wake up’. I am not advocating slack studying before preaching, I am advocating that you fill your mind and spirit continually, then when ‘the spot light hits you’ your ready!]. This keeps me from my old routine of reading and meditating slowly. So I try and read other devotional sections of scripture at the same time. I am doing Proverbs right now, I like the wisdom literature. The Old Testament can be divided into three sections; 1- Wisdom literature 2- The law 3- The Prophets. The ‘keeper’ of the law is the Priest, the Prophets are of course the Prophet. The wisdom literature; Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Job and Psalms [James in the New Testament] are associated with the ‘Sage’ or wise man [Apostle]. So Maybe during our ‘down time’ [days where I purposely don’t teach! Because it’s so routine to just get up, pray and teach that it can become a rut. I don’t want to brag, but I am two years ahead of schedule on all our radio broadcasts. I have around 630 individual radio messages already done!] So maybe I will just hit high points from these devotional readings. I recently read ‘LABOR NOT TO BE RICH, CEASE FROM YOUR OWN WISDOM’. I originally felt like just quoting it and saying ‘look! What is he saying now? Hear we go again on his anti prosperity campaign!’ And then responding ‘why brothers, I didn’t say anything, I just quoted scripture’. Well, I guess I just did it. ‘WISDOM BUILDS HER HOUSE, UNDERSTANDING ESTABLISHES IT AND BY KNOWLEDGDE SHALL ITS CHAMBERS BE FILLED WITH ALL PLEASANT AND PRECIOUS RICHES’. Over the years I have had friends who were really knowledgeable, but there knowledge was only available for a short season. Why? They didn’t have the wisdom and understanding to put systems in place that would be the structure that could contain the knowledge. Then you have those who are wise, they can get structures up. But then a year goes by and they are working on another structure! The old ‘house’ is either left for someone else to deal with, or they simply ‘walk away’ from the mortgage [spiritually speaking] and start all over. Then you have those with wisdom, knowledge and understanding. They get things going, they establish systems in place that can maintain and keep things functioning for the long term, and they make sure all these strong systems and ministries are ‘filled with precious riches’. It’s all too common for some very stable ministries to have the structures and systems in place for the long term, but then propagate a message that is ‘less than precious’. Lets ask God today for the grace to function in all three of these divine attributes. When it is all said and done, only God can provide the increase!
(968) WHAT’S UP WITH THE CORPUS CHRISTI POLICE DEPARTMENT! I have hesitated to add this one, but the time has come. My wife just woke me up to tell me that earlier in the evening a drunk driver slammed into my daughters car while parked at her house and slammed into 2 other vehicles as well. Sure enough they called the police and they still haven’t showed up [as of our last call]. Many years ago when first moving to Corpus I had called the cops over my daughters car that was vandalized, I waited for around an hour and no cop showed. I then drove into town, to where the supposed kid who vandalized the car worked [a high school thing] and re-called the cops. Sure enough a no show again. I finally drove to the police dept. and walked in the front door. No one was around! I called 911, from the police department, and some girl answers and I tell her I have been trying to get a cop for around 2 hours and no one will show. She asks where I am, I tell her I am at your police station right now! They finally send a secretary from the back room to take the info. I had also called once about a salesman that wouldn’t leave the front door. To be honest I almost got into it with him. Sure enough I called the cops and they said ‘wait inside, don’t go out’. I assumed this meant until they sent a cop. I guess they just meant until you can solve the problem yourself, sure enough no cop showed. I recently was talking to a local guy who told me they were robbed at a business years ago, they called the cops and never even had someone show up to do a report. I worked for the Fire Dept. for 25 years in Kingsville, to be honest we [the city] would send a cop for all of these incidents. I know of no other city that does not respond to these types of calls. This has happened way too many times for me to think it’s just a one time thing. I needed to write this entry because I believe this is a real problem for Corpus Christi. [www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com- I will be emailing this to the city, so I added my blog site].
(969) 1ST CORINTHIANS 9:15-27 I have a letter sitting here from some northern radio station. I guess these guys hear us some how? It’s a great offer to be on 140 stations for next to nothing [$140.00 a month]. I have had radio stations write us before. I choose to stay small so I can be consistent in not taking offerings. I am sure if I took offerings I could easily expand like this, but I think I need to set the example for others. This fits in with the following.
Now Paul will say ‘I would rather die than take money from you’ [and you guys think I’m an over reactor!] and also ‘I don’t take money from you because I want to make the gospel free of charge’. Remember, this is in the same chapter where he says it’s okay to support leaders financially. But yet he also makes these strong statements. Does Paul contradict himself? Some have tried to harmonize these statements by either saying Paul wasn’t really teaching the financial support of elders, or by saying Paul only restricted taking money from the Corinthians. Both of these are not true [Read my Acts 20 study]. Paul was hard on whatever group he was addressing. If he is speaking directly to the local saints, he says ‘you should make sacrifice and support those who labor among you’ but to the elders/leaders he says ‘I worked with my own hands while among you [elders!] to give you an example not to expect the people to support you’ [Acts 20]. He appeals to both sides to lay down their rights and give themselves away freely! He also says he adapts to every type of situation, he ‘becomes all things to all men, that he might save them’. He also brings his body under discipline so that after preaching to others, he himself will not be ‘cast away’. In my Proverbs reading I just came across ‘he that has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls’. God wants you to succeed and accomplish things, the enemy wants to sidetrack you. Allow God to have the upper hand, let the fruit of ‘self control’ [one of the fruits of the Spirit] abide in you. Now remember, Paul says ‘they do it to obtain a corruptible crown’ [material, temporary stuff. Money included] but we do it [discipline ourselves] for an ‘incorruptible crown’. The scripture is filled with examples that contrast money [material rewards] with true spiritual riches. In these examples the scripture teaches us to expend our time and efforts in building a spiritual heritage as opposed to a financial one. Yet some will even use this scripture ‘running the race’ and apply it to stuff! Ahh, when we do stuff like this we are ‘reading/quoting scripture’ without truly knowing it. Jesus told the religious leaders ‘you search the scriptures because by doing this you think you have eternal life, but you will not come to me that you might have life’. It’s possible to spend your whole life searching scripture [for what you want] and still miss the chief cornerstone! [The main point]
(970) CORINTHIANS ‘woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel’ ‘they which preach the gospel should live by the gospel’. Let me do a quick review before we jump into chapter 10. Over the years of re-learning the style and function of the New Testament church, it took time to read these scriptures without superimposing my preconceived ideas upon the text. For instance, you could easily read these verses and simply fit them into the ‘church building’ [as the church!] mindset. I know of, and have partaken of, the excitement that preachers experience when they ‘preach the gospel’. It’s a fulfilling thing. But the problem is much of the present day church follows a program where one main person becomes the attraction of the community. We live and hear and vicariously learn thru the growth experiences of a single individual. Now, we don’t realize that this is not the main intent of meeting together as a community. God originally intended for his people to share as a community of grace. There are specific warnings in the New Testament to avoid the Christian community’s penchant to identify around an individuals giftings [we actually just covered some of these in this study]. But when we simply read ‘they which preach the gospel should live of it’ we think this is justifying the present day context. It really simply meant that those in the community with the ability to read and teach should be taken care of while they are giving themselves for the benefit of others. The first century believer’s could not all read, the majority probably were illiterate. This created a need for those who were literate to actually read Paul's letters out loud in the assembly. These sincere men were not modern day full time Pastors! This is why it’s important to read the scripture with historical context in mind. When I meet with the brothers, or travel to another town. I usually simply ask the guys ‘what’s the Lord been saying, do you have a word to share’? And sure enough, by the time our fellowship is over most everyone feels edified because they gave of themselves for others. One of my homeless friends is an excellent teacher. Believe me, he knows more scripture than many Pastors. He excels in this environment. There is really no need for one person [like myself!] to dominate the conversation, or to think that my calling entails me being the primary voice of the community. Sometimes when I find myself at some Christian function, I can tell that when people find out that you speak on the radio, that they kinda want you to preach. I always [yes always!] avoid it. Not because it would be wrong to teach, but the modern church has made such a profession out of it, that the average saint never really expresses himself on a regular basis. God never intended the church to be a place where people learn and grow and experience most of their Christian lives thru the experiences and gifts of one person. I just wanted to challenge you today with these few verses. When you just read them did you see them thru the old mindset? Don’t feel bad about it, just allow the Lord to ‘re-wire’ your brain as we continue to teach thru the New Testament. We find stuff like this all the way thru.
(971) THE PLAYPIPE AND THE ‘RED LINE’- Well it’s been a while since I gave an example from the fire Dept. I was thinking of this the other day and still get a laugh out of them. On our rookie tests at the fire dept. the captains and chief would make up questions to test the guys. One question would ask ‘how many parts are there to a playpipe’ [a type of nozzle for the fire hose]. The answer would say something like ‘5’. One of the expected ‘parts’ was ‘the playpipe itself’. Well that’s like asking ‘how many parts to a car’ and the answer being ‘the wheels, motor, windshield, and the car itself’. The ‘car itself’ can’t be a part of ‘the car’. What you could say is ‘the body/chassis’. So the poor rookies who would get the question wrong were actually right. The funny part was trying to explain this to the captain. In his mind he couldn’t see what he was trying to say was ‘the shaft’ [the actual pipe part of the nozzle]. The other funny thing was on one of the fire trucks we had what was called a ‘booster line’ [or red line]. Most of the modern trucks had red hose for this line. So it was common to call it ‘the red line’. The problem was one of the old trucks had a black hose for the ‘booster line’. So the question would ask ‘what color is the red line on unit 104’. So the poor rookie, who wasn’t really around long enough to memorize all the hose colors, what put ‘red’. You simply would think this was a gimme question, a trick question. It would be like asking ‘what color is the red truck’. The problem was the poor rookies would answer ‘red’ and to their dismay they would get it wrong. The ‘red line is black’! Once again, trying to explain this to the test makers was like trying to convert the Pope to Protestantism! The captain would insist ‘the red line is black’! Not realizing what they should have said was ‘what color is the booster line’.
(972) 1ST CORINTHIANS 10:1-4 it’s actually Christmas morning, 2008, as I write. Paul says ‘all of our forefathers were under the cloud, they were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and sea’. Note- 2 baptisms ‘Cloud’ [Spirit] ‘Sea’ [water]. Let’s do a little thinking here. How can Paul refer to the Jewish fathers as the Corinthians forefathers? Is he expecting a large Jewish group to read this letter? [Like Romans- both Jews and Gentiles were in mind]. Is he addressing them like the author of Hebrews, who is speaking directly to a nation in transition? While it’s possible for a few Jewish believers to have read/heard the reading of this letter. Yet I think Paul is simply being consistent with his letters to the Galatians and Romans, where he taught that all who would believe were the ‘children of Abraham by faith’ Abraham is ‘the father of many nations’. Now, I like the way Paul ‘spiritualizes’ here. Moses was the prophet who typified Jesus. The people were baptized [joined] to him both thru the good times and the bad. There was quite a rough history between Moses and the rebels! Times where they wanted to change leadership. Times where God even said ‘I have had it with this bunch, let’s just wipe them out and start over’. They had history. Also Paul says ‘they all ate of the same spiritual meat and drank from the same spiritual rock. Christ’. Again, Paul seems to teach the symbolic, as opposed to literal, view of ‘eating/drinking Christ’. Israel did have some physical ordinances in the wilderness. The Passover and the bread from heaven [Manna] already happened. But Jesus himself [John 6] would say ‘Moses didn’t give you the real bread, I am the real bread!’. So Paul’s use of the ‘Rock’ is purely symbolic. The story relates to the time where God gave the children of Israel water from an actual rock in the wilderness. Moses spoke to/struck the rock and water came out. Paul sees this as a symbolic picture. He is saying ‘this foreshadowed Christ, the true rock who would be the ‘Rock of ages’ who would be struck on the Cross and water would flow from his side’. Once again, this leaves us some context to interpret the Lords supper in a symbolic way. Was Paul teaching the Corinthians to go out in the fields and actually drink real water from a rock? No. He was simply saying these physical symbols would be fulfilled at a future time, and that time was now! All who believe in Christ are partaking [spiritually] of the water of life, the Holy Spirit. Tomorrow we will get into the examples that were left to us from these stories. I just want to mention that the Apostle Paul freely uses the Old Testament [his only bible at the time!] and applies these stories to both Gentile believers and 1st century Israel. The writer of Hebrews [who I think was Paul] says ‘just like the forefathers missed out on the promise by unbelief- entering the promised land- so too there is a danger that you, 1st century Israel, might miss out on eternal life by not receiving the Messiah by faith’. In this context, Israel of the Old Testament represents Israel in the first century. But when addressing a gentile church [Corinth] it is also okay for Paul to say ‘just like Israel faced physical death by being disobedient, so you too have had premature physical deaths in your community by rebelling against God’. In this comparison Israel [Old Testament] is simply being used as an example of God judging his covenant people for their disobedience. I feel these distinctions are important, they help us to keep the New Testament in context.
(973) 1ST CORINTHIANS 10:5-13 Paul warns the Corinthians not to fall for the same temptations that Israel committed in the wilderness. ‘Don't sin sexually, don’t complain about stuff [ouch!] don’t be idolaters [lovers of your cash flow!]’ basic sins that effect us all. He also says something interesting ‘you are now those upon whom the end of the world [age] has come’. Not the ‘end of existence’ but the time period where Gods fullness has come [Galatians 4]. I find this interesting. The first century Apostles saw the breaking in of the Kingdom of God, thru Christ, as the event and ‘moment’ that all human history hinged upon. There was a real sense of ‘this is the special kairos season that all men have been waiting for’. The New Testament teaches that even the angels were waiting to see this day. One of the errors of dispensationalism was the idea that the important, main event was still some future happening [the second coming]. While it is true that this event will happen, and it will be glorious. Yet there was a sense in scripture that said the time of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection was the act of reconciliation that turned the destiny of man. Paul in essence was saying to the Corinthians ‘you don’t understand the full import of all that the Father has called you to. You are part of the most important movement in human history, all humanity has been waiting for this season, the ‘ends of the ages’ have come to this point. Don’t blow it for heavens sake’! Got it? Let’s grasp the fact that we too are part of this ‘time period’ [the new covenant kingdom age] and realize that our forefathers are watching from the stands [Hebrews]. Let’s not blow it [I was going to say ‘like the Cowboys’ but this gets too many locals mad].
(974) 1ST CORINTHIANS 10: 5 ‘But with many of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness’. As I just sat down and was debating on how much to cover, I felt the Lord wanted me to stop with this one verse. Let’s review a little. Does this experience of being ‘scattered in the wilderness’ define past experiences for you? [Or present!] Historically the church has always had to deal with wilderness times. St. John of the Cross called this ‘the dark night of the soul’. After Mother Theresa’s death we found out that she struggled with doubt many times thru out her life. The historic church has been ‘scattered in the wilderness’ over truly insignificant stuff. I find it ridiculous that one of the main reasons the western [Catholic] and eastern [Orthodox] churches split in 1054 a.d. was over the silly distinction of whether the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father [the historic creed] or the ‘father and the Son’. This is considered the official cause of the split, though there were many other factors as well. In a day or so we will cover a verse that says ‘God is the head of Christ’. I had a friend that used to point out the fact that many Baptists would refer to ‘God and Jesus and the Spirit’ he would think this was in error because they would leave out ‘the Father’. To be honest he was consistent with Trinitarian thinking [I am one by the way!] If the ‘sole’ definition of God in the New testament were ‘3 separate persons who equally posses the Divine attributes’. Then the phrase ‘God is the head of Jesus’ would not make sense. It would be like saying ‘God [Father, Jesus and Holy spirit] are all the head of Jesus’. What am I saying here? Basically the historic church came to certain ways of framing the argument that were limited in their application. Does the New testament teach the Trinity? Yes. Does the word ‘God’ primarily refer to ‘the father’ in its language? To be honest, it does. Though the reality of the Trinity is there, yet the normative language of ‘God’ is referring to ‘the Father’. So my Baptist buddy was right in seeing a contradiction when Baptists said ‘God, Jesus and the Spirit’. If they were true to all the historic language, then they should have said ‘the father’ not ‘God’. Because ‘God’ would be the all encompassing language of ‘3 distinct persons who all posses the divine attributes’. But in fact, my friend was wrong. Why? Because the language of scripture mostly means ‘God the Father’ when simply saying ‘God’. Now why go into all this? Because the historic church has been divided over the language used. Arian, the Catholic Bishop/Priest, said that Jesus is ‘not God’. That ‘God the Father is God’. He was rightfully condemned, and the Trinitarian language would prevail. The problem is some of the language of the creeds and councils that would follow were not totally accurate. Some of the Creeds would say ‘Jesus was eternally begotten [always begotten]’ this statement was for the purpose of refuting those who said ‘Jesus had a beginning’ [Arianism]. Now, did Jesus ‘have a beginning’? John’s gospel says Jesus was with the father from the beginning, and that ‘the Word was with God, and was God’. Jesus had no beginning! But, does this mean he was ‘eternally begotten’? No. He was begotten by Mary 2 thousand years ago. Begotten refers to the incarnation, not the preexisting Son who was with the father from all eternity. So the well intended phrase ‘eternally begotten’ was wrong. Why even discuss this? Because most of Christian Orthodoxy would still condemn certain aspects of the Syrian and Ethiopian churches over this. We at times are ‘scattered in the wilderness’ and our ‘bodies’ [denominations, divisions in Christendom] are a sad representation to the world. [NOTE- I want to restate what I have said in the past. I believe in the Trinity. But I also want you to see how other Christian perspectives have viewed these things in the past. There are large groups of ‘historic churches’ [not Gnostics and stuff like that, the so called ‘lost Christianities’] who lean towards Arianism. Most of the invading barbarians who sacked the Western Roman empire were converted to this ‘brand’ of Christianity. So while I hold to the historic orthodox view, I wanted you to see that we too have been inconsistent at times].
(975) PROVERBS 27:1 I made some plans to go to Kingsville last week. The morning I woke up I felt the word of the Lord to me [during prayer] was ‘Boast not thyself of the morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth’ [James]. Sure enough I got sidetracked and had to cancel. The next day I read Proverbs chapter 27, the spot where I left off last. I am kinda just reading a chapter at a time over a few month period. The first verse is the same one I just quoted from James! God does speak in stereo. I also read a good article from my January [2009] issue of Christianity Today magazine. It was an excerpt from a new book titled ‘Brand Jesus’. Exposing the dangers of ‘marketing Jesus’ as a product. It was good. I just felt like the word of the Lord today was for us to be careful when we ‘boast of tomorrow’. When we plan great goals [which is not wrong in itself] which seem to be ‘Christian goals’. As I am writing this entry I can hear a Christian song from my TV in the other room. The singer is singing about the temptation of being a singer and glorying in the spotlight! It seems funny that he is sharing this struggle [of self glory] thru this medium. The point being it’s easy to ‘Christianize’ our self motivations. To approach ‘Jesus’ as a brand product that can do something for you. Improve you in some way. Maybe he can carry us to stardom and fame, hey he wants us to fulfill our desires doesn’t he? Well actually not the way the contemporary church preaches it. A main theme of New Testament Christianity is learning to lay down your desires and wants for a greater purpose. Now, this greater purpose will wind up being more fulfilling than what you thought you wanted. That's why ‘your desires’ are not a good measurement of the purpose of God. He that seeks to save his life [get what you think is best] will lose it. He who learns the secret of giving up his life [carrying the Cross, self denial] will find it. What are you ‘boasting about’? Where do you ‘see yourself’ ten years from now? Remember, we as believers do not measure success and fame the way the world does. Our reward is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior. I know this sounds ‘corny’ and old fashioned, but sometimes we need to be reminded about this type of lifestyle. We spend so much time boasting about our dreams and goals, Jesus gets lost in the background as some product who can help me achieve ‘all that I can be’.
(976) THE NEW ATHIESTS LOSE AGAIN! I watched a good debate last night between an atheist [Christopher Hitchens] and a believer. I like Hitchens, but the shallowness of his arguments were very revealing. Richard Dawkins [one of the so called ‘new atheists’] has said that Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. Oh really? During the debate Hitchens challenged the ‘morality’ of the Christian church. He rightfully exposed the hypocrisy of Christian leaders who abused children and the many other sins of the church. He says ‘how dare these immoral Christians challenge my morality. I am more moral than many of them’. Now, where does Hitchens come up with his standard of ‘morality’? The very fact that morality exists as some existential character measurement is simply making one of the classical arguments for God. One of the proofs for God is that man has this moral conscience that tells him what is right or wrong. This moral code that is implanted in the conscience of humankind is one of the historic arguments for Gods existence. Poor Hitchens made a big boo boo. Second, the whole argument of Hitchens [and most every other atheist] is one of naturalism, materialism. That is they claim that the believer argues his point from the mindset of ‘faith’ while the atheist argues his point of view from the hard facts [Dawkins so called intellectually fulfilling position]. The main problem with this view is when the atheist is asked to explain the most fundamental question of science ‘where did all things come from’ his response is one of the most un-intellectual arguments that can ever be made. When Hitchens was posed the question, he simply said ‘all things came from nothing, and I have no intellectual curiosity or need to say any more’ [and they call this being intellectually fulfilled? Gee, maybe my daughters play station game would fulfill them!] What’s the problem with this response? The problem is the Christian answers the question with the only scientifically feasible answer that can ever be given. He says ‘there was a preexistent actor who entered into the physical realm and caused the effect of what we now know as creation’. The Christians response is in keeping with all the known laws of physics and reason. If science teaches us anything, it teaches the impossibility of something coming into existence from nothing. This is thee most attested to scientific fact in all of human history. When we study ‘nothing’ and put it under the microscope, we never, ever get ‘something’. Now when we study ‘something’ [any material thing that can ever be studied] there is one scientific fact that can be applied to all the ‘something’s’. That fact is that some other thing caused, or preceded the ‘something’. That is it is scientifically impossible to get an entire creation and universe and all things that exist out of nothing! But this argument is the most prevalent argument used today by the intellectually fulfilled atheists! Now, many brilliant men realize the stupidity of this position. Some of the intellectually fulfilled atheists have proposed the possibility of other extra terrestrial beings who might have ‘deposited’ some type of ‘space dung’ [I am not kidding!] when their craft flew thru our solar system, and that this ‘dung’ might have spawned life on our planet [who ever thought they could lower their family tree from a monkey?]. The very fact that many scientists are actually espousing the possibility that there might be other civilizations that spawned life on earth shows you the dilemma of proving, from a materialistic perspective, that all things came from ‘no thing’. To put it bluntly, these scientists [some of whom are atheists] realize that the argument Hitchens and all the other ‘fulfilled’ thinkers are making, are sheer nonsense and stupidity! How can any thinking person espouse the belief that all things came from nothing? I don't want to go on with this, but I simply wanted to show you that in the debate I watched last night, the atheist espoused arguments that were nonsensical. It is all too common today for the rejecter of God to give the impression that Christians are idiots, while they are intellectual. This just simply isn’t being ‘intellectually honest’ [or fulfilling].
(977) 1ST CORINTHIANS 10:15-17 ‘The cup that we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of Christ's Body? We are all one bread, we all partake equally of Christ’s Body and Blood. We exist as a community because of him’ [my paraphrase]. Here in my study I have various volumes on church history. I own catholic volumes, protestant ones, and even some from ‘the out of the institutional church’ perspective. Over the years I have learned that most believers tell their story from their perspective. This is not a wrong thing, nor is it a purposeful act to distort history. It’s just natural to see ‘your world’ thru your lens of past experiences. Around the 17th century the Jesuit priests were some of the first Christians to write systematic church histories. Though you had many scholars who were informed on the subject, the Jesuits were the first to try and bring all the previous centuries together and present them in an orderly way that could be understood and read by the average student. There is some debate on how accurate some of these first ‘tellings’ of history were. For instance, some classic church histories [both catholic and protestant] show an early 2nd century development of belief in the Eucharist as being the literal Body and Blood of Jesus. Also most volumes focus on church figures such as Iraneus , Tertullian, Augustine [4th-5th centuries] and many other good men [I know I spelled these names wrong!]. There seems to have been a basic belief that this history is the only ‘history’ of the first few centuries. The problem with this approach is we now have archealogical evidence from the first few centuries that would support the idea that the early church might not have been as ‘institutional’ as previously thought. For instance, most histories say the development of the monarchial episcopacy [single bishop over ‘a church/region’] was early. But the evidence discovered shows that as late as the 2nd, possibly early 3rd centuries you had bishops who were simply elders/overseers in the early church. Burial places were uncovered that showed multiple ‘bishops’ all buried in one spot. The evidence seems to indicate that these were all men who served at the same time. Not one bishop dieing off while others took his place. This would mean that some practicing Christians never fully accepted the institutional idea of the single bishop. But you really couldn’t find this out from a wide reading of all the different church histories. Why? Were the Jesuits who put together the first cohesive history trying to deceive people? Of course not! They were seeing church history thru ‘their lens’. Now, what in the world does this have to do with the verse on communion? The word for communion here is a translation from the Greek word ‘koinonia’, which simply means ‘fellowship’. The church at Corinth practiced ‘communion’ as a love feast. The early believers had their ‘communion service’ as a type of buffet type fellowship where they all shared and came together in real friendship. Now in the next chapter we will deal with some of the problems that arose out of this practice, but the point today is I want you to see that when Paul says ‘we are all one bread who are partaking from one loaf’ he is simply saying ‘just like when we all get together and share in the communal meal, this is the same way we all spiritually live off of the Body and Blood of Christ. We are ‘one bread’ [people/communion] because we all derive our life from Jesus, the true bread that came down from heaven’ [John 6]. I simply want to give you the flavor of what Paul is saying. It’s easy to read these verse’s from the sacramental perspective. To see the focus being on the actual bread and wine of the meal. I think it’s better understood from the broader communal idea that I just espoused. Our entire New Testament is the most verifiable collection of first century documents ever to be found. Though we as believers take them as Gods word, they also show us the most accurate historical picture of what the early church believed and practiced. I think the reformers of the 16th century were right in stating that the final authority should be the word of God. They did not reject church tradition, but they said the final arbiter in controversial issues was Gods word. Even the great Catholic humanist, Erasmus, was known for his desire to ‘get back to the original sources’. He was helpful in urging the Catholic Church towards reform by going back to the Greek New Testament [most scholars were using the vulgate version, which was the Latin translation. The Latin did not do justice to the Greek!] Well today’s point is our New Testaments are accurate first century documents on early church belief and practice. I think Erasmus cry to ‘get back to the sources’ would do us all some good.
(978) 1ST CORINTHIANS 10: 18-33 Paul ‘re-uses’ a previous analogy of the priests partaking of the meat from the altar. Here he uses it to describe the reality of fellowship and being joined to that which you worship. Now he deals with the idea of the meat from the idol worship that was sold ‘in the shambles’ [market place]. He already said this meat was fine. But here he says ‘the things the gentiles offer are being offered to demons, so I don’t want you joining in with this type of demonic worship’. It’s not a matter of the meat, or the idol! It’s a matter of being unequally ‘yoked together with unbelievers’. This is a theme that Paul discusses in this letter. It not only applies to marriage, but also to any type of intimate fellowship with an unbeliever. Here's where a distinction should be made. Yesterday one of my homeless buddies stopped by. His name is Tim [carpenter Tim]. I mentioned him before. Tim’s a great friend who I have known for many years. He just stopped by to say hi, he told me he caught my radio show on Sunday and really enjoyed it. They get a kick out of being real friends with some so called ‘radio preacher’. I think it’s hard at times to connect the ‘radio guy’ with the simple brother who takes them out to eat and stuff. Tim is a believer who works regularly [thus the name carpenter Tim!] He does not take the free handouts and stuff that are offered to the local homeless population. But I have helped Tim as a friend and brother in the Lord for many years. I asked if he has heard anything about Bill ‘painter Bill’. I have known Bill just as long as Tim. These are the original homeless guys I met in the early 1990’s. Bill is in his 70’s, Tim is around my age [I am 46 years old as I write]. Bill was a bitter homeless person. Just too many years of going thru stuff. Over the years we had become real good friends. I think he sees me as one of his best friends. A few weeks back I heard he was on a respirator and they though he wasn’t going to make it. It sounded pretty bad. As of right now I don’t know if he’s alive or not. A few months back I was giving Bill a ride home. He had a temporary place to live at the time. He did ask if I had a few dollars to spare. I don’t remember if I did or not to be honest. But I told Bill I don’t make the same amount of money since I retired. Just to let him know that’s why we haven’t gone to eat recently. He also asked me if I wanted to get the free eye checkup from the mission. They had some locals donate their time and they would get the guys free glasses. I told him that's all right, I don’t want to take stuff that’s meant for the homeless [I also don’t eat the free meals]. They get upset that I don't use the system. So as we arrive at Bills trailer he asks if I could come in for a minute. I told him sure. He handed me the free glasses he recently got, he asks me to try them on. I did. He than offers them to me. I told him no thanks, though I appreciated the offer. Bill was willing to give me his glasses. When Paul the apostle deals with having fellowship with unbelievers, he is not telling us to have no contact with the lost world. He is showing the Corinthians that they were not to be partakers of evil things along with the world. We are here to reach out to the world, not to have fellowship with evil things, but to be like Jesus. He was accused of being ‘a friend of sinners’. Do you have any ‘sinner friends’?
(979) PROVERBS 28: 22 and 27- ‘HE THAT HASTETH TO BE RICH HAS AN EVIL EYE AND CONSIDERS NOT THAT POVERTY SHALL COME UPON HIM….HE THAT GIVES TO THE POOR SHALL NOT LACK’. I just finished making a radio program and wanted to share some stuff from my Proverbs reading. I still have the original cheap second hand desk that I bought over 20 years ago in Kingsville. I think I paid 20 bucks for the thing. Though it’s ancient and looks ‘crappy’, it still gets the job done. Over the years I have learned that it can be exciting to amass wealth. Yes even believers can ‘sanctify’ the pursuit of wealth, that is justify it’s pursuit by thinking ‘I am going after money and riches so I can fund kingdom ventures’! While God certainly uses rich people to do his will, the overall ethos of the kingdom is one where you choose not to pursue the wealth of the world, you instead pursue ‘spiritual riches’. This contrast can be found all thru out scripture [read my section on ‘word of faith- prosperity gospel’]. Paul actually tells Timothy ‘those that desire to be rich will fall into a snare’. Notice, Paul doesn’t say ‘unless they desire riches for kingdom things’. He simply says the pursuit of wealth is a deadly game, don’t be ‘wise in your own eyes’ and think that you can tame the monster! Recently the stock market had another one of the worst crashes in history. How many ‘pursuers of wealth’ had ‘poverty come suddenly upon them’? Another verse says ‘don’t set your eyes on wealth, they make themselves wings and fly away’. Ouch! As I sit here and type this entry I will be dropping of 3 months worth of radio messages in a little while. I made them from a cheap recorder purchased from radio shack. I store them in my cheap desk that I bought years ago. I am sitting on used furniture that I bought 25 years ago! I furnished my study/office with it. But yet I have a study filled with excellent books that I purchased over the years. Year’s worth of radio teachings that cost me next to nothing to make. I gave one of my homeless buddies a little money the other day. I take no offerings and spend a little under half my monthly retirement income on ministry stuff. To my amazement the Lord has allowed us to have real impact in a large region, and it’s done on a shoe string budget. ‘He that gives to the poor shall not lack’. Don’t seek to become rich, the scripture forbids it. Give to the down and out, give your life away. Be a servant of people, God will reward you and you will have enough to get the job done.
(980) 1ST CORINTHIANS 11: 1-16 at first I was just going to skip this section and say ‘I know you didn’t get your moneys worth, but wait, you guys didn’t give me any money!’ But this would be a cheap shot. So what do we do with portions of scripture that are difficult? I have heard this taught in a way that says ‘Christ is the head of the church [both men and women- true] and any distinction between a man being ‘the head’ of the woman only applies to natural families’. The problem is Paul mixes the analogies ‘Christ is the head of a man, a man [husband] is the head of the woman [wife], and God is the head of Christ’. To dissect these verses into a ‘secular/religious’ division is next to impossible! So what do they mean? I believe the New Testament does teach a type of functional difference between men and woman. Now, Paul teaches that women ‘can prophesy’ in ‘the church’. He says so in these verses! In Romans 16 Paul refers to Junia as an apostle and Phoebe as a deaconess. In the Old Testament Deborah was a mighty judge. Peter says that both sons and daughters will prophesy [Acts 2, quoting Joel]. I could go on. Then why make a distinction? Paul gives his rationale in this section. Believers show the order and submission of the Godhead when they willingly take their God ordained positions in society. When husbands love their wives as Christ loves the church, God is glorified. When wives submit [oh no, I can’t believe I said it!] to their ‘loving’ husbands they show the role of Christ’s willful submission to the Father. And yes, Paul also teaches we all submit to each other in love as well. Those who see all of Paul’s teaching on women as a cultural thing will have a problem with the inspiration of scripture. But on the other hand the strong fundamentalist/literalist also has a problem here. Should we mandate the wearing of ‘coverings’ [hats] when women prophesy? I don't think so [some do think so!]. But most fundamentalists have no problem chalking up the ‘hat wearing’ portion to culture. Also in this debate, one of the obvious questions is ‘can a woman be a Pastor over a church’? Or Bishop or whatever. Remember, no one was a ‘Pastor over a church’ like we think until around the 4th century. So before we judge whether or not it is fair to restrict women from certain roles ‘in the church’ we need to understand what roles there are ‘in the church’. Did you ever wonder who was marrying and burying the people for the first few hundred years of Christian history? It is quite obvious that Paul and the first century Apostles/Elders were not doing it. So when did the ‘clergy’ pick the practice up? During Constantine’s legalization of Christianity in the 4th century, the church took over the rites and ceremonies from Rome. The Roman ‘philosopher/speakers’ could be hired to speak a eulogy when someone died, they could conduct wedding ceremonies. They for the most part were ‘the Pastors’ of the day! Now we simply took the job from them. Does this mean all Pastors are pagan funeral directors? No. It simply shows us that when we ask the question ‘why can’t women be pastors like men’. Maybe the question should be ‘were men ever supposed to be pastors either?’ [in the contemporary use of the term] So in this little excursion into history I think we all have some lessons to learn. The people of God are made up of men and women and Jew and Gentile, scripture says in Christ there are no more distinctions like this. We are all considered the Body of Christ equally. Yet this does not mean [in my view] that everyone does the same job as everyone else. The New Testament clearly says ‘are all Apostles, all Prophets’. God has distinctions in this Body. Do these distinctions carry over to the woman/man issue in functionality? It seems so to me to a degree. Those who are striving for more equality in function for women, I think the best way to approach it is not to by- pass all these difficult portions of scripture. But to take the approach that as the church grows she allows the greater overriding truths of scripture to over shadow any personal advice given by Paul to a specific church in the first century. Now I don’t fully take this approach myself, but to a degree many of us do accept this approach when dealing with the ‘hat/covering issue’. So instead of just showing you my view, I wanted to paint a little broader picture. Ultimately how you come down on this is between you and God. Women most certainly can and do function in Christ’s church today, they always have and always will.
(981) TRIALS/END TIME STUFF- As I was praying this morning I was meditating on what verse to share. Sure enough as I was listening for guidance, I remembered that right before I woke up I had a dream. In the dream I picked up a green Gideon’s bible and read from James. I think it was ‘Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life’. I have been reading a scholarly work on the book of Revelation. Much better than the more popular ‘prophecy teachers’ stuff! The author is a little too Preterist for me, but overall very good. Preterism is the view that sees all of the prophetic end time passages thru a historical view. They teach that everything already occurred, even the final resurrection and judgment verses! I think the modern popular view is too futuristic, that is they seem to take most of the book and try and ‘news paper prophecy’ the thing. I see John’s work as primarily dealing with kingdoms in conflict. The kingdoms of the world warring against the kingdom of God. So he most definitely has Rome and her emperors in view. But this does not mean that John’s vision is limited to Roman leaders. The book can have meaning for believers in every age as they deal with ‘Babylon’ [the world] and the ‘kings of the earth’. So I see both a present reality [present for John’s actual readers who lived in the first century] and a future application. And of course I see the second coming of Christ and the final judgment as future! Now John was ‘on the island of Patmos for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus’. John was a partaker, along with the suffering church, of the trials and difficulties of the first century church. His banishment to Patmos [an island off modern day Turkey, in the Aegean Sea] , most likely by the emperor Nero, was for the purpose of ‘the word of God and testimony of Jesus’. He was being persecuted for the faith, but also for the purpose of receiving and writing down God’s word. Jesus says in John 17 ‘I sanctify myself and ask that they would be sanctified too. I sanctify myself for their sakes. I have given them the words you gave me.’ [my paraphrase] Jesus had a task to get certain words from the father to the elect, he fulfilled the task! John had some trials and things to deal with, it was part of the cost. I felt the Lord wanted to encourage some of you today, you are going thru stuff ‘because of the word of God and testimony of Jesus’. You are being ‘targeted’ because of your destiny! In the gospels Jesus says ‘when the word comes then tribulation and persecutions arise’. One of the strategies of the enemy is to come against you hard ‘after the word comes’. Once God has revealed and made plain to you the purpose and vision, then the enemy works overtime to stop you. He doesn’t want you to ‘deliver the word/purpose’ to those that the father has given you out of the world. Your trials and difficulties are a direct attempt of the enemy to stop you from getting the message out! Don’t take it personal.
(982) WILL JESUS RULE FROM A REAL ‘ALTAR’ SOME DAY? Watched an interesting show last night. The brother was sharing on the ‘Davidic kingdom’ and all the scriptures associated with it. I am familiar with the man, I used to get a Christian paper from him years ago. It’s obvious that he has a tremendous storehouse of ‘knowledge’ he can take you all over the bible and quote all types of stuff. He comes at you from the fundamentalist/dispensationalist viewpoint. He laid out the case that all the promises of God to David have to be literally fulfilled thru David. He even espoused that David himself might actually be the one reigning from the Millennial throne! [most see Jesus in this role- but to be fair, those who see Jesus do spiritualize the promises to David [Solomon] and apply them to Christ, which is what they despise doing!] Any way the brother espouses the idea that Jesus might actually be sitting on the Mercy Seat during his millennial reign. I have taught you guys what this seat is in the past. It was the actual lid to the box [Ark] that held the tablets of the Ten Commandments. It was a place [altar] where the blood of the yearly sacrifice [Day of Atonement] was placed. If you will it was the ultimate picture of sacrifice and altar that could be found in the Old Testament economy. This example will show you the danger of not being able to rightly understand and interpret scripture. Right now, as I write, there is another all out war going on between Israel and Palestine [Hammas]. Truly bad stuff. Of course I condemn all terrorism, make no mistake about it, Hammas are terrorists! I also see the right of a nation to defend itself against terrorism. But the overall viewpoint of the believer should be ‘we are not of this world, we represent Jesus, the prince of peace. He offers salvation to all mankind [Jew, Arab] and we do not advocate a view of Jesus that has him coming in a militaristic way, in a way that says ‘he will return and lead the Israeli military to victory and actually kill your women and kids’! [a view that does more harm to true evangelism than any other thing! How would you feel if I was trying to convert you to be a follower of some king who was going to come back and kill your natural family?]. Now, first of all we need to know the underlying intent of all the sacrifices and ‘altars’ in scripture. They all point to Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice for man on The Cross. They are SYMBOLIC! That is Hebrews teaches that they have all been fulfilled thru Jesus and any future idea of a restoration of animal sacrifices or altars would be considered blasphemous! This is one of the reasons Protestantism does not celebrate the catholic mass, they feel the catholic teaching is a ‘re-doing’ of the sacrifice [the catholic theologians deny this]. Either way any idea that there would be a restoration of the altar system is anathema! Now, for you to see Jesus actually sitting on the ‘mercy seat’ while literally ruling from a restored Temple with renewed animal sacrifices, this has to be one of the most heretical ideas you could ever espouse. The New Testament teaches that any return to a sacrificial system, after the Cross, is doing ‘despite unto the Spirit of grace, treading the Blood of the Covenant [Jesus blood] under foot’. The language used to warn against a return to the animal sacrifice system is very strong. The dispensationalists belief says ‘God will put a ‘hold’ on the church age and return to a ‘kingdom age’ in which he deals with Israel again as a natural nation’ they see Jesus violating his own teaching that ‘my kingdom is not from this world’. This view places Christ back into a law system, in which Jesus will oversee a restoration of a literal temple [another violation of the symbols in scripture] and from this literal system, he physically wars against, and kills Arabs and Muslims as he directs their military. Now, can you see how destructive this view can be? Can you see what a violation it is to the spiritual kingdom of Christ who is the final sacrifice for man? When revelation says ‘a Lamb is sitting on the throne’ don’t you see it as a symbol of Jesus in a position of authority? Hebrews says Jesus entered into the true Holy Place [heaven- Gods presence] and presented his Blood to the Father on our behalf. Any view of him returning and reinstituting a literal reign from an earthly ‘holy of holies’ while actually sitting on a physical altar is blasphemous! I believe in a literal second coming. The church historically has had differing views on the millennial rule. But wherever you come down on these issues, you must not present Jesus future reign in a way that violates the fundamental truths of reconciliation and salvation [i.e.; him sitting on an altar from a physical holy of holies!] the types and pictures in scripture that have been fulfilled are not to ‘make a comeback’. The New Covenant and Kingdom of God thru Christ are one of where all men are offered forgiveness and peace thru Christ. Whether or not there ever will be a restored temple and sacrificial system in Jerusalem is questionable. But no matter what your view on this is, be assured that Jesus is not going to come back and rule while being seated on some sacrificial altar! This would violate one of the most fundamental teachings of the New Testament. [Note- it is possible that natural Israel will rebuild and reinstitute a sacrificial system, but this would only be a sign of condemnation. A result of their denial of the one sacrifice of Christ. Any return of Jesus would not be to vindicate their restored system, but a judgment on them for rejecting the one and only sacrifice and returning to the law!]
(983) 1ST CORINTHIANS 11:16-34 ‘When you come together IN THE CHURCH’ [king James version] ‘when you come together AS THE CHURCH’ [new king James version]. In this section of scripture we see a real good definition of ‘church’ and also a bad one. The word for church is found over 100 times in the New Testament [114? - if I remember right] in every occasion, bar none, it refers to the people of God. Sometimes it refers to them as ‘coming together’ or simply as ‘the called out people of God’ [that is they are all spiritually gathered as a community in Christ]. The word never refers to a ‘church building’ [there is one reference in James that can seem to indicate a place to meet. James is speaking to Jews, the synagogue [or Jerusalem temple] as a building is different from the term for church in Paul’s letters!]. In the example I just gave you from the king James versions, it shows you how Gods people viewed this term for church [Ecclesia/Ekklesia] as time rolled along. The original translators of the King James saw it as ‘a place you meet in’ the new version saw it ‘as when Gods people come together’. You say ‘what’s the big difference’? Well I am sure the original translators meant well, but in actuality there is a big difference between ‘being an organic family’ or ‘being a building’! As Paul addresses the Corinthians he says ‘your coming together is not for the better, but for the worse’. They were using the gathering as a means of self gratification. ‘What can I get out of this’ type thing. I do see a parallel in much of today’s ‘church meeting’. Do we see Christianity thru the lens of ‘what am I going to hear this Sunday that I can implement in my own personal life for self improvement’? This mindset prevails in today’s church environment. The ethos of Jesus was contrary to this. He challenged his followers to lay down their rights and desires and seek another kingdom, one that was not measured by the standards of this world. Paul rebuked the Corinthians for seeking ‘their own wealth [benefit] and not the other’s’. He also told them to examine their hearts before coming together so they would not be judged. I have heard the new generation of church thinkers [which I am one myself!] kind of mock the old time churches by saying ‘Oh they tell you communion is some dangerous thing that you must approach with a holier than thou attitude’. Most mean well when they level this charge, but the ‘old time churches’ are not without scriptural support for this approach. Paul did say ‘you guys are too flippant in your attitude towards the Lords table, you need to straighten up and take more seriously your corporate call to those around you’. Understand, the celebration of this ‘love feast’ was to ‘show the Lords death till he come’. Who were they ‘showing it to’? The entire ‘unchurched’ community around them! Their selfless lives of being the community of God, loving and sharing of themselves as a spiritual family, was for the intent of having an effective community wide witness. They reminded not only themselves, but those around them ‘of the Lords death’. It was truly a corporate witness! Our Catholic brothers might not be as wrong as most Protestants seem to think. The Catholic Church sees the Eucharist as the central witness and part of their meetings. The Protestants see the preaching of the word from the pulpit. Though the Protestants are sincere in their efforts to teach the word of God, there is a tendency to become ‘pastor/pulpit’ centered, as opposed to being ‘Christ centered’. All in all Paul rebukes and corrects them based on their self centered actions when meeting together. He also sees ‘the gathering’ as ‘the church’. Not the place their meeting at! It’s easy to confuse this when reading ‘when you come together in the church- in one place’ it sure seems like he can be referring to a church building. Take my word for it, he’s not.
(984) 1ST CORINTHIANS 12:1-6 ‘There are different gifts, ministries and out workings of the Spirit’ [my paraphrase]. In this section we see an idea that I feel gets lost in the current paradigm of ‘doing church’. When Paul addresses a church [community of believers] he is speaking to all the believers in the city. When we think ‘church’ we assume it means ‘church’ as ‘going to the church [building] on Sunday’. Therefore we tend to read these types of verses as ‘there are different gifts and functions in ‘the church’- the Sunday school teacher, nursery worker, door greeter’ well you get it. The better reading would be ‘there are various expressions and ways the Spirit works and administers thru/in the community’. For instance, those who labor in ‘Para-church’ ministries are often considered noble, but not ‘a church’. But according to this passage, they would be just as much ‘church’, a legitimate part of the local body, as the home meeting [of course we know in Paul’s day there were no church buildings]. So the broader view of church as community would see these verses saying ‘where you live there are a variety of gifted ones whom the Spirit of God lives and operates thru. These saints all express the community of the Spirit in various ways. All these expressions are just as legitimate as the other, it is one Spirit manifesting himself in diverse ways for the overall benefit of all the believers in your city’. When we label what the Spirit is doing thru other ‘administrations’ as ‘Para-church’ we violate this passage of scripture. When we limit the various expressions and gifts to ‘the Sunday church meeting’ we actually are violating the intent of these verses. In your city you have doctors, lawyers, and all types of trades. While it is fine for them to operate out of a building and to keep regular business hours. Yet you wouldn’t describe them as separate, individual little ‘cities’ who all operate out of your town. You would see all of them as various gifted people who ‘operate out of your city’. So this is the broader view of what I think Paul is saying. Now he will also give directions on how these various gifts work in the meeting, this of course is part of it. But we need to see the broader view of what the Spirit is saying. Jesus expected his disciples to go out into the highways and hedges and ‘compel them to come in’ [not into the church building for heavens sake! But into the Kingdom] Paul taught that the Spirit accomplishes this in many different ways thru ‘the church’ [people of God].
(985) 1ST CORINTHIANS 12:7 ‘But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to EVERY MAN to profit EVERY BODY’. I want to share a criticism that sometimes gets made against me. I know ‘the critics’ mean well, and are actually sincere men. It’s just they have been ‘shaped’ by the present system of ‘church’. The criticism goes like this ‘sure John has an effective teaching ministry [blog/radio] but if you need someone to come pray for you, lets see if he will come’. The idea is that the true legitimate ‘elders’ are those you can ‘call for’. James says ‘if any one is sick among you, let him call for the elders of ‘the church’. They see ‘the church’ as the actual 501c3, building, Sunday meeting [storehouse] type thing - they are simply seeing thru their ‘lens’. What James is simply saying is ‘if someone is sick in your community/local body of believers, call for the elders [more spiritually mature ones] and let them pray for you and anoint you with oil’. Now, I have personally spent many thousands [yes thousands!] of actual man hours on the streets helping people. I have helped and given to some of the local homeless population who attend some of these ‘churches’, out of my own pocket. Yet these same homeless brothers are encouraged to give ten percent of their money to ‘their church’. What am I saying here? I know the men who level this type of accusation are often intimidated by peer pressure and stuff. But the verse above says ‘the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every believer to profit every one around them’. The biblical view of ‘church’ would simply require all believers to ‘administer the gift’ in a way that would profit all those around them. There is no need to make these types of distinctions between ‘the elders of our church’ or ‘the spiritual leaders in our region’. They mean the same thing. So see your gift as a freely received charism that should be used unselfishly for the benefit of others. Also some Pastors do seem to come around to ‘my view’ after many years of hearing us. They might then try and do some city wide ministry, open to all the body. Then if the results are not good, they can become discouraged also. Understand, many of these men took many years before they could really see what we were saying, don’t expect a majority of local believers to see things that took you years to see! The paradigms don’t come down that easily.
(986) CORINTHIANS 12: 8-10 this section deals with the various gifts of the Spirit. The list is not exhaustive, Paul speaks in Romans and Ephesians about other ones as well. Instead of diving into a definition for each gift, lets look a little at the various ‘modes’ and characteristics of the Spirit of God. In revelation we have a scripture that many seem to stumble over, it says ‘the 7 spirits of God that are before his throne’. Some associate Isaiah 11 with this. In Isaiah 11 you can find 6 distinct characteristics of the Spirit of God, some see 7. Or you could say ‘God has 7 actual Spirits’. Does God have 7 spirits? Or 25 or 10,000? God is the creator of all spirits. He is the Father of lights! In revelation you have Jesus holding the ‘7 stars’ in his hand, which are said to be angels. Then you have the ‘7 angels of the 7 churches’. I showed you before why these angels are not ‘Pastors’ they are angels! [You can find the post somewhere under END TIMES STUFF]. Revelation has 7 seals, bowls, candlesticks. The book is a prophetic book that has angels revealing and operating and functioning. The 7 spirits before God’s throne are probably the 7 angels spoken about in the book. Hebrews says the angels are ‘ministering spirits’. Well let’s get off the rabbit trail. In Isaiah 61 we have the famous verses that Jesus read and applied to himself in the New Testament [Luke 4]. Jesus opens the scroll and reads about the Spirit of God upon him, the eyes of everyone in that place were fixated on him. Notice how both in Isaiah 11 and 61, one of the main purposes of the anointing was to administer justice to the poor and oppressed. Much of Evangelicalism has opted out of this responsibility. There was an overreaction to the social gospel of the late 19th, early 20th century. The social gospel had a tendency to overemphasize good deeds, without focusing on conversion. But the Fundamentalist movement of the 20th century neglected the social justice aspect of the kingdom, thank God for the Catholics who picked up the torch. The point today is the purpose of the gifts, which we will get into tomorrow, is not simply for self glory and edification. Or should I say the purpose of the anointing. Jesus made it very clear that his mission involved justice for the poor and oppressed, he did not limit his ministry to ‘the church’.
(987) SPOT THE TREND LINES- One of the themes of proverbs is reproof, correction. Proverbs teaches us that correction/reformation are noble things. Fools despise it, wise men take it to heart. Over the years of dealing with controversial issues in the church, I have found different responses from good men. Most leaders do not initially appreciate correction, they [we] have a tendency to want to use our knowledge and experience as an excuse to not receive correction. We often defend our positions by thinking ‘look how many other men/leaders are doing it [it being whatever area you feel threatened in] so I am at least in good company’. While there is some truth to this [being in the majority] this doesn’t work well when there is a groundswell of reformation on the horizon. For instance, during the 16th century Reformation, I am sure the new reformers looked and acted like contrarians at the time. There were many good catholic priests doing their best to serve the Lord in the limited understanding of the ancient church. I am sure many of these men simply steered clear of Luther and his ‘rebels’ but ultimately God was wanting change! So today we have certain undercurrents of reformation, sure not all the current trends fall into this category, but some do. So leaders should be open to correction or reproof coming from a broad range of influential men. Over the years I have spotted ‘trend lines’, certain changes that I see/hear from a wide range of Christian expressions. When I see them coming ‘from afar off’ I try and make the adjustment before the trend ‘hits the fan’. This is another wisdom nugget from Proverbs, a wise man sees the change coming and prepares himself, the simple pass on and make no adjustments. Another important characteristic is the ability to ‘not change’ too fast or too much! ‘Meddle not with those who are given to change’ reformation takes time and is a process. If I learn or see some knew area of truth that most of my contemporaries don’t see yet, then it would be foolish to think that God has called me to ‘straighten them all out’. God often shows you ‘the trend lines’ so you in wisdom can plant certain seeds that will keep the other leaders on track as the train moves along. In essence your job isn’t to say ‘see, I know more than so and so’. Your job is to be open to avenues of influence that eventually bring ‘correction/course change’ to the rest of the body. I felt like the word for today was for us to re examine the reproofs that we might have heard over the years. Does it seem like we keep hearing the same reproof from different voices thru out our lives? Maybe there’s more to it than just a bunch of disgruntled believers. Wise men take note and seek God for his timing in the course change, foolish men make no adjustment.
(988) NO, I AM NOT CRYING! AND YES, THEY WILL SHOOT YOU! Many years ago me and my wife took a road trip to New Jersey from Texas. I have driven it many times since. One of the problems with a trip like this is it’s easy to make it all the way to Jersey, but once you get close to the area where I grew up [the New York city area] the exits and roads are a mess! I think the Newark airport has been under road construction since I was born! So as we were nearing the area to exit for the final 10 miles of the 1800 mile trip, I get off at a Newark exit and wind up on some bad streets. Now, as a boy I would have enjoyed the threat. But being married and stuff, I knew it wasn’t too good to be driving the Newark streets at night. But I tried to find the turn around to get back to the right spot. As I am driving I have the vents open and pointed at my face. The cold air keeps me awake during the long drives. My wife sees I am a little ‘p-o’ed’ about the whole thing. She notices my eyes are tearing [from the cold air!] and asks ‘are you crying’. Now, most men are too proud to stop and ask for directions, how do you think we respond to stuff like this? Heck, I used to pride myself as being a tough guy! So I tell her ‘are you kidding me, I have the darn vents open’ [something to that effect]. Then she says ‘why don’t you stop and ask for directions’? Now, I am a few miles from home, I don’t want to ask now for heavens sake! So I tell her ‘if you roll down your window here they’ll shoot you’ [or slit your throat?] Sure enough she made sure the windows were up tight.
(989) TRIBUTE TO SHELBY [January 2009]- A few posts back I mentioned my homeless friend ‘painter Bill’. He was very sick and I thought he might have died. Sure enough he made it, with some extra equipment! [They put a pace maker in him]. But sad to say my friend Shelby passed away this week. I have known Shelby for a few years, he was around 70 and had an interesting story. He at one time owned and operated an independent news paper. He got in debt and eventually lost his business and property. Though I never saw Shelby drink, or drunk, yet the word was he battled with alcoholism. After I befriended Shelby he went thru a ‘mini revival’ type period. I took him with me to Kingsville and Bishop for fellowships with some of the brothers. He went thru a period of renewal and excitement about the things of the Lord. It kind of surprised some of the local pastors who knew him. He would give testimonies about the simple things we were doing, to him it meant a lot. He shared with me how in the 70’s he ran a ‘hippie bus ministry’ for a church somewhere in Texas [Austin area?]. How they had some miracles and stuff happen. One time they were driving to some revival or something, they needed money for fuel. They stopped at some Pentecostal church and before they could say anything some Pentecostal/Prophet type brother said ‘the Lord sent you here so we could give you the money for your trip’. One of those common prophetic things that happens every so often. At one time I added Shelby’s articles to my tape/book catalog [I think it’s still on there?] though it was a simple thing, it meant allot to him. The last few months I didn’t get with Shelby as much as I wanted to, I think he got a little offended about it. You can tell when the brothers are mad, they don’t hide it like the ‘rich folk’. They let you know. I let it slide and eventually he got over it. The last few months he also had a renewed vision for starting a Christian paper. I was going to help him, kept an eye out for a used typewriter and stuff [he didn’t want to mess with computers]. He shared with me the plans on getting a used car and starting the paper from his room. He was living at the time with some Christian friends of mine who have a communal type home. I had Shelby over a few times to the house, he saw my cats and dogs and loved them. We have a little blind dog named Molly, he would always ask about her. Shelby just started getting Social Security about a year ago, though he was eligible, he put off applying for it. He was getting around 700.00 a month and he was trying to get a permanent place to stay. I am glad that Shelby had a personal revival in his life right before he died. The few simple things we did together made him proud. He would tell his daughter about it and stuff. I had the sense that after many years he began hoping again, sort of like the Lord was going to use him after feeling hopeless for many years. Shelby was a good man, a good friend of mine. Goodbye my friend.
(990) PROVERBS 31: 8-9 ‘Open thy mouth for the dumb [voiceless] in the cause of ALL such as are appointed to destruction [abortion, poor, unjust death sentences]. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy’. This chapter is famous for the second half, the virtuous woman. I have been praying parts of this chapter 3-5 times a week for around 20 years now. I pray the part ‘your wife we be like the merchant ships that bring their goods from afar’ over my wife. I also pray ‘your wife will be like a fruitful vine by the sides of your house, your children like olive plants round about your table’. For some reason the ‘plant’ imagery stuck in my head as a good prayer reminder. The other day, before Shelby passed away [my homeless friend] I was going thru the pictures on my cell phone. I happened to come across a picture I took of Shelby. I have a few pictures from the fellowships and stuff. This one was taken with Shelby and a few other homeless brothers at a park in Kingsville. Sure enough I put the picture as the ‘wallpaper’ [the first picture that shows up as you turn on the phone] on Sunday. He passed away on Wednesday. My daughter says ‘don’t put my picture on your phone’! Actually I kind of see it as a prophetic thing. In some way the Lord was telling me my friend was going to become a ‘memory’ real soon. Also a reminder for prayer. The day I found out about Shelby’s death I took a few homeless people around town to run errands and stuff. We stopped for coffee and one of the brothers insisted on paying this time. He had around 10 bucks and really wanted to. I paid, he left a 2 dollar tip. During the day they were trying to accomplish small tasks that can become real obstacles in their lives. I took one of the guys to the driver’s license place, he got his I.D. but could not get his license. They have a very old charge against him about not appearing for court on some minor thing. He never got the notice, they sent it to his last known address, he hasn’t lived there for years! He simply can’t fix this problem, he has no resources and ability to fix it! I of course helped him with the ride and some money and stuff. But when these guys get into these seemingly small obstacles, when you’re homeless and without a phone and regular transportation, they seem hopeless at times. Now, what do you think happens when the entity they are dealing with decides to mess with them? I canceled a credit card a few years back. I paid the balance and specifically said ‘make sure you cancel the card, I don’t want to keep getting notices that I owe an annual fee and stuff’! Sure enough, a few months go by and they send me a notice that I am delinquent for around 70.00 dollars [not an old balance, but a new annual charge!] and if I don’t pay it the fine will go up. What happened? Someone decided to simply ‘screw me’ [sorry]. The point being, when you are homeless you have very little ability to correct any wrongs done against you, the entity that is messing with you always wins. Society seems to think ‘they got what was coming to them’. The reason God wants us to speak up for all those who are ‘voiceless’ is because this is part of the purpose of Gods anointing. Jesus clearly was anointed for this purpose [Isaiah 11, 61. Luke 4]. There are times when the voiceless are ALWAYS innocent [abortion] and times where they did ‘get what was coming to them’. But Jesus requires us to treat the poor and hopeless with respect and concern. Every now and then I catch a show on E.W.T.N. [the catholic channel] the name of the show is ‘the church and the poor’. It’s the ministry of some priest [Wen Ho Lee? Something like that] who was a Jesuit priest living in the states and having a comfortable life. Then the Lord challenged him to give it all up and move to some foreign land and give his life away for the poor. His message is soul stirring. He often tells the people during the Mass ‘do you think coming to church and going to confession and doing religious things are the main requirements for a Christian’? He then goes on and shares the judgment scenarios that Jesus gave in the gospels. He shows how Jesus couches the judgment of man based on his treatment of the poor and down and out. He sounds like me! God requires us to speak up for those who cannot, he requires us to give our lives away. As you read thru this chapter [Proverbs 31] you will see that kings [leaders] are not supposed to get drunk [like Paul's admonition to elders]. Why? So they don’t forget to do justice and look out for those who are under their care, specifically the down trodden. God wants us clear and sober minded for a divine purpose, to be social activists on the behalf of those who ‘have no voice’.
(991) 1ST CORINTHIANS 12: 8-11 Instead of giving you my definition for each one of the gifts of the Spirit, let me just give you a sense of where I’m coming from. Over the years I have learned the normal Pentecostal understanding of these gifts. I also have learned the ‘anti-Pentecostal’ view. I take a little from each camp. The strong Pentecostal view usually sees all the gifts as ‘supernatural’ I do too! But to them this means the gifts of Wisdom and Knowledge can’t be ‘regular wisdom or knowledge’. Okay, so what are they? Some teach that the ‘word of wisdom’ is simply a prophetic word about future stuff. The ‘word of knowledge’ is simply prophetic insight into ‘past stuff’. To be honest I have no idea how people come up with stuff like this [well, actually I do have an idea]. I see Paul as operating in a strong gift of knowledge, though Paul was trained and had a good education, the Spirit took all of his ‘head knowledge’ and quickened it. I see James as having a strong gift of wisdom, his epistle is the only New Testament work considered to be part of the corpus of wisdom literature. Of course the gifts of healing[s] and prophecy are supernatural, but wisdom and knowledge can be ‘supernatural’ without having to fall into some prophetic type category. If it’s wisdom and knowledge from God, then it is supernatural! I have known Pastors who had the gift of wisdom, sometimes they would come to the same conclusions as me, but they took a different route to get there! They might not have ‘seen’ all the knowledge portions of scripture that I saw, but the wisdom they operated in caused them to arrive at the same place. Some teach that after the Spirit fell on the church at Pentecost [Acts 2] that you no loner had miracles, dreams and visions or angelic visitations. Why is this wrong? The book that records more miracles and angels and visions than any other book [except for the gospels] is the book of Acts. In essence, one of the major New Testament books on these manifestations shows them to be a result of the Spirits outpouring! The point being these things didn’t end after Pentecost. I realize both camps [Pentecostal- non Pentecostal] have had their wars over this stuff. I find that both sides can be just as legalistic and judgmental in their views. I think one of the major ‘signs’ of being ‘Spirit filled’ is a life based on free grace. When people grasp the gospel and are filled with the Spirit, they should be free from living their lives out of a state of condemnation and guilt. Many ‘Spirit filled’ churches operate in the gifts [their view of them] but are just as legalistic as the non Pentecostals. To me this is not what it means to be ‘Spirit filled’. Overall we should be open to the working of the Spirit in supernatural ways. We should avoid making this the goal or identity of our Christian walk, but we should not reject or despise prophetic/supernatural things. They are available and necessary at times for completion of the mission.
(992) JAMES 1: 2-4 ‘Count it all joy when you fall into various temptations [trials] knowing that the testing of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work [completeness, the end of ‘a thing’] that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing’. When I first started this blog, I was surprised that brothers from Africa quickly found out about us. I kinda thought that all the invites from the continent were part of the scams that go on incessantly on line. I can’t tell you how many ‘Dear brother, I am a Christian millionaire trying to free up my millions in the U.S.’ or something like that type pleas that I get. It usually gives them away when they spell something like ‘Godd blees yeo’. Yes, I admit I have responded at times by saying ‘I hate to inform you but I am an undercover F.B.I. agent, we have traced your computer to its location. YOU WILL BE EXTRADITED TO THE U.S. SOON!’ I quickly ask the Lord to forgive me after I send it off. But the African contacts were legit. The reason I am even mentioning this is because I feel the Lord has a purpose for messages like ours to go out to the nations. Not ‘my message’ per se, but the basic return to a Christ oriented gospel. Africa has gone thru a few decades of becoming ‘Christianized’ by the American gospel. The most prevalent strain of American Protestantism on the continent is the prosperity message. I don’t know if you knew this or not, but it is common to find African churches that are saturated with the prosperity gospel. Now, after all I have written and taught over the years on the abuses of this type of message, yet I do not see this development as totally ‘from the devil’. I believe it to be possible for the Lord to have used the basic message of self reliance, believing God to improve your economy, a basic message of ‘you can do it’ as a foundation for future growth. That is many Africans needed to be told ‘God does have a future and a hope for you and your continent, start believing and trusting God to turn things around’. But after the ‘elementary teachings’ of this type of message are laid, then the ‘more mature’ message of Christ’s calling needs to come in and build upon the basic self help gospel. So, James says ‘count it a blessing when you go thru stuff, God is working things in you, he is bringing you to a point of completeness in your life. Don’t look at all the trials as things from the enemy that must be rebuked, God allows trials for your personal growth and development’. There is a Christian message that teaches us that the Lord brings us to maturity thru difficult things. The basic message of ‘self help’ has an ethos that says ‘Confess, rebuke and apply all the bibles procedures and you will grow’. Much of this message has you rebuking the God ordained tests! Yes, we don’t like the tests. When the big test day comes along [or all the little ones] it can be nerve racking. So modern psychology says ‘lets avoid the pressure that tests put on people. Lets just tell little Tommy ‘you spelled the word the way you felt it should be spelled’ [Ouch!] I want to encourage you today, God has brought you thru some things for your own growth and benefit. You might look back ten years from now and think ‘Thank God I went thru those tough times, they allowed me to avoid going thru years of teaching and believing a limited gospel’. To all my preacher friends who read this site, God wants to ground you guys in some basic Christian truth, things that are foundational to our call in the kingdom. It is all too common for successful ministries to be built on self help principles. After many years go by this self help message can become too self centered, the people need to be taught ‘count it all joy’ once again.
(993) THE BILLIONAIRE SUICIDES- ‘Let the brother of low degree [not rich] rejoice in that he is exalted: but the rich in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. … so shall the rich man fade away in his ways’ James 1:9-11. These last few weeks have had a strange thing happen. After the recent fall in the stock market [1-09] there were 3 billionaires who killed themselves. I also watched on the news last night how a stock guy faked his death by crashing his plane, they found out he parachuted out first! Some of the news media said ‘I don’t understand these billionaires killing themselves, sure, they lost billions but they still have money’. This is the deceit of riches. These rich guys were in it for the game, not simply to have enough money to live off of. They fell for the addiction of the game. After losing great sums of money, they weren’t thinking ‘well I still have enough to make it’. No, they were thinking ‘I can never get back to where I was, I will never win the game now’ which to them meant having more than the others ‘in the game’. James said the rich will fade like the grass, they allow their lives to feel secure by the amount they have. When they lose that sense of security they feel all is lost. James was one of the lead elders at the Jerusalem church [Acts 15] he had spiritual oversight to a large group of poor believers. These were the same poor Christians that Paul was taking up offerings for [1st Corinthians 16]. James understood the temporary nature of worldly wealth. I find it notable that James lived and grew up with Jesus, he was his brother. What were the important messages he picked up by living with Jesus most of his life? He understood the shallowness of the rich man. James said ‘they will fade like the flowers on a hot day’. The billionaires took their lives because all that they were living for was gone. The hot sun came up and they were found wanting.
(994) 1ST CORINTHIANS 12: 12-26 Paul uses the analogy of a body to describe the church. Keep in mind that the ‘church’ in Paul’s writings mean ‘all Gods people in the region/city’. Not just the gathered assembly! It’s important to make this distinction because much of the talk on the restoration of the organic church versus the institutional church focuses too much on the way believers meet. Here Paul is saying ‘you are all individual distinct members in the local community, you express Christ in various ways, though you have unique gifts you also are part of one corporate expression of Christ in your city’. The distinct gifts function in your community, not just in the meeting! [Whether it be the Sunday building type thing or the living room!] Paul also tells them to be on the guard for the ‘one member dominating the group’ expression of church. If everyone is centered on one particular gift then the corporate expression of the Body of Christ is diminished. Or if everyone saw ‘full time ministry’ as being a modern Pastor then you would have too many sincere believers all seeking to serve God in a limited way ‘if all were an eye, ear, mouth [speaking gift]’ then where would the Body be? I find this chapter to be a key chapter in the current reformation of modern church practices. As Gods people strive for a more scriptural expression of ‘being the church’ we need to keep this chapter in mind. Now, a word for the strong organic church brothers. The fact that Paul encourages a corporate expression in the church does not mean the gatherings of Gods people must be leaderless. Paul includes the concept of Elders in his writings. To be sure these men were not to dominate the meetings, or be the weekly speaker on an ongoing basis. But some hold to a type of idea that the way the church is supposed to testify of the ‘headship of Christ’ is by demonstrating a human leaderless church. That is God ordained the local bodies of believers to have no functioning human leaders in order to show forth Christ’s headship. To be honest I don’t see this in scripture. I see leaders in plurality [never a one man show] and Paul was not afraid to tell Titus and Timothy to ‘ordain’ [recognize!] Elders in the church. But the overall instruction in this chapter is God wants all of his people to function on a regular basis in the Body of Christ. This of course includes the gatherings, but it is not limited to them. The primary way we ‘show’ the world the Lordship of Jesus is by the selfless love we have one for another. When we daily live charitable, sacrificial lives, this demonstrates the ‘headship of Jesus’ over the church. The way believers meet has some effect on this, but most of Jesus instructions to the disciples was on how they would go out into the world and bring the great message of the kingdom to society. The primary ‘battlefield’ of the church militant is the world, not the meeting place!
(995) IS MODERN ISRAEL THE SAME AS ANCIENT ISRAEL? Why bring this up now? At the time of this entry [1-09] we have another one of those endless wars in the Middle East. Israel has been bombed over the past few years on a regular basis from Hamas. Hamas are the rogue ruling authority in the Gaza strip. Israel made a deal with the Palestinians to give them the strip of land, in return Palestine promised not to use the land against Israel. What happened? After the Palestinians took the land, they elected Hamas to be their ruling authority! Hamas are terrorists, make no mistake about it. So after a few years of regular bombings from the Gaza strip into Israel, Israel said ‘that’s enough’ and started a military campaign to up root Hamas. To be honest, they are using the exact same justification as the U.S. action against terrorism. Now, Israel as a modern state is quite a miracle. Or are they? After the destruction of their temple and the loss of their national identity in A.D. 70 they have been without a homeland for 2 thousand years. In the 20th century [1949] Israel once again became a state with a homeland for the first time in nearly 2 thousand years. Most evangelical Christians in the U.S. equate modern Israel with the promises made to Abraham by God in the Old Testament. God promised Abraham that he would give the land to him and his seed. In Deuteronomy 28 we see that the promise of Israel keeping the land was contingent on their obedience to his covenant. The history of Israel in the Old Testament shows them violating Gods laws at various times and God allowing them to be taken captive and losing their land. So the promise of inheritance was based in part on their obedience to God. Now, after W.W.1 the League of Nations made an agreement with modern Israel to give them a homeland. This promise was not carried out until after W.W.2. The United Nations agreed to give them the land and the British carved out a portion of the land and Israel became a nation once again. Let me make myself clear, as a nation Israel has a right to exist. After the initial taking of the land, the neighbors had various wars with Israel and in every case Israel won and took some more land. How Christians view the present status of the modern nation state is important. Most believers look at every modern conflict thru the promise of God made to Abraham thousands of years ago. The normal reaction by the fundamentalist/evangelical preacher is ‘God promised them the land, and by golly if Israel has to kill some poor Arabs to keep it, then that’s Gods will’! This is where we need to be careful. As an ally of the U.S. Israel is a small lone Democracy in a tough region of the world [there are other democracies, but they don’t border Israel]. Our country does have a responsibility to back up our allies. Israel does rule herself in a modern way with a rule of law and a humane judicial system that are rare for the region. So all in all they are a good ally who has a right to exist. But should believers equate this right with some biblical promise made to Abraham by God? Remember, God himself said that the promise of them dwelling in the land had to do with their obedience to him. Modern Israel is a religious nation. But they are also cultural. Many Jews presently living in the land do not practice Judaism, they simply see themselves as ethnic Jews. Those who do practice their faith practice a form of Judaism that can be called ‘Rabbinic Judaism’. This form of Judaism is what the Pharisees practiced during Jesus day. They elevate the traditions of the elders to a degree equal to [or greater than] the Old Testament law. If you remember Jesus rebuked this religious mindset when he told the Pharisees ‘by your tradition [the tradition of the elders] you make void the commandments of God’. So first of all, modern Israel is not in good standing with Jesus! [At least on covenantal grounds]. Second, did you ever wonder if the modern religious defense of Israel coincides with the actual Promised Land mentioned in scripture? If you go back and read the actual borders that God promised Abraham, you have a region extending to parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and a few other spots. In essence, many of the defenders of Israel’s right to the land, are not even talking about the actual borders mentioned in the bible! What does this mean? If God conditioned the obtaining of the land on the obedience of natural Israel to his law, is modern Rabbinic Judaism fulfilling it? If the promise of the land by God to Israel are what most evangelicals are fighting over, are they using scriptural borders to define ‘the land’ or are they using a 20th century land agreement made by human nations after the world wars? I believe Christians should stand for the right and freedom of all people [including modern Israel!] to exist and practice their religion freely. I believe modern Israel has as much right to the land they inhabit as any other nation who dwells on territory that used to belong to other people groups. That is if any nation engages with other nations in an aggression, if the nation who attacked you loses, you bet your gonna lose some land. That’s the way the ball bounces. The point of this entry is to simply call the American church to rethink the attachment she places on Gods promises to Abraham when making these arguments. A case could be made that modern Rabbinic Judaism is in fact still rejecting the law of God and does not fulfill the requirement, given by God himself, to ‘dwell in the land’. We as believers need to be careful when we simply jump headlong into these world affairs in a way that says to the world ‘God is on this nation’s side, and anyone who challenges their borders is in the wrong’. Understand, the ‘borders’ in these scenarios were carved out by human nations coming to certain land agreements. Be careful when you equate modern borders with Gods covenantal promise to Israel. We all need to pray for peace, we need to act justly in the world. We need to be against all racism, even anti Semitism! But we also need to stand true to the New Testament Ethos of all ethnic barriers being destroyed in Christ. We don’t want the world to think that King Jesus is going to return and physically war to protect a border made-up by the United Nations! This type of end times teaching can get us into real trouble.
(996) 1ST CORINTHIANS 12:27-31 Lets talk about ‘the fivefold ministry’ [some say four]. In the 90’s there was a real interest in this subject. It comes from this portion of scripture [and Ephesians 4]. The basic teaching is/was that God was restoring all these ministries [Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers- some see this as one combined gift] and that this restoration was one of the final things to happen before Christ’s return. I read and bought lots of books on church planting and how Apostles are gifted to ‘plant churches’. This teaching really wasn’t a new thing. Back in the 1800’s you had Edward Irving head up an apostolic movement called ‘the apostolic catholic church’ [Irvingites]. You had interesting folk like John Alexander Dowie who would start a modern city of God called ‘Zion’ in Illinois. Brother Dowie saw himself as an apostle and felt the Lord led him to start an apostolic city. You can still visit the city today. It was also common for many ‘up and coming’ preachers to begin seeing themselves as ‘apostles/prophets’ and actually advertise their callings in this way. Well of course the old time brothers who reject the gifts all together, saw this as another sign of the end time apostasy. You also had a strange phenomenon take place. It was common for ‘apostolic/prophetic’ people to be taught ‘the missing ingredient is covering and authority’- the churches are weak because they are under pastoral authority, they don’t have apostles ‘covering them’ [ouch!]. So it was not uncommon to have respected men kind of stepping over the normal boundaries of relating to churches and to say things like ‘you need to do this’ ‘you over there, be quiet. I don’t give you permission to speak’ and stuff like this. These sincere men thought it their responsibility to act this way. They felt this was a part of the restoration of apostles. Now, do apostles exist today [and prophets]? To be honest with you, yes. If you read this section along with Ephesians chapter 4, it is next to impossible to teach that they passed away in the first century. These scriptures make it clear that after Jesus ascended he gave ‘some apostles, others prophets’ they are included in the list of evangelists, pastors and teachers. If you lose one gift, then you lose them all. Also the timing of their ministries is given ‘till we all come to the unity of the faith unto a perfect man’. These gifts are all given to build Gods people up until we come to fall maturity. We aint there yet! So it’s pretty obvious that these gifts exist. Those who believe they don’t exist usually refer to the fact that the apostles of the Lamb [a category unto itself] did pass away. They will show you the truth of these apostles having to have been witnesses of Jesus actual resurrection. But these are a different category of apostles. The ones in this chapter were not even ‘made’ until after Jesus ascended on high. The same for the prophets. So, what do these strange fellows do? In all the books and stuff I have read on these movements, I feel some have been too limited in their definitions. Some taught that they were primarily itinerant men [traveling church planters]. Of course Paul was the master at this. But you find James as a stable pillar of the church at Jerusalem. Peter did travel, but he was no Gentile church planter like Paul! And Timothy in the New Testament had an apostolic type gifting, yet he was a protégée under Paul. So for the most part apostles do carry a special ability to ground Gods people in truth. Those who are called to ‘plant churches’ need to be more in tune with the example of Paul. Many modern day ‘apostles’ see church planting as going to a region and organizing Christians to meet in certain ways. I have heard it said ‘I have planted an organic church’ ‘I have planted a home group’ or of course the standard ‘I have planted a building based church’. The main ‘church planting’ of Paul was bringing the gospel to UNREACHED PEOPLE GROUPS and evangelizing those groups. Now of course he did give instructions to them on ‘how to meet’ [like in this book we are reading!] But don’t confuse ‘church planting’ with organizing believers around a new way to meet. All in all God gave us these gifts to build each other up and bring us to maturity, a place where we are no longer dependent on these gifts to function. I feel one of the greatest dangers was the strong authoritarian mindset that some of the apostolic brothers had, they meant well, but they stepped over their boundaries at times.
(997) JAMES 1:13-15 ‘LET NO MAN SAY WHEN HE IS TEMPTED “I AM TEMPTED BY GOD” [TEMPTED TO DO EVIL] FOR GOD CANNOT BE TEMPTED BY EVIL, NEITHER DOES HE USE EVIL TO TEST PEOPLE. BUT EVERY MAN IS TEMPTED BY HIS OWN SINFUL DESIRES. HE IS DRAWN AWAY BY THEM AND TRAPPED. THEN WHEN LUST IS COMPLETE IT LEADS TO SIN, AND SIN WHEN IT IS FINISHED GIVES BIRTH TO DEATH’ [my paraphrase] James already showed us that tests are good things, but here he makes a distinction between a test and sinful lusts. It is never Gods process to test people to lust. This desire is imbedded in sinful man. Proverbs warns us to avoid ‘the harlot’ it says many strong and mighty men have been slain by her ‘by her a man is brought to a piece of bread’. How come strong men have been pulled down by her, not weak men? The point is once you allow the process to begin [being drawn away by your own lusts] then no matter how strong you are, you will lose! James teaches us that this process is a ‘three fold cord’. Scripture says 3 fold cords are not easily broken. I just finished a regular prayer time, to be honest praying for around an hour and a half seems very easy. It wasn’t that way at the beginning of my Christian life, but after doing it for around 20 plus years, it’s a simple routine. I am now in ‘stage 2’ of my normal daily routine; I am writing/teaching. Stage 3 will be when I clean the house [yes, being I am retired I do about an hour of cleaning every morning] during this time I review future radio messages and also listen to good teaching on c.d.’s or radio [theological stuff]. All in all I get a good 3-5 hours of daily prayer/teaching/studying in. Yes I also read both scripture and books as well [once again the books are usually scholarly works of some sought. I try to avoid simply reading stuff that’s popular in the Christian bookstores ‘how I lost weight, made a million’ or whatever]. The reason I share this is to tell you that after you establish godly ‘3 fold cords’ [habits of righteousness] it’s hard to break them! Now, the same goes for ungodly cords. I have known [and experienced!] ungodly habits in life. Sinful stuff that’s hard to break. I have also noticed how many of my good friends who are addicted to hard drugs, many of them are extremely smart, they have talents, and all in all they could have been successful in life. But the enemy [and their choices] hooked them at a young age. People learn habits early in life. If you take someone at the age of 18-23 and train them in some addiction/habit, it sticks with them for life [until they allow God to break the cords]. Many of my buddies established habitual sin habits and these have dogged them for life. We all struggle with stuff and I don’t want to give the impression that it’s just ‘those people’. Now James tells us that God can break this process. James teaches us the wisdom of being ‘doers and not hearers only’. God breaks stuff when you decide to act and function toward his purpose on a daily basis. James will say ‘true religion is visiting the fatherless and widows and keeping yourself clean from the world’. Note the order, first commit to do good works, then avoid sin. There is a scripture that says ‘commit your works unto the Lord and your thoughts will be established’ [Proverbs?]. We learn the lesson of establishing habitual patterns of righteousness to go along with our head knowledge of truth. Do you have ‘cords’ that you are struggling to break? Have you established righteous cords [habits] that flow thru out your week? I don’t want to be legalistic about this, Jesus is the only one with the power to deliver a person from sin, but there are practical righteous habits that God wants you to engage in on a regular basis. You might not pray and study for 5 hours a day! But you can have a regular devotional time [even if it’s only 30 minutes a day] and stuff like this will make a difference. Learn to nip it in the bud when it comes to temptation, once you allow lustful desires to rule, it always ends up in death, even strong men are brought down by it.
(998) CORINTHIANS ‘DO ALL SPEAK WITH TONGUES’? - Before we leave chapter 12, let me overview a little. Paul mentions ‘do all speak with tongues’ and the presumed answer is ‘no’. I love my Pentecostal brothers, but some have developed an interesting doctrine that says ‘God wants all to speak with tongues’ though here it is obvious that all don’t! I am familiar with the classic defense of this. It says that in the beginning of the chapter the gifts are individual gifts that all believers can have [true enough] but that later in the chapter the ‘tongues’ that all don’t operate in is speaking of some sort of ministry gift of tongues. That Paul is basically saying ‘you can all prophesy, speak with tongues, etc..’ but you are not all going to have public ‘ministry gifts’ in these things. Okay, I got it. What’s the problem with this defense? Simply that when your done making the case, the brothers usually wind up saying ‘therefore, we should all speak with tongues’! Any argument [case] made from scripture, needs to use the plain language/thought flow to interpret that which is not plain. I believe all the gifts are for today [though I would disagree on certain Pentecostal definitions of them] but I also believe we violate the New Testament when we teach that certain gifts are supposed to operate in every person. Sure, you can find tongues and other gifts as signs in the book of Acts that believers were filled with the Spirit. But this doesn’t mean that those who don’t speak in tongues are not filled with the Spirit. Paul’s teaching here is that we are all baptized into Christ by the Spirit and we are all ‘drinking in the one Spirit’ but yet he empathically says ‘you all will not have the same gifts operating’. I think it is a violation of scripture to develop a doctrine that says ‘unless you function in a certain gift, you are not Spirit filled’. I do not see the classic Pentecostal division between ‘public tongues’ [that everyone doesn’t do] and ‘private tongues’ that you must have in order to have proof of being baptized in the Spirit. I do see the division to a degree, but I feel the Pentecostal brothers are being legalistic when they make this case.
(999) 1ST CORINTHIANS 13:1 ‘THOUGH I SPEAK WITH THE TONGUES OF MEN AND OF ANGELS, AND HAVE NOT LOVE, I AM BECOME AS SOUNDING BRASS OR A TINKLING SYMBOL’ Over the years I have seen how the church can ‘have a voice-make noise’ without actually effecting change. Last night I watched some Martin Luther King stuff. Without ‘sucking up for political purposes’ I must admit that Martin is at the top of my list of personal heroes. Martin spoke with a revolutionary purpose in mind, he was not ‘delivering sermons’. One time I spoke at a friends church, I only spoke for around 15 minutes [much like my radio show] and the pastor said ‘no wonder John doesn’t have a church/ preach regularly, you have to at least speak for 45 minutes’ [something like that]. Though after the message I had good comments from the people, the sincere pastor felt like we didn’t ‘put the time in’ in order to fulfill the Sunday morning practice of ‘church’. Were did we get our modern sermon from? [The actual format]. If you go to Bible College you can take a course called ‘homiletics’ this course will teach you the structure of speaking and putting a message together. If you study Greek rhetoric you will find that this science existed in the Greek intellectual world before Christians embraced it [the actual format and structure taught in homiletics comes right out of the Greek system of rhetoric, to the tee!]. I find it funny how many modern pastors seem to measure a persons degree of ‘being scriptural’ by this measuring rod. ‘Well brother, didn’t they preach in scripture’ you bet they did. We see Jesus reading from the scroll in the synagogue. Paul and Peter were master ‘preachers’ if you will [though Paul himself was no ‘golden tongue’] basically the biblical concept of preaching/teaching was more of a spontaneous thing. It’s certainly not wrong to borrow the sermon from the Greeks [which we did do] but we don’t want to fall into some mindset that sees modern ministry [pastoral] as being a professional speaker. Here Paul says there is a danger of believers becoming like ‘sounding brass and tinkling symbols’ we can lose the reality of simple communication. We also can lose the prophetic edge of speaking into society over issues of justice. If we become too mundane and ‘professional’ then the world simply views us as another program to simply pass over when clicking the remote. Both Martin Luther King and Charles Finney were known for their social activism. One of the charges [actually true] made against them was that they held to liberal theological positions. Finney was effected by the higher criticism of his day [the trend in the universities to deny the supernatural elements of scripture] he embraced certain doctrines that could be viewed as heretical [things on the atonement and mans sinful nature]. King’s critics make note of the fact that he also accepted certain types of bible interpretation that viewed some of the miraculous stories as ‘myth’ [not fake, but simple allegorical stories that were not literal but simply meant to convey a spiritual theme]. Things like Jonah and the whale, or Ballams talking donkey [or the talking snake in the garden!] Some intellectual brothers view these stories this way. Is there any validity to these views? Actually yes. I personally hold the ‘literal’ view with stuff like this, but ‘literal’ does not mean the bible does not contain different styles of writing. You do have poetry, allegory, symbol and other types or forms of grammar in scripture. Even the strong literal brothers will contradict themselves when they fully accept the ‘Lamb on the throne’ as not being a literal Lamb! [or when they interpret the scorpion like demons in Revelation as Black Hawk helicopters] So scripture does use allegory and symbol. But why did Luther and Finney associate with the more liberal trends in theology? I feel it was because of the strong anti social gospel that the fundamentalists embraced. The more conservative thinkers who rejected the liberal trends in teaching, would also reject social activism. Luther and Finney simply gravitated towards those who were like minded in their concern to speak into society. Basically they didn’t just want to be theologically correct [though they might have been in some of there views] but they wanted to be able to effect change in society. They wanted to be more than just a tinkling symbol that could tickle your ears.
(1000) ABORTION- Today is the first official day of President Obama as being our new president. I did not plan on writing this entry, but as I was praying earlier for him I felt the Lord release me to do this. I have prayed, by name specifically, many times for our new president [a few times per week over the past few months] I believe when we respect and honor those in office, that God allows us to speak to certain issues. A few years ago Senator Barbara Boxer [Ca.] was at some floor debate on an issue over abortion. Another senator [Sam Brownback?] put up a picture of an aborted child. The picture was clear and plain to see. There was no doubt that the carcass was that of an innocent child. Brownback simply asked her ‘is this a human being or not’. Her answer was that making a judgment like that was not her right or responsibility. If a person can not discern what makes up a human baby, then how in the world can they make any judgment issues over any thing? Yesterday, the inauguration day of our new president [1-20-09] the stock market dropped more than on any other inauguration of any other president. Now, do I think that there is a connection between one of the underlying defenses of abortion [financial gain, convenience] and stuff like this? To a degree, yes. When a society chooses to overlook the actual dismemberment of thousands of little children at the altar of convenience [i.e.; I can’t afford the child. What responsible person would bring a child into the world? Etc.] When we make these types of judgments, then we reap judgment. I know the progressive Christians say ‘I wish the church would get over her love affair with the fetus’ [would you say I wish the church could get over her love affair with the slave during the civil war?] but the fact remains, there is no other single social justice issue of our time equal to the tragedy of abortion. The fact that a sitting U.S. senator could not say that the picture of a beautiful little baby was ‘a human being’ shows you the deception that we have succumbed to in our efforts to be ‘progressive’.
(1001) DAY 2- Today the president will overturn the ‘Mexico city agreement’ [that’s the word in the media] this agreement was created under Reagan and forbid federal tax money to support pro abortion organizations in foreign lands. Say if I visited your family and you had 5 new borns. Now I want to like you, you are a Christian who believes the dismembering of human babies in the womb is murder. I am also a Christian but I have convinced you that my goal is to also protect your 5 baby’s lives. I convince you that the way to go about it is to not outlaw the actual murder of your kids. Okay, it sounds strange; would you be into outlawing the murder of innocent Jews during the holocaust? Or outlawing the enslavement of the Black race? If it were fundamentally wrong, which it is, then I want it outlawed. ‘You mean to tell me you would OUTLAW the murder of babies’ you bet ya! Just as much as outlawing Hitler’s gas chambers. Now, even though the parent with the 5 kids wants to ‘reduce the number of murdering his kids’ somehow he has been duped into believing that the way to protect his kids is by not outlawing, or fighting against the murder of kids! So the parent agrees to support the ‘pro abortion’ candidate, he has convinced you that his progressive thinking is the way to reduce the murder of your kids. Then the next thing you know people are knocking at your door wanting to kill your kids. These people have been hired and funded by the well meaning man who convinced you that he cares for your kids just as much as you. Don’t ‘kid’ yourselves, he is dangerous to the life of your kids. I realize that in today’s environment even describing this hideous act as murder is ‘old fashioned’. Have you seen the pictures of aborted kids? I have. They look exactly like the preemies in your local hospital nursery. The only difference is some of them are burned, others chopped up. Some look like they were killed by less traumatic means. All perfect little babies, simply dead. I am not a ‘fundamentalist, evangelical, bible toting, sin hating’ stereotypical Christian. But we need to realize that the expansion of our tax dollars to pay for and fund organizations in foreign lands that engage in this act can have no other effect that bring a curse on ‘our tax money’. If we believe that we can engage in this type of monetary genocide and at the same time turn our economy around, then we are fooling ourselves. Our nation will reap a financial disaster like a hurricane. [1-22-09]
(1002) 1ST CORINTHIANS 13: 2-3 ‘and though I have the gift of prophecy [Pentecostal, prophetic expressions] and understand all mysteries and all knowledge [Orthodox, Reformed, intellectual creedal churches] and though I have all faith that I could remove mountains [the Faith camp] and have not charity [Agape- love] I am nothing’. Whew! Thank God us mission/outreach type guys are not in there. ‘And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor [ouch] and have not love it profits nothing’. I love the various expressions of the church, I feed from the Reformed brothers teaching, love reading and studying Orthodoxy and Catholicism. I of course favor the outreach/hands on type ministries, but according to this text we can have all these things and still be missing the mark. Our intellectual type brothers are engaging the culture and defending the faith, but without love we don’t even put a dent in the culture. The apologists are great at refuting the new atheists, to be honest about it the Christian intellectuals are head and shoulders above the atheists [Craig Lane and men like him] but I have noticed that we don’t really change that many minds even when all the proof is on our side. And I cant tell you how many well meaning missions and soup kitchens I have been too, but often times there is a disconnect between the people being served and the ‘servers’. You get the feeling sometimes that the well meaning helpers are simply punching a time card. We all need to reevaluate our motives. People can tell when we are in ‘ministry’ for the love of the business. Or for the self glory and adulation that comes with our service. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees because they truly were in it for the recognition of men. They wanted others to see that they were ‘successful in the ministry’ so they could receive recognition in public. Paul tells the Romans ‘he that shows mercy, let him do it with love [cheerfully]’. It’s easy to fall into a rut and simply be functioning out of a sense of duty. Now duty can be a good thing, there are times where we just need people to report for duty! [The harvest is plenteous, but the workers are few] but we need to examine ourselves and make sure we are functioning out of the Love of God. Often times the various ministries and expressions of the church are simply God ordained ‘places’ where we can connect with people. As we interact with the lost world, lets do our best to win the arguments, give proof for the legitimacy of Christianity. Combat false ideas and mindsets that are imbedded in our culture, but lets leave room for the other side to get in with us. Understand that they have a ‘missing piece’ [Augustine’s hole in the heart] and we are the only ones that can show them how to fill it.
(1003) CORINTHIANS 13:4-10 Okay, what exactly is this love that we need? Paul has told us that all religious activity apart from it is vain. Paul here simply gives us a picture of the way it acts. You can read this section and substitute your name for the word love ‘love puts up with stuff and is kind’ ‘John puts up with stuff and is kind’ [ouch] ‘It does not boast or show off’. ‘It does not seek its own benefit’ a ‘what’s in it for me’ type mentality. Love is being just like Jesus. James tells us ‘if you fulfill the royal law of scripture, you do well’. The law is to love thy neighbor as yourself. Paul also shows us why love outshines the other gifts of tongues and prophesy and knowledge. He says ‘we know in part, prophesy in part. But when we are made perfect and mature at the appearing of Christ the partial gifts will no longer be distinguishable. Only love will rule’ [my paraphrase] I find it interesting that Paul says knowledge itself will cease. Will actual knowledge cease? What exactly is ‘knowledge’? When we use this term in society what we usually mean is the degree of ones learning/education compared to someone else. If you have a masters and I have a high school diploma, we see a difference. We measure knowledge by the amount we have as compared to others. Now, at Christ’s appearing when we all ‘shall know, even as we are known’ this fine distinction will ‘pass away’. We still will have knowledge, but as a tool that we use to measure one another, it will cease. It wont make a difference how much of the ‘knowledge pie’ [know in part] you possess, at that time everyone one will have ‘all pie’. Knowledge is a funny thing, our understanding of it has developed thru the centuries. During the enlightenment era the concept of ‘what does it even mean to know’ was tackled. One of the famous sayings was ‘I know/think, therefore I am’ [Descartes? Hey, I forget sometimes] the study of ‘how we learn/know things’ is called epistemology. The enlightenment produced a way to approach knowledge that can be called ‘modernism’ mans modern way of knowing stuff. In essence, there exists real truth that a person can know and learn. There is/was a challenge to this mode of thought. Many in the Emergent church movement would grasp on to another theory of ‘knowing’ loosely defined as being in the category of ‘post modernism’. Some challenged the actual ability to know a thing. The emphasis is on who is actually viewing/learning the thing. The terms ‘metta- narrative’ are sometimes used to describe this dynamic. There is some truth to the fact that our context, who we are and where we are coming from, can shape the actual stuff learned. But the question is ‘does our perspective actually change the thing, make it real or not’. Some in the field of Cosmology have grasped on to this post modern theory and have surmised that the very act of human beings studying and examining a thing can in and of itself cause the thing ‘to be’. You can see how this theory would be helpful to the atheist. ‘Where did every thing come from?’ ‘it is a result of human kind’s thoughts and inquiry’ [Ouch]. This sounds a lot like the metaphysical cults that espouse that reality is a product of what you think, confess. That man has the power to create reality simply by the act of studying a thing. Well this is of course a challenge to the truth of God. Jesus and the Cross aren’t ‘real’ because men ‘put their mind to them’. They are real whether or not man ever thought about them. ‘Let God be true, but every man a liar’ Romans. Paul tells us that all these varying degrees of knowledge will some day ‘pass away’. We will all stand before a self existent God and give an account of our lives. This day is coming whether you ‘think about it or not’.
(1004) CORINTHIANS 13:11-13 WHEN I WAS A CHILD I UNDERSTOOD AND THOUGHT AND SPOKE LIKE A CHILD, BUT WHEN I GREW UP I PUT THOSE THINGS BEHIND ME- Paul shows us that we presently see and understand things thru ‘a glass’. God gives us insight and glimpses into Divine truth, but we need mercy because we all have limited sight. Over the years I know I have ruffled some feathers. Whether it be our teaching on what the church is, tithing, end times stuff. How New Testament believers should view the nationalistic promises made to Israel under the Old Covenant. I have found that the problem usually isn’t solved by simply proving something from scripture. For instance someone might become convinced by an ‘avalanche’ of information, they might actually see what I am saying. They can even articulate it to a degree [sometimes better than me!] but at the end of the day the answer to the problem is we all need to ‘grow up’. We need an overall change in the way we view things thru a legalistic lens. For instance, the tithe issue. Over the years I have taught the concept that believers are not under this law. Those of you who have read this site for any length of time know this. But I have also taught that it is fine to put 10% of your money into the offering on Sunday. It’s okay to support those who ‘labor among us’. But there are also many examples in the New Testament warning Gods leaders to not be in it for the money. Now, if we took seriously the mandate in Malachi to tithe. If we want to actually bind the believer’s conscience in this way ‘how are you robbing God? By not bringing in the tithes!’ Then we need to also look at the context. Israel as a nation was mandated to ‘tithe’ of their goods [not money] in three ways. They gave to support the Levites, also for the poor, and then they gave a tithe for religious feasts. In essence this ‘tithe’ was a total of around 30 % of their annual income, not 10%! [This by the way is right around what I spend on a monthly basis for the ministry stuff I do]. So, if we were telling people ‘you are going to be cursed if you don’t pay 10%’ we are actually misreading this verse. Also, how many believers think they are going to be cursed if they don’t ‘tithe to the poor’? Most modern preaching on the tithe simply puts it in the category of the Sunday offering. Most of this type of giving goes to support salaries, building upkeep, light bills, insurance for staff. I could go on and on. A very minute portion of this money [in general] goes to the poor. Certainly not a third! Also the portion that went to the Levites could not be used to purchase anything that would be owned by the Levite. They were forbidden to own any type of personal inheritance as Levitical priests. How often does the modern concept of tithing include this? The whole point is if we are going to bind peoples consciences in this way [which we shouldn’t] then we need to make sure we are at least teaching it right! Why bring this up? This is simply a good example of what Paul is saying. ‘When I understood in a limited way, I spoke and acted in a limited way’. The answer to the problem is simply ‘becoming mature in our thinking and speaking’. Recently I read an article from a U.S. congressman, he was speaking about the situation between Israel and Palestine. He sided with a military interpretation of the Old Testament promise to Abraham to ‘posses the land’ and used that to influence his political activism for war. How ‘mature’ is this type of thinking? Did any of the JEWISH apostles do this? No. So instead of trying to ‘crisis manage’ every single doctrinal problem, we really need to mature on an overall basis and view these doctrines thru the paradigm of Jesus and his life and work. Are we imitating his ethos when we do these things? Was this the primary message and life of Jesus when he walked the earth? How did he respond to Roman oppression and unjust govt.? Did he advocate military action in defense of the promises of God made to the nation of Israel? If we as the 21st century church do not ‘rightly divide’ these things, then we are of all men ‘most miserable’ [1st Corinthians 15].
(1005) HAS DARWINS ‘TREE’ DIED? This week the Texas school board voted down a standard that was in the school system for 20 years. They got rid of a clause that said when teaching evolution, you should teach both the strengths and weaknesses of the theory. Certain lobbying groups wanted this out because they felt it gave an open door to intelligent design theorists. So they gave it the boot. When stuff like this happens it’s usually reported as ‘another victory for intelligence versus backwoods creationists’. I read a statement from a scientist who is an agnostic [not a Christian]. He shared how many scientists have abandoned Darwin’s theory based on the facts. In the last 25 years or so science itself has dealt a real death blow to evolution. The poor brothers are in a real bind. Some realize that Darwin was way out of his ‘skill set’ compared to today’s understanding and knowledge. These scientists see the absolute silliness of many of Darwin’s thoughts and ideas, but they also realize that to associate yourself wit the ‘anti evolution crowd’ is to heap upon yourself ridicule and scorn. The science is on their side, evolution doesn’t just have ‘weaknesses’ it has basically been overthrown by science, but you don’t dare say this out loud! [The movie ‘Expelled’ by Ben Stein deals with this]. Now, what is Darwin’s tree all about? Darwin surmised that the more we learn and ‘unearth’ over the next few centuries after he espoused his theory, that what we should find [if he was right] was a sort of ‘tree’ paradigm. The evidence would show simple cell organisms evolving and growing into multi-cell organisms and you would see a pattern of all life [plants, animals, humans] having evolved from a single original cell. The symbol for this was Darwin’s ‘tree’ analogy. Now, what has science found? Science has discovered no tree, to the contrary we have found that the ‘tree’ concept is actually false. Religion hasn’t proved this. Bible toting backwoods idiots haven't shown this. But atheistic, agnostic, unbelieving scientists have discovered this. Do you now see the dilemma? These poor brothers don’t know what the heck to do! [Also many believing scientists have seen this, the point I am making is this discovery is not religious in nature]. Basically science shows this; around 3.8 billion years ago [for the sake of this argument I will use ‘old earth’ age, I realize that this is a very hot debate among many groups] the first life showed up on our planet. It was a single celled organism called ‘Blue-Green Algae’. Now, if Darwin were correct, you would be able to trace following eras as slowly evolving from simple cell to multiple cell life over a very long period of time. Well what does the evidence show? Science says [not religion!] that in the Cambrian era we have what has come to be known as the ‘Cambrian Explosion’ [around 400-500million years ago. The dates vary depending on whose ‘science’ you are using]. This evidence showed us that the basic structure and systems of multiple celled organisms showed up all at once. No ‘tree’ or evidence of things slowly evolving over millions of years. We went from ‘Blue Green Algae’ [3.8 billion years back] to a whole strata of life [known as Phyla- things like sponges, certain vertebrates and stuff like that] in one giant leap! Nothing evolving from the 3.8 billon year mark to the 4-500 million date of the Cambrian Explosion. This is verified fact amongst the majority in the scientific community. This is just one of hundreds of ‘weaknesses’ to Darwin’s theory. The evidence is not there! We know this! But when the average citizen reads a story like this in the paper, he simply thinks ‘there go those bible thumping ignoramuses trying to outlaw true science’, they really don’t have all the facts.
(1006) CORINTHIANS 14:1-20 Lets deal a little with ‘Tongues’. I have written before on the various ways believers view this gift. Much has been taught over the years that can be seen as extreme from both camps [the Pentecostals and the non charismatics]. Is Paul speaking about the same gift as seen in Acts 2? If not, then does that mean the only legitimate ‘tongues’ are the Acts 2 expression? If a distinction is made, then Paul obviously put his stamp of approval on the second type of tongues by actually writing about it here! Ecstatic utterance was not exclusive to the early church. Paul earlier taught that the pagans engaged in this type of speech when worshipping false idols. This does not mean that true spiritual worship has no ecstatic type elements to it. The gifts themselves are seen as divinely inspired speech [the speaking ones]. Isaiah 8:1 says ‘TAKE A LARGE SCROLL AND WRITE ON IT WITH THE PEN OF A MAN’. God was telling Isaiah that he would use his actual writings as inspired instruments from him. Scripture also speaks of ‘the tongue of a ready writer’ we are called ‘living letters’ by Paul himself. Paul doesn’t challenge the legitimacy of this type of gift, but he does stress the importance of approaching all the gifts from a standpoint of unselfishness. If when the believers are gathered, they are all functioning in self edifying gifts, then they are making the same mistake that Paul rebuked earlier with the Lords table. The purpose of the gathering and gifts are for the building up of others and not for self gain. So Paul warns them of the selfish use of the gifts. He says it’s better to use Prophecy or Teaching because others can learn and grow. Some Pentecostal groups make a distinction between the prayer time and the ministry time. They practice tongues during corporate prayer and then treat ‘a tongue uttered’ during the service as something that needs interpretation. I see some merit to his, but it should be noted that here Paul does say ‘when you bless with the Spirit’ [prayer over a meal or something like it] that your prayer is fine, but still the other person doesn’t benefit. So Paul actually includes both ‘prayer tongues’ and ‘a word in tongues’ as needing to be tamped down during the public gathering. Of course we will see the teaching on private tongues as being fine, the point I am making is Paul includes ‘prayer tongues’ along with the other type. The main thrust of Paul’s teaching on Tongues is that the gift itself is legitimate [definitions of the gift vary!] but that all the gifts of the Spirit should be used unselfishly. ‘Well brother, Paul himself says it’s fine to pray in tongues to build yourself up! Got you now!’ well actually you don’t! ‘Building ones self up’ in a private setting can be considered beneficial to the overall corporate group. I just prayed/mediated for around an hour before writing, this was personal ‘self building’ for the purpose of corporate teaching. No matter where you personally come down on the various gifts of the Spirit, it is important to do all things with the benefit of others in mind. I hate to stick this example in here, but heck I just came up with it! Last night I was watching the news. I channel surf from CNN, MSNBC, FOX and even hit the PBS station every now and again [plus the big 3 networks]. Its still the first week of President Obama’s presidency and I couldn’t help but notice the unbelievable amount of ‘slobbering’ [yes, I borrowed it from Bernie Goldberg] that was taking place. I actually clicked the channel from Hannity to CNN. Hannity just finished talking about the embarrassing amount of gushing that the media were doing over Obama. As I clicked to Anderson Cooper, they were showing clips from the first media interview that Obama has given since being in office. It was a very good interview to an Arab language station. As Cooper was asking the reporters on their first thoughts of the interview, one actually said ‘it is so unbelievably outstanding that I am actually ‘giddy’. Now, I don’t subscribe to the Hannity/Limbaugh stuff 100%, but this really was too much. The media are putting such a high expectation on the poor man that no human being could possibly fulfill their image of the man. It was also reported that George [Stephanopoulos-?] actually cried during the inauguration. Of course Chris Matthews will go down in history for describing a ‘feeling going up his leg’ during coverage of an Obama speech. What’s wrong with this picture? I understand that the average white man feels self affirmed when he engages in public displays of support for Black advancement. I too like our President and do pray regularly for him. Not too long ago I met a black homeless friend, he actually has a little apartment but he was at the free mission so I sometimes refer to all these brothers as homeless. He was under the impression that I ran some type of ministry that took in money [I never take any offerings, for radio or anything else] so as I offered to by him some groceries and stuff, he kinda went a little overboard. I really didn’t have any ‘extra money’ but I bought it any way. I didn’t get mad or feel bad about it. I still see the brother every now and then and am still willing to help him. Now, is it better to show your love for the black man by publicly crying and gushing and describing sexual type feelings when listening to the new president speak, or to actually go out and find some black person in need and meet the need? I don’t want to get into the whole political scene at all, sometimes it gets me mad. I have actually ‘cussed’ [yes, I admit it] at the screen at times. [Little curse words, not the big ones!] The point being we all need to heed the admonition in scripture to show our love by our deeds and actions. To simply put on a public display for the world means very little.
(1007) CORINTHIANS 14:20-33 Paul instructs the church that when they are gathered together they should do things ‘decently and in order’. God is not the author of confusion. Notice the ‘order’ of the early church meeting. It is participatory in nature, those who give a word should take turns, those who give ‘a tongue’ need to let someone interpret. But there is no sense of ‘a pastoral speaking gift’ in this mix. Some teach that here Paul was giving directions to ‘the home group’ but they still had a regular ‘church service at the building’. This of course has no support at all from scripture or 1st century church history. Paul was simply telling ‘the church’ how to act when they met. I don’t see any hard and fast rules in which Paul is dictating some type of mandatory liturgy to the people. He is giving them some basic guidelines that are in keeping with the idea that God’s people are ‘a body’. He encourages open participation in the group. He shows how someone could be sharing and another who is ‘sitting by’ can also have a revelation. The idea is people grow and mature when they function. People become co-dependant when they simply observe. The modern church service for the most part has believers as spectators while one person speaks. While there are times where one person speaking/teaching is fine, what we have done is exalted this very limited format of ‘church’ and made it the criteria of what church is supposed to be. Note how Paul does allow for the gift of tongues to be used in the gathering, but only when there is an interpreter. He even ‘lifts’ an obscure verse from Isaiah that says God used ‘the languages of foreigners’ as a sign of judgment against unbelief. This verse has been used by the strong anti charismatic crowd to kind of say that the whole tongues thing is ‘of the devil’. Basically Paul was applying this Old Testament verse to show that when languages are spoken that people don’t understand, then unbelievers and judgment can be present. In Acts 2 there were those who said ‘what is this strange thing [tongues] are they drunk or what’. Yet others heard the ‘wonderful works of God’ in their native tongue. The lack of spiritual discernment among those who thought they were drunk was a sign showing their ignorance of Gods Spirit at work. Grant it, you could hardly blame them for thinking this, but the point Paul is making is that unknown languages being used in a setting where unbelievers can walk in does act as a sign of judgment. Paul wasn’t teaching that the gift of tongues was itself a false gift. I think this chapter is important for the present day because very few places in scripture actually deal with the way believers should meet. This chapter gives some of the basic guidelines of what our meetings should look like. I think we could all learn from the Corinthian experience.
(1008) CORINTHIANS 14:34-40 ‘Let your women keep silent in the gathering, for it is not permitted for them to speak. If they have any questions let them ask their husbands at home’. As a practical matter, when me and my wife attend church, I bring one of those little note pads with me. You never know when your wife has a question! [This is a Joke! But now you can see why I don’t take offerings]. What is Paul saying here? In chapter 11, verse 5, he also told the women not to ‘prophesy’ with uncovered heads. Some think Paul is forbidding women to operate in the speaking gifts, specifically tongues. Here he seems to be addressing a specific issue at Corinth. He says ‘if they have questions let them ask their husbands’. It’s possible that the wives were interrupting the meetings, or taking an authoritative role that was beyond their calling. I already discussed how Corinth had a form of idolatry that incorporated ‘temple prostitution’. Paul did not want the churches to go the way of the culture at Corinth! Paul is not forbidding women in general to never ‘talk in church’. He closes this chapter with the admonition to do all things decently and in order. Paul has a special relationship with these believers. He spent quite a long time in their city [18 months] he launched another very effective ministry while at Corinth. Do you know what that was? He began his ‘writing ministry’ while at Corinth. He wrote his first 2 letters to the Thessalonians from the city. Paul was very hard on this church, but he did not yet challenge their basic identity as believers because of all their misgivings, he still treated them as Gods holy people. In the next chapter he will question whether or not ‘they are in the faith’. He will challenge them on their unbelief in the resurrection of Christ.
(1009) A PALESTINIAN PASTOR- Let me share a little about our Christian brothers who live in Palestine. The purpose of sharing this is so we as American believers could have a different way of viewing the Middle East situation. Not for defending terrorism or embracing anti Semitism, but a whole ‘other worldly’ view. I recently read a story from a Lutheran Palestinian pastor. He is part of a small percentage of Christians living in the land. Around 3% of the population are believers. Some of these groups date back to the early centuries of the Christian church, others to the Reformation period. The point being a historic church actually exists amongst the Palestinian people. The Pastor was looking forward to his son’s graduation day, they were going to travel to the ‘Holy city’ for the special occasion and it was considered the big graduation day for the whole family. The Pastor made sure he had all the paperwork together for the trip. The big night of the graduation celebration they were stopped at a border checkpoint by an Israeli soldier and were denied entry. The Pastor humbled himself and showed the soldier that his paperwork was in order, that he was a Christian minister who meant no harm. He went out of his way this night to show the soldier that he and his family were really no threat at all. After much pleading the fine Pastor and his family turned around and had their celebration back at home. Now, I do not know what the situation was on the ground that night, maybe there was a threat in the area. The point is too many American believers view the whole situation in the middle east from some type of ancient old testament story in which the Israelis are possessing their promised land while driving out the ‘Canaanites’. This ‘lens’ is not in keeping with the Christian gospel. The Palestinian Christians were asked how they felt about having true fellowship with Christians from the outside. They said they were often viewed as ‘cultural Christians’ only. Sort of like in name only, they were not seen as truly being ‘born again’. They were excited at times when Christian groups did interact with them as fellow believers in the faith. But the majority of contact from the outside Christian world were the various ‘prophetic/evangelical’ type Christians who were visiting the holy land as tourists. For the most part these American believers were there to see ‘the holy sites’ to view the restored Jewish state. To see how work was going among the various orthodox groups who were re making the utensils that were to be used in a future rebuilt temple. But for the most part the American believers viewed these brothers in the faith as something less valuable than the actual land that they were visiting. These mindsets show us that we have a long way to go to regain a pure biblical view of the gospel and how it relates to society today. The gospel puts tremendous value on the people for whom Christ died [both Jews and non Jews]. When Jesus spoke of ‘the restoration of the temple’ he was speaking about his own Body, not Herod's building. When American evangelicals place a greater emphasis on the natural land and the hope of a restored temple with renewed animal sacrifices, than on the actual living Body of Christ on earth [believers of every ethnic background] then we have shown a tremendous lack of discernment equal to those who mistook Jesus words as applying to the natural temple of his day.
(1010) CORINTHIANS 15:1-19 Paul will deal with the greatest threat yet to the Corinthian church, their doubt over the physical resurrection of the body. Various ‘Christian’ groups over the years have doubted the physical resurrection. Now, some have done this out of a sincere attempt at trying to defend the faith! [their view of it] In the 1900’s you had one of the most popular theologians by the name of Rudolf Bultman [most of his career was spent at the University of Marburg, Germany. Much of the higher criticism of the day originated from Germany] He wrote a book called ‘Kerygma and Myth’. What he tried to say was that any modern man living in the 20th century, with all the breakthroughs in science and knowledge, could not ‘literally’ believe the miraculous stories in scripture. Or even the way scripture spoke of heaven and hell and used limited terms to describe spiritual truths. He used the bibles terminology on Cosmology as an example. How could man believe in a Cosmos where ‘heaven is up there, with the stars and all’ and he felt that enlightened man needed to ‘re-tool’ the bible and cleanse it from all these mythical images, but yet keep the spiritual aspects of it. The moral teachings of Christ and stuff like that. So you have had sincere men doubt the truth claims of scripture. The problem with this attempt [higher criticism] is it throws out the baby with the bathwater. The resurrection of Jesus is presented by the apostles as a real event. The fact of this resurrection can also be attested to by examining the historical events of the day. Simply put, there is a ton of proof for the real resurrection of Christ. Bultman and others meant well, but some of the ‘facts’ that they were using were later proven to be false. Bultman used a model of cosmology that would later be rejected by science. Yet the testimony from scripture would remain sure. Paul told the Corinthian's that they needed to reject any attempts at spiritualizing the resurrection of Christ. Sometimes believers grasp hold of limited proof’s for certain doctrines. For instance, the New Testament does speak of a spiritual resurrection. In Ephesians Paul says we are presently raised with Christ. In Romans chapter 6 we have all ready been raised with Jesus. This reality does not mean there will be no future resurrection of the saints. In John’s gospel Jesus speaks of the resurrection as being a future real event, as well as a present reality. Those in the graves will hear his voice and be raised from the dead. And those who were presently ‘dead in sins’ would ‘come alive’ [spiritually] when they heard and believed the testimony of Jesus. It is important for the believer to be familiar with the various theories and ideas that theologians and believers have grasped over the years. It is a mistake to simply see all higher learning as ‘liberalism’. There are some very important things that we have learned thru the great intellectuals of the church. But we also need to stick with the ancient traditions as seen in the creeds, as well as the plain testimony of scripture. If Christ ‘be not raised from the dead, then we are of all men most miserable’.
(1011) CORINTHIANS 15:20-28 here we see the guarantee of mans resurrection based on Christ's resurrection. ‘As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall ALL be made alive’. Is Paul teaching a form of universalism [all being saved]? He is showing us that all men will someday be raised from the dead. Now, does Paul leave room here for a type of Pre-millennial resurrection? A ‘raising’ of the dead prior to a thousand year literal reign of Jesus. Then another resurrection at the end? Yes he does. If you read Revelation you will see this type of scenario play out. Also Jesus speaks of the resurrection of the just and the unjust. Historically the church has held 3 basic views on this. Pre-millennialism says Jesus returns first [pre] before the literal thousand year rule occurs. ‘Post’ says the thousand year rule is literal, and after that Jesus comes back. Those who held to this view were excited at the turn of the first millennium [1000 ad] they thought it possible for Jesus to have returned after the first thousand years since his death and resurrection. And then you have A-millennial, they spiritualize the thousand year reign spoken of in the book of Revelation as being a symbol of Christ’s present rule and kingdom. Now, today’s most popular form of Pre-millennialism is not historic, it dates back to the 19th century. Today’s form is called ‘Pre-tribulational, Pre-millennial’ this teaching [dispensationalism] says Jesus comes back 2 more times. One is called ‘the rapture’ the other is the second coming [revealing]. The proponents of this form find little [or no] early Christians who believed this. There is one early writing by a Syrian brother who speaks very clearly about a rapture type event. Some think he speaks a little too clearly! The writing is believed to have been a fake. Either way we do have Paul teaching stages involved with the coming of the Lord and the kingdom. It is possible to have 2 future resurrections, this would not mean you need two future ‘second comings’. The first resurrection takes place at Christ’s return. He rules a literal thousand years and ‘the dead are raised again’ at the end of the literal rule on earth [ a literal reading of Revelation]. Also Paul does use the language of Jesus submitting to the Father at the end so ‘God will be all in all’. I feel believers have been confused and at times contradictory while trying to explain the nature of God and the Trinity. I recently read a teaching on the Trinity that tried to compare the Trinity to the nature of the organic church. It seemed confusing to me, they tried to say that just like in the Trinity you have no one ‘being’ having authority over the other, but instead you see all three persons equally submitting to one another [Father, Son and Spirit] so in the church you have equality. Now, I do believe that there is equality in the church, but I felt the example was way off. The New Testament clearly teaches the willful ‘submission’ of the Son to the Father. God [the father] is clearly the one ‘in charge’. Now, I admit it’s difficult and brothers have spent years trying to explain all the ins and outs of this. Here Paul shows us that the Son has willingly submitted to the Father so the father can put all things under him. Then once again at the culmination of the kingdom the Son submits to the father and God receives the glory. We will praise and worship Jesus thru out all eternity, it is his willful submission to the father’s plan that makes this happen. NOTE- Some believers spiritualize the first resurrection spoken of in Revelation, they relate it to those who have been ‘born again’ spiritually. Modern ‘Preterism’ holds to this view.
(1012) JAMES AND REVELATION- I have been reading James along with some stuff on Revelation. James says ‘though the ships are driven with fierce winds, yet they turn by the steering of the captain. He sets the course with a small helm/rudder’. Also that the tongue is a ‘world of sin, it sets the course of nature on fire’. In revelation Jesus is depicted as a warrior LAMB. He is also called the Lion of Judah. He ‘slays the wicked’ with the sword [word!] from his mouth. The word for conquer/victory in Revelation is the Greek word NIKAN-NIKE. Yes, the famous sneaker comes from this word! Nikan was a Roman conqueror god. Rome was a conquering nation who used force and brutality to win. John depicts her as Babylon in his apocalypse. When we read of the victorious Lamb and his followers [believers] overcoming and conquering the beast, we are seeing the nature of Jesus kingdom at work. We too are lambs sent out into the world. We turn the other cheek, we forgive and love our enemies. We reject violence as a means of victory. We conquer too by the sword that comes out of our mouth! [The blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony]. What we say, as the corporate church of God, matters! We can turn entire ‘ships’ [nations and governments] by the things we proclaim as Gods people. We can also release the nature of man and cause a huge ‘firestorm’ without realizing it. When we present Jesus and his kingdom thru a view of ‘conquering’ [Nike] that is done thru violence, nuclear war, Jesus literally treading people’s blood until it drips from his garments, when we give this imagery as actual killing, then we thru our lips are releasing the violent course of man in the earth. We have believers reading the popular end times books and fantasizing about end time scenarios of survivalism and warfare. These images are actually things the 'beast’ uses to obtain authority and rule. To the contrary Jesus and his followers are conquering thru a different means. We are followers of the Lamb who ‘kills with the sword of his mouth’. When the citizens of ‘Rome’ [unbelievers] are confronted with the testimony of Jesus from our lips, then they ‘die to their old lives’ and are raised to walk in newness of life [Romans 6]. The blood imagery of Jesus being drenched in it, can be saying that Jesus identified so much with man in his bloody death, that as he ‘treads the enemy’ he becomes identified with the human condition so man can become identified with him. In essence Jesus ‘co-mingled’ with us thru death, so we could be united with him in life. The point I am making is we as Gods people need to be careful when we run headlong into violent war scenarios when presenting the word of God. It is obvious that Jesus is not literally killing people with a real sword [made out of metal] from his mouth. He conquers thru love and death and resurrection, the world conquers thru violence and oppression. When we ‘paint’ an inaccurate picture of these things thru our teaching/preaching, then we are releasing thru our tongues a ‘world of iniquity that sets on fire the course of nature’. This is not the testimony that we should be speaking that truly causes us to overcome.
(1013)CORINTHIANS 15:29-49 the resurrection body is a real ‘spiritual’ body. Paul describes the natural body [us now] as fleshly and like Adams body. He then describes the promised resurrection body as being like Jesus in his raised state. These verses can be a little confusing. When Paul says the resurrection body is ‘spiritual’ as compared to earthy, is he saying it is not real? No. But you can see how some early sects could use these verses and teach a ‘phantom’ type resurrection [Gnostic, Docetist type groups]. I was once asked by a Catholic believer if the church taught the physical resurrection. I assured the person that both Catholic and Protestant [and Orthodox] expressions of Christianity embrace the real future resurrection of the body. Now, is it the same body? Well, the way Paul describes it is by comparing the planting of seeds. When you plant a seed you don’t simply get a bigger seed! But you get various types of growth, whether it’s a tree or plant or whatever. So Paul says our future bodies will be new and glorious in this way, but if it weren’t really you, then it wouldn’t be a resurrection! So you will come back, but it will be a ‘new you’. Over the years I have studied various theologians [Christian ones] and I have seen the penchant for various groups to focus in on a certain doctrine and to stray somewhat from the faith. Now, they aren’t always cults, some of them are highly knowledgeable Christians who seem to be testing the boundaries of orthodoxy. I like N.T. Wright, the famous Bishop of Durham [Church of England] but you need to be grounded in what you believe before you can really read him. I feel at times he is helpful in bringing new perspectives to things, I have seen some of the things he teaches myself. But there is also a danger of ‘re-thinking’ stuff a little too much. By the way Wright has written on the resurrection and has done a great job at defending the historic churches position. He’s in somewhat of a theological controversy at the moment, some of the strong reformed brothers have come out and challenged his view on Justification. Wright teaches that the historic reformers kind of missed what Paul was saying. Wright ‘extends’ the doctrine to mean ‘a sign/badge of those who are already in Gods covenant community’. The historic reformers taught a more forensic meaning of the doctrine. That justification is primarily saying that God imputes the righteousness of Jesus to the believer. That Jesus took our sins, and we get his righteousness. Now, I feel there is some truth to Wrights view. But I would be careful to throw out the reformed view all together. There certainly is much truth to the reformed view. John Piper [a reformed Baptist] just released a book on the reformed view, Wright has one coming out pretty soon [Wrights is already published overseas, but the states wont get it for a few months]. So, the point is I believe the historic church and the ancient creeds ‘got it right’ on the resurrection. It is real, it will happen to all people some day. Those who have ‘done good’ [wow- these are Jesus actual words when describing the final judgment!] will be ‘raised to life’. Those who have done evil will be raised to face judgment. We can all escape the coming judgment, Jesus died for us. If we believe and accept his death, burial and resurrection, then we will be raised to a new life some day. 378- (I stuck this entry in here because it deals with the ‘baptism for the dead’, I didn’t want you to think that I just skipped over the verse) Let me give a little example of the ‘overriding act of redemption’ trumping any little verse or experience. Paul actually tells the Corinthians ‘if the dead are not raised, then why are you baptizing people in ‘proxy’ for the dead?’ This is tough stuff. Let me give you one way to see this. The ‘baptism for the dead’ seems to have been a real cultural thing that took place in a specific time and setting [like the slavery verses I mentioned earlier]. There seems to have been a concern specifically to the 1st century church that said ‘this new doctrine of Jesus is great, but being its only been around a few years, and you are telling us [Paul] that you must embrace it to be saved. Then we have a problem. A lot of our loved ones never got a chance to hear. How do you expect us to quell these concerns?’ And it’s possible that the ‘baptism’ by proxy [like a father or son getting baptized in the place of the loved one who died] was a 1st century cultural thing that grew out of this. The fact that they were doing this does not mean that Paul the Apostle was condoning it. Paul was simply saying ‘if you guys really don’t believe in life after death, then why are you bothering with this rite?’ Its like Paul was using their own cultural thing to show them the inconsistency of their thinking. He wasn’t really teaching the baptism for the dead. [This is my view, Mormons believe different. They do practice this today and they use this verse as justification].
(1013) JAMES ‘with our tongues we bless God the father and we curse men, who are made after his image and likeness’ [my paraphrase] In keeping with the recent theme of James and Revelation [end time views] I want to talk a little about our view of human kind. We often read the words of Jesus in Johns gospel ‘ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you do’ [8:44] and we use this understanding to devalue humanity. The liberal movement spoke of ‘the brotherhood of men and the fatherhood of God’ sort of like we are all brothers, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and all other religions, we are all just on different paths to the same God. Is this true? No. Jesus is the only path to God. But does this lesson the value of our fellow man? James isn’t saying ‘only Christians are made in Gods image’ he is saying all humans have special value, they are made in Gods likeness. When we grasp on to belief systems that devalue human rights and dignity, then we are speaking and acting with a forked tongue! Jesus rebuked the religious leaders and told them they were going the way of satan by rejecting him as the true Messiah, the religious leaders were choosing to say no to Christ. Spiritually they were following satan as their father. But yet James says all human beings originated from God and therefore people have much more value than land [even the holy land!], animals, temples and all other images that can be found on the planet. When we ‘bless God’ and claim to be speaking for him from the evangelical pulpits and media outlets, then we must be careful to not ‘curse men’ or to give an idea that these ‘Muslims’ or any other ethnic/religious grouping of people are not valuable. A distinction should be made between the value and rights of all people, and the various religions and false ideas that people have embraced. The world should not be hearing a message from us that says ‘by golly, Jesus is gonna come back and wipe the ground with the blood of these Muslim nations who are attacking Israel. Their blood will drip from his clothes! Bless be to God!’ Don’t you see how these images are ‘blessing God’ and at the same time ‘cursing men’ who are made in his likeness? [I realize some of these images are found in scripture, but we need to correctly interpret them. All these symbols need to be seen thru spiritual eyes, understanding the true meaning of the verses and interpreting them thru the overriding view of the gospel].
(1014) CORINTHIANS 15:50-58 Okay, let’s wrap up this chapter. ‘Flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom’ Paul speaks a little on the nature of the resurrected body. It is real, but not mortal [flesh and blood] without getting lost in the technical aspects of the actual body, Paul does make a distinction between the natural life of man [blood gives life to the mortal man] and the supernatural life of the resurrected body [spiritual life]. Then Paul shows us a mystery [something that was hidden up until the time God reveals it- here thru Paul!] that ‘we shall not all experience death, but we shall all get new bodies’. Paul teaches that some believers will not face natural death, they will be the generation that is alive at Christ’s coming. Paul says this happens at the ‘last trumpet’. For those of you not familiar with some of the silly stuff that passes under the heading of ‘theology’, let me explain some stuff. In the world of ‘dispensationalism’ there is an entire body of teaching that deals with the trumpets in scripture. Basically if Paul is teaching that this event, getting raised from the dead and being transformed, if this takes place at ‘the last trump’ then it is pretty clear that this event is not some type of rapture that takes place 7 years prior to Gods ‘last trump’ [last day, when God wraps things up]. But if you read the portions of scripture that speak about Christ’s return and the resurrection [Thessalonians 4, John 14, Matthew 25] you will see that all these scriptures teach that the resurrection takes place at the end, when Christ returns. So anyway a whole lotta time is spent by the rapture guys to explain that when you are in school, you might say ‘hey, that’s the last bell [trump] before class starts’ and that ‘last bell’ doesn’t mean ‘last bell’, but it means the ‘last bell for now’. It’s kind of silly stuff that preachers do in order to back up their theories. If scriptures ‘last trump’ isn’t really the ‘last trump’ then you can fit the rapture in as a separate event from the second coming. I think doing doctrine like this is silly and hairsplitting. The first century believers who were reading these letters [not all at once, but as they were slowly being penned and sent] simply saw all of the references on the second coming as one event. It’s silly to try and make two separate lists of the New testament verses on Christ’s coming and then place some verses under a rapture heading, and others under a ‘second coming’ heading, especially when the rapture brothers themselves cant agree on which ones belong to which list! Well any way we have a glorious promise of a future resurrection body, the last enemy that Jesus destroys is death. Revelation says ‘death and hell are cast into the lake of fire’ Jesus has power over death, hell and the grave. He will totally eradicate all death some day, Jesus tasted death for every man [Hebrews] so that man does not have to be in bondage under its fear any more.
(1015) ‘THE LOCATABLE LOCAL CHURCH’? I remember how we were taught in the Baptist church that the local church is ‘locatable’ that it is a real ‘place’ that you could find when visiting a city. This tended to confuse the matter somewhat. In church history you can find teachings on the visible church versus the invisible church. Saint Augustine is famous for this distinction, as a matter of fact Augustine taught that it was possible [not probable] that a person who is a member of the visible church might not really be a believer, and that it was possible for someone to be a believer and not be a member of the visible church, though he did see this dynamic as a rare thing. Even some of today’s organic church teachings seem a little confused at times on this. They seem to indicate that a ‘locatable church’ means a home type meeting that you can find if you visit a particular city. While it is true that in the New Testament you most certainly could locate a home meeting [or temple one or one at the synagogue while Paul was teaching the local Jewish community- evangelistically] yet I prefer to see it like this. If I were to tell you that a wonderful community of people exist, let’s say in Houston. And I described these ‘Houstonians’ as being bright, progressive go getters. I explained to you that they are all real people who live and function as citizens of Houston. If you then studied the history of Houston a thousand years from now, how would you describe them? Were they ‘locatable’? Well yes, of course. If you went to Houston you would be able to most certainly ‘locate’ them. How? Well you would run into them at the store, see them shopping. Possibly playing ball at one of the parks. There are hundreds of ways to ‘locate them’. You would even be able to locate them at some home meeting [or church building]. But you certainly would not describe their ‘locate-ability’ [if this is even a word!] as being the home or building. They were/are locatable because they really exist as citizens from another place! So likewise I think it would be better to describe the ‘locatable, visible church’ as being the actual communities of people who reside in your area and are believers in Christ. Now, you should be able to locate a place where they meet and celebrate the Lords Table and stuff like that, but don’t confuse locating a meeting with the actual people themselves.
(1016) JAMES AND HUMILITY- ‘Humble yourselves in Gods sight and he will lift you up’ ‘He gives grace to the humble’ I was reading a testimony from a reformed type brother who is also an excellent writer on the ‘out of the institutional church movement’. He shared how early in his Christian life he was grounded in truth, he eventually became more reformed in his thinking and pastored various expressions of church. He recalled a few divine appointments in life where he was confronted by truth in a new way. He pastored during the years right after the hippie movement of the late 60’s and he ran into a few simple believers who simply challenged him on why the meetings he was pastoring were centered around his speaking gift. These were simple believers who came to know the Lord outside of the traditional church and naturally developed along the lines of a community. Now the pastor was much more knowledgeable in all things religious, but his humility caused him to rethink his understanding of what these simple brothers said. So over a period of a few years he studied the scriptures with an eye for this type of thing. He realized that most of the examples of one person preaching to a group were actually evangelistic in nature. The times the brethren met for fellowship were in fact not centered around one persons speaking gift, he realized that the questions posed to him from the simple believers were right. So he made adjustments to his ministry. This example shows you the need we all have for true humility. This type of openness is rare in ministry today, most leaders would have simply dismissed the questions that the other believers asked. Most well trained educated men would see their background as a defense for their practices. This does not mean we have no need for a well educated church, in this mans case he still uses his knowledge and education as a benefit for the church at large, it’s just we all have a responsibility to respond to truth in Gods timing. I have read testimonies of ex-pastors who felt like they were filling a position of performance and ‘looking good’ and living up to the expectations of people in a way that was phony. Men who felt like they had to go to some other town to simply enjoy being a simple believer. They were carrying a weight of fame and expectation that they felt were not a real part of Christianity. It was more of a by product of the development of the hired clergy position that they held. So these men left the pastorate out of conviction and humbled themselves in the sight of the Lord. I don’t recommend this for all pastors who see and learn these things on their journey, but this is the correct response for some. I simply want to challenge you today on your response to being confronted with truth on your journey. Do you have a tendency to dismiss all criticism as wrong? Would you have judged the simple believers who challenged your mode of ministry as ‘less than you’? I know I have done this at times, had the wrong response when confronted with truth. I appreciate the pastors/leaders who read this site, my goal is to help all of you on the mission God has placed on your lives. Some of you will have different responses to the things we share, my goal is that we would all come to maturity and unity as a corporate people in Gods timing. I certainly do not advise all pastors to ‘close up shop’ and start from scratch, but to some this might be a real option. But in each case if we respond in humility God will give us more grace, this is something we can all use. NOTE- The brother I used in the above example is Jon Zens, his web site is on my blog roll, it’s called ‘searching together’.
(1017) MONKEY BONES AND SPACE SHIPS- I read an interesting piece on the exhibit of Lucy in Seattle. The article showed how the famous bones, discovered in the 1970’s, were not getting the attention they felt it deserved. The display itself was considered less than what it had been advertised, many said they were surprised at the small amount of scattered bones that comprised the main exhibit. It almost seemed to look like a scattered display of monkey bones! [watch out] But alas, as you progressed to the part of the ‘show’ that had the man made models of what Lucy might have looked like with flesh and structure and all, sure enough she looked great! Exactly like a missing link. The article also mentioned how the scientist, who was an expert in bone structure, that when he was first contacted to ‘create’ the model for the exhibit, that he was quite surprised at the bones too. He said he had a very difficult time in structuring a bi-pedal model [walks on two feet] from the scant bone evidence. What made it difficult was the bones all seemed to indicate that the creature was exactly like a regular ape! [He didn’t realize that he was letting the cat out of the bag] But nevertheless he fulfilled his obligation and did his darndest to make a statue like being, contrary to what the bones really showed, and it looked great. Those who doubted the actual evidence at the exhibit were convinced by the good looking model. Now to the space ships. What if I told you we discovered a small scattered section of a U.F.O.? I created a special exhibit and explained to you all my theories on how this craft ‘evolved’ from other craft and eventually became the modern plane. I went thru all sorts of efforts to back up my claim. Then we discover that Joe’s mechanic shop out in the New Mexico desert actually has a working fleet of these craft! He has been flying them on routine missions for years [thus all the sightings] he uses the fleet for all sorts of projects; delivering the local produce to parts unknown, he holds special stunt shows and all for the regulars. We have hit the jackpot when it comes to finding out the truth about the U.FO. Mystery. We certainly don’t need the old exhibit of scattered parts that was promoted in days gone by. In essence this is what we have when it comes to examining the evidence of whether or not monkeys turned into people. We have the capability thru advanced DNA testing to show us the very unique makeup of living things. This advanced knowledge shows us one conclusive fact; living things stay in their categories! They have such unique genetic coding that it is impossible for one group to jump and become another group. We really don’t need to look at all the scattered ‘bone’ evidence to determine whether or not monkeys turn into people. We have the actual ‘craft’ to examine! The bible says that God created things ‘after their kind’ they would reproduce and multiply within their specific genetic group. For many thousands of years the bible plainly stated that these species do not slowly [or quickly] jump into another group. Darwin said they did, after 150 years of research, science has advanced to a point where we can clearly examine ‘the working fleet’. We don’t need a bunch of dead bones to figure this thing out. I just wish the evolutionists would get on the bandwagon and come take a look at Joe’s fleet.
(1018) JAMES AND THE RICH- as James encourages the saints he also rebukes the ‘well to do’. He tells them they have heaped treasure together for the last days and the rust of it will testify against them. He tells the poor believers that the rich blaspheme Gods name and oppress the poor. He tells the poor that God has chosen them to be heirs of the kingdom. One of the main themes of James is that God is on the side of the oppressed person, the down and out. God defends those who have ‘no voice’. They lack the finances and influence to speak up for themselves. Martin Luther King said the New Jerusalem is both a present reality breaking into our current lives ‘New York’ ‘New Chicago’ etc. He spoke of it as the beloved community. He understood that God was not only concerned with the after life, but with society here and now as well. One of the main purposes of prophetic ministry is to bring Gods people back into alignment and to speak out against injustice and materialism. I find it interesting that one of the main themes of James is defending the poor while rebuking the rich. Like we said before James was the half brother of Jesus, he grew up in the same home with the Lord. He experienced the tremendous ministry of Jesus for three years. He heard him speak the parables on rich men in hell and Lazarus in ‘Abraham’s bosom’. He saw the young rich man go away sad because he had lots of stuff and was not willing to give it up for a higher purpose. He heard the parable of the rich guy who wanted to build more storage for his stuff and feel secure by thinking he had abundance for years to come, but then Jesus said he would die that night. James picked up some themes from Jesus, one of them was that those who focused on material wealth were not focused on spiritual things. They seemed to spend most of their time thinking about their stuff. James was one of the lead apostles at the Jerusalem church, their were many poor saints living there. He was not preaching a prosperity gospel to them, he told them their present suffering was only for a short time. They would be rewarded by God for the difficulties they faced, the comfortable would have some stuff to answer for as well.
(1019) CORINTHIANS 16:1-4 ‘When you come together on the first day of the week, let every one of you put some money aside as God has provided for you. So when I come we won’t have to waste any time taking offerings. And we will use this money for the purpose of meeting the needs of the poor saints at Jerusalem. Whoever you approve to take the money to Jerusalem can do it, I might also go with them if the Lord permits. I gave this same order to all the churches in the Galatian province’ [my own paraphrase]. These verses are usually used to justify the Sunday morning offering. They are also used to teach ‘Sunday as the Lords special day’. Let’s talk a little. Paul gave these instructions to at least this church and all the churches of Galatia. We have no idea if all the first century churches actually did this. But let’s say they did. What exactly are they doing? They are taking a Sunday offering and using it 100 percent for charitable purposes. Remember how I have taught in the past that the main teaching from Jesus on giving dealt with the poor? So if we want to use this text to command believers to give on Sunday, then we need to use ALL THE MONEY for helping poor people. Paul also says ‘do it before I arrive, I don’t want to have to spend time messing around with collections’. I find it interesting that it is common today to spend a good portion of the Sunday service [any church U.S.A.] to kind of do a celebratory offering thing. Lots of time to stop and emphasize the importance of worshiping God with our money. The point I would make is Paul did none of this. He actually said he did not want to have to set aside time for the collecting of money when he arrived, and for this very reason he said take up the offering on Sunday! One more thing; it is obvious that the early believers began a tradition of meeting on Sunday. Jesus appeared to the disciples after his resurrection on 2 consecutive Sundays. Acts 20 has believers meeting on Sunday. Jesus of course rose from the dead on Sunday. But there is no indication from scripture that believers are under some type of New Testament Sabbath law. Sort of like Sunday is now the ‘special day’ just like Saturday for Judaism. Various groups argue over this issue, I have taught on it before. In the New Covenant we have tremendous freedom to meet or not meet on Sunday. Or to meet or not meet on Saturday for that matter! But doctrinally we are free from the law and all of its observances. I appreciate the work that has been done by various scholars [Especially some catholic ones] on showing how Sunday became the special day of observance for believers. But we need to be careful when we read what the believers did in the New Testament and then proclaim it as law. I believe its fine to meet on Sunday, to take offerings and to do all of these types of things. But when we grasp hold of limited ideas, and then exalt them to a place of law, we err. Paul was simply telling this church to collect some money on the first day of the week for the sole purpose of charity. If modern day believers want to apply these scriptures literally, then we should use all of the Sunday offering for charity. If we apply them literally, then there is absolutely no sense of a tithe system to pay for salaries, building upkeep, insurance, on and on. For modern day believers to engage in such things is fine. If these expenses seem needed for the overall purpose of Gods work, then fine. But to use these verses and actually tell believers they are robbing God if they don’t tithe on Sunday is absolutely not true. I have written a lot about these things over the years [you can find stuff on my ‘statement of faith’ section and ‘what in the world is the church’ section] I do not condemn all the churches who practice these things, it’s just we need to be careful when we take examples from scripture, lift them out of context, add a few verses from Malachi and then teach some air tight system that if not obeyed brings the curse of God on someone. Do all things in grace, remember THE POOR, and you will do well.
(1020) CORINTHIANS CONCLUSION- Paul concludes this long letter with a bunch of personal notes. He tells them that the Lord has opened up a great effective door for him at Ephesus and there are many adversaries. He wanted Apollos to make a visit but he did not want to at this time. He told them to go easy on Timothy because he was a fellow worker in the Lord. Overall Paul’s message to this church was one of true grace. I want to emphasize again [like we did when studying Romans and the other epistles so far] that one of the main themes of the first century apostles was belief in the gospel. Paul told these believers that it was believing in the message of the Cross that saves them. He defined the gospel as Jesus death, burial and resurrection. He encouraged them to live free as Gods community and to help each other out. Paul did not lay on them some type of guilt trip to become some high powered institution in order to ‘change their world’. He believed that the simple lifestyle of love and purity would be able to do the job. I see a contrast from the first century church and its simple gospel and today’s idea of church. Also notice how Paul was ‘planting’ these churches. He visited them, spent time with them, LEFT THEM, and continued corresponding with them thru letters and friends. In essence, first century church planting was simply establishing groups of people on the foundation of Christ. They were not organizing under some type of 501c3 model [I do realize they didn’t have this back then!] they didn’t see ‘church’ as some type of social group that you joined [Elks lodge type thing]. They actually were the church! I want to stress this theme as we continue teaching thru out the New Testament. Many times believers hold on to and embrace ideas that seem to be biblical [you can find a verse here and there type thing- proof texting] but when you see the whole story you get a better picture of what’s going on. Well I hope you guys got something out of this brief study, try and keep in mind the things that challenged you as we read thru this book. Did you see some things differently than before? Did some stuff get you mad? Did we challenge your belief system in some way? My goal is to encourage reformation in the church, not disorder! Take the new things you might have seen and implement them in Gods time. Those of your starting from scratch [first time church planters] can start with a clean slate and implement many of these ideas from day one, others who are already in ministry will have to take a more measured approach. Do all things as God leads and in his time. To all you ‘church members’ don’t take the stuff that you learned and use it to come against your ‘church’. Let God lead you on your journey and reform as God directs. It’s easy for some young rebels [or old!] to take the stuff on tithing and use it against your current church, that’s not our goal. Be patient with your pastors and leaders and allow God to use you as a force for change, not destruction. Well that's it for now; I am not sure what study we will jump into next. Recently got some good emails and phone calls from some of our friends laboring in other towns, people I did not even know of, but who follow the ministry. Those of you out there who are following along, send me an email every now and then so I can see what type of growth we are having, the different regions we are impacting. Those of you who have launched home groups, let me know how things are going. God bless till next time, John.
(1021) LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS ON HER FINGERS? I talked about the Lucy skeleton the other day. She is the closest thing that comes to a missing link. When they found her bones in the 1970’s she was scattered all over the place. Some think she is actually a collection of different bones from various species. Either way when they found her she had no hands or feet! You might think this was a bad thing for the evolutionist, but it turned out pretty well. The fact that she was absent hands and feet allowed the model makers to craft human hands and feet onto her. Since the initial find we have discovered plenty of hands and feet from other ‘Lucy’s’. Her species of ape has been found on a number of occasions, it is no longer a secret, the hands and feet are 100% ape. This fact is disheartening to the cause of Lucy. One of the main things the evolutionist looks for is a transition ‘ape’ that walked and held things just like humans. They have committed themselves to this picture. I mentioned a few entries back on the model of Lucy in the Seattle museum, well most natural history museums have their own models of Lucy. Some look much more human than others. One museum [I think Chicago?] had such a human like model that they were informed that the current evidence shows the model to be wrong. The model shows human hands and feet, the scientific community has notified the museum that the updated data has changed, Lucy looked nothing like that. The museum took it down for a little while, but eventually put it back up. Hey, funding is scarce nowadays, they can’t afford a new model! When they were confronted again by the obvious false impression they were leaving with the community, they responded by saying they realize that the display does not factually represent the real Lucy, but they are going to use it because it ‘gets the point across’. What point? You see evolution itself has religious connotations to it, it is more of a worldview than true science. In this case the Museum acknowledged the fact that they were misrepresenting the evidence, but their point was being made. They simply wanted to make the point that monkeys do turn into people, and if they need to skew the evidence to ‘make their point’ so be it. The Lucy statue had hands that you could slide a diamond ring on. The real ‘Lucy’s’ have hands fashioned for grasping and climbing, they don’t even come close.
(1022) ECCLESIASTES Solomon said there was nothing new under the sun. During the 16th century reformation you had a number of ‘offshoot’ movements that sprouted. Some define these as the radical reformers. Groups like the Anabaptists [re-baptizers] and others. As you read the writings of many of these groups you find that they were definitely seeing truth for their day. George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, was hitting the nail on the head when it came to ‘church as the building’ he exposed the limited mindset that many believers embraced. He would refer to the churches as ‘steeple houses’. Many of these groups were deemed heretical for a myriad of reasons. The Quakers would embrace a belief that emphasizes the truth from the Spirit versus the letter of the law. Some would carry this to an extreme and associate all ‘head knowledge’ faith as wrong. Any doctrinal correction from the more reformed brothers was seen as ‘dead knowledge’ coming against Spirit truth. So they would get branded with the heretic title by some. The same goes for the Anabaptists and many others. The sad thing is many of these movements were partial ‘reformers’ in their own right. They had good things to add to the debate. If you read some of their writings you would think they were a few hundred years before their time. I have read scholarly works from Catholic theologians on the Ecclesia [church] and what she is. These works were right on! Even though the average Catholic might not be aware of them. So you find real treasure in many of these groups. Their really is ‘nothing new under the sun’. You should avoid a mindset that begins seeing ‘my group’ or ‘my way of seeing things’ as the true group, and the majority of other Christian groups as false. While it is easy to see whole mindsets of limited understanding that exist in the church at large, I feel it’s dangerous to grasp hold of an idea that says ‘90% of all Christianity is dead wrong, they have all been duped until now’. This is sort of like the teenager saying to dad ‘you’re so behind the times, my new way of seeing things is better than yours’. Most times the teenager later realizes that this was an overreaction. I think we all need to read the great writers of days gone by, Bonhoeffer wrote excellently on the communion of the saints. Our Church of Christ brothers had real truth on the church as the people. The Catholic mystics new that there was more to the Christian way than simple knowledge, they sought a real experience with God. As you enter into this glorious communion of the saints, there will be obvious blind spots that you can find in many of these writers, but maturity allows us to by pass the faults of others [love covers a multitude of sin] while receiving the valuable stuff. Avoid the strong ‘they are all wrong’ spirit, remember ‘there is nothing new under the sun’.
(1023) ECCLESIASTES- I PLAYED THE GAME AND WON! Solomon was in a position where he could do and try anything. I recently read how a very famous Christian singer has come out of the closet and began living the gay lifestyle. He is married and has kids, he is in his fifties. He simply said he woke up one day and told the Lord that he was tired of fighting the desire and gave in. Solomon said he gave in to pleasure, he decided that trying to restrain himself was unfulfilling and he gave in to every pleasure his heart desired. Did it fulfill him? No, he said it was folly. He became the most successful business man in Jerusalem. No one before him was able to achieve the success and prominence in this city where he resided, yet at the end it meant nothing. In essence he played the game, by the rules, and it still wasn’t worth it. Yesterday I was helping out some homeless friends, a sincere older lady asked me if I had a few dollars, I actually didn’t. But I went to the store and bought a few things and took out an extra 20.00. I split it between 4 people; friends that I knew weren’t going to get drunk. They were so happy and grateful, I still can’t get over what a simple 20 dollar bill can do for people. In ‘this game’ that we are in [called life!] God is the scorekeeper, I realize that many modern ‘theologies’ have turned the tables. Some teach that God does keep score by how much material success we achieve before we die, they sincerely think this is right. I watched an exposé on U- TUBE that showed a CNN reporter interviewing one of the prosperity ministers who has come under fire. The reporter got smart, she actually read from scripture the passage where Jesus challenges the young rich man to sell all he has and give to the poor. She quoted the passage where it says it’s harder for a rich man to go to heaven than for a camel to pass thru a needle. The preacher defended his pursuit of wealth by saying ‘if you read the rest of the story, he sold his wealth and God gave him a hundred fold back.’ He said ‘God was telling the man to worship him with his wealth’. I actually was surprised that this minister said this, he does know scripture. He definitely was wrong about this, the rich man went away sad because he had ‘much wealth’ and did not want to depart from it! God keeps score differently than the world. Solomon tried all the options, he was way ahead on points. He was so far ahead that no one was going to catch up, he then realized that ‘being ahead’ wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be.
(1024) ECCLESIASTES 3:11 ‘No man can find out the work that God has made, from the beginning to the end’. No man can completely find out Gods works from beginning to end. A few weeks ago as I was praying/meditating I had a thought; I said to myself ‘what in the world are the evolutionists going to say when science ultimately overthrows their theory’ and in a moment of clarity, I kinda heard ‘they will slowly develop ideas that will make it look like they were right all along, even when these ideas themselves are contrary to evolution’. I realized that mans inability to admit he was wrong will cause him to lie. Sure enough, a few days later I caught an interview on the P.B.S. news that had 2 scientists who were speaking on Darwin. It just so happens that both Darwin and Lincoln celebrated their 200 year anniversaries on the same day. During the interview these men reveled in the wonder and amazement of Darwin, they were falling over themselves in worshipping the man. They explained how evolution is this reality that is the basis of all types of scientific advances. They went on and on. The interviewer then asked about all the science and opponents on the other side. How there were most certainly proofs that seemed to debunk Darwin’s theory. They responded by saying ‘Evolution has opened the door for all sorts of understanding and theories, one of them is called ‘punctuated equilibrium’, evolution has made this idea possible. Therefore thanks to evolution we have these other truths to look to for answers’. These men were doing the exact thing I ‘thought about’ a few days earlier. They were taking the scientific data that disproves evolution, and saying ‘evolution made this possible’! Punctuated Equilibrium [or Equilibria] is a theory that was espoused to explain how things really did not slowly evolve over millions of years. In effect the scientific evidence shows us no slow evolving of one species into another. As this reality began to settle in, the scientists realized that they needed to begin floating alternative theories to Darwin. They knew that if they religiously stuck with Darwin, that someday they would be disproved. So they floated this competing theory. The theory basically says that since the fossil record shows no data that things slowly evolved, how do we answer this? They said ‘maybe things changed so fast [what!] that the fossil record didn’t catch it’. In essence this theory says things did not slowly evolve! This theory does not back up evolution at all, it denies it. In essence the evolutionists in the interview were contradicting themselves, they were taking proofs against evolution and saying ‘see, the wonderful knowledge of evolution has lead us to this point in human history where we now know species DID NOT slowly evolve’. Are you guys kidding or what?
(1025) GREAT AWAKENING- In between studies I have been reading the ‘shelf of books’ I bought a few months ago. I bought about 70 dollars worth of books at the half price book store, they are worth a few hundred at least. The last three I just went thru were published by universities; Oxford, Princeton, etc. I have learned over the years that your time is well spent in the ‘higher education’ category. You can spend a lifetime reading the popular Christian culture stuff and never really get educated. The book I just started is called ‘Revival and Revivalism’ it was put out by Princeton and covers the history of the first great awakenings. I want to give you a long quote from Samuel Davies, the son in law of Jonathan Edwards. The Lord used him in Hanover, Va. ‘In all the sermons I have preached in Virginia, I have not wasted one minute in reasoning against the peculiarities of the established church; nor so much as assigned my own reasons of non-conformity. I have not exhausted my zeal in railing against the established clergy, in exposing their imperfections, or in deprecating their characters. I have matters of infinite importance to spend my time and strength upon, to preach repentance towards God and faith towards Jesus Christ.’ ‘What an endless variety of denominations, taken from some men of character, or from some little peculiarities, has prevailed in the Christian world and crumbled it to pieces…what party names have been adopted by the Protestant churches, whose religion is substantially the same common Christianity, and who agree on much more important truths than in those they differ. To be a Christian is not enough now-a-days, but a man must be something more or better, that is he must be a strenuous bigot to this or that particular church…but to glory in the denomination of any particular church, as my highest character, to lay more stress on my denomination than on my being a Christian…to make it my zeal to win people to my peculiar denomination than to Christ, to overlook the faults of those in my own party and to be blind to the good in others, or to diminish them; these are the things that deserve condemnation from God and man. These proceed from a spirit of bigotry and faction, directly opposite to the generous catholic spirit of Christianity, and subversive of it. This spirit turns men from the important matters of Christianity, to vain jangling and competitions about circumstantials and trifles. Thus the Christian is swallowed up in the partisan, and the fundamentals are lost in extra essentials’ [I paraphrased a little] I find it interesting that Davies and the other leaders in the awakening were anti sectarian, though most of them were Presbyterian/Reformed, yet they saw their task above denominationalism. In Davies case the main denomination he came up against was the Anglican church, many in Virginia contrasted the traditional church with the ‘new light’ brothers. Many associated with the revivals were seen this way. You can still find prejudicial comments made against Catholics during this period, but I find it interesting that many of the revival leaders were aware of the sectarian spirit and saw it as a danger to the work of God. They warned against what many of their ‘offspring’ would become. I find it hard to understand how many of the offshoots of the awakenings can read and study their history and not see the error that their own fore-fathers warned them about. But for the most part God was working in their day and they were wise enough to rise above religious bigotry.
(1026) YOU CAN GO STRAIGHT TO HELL! I was watching King of Queens [TV show] the other day, and Arthur [Jerry Stiller] who is Doug’s [Kevin James] father in law tells Doug ‘I don’t want to die’ as the plane their on gets shaky. Doug tells Arthur ‘don’t worry, it’s not that bad’ and Arthur replies ‘you don’t understand, I don’t want to die, EVER!’ hey, we all gonna die! Then Arthur asks Doug ‘do you think I will be going up or down when I die’ and Doug reassures him that even though he’s been a real pain, he thinks he will go up. Arthur says ‘Good, cause thru out my life I have had a number of people look me straight in the face and tell me “Spooner, you’re going straight to hell someday”. So much for comedy/theology. Solomon tells us there is a time/season for everything; a time to cast away and a time to gather, a time to be born and a time to die. God has ordained that certain things happen at certain seasons. One of the pitfalls of modern ministry is we often seek God with ambition and determination. We come up with goals and plans [often good] and then we get in situations where we feel if people would just support us [with money] or ‘pastor so and so’ would just recognize my gift, then the plan would work! Most times these types of plans are simply results of well intended ambitious people. But God does things in seasons, when he ‘opens a door’ no man can shut it. When he ‘closes a door’ no man can open it. I like Sarah Palin [former republican vice presidential nominee] I don’t hold to many of her Christian beliefs [basically Assembly of God, end times stuff] but she seems to be a good lady who the media treated badly. I told one person who was all up in arms about her daughter’s pregnancy, the person told me how the sex lives of her kids were ‘fair game’. I asked the person if they knew about the sex lives of Joe Biden's kids. If they think his boys ever ‘slept with someone out of wedlock’. I asked if they even thought a question like this was relevant. They then realized that they were using a measuring rod for one political party, but would not use it on their preferred party. Nevertheless I heard Palin say ‘hey, if God opens a door I will run thru it. Or even if I see a little crack in the door, I will plunge right thru’. I sensed a kind of ambition in this statement that many believers have. I think it’s better to be less ambitious, and more sensitive to the seasons. Yes, seasons and ‘open doors’ are alike, but God works with us in process. He shows us stuff to mold us, shape us. After we ‘are shaped’ then we fit into the next part of the puzzle. We too often are looking for plans and schemes to follow; God is walking with us on a journey. I am sure all the people who told Spooner to ‘go to hell’ were sincere, but you can’t live your life by what other people think about you!
(1027) ELIJAH PRAYED THAT IT WOULD NOT RAIN- I woke up this morning with this verse in my head ‘Elijah was a man subject to the same weaknesses as us, yet he prayed that it WOULD NOT RAIN FOR 3.5 YEARS and it didn’t’ [James]. As the first few weeks of president Obama’s presidency gets into action, I can’t but help notice the dilemma we are in. First, I like Obama and Biden. It is obvious that the president is a little ‘green’ [immature] at this. The problem with Biden is he has made a career at being ‘antiauthority’. A true lawyer/politician at heart. All the years in the senate he learned how to argue the opposite case whether he believed it or not. During the Bush years he came out and floated a very bad plan on the war. He said ‘let’s divide Iraq into 3 separate states and let each ethnic/religious group run their own province’. Quite frankly, this would have been a disaster. But he became an arguer in opposition to whatever Bush was doing. Now, in his first few weeks in office he still had some of this opposition/critical spirit going on. Even Obama became visibly upset with him when he dissed John Roberts in public, or when he blabbed ‘there is a 30 % failure rate in what we are doing’. Basically, he has spent a career at pointing out the flaws of others while not really accomplishing anything. So what’s the problem? Well, when you do this stuff, and then find yourself in the same position of those you criticized, you reap much more than if you just kept your mouth shut. This week the U.S. struck the mountainous region between Afghanistan and Pakistan and killed many civilians. The president wants to make good on his campaign promise to step it up in Afghanistan and route the Taliban [opposition govt. in Afghanistan]. Where are all the liberal Democrats who said Bush was a liar who killed innocent kids? “Bush lied and people died” was on Kerry’s lips as he ran for president, though the ‘lie’ was believing the bad intelligence of the C.I.A. and acting on it. Kerry himself voted for the war based on the same intelligence! But lo and behold, yesterday Pakistan began talks with THE TALIBAN to strengthen their rule in the area. What was the result of the bombings in Pakistan? They are no longer going to cooperate with the U.S.. Secretary Clinton goes to North Korea, another person who spent much time blasting Bush on his incompetence and stupidly in world affairs. They said they would regain respect in the world, they openly mocked bush and Cheney as imbeciles. Well Clinton announced what wonderful progress she made while in North Korea. The next day North Korea announced its intention on testing a long range missile that could reach parts of the U.S. Now, am I rejoicing over the obvious failures of this team? No, I do pray for them. But if you spent much time openly denigrating the former office holders, you will reap it when you yourself are up at bat. Now, Elijah prayed for no rain because the leadership of Israel was wicked, they oppressed God’s people and worshipped false gods [ideals-idols]. Ahab [king at the time] was more concerned about the environment than the welfare of the people, he sent one of his men out to find water to save THE ANIMALS! Our country can not blatantly disregard the lives of unborn children and at the same time try and look tough while killing innocent civilians. We cannot tell one ‘ruling party’ “the fact that our soldiers are even there is the reason for all the problems” and then send an extra 10,000 of them into Afghanistan. We speak with a double tongue. It is obvious to me that our country is going into a time of ‘famine’, we have some very tough times ahead. The present ruling authority needs to quickly drop the criticism of those who are no longer relevant [Bush, Cheney, Palin] and realize that they have a serious job to do. I believe God can cause it to ‘rain again’ in our land, but we need to be mature in our understanding as well.
(1028) TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE, IF ONE STUMBLES THE OTHER CAN HELP HIM. AND A THREEFOLD CORD IS NOT EASLIY BROKEN- Solomon understood the principle of 2 or more witnesses. Our laws usually go by this principle based upon Old Testament law, we recognize the importance of corroborating evidence. Yesterday I listened to the testimony of the Texas school board president as he laid out the case for teaching both the strengths and weaknesses of evolution. He is a doctor who is well versed on the facts, not some ‘creationist nut’. He quoted sections of the most accepted literature on the subject. They were excerpts from books that evolutionists themselves published. These men stated the major problems with evolution [though they themselves believed in it]. First, the fossil record shows the ‘stasis’ of all things. Once something shows up in the record, it does one of two things. It either remains the SAME throughout its existence until the point of extinction, or it is alive today in the actual form of when it first appeared! In essence ALL the science shows that these life forms do not actually evolve. Number two, the advanced knowledge we have today in genetics and DNA show us the virtual impossibility of species ‘jumping’ categories and turning into other species. As noble as Darwin’s theory was, he simply did not have the ability to test whether or not this could actually happen, today we KNOW that this does not happen. And for the ‘third cord’. Evolution demands a simple cell, cellular life at the basic level that is sort of a ‘blob’ of simple matter that can be shaped and formed and change as time goes by. We have proven that this is absolutely not the case. The ‘simple cell’ is not simple! We have discovered that it is a complex machine that has very intricate systems and functions that far surpass our most advanced computers. In essence, the cell is NOT some shapeable, moldable matter that can evolve over millions of years. It is a complex thing that has to be functioning in a complete, cohesive way right from the start. Notice, all three of these scientific discoveries have nothing to do with religion, this is simply the process of science examining the evidence and trying to fit the pieces together. Many of the men who were helpful in discovering these facts were actually evolutionists, they also recognize that the science is moving further and further away from Darwin at a very rapid rate. A wise man told us many years ago that 2 proofs are better than one, but when you have three definitive proofs of something, you would be a fool not to give it some serious thought. Many evolutionary scientists are giving it some serious thought.
(1029) ECCLESIASTES- 5:1 KEEP THY FOOT WHEN YOU GO TO ‘THE HOUSE OF GOD’ [ECCLESIA] AND BE MORE READY TO HEAR THAN TO GIVE THE SACRAFICE OF FOOLS- Yesterday we had a good outreach day in Bishop and Kingsville [2 south TX. Cities] I had a few homeless brothers with me and we drove thru a few areas and hooked up with some of the brothers we have been working with for around 20 years. I am always tempted to answer more questions [speak more!] than I should. It’s important to let the brothers ‘do the talking’ they benefit more when there is a real give and take. I read this verse the day or so before the trip, it makes a lot of sense. To all my Pastor/leader friends, do you consciously make an effort to ‘keep silent’ when going to the ‘house of God’ [times of fellowship and community]? I know this needs to become learned behavior for many of us. We usually have grown up in a church environment that emphasizes the need for strong preaching, mounting the ‘sacred pulpit’ [double ouch!] and stuff like that. We are usually well intended, but we need to relearn some stuff. I was surprised how the homeless brothers shared many spiritual truths with clarity. One of the brothers does suffer from mental problems, he is extremely intelligent. He is a machinist who worked for many years in Ohio and knows his stuff. But he is a little unstable in his thoughts at times. Sure enough when he was sharing about the Lord one of the other brothers really took it to heart. On the way to back to Corpus I asked what they learned today. He said he really enjoyed being able to speak and help others. I could tell that this in itself was therapeutic for him, it truly is ‘more blessed to give than receive’. This is why Paul taught the interactive church meeting [Corinthians]. In the background there was a TV preacher on, my buddy put the Christian channel on for atmosphere. Some preachers were answering questions on the Rapture and all, it seemed to be ‘endless chatter’ on stuff that was not even true! I couldn’t but help wonder what the apostle Paul would have thought if he saw his writings being used in this way. On the TV there was no real sense of community, simply preachers telling people their endless views on various subjects. I am glad I tried to ‘keep my mouth shut’ as much as possible [hey, this is hard for preachers to actually do!] I too learned some good stuff.
(1030) ECCLESIASTES 6:1-3 ‘There is a COMMON evil under the sun. Men who have much wealth and labor, they live long and have many kids, yet they have no ability to enjoy anything. They die and don’t even have a proper burial’ [paraphrase]. I was asked what I thought about a recent popular movie about a gay rights activist who was killed. I haven’t seen the movie but it’s up for awards. I told the person that even though I am not ‘anti-gay’ to the degree that many preachers are, yet the problem with media portrayals of the gay lifestyle is that usually [always?] they portray it as some type of civil rights struggle on par with the civil rights movement. I think it is an insult to compare the black mans struggle for equality with a person’s sexual preference. Now, the last word in the last sentence [preference] is what I want to discuss. Over the years I have been clear about my beliefs on homosexuality, I do believe the practice is sin. Now, are there many sinful practices of all types of people? Sure. But there is a political [and religious] trend going on that is trying to equate this action [not feelings!] to be compatible with heterosexual marriage. To show the person who asked me if I saw the movie, to give them an example of media bias towards homosexuality, I asked them when was the last time they saw on the news any story about homosexuals raping children. ‘Oh brother, are you saying all gays do this?’ Of course not, but there have been many THOUSANDS of cases on a yearly basis where gays have sinned sexually towards others, just like heterosexuals, yet you would be hard pressed to see it in the media. I remember a story where some gay men raped, sodomized and killed another person. This was not widely reported at the time. Also stories of people who have been harassed by the more militant branch of ‘the movement’. Do we see stories about the wonderful Christian civil rights people who have had their rights abused by homosexuals? Now, I believe Christians have been inconsistent in their arguments at times. Does it really make a difference if someone was ‘born that way’ or acquired the lifestyle later on? No. The scripture teaches all men were born in sin, if the ‘sin’ that you practice has been with you from birth, that does not justify the sin. I don’t know why we fight over this stuff. Even in the pro-life cause, to which I subscribe, we have made inconsistent arguments. The idea that no person has the right to take another persons life is of course true, but when we debate euthanasia we sometimes seem to be saying that elderly people should be kept alive at extreme costs. That if someone is 90 and has cancer and does not want treatment, but wants to die in peace without all types of procedures, then that’s wrong. Of course we should never force this on someone, but to tell them they have ‘no right’ to deny treatment is wrong. Why are believers inconsistent when they make this argument? Because the founding person of our religion, Jesus Christ, actually said that no man had the right to take his life [speaking of himself], but he himself chose to lay it down. The founder of our ‘movement’ said this! So it does seem a little inconsistent to make the extreme argument on the other side. Well anyway, the point is ‘there are common evils that happen to many people’. Just because a whole group of people [whether gay people or any one else] struggle with a certain type of temptation from their youth, this still in no way excuses the sin. Remember, you want to finish life well. Don’t be like the man in the above scripture who accomplished much, but didn't finish well [bad burial-remembrance]. Don’t think ‘Gee, every one else in society divorces, or lives their desires out, why not me?’ Because the media portrayal of these choices tends to be rosy, they do not show you the other side.
(1031) ECCLESIASTES 7:19 ‘WISDOM STRENGTHENS A WISE MAN MORE THAN TEN MIGHTY MEN IN A CITY’- this chapter has a few good verses in it. It says it’s better to go thru some stuff than to live in continual ‘abundance’. Wise men have increased in the ‘house of mourning’. I watched some stuff on Lincoln the other day, it’s obvious that he grew in wisdom and stature as he battled depression and difficulty. His life’s motto was not ‘discover the champion in you’! When I went to Kingsville the other day I noticed our blog ad was not only running in the Kingsville Record, but also the Kingsville Journal. I am not sure how it got in there. I also have a bunch of papers lying around my office, papers from New Jersey and Houston and stuff. I have been getting some contacts from ‘former’ church members of years ago, they are on fire for the Lord. I kinda think they have friends who learned about us on their own and then they realized that they were talking about us. These old buddies see themselves as part of us, but many of them are not on-line geeks. So they run into other locals who follow us on-line and then they realize they are following our story. The point being ‘wisdom strengthens wise men more than ten mighty men in a city’. A few years ago I felt the lord said to start the blog and put the ad in regional papers. The ‘effort’ to do this was not as much as the various outreach projects I have been involved in over the years, but the results have gone much further. If you gave me ‘ten mighty men’ [employees/staff] and I sent them all over to effect the region, I don’t think they could equal the simple effect of me hearing and responding to the Lord in these simple ways. Now, we most certainly have ‘ten mighty men’ a group of both leaders and ‘regular saints’ [ouch!] who follow the journey, but they are a result of hearing and responding. The wisdom [ideas] from God have a greater effect than the efforts of men. Remember, the battle is not to the strong or swift, the victory comes from the Spirit of God. When we learn to listen and respond, the things we do will go far. When we put a lot of money and effort into stuff, without really listening, we get stuck with Ishmaels [something our govt. should learn!] Also, it is often in the ‘house of mourning’ [seasons of extreme difficulty] that God deposits the wisdom into you. Padre Pio [Catholic Priest] said ‘souls come with a cost, somebody has to pay the price’ are you willing to pay the price?
(1032) ‘A GIFT DESTROYETH THE HEART’ Ecclesiastes 7:7b Over the last few years I have read testimonies from Pastors who said they felt like they were unconsciously being manipulated to look good or perform for the community. Though they were well meaning, and the people they were ‘pastoring’ were also good people, yet the system of being a paid clergyman caused there to be a degree of inauthenticity. A famous quote of a quote [Frank Viola quotes another person in the book ‘Pagan Christianity’] says it’s hard to convince someone about something when their salary depends on them not being convinced! [paraphrase] So the actual position of being dependent on the offerings/tithes of people can put pressure on leaders to not deal with certain subjects. I have had fellow ministers over the years reject what I was saying simply because they felt it would affect their income. Their priority was on surviving. These men are not bad people, they mean well and don’t purposely want their message to be shaped by their dependence on a job/position. But in many cases the temptation is too great. Solomon said a ‘gift’ can corrupt the motives of people. While it is fine for ministers to receive financial help out of respect for their labor, yet we need to examine whether or not the salaried position of the fulltime minister is in keeping with New Testament ecclesiology. Are you tailoring your message by the support you bring in? Do you view success from the standpoint of material assets? Do you see ‘your ministry’ as a career choice? Lets all examine our hearts and motives, we might not be taking bribes in the classic ‘Mafia’ sense, but if we are allowing our financial support to effect the way we live and teach, then we are allowing our hearts to become ‘corrupted’.
(1033) ‘DON’T SAY “WHY IS IT THAT THINGS WERE BETTER IN THE PAST THAN NOW” [GOOD OLD DAYS] FOR YOU ARE NOT ASKING A WISE QUESTION WHEN YOU DO THIS’ Ecclesiastes 7:10 [my paraphrase] Is God telling us never to examine our selves? Or our nation? No. But this question speaks of the journey of life. Lets see if I can come up with an original way to state this, I know! How bout we say ‘life is like a box of chocolates’ [Okay, I pulled a Biden]. Let’s just say life is like a train/plane trip. Part of the trip entails some turbulence, there are spots along the way where the scenery is great, but also spots where it doesn’t look so good. Many years ago me and the family took the train from San Antonio to New Jersey, the kids were young and it was too long. But I love trains. Anyway when the train finally made it to my home state, my young daughter innocently says ‘why does everything look dirty’ [Ouch!] Trips have ‘built in’ obstacles, times where things don’t go as smooth as before. Why is it not wise to ask ‘why are things not as good during this phase’? It’s because the goal isn’t to continually have a great ride! The goal is to complete the course and finish the race put before you. I know American Christianity has for the most part rejected this, but it is without a doubt biblical. The apostle Paul ended his life in a rented room in Rome, Nero finally took his head off [Peters too]. Now, I am not saying we should all lose our heads, but we need to realize that God has a purpose for the bad spots in the tracks. This chapter speaks of the riches that we get in ‘the house of mourning’ the great things we obtain when the ride is rough. Are you asking the Lord ‘why is this happening to me, why was it better in days gone by’ try and retool your questions to ‘what do you want to teach me during this time? What kind of character development do you have for me during this phase of my life?’ these are the questions that should be asked. The American church spends way too much time trying to ‘beautify the journey’ learning tricks and confessions to make things ‘go away’, God says some of these things are here for a purpose.
(1034) Ecclesiastes 8:4 WHERE THE WORD OF A KING IS, THERE IS POWER. AND WHO MAY SAY UNTO HIM ‘WHAT DOEST THOU’- The other day I took my daughters out to eat Chinese food. My daughter’s friend came along, she is studying to get her degree in geology. So I thought it would be a good chance to talk a little on Evolution. Though she is a Christian, she had no idea about the science against Evolution. We got into Eugenics [Darwin’s relative came up with this ‘science’ it was what Hitler used to justify the holocaust and the murder of handicapped people. It justified [in Hitler’s mind] the destruction of the weaker races in society. Though Darwin did not call for forced ‘natural selection’ yet this theory led to Hitler’s justification of it] I was surprised that she knew nothing about it. Especially the fossil evidence against Evolution, she is studying Geology for heavens sake! Some how we started talking about the various things you can read in the fortune cookies. My kids came up with stuff they have read and all. Of course I had to add my two cents, I said ‘I had a note that said ‘Chinese rule and Whites drool’. My daughter’s friend said ‘are you kidding me’! Of course I was. Now, when the word of a king goes forth [when God is speaking truth about any thing at any season- Evolution and its false claims, Church structure, Reformation] then our only option is to learn and make adjustments as time goes by. We all have a tendency to stick with the popular opinion, until it gets overturned. Wisdom allows you to spot the trend and get in on it at the beginning, to see that God is speaking about a subject and be willing to go with it as God leads. I am absolutely convinced that science will reject evolutionary theory in a few years. Like I said before, they will do it in an ‘unrepentant way’ but it will be done. Certain things going on in the ‘church world’ right now are going to be ‘the norm’ in a few generations. I believe the church is going to re-think our whole world view concerning ‘church’. Now, we will not abandon the ‘faith once delivered to the saints’ [the body of Christian truth that all Christians hold in common] but there is going to be a revolution in our basic understanding of ‘church’. When God decides to ‘speak into the community at large’ we really have no option. We just need to listen and make adjustments in his time. The key is knowing when it’s God who is speaking! I do not advocate jumping into every new fad and new Christian movement that goes on in Christian circles. But I recognize there are key times when God is speaking with a loud voice to the church in the world, when God is speaking there is power. Don’t say unto him ‘what doest thou’ [or who gave you the right to speak].
(1035) ‘Who ever keeps the commandment shall feel no evil thing… because judgment against evil is not swift, therefore men feel confident in their sin… though a sinner sin a hundred times, and get away with it, yet judgment is sure to come’ [various verses/ paraphrase’s from chapter 8- Ecclesiastes] as I continue to watch the political scene it’s sad how various media outlets [both pro and anti Obama] simply tell you what you want to hear. I found it interesting that during the campaign they managed to make Palin look like an idiot. She supposedly questioned her campaign handlers on South Africa. The rumor was she thought South Africa referred to the southern tip of the continent, as opposed to actually being a state/country itself. Hey, it’s a simple mistake if your main job is not world affairs. Oh did the media blast her as an idiot. Yet Biden was at some event, he spoke to the crowd about his ‘good friend’ who was there [the politician from the state]. He even told his good friend ‘Chuck, stand up for the people, go ahead don’t be modest, you deserve it’. Well, as he was telling his ‘good friend’ to stand up, some stage hand had to tell Biden ‘he has been crippled in a wheel chair for years, he can’t stand’! You see, the media chooses to brand certain people as idiots. Now, as we progress into the first year of the president’s administration, a few things bother me. First, don’t keep saying ‘the problems we inherited’ every president inherits stuff, that’s why you run for the office. It is immature to keep saying ‘I inherited the problem’ just deal with it as best as you can and let the chips fall. Also, the Obama justice dept. just sided with the Bush administration in not granting constitutional rights to the detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq. There are a few hundred that we are holding captive in Afghanistan and a few thousand in Iraq. Liberal civil rights groups have taken the case to court and are trying to obtain rights for the detainees. These prisoners are in the exact same situation as the guys in Cuba [Gitmo]. Yet Obama just argued for them to not receive constitutional rights. The exact opposite of what many of his supporters argued over Cuba. Even Obama has indicated that our country does not have to violate the rights of these prisoners [at Gitmo] in order to carry out our war on terror. Yet the guys in Iraq and Afghanistan don’t get these same rights? The problem is we need to get back to ‘obeying the commandments’ that is we can’t lie and deceive and speak out of both sides of our mouth and expect things to turn around. We can’t expand the murder of innocent children and think ‘well, let’s get over our love affair with the Fetus’. Just because a crime is committed ‘a hundred times’ [over and over again] and just because it seems like ‘we have been getting away with it’ [judgment is delayed] this does not give us the right to keep doing it. If we truly love our fellow man we won’t KILL HIM. If we truly are concerned about the rights of certain prisoners, then we can’t argue the opposite when it comes to Iraq and Afghanistan. Leadership is tuff, especially when the media and opposing party call you a murderous war criminal [Bush/Cheney] when it’s your turn up at bat you better know what you are doing.
(1036) FIRE DEPT. STUFF- ‘Flight inseminators and don’t ask a question if you don’t know the answer’! Let’s do one for the comedy section, I get too riled up when talking politics. Over the years at the Fire Dept. certain quotes made it into the hall of fame. You know, we all say stupid stuff at times [in many things we offend all- James] but every now and then you hit a real winner. The Fire Dept. I worked at was in a naval base city [Kingsville]. One year we hosted the city manager and a few local politicos, as our chief was speaking about the local economy and stuff, he spoke of the value of the ‘Flight inseminators’, as you could imagine a hush came over the room as we realized this one would go down on the hit parade [the proper word was simulator!] We had a new class of recruits come in one year, we gave them the introduction and all. One of the guys asked a question, the chief responded ‘don’t ask a question if you don’t know the answer’. That was a quiet year. This one is kinda serious, but I’ll put it in for my firefighter buddies who still follow the site. Like I said before I have all these news papers from New Jersey sitting around my office. I run our blog ad’s in them so they send me the paper. I enjoy reading the stories from my old turf. Sure enough one headline caught my interest, it said ‘local firefighter gets 10 years for punching his captain in the face’. As I read the story the guys were at some fire and the captain ordered the firefighter in the building, the guy wouldn’t go, so the captain supposedly called him a coward, the rest is history. In the article it said ‘as we investigated this story, we also found out that the firefighter has been reprimanded before for violence, he assaulted one of his coworkers at the station with a frying pan’.
(1037) One of the themes of Ecclesiastes is ‘one event happens to all, both to him who sacrifices and to him who does not. Both to the poor and rich, the wise and foolish’. Solomon is writing from the perspective of ‘naturalism’, he sees only what is happening in the here and now. Even with this ‘worldly’ perspective he still favors the ‘God cause’. In essence it’s still better to obey and serve God than not to. Most believers are taught the virtues of standing strong in tough times, fighting the ‘good fight’ putting on that armor! The problem is these really mean little until the ‘rubber meets the road’. I am a boxing fan, love the sport. Most ‘observers’ have no idea how difficult/tiring it can be. Even other pro athletes will sometimes turn to fighting and not realize the strain of the game. I especially find it amusing when some TV star thinks he can do it because he’s ‘done it’ on screen. In the Christian life there are times when you realize ‘this is the season for sticking it out, for enduring hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ’. All the stuff you learned and were taught was for this time, the knowledge of ‘blessed is the man that endures tests’ meant little, until this day! I like Evander Holyfield, he had the heart of a warrior. Was he ‘great’? Probably not, he was what you would call a ‘blown up light heavyweight’ he worked out and got big. I know in the later years it sure looked like he was a full fledged heavyweight, but in the beginning he wasn’t. In the skill department he was not spectacular. We often minimize Tyson’s career/skills because he finished bad. I have heard commentators say he will not go down in history as a great fighter. I must admit he blew it many times, but if you simply look at the few short years he was at the top of his game, he might very well have been the most devastating heavyweight ever! But when Holyfield faced Tyson, he was less skilled [in my mind] not as strong [heavy fisted] but he was enduring, and he had this trait where when you ‘got him in trouble’ [hurt] he became more dangerous! He would actually fight better when hurt! To all you brothers who are in round 11 [or 14 for the old guys- that’s when championship fights went 15 rounds instead of 12] I want to encourage you, now is the time when sticking it out matters. When you question whether or not all you have taught was right on or a little lacking. When the critics seem to have a hotline to your number. Solomon also says ‘don’t listen to every word spoken about you, or else you will hear people curse you. For you yourself know you have spoken badly about others as well’ wow! Today [or this week, month, year!] is a time to endure, not a time to ‘show those critics a thing or two’ but a time to show the heart of a warrior, to stand up against the so called ‘bigger, badder opponent’ and win on sheer guts. I do realize that in our own strength we can do nothing, but I am appealing to the New Testament command to endure some stuff, to recognize that one of the reasons of testing and trials is they can come as a result of our effectiveness, our calling. After Jesus was baptized by the Spirit by John [and the father] he did a 40 day stint in the wilderness, when he came out of the desert he had power. Hey, maybe the Lord is working on your strength factor.
(1038) ‘The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, neither bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding...for time and chance happens to them all. For man also knows not his time, as fish are taken in a net and birds caught in a snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it comes suddenly upon them’ Ecclesiastes 9:11-12. I was watching ‘King of Queens’ the other day, Arthur [Jerry Stiller] asks the waitress how much his coffee and donut will be, as he takes out his checkbook she says ‘never mind, it’s not worth getting a bad check for a few dollars’. Arthur is insulted! “How dare you” he then explains that his money was being transferred at the time in his ‘offshore accounts’. This reminded me of the time I had a renter who liked to bounce checks. He was an older brother who made more than me [as a firefighter] but couldn’t write a good check! So after a few months I wrote him a notice of eviction. He responded by telling me it wasn’t his fault the checks bounced, his money was in ‘off shore accounts’ [oh please!] It was funny, at the end of his response letter he says ‘sincerely, your brother in Christ’. This was the first time I had any inkling that he was a brother! So time and chance affect all of us, we can’t always control the ‘roll of the dice’. A few years back a bunch of guys lost money in their firefighter retirement funds, the guys at the station were all convinced by the stock guys to invest money in the stocks. Well, I looked at the papers and realized you could make a guaranteed 4%, tax free, from one investment. I was the only one who took this option. If you balance the risk of possibly making 5 % in the market [possible!] along with the risk of loosing it all, then why not do the fixed 4 % tax free? It comes to around 6 % with no risk of loss. It’s just common sense. Sure enough one of my buddies took my advice and did the same. Then the guys took a real hit, the stocks crashed and sure enough ‘time and chance happened to them’. As they were all mulling over their losses, my friend who took my advice was asked ‘how much did you loose’ he said ‘nothing’. He told them he took Johns advice. Now, even though we have little control over the global economy, we can make wise choices and prepare ahead of time. I have no idea why any sane person would stay in the market right now [2-09]. But people take bad advice, like ‘dollar cost averaging’ and say ‘well, if I just keep buying into a sinking ship, it will all average out some day’. I know of no other business where you are told ‘keep buying the bad product, someday it will average out’. While no one can time the market, you should be able to see storms coming. If you think the signs are saying ‘bad storm ahead’ then what in the heck are you doing on the ship! Solomon said there are events that we can’t control, many times we get ‘caught in nets suddenly’ things happen that are out of our control. These events happen to the wise, intelligent and fool alike. When stuff like this happens to you, don’t live in regret, but learn some lessons. Stop listening to the people whose living depends on you staying in a certain investment [like stocks!] I can’t tell you how many times I have heard these investors say ‘sure, you can invest in a C.D., but who can live on less than one percent interest’. While all the while you can be getting around 4 %, guaranteed! You see, people have listened to bad [biased] advice and have come up short. Well, the purpose of this entry is not to be ‘anti stocks’ but to show you we all need to re-evaluate at times. Many times ‘the same event happens to all’ because the wise are making the same bad decisions as the fool. Think ‘outside of the box’ hey, everyone in the box just might be wrong.
(1039) Ecclesiastes 10:7-9 ‘there is an evil I have seen under the sun, AS AN ERROR WHICH PROCEEDETH FROM THE RULER: folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place. I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth’. In the last few weeks [3-2009] we have had an interesting dynamic at work. Our new president [ruler] has engaged in a type of class warfare; it goes like this ‘the rich and successful have been riding high on the hog for too long, the poor can not afford the same privileges as the rich. So we are going to tax the rich more and provide for the rest of the people who can’t provide it for themselves’. Now, I am not a staunch republican free market capitalist who believes that the free market solves all things. I have said in the past that the mandate for fair wages is actually found in scripture! That’s why many of the historic churches [Catholic] have sided on the side of labor. But in the current scenario we have dragged the corporate ‘big wigs’ before congress [which is always a joke, these guys are like the kettle calling the pot black!] and we have fostered a sort of attitude that says ‘lets make the rulers walk, while the servants ride the horses’. Even though I have been hard on the rich and famous in many of my writings, yet the reason many of them are successful is because they worked hard at it. I have been retired for over a year now, I retired with 25 years in as a firefighter. The main reason was because over the years my back started killing me. You get various injuries that come with my type of job, that’s just the way the ball bounces. Now, my retirement is solely the money that went into my account over the years, I get no type of injury pay at all! I always found it sad that there were many days when I would be at the homeless mission and many of these guys are in much better shape than me, yet many of them have been receiving govt. aid for years. I mean young guys who spend their whole check on crack! When the ‘ruler’ decides to put in place policies that simply say ‘even though you didn’t earn it, we will give it to you’ this undermines society as a whole. At the same time when the rulers call the business heads together and berate them, this is a game the servants love. It’s sort of like a dignified execution type thing. Third world countries kill the authorities they don’t like, we mock them. ‘Folly is set in great dignity, the rich sit in a low place’. I believe there is a time and place for our country to seriously look at corporate abuse, I myself have been a defender of the poor. But when you treat the poor in a way that says ‘nothing is your fault, we will solve your problems by taking from the rich and giving it to you’ you dignify folly. Many of my friends are poor because of very bad decisions they have made. Many of the ‘well to do’ have made wise decisions, when you simply transfer wealth from one group to another, without dealing with the underlying issues, you really haven’t addressed the issue at all.
(1040) Ecclesiastes 10:16-18 [Just a note, I wrote the last entry yesterday morning. That same day the stock market dropped below 7,000 for the first time since 1997 [it dropped to 6,700]. I guess you could say it was prophetic.] ‘Woe to thee, oh land, when thy king is a child [immature/inexperienced] and thy princes eat in the morning [spend and consume before earning it- deficit spending]. Blessed are you when your king is the son of nobles [doing right for ‘rights’ sake] and your princes eat in due season [they withhold consuming/spending until the proper time]...by much slothfulness the building decayeth, and thru idleness of the hands [a nation on welfare] the house drops thru’. During the end of the Bush presidency our nation passed ‘tarp’ a 700 billion emergency spending bill that was supposed to bail out the credit system. President Obama then passed another 800 billion dollar ‘stimulus plan’ that economists on both sides of the aisle disagreed with. Last week the president came up with another 450 billion dollar ‘omnibus bill’, this one is filled with ‘ear-marks’ something the president spent much time condemning! Some of the forecasts I heard yesterday were telling, it is now becoming common to hear that we might experience a ‘mild depression’ this is something that people normally don’t say! Our president has not been a ‘radical liberal’ who seeks to socialize our govt. His choice to increase taxes on business, to expand ‘free’ govt. aid to the populace at large, to spend so much money that our nation does not have [we either borrow it from China-they buy our debt, or we simply print the stuff like monopoly money!] these choices can be devastating to our economy. So why try and do all of these things at once? The president believes that during times of economic crisis, you can ‘take advantage’ of the situation and make major transitional changes, thus the conservatives accusation of ‘socialism’. I believe the wise, adult thing to do right now [3-09] is to drop the whole ‘big bang theory’ of radical economic change and to deal head on with some major crisis. We still have not fixed the credit problem with the banking system. This is thee number one ‘adult’ problem that needs to be worked on. When you by-pass the serious issues, and hand out tons of ‘free money’ in essence you are ‘eating in the morning’, you are saying to people ‘you can have your cake and eat it too’. As noble and sincere as many of these democratic principles are, you must first deal with the real problems. When people say ‘let’s tax the rich’ [a class I do not belong to] they need to understand that during times of recession this can be devastating, your ‘great new agenda’ can turn into a disaster! Solomon saw the danger in ‘child princes’ [immature leaders] he warned against ‘eating before you put in a full day of work’. Though the theme of responsibility and a good work ethic do not always fit in to a liberal agenda, yet maturity faces reality head on and does not make decisions based on popular opinion. And don’t support the ‘united nations population fund’ a fund that provides money to China’s ‘one child policy’, a tragic human rights violation that forces women to have abortions! Our new president wants our nation to start supporting it, this is something that we presently don’t do.
(1041) THEY DID IT AGAIN! A few posts back I wrote on the topic of evolutionists and their inability to admit defeat. I shared how they were actually clinging on to new theories/ideas that contradicted evolution, and then claiming that evolution made these new theories possible! Sure enough I read an article from a secular paper [non Christian] that had a scientist say ‘most all of us accept the theory of evolution, its accepted science. But there are many new ideas about the MECHANICS of evolution. Though the mechanics are coming into question, yet evolution itself is not’. What happened here? Remember when I wrote on ‘the bubble universes’? [under the evolution section] I showed you how people can change the definition of a thing midway thru the debate, and that by doing this you are committing the classic mistake of Equivocation. That is in the laws of debate and logic, when someone changes the definition midstream, he is cheating. Now, in the above statement ‘evolution is not being challenged, but the mechanics are’, what’s wrong with this statement? Evolution is a theory ABOUT MECHANICS! Make no mistake about it. Darwin’s original book that popularized this theory was titled ‘the origin of species’ [1859] the whole premise of the book was to say how various species ‘originated’. The ‘mechanics’ that Darwin espoused was called natural selection [survival of the fittest] he claimed that over very long periods of time, the stronger more ‘noble’ genes win out. The weaker, inferior species die off and more advanced species arrive on the scene thru this process [the mechanics of natural selection]. Now, like I taught many times before, the main problem today is science has advanced to the point where we have absolutely no evidence that stuff like this ever happens. The whole ‘mechanics’ of evolution is shot thru with holes. So what did the scientist do in the above argument? He changed the real definition of evolution [which most definitely is one of mechanics/mechanism] and said ‘evolution itself is true, but whether things actually evolved or not is up for debate’ these guys must take us for total idiots! To all of my ‘laymen’ readers, keep an eye out for this in the coming years. I believe science is on a sure road of absolutely proving evolution to be a fallacy, beware of those who will try and change the meaning of the word and make you think that evolution has made possible the fact that things did not evolve!
(1042) ‘Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber’ Ecclesiastes 10:20a- These past few weeks there has been much ‘silliness’ in the media. They have been going back and forth on the debate over whether or not Rush Limbaugh is the titular head of the Republican Party. To my dismay, the Obama administration has added fuel to the fire. His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has enlisted the media to do his bidding, truly sad stuff. We have a national crisis and these guys are ‘cursing’ each other! Now, what do I think of Rush? He is an entertainer that captures a large audience. When he runs ads on his radio show that sing ‘Barack the magic negro’ then it’s time to shut him off. Both ‘cursing the king’ [open mocking] and ‘speaking badly about the rich’ [class warfare] are detrimental to our country. There is a proper way to disagree with the president, without demonizing the man. The same goes for the other side. Do I want Obama to succeed? You bet I do! Do I want him to succeed at stuff that I disagree with, like the expanding of funding for abortion? No. I want bad policies to ‘not succeed’. Now the media says ‘how dare you’! Yet all the while they wanted Bush ‘to fail’ in their view of what he was doing to our constitutional rights. They believed Bush was undermining our rights in his war on ‘terror’. So both sides want the other side ‘to fail’ in the things they perceive to be wrong. I am surprised [well, not really] on how the media is so willing to play this silly game. The market has been crashing, there are major world events going on, and Chris Matthews opens his ‘news’ show with ‘is Rush Limbaugh running the Republican Party’ you gotta be kidding me! Solomon said it was wrong to demonize people, even if you think their demons! I believe it’s all right to be critical of the administration when you have real disagreements with them, but to call our president ‘a magic negro’ is going way over the line.
(1043) HOW CAN ANYONE BELIEVE THERE WERE CAMELS AT CORINTH! These last few days my back injury has been pretty severe, I just finished praying/walking for about an hour and a half in my yard [early prayer time 3-5 am] and when I sit down to type it gets bad. So which way should we go? I was thinking of doing an entry called ‘were there camels at Corinth’? Kind of a spoof of a local Baptist radio preacher who has been making the argument ‘how can anyone read Revelation and think Christians are on the planet during that time of great tribulation’. He makes the false argument that if God is dealing with the nation of Israel and not the church, therefore the church can’t possibly ‘be on the earth’. True silliness indeed! Besides the fact that the church is mentioned in Revelation, terms like ‘those who keep the word of God’ and stuff like that are most definitely speaking of believers, not ‘tribulation Jewish converts’ but the church, the New Testament apostolic writers referred to the church as the ‘Israel of God’. The Jews who rejected Christ were of the ‘synagogue of satan’. John, the writer of Revelation and the gospel of John, is often accused of being anti Semitic because of his strong language about unbelieving Jews. So any way when you read phrases like ‘those who keep Gods testimony’ ‘The true Jews who are sealed by God’ these terms most definitely refer to true believers [whether Jew or gentile]. Either way, lets get to the camels. Suppose I were to tell you that there were no camels at Corinth, they were all miraculously raptured from the city! And the justification of my belief was ‘Paul makes no mention of camels in the book, how in the world can anyone believe there were camels at Corinth’! Well, the reason you would believe there were camels there, is simply because camels existed at that time. Whether or not Paul mentions them is irrelevant. You should not develop some doctrine that has them raptured away because they are not mentioned in the letter. So anyway this is my rebuttal to the argument ‘how can anyone believe that the church is on the earth in revelation’. You can ‘believe it’ because the church was on the earth in every other New Testament letter, they are even said to be going thru ‘great tribulation’ in some of the letters! To make an argument for their absence because you think they are not mentioned [which argument I believe to be wrong] is just as silly as arguing for no camels at Corinth.
(1044)‘Cast thy bread on the water, for you will find it after many days…give a portion to seven, even to eight…sow your seed in the morning and withhold not your hand in the evening, who knows what one will profit? Or maybe they will both be good!’ Ecclesiastes 11:1, 2, 6- Many years ago I gave a bunch of our teaching tapes to some people up north, years later when visiting them I noticed they still had our tapes in their car! God wants us to ‘cast bread/seed’ scripture says some people hold back [horde] more then they should and it leads to poverty. Remember the children of Israel in the wilderness? Those who kept back the manna, it ‘bred worms’. Don’t be stingy when it comes to planting seeds [sowing Gods word] go ahead, give some to seven, even to eight; that is don’t be afraid to scatter the seed. Jesus taught in his parables that some seed planting would go to waste, but plant it anyway! And he also taught that the harvest is not dependant on us, he said ‘you sleep and awake and the seed springs forth, but you know not how’. If your faithful thru out your life to make sincere efforts to speak and do Gods word, you will be surprised at the effect. You will think ‘geez, I never realized what an effect we were having’. Jesus said when the righteous go before the judgment they will ask ‘when did we feed you and clothe you and visit you’ they were unaware of the effect their lives were having on others! I want to encourage you today, are you ‘liberal’ in your planting? Scripture says ‘the liberal soul shall be made fat’ [not politically!] there are those that don’t seem to have much [could it be because they are always giving it away?] but God continually gives them supply/bread to give to others. Hey, cast your bread upon ‘the waters’ [multitudes of people] for after many days you will be glad when you see the results.
(1045) Okay, I am up early and just finished prayer time. I kind of heard [spiritually speaking!] the lord speaking to me about a few various subjects, things I haven’t recently studied. I also ‘heard’ the verse ‘there are 12 hours in the day, if a man walks when it is light out, he does not stumble. Walk while you have the light, for a dark time is coming when no one will be able to walk’[Jesus- John’s gospel]. These last few weeks have been pretty bad for me, my work injury has been bad. I really am not sleeping at night because of the severe back pain. I only missed one early prayer time because of it. Not because I am some super hero, but if I don’t ‘walk when it’s light’ [or dark! 3-5 am] then I miss the daily opportunity of real prayer. I realized that to miss a daily prayer/study/teaching time is detrimental to my own health. To get up early and start is difficult, I make a few attempts at standing before I make it to the yard for prayer. I always walk while praying, but after the hour or so prayer walk, I can function okay for a while. I realized that my day starts at around 3:30 am, and it usually ends around 3-4 pm- 12 hours! Jesus gave us a 12 hour work day, we complain about 8! Actually the Jewish day was a 12 hour day, that’s why he said it. Now, let’s talk a little on apologetics. I recently read a few statements from various church traditions that seemed ‘apologetic’ and defensive. The historic church still ‘smarts’ over the whole Galileo affair. Let me defend the historic church a little. A few hundred years before Christ the great philosopher Aristotle developed a cosmology [stars and stuff] that wasn’t that bad. It is a common error to believe that we all believed the world was flat before the 16th century, only a few people believed the flat earth theory, most accepted Aristotle’s [and later Ptolemy] view. Aristotle’s concept was improved a few centuries later by Ptolemy. Ptolemy developed a system that had the sun and planets and stars all orbiting around the earth on a system of ‘Crystalline spheres’ sort of like the earth was the center of an onion and the stars/planets were stuck on these outer layers and they appeared in certain places at certain times. Now, Ptolemy did not differentiate between stars and planets. He simply saw the planets as stars that were ‘irregular’ in their patterns. These ‘irregular stars’ were called ‘wanderers’ that’s where we get the term for planet. Well anyway this system was obviously flawed, but it worked well for almost 2 thousand years. So during the 15-16th century when Copernicus came up with a more accurate system [our present understanding of the solar system- one where we orbit the sun and not vice versa] he was initially rejected on good grounds. What! Do you mean to tell me you believe in the old idea? Of course not, but the first system Copernicus floated was actually wrong! Many people don’t know this. When the church and science looked at the initial theory they found it to be lacking in certain areas. Copernicus had the planets orbiting the sun in a circular orbit, they orbit more on an Ellipsis like pattern. Also Kepler had to make other adjustments to the system to get it to work [complicated stuff like the retrograde motion of mars]. So the church had some ground to stand on when they rejected Copernicus/Galileo. Of course we later accepted the truths of science and do not see science and reason as ‘anti’ Christian. But it is this embarrassing history that puts us on the defense at times, that’s why some notable Christians have embraced evolution as a tool that God used to create man. These Christians are over compensating [in my view] for the bad history on stuff like this. I reject evolution based on scientific grounds, not biblical. If God wanted to use evolution as a tool to create man, he most certainly had that option. But science does not show that ‘tool’ to be true. Those who reject all the evidence of Intelligent Design are standing with the Bishops of Galileo’s day, who when invited to just look into the telescope and ‘see for yourself’ rejected the invitation.
(1046) ‘The words of the wise are like nails fastened by the masters of assemblies’ Ecclesiastes 12:11. A few years ago I studied much on the apostolic movement and prophetic stuff. Apostles relate strongly to the gift of wisdom, they are foundation layers of ‘assemblies’ [of believers!] Much of modern Christianity has a tendency to fellowship mainly within their own circle. On my blog roll you will find sites that are reformed, catholic, emergent and prophetic. This does not mean that I agree with everything these various streams teach, but for the most part they all have something profitable to add to the conversation. I recently read a few stories on ‘modern day apostles’ these are humble men who have ‘fathered’ large church movements in other countries. Simple, non famous brothers who are spreading the gospel and planting churches in a humble way. They relate to, and train, other men under them to also launch out and bring the gospel to other places. For all intents and purposes [or as some say ‘intensive purposes’!] these men fit into the category of modern day apostles. Some use the term missionary to describe them. God has placed ‘wise men’ in the church who have the Divine ability to ‘sink nails’ [words of wisdom/ the Cross] in strategic locals for the construction of assemblies [local communities of believers]. Part of the verse I didn’t quote says ‘nails given from one Shepherd’ these men specialize in the message of Christ, they really don’t waste a lot of time on all the ‘new revelation’ stuff that the American church is consumed with. I would encourage all my ‘more reformed readers’ to be more open to the gift of the apostle, they are not all nuts who run around with strange doctrines. Many of them are dedicated servants of the Cross who are gifted with great grace to ground the people of God on a sure foundation. Their words are divinely placed in strategic locations and they play a major role in building Gods assemblies, they carry the words/nails given by the great Shepherd.
(1047)KINGS; INTRODUCTION- There is no greater Old Testament king and dynasty than that of David. While there are many other types and symbols that point to Jesus [Moses, Joseph, etc.] yet the rule of David and the promises of God to him [raising up a son from his lineage with an endless life who will sit on the throne forever!] are directly related to the purposes of God for his church and the messianic fulfillment of Jesus and his kingdom. Kings was originally one book [1st and 2nd kings]. It was divided when the Septuagint was written [the Greek version of the Old Testament] and stayed divided in Jerome’s Latin vulgate. We will see the division of Israel as a nation [northern tribes-10, southern tribes-2] take place in this book. More time will be spent on the history of the northern tribes, possibly because they needed more prophetic correction, so the recorded words of the prophets are more prevalent in Israel’s history than Judah’s [Paul said to the Corinthians that it was needful for heresies to rise up among them, this gave opportunity to deal with problems that would be beneficial centuries later to all who would read the story!] We also see some practical stuff that applies to the present moment [2009]. The division of the kingdom will be spurred on by the immature decisions of Rehoboam to listen to the bad advice of inexperienced advisers, should I say more? I can’t stress enough the role that David’s dynasty played in the national psyche of Israel and her future hopes of a restored theocracy. In essence their entire national hope was based upon a restored Davidic kingdom that would usher in the Messiah and bring deliverance to the nation from her oppressors [Rome]. Herod the great, Rome’s political leader who oversaw Israel and her land under Roman rule, built the restored temple in hopes of being seen as the leader who would fill the shoes of the promised Davidic restorer. Though Herod was not Jewish, yet he adopted Jewish custom and law in an effort to be seen as the legitimate savior of Israel. Saint Augustine [the bishop of Hippo, North Africa] would later say ‘I would rather have been Herod's pig than his sons’. He would not eat his swine, but yet he would murder his own sons! Herod was a madman at heart. Well let’s cut this intro short and keep our eyes open as we see Jesus and his messianic kingdom in this story. The church herself will become the fulfillment of this future kingdom under the reign of Jesus as king over all the earth. The New Testament writers will eventually portray Jesus as being the present fulfillment of the promises of God made to David centuries ago, they saw the promises of God as being a presently fulfilled reality thru the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the Son of God. And his being seated at God’s right hand as the ultimate fulfillment of ascending to the throne.
(1048) 1st KINGS 1- David’s son, Adonijah, plots to take the kingdom and become king in his fathers place [after he would die]. He chooses a team of talented men to become his inner circle, he prepares chariots and gets a force together. David does not discourage him, he seems to be willing to let it slide. One problem, David’s son Solomon was chosen by God himself to be the next king. David’s key men, who were left out of the celebration ceremony that Adonijah threw for himself, realized that if they didn’t act quickly they would be left out in the cold. So Nathan tells Solomon’s mother, Bathsheba, to go in to the king and tell him about the problem. Nathan then will go in after her and also confirm the bad news. Note, Nathan was a powerful prophet, he was the one who faced David head on about the sin he committed when sleeping with Bathsheba and killing her husband. But David is old and sick, even if Nathan took the risk to confront him again in a ‘thus saith the lord’ type thing, there was no assurance that David would listen. Or worse, tell him he has had enough of his ‘prophetic ministry’ and take his head off! Nathan chose influence and common sense to get his point across, he was even a little deceptive in the way he planned it out. David then tells his men ‘go, anoint Solomon as king’ David’s men prevail and they quickly form a new team around Solomon. Zadok, Nathan and Benaiah will be the Prophet, Priest and military commander. Now word gets back to Adonijah that Solomon has been anointed by David, their party ends abruptly and Adonijah flees for his life. These men [Adonijah and his team] had real hopes and dreams for their new administration, but God had other plans. A few things; was Adonijah in total rebellion in doing what he did? Not really, he was fourth in line to the throne, above Solomon. Remember, the Old Testament puts special weight on this seniority thing! And David never discouraged the boy. It’s very possible that Adonijah thought he had the green light in this thing. Solomon will take the throne and though he will become famous for his wisdom, he will also be pretty brutal in his first days as king. He quickly warns Adonijah and in the next chapter we will see him take swift and decisive action to route out his adversaries. I see a little too much personal ambition in Adonijah and his men. One of them was Joab, a great military leader with much experience. If you remember when we studied Samuel he also had his run ins with David. These men were playing party politics and positioning themselves for a ‘wonderful future’. The only problem was God wasn’t in it! I remember many years ago when a friend of mine ‘started a church’. He was quite a few years older than me, but still new ‘to the game’. He made the statement ‘God has now made all my dreams come true’. He innocently fell into the trap of seeing ministry and ‘church’ as some type of structure/business that God allows people to engage in, in order for them to ‘fulfill their dreams’. Adonijah and his men were excited about the launching of their new ‘career’s’ the wind went out of their sails when Gods ordained plan took precedence over their dreams.
(1049) 1st KINGS 2-The best way to describe this chapter would be ‘Solomon practices shock and awe’. The young king is given the charge by his father David to settle some old scores. Was David being vindictive? No, he realized that there were experienced ‘politicos’ who knew how to manipulate things to their own advantage, and they would do it at the expense of ethics [note- after all I have seen and learned these last few months, I believe president Obama, though a good man himself, is surrounded by men like this. His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is a political insider from Chicago, he has already been involved with all types of insider political intrigue that is corrupt at heart]. So David advises Solomon to eliminate these threats and Solomon surprises the opposing team by acting decisively. He even kills Joab while clinging to the ‘horns of the altar’. His brother, Adonijah, who tried to claim the kingdom first, Solomon kills him because he requested to have King David’s maid servant after his death. Basically Solomon cleaned house and knew he would make some enemies in the process. Leadership can be tough at times, you might deal with people who are problematic, everyone knows they need to be dealt with! Yet after you deal with them, you become the bad guy! I get a kick out of people who absolutely hate and oppose me, they sincerely believe our challenges in certain areas are wrong. Then a few years go by, they read and listen to our stuff, and walla! They now think we are on the cutting edge, maybe [to them] even at the top of the list of teaching and understanding. Why do I not get excited about stuff like this? If someone can go from thinking we are a cult to thinking we are one of the best teaching ministries around, who in the heck knows where they will be in another year or two? Now don’t get me wrong, I am glad they came around, but I can’t put a whole lotta stock in this. Now, I have had friends who have been with us for years. To be honest, some of the stuff I teach is over their heads. But they were fruit from the basic years of outreach and evangelism. They identify me with the time in their lives where they were reached with the gospel. Times when I spent many hours helping them on their journey. These brothers are faithful and stick with us out of brotherhood. Solomon knew the difference, he was willing to sacrifice talent [Joab] and stick with those who would be loyal. [Note- sometimes you choose talent over loyalty. That is people do need to be able to handle the job, the point is if you can’t trust people, it doesn’t matter how talented they are, things won’t go well for you or the team that is depending on them]
(1050)1st KINGS 3:1-15 this is a prophetic chapter, Solomon goes to Gibeon to offer on ‘the great altar’. What is the great altar? There is a remote verse [somewhere in the Old Testament- I didn’t look it up] that says Moses tabernacle is located at Gibeon. How it got there we don’t know, but the picture is important. The tabernacle of Moses represents the Old Covenant [law], during David’s rule the Ark of the covenant that was stolen, David retrieves it and places it at Jerusalem [the tent that he puts it under is called the Tabernacle of David- a type of the new covenant people who have free access to God, no more veil!] So Solomon more than likely sacrificed at Gibeon [picturing the Old Covenant] and then has the famous dream where God appears to him and he asks for wisdom. This ‘dream’ can be a type of death. Jesus referred to death as ‘sleeping’ Paul too. So after ‘the dream’ [death] he goes to Jerusalem and is at the place of the Ark [a type of Gods presence, it was not in Moses tabernacle, but under the tent that David set up] and eventually the remnants of Moses tabernacle [at Gibeon] will be joined to the Ark [at Jerusalem] and their will be ‘one new temple’ [Ephesians speaks of the 2 becoming one in Christ, both Jew and Gentile]. So under Solomon’s rule [a type of Christ] we have the joining of the Old Covenant people of God along with the Gentile church. Jesus did not forsake his ‘people that he foreknew’ [Romans] but thru his death he took away the ‘law of commandments contained in ordinances and nailed them to his Cross’ [Colossians, Ephesians] thus removing the enmity and making in himself ‘one new man’. Solomon was definitely prophetic! [see 2nd Samuel study, chapter 7- entry 923]
(1051) 1st KINGS 3: 16-28 Now to the famous story. Two women [harlots] come to Solomon with a problem. They both had children within a few days of each other, and one night one of the babies died. The other woman woke up and had the dead baby with her, but after she looked at it she realized it wasn’t hers. The real mother of the dead child did a swap at night. So as they are pleading their case to the king, they both claim that the living child is theirs. So Solomon calls for a sword, they bring him the sword and he tells his men ‘take the baby and divide it in two, give half to each mom’ sounds fair enough. Of course the real mom says ‘no, don’t divide it. Give the baby to her’ and the fake mom says ‘no, divide it!’ Ahh! Got ya. Solomon says ‘give the child to the one who did not want to divide it, the child belongs to her’. A few things, it just so happened that the last book we studied was Ecclesiastes, I didn’t plan it like that, it just ‘happened’. Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon. One of the verses I didn’t cover says Solomon wrote on all types of subjects and put together three thousand proverbs. Proverbs are short, concise bits/nuggets of wisdom that get the point across in a nutshell. While there are times when you need to read large volumes and stuff, yet wisdom allows you to cover a lot of content in a little space. In this case Solomon used his wisdom to quickly come to a conclusion that could not be refuted; Jesus did stuff like this with his parables. Notice also that after the judgment was made, there really was no ‘if, ands or buts’ about it. He was right and that settled it. I still have old preacher friends who can’t discern the most basic stuff. Now, I don't want to be mean or condescending, but there comes a time where things are right or wrong. Many years ago I taught how leaders were making a serious mistake when they grasped on to the prosperity interpretation of Jesus parable of the sower [read the chapter ‘twisting the parable of the sower’ in the book ‘house of prayer or den of thieves’ on this site]. Basically many preachers, good men, were going around and teaching that Jesus was speaking about getting a huge harvest of cash. In the parable Jesus says one of the things that hinders the full harvest is ‘the deceitfulness of riches’, so I taught how Jesus was not saying ‘the deceitfulness of riches is holding back the cash’. Now, this is really elementary stuff, but some preachers still can’t discern this, after 20years! There comes a time when Solomon [Jesus] sends a judgment forth, and we ultimately become responsible for what we do with it. In this case, one of the ladies was right the other wrong. Solomon plainly told us who was telling the truth. [note- the other day as I was flipping channels, I stopped at a ‘prophetic’ brother who I haven’t watched in a while. In the past he has had some good words that were right on. But I felt that too many ‘prophecies’ were going forth on a yearly basis that were not really accomplishing anything ‘this year is the year of increase, Rebuke the demon of poverty’ stuff that was being repeated over and over hundreds of times, and yet the word of God was not being taught. Well on the program I tuned in on, the brother was saying how all the media complaints about Sarah Palin's expensive wardrobe were ridiculous [I agree] but then he said that it was nothing but a ‘spirit of poverty’ that needed to be rebuked. Are there ‘spirits/demons of poverty’ no. At least we see no cases of Jesus casting out spirits of poverty in scripture. There comes a time when preachers/media outlets need to return to a sober message of the Cross. I believe in prophecy and miracles and have experienced many of these types of things over the years, but we need to stop being silly with some of this stuff.
(1052) 1st KINGS 4- ‘And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness [generous] of heart…and his wisdom was greater than all the children of the east and Egypt…and all the people and the kings of the earth [gentiles shall come to thy light and kings to the brightness of thy rising] came to hear the wisdom of Solomon’- In this chapter we read of the tremendous storehouse of goods and resources that God gave to Solomon. His wisdom was in many areas, not just ‘theology’! He was a true Renaissance man. Before the reformation and the ‘enlightenment’ you had the Renaissance period. For many years the wisdom and knowledge that prevailed in early Greco-Roman society was lost/hidden from the public. Through process of time and events [like the crusades] some of these hidden resources of knowledge were re-discovered and the world went thru a renewal period in wisdom and philosophy. It was thanks to the catholic churches preserving of these early works [Monks and monasteries] that would later lead to them being recovered. Now, even though these works were recovered, they weren’t readily available to the general public on a wide scale. You simply did not have the tools [internet/public libraries in abundance] to disseminate the information at large, but you did have men who became educated in these areas and they were the ‘renaissance men’. Sort of like walking libraries of wisdom, ‘Solomon’s’ if you will. Solomon wrote and studied on all sorts of subjects, he did not limit himself to one field only. Often times in the area of ‘full time preaching’ we send kids off to college [okay] and they get an education that only applies to one field [full time ministry]. I think it would be better if all the ‘preachers’ became well rounded in many practical areas of learning, getting skills in various areas [Paul-tent making] that would enable them to transition when reformation happens [like the current challenge on church practices and the full time pastoral office. Many sincere men are too dependant on their jobs as full time ministers to seriously reconsider the scriptural grounds for their office]. So Solomon was the type of brother who could converse with you in all types of fields. Many of the world’s greatest scientists/mathematicians were Christians, a common mistake is to think the scientific revolution was launched by anti religious men, this is simply not true. A careful study of history would show you that the majority of the great scientific minds were products of the church. It was common to major in theology and use that field of study as the foundation for all the other fields of learning. Jesus said of Solomon that kings and queens went out of their way to hear the wisdom of Solomon [the Warren Buffet of his day] but yet a greater than Solomon was here! [Speaking of himself]
(1053)1ST KINGS 5-Solomon contracts with Hiram, king of Tyre, to supply Cedar wood and trees for the construction of the temple. He also raises up a mighty labor force who will work in 3 shifts, one month in the forest and two months back home. They helped cut down and deliver the logs on rafts back to Solomon. He has a massive labor force of stone cutters as well, they are cutting stone for the foundation of the temple. Like I said in a previous chapter, the temple is a picture of both the Old Covenant [law] and the new gentile church uniting as ‘one new man’ in Christ. Though the temple is basically a large scale replica of the Mosaic tabernacle, yet the only actual piece of furniture that makes in into the temple is the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark represents Gods presence, in the New Testament we see that Gods Spirit and presence left the Old law system [as typified by the temple- Hebrews] and ‘entered’ into the new temple, made up of both Jew and Gentile believers! [Ephesians]. Solomon was wise enough to realize that he personally did not possess all the skills to accomplish the mission, he knew how to hire other skilled people to help with the completion of the task. In ministry we often try and accomplish too much through the personal attributes/gifts of the leader. One of the plagues on the Body of Christ today is the American system of entrepreneurial church, we seem to exalt the personalities and gifts of the main leader at the expense of the functioning of the people of God. Though many good men are involved with this system, yet we need to transition to a place where we understand that in Christ’s church he uses many gifted people in various ways to build his temple [the people of God].This chapter says God gave Solomon ‘peace on every side, he had no adversaries nor evil occurrence’. Scripture says when a mans ways please the Lord he makes even his adversaries to be at peace with him. God gave Solomon a season of peace and rest, not for the purpose of sitting back and resting on his laurels, but for the purpose of building his kingdom. Solomon walked ‘while he had the light’ [he took advantage of the window of opportunity that God put before him].
(1054) 1st KINGS 6 ‘CONCERNING THIS HOUSE WHICH THOU ART IN BUILDING, IF THOU WILT WALK IN MY STATUTES, AND EXECUTE MY JUDGMENTS, AND KEEP ALL MY COMMANDMENTS TO WALK IN THEM; THEN WILL I PERORM MY WORD WITH THEE, WHICH I SPAKE UNTO DAVID THY FATHER’ [verse 12] Part of the promise of God to David was he would set up a son, from his natural heritage, that would take an everlasting throne. God would be faithful to his part of the bargain as long as his son walked in obedience, ultimately these promises would be fulfilled thru Christ. We can also apply them to our lives as well, we are all ‘building a house’ in a sense. Jesus said those who heard his words and did them were like those building on a sure foundation; those who ‘heard only’ were building on sand. I find it interesting that many of us seem to think that gathering one day a week to ‘hear words’ is what God requires, in a sense we have become professional hearers! [and speakers] As you relate to the house you are building, seek the Lord for wisdom and insight into how you should build. God gave Moses specific directions in the building of the tabernacle; these are the same blueprints Solomon used, only on a larger scale. Solomon did not have to get ‘another blueprint’ he simply needed to be faithful to what the Lord already revealed. Recently in the ‘church world’ we had the passing of two good men; Avery Dulles and John Neuhouse [spelling?] If I remember right, Avery Dulles said that he was no innovator, he would not be known for his new ideas, but he was just a faithful servant in Christ’s church. I liked that, we too often want to find ‘new blueprints’ sometimes the Lord is simply looking for those who will hear and obey. [Both Avery and John were Catholic’s involved in the evangelical/catholic alliance]
(1055) 1ST KINGS 7- We have more details of what went into the building of the temple. The ‘foundation stones’ were large and costly. Remember, Solomon was said to have ‘largeness of heart’. In the New Testament the Apostles are called the foundation stones of Gods spiritual temple. Peter calls us living stones. Let’s do a little house cleaning; in all areas of church renewal/reformation, we need to be careful when handling the foundation stones. In some efforts to reform [Emergent] there is an attempt to return to the teachings of Jesus, as opposed to Paul. The problem with this effort is the historic church [and scripture!] teach us that Jesus appeared to Paul [Acts 9] and told him he would be a witness of the things that Jesus would reveal to him. So if the revelation/teaching from Paul on the atonement and the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ, if these teachings are things that were shown to Paul from Jesus himself [which I believe they were] then to ignore them would be like removing the ‘foundation stones’ of the temple. These are ‘large stones’ [doctrines accepted across the broad stream of Christian churches; Catholic, Orthodox, Reformed, Radical Reformers, etc...] large stones that form the foundation of all Christian truth, C.S. Lewis’s ‘common hall’ if you will [though Lewis himself said some shaky stuff on the atonement]. I want to restate that we sometimes confuse the foundational doctrines of Christianity with the limited practices of Christianity that have developed over the centuries. We need to understand/embrace the ‘faith once delivered to the saints’ while at the same time being flexible in the various structures that Christians have developed over the centuries to express their faith. As we challenge ‘high church’ [liturgical] structures, we need to be careful that we are not also challenging the heart of the gospel as well. I have heard/read too many statements from certain reformers that are way too pluralistic in their expression of the gospel. Denials of the Cross being the key mechanism that God chose to use to redeem man [foundation stones!] Or the mistake of thinking that the Cross was simply a display of the injustices of man, a challenge to unjust governments oppressing men. While the apostle Peter does teach us that the Cross was a display/example left to us on how we should react to suffering and oppression, yet it wasn’t ONLY that. It was also a redemptive sacrifice made on the behalf of sinful men; ‘Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures’ [Corinthians]. Well, lets just keep in mind that as God’s ‘living temple’ we are being built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets [Ephesians] Jesus himself being the ‘chief corner stone’, be careful when messing with the stones!
(1056) 1ST KINGS 8- This chapter shows the coming together of the Ark and Temple at Jerusalem. Solomon makes a great dedication to the Lord. He acknowledges the reality that God does not ‘dwell in temples made with hands’ but he asks the Lord to show preference to the temple and the prayers of the people. We really have a tremendous picture of Gods kingdom and rule thru these images. The temple centers the people on the reality of God dwelling in their midst. They worship him from Jerusalem and their king honors the father and leads the people in community wide intercession. There are even provisions made for ‘strangers’ who will become influenced by God’s reality, they will hear about Gods great story with his people [narrative!]. They will then come and also make intercession to him. I find it interesting that in the book of Acts [and 1st century church history] we read about the pagan converts to Judaism, the ‘God fearers’. Israel always maintained this aspect of their culture with God, they left the door open for converts. I also find it interesting that converts came! After all, the Jews did not practice a type of ‘soul winning’ that actively sought proselytes. It was simply the reality of God working with his people that drew others in. These last few years much has been said/written on the church and her mission. Is the gospel too small or too big? Sometimes in our efforts to ‘go deep’ we make it difficult for new converts to come into the church. In all of our efforts to present a gospel that affects society as a whole, the social aspects of our calling. The greater kingdom vision of Jesus as seen in ‘the gospels’ we also want to make sure that the simple initiation of new converts is made plain and easy to understand [in essence we need the Gospels AND the epistles both. A kingdom message is not complete without the reality of Atonement!] Solomon makes a great speech/prayer in this chapter, he worships God for standing true to his promise that he made to David his father. The people hold a seven day city wide celebration and go back to their homes. Even though the temple and it’s structure were not in Gods original plan [go read about David and Nathan] yet God will honor and use this limited system for a season. In the present day reformation of the church and her structures, we always need to keep in mind that we are still dealing with the people of God. Many of them worship God in ‘limited structures’ but yet they still worship God! So as we reform and grow in the coming decades, we also want to leave room for the prayer of Solomon ‘I know you cant be limited to a structure like a temple, but please honor the prayers and simple sacrifices of your people. They are doing it out of dedication to you’ [my paraphrase].
(1057) 1ST KINGS 9- The Lord honors Solomon’s request and tells him he will hear the prayers of the people. He also warns Solomon to walk in the ways of David his father. God tells him that David walked right and did good, funny thing, the Lord doesn’t bring up the Bathsheba incident! His mercies are new EVERY morning. Now Solomon becomes firmly established as Israel’s king, he puts the pagan nations under tribute/slavery and sets his people up as the overseers. I just finished reading the book on ‘Revival and Revivalism’ and started a new one on ‘in search of Paul’ yes, it’s written by a few of the Jesus seminar brothers! [you know, the guys looking for the real Jesus, Yikes!] but the book does have some excellent historical content. It brought out a recent archeological discovery of a synagogue on the island of Delos [in the Aegean]. Delos was never visited by Paul, but he sailed by it on his journeys. It is the supposed birth place of the Greek god ‘Apollo’. The interesting thing was that the synagogue looked like any other meeting place of a voluntary society of people. It did have ‘Moses seat’ [the Jewish pulpit!] and the ‘collection plate’ [at least the history of the Jewish collection late was discussed. By the way, this backs up my theory [over against Frank Viola’s] that it’s very possible that the development of the ‘church as the building’ concept came from Judaism as opposed to paganism!] But anyway, the island of Delos, under Roman rule, was encouraged to allow for the free worship of the Jewish religion. The Roman empire wanted freedom of religion! As long as it did not challenge their multitude of gods [Pantheon]. Solomon did not totally wipe out the enemies in the land, but he let them know who was in charge. He understood that there are realities to living in a pluralistic world, you don’t have to always agree with every point of view, but it’s noble to treat people with respect [I am not saying slavery is respect!] and get along as much as you can with those of opposing views. But also don’t feel intimidated by being part of a victorious kingdom that God himself set up, Solomon allowed the pagans to function in the land, but they knew who was in charge.
(1058) 1ST KINGS 10- The queen of Sheba hears about the wisdom and wealth of Solomon and makes a trip to check it out, she says ‘the half has not been told’. Solomon established an impressive economic and military system for the nation; he knew how to accomplish stuff. Wisdom [Solomon’s gift] allows for there to be action along with knowledge. Jesus knew how to use wisdom, scripture says he ‘is the wisdom of God’. The book of Proverbs [written by Solomon] personifies wisdom as Gods firstborn, God possessed him before all things. Scripture says ‘wisdom sends out her servants/ships’ remember when Jesus ‘sent the word’ and healed people? Or when the Leper was told to ‘go wash’ [by Elijah] he almost didn’t follow through because he was expecting some big show. Wisdom does not need you to personally ‘be there’ for all the action. I get frustrated at times when the modern church implies to the average saint that they really cant effect society ‘on their own’ but it is said in a way that makes the average ‘churchgoer’ think that the only way they can have a part of the action is in if they give exorbitant amounts of money ‘to the church’. And then ‘the church’ will send their money to other professional ministers who will carry out the job. Or the church will send their minister all over the world and he will do the job for them! This mindset ‘de-claws’ the average saint, it makes him think his main contribution is ‘the collection plate’! Use wisdom to impact society, you don’t always have to ‘be there’ [physically] to have an impact, but you are not limited to simply giving money to others who will act on your behalf. The believer’s greatest tool is his/her ability to make disciples wherever you are. Of course you can use modern tools like the internet. These things can be done for little or no cost and you can have a worldwide impact. The point is wisdom allows you to get things done by establishing systems of communication and ‘sending’ that can reach far and wide. In this chapter we read of Solomon’s navy, a previous chapter said ‘Hiram [and Solomon] made rafts and floated the trees to Solomon, there they were discharged for the work’. God can give you ‘divine rafts’ systems of delivery and discharge where you can impact large regions with little effort! All in all the wisdom of Solomon put in place systems that could carry the workload, without having to use actual manpower to get everything done by hand [can you imagine the manpower that would have been needed to hand carry all the trees!] To all my readers, you can impact ‘your world’ by listening to God and responding as he directs. Solomon said [in Proverbs or Ecclesiastes] that there was a poor wise man who delivered a city [and no one remembered him- non famous!] yet his wisdom gave him great influence ‘with the elders of the land’. Paul established the greatest ‘church planting movement’ known to man, and he did it on a shoestring budget! Don’t let man tell you that you can’t really accomplish much without being rich, you are a child of God and he that is in you is greater than he that is in the world! [note- as an aside, I was listening to a testimony of a minister who said how he thought it was sad that in the ‘ministerial’ environment there were times when the pastors would gather and the church members as well. But in these scenarios there seemed to be a distinction that was unbiblical; sort of like the ministers were fellowshipping amongst themselves, being excited over the plans and activities of ‘their church’ while the average saints were also fellowshipping amongst themselves and sharing about their lives and stories. In actuality the New Testament communities did not have these types of divisions. You did not have a separate class of ‘minister’ who ‘ran the church’ as a separate business enterprise. All the people [Elders and Saints] were of one community and their stories and lives commingled in a more communal way. There was no separation between the ‘classes’.]
(1059) 1ST KINGS 11- THE SIN OF SOLOMON- Now we get to the part where Solomon blows it. As I read these stories of the great men who failed, I continually fall into the trap of rooting for them, even though I know the end of the story! The trap being that failure in a sense was built into the story. How could God fulfill his purpose thru the coming Messiah if one of the sons of David actually lived up to the standard? Solomon, in a sense, was destined to fail. So what happened? This chapter says Solomon loved many women [1,000 to be exact!] and IN HIS OLD AGE began worshipping their gods. He set up altars for sacrifice and allowed the pagan gods to affect Gods people. I find this interesting, it wasn’t the actual act of having all those other women, but the sin of being too accommodating to the other ‘world religions’. I’m presently reading a book written by what you would call a liberal scholar, you know, the brothers who challenge the authenticity of just about everything. But I also have some good scholars that I read from. To be honest, at times you still might read something that makes you a little uneasy; they too at times have been affected by higher learning. But the difference between the ‘good and the bad’ ones is the fact that the good ones remain true to the historic gospel. N.T. Wright is a great scholar, he sits in the middle category, between the conservatives and the liberals [in my view]. The prolific Bishop of Durham [Church of England] has written excellent stuff on the resurrection and the kingdom of God. The liberal scholars view him as ‘behind the times’ why? Because he actually defends the historic resurrection of Christ! Yet you can read some higher criticism in Wrights stuff, not real bad stuff, just things that the average fundamentalist might be uncomfortable with. So getting back to Solomon, he became way too accommodating to the religions of his day. Sort of like calling Islam, Christianity and Judaism the ‘great Abrahamic faiths’. Now, I love Muslims/Arabs, I have written in their defense! I also think some Muslim apologetic arguments for the existence of God are good, but I would not describe Islam as one of the great Abrahamic faiths. Just like I would not call Mormonism one of the great ‘restorationist faiths’. A while back a bunch of believers had an ecumenical meeting with Muslims and Jews. Noble efforts to tone down world violence in an attempt to all get along, I think stuff like this is good. But some Christians defended Allah as being the same God as the Christians, just a different name. In my view they went too far. So Solomon became too pluralistic in his old age. Beware of the trend to abandon central elements of the faith as you mature in your thinking. There is a real temptation to want to look ‘enlightened’ to try and put distance between your intellectual faith and those ‘silly fundamentalists’, because if your not careful you might just end up with a bunch of pagan altars at your doorstep. [Ben Witherington and R.C. Sproul are other favorite scholars of mine; one is Arminian and the other Calvinistic, it’s good to read scholars from various points of view].
(1060] THE MARK OF THE BEAST! Let’s talk a little today. This past week I had a few people ask me about their church. They said they liked the church, but they thought there was too much emphasis on money and practical matters. They said they realized the need for Christians to ‘be practical’ but they felt like they really weren't growing spiritually. First, I told them that I felt they were doing good by attending/helping the church out. I did not want to give them the impression that it was okay to just drop out. I also told them to read our site, that many of the questions they had were dealt with on the site. Then yesterday I had a believer asking me all types of stuff on the book of Revelation and the mark of the beast and the whole computer chip in your head thing. Okay, I must admit I made a joke about the mark of the beast, something like ‘it really isn’t talking about an actual number that will be implanted in someone’s skin’ [I do really believe this by the way] I said ‘for instance, it’s no secret that the Pastor was born with a birthmark of three 6’s on his head, no big deal’ [I know, this is bad]. But I did try and put some stuff in context, the head represents the thoughts of man, the hand represents his actions. The world thinks they need to cheat and steal to get ahead [worldly thinking and acting- hand and head] and those who are part of Christ’s new kingdom [as opposed to Rome-Babylon] think and act in a different manner. There did come a time under the Roman empire that if you didn’t bow the knee to the cult of emperor worship [confess Caesar as Lord] you would be persecuted or killed for your faith, in essence ‘no man could buy or sell [function in society] unless he received the mark of the beast and the number’. So anyway I advised this person to read our site. I have known them for some time, but I don’t think they read the site. They finally ask me ‘who is Corpus Christi outreach, who makes up the organization’. I told them that it’s just me, but I stuck the name on it years ago. Now, don’t get me wrong, my goal is to initiate a movement of sorts. I do pray and work towards that end. I believe it’s possible for us to have a worldwide impact, equal to any other movement [Jehovah witnesses or Mormons]. I do believe we can do this, but at the same time staying within the confines of historic Christianity, which these other movements do not do. All in all it’s been an interesting few days, I want to encourage you guys who read and follow the site, use our stuff freely. Make copies of our books and studies, send and publish our blog anywhere you wish. All of this stuff is free and available for anyone to use as they wish [except for making money!] also, keep in mind the example I gave above, don’t discourage people from being involved ‘in church’ if people eventually move on to more mature understandings and practices of church life [leaving the institutional system if you will] that’s fine, but don’t fall into the trap of ‘nudging them along’. All in all we are in this thing together, I appreciate the Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox and all other expressions of Christianity that the Lord has allowed us to minister to. Strive for unity of the Sprit in the bond of peace, let your thoughts and actions be in harmony with Christ. Don’t worry about computer chips in the head, but have the mind of Christ instead.
(1061) 1ST KINGS 12- At the end of the last chapter Solomon died, Rehoboam his son will now ascend to the throne. Rehoboam is confronted by the nation, they tell him ‘your father was a slave driver! He made it hard on us, we were tools that were being used for his own self advancement’ [my paraphrase] they plead with Rehoboam to go easy on them. I find it interesting that Solomon’s reputation outside of Israel was great, he excelled and the kings of the earth knew it [image building]. But amongst his own people, those who knew him best, he was driven by ambition. Though they liked the man and he was a great leader, yet they associated him with always putting a yoke/burden on them to build. ‘More and more’ was the logo. The people were tired, they wanted to simply exist as Gods people. They weren’t asking Rehoboam to totally put them on welfare, they just wanted a break from viewing their lives thru the unrelenting pressure of ambition. So Rehoboam consults with two groups; he asks the elders of the land for advice, they advise him to ‘become a servant of the people, go easy on them’ What! A servant, are you kidding me man. Sounds like the teaching of Jesus ‘he that wants to be greatest must serve’. He then consults the young guys, peers in his own age group, they tell him ‘go for it, tell them you aint seen nothing yet! You think daddy was tough, my little finger will be heavier than his leg!’ Rehoboam listens to both groups and chooses the bad advice of the younger generation. So the people [with Jeroboam as the head speaker] come back on the 3rd day for the response, they don’t like what they hear and mount a revolt. The kingdom becomes divided under Jeroboam as the new king of Israel [ten tribes-northern] and Rehoboam as the king over Judah [and Benjamin] the southern tribe. Now Jeroboam realizes that he will lose control of the people if they keep their religious feasts at Jerusalem every year. Jerusalem is the capital where his adversary Rehoboam is at, so he sets up two golden calves [just like what happened in the wilderness in Moses day] and he places them in the city of Dan and Bethel. He also sets up a new class of priests, in violation of Gods law, and he makes up his own religious calendar. This single action of rebellion introduces false religion on a large scale to Gods people. Rehoboam gets together an army and is about to fight and regain his rightful place, God sends a prophet to him and tells him ‘leave it alone, the thing is from me’. God allowed for the split, Rehoboam had the chance to humble himself and instill a new mindset into Gods people. Yet he went for ‘the glory’. There are obviously a lot of lessons here, I don’t have to show them all to you, they are plain enough to see. To all the leaders/pastors who follow us, how are you viewed by those closest to you? Do outsiders see you as a successful leader, ambitious and able to get stuff done? Do those closest to you seem to be saying ‘lets take a break, we have had many years of never being able to sacrifice enough, building things. Okay things, but the job has been tough, we need a break’. Be sensitive to the real purpose of God, for him to be fully glorified and expressed thru His church, the community of God. Solomon reigned over a great people, but he was too ambitious, ambitious in the area of image building. The people themselves should have been the important thing, not the amount of stuff they could produce! In the end Rehoboam lost more than he would have ever gained by choosing the hard route. Allow God to lead you in the paths that he has set before you, the people you lead are the thing of value, not the things that they can produce [financially or any other way].
(1062) 1st KINGS 13- Jeroboam is confronted by a prophet as he is worshiping at the idol/altar in Bethel. The prophet gives a significant word, he mentions by name a future king [Josiah] who God is going to raise up to institute reform in the nation. When someone’s name is prophesied before their birth, that is a special anointing. Both Jesus and John the Baptist had stuff like this surrounding their births. Now Jeroboam stretches out his hand against the prophet, God curses his hand and the prophet prays for him and he gets healed. Jeroboam invites him to stay for a meal and the young prophet says ‘no, God told me not to stay and eat here’. On his way home an older prophet invites him to come back and eat with him, he tells the young prophet ‘I too am a prophet and the Lord told me for you to “eat and sit at my table’” [a type of fellowship]. Now, the old prophet lied, why? It seems as if he did not do this on purpose, he heard the story about the young man, possibly remembered the glory days of old and simply wanted the fellowship. As the young prophet ‘sits at the table of deceit’ the word of the Lord comes to the old prophet and says ‘because you disobeyed and stayed and ate, you will die’. The old prophet gave a true word and the young prophet leaves and is killed by a lion. His ‘movement’ died prematurely because he ‘sat’ at the table of deceit and disobeyed God. A few things; many years ago as I saw certain things going off track with certain movements [prosperity] I saw things that seemed to be fake, brothers sharing dreams and prophetic words that seemed false. Yet I felt these brothers weren’t doing this on purpose, that in some way they fell into a trap of wanting to be involved and accepted by their peers. And when confronted by real reproofs, they simply retreated into their own groups and refused the reproof. There are things like this happening now with certain elements of the modern prophetic movement. In the above story, the older prophet meant no harm, but yet harm was done! The younger prophet wasn’t there [in Bethel] to rebuke the old man, he was simply carrying the torch of prophetic rebukes that were needed at times. The mistake the younger generation made was being too willing to ‘sit and eat’ at the old mans table. I believe that certain elements of the older ‘prophetic’ movements need to be abandoned and left alone to die [false doctrines, not people!]. Those who walk in wisdom and obedience will refuse to ‘sit and eat at the old mans table’ and those who decide to stay at the table will die prematurely [that is their ministries and movements will be cut short] which group are you in?
(1063) Yesterday I took my daughter and her friends to help out with a school sports program, they volunteered to help. On the way home I checked my P.O. Box and sure enough one of my regular radio listeners sent me 10 bucks cash. I hate when people do this. Why? Because I have a policy of taking no money, ever! So it costs me 25 cents [or whatever stamps cost now] to mail it back. This brother has listened and written me ever since I’ve been on radio [1996-2009]. He used to rebuke me for teaching against the prosperity gospel; his letters reveal that he is an older guy who is an ‘expert’ in that doctrine. But he also compliments me about our program, times where he really agrees and says ‘wow, that was real meat’ [good teaching] this week! So anyway I put up with him. So as I get home I write a short thank you note, stick the money in an envelope and put a stamp on it, figure I’ll mail it out later. Then one of my homeless buddies stops by, I haven’t seen them in a few weeks, been feeling bad with my back and all. Also, just a note to my old buddies, I am still in good shape, hey I used to hold the arm wrestling title at the fire house! It was funny beating the young jocks, the point is I am not out of shape or overweight or anything like that, it’s just my back really hurts at times. I don’t carry health insurance on myself [only the kids] because it’s too much, so I don’t ever go to doctors [only when first injured] so I deal with it by overdosing on Advil’s and stuff. But anyway my buddy came by and I decided to change plans for the day [I was going to do some reading] and had a B.B.Q instead. I also ripped open the envelope and gave my friend the 10 bucks; I felt I wasn’t violating my policy of ‘no offerings’ by passing it along to a friend in need. We had a good fellowship and my daughters came over thru out the day, they help out at the church [Bay Area fellowship] on Saturdays with the child care. So they have been asking me questions and stuff about the bible, my second oldest, Rebecca, does not have the internet at her ranch yet. She owns a few acres out in the country and hasn’t set up wireless yet, so she can’t read this site and learn the stuff. I have been passing books along and stuff to her, I do lend my books out- sometimes they never make it back, but I see this as ministry of sorts, who knows where the books will end up someday. Also I have a tendency to ‘correct’ the stuff I don’t agree with by adding notes to the books, so it gives a better balance [in my view] than jut passing stuff along without doing a little teaching myself. But the ‘dynamic’ of the day was interesting, I have been praying that ‘all my children would be taught of the Lord’ [both natural and spiritual kids] and that ‘God would pour out his Spirit on our seed, our young men would see visions, old men dream dreams. Our handmaidens [ladies!] would prophesy’ [Acts 2] so this was a good interaction of spiritual ‘sons’ and my natural daughters all getting excited about the things of the Lord. Also one of my Christian neighbors who I have known for years stopped by while walking his dog out in the front. He knows I do radio and stuff, but he has never visited this site! He does some teaching on a local basis thru a Christian publication, I like the paper. But the sister who runs it must not like me [probably because of our stance against the prosperity gospel] I have mailed her a few checks over the years and asked for a subscription, not only do they rip the checks up [I guess?] but they don’t respond at all, I just leave it alone [I know she gets the checks, but does not agree with my teaching. To be honest it’s just bad business to not even respond, plus your paid advertisers are getting the short end of the stick as well]. But anyway I gave my neighbor the blog address and hope he learns from it. It’s funny, we have friends all over the world who regularly follow the journey with us, yet brothers right down the block might be ‘out of the loop’ that’s fine, we don’t have to be ‘known’ by everyone. So anyway I just thought I’d share a little today, was going to do the next chapter of Kings, but will get to that tomorrow, God bless till next time.
(1064) 1st KINGS 14- Jeroboam’s son gets sick, he tells his wife ‘disguise yourself and go to the prophet Ahijah, he will tell you what will happen to the boy’. She goes and the Lord reveals the identity of the wife to Ahijah, he is old and blind. As soon as she gets to the house he gives her a strong rebuke, tells her the child will die and that her husband was wicked. Sure enough she takes the message back to Jeroboam and these things come to pass. Why did Jeroboam disguise his wife? Ahijah was the original prophet who told Jeroboam that he would be king, Jeroboam knew that he was doing wrong by instituting idolatrous practices into the nation; so why did he do it? Basically he trusted in the arm of the flesh to maintain would God gave him. He did it so he wouldn’t lose the kingdom. He obviously avoided the prophet for as long as he could, he thought he would send his wife incognito and who would know? The Lord knew. God has ways of getting information to you [and me!] whether we want to hear it or not. Also Ahijah was a prophet, another name for prophet is ‘Seer’ [some feel seers are totally different gifts/offices, for the sake of this basic teaching they are closely related] but yet he couldn’t ‘see’ for himself. I find it interesting that many of Gods greatest gifted people can’t seem to find help for themselves. There is a prophecy about Jesus that says ‘physician, heal thyself’, Paul had a thorn in the flesh that wouldn’t go away! Many people that are used by God to pray for healing and get results, they themselves struggle with sickness. Ahijah had a word; not only about Jeroboams son [a localized situation] but also a national word ‘Israel will be shaken like a reed in the water’ the Lord used the local situation to speak to the broader community. The people would ‘be shaken’ because they permitted idolatry into their lives. Understand, we see the idolatry of Israel as blatant [actual idols and stuff] but they really thought that the forms of idolatry that they were practicing were pleasing to God! I often find that well intentioned believers have a difficult time ‘seeing’ idolatry [covetousness, greed]. The American church has incorporated ‘success/abundance’ so deeply into the minds of the saints that we view our worship of God thru this skewed lens. ‘If God wants me to have an abundant life, then what’s wrong with me centering my church life around being successful, confessing and thinking about abundance/money all day long’? Well, what’s wrong with it is Jesus told the church that he didn’t want us ‘thinking’ about these things all the time, he said the ‘gentiles [unbelievers] are always thinking about the stuff, it shall not be so with you’. So it takes time for Christians to see these things, Jeroboam instituted a form of idolatry into Gods nation, the people sincerely went along for the ride. God said they were going to be shaken ‘like a reed in the water’.
(1065) 1ST KINGS 15- In this chapter we see the various kings of Israel and Judah. Some good, some bad. Scripture says even though some did evil, yet for the sake of David, and the promises of God to him, the Lord still worked thru their reigns. I find it interesting how we are all part of a divine/dynastic rule. In essence we are inheriting the promises that God made to others who came before us. One of the previous verses we looked at [I think?] said ‘I have heard your prayers concerning this place [Solomon praying about the temple] and my eyes and heart will always be there, walk in my statutes and do my judgments and I will keep the promises that I made to David your father’ God is looking to fulfill his word to the previous generations, we are simply parts of the puzzle! It’s important for us to keep this in mind, it keeps us humble. Over the years I have lived in ‘two worlds’. As a firefighter I had friends/co-workers that took the road of responsibility in life, some invested in real estate [like myself] and did the whole rental thing. I sold everything and got out of the business years ago. Then I lived in the ‘homeless/drug-addict/ex-con’ world. These were/are my buddies who I have spent most of my ‘other life’ with. Not ‘a ministry’ per se, but real friends helping one another out. Many of these friends were/are talented and gifted, many actually work! Yes, I have had many homeless friends who worked on a regular basis- carpentry, yard work, painting. Now, many times the ‘normal world’ would simply see the plight of the ‘other world’ [of those who never seemed to make it in life] and think/say ‘look at our lives [normal world] we have pulled ourselves up by our own boot straps, and now the government wants to penalize me so I have to help those who were not responsible like me!’ while there is some degree of truth to this complaint, yet it misses something. Many who ‘have made it’ were not much different than those who didn’t. Many ‘normal’ people have, to a degree, been the recipients of the promises that God made to their fathers, simply a result of having stable lives as youngsters, or living at a time where immigrants were welcomed. That is their heritage is one of immigrant [like me being an Italian] and our forefathers made it in for us. We now say ‘geez, my parents did it legally! What’s up with these modern immigrants?’ [usually speaking of Mexicans] the whole point being much of your success in life really had little to do with you pulling yourself up by your own boot straps! Now, I am not saying responsibility and diligence don’t count, they do count for something, but I am saying we at times have been blessed because of previous promises of God [and blessings] upon others who came before us. Paul taught ‘some watered, some planted but only God can make it grow’ and he said others have entered into the labors of those who worked hard before them. Do the best with the deck that was dealt to you; be humble about all the good you might accomplish thru out your life. And when you see others who have not been as blessed as you, be kind and patient, maybe God blessed you so you could someway be a blessing to them. It just might be your [mine too!] job to help them get a leg up in life.
(1066) EVOLUTION- It’s time to do a little update. These past few weeks in Texas we have had a debate on evolution and how it should be presented in the text books. The final decision seemed to give both sides a little wiggle room. During the debate news papers would report things like ‘all scientists agree that proofs of evolution are all around us’ and basic misinformation on the whole subject. But to be fair, what do the advocates of evolution mean when they say there are proofs all around us? Basically they are speaking about known changes in the various classes of species that exist. Technically they are claiming that genetic mutations are proof of evolution. What are genetic mutations? All living things have a specified code of information built into their systems, this code is called DNA. Over time as science has advanced in its ability to examine and test DNA, the evolutionists thought for sure that they would find NEW/ADDED genetic information in the changes that were taking place in the various species. In point of fact, if Darwinian evolution [macro] were true, you would find numerous examples of new information in these mutations. How many species have they found with this new information? Absolutely none! Again, stuff like this isn’t just a glitch in the system, it is absolute scientific/observable truth that tells us evolution, on a large scale, never happens. What does happen is various changes take place within their own set/class of being. That is God made things ‘after their own KIND’ this would mean that God did not create all the changes in the various species in the initial act of creation, but he set things in categories ‘kinds’ if you will. Now, in no way is it a violation of scripture for species to change/adapt along the way, this would be consistent with the language used in the bible. But what have we discovered? We have found that whenever a change takes place, the ‘change’ that is taking place is simply a rearrangement of already existing information. DNA has the ability to replicate itself, sometimes in the process of duplicating, mistakes happen. Sort of like if you copied something and the copy had a glitch. Well when this happens you have a mutation, a change in the DNA. Sometimes this process actually is beneficial to the species. This is basically what they mean when they say ‘evolution is all around us’, what they are not telling you is that this actual process has proven that new information NEVER shows up. That in order for evolution to happen you NEED NEW INFORMATION, new genetic information that did not exist in the original parent. So to be honest about it ‘all the proofs’ that are around us are simply showing us that evolution, to the point of new species evolving from previous ones, actually never can happen! This singular problem in the field of genetics is considered to be the single greatest obstacle that science has run into in trying to prove the reality of evolution. When Richard Dawkins [one of the so called new atheists] was asked if he could give any examples of new information being discovered in living things, he hesitated and stuttered as he realized that the interviewer had him trapped in a corner. The atheist knows that this is only one of many scientific proofs that speak against evolution. Like I said before, the more science advances, the more proof we have against Darwin’s theory.
(1067) 1st KINGS 16- Jehu, a prophet, receives Gods word and rebukes Baasha, king of Israel. What is God upset about? That Baasha not only sinned himself [bad enough] but that he chose to cause Gods people to sin. Last night I watched an excellent program on P.B.S. about Jerusalem and its history. They covered the story of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I still can’t bring myself to view Islam as a faith that is legitimate. Now I know and love Muslim people, as a matter of fact I recently had some emails from a Muslim friend who defends his faith, he found our site a few years ago and has corresponded with me. But the problem I have with Islam is it has introduced religious beliefs and ideas that are totally contrary to the revelation of God thru Christ. What do I make of a faith that calls God ‘Allah’ and Jesus ‘Isa’, that denies the deity and incarnation of Jesus. That basically decimates the truth of God as seen in the gospel. I think believers should be fair and balanced and NON RACIAL when dealing with stuff like this, but we cant take lightly a ‘world religion’ that has introduced error on such a large scale. Now Jehu will be mentioned again, he was a prophet with a ‘violent streak’! He will be recognized by those who know him as ‘one who rides furiously’ that is he tended to ride outside of the perceived parameters of prophetic/pastoral leadership. When he was coming to town, everybody knew about it. Also at the end of this chapter we are introduced to king Ahab, one of Israel’s worst kings. He also will lead Gods people astray, Elijah the prophet will become his nemesis. Jesus said of the religious leaders of his day ‘you compass land and sea to make one convert, and when he is made you make him twice as much the child of hell than yourselves’. It’s interesting, you would think people who are zealous to make converts would always be doing it out of a right motive, but Jesus told us this isn’t always the case. Sometimes people are power hungry, or they simply want a following for the sake of being in charge. I admire the dedication of the Mormons and the Jehovah’s witnesses, their founders sacrificed much in the pioneering of their movements. But just because leaders/movements manage to gain a following, that in itself does not mean the outcome will be good. There are many adjectives used in scripture, to be a ‘child of hell, twice as much as your founder’ is one description we ought to avoid.
(1068) 1ST KINGS 17- This chapter is pretty famous among Christians, not like the others we have looked at. God’s word comes to Elijah and he enters the scene as a significant Old Testament figure. Jesus will refer to John the Baptist as one who came in ‘the spirit and power of Elijah’. The religious people of Jesus day held on to the prophecy of Malachi that ‘before the great day of the Lords coming, Elijah would appear’ [Jesus applied this to John the Baptist] so the brother has good credentials. He comes out of the shoot like a rocket; he confronts Ahab, the wicked king of Israel and prophesies no rain in the land. God directs him to go into hiding/obscurity and live by a brook. The Ravens bring him food and he drinks from the brook. The drought causes the brook to dry up and God instructs him to go to a city and be cared for by a widow woman. He goes and asks the woman to provide for him, she fears she won’t have enough for both him and her small family [a son]. He encourages her not to fear and take care of him, she does and God provides supernaturally for the woman. Eventually her son dies and she blames God ‘did God bring you hear to show me what a sinner I am? Now my son dies!’ She was feeling condemned/guilty. Elijah takes the child and lays on him and God raises the boy from the dead, one of the greatest miracles that God does with men. A few things; Elijah was not there to instill fear into the average ‘church folk’. Last night I again made the mistake of channel surfing the Christian channels during ‘praise athon month’ [Double ouch!!] One channel had a brother telling the people ‘God is not moved unless your giving is sacrificial, it must hurt you to please God’ [in so many words] The other channel had a brother saying ‘God said if you hear preaching and benefit, and you don’t give money in return, you are sowing to the corruption of the flesh’ I am familiar with this passage, it is found in Corinthians. The tone and overall ‘sense’ of these appeals was wrong. It seemed to leave a feeling of fear and condemnation to the average channel surfer who might be looking for answers. Elijah told the widow woman ‘don’t fear’. Elijah also had the capacity to live in obscurity, though God spoke highly of him, yet he recognized that there would be seasons of obscurity; times when you simply serve the Lord thru simple tasks and go unrecognized for many years. I cant stress enough the contradiction between Jesus ethos of Christian leadership and what the average Christian is taught in our day. We connect Christian success in ministry with the tools of corporate growth and we simply set young ministers on a purpose driven course that often by passes the teachings and character of New Testament leadership. Elijah will eventually appear again on the scene, but he spent an awful lotta time by the brook!
(1069) 1ST KINGS 18- After three years in hiding the Lord tells Elijah to show himself to Ahab, rain is on the way! He appears once again on the scene and Ahab says ‘here he is, the one causing all the trouble’. Elijah says ‘you got it wrong buddy, it’s your wickedness and turning away from proper paths that has caused this trouble’. Elijah sets up a contest ‘go, get all the false prophets of Baal and let them come and set up an altar. Let them place a bull on it and pray and see if Baal will come and show himself alive’. So Elijah has them crying and cutting themselves [pagan ritual] and pleading all day for Baal to come and consume [by fire] the sacrifice. He even mocks them ‘where is Baal? Maybe he went on a trip? Maybe he’s sleeping’? One translation says ‘maybe he’s on the pot’ [toilet] Elijah was not above scathing sarcasm! So after Baal doesn’t ‘act’ Elijah sets up his own altar, puts a bull on it, soaks the whole thing with water and prays for God to reveal himself. Sure enough fire falls from heaven, burns the bull, stones and everything else! Elijah takes the false prophets and puts them out of their misery. These brothers had a bad day, the same day they find out that their religion is false, they meet Jehovah face to face! And then Elijah tells Ahab ‘get ready, the rain is coming’. God ‘showed’ himself thru a great act; he let it be known that the true God made a real difference. I recently read a story about an atheist. He is an intellectual and lives in Africa. Over the years he observed these ‘silly Christians’ coming to his nation and spreading their ‘ignorant beliefs’. He also noticed something else, they were the only real ongoing group of people who regularly gave their time and lives for the betterment of his fellow Africans. Sure, his intellectually arrogant friends would look at the whole thing as a charade, watching these missions groups spending time trying to teach silly stuff like the Trinity, declaring that this Jesus was ‘Gods son, God in the flesh’ but the atheists never organized a community that would actually help his fellow Africans, there was almost a built in bigotry that said ‘why even help these poor blobs of flesh, after all, we all came from nothing. When we die we simply cease to have feelings and pleasure, our lives basically consist of enjoying pleasures and being happy, what eternal significance is there in caring for the poor ignorant masses’. The observant atheist realized that thru out his life, his closet friends, the people who shared his own beliefs. They were the ones who didn’t ‘give a damn’ about his fellow black countrymen, but the Christians whom he and his friends spent their who lives mocking and resisting and verbally abusing, these Christians were the ones who gave of their lives for the betterment of his fellow man. God revealed himself thru Elijah’s ministry on this day, he showed the people that the God [system] you believe in really does matter. In all of our talking and debating between various religions and belief/unbelief systems, at the end of the day look at the results, Christianity has had her faults to be sure, but she has done a lot better than the prophets of Baal!
(1070) 1st KING 19- Ahab tells his wife, Jezebel, about Elijah’s victory, she sends word to the prophet ‘so help me God if I don’t do the same to you as you did to my prophets’. Understand, Elijah did not simply ‘rebuke’ false doctrine here, he actually dismantled an entire ‘religious system’ that was contrary to the purposes of God. It is very difficult to uproot all that you have put in place for the sake of reformation. I find this to be one of the hardest obstacles to overcome when seeking God for true change in the church. Christians too often associate their relationship with God along with the systems of religion that they were brought up with. Now Elijah flees for his life, God will appear to him at Horeb; he is not in the wind, earthquake or fire, but in the ‘still, small voice’. Elijah is told to anoint a king of Syria, also anoint Jehu as king of Israel and go get your protégée Elisha. Elijah is also told by God there are seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal. We see the danger of prophetic ministry; God vindicated Elijah and truly did miraculous stuff with him. It was easy for Elijah to fall into the trap of ‘I am the only one who sees this stuff’. God reassured him he wasn’t alone. These last few years I have been surprised by the number of Christians who have corresponded with me thru our blog, it seems as if the present challenges to ‘church/clergy’ are becoming commonplace to the believers at large. It is no longer a secret. But it is also disheartening to see many of my friends who have served the Lord for years; they seem to be oblivious to the same truths that the church worldwide is seeing. So with Elijah you did have false prophets who were all wrong at the same time. Yes, just because there were so many who held on to the same view of religion [Baal worship] this did not mean they were right. But at the same time it was obvious to at least seven thousand others that the popular religious system was actually wrong! James says that Elijah was a man ‘subject to the same weaknesses as all men’ yet the Lord used him mightily. All Gods servants have feet of clay, many of the greatest reformers of church history also made big mistakes. Luther was a tremendous force for change, but his anti Semitic writings would later be used as a justification for Jewish oppression. As we strive for truth and justice in the days ahead, let us all remember that some of Gods greatest voices are ‘compassed about with the same infirmities as us all’ God does use clean vessels, but even clean vessels sometimes have cracks.
(1071)1ST KINGS 20- Benhadad, king of Syria, besieges Israel and threatens Ahab ‘give me your gold, wives and kids’. Ahab was a demoralized man, his wife was already running the show, he relinquished any remnant of nobility years ago. He responds ‘sure, take it all. What do I care?’ So all goes well, Not! Benhadad says ‘one more thing, tomorrow my men will come and inspect your stuff, if they see anything else of value, they taking that too!’ So Ahab consults with his men, he tells them the situation and they decide to reject the final offer. The fight is on. Notice how the Lord sends Ahab true prophets who give him guidance along the way, it’s like the Lord was willing to allow Ahab some time to get things right. The false prophets are dead, Elijah rebuilt the altar, who knows, maybe God was giving Ahab a real chance at reform. So Ahab does okay, he has a few battles with Syria, and at the end he LETS THE WICKED ENEMY GO! God rebukes him for this thru a prophet. God basically says ‘look, I gave you a second chance. I had a task for you, your job was to recognize and eliminate the threats to my people’ what happened? I have noticed thru the years that leaders, good men, will often fall into mindsets that say ‘well, after all our goal is to succeed and be happy. Have good church attendance, good income. Why even bother dealing with stuff that’s wrong?’ There are times in church history where God is looking for reformers, men and women who are willing to take a stand and say ‘enough, this stuff has be going on for too long, we will have no more of it’ [doctrines and stuff that lead Gods people astray]. It seems as if Ahab was living for the day, willing to let the wicked king live another day. After all, what harm can it do? He disobeyed God, he was given a mandate to execute justice, he didn’t. God chose him to complete the task, not just survive. Ahab blew it big time.
(1071) I was gonna cover Jezebel today, but lets save it for later. I have a package sitting here, getting ready to send it off to a New Jersey prison. One of my buddies is in prison and it’s a good chance to get him to read some stuff. I copied a bunch of stuff from this blog and added a few notes. He is the friend we prayed for that almost died around a year ago. His name is Patrick, he had a bad overdose on drugs, but the Lord healed him in a miraculous way. You can read about it under the prayer request section. But he was not healed of everything. One of the ongoing problems is he did permanent nerve damage to his leg. One of the problems is ‘it kills you to go to the bathroom’ if you get my drift. Well anyway as it was being explained to me, I really couldn’t empathize that much. I of course would continue praying for him, but couldn’t totally relate. Then after my most recent bout with severe back pain, I too had the problem! I notice that after the severe pain finally goes away, there will be an increased loss of feeling to my right side. Well that affects the nerves in the leg as well, now I can empathize! When one of my homeless buddies came by last week, he asked if his brother could send me some money for him thru the internet. I told him I didn’t have an account like that. He believed me and all, but I explained to him that other ministries are set up like that, they receive offerings that way. But I don’t do anything like that, I don’t take offerings. So as we talked a little I let him know that I also don’t deduct any giving from my taxes [to be honest, now it’s cheaper for me to do the standard deduction. But when I first started doing this it was not for that reason]. Well anyway he said how it’s not wrong to at least benefit in some way thru the ministry stuff I do. I told him that I do realize that many good ministries do use these advantages, yet I have seen over the years that many unbelievers use this single excuse to reject the gospel. So I personally take that excuse away when it comes to us. The bible says Jesus suffered so he might have compassion and be able to identify with our struggles [Hebrews]. Paul told the Corinthians that the suffering he endured enabled him to better empathize with others. If I stopped spending the money on the ministry, or tried to set up an income stream from it, then I could probably afford health insurance. But I’d rather suffer a little now, and build up some eternal rewards for later. We need to understand the biblical doctrine of sacrifice a little bit more, for I trust that ‘the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us’ [Paul]. NOTE- actually, as I thought about it, I spend almost half of my monthly income on ministry stuff. It might be more profitable if I took a deduction. But I won’t.
(1072) 1ST KINGS 21- Ahab wants the field of Naboth, he owns a field next to Ahab’s palace and Ahab wants to make a deal for it. Naboth says ‘no way, this is a part of my family inheritance’. So Ahab goes home, falls on his bed and refuses to eat, in the Greek this is called ‘being a big baby’. So Jezebel asks him ‘what’s wrong’? He gives her the scoop and she says ‘what’s wrong with you, you are the king! Your word/name has great power, use it to get what you want!’ So she manipulates the situation and sends letters to the elders of Naboth's city, she signs the kings name and says ‘set up 2 false witnesses against Naboth, hold a public mock trial and kill the man’. The accusation against him is blasphemy. This sure looks like a prophetic sign of the Cross. So the plan is carried out, the guy is killed and Ahab gets the land. Now, the Lord speaks to Elijah about the whole thing and he confronts Ahab, he pronounces judgment on him and his wife. Ahab repents somewhat and God delays the judgment. In the book of Revelation God warns the church of Thyatira ‘you have permitted that woman, Jezebel, to teach and seduce my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto idols’. John the Baptists head was taken off by a Jezebel [the wife of a king who used her husband’s authority to get what she wanted- manipulation]. What/who is Jezebel? A few years back it was common to hear teachings on her, whole books have been written on the subject. It was one of those fads where the church thought we were really doing ‘spiritual warfare’ by exposing her, but in reality we were being duped by focusing too much on the enemy. So what about the rebukes? How do we ‘spot her’? In the cases mentioned above, it is speaking of a form of manipulation that gets the ‘authorities’ to commit wickedness. When the govt. can stamp its approval on an act, like abortion, then the wicked act can be carried out because the ‘law’ permits it. In Naboth’s mock trial, he was murdered, but it was under pretense of law. Of course Jesus trial was the same. And John the Baptist was beheaded because the ‘kings word is law’. Oliver Cromwell, the 17th century parliamentarian reformer, would face his Jezebel in the king’s wife, she was the Catholic wife of King Charles [Stuart the 1st] and the puritan reformer saw her as a threat. He would eventually lead parliament to execute the king and himself hold the title ‘The Lord Protector’ his epitaph would read ‘Christ, not man, is King’. So every age has had to deal with Jezebel. One thing for sure, when the people of God permit, and at times agree, with the unjust manipulation of human govt. [like Supreme Court decisions that give voice to the murder of children] then we are to a degree ‘suffering that woman Jezebel’. The reason John the Baptists head was removed was because he spoke up loudly against a public sin. The king married his brother’s wife, they were committing adultery. Now, everyone knew it, it was the sort of thing that you learned to live with, but John felt it his duty to publicly speak out against it. So today, when we as believers become desensitized to the sins that take place with the governmental stamp of approval, then we too are allowing the unjust manipulation of human govt. [Jezebel] to have her way.
(1073) 1st KINGS 22- Well, this study went fast! I basically write a chapter a day and it fly’s by. Ahab consults with Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. He convinces him to fight against Syria and take back Ramoth-Gilead. Jehoshaphat asks Ahab ‘are there any prophets we can get advice from?’ Ahab brings out the troops, these were 400 PAID prophet’s who were ‘on staff’. Sure enough these brothers know how to ‘prophesy’. They all with one voice [unity] prophesy a great victory ‘surely you will prosper’ is the mantra. One brother even makes these iron horns and says ‘just like these horns you will push the enemy back’ they put on quite a show. But wait, Jehoshaphat wants to play it safe, he asks ‘are there any more prophets that we need to hear from’? Sure enough Ahab says ‘well, I have this guy, but he is so negative! He never agrees with these other fine brothers, but what the heck, lets get him’. So they send a servant to retrieve Micaiah. On the way back to the king, the poor messenger says ‘Now look, all the other brothers are on board, they know how to toe the party line. Please give your reformation preaching a rest’. So they arrive at the designated spot, and Micaiah prophesies good stuff. He gave into the pressure. Ahab says ‘how many times do I have to tell you to speak what’s really on your heart’ then he gives the true prophecy ‘I saw Israel like scattered sheep across the terrain’ basically he was saying ‘don’t go to battle’. Ahab says ‘see, what did I tell you! This brother is bad news’ they lock him up and go to battle. Sure enough Ahab gets killed ‘by chance’ [a stray arrow] and the battle goes bad. Also, a story is told how the host of heaven appeared before God and the lord said ‘how will we convince Ahab to go to battle’? And the story says that God allowed a lying spirit to be in all the prophets. It was Gods judgment on Ahab to let him hear what he wanted to hear! Paul says that people will ‘heap to themselves teachers, wanting the ears tickled’ we live in a day where church attendance is ‘seeker friendly’ people want their ‘felt needs’ met. Sometimes the Lord gives people what they want, even if it’s not good for them! [Remember King Saul?] So we end 1st Kings with judgment falling on Ahab, the dogs ‘licked the blood’ from his chariot in Samaria as a fulfillment of Gods judgment on him. We also see the possibility of ‘prophetic ministers’ looking really good, putting on a show, if you will, and yet being dead wrong! In today’s internet environment we live in a day where multiple prophecies go forth on a regular basis, we need to be wary of listening to the ‘many prophets’. I have found a few good prophetic words thru this venue, but for the most part the ‘prophets’ have a tendency to go with the flow. This is not to say that all prophecy needs to be doom and gloom, but we often give voice to the image of Jesus that suits us best. We like a rich, successful, wealthy Jesus, a real go getter if you will. We then speak words that are coming from our distorted image of him. In essence we prophesy [speak] words that are in agreement with the image of Jesus that we choose to hold on to. Ahab had a bunch of prophets who were looking real good, surely they all couldn’t be wrong! God let them prophesy the things that they wanted to prophesy.
1074- Yesterday I met Edward; he is a homeless brother from San Antonio. He located to Corpus a few months ago. As I was helping him out during the day I realized he had a situation with another brother who owns a ‘church building’. The building is not being used so they worked out a deal with my friend, he would live in it and kinda be a caretaker while they are trying to sell it. Well after being with the brother most of the day I ‘discerned’ how he is in great strife with the owners. They have told him to leave and all, he is telling me about his ‘legal rights’ to stay [you do run into brothers like this. I have had buddies tell me stuff like this before ‘squatter’s rights’ and stuff. When one of my friends refused to get his motorcycle motor out of my garage, he started using the squatters rights ‘provision’ he saw how quickly I began dragging it out to the curb! He got it out.] So this is kind of a funny thing that the guys do at times. But it did get me to thinking about how often we mix ‘business’ with ‘church’ [charity]. I have a policy, whenever someone asks to borrow money, I NEVER do it, but I will GIVE them some, with the explicit directions to ‘not pay me back’. A few posts back I mentioned how I used to do the real estate thing; buying a cheap rental [some were not cheap] and renting it out until I could sell it. It’s not wrong for believers to do stuff like this, but Jesus also taught us that the pursuit of wealth can affect you in a bad way. At the time I was reading and learning about all types of money investments, consuming my thoughts and energies with this stuff. Then my bible reading/teaching would inevitably become ‘affected’ with this paradigm. I would just naturally gravitate towards the money portions of scripture, when coming across the classic ‘you cannot serve God and money’ verses; I would unconsciously stick it in the category of ‘church tradition’ even though Jesus was the one who said it! So its a popular trend for believers to get into the whole ‘God has called me into the ministry of teaching believers how to become financially independent, so lets spend our time building wealth for my business and at the same time helping other believers build wealth’ sounds noble, but it usually winds up focusing on the money stuff most of the time. It gets your focus on the wrong thing. So anyway I think we need to refocus our thoughts on the New Testament priorities, sure you can be a responsible business investor, nothing wrong with it. But don’t go down the road of ‘my ministry is to bring in the wealth’ you wont be the first [or last] person that has ‘felt this calling’.
TEACHINGS- PART 7
(1074)Yesterday I met Edward; he is a homeless brother from San Antonio. He located to Corpus a few months ago. As I was helping him out during the day I realized he had a situation with another brother who owns a ‘church building’. The building is not being used so they worked out a deal with my friend, he would live in it and kinda be a caretaker while they are trying to sell it. Well after being with the brother most of the day I ‘discerned’ how he is in great strife with the owners. They have told him to leave and all, he is telling me about his ‘legal rights’ to stay [you do run into brothers like this. I have had buddies tell me stuff like this before ‘squatter’s rights’ and stuff. When one of my friends refused to get his motorcycle motor out of my garage, he started using the squatters rights ‘provision’ he saw how quickly I began dragging it out to the curb! He got it out.] So this is kind of a funny thing that the guys do at times. But it did get me to thinking about how often we mix ‘business’ with ‘church’ [charity]. I have a policy, whenever someone asks to borrow money, I NEVER do it, but I will GIVE them some, with the explicit directions to ‘not pay me back’. A few posts back I mentioned how I used to do the real estate thing; buying a cheap rental [some were not cheap] and renting it out until I could sell it. It’s not wrong for believers to do stuff like this, but Jesus also taught us that the pursuit of wealth can affect you in a bad way. At the time I was reading and learning about all types of money investments, consuming my thoughts and energies with this stuff. Then my bible reading/teaching would inevitably become ‘affected’ with this paradigm. I would just naturally gravitate towards the money portions of scripture, when coming across the classic ‘you cannot serve God and money’ verses; I would unconsciously stick it in the category of ‘church tradition’ even though Jesus was the one who said it! So it’s a popular trend for believers to get into the whole ‘God has called me into the ministry of teaching believers how to become financially independent, so lets spend our time building wealth for my business and at the same time helping other believers build wealth’ sounds noble, but it usually winds up focusing on the money stuff most of the time. It gets your focus on the wrong thing. So anyway I think we need to refocus our thoughts on the New Testament priorities, sure you can be a responsible business investor, nothing wrong with it. But don’t go down the road of ‘my ministry is to bring in the wealth’ you wont be the first [or last] person that has ‘felt this calling’.
(1075) Last night I caught a good interview on ‘the Colbert report’. They had Bart Ehrman on, the author of ‘Jesus interrupted’. I had just read a critique of his book on Ben Witherington's site [go check it out, he did a great job. His site is on my blog roll]. Colbert actually used some basic Christian arguments to refute Ehrman. Basically Ehrman is somewhat of an intellectual critic of Christianity, his background is one of ‘fundamentalist’ and as he learned of various criticisms of Christianity he became a vocal opponent. When young kids are brought up in church, taught the basics of bible faith, they then go off to college [Christian ones] and depending on how ‘liberal’ the university is, they get challenged on many of their core assumptions. Now, some of these challenges are good, believers should be familiar with the basic challenges to the authenticity of the faith. We often fail to prepare younger believers for this world. What Ehrman seems to be doing is taking many of these basic challenges and saying ‘see, all true university professors know that there are many contradictions/falsehoods in the bible, it’s a secret that the average bible toting Archie Bunkers don’t know about’. Well, he does overstate his claim. What are some of the basic challenges to the faith? Some teach that the scriptures [gospels] teach contradictions, last night Ehrman said that the crucifixion accounts were contradictory. He quoted from various accounts and said ‘see, one writer has Jesus depressed, the other upbeat’ to be honest, NO gospel shows Jesus ‘upbeat’ on his way to the Cross! But he was basically saying the gospel writers told conflicting stories. Geez, I could have come up with better challenges myself! Or the accusation of plagiarism, I am presently reading a book written by John Crossan, an ultra liberal ‘Jesus Seminar’ brother. They challenge everything about the faith. He chops up the scripture in a way that would make it next to impossible to comprehend. He has the list of the letters that most accept as legitimate [Paul’s] then the list of ‘maybe Paul’s, maybe not’ then those he says were not written by Paul, though the letters themselves claim to be written by him. Is it possible that a letter in the New Testament could have been written by someone else? Sort of like a ghostwriter? To be honest about it, it’s possible. Now wait, I know some of you will write me off for this. It’s possible because 1st century writers did do stuff like this, the official name for doing this is [I know I can’t spell it] called ‘pseudepigraphal’ or something like that. The point is it would not be wrong or deceptive for a first century Christian writer to have done this, it would not be considered lying. Do we have any examples in scripture where stuff like this happened? There are references [not symbolic] that have writers in scripture saying ‘greet those at Babylon’ or ‘to those at Babylon’ and the writer means Rome [I think Peter and John do this?] In these few cases it is understood that they used Babylon because they were writing to areas that they did not want to be exposed, they did not want Rome to know who or what they were writing about. So this is considered acceptable, not a deception. Likewise in the gospels you read one account of Peter’s denials where it says ‘before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times’ and another gospel says ‘before the cock crows’ well, which one is right? They both are, one is just giving more detail than the other. Is this lying, of course not. It was perfectly acceptable in 1st century biographical writing to do stuff like this. Biographies are held to different standards then intense historical accounts. That is not to say the gospels are not historical, it’s just to say the writers were writing biographies and it should be understood that way. Even Colbert [a Roman Catholic believer] brought this out in his mock challenge to Ehrman, he used the classic elephant example. Four blind guys all give different descriptions of the part of the elephant they feel. I think believers should be familiar with the historical arguments against the faith, they should not simply respond ‘that’s God's word and that settles it’ while this might suffice for ones personal faith, it does nothing to refute Ehrman, or his disciples! NOTE- I believe all the letters, writings in the New Testament that say who wrote the actual letter, were written by that writer. The problem is some writings do not say who wrote them. But we can still figure out some of them by other means. Luke tells the person he addressed Acts to, that he wrote his gospel account on an earlier occasion. John’s gospel says it was written by the ‘disciple who Jesus loved’. So even writings that do not specifically say ‘written by Matthew’ or Mark or whoever, you still can find hints to who wrote them.
(1076) Being we are in between studies I thought I might talk a little on the books I recently read. One was an older scholarly work on revivals and ‘revivalism’. It covered the history of the great awakenings [18th-19th century America]; while I am familiar with this period and have read on it before, the interesting thing I learned was the intense disagreement between the Arminians [those who reject the classic doctrines of Predestination] and the Calvinists. The degree of anti-Calvinism was surprising. Many average readers of church history do not realize the role that Calvinism played in the beliefs of many of the famous reformers [Spurgeon, Edwards, Whitefield]. Also the intense disagreement between the ‘new measures’ [altar call] and the more reserved churches. I must admit I personally came to distrust the amount of weight that is put on the evangelical ‘altar call’. I remember as a new believer, being excited about the things of the Lord, I was working for a construction crew and worked with a bunch of good old boys. They were around my age [19-20] and were local Texans. I was this Yankee from New Jersey, but I liked the brothers. I remember how after witnessing to them non stop for a period of around a year, one of them sincerely tells me ‘Oh, we are all saved, we all got saved as kids in our churches’. I realized the popular terminology of ‘getting saved’ and associating that with the evangelical altar call, was just as legalistic as some of our Catholic brothers trust in infant baptism and the sacraments. That is the Protestants would criticize the Catholics for ‘trusting in tradition’ while they were just as bad! So in the recent book they showed the intense disagreements over this, many reformed brothers felt that telling people to raise their hands ‘in church’ and come to the altar to ‘get saved’ was simply giving false hope to many people who clearly had no real understanding of the gospel. But the other extreme was the strong Calvinists who seemed to indicate that total passivity was the way to go. Some got the impression that you could not make ‘a choice’ to follow the Lord, so they didn’t. For the most part I recognize that it is possible to have gone thru all the motions [whether Protestant or Catholic] and to lack a real trust and faith in Christ, but some carry this too far and judge others as ‘not being saved’ because they did not say ‘the sinners prayer’ or ‘accept Jesus into their heart’. The scriptures clearly teach that those who believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that they are children of God. Now, I realize this is not speaking of simple American ‘I believe in God’ type faith, where people have no real walk with the Lord. But we also don’t want to reduce salvation to an evangelical [or Catholic] technique that you blindly follow in order to ‘get saved’. My well meaning friend who told me ‘we are all saved’ was simply viewing ‘being saved’ from a religious lens, just like a cradle Catholic might view the sacraments. I believe we should encourage people to have a strong commitment to the faith, trusting and relying on Christ’s work for our redemption, but we need to be careful that we are not viewing ‘being saved’ only thru our own religious paradigm.
(1077) Let’s talk a little about conversion and ‘being born again’. This past week was Easter week; I made it a point to watch the Catholic Mass from Rome. The Pope presides over this service. The English translator shared how the Popes usually do not give a message write after the reading, they always give an address to the world, but not an actual sermon. But Pope Benedict made it clear that he wanted to take the opportunity to actually preach. Hey, all good preachers couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this! Sure enough he gave the clearest Easter message of the week, out of the few other sermons I caught during the week, his was the clearest. He explained the Passover Lamb and how Jesus was the fulfillment. He gave a very ‘Christocentric’ message [centered on Christ]. I thought it was a great opportunity for the world to clearly hear the message of the Cross. Now, being ‘born again’ is a very real thing that ALL people must experience in order to have a relationship with God. The term comes from Jesus own lips as recorded in Johns gospel. John mentions it in his epistles [as well as Peter]. And Paul most certainly taught regeneration. If you read the chapter where Jesus speaks about it [John 3] you will see how he is challenging the religious mindset of his day, he is talking to a religious leader and telling him ‘you must be born again in order to see Gods kingdom, to understand the truths I am showing you’. In Johns letters [1st,2nd and 3rd John] he clearly defines being born again as believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. So the reality of all men needing this new birth is true, the problem arises when different Christian groups put their ‘slant’ on it. Some groups emphasize water baptism, others ‘the sinners prayer’, the more sacramental churches [Catholic, Orthodox, etc.] have a mix of the sacraments along with faith. My own view is the strong Justification by faith belief. Now, some believers who were raised in the more traditional expressions of the church, after they experience a definite conversion to Christ, will often view all of their former brethren as lost. They will associate their real conversion experience as being truly born again. The problem with this approach is some will view their experience as the plumb line for all other faiths. They sincerely see the other Christian groups as lost, they want them to experience what they experienced. Now, even though I do not personally believe in infant baptism, or adult baptismal regeneration [read my statement of faith section] yet I do see the reality of other church traditions grounding their people on the foundation of Christ. That is they might not have been ‘born again’ when their church officially claimed that over them, but if their denomination still teaches the gospel, and they believe it, then they are in fact ‘born again’ according to the New Testament criteria of ‘being born again’. I believe it is important for all traditions to emphasize the reality of Jesus and his death for us. For people to understand that God accepts us on the basis of the death and resurrection of his Son, this is the foundation of our relationship with God. Too many people are struggling with self worth, trying to live up to others expectations, to impress others. They then struggle with their inability to overcome sin, feelings of unworthiness, and they hear a message from the ‘church world’ that sounds condemning. They have no real hope in God. We need to reorient the message around the Cross, to let people know that God accepts them based on the redemption that Christ accomplished on the Cross. Christian churches might [and do!] disagree on the technical aspects of ‘being born again’ but we all agree on Jesus being the Messiah, the Son of the Most High.
(1078) I’m getting ready to email one of our news papers [the ones I run the blog ad in] they double billed me again! I have these papers do direct withdrawals from my account, when a few of them over bill in one month it puts me in a bind. Sometimes it bugs the ‘heck’ out of me, but then I calm down and try and correct it the next day. I believe the Lord allows you to have influence, to ‘go far’, by his sovereign will. Not too long ago I emailed a national radio/prison ministry. He’s based out of Washington, famous brother. Sure enough as I heard his 5 minute radio program one morning, he used a rare example that I have taught on our site. I thought ‘geez, he must be reading our stuff’. It was one of those teachings that is hardly ever heard, a short thing on Jesus words about ‘the camel going thru the eye of a needle’. I refuted the silly teaching that used to say ‘the eye of the needle’ was the name of a ‘low gate’ in the city wall, thus- the poor camel can make it thru, but he has to crouch! OUCH! So any way this brother used the example, good for him [and me]. So if the Lord wants a person to have influence that goes far, he will do it. But there are also times where the Lord holds us back, that is he is simply waiting for our maturity to catch up with our ability. What I mean by this is it is all too common for preachers/ministries to master the art of bringing in the finances, getting things together, then expanding their message way beyond the borders of their maturity. That’s why there is so much unbalanced teaching in the church today, the American church spends exorbitant amounts of money on teaching stuff that is ‘less than perfect’ if you get my drift. So let the Lord lead you in how far your voice should go. He might be saying ‘look son, I have great purposes and plans for you, I have given you a gift and talents that are going to be used in a great way in my kingdom. But for the present time this does not include a national/world-wide audience’.
(1079) let’s see, I was gonna talk about the movie ‘there’s something about Mary’ they have been playing it on cable. It is funny! But a little too racy. Then I thought about doing one on ‘the Ort cloud’ a so called spot in space where comets are waiting on the runway to launch into our solar system, after all comets lose mass in their orbits. If you measured the amount of mass being lost with the old age of the earth/solar system, they wouldn’t be around any more! So the Ort cloud is ‘an idea’ that fits in with the old age theory [I lean towards the old age theory myself]. And last of all I was going to delve into the authorship of the New Testament, I spoke about this a few posts back and thought we should do a little more. Right after I started reading the bible I came across an interesting fact, I noticed how the letter of Jude was almost identical with a chapter in 2nd Peter. It was more than just common themes; it seemed to be a duplication. I remember mentioning this to my Pastor [a good man who had graduated from a fundamentalist bible college] he was not aware of this. I told him I had no problem with it, that it was certainly possible for the Holy Spirit to inspire two separate writers to say the same thing, and I left it at that. Are there any other solutions to this type of thing? Well, it is also possible that Peter [or Jude] read the other brothers letter and used a portion of it. Peter states in his writings that he was reading Paul’s stuff. The New Testament leadership knew each other fairly well, ALL the early Christian leaders lived in the same region of the world and had contact. There is one more explanation that scholars give; in the first century it was common for a writer [scribe-personal secretary of an author] to write/compile the teachings of a few various leaders [with permission!] and to attribute the whole letter to the main contributor. The book of Proverbs is attributed to Solomon, yet there are a few other authors mentioned in the book [king Lemuel, Agar] same with Psalms. So it is possible that a compiler [scribe] put together a letter with parts of Jude in it, but the entire letter would be attributed to the main contributor, Peter. The point being that there are solutions to difficulties like this, Christians should be familiar and trained in stuff like this. My original pastor, though a good man, was not familiar with stuff like this because the strong fundamentalist background simply ignores these types of scholarly questions. All in all I believe 2nd Peter [and Jude] are inspired books canonized by the church for our benefit, but the first century writers did not write [or compile] in a vacuum, they did use scribes [Paul did as well] and sometimes this sort of compiling did go on, not in deception, but as an accepted practice of first century writing. I would have no problem with accepting a book as inspired, even if it was possibly a compilation of more than one author.
(1080) In keeping with our recent train of thought, lets talk a little on who wrote the New Testament, and when did they write. During the rise of higher criticism in the universities [a type of learning that cast serious doubt on many of the truths of scripture, though some of the elements of higher learning were helpful; like the historic method, learning to study scripture thru a contextual lens] you had some who dated the gospels as being written by the end of the first century, even into the second! Today, no serious scholar would put them anywhere near the second century. And like I said the other day, those who attribute Paul’s writings to various unknown sources, they also can stick the older label on Paul's stuff. Do the scriptures themselves give us any hint at when they were written? Sure. They don’t tell us exactly, but some good hints. The gospels contain lots of historical records in them, who was ruling at the time. Certain census that were being taken, things like that. Of course this doesn’t mean the writers were writing at the exact time of the events, but it shows you their familiarity with them. Or if a gospel writer [I think its Luke] says ‘just as others compiled stuff about Jesus and all that he did, so I thought it good that I should do the same’. This would show you that the writer was not as close to the actual events as others. Or when Luke writes the book of Acts, he states that he had already written his gospel. Luke is pretty meticulous about historic stuff in Acts; he records the believers who were killed for the faith [Stephen, James- the disciple, not the Lords brother who was one of the main leaders at Jerusalem, who is also believed to be the author of the epistle]. The point being, if Luke ends Acts with Paul living in a rented room in Rome; plus he never mentions the martyrdom of Paul or Peter, this would indicate that Acts was written before their deaths. Nero killed them both in the 60’s, Nero died a couple of years before A.D. 70. It would seem rather odd for Luke to have left their martyrdoms out of the book! Peter and Paul are the two main characters in the book. If Luke is recording the martyrdoms of less known figures, you think he would have at least mentioned them. So this is kind of internal stuff you look at, and if Luke says he wrote his gospel earlier, Walla! This would give you an early date to his gospel, before Acts was written. Also, we have various common names; did John the apostle write all the ‘Johns’? The gospel, the 3 letters and Revelation. Most scholars have him writing the gospel and letters, some attribute Revelation to another John ‘John of Patmos’. They feel the Greek text in revelation is too different from the other writings, so they think another John wrote it. When I wrote my Hebrews commentary, I think I must be the only person left on the planet who still thinks Paul wrote it! I realize that this makes you look ‘illiterate’ in the scholarly world, but I have my reasons. If you believe in the real late dates to some of the books, you can cast too much doubt on the accuracy of the sources, if you go too early, you reject too much evidence. And in some cases, the dates are very important to the beliefs of the group. Preterists believe you can make a case for all the apocalyptic portions of scripture having been fulfilled in A.D. 70, they will bring up historical evidence of witnesses seeing chariots in the sky at the time of Titus overthrow of the city, signs and stuff that Jesus said would happen ‘at the end’ so to them ‘the end’ was A.D. 70. If revelation was written around A.D. 90, then it doesn’t fit. John [whether the apostle or the Patmos brother!] still shows the apocalyptic stuff as being in the future. So they make a case that revelation was written before A.D. 70, is it possible, sure. But we really don’t know. Plus, if you think it was written late, you place Domitian as the possible anti-christ figure, early- it’s Nero. So you see some brothers have put a lot of thought into this stuff. It’s good to be familiar with some of these basic things, especially when you have anti Christian activists using some of these things as sources for their activity. Christians should be able to debate coherently with them, if not they win their point. Most of all we have a tremendous amount of textual/historical data that backs up the record of Jesus and the New Testament. There is absolutely no other writing from antiquity with this kind of backing, the gospels and the new testament are historically trustworthy, whether or not we know for sure which John wrote revelation, or which James wrote James, really doesn’t matter. We KNOW which Jesus rose from the dead!
(1081) Was thinking earlier what we should talk about today, I have been jumping around thru some of the prophetic books [Revelation, Zechariah, etc.] but then I remembered I got a letter yesterday from my buddy in the New Jersey jail [I have some in the city jail, some in the state prison system of Jersey]. So I thought I should read the letter and mention it. Sure enough they didn’t take the check, I sent him a 25.00 dollar check and they sent it back; it needs to be a money order. The guys need money to get stuff from the commissary and stuff, I have done this plenty of times [by ‘done this’ I mean sent the money!] I realize now that the Lord is going to have me do a little more writing than I expected. Nothing wrong with it, for some reason I didn’t expect my buddy to write back and want to keep in touch. That’s fine. He also told me he was reading the stuff I copied from my blog; he says ‘it’s strange I can hear your voice when I read your stuff’. Just a few weeks back I was ‘thinking’ about the dynamic of hearing someone’s voice when you read their books, I mean it was a conscious thought that I couldn’t shake. Now I realize it was one of those prophetic moments, basically the Lord was telling me ‘people will hear your voice when they read your stuff’. My buddy handed out a few of the ministry cards I sent, he told me some of the other brothers might write. It’s strange, I felt the Lord was telling me a few years ago that he was going to expand my territory and I would once again have contact with New Jersey, and at the same time some of the Texas contacts would wane [the prison stuff- I still have a bunch of cities we speak into]. So it seems like some of this is coming to pass. To be honest with you guys, I have had some tough times these past few weeks. I can’t be ‘too real’ on a public blog like this! But take my word for it, I have struggled somewhat. You know what's funny [or sad?] I have preacher ‘acquaintances’ who preach great, they always have an excellent public persona. Some think I am too ‘worldly’ [possibly so!] but they mean my open sharing and stuff on the blog. Sort of like we should always be in a preaching mode and ‘God’ forbid we should ever be real. I know some of these men personally, some of them have had more ‘private’ problems than you could ever imagine. Now, I am not judging them, but if all we ever see/know about people are their platform image, then we are seeing an unrealistic picture of the Christian life. Our preaching [American Christianity] is consumed with self-help techniques and psycho babble. We present an unreal picture to the world. Then I hear preachers say that this real life style, being open and not perfect, is wrong. I think the American church needs an overhaul in general. I got an email from the news paper that messed up my bill last month, this paper [Jersey Journal] is the only one I put my name in with the ad, the purpose is for any old friends to see it and maybe read the site. In the other papers I just run the blog ad. But the Journal always treats me right, the poor brother who handles my account always profusely apologizes when something goes wrong ‘please forgive us for the mistake’ and stuff like that. So this time I just couldn’t resist it, I emailed him back ‘NO, I CAN NOT FORGIVE YOU GUYS THIS TIME!’ of course I was kidding, but I would have loved to have seen the look on his face when he read it. So anyway, today we learned that we are all in the same boat, we all struggle with things in life, but during this life we are also called upon by God to give ourselves away for others. To transcend our own weaknesses and give of our time and money for the benefit of others. People who live in the real world need others who live in the real world to reach out and help. One of my favorite movies is Donnie Brascoe [yes, I watch the mafia stuff]. It’s the true story of an undercover F.B.I. agent who infiltrates the mob, he made it further in than any other agent in history. The danger was he identified so much with the brothers, that he had a difficult time differentiating between which world he was in. There is always a danger when living in the real world, we are to be in the world, not of it. But for mere mortals this can be difficult, surely Jesus would never identify too much with such sinful creatures! Oh wait, there is this little doctrine that just popped into my head, I think they call it THE INCARNATION.
(1082) ‘For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth. For they are the messengers of the Lord’ Malachi 2:7. I remember a few years back, I was listening to the various teachings that were on the radio station that I broadcast on. Some brother out of the Fort Worth area used to buy air time and all. One time the focus was ‘what is Gods essential character?’ if there were only one word to describe who God is, what his essential makeup was, what would that word be? And of course the answer was ‘abundance’ specifically ‘financial increase’. I know of know other way to describe stuff like this, it falls under the category of ministerial malpractice! God commands leaders/teachers to seek the truth coming from him, we are responsible to at least get the most basic things right! What would be the most obvious answer to the question of how to define God in a word? Surely every preacher should know the answer. It would be ‘God is love’. While there are many attributes of God [omnipotence, omniscience, etc.] yet the ‘one’ word definition, if you had to give one, would be love [yes, he is Spirit too]. The last word you should use to describe God would be ‘much money’. Paul said the false teacher’s god is their belly; their appetites, they live to satisfy their desires. Jesus taught us one of the greatest desires of man is acquiring great wealth. He said you can’t serve God and money [mammon]. Why people still send their offerings to ministries like this is beyond me. The challenge to wealth and oppressive wealthy nations/peoples is sown all thru out human history; Homers Iliad revealed the monster 12 centuries before Christ in his writings on the Trojan War. Adam Smith penned his famous book ‘wealth of nations’ in 1776. Challenges to oppressive govt's. of men who use wealth and power to come against the poor in society are noble themes that all great prophetic voices have hit on [Gandhi, Martin Luther King, etc.]. Who was thee singular greatest prophetic voice who engaged in this type of polemic? Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Most know him as the carpenter, but the actual word used to describe his trade in the Greek means ‘hand laborer’ [or day laborer] you know, those poor brothers we see waiting for a job on the corners of streets, going to ‘labor ready’ [a local place to find daily work]. It is quite possible that Jesus was ‘less’ than a carpenter/tradesmen, but more of an odd jobs worker. Willing to take any job he could get. Well, once he entered his teaching ministry, boy did he speak to power and wealth. If you read all the actual words of Jesus [yes, the red ones!] and try and come up with a singular theme thru out his writings, it could very well be his contrast of the rich and poor. The powerful oppression of wealth and unjust govt. against the poor and weak in society. His incessant condemnation of the wealthy and affluent, I mean you can’t possibly miss this! Unless you are not seeking the ‘law’ [words] that actually were coming from his MOUTH! Malachi rebuked the priests of his day, they were functioning and active and everyone knew they were priests, yet they were not really listening to the words of God himself, I think we need to all give heed to what the brother said.
(1083) Let me do a compilation of various readings. In Isaiah we read the famous verse ‘I have laid a cornerstone in Zion, a rock of offence and stumbling; those who believe will not make haste’ [somewhere in Isaiah?] Paul quotes it in Romans. If you go read the chapter [look it up] you will see that the reason God raises up this ‘cornerstone/rock of offence’ is because the leadership of Israel became wicked, they were fulfilling roles in the community, but they left the intent of God behind. So God raises up prophetic voices at certain seasons for the purpose of creating a divine tension in the community. Voices that will be a stumbling stone and offensive to others; this is part of the process. In Zechariah/Revelation you have the witnesses who also ‘devour those that speak against them by the words of their mouth’. The adversaries really cannot refute what the prophets are speaking; Jesus also metes out justice with the Sword coming from his mouth [the word of God]. The lord speaks to Joshua the high priest [Zechariah] and he is standing before God and making intercession with dirty clothes. Like Hebrews says ‘every priest taken from among men is compassed about with infirmity’ this is so the priest can identify with those he is interceding for. Then the Lord removes the dirty clothes and puts a clean garment on him [robes of white/righteousness- revelation] and does this divine act of cleansing. The lord also says he will remove the sin of the land in ‘a day’. All these images speak of the purposes of God, he allows people to speak into his community at set seasons for the purpose of a corporate work. These voices often cause turmoil, they shake things around; Pastors wish they never heard some of the stuff! Why? Because then they realize they have to reform also, a tough process indeed. As you follow along on this blog, you see how I ‘dwell’ in different camps at different times. Whole seasons of doing prophetic stuff, or history, or traditional church stuff. I believe the Lord wants all of us to come out of our secluded shells, our ‘peculiar’ doctrinal slants, and to embrace the broader context of what he’s doing in the nations. We need to quit viewing ‘ministry’ thru the lens of starting a business, raising money for the business [church/para church] to carry out certain functions, and then living our lives in the context of ‘God wants us all to be happy and have a good time, and whatever happens in the rest of the world is none of my concern’. Jesus challenges us with a kingdom message, he told us that we would need to lay down our lives/agendas for a higher, more noble purpose. He constantly challenged those on the edge to jump in and forsake all to follow him. As I read the prophets, I see that God uses them to directly challenge leadership, he raises them up as a result of leadership going off track. Jesus was the cornerstone/rock of offence that made the religious leaders very uncomfortable. The New Testament says they feared they would lose their positions of status if Jesus kept gaining a following. You see, the things he was saying were a direct offence to their way of life, the way they perceived their service to God. Those who believed [Nicodemus] would enter into the beginning of a new worldwide movement that would never end, those who stayed offended would wind up crucifying ‘their rock of offence’.
(1084) I was thinking of doing some politics, but it jut gets me mad. One of the homeless brothers has a unique tattoo; he has the letters that were on Christ’s Cross inscribed on his forehead! You can’t miss it, it’s huge. I have run into Grumpy a few times over the years, he was never really in the group of close knit brothers that I hang with. Some of the guys are heavy drinkers and violent, good guys, but you can tell the regular brothers try and avoid them at times. Not too long ago I had a good chance to fellowship with Grumpy, he was of course drunk, but it was early enough in the day for him to function coherently. He was staying at this ‘flop house’ with a few guys. Grumpy has a Catholic background, at one point he clearly articulated Gods majesty thru the story of Moses, he was quoting the famous ‘I AM’ name that God spoke to Moses. I could tell that he knew his stuff. Over about an hour conversation, and a short bible study thing that I was asked to give, Grumpy really opened up, he cried as he shared his past failures and stuff. Though he was one of the violent guys [fight at the drop of the hat] yet the Lord was dealing with him. After talking for a while, he even got into Revelation and the scriptures on those who have the mark of the beast or Gods mark on them. He then mentions the tattoo on his forehead, realizing that I must have been noticing it as we were talking. At first, when he mentioned the ‘mark’ I didn’t know what he was referring to, it did not register in my mind that he had this huge tattoo on his head, for some reason I simply did not ‘see it’ the whole time of our conversation. I guess it’s hard for people to live down their failures, the stupid things they have done in life. I don’t know if Grumpy regrets the mark on his head, but I know he seemed surprised that I really did not notice it at all, sort of like ‘how can he not see this mark on me!’ Scripture talks about people having marks/stains that they can’t seem to get rid of. After Cain killed Abel God marked him for life. Isaiah says ‘though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’. My friend must feel self conscious about this permanent mark that he probably got when drunk, this sign of the guilt he feels because of the many failures in his life, seeing himself as one ‘cursed on a Cross’ but the fact the Cross happened means we don’t have to struggle with guilt [though we all do, at least I do] but his mercies are new every morning. Not too long after my conversation with Grumpy he took off to California, he will continue walking the streets with this mark/sign that will prophetically speak to the world around him. Christians driving to church will no doubt see him on some street corner, trying to stop their cars a few feet before the light, doing their best to not have to look into the face of fallen man. Then maybe as they speed past him they will get a good look at his eternal mark. Maybe for a second they will see Jesus thru fallen humanity, maybe they will think of the words of Jesus when he said ‘when you did not show mercy to these, you did not show mercy to me’.
(1085) I was reading Ezekiel, this verse struck me ‘the Lord took me to a high mountain, and I saw something like the structure of a city on the south’ [40:2]. To my Corpus friends, these types of verses are really prophetic. The Lord uses imagery in scripture; the Church is a city, a ‘city set on a hill’ that cannot be hidden. Sometimes the atheists try to hide us, they make arguments that the whole Christian faith is a big lie, that we have all been duped! Then they say the church has been the biggest force of evil known to civilized man. If I believed the Easter Bunny was a myth [I do, by the way] and then I spent the rest of my life tracing the history of Easter bunnies; how everywhere you turn they have affected society, from kings to peasants. These bunnies are everywhere! Both of these arguments can’t be true at the same time. Either they are insignificant things that people made up, or they are so insidious that they are the biggest nuisance the world has ever known! The poor atheists haven’t got a clue. God says he has set up his people like a city on a hill, he says she ‘can’t be hidden’ both the good and bad stuff has been recorded for all human history to see. The fact is, since this city has been impossible to erase from the annals of history, this fact in itself testifies to the reality of the masterbuilder who created her. Jesus said we would be set on a ‘hill’ a mountain for all the world to see, they have seen!
(1086) The last day or so I didn’t write any posts, but if I did, they would be something like ‘to be honest, today was a difficult day. Recently there have been some ‘old demons’ from my past that have haunted me. They visit every now and then, they always eventually leave, but they have a tendency to leave some marks’. Now, that’s as close as you can get to confessing stuff on a public blog! James says ‘confess your faults one to another, and pray for each other that you might be healed’ it’s hard to confess your faults when the modern church is consumed with image ‘how we look, who’s the new up and coming ministry on the horizon’? Geez, I feel like ‘if I can survive this day, that’s fine with me Lord’. Well enough of me. I have been reading the prophets, let me give you some advice; if times are hard, read Psalms. If you need wisdom- Proverbs. And if you’re in the mood to get chewed out, read the prophets! It’s hard to not feel convicted when reading the brothers. I was also thinking about the lives of people who have impacted society to some degree, often times they are tragic figures. Jesus, from the natural standpoint did not look like he had it together; sure, he was healing [helping] people, a couple of resurrections and all, but as the leader of this rag tag team of radicals, things weren’t going to well. The disciples thought they were in on the beginnings of a revolutionary movement that would throw off the oppression of Rome. The war that led up to the eventual overthrow of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 was actually initiated a few years earlier by this type of mindset. In the apocryphal books [the catholic books between Malachi and Matthew in the Old Testament] you have the recording of the Maccabean revolt, when the Jews attempted to throw off the ruling govt. The whole history of Israel was one of learning how to be a free people, coming out from the rule of other human governments [Exodus, Joshua, etc]. So these disciples of Jesus really thought they were in on the right political party, the one that would succeed in turning things around. After all, if you were waiting for some Messianic figure to show up, if your bibles [old testament] said he was going to come and deliver you from the Roman oppressors [read Mary’s magnificat] you would naturally think that Jesus was going to set up a physical throne out of the city and Rome would be cast off. But what happened? This great religious leader, this miracle worker, he is always talking about this new kingdom. He’s dropping little hints that it’s not going to be what they think, he says things that seem to not even make sense ‘the last shall be first’ ‘he that seeks to save his life shall lose it’ ‘this kingdom does not come with observation, it’s within you’. Oh well, the disciples figure ‘what the heck, we cant understand all that he’s saying, but man he’s got the authorities scared. I mean you can feel it in the air brother!’ So they stick it out, but he also drops little hints ‘the son of man is going to go to Jerusalem [Yea, now were talking! This is the part we’ve been waiting for Jesus, no more of this talk about laying your life down, that’s just depressing] and be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified’ What! What are you telling us? We quit our jobs, left our homes; we gave up a lot for this movement, now your telling us your gonna die! This is way too much to handle! By all outward appearances he seems like such a tragic figure. They accuse him of not being able to help himself ‘if this man were the Son of God [legit] surely he would come down from the Cross [a place of weakness, public humiliation] and save himself. He helped others, and he can’t even save himself!’ The accusation was he must be a hypocrite, he talked a big talk, but even his closest friends are no where to be found. One of the most vocal [Peter] is out right now swearing up and down that he doesn’t even know the man. ‘Jesus, I have no idea who your talking about’ the bible says he cursed and swore, lets try and be tactful, this is a Christian site ‘I don't know what the hell your talking about’ how’s that? What a sad ending to such a promising career, he seemed like he had so much going for him. Man, could he teach! You know we heard when he was only 12; he was asking the scholars questions that they couldn’t answer. One time he stood up in the synagogue and opened up this scroll, you know the Isaiah one. He read this strange verse about Gods Spirit being on some future person, how that person would do justice for the poor, speak out against things that he felt were wrong. He would be genuine, then you know what happened? He said “this day is this prophecy being fulfilled in your ears” Man, it gave us all chills. But what in the world happened to the guy? We heard he was unstable and all, the religious leaders have diagnosed him as a nut! But how do you explain all the good he was doing, after all nuts don’t raise the dead? Oh, that’s easy, he was doing it by the power of satan. Well I guess they were right, after all look at him now, such a pathetic figure. Naked on a cross! All that we expected from you, you could at least have the courtesy of deconstructing in private; I mean really, do we all have to watch this tragic end? Well of course we know the rest of the story, it didn’t actually end tragically. But he couldn’t seem to find help/vindication until after he died, can you wait that long?
(1087) People like stories, there is actually an age old [few centuries] debate on whether or not the historic church got their theology messed up because of missing ‘the story’. In the 18, 1900’s liberal strains of Christian teaching showed how the Hebrew culture was one of narrative, stories. And that as the Gentile church grew and lost part of her Jewish heritage, that they messed up by taking ‘the story’ about God and his people and turned it into systematic theology. That basically the church allowed herself to be influenced by philosophy and intellectualism and they produced creeds and councils and stuff, but lost the romantic nature of Christ and his bride [the church!]. The early church father, Tertullian, said ‘what does Jerusalem have to do with Athens’? Meaning what does philosophy have to do with Christianity. So either way some think we have lost the story. I was watching King of Queens the other day, it’s the episode where Doug [Kevin James] is supposed to attend this overeater’s class. So as he goes to the building where all these 12 step programs are being held, he sees that in his room the snacks are all fruits and carrots and stuff, but he catches a glimpse of a room across the hall and he sees these luscious donuts! So he wanders into the room and begins stacking up for the trip, and as he is about to leave the room the main counselor sees him and introduces himself and all. Doug tries to explain that he’s really not supposed to be in this class [it’s a program for men being beat up by their wives] but the counselor thinks he’s in denial. Sort of like ‘does your wife make you feel unworthy, is that why you eat too much?’ so as he thinks about it for a few minutes, the next shot is him walking back and forth during the meetings, eating the doughnuts and blaming all his problems on his wife ‘she calls me fatty’ and stuff like that. So what was supposed to help him [the 12 step program across the hall] turned out enabling him to eat! So as the weeks pass Carrie [his wife] is so happy about his enthusiastic attitude when that day of the week rolls around, he seems to be enjoying this program more than she thought he would, she gets a little suspicious as he is standing in the doorway getting ready to leave, as she looks at him she notices something; a real tangible difference in him since he’s been attending. She asks ‘Doug, are you getting fatter?’ Of course he’s put on a few pounds as he’s been consuming all the doughnuts. He tries to wiggle out of it, he responds ‘that’s the motto, you will get fatter before you get skinnier’ and he bolts out the door. Well now she has to see what’s been really going on with him, she goes to the building and finds the overeaters class, she asks one of the guys ‘is Doug here?’ and he tells her there is no Doug in this class. So as he is piling up his snack plate with carrots and stuff, she says ‘isn’t this the overeaters class’ and the poor guy gets offended and says ‘no, this is Jenny Craig’ and tells her ‘why do you have to hurt’. So she realizes something’s going on, sure enough she spots her husband at the doughnut bar with the guys who are getting beat up by their wives. The poor guys are dejected, living their lives with the stigma of, well getting beat up by their wives! So she confronts Doug, they get into it. The counselor and all the guys in the class who have been hearing all the stories of how terrible she is, come to his defense. Things get out of hand, she spills the beans on how he always was overweight, it’s not her fault; he leaves and as she is leaving the room she stops at the door for a moment; looks back at the room of dejected men, they look like they have lost all sense of self respect, such timid creatures, and she kind of makes a quick move at them, you know like if you were gonna hit someone, and they all flinch at the same time. She walks away smiling. Well, quite a long story/narrative. What did we learn? That if you are going to an over eaters class, don’t eat the doughnuts for heavens sake! Well, not really. We learned that stories are interesting, they catch peoples attention, and you want to hear ‘the rest of the story’ so to speak. Our lives are stories for people to read, God wants us to be open books as much as possible. This can be a very difficult thing, I mean really, do you want me to know about your personal history? The things you have struggled with in life. God wants us to be more than ‘doctrinal dispensers of truth’ [systematic theologians] now don’t get me wrong, that’s a part of it, but it has to proceed from the story of our lives. Twelve step programs help people because the basic concept is based on Christian principles. One of my main teachings is on what the church is, part of it includes a community of people who are open and honest with each other, who share their struggles with each other, so that’s the basis of the programs. As Christians I think we need to let people into our story, they need to not only hear proofs for Gods existence, or the quoting of bible verses. We need to let people into our stories, live openly and vulnerably before the world. Naked on a Cross, if that’s what it takes.
(1088) still jumping around in the prophets, was surprised to see how many verses I quote during prayer that come from Micah. Just read the famous prophecy about Jesus ‘out of thee Bethlehem, the least of all places, shall come forth one that will rule, have great authority’. The strange thing about the calling and destiny of Jesus was he grew up and spent his whole ministry in a sort of backwoods region of the ancient world. His spoken language [Aramaic] was considered underclass. You see two very distinct types of living in our New Testament; Rome was a strong civic center, an upper-class place where knowledge and politics ruled the day. These outlying areas that Rome conquered and placed leaders over them, these areas were low class places. You see this play out in the gospels, a sort of fishing/agrarian lifestyle, as opposed to Rome and her obvious ruling aura. Paul going thru all these legal loopholes as he defends himself. Appearing before these puppet kings and rulers, going up against the quasi religious authorities that Rome allowed some freedom for the sake of stability in their realm. That’s why you see the religious authorities appealing to Pontius Pilate, he, as Rome’s representative, had the power to execute Jesus, the religious authorities did not. So anyway Jesus starts his ministry in these territories that are basically low class. He gathers around him a hapless bunch of followers, and starts his little ‘movement’. That’s fine, let him humor himself; after all he isn’t the first to claim some type of Messianic title and to think he will challenge society. He does seem to have somewhat of an aura that compels people to listen to him, this irks the religious class ‘why are you listening to him!’ They figure if they ignore him he will go away. His family actually thinks he is becoming unhinged, the type that would need one of those interventions ‘Now Jesus, we love you, we know your into this religious thing and all, that’s fine. But we are now getting a little worried, you seem to think you are on this special mission from God, that you must complete it at all costs’ They feared he was losing his mind! But hey, there is only so much you can offer a person, if they don’t get the help, it is their choice. So Jesus continues riling up the authorities, his silly movement consists of him spending all his time with these low life’s of society. I mean, can’t he see their pulling him down! He has these whole nights where he prays to God, and then these underclass are pulling at him, always needing help! Geez, they are in their circumstances because of their own sins, just let them reap what they sowed. Well don’t worry about it, he will soon fade. He is causing somewhat of a stir with the Roman authorities, they really are not up on all the religious questions that seem to be causing the problems between him and the Jewish religious figures, but the territories are experiencing disharmony, Rome does not like this! So settle it quickly before things get out of hand, these Jews might seem harmless, but they have a history of rebelling against other nations who bring them under tribute, so we need to quell the uprising. So Jesus continues on this somewhat destructive course, I mean even Peter tells him ‘there is no way we are going to let you go to Jerusalem and be killed! Now this thing is getting out of hand, listen to some sense man’ Jesus responds ‘get behind me satan, you are more concerned with the things of men than of God’. Jesus really believed he was on this divine mission, nothing we say to the guy can dissuade him! But really, how much ultimate effect can he have, he is from this low class area, what an ignorant bunch of hopeless slobs! Well the day has come, enough is enough, for some reason the Jewish leaders won’t leave it alone, now they managed to frame him with some trumped up charges and get him before the Roman court. Pilate has a lot on his plate, the leaders at Rome want him to settle this thing, quickly! So he does a brief reading of the charges and sees that this Jesus is accused of claiming to be Gods Son, this sent one from eternity past into this time and place of human history. How could this be, what type of god would predetermine his own Son to arrive in these low class areas, this cant be. Pilate asks the man himself ‘do you really think you are Gods Son? Brother, you better start speaking up for yourself, you don’t realize we are not playing games here, you managed to stir your people up to the point where they are pressuring me to execute you’. Jesus is somewhat different than all the other criminals, he seems to be in control, saying his only crime was speaking the truth. He claimed to be Gods Son, the promised messiah spoken about in the Old Testament prophets. How does he know this, how can he be so sure that this destiny he seems to be fulfilling is really from God? Maybe he’s just misreading the whole thing, sure Micah says God predestined one who will come from this area, but how does he know it’s him? Pilate has a tuff decision to make, as he mulls it over his wife tells him ‘don’t have anything to do with this man, I dreamed a dream, this man is just!’ Wow, my wife never told me anything like this before! I know, I will give the Jews what they want, convict him of the crime and pass the death sentence on him, but there is this tradition they have, during this special religious season [Passover] they have a custom of pardoning one who is going to face death. Surely they will pardon Jesus, the only other guy scheduled for execution is Barrabas, everybody knows he deserves it! The day arrives, Pilate goes thru with the plan and the people holler ‘crucify Jesus, let Barabbas go!’ What! He has really done nothing wrong, I wouldn’t have even passed the sentence if I knew you would actually go thru with the whole thing. He is mad, the Jews tricked him ‘I know, I’ll put this accusation over the cross- THE KING OF THE JEWS, this will stick in their craw!’ he does it, they are infuriated ‘don’t say he is our king! Say he claimed to be our king’ Pilate says ‘what I have written, I have written’. Well this isn’t the end of our story, but I have gone on too long for now. Who would have ever thought this simple carpenter from such an insignificant town could have stirred up so many emotions, man he is carrying this destiny of his thru the lives of many people, he took it all the way to the leaders of the empire for heaven’s sake! Oh well, we tried to help the poor guy, we tried to talk him into dropping this whole purpose and destiny thing. We tried to tell him ‘good, we are happy you are healing and helping people, you managed to get this little following of unlearned men’ [not illiterate, but no higher learning in the whole group, not even Jesus!] but he took the thing too far, he wouldn’t back down. He got way too many people mad, the ruckus made it back to Rome and they did what they thought they needed to do to settle things down, just make it go away. Boy were they wrong.
(1089) it’s a Monday morning right now, last night I had one of those nights where you can’t sleep. I was up until around 2 am, I thought ‘well, maybe I won’t pray the normal Monday intercessory prayer thing’. On Mondays I make it a point to do a consistent prayer time for family, friends, and nations, lost people groups, the persecuted church and many other things. I do this at least three times a week. Usually from around 3:30 -5:15 am. Every morning I spend time with the Lord, if it’s not intercessory prayer, it’s an hour or 2 of praise and meditation. I have often thought there might me something wrong with me, I mean I am still praying for friends from high school, the kids of some of my buddies who have died years ago. And to be regularly praying for nations, lost people groups, the persecuted church; to be doing this, even in the midst of personal turmoil, is simply not normal. I know you will think I’m kidding, but I do have somewhat of a compulsive nature, I think I have inklings of O.C.D. [obsessive compulsive disorder] to be honest about it. You know what also doesn’t help? After finally falling asleep at around 2 or so, I thought ‘well maybe I will miss a day, what harm could it do; after all the Lord is full of mercy, he’s no slave driver!’ Then the first verse I read in Micah was ‘arise, contend thou before the mountains, let the hills hear thy voice!’ [6:1] Gee, thanks a lot. Part of my prayer time actually quotes ‘listen oh mountains and you from afar, the Lord has called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name! I will not fail or be discouraged until I have set justice in the earth, I will call a nation that I do not know, and nations that do not know me will come running to me’ [various collection of verses] I quote this, along with many other verses that I have added to memory over the years. Sounds kind of noble and dramatic, doesn’t it? Hey, I would have settled for ‘now I lay me down to sleep’ but the Lord had other plans.
(1090) this is the second post within a few minutes, I rarely [never?] do this. I just read Micah chapter 6 again, the verse ‘the Lords voice crieth unto the city and the man of wisdom shall see thy name’ 6:9 [or recognize the Lord speaking thru people, and not seeing/hearing mans wisdom] I want to say something to my Pastor friends who have known me and followed our teachings now for a few years. It makes me a little uncomfortable when I see leaders make actual changes because of what they hear me teach. Now, I commend you guys that have done this, some of it is obvious and noble. I just want you guys to know that when you hear something from me that is kind of strong, try not to take it personal, it’s not meant that way. Also, change takes time, I do not expect Pastors/churches to ‘live up to’ any/all the things I feel the Lord is presently communicating to this generation; sometimes he deposits lots of reformation truth into a generation, but this does not mean it is going to be fully implemented in that generation! It’s takes mature leaders to see and function in that reality. It also takes maturity to recognize when God is speaking, when he ‘cries to a city’ it takes men of wisdom to discern what’s from God and what’s proceeding from human intellect.
(1091) it’s funny [or sad?] the other day I told you how when I read Micah chapter 6, the first verse spoke to me. Then recently I have been going thru some things, and this morning the first verse in chapter 7 is ‘WOE UNTO ME’ old brother Micah was definitely a prophet! Let’s do one of those Jeff Foxworthy things, you know ‘you might be a redneck if your front yard looks like a salvage yard’ type stuff. I get amused when brothers/Pastors tell me about their sufferings, you might ask them ‘okay brother, tell me what’s going on?’ and they might say ‘well, my parishioners are gossiping about me’ oh please, this stuff doesn’t even register on the meter! Here's a good way to define it ‘you might be going thru some stuff if people say to you ‘cheer up things can’t be that bad’ and after they get a glimpse of the things, they say ‘you know brother, things can’t get much worse’! Hey, we all need a sense of humor. Or say if your history was one of eating chocolate cakes, and you say ‘I fell off the wagon, I ate too many sweets this month’ of course that would be bad, but the difficulty will be measured by what type of wagon you fell off of! So Peter tells us to rejoice thru suffering, he also tells us that we shouldn’t suffer as evildoers. That is if you’re in prison for murder, sure your gonna suffer, but what the heck do you expect! But Peter also suffered for past sins, things that he did wrong. One of the gospels says right after the Rooster crowed, Jesus looked at him and he went out and ‘wept bitterly’. You see, Peter had a destiny to fulfill. Jesus knew that he had to taste some difficulty in preparation for it. Time was running out, Jesus has been training these guys for three years, he has given them all the great teachings about the kingdom, tried to instill in them a new mindset, showing them that this new movement of his church/kingdom would be lead by people who are like sheep going to the slaughter. These leaders would taste much death in their lives; as a matter of fact these death experiences would be totally necessary for the purposes of God to be fulfilled. But it’s been three years now and Peter is still struggling with pride, trying to create this macho image of himself, in on this great revolutionary movement ‘hey, look at me, the Messiah has come and I am one of the inner circle’. But he saw Jesus lean on John the disciple’s breast at the supper ‘the special disciple who Jesus loved’. Jesus would confide in him that Judas was the betrayer ‘what about me Jesus’ thinks Peter ‘why not let me in on some of the secrets too’? still struggling with self worth. He will see some things, but first he has to face his Cross, his day of failure, the thing that will torture him for the rest of his life ‘How could I have been so stupid! I denied the Lord! My whole purpose for existing, the reason I am here; I have committed acts of betrayal against Jesus and myself!’ Now hang on Peter, this is part of the preparation, be careful to not get too consumed by this failure, it has a purpose ‘what purpose, what good can come out of this whole sordid affair’? Now, there is something else going on down the road, Judas starts feeling guilty too, he is appearing before the religious leaders, he tells them ‘I have betrayed an innocent man, I have stooped very low in my life. Not only do others see me as a failure, the one of whom Jesus said ‘it would have been better if this man were never born’ [the man who can’t escape his own guilt!] but I too see myself as one of little worth’ he tells the leaders ‘here’s the damn money, 30 pieces of silver, please take it back’. They don’t want it either! ‘No, please take it, I’m trying to penalize myself in some way for what I’ve done, you don’t understand, I need you guys to take it, to in some sense absolve me of my guilt’ it was too late, he set the course and could not change the outcome, he tried, but the eternal laws of guilt and reaping were bearing down on him ‘too much to bear! I can’t stand this damn guilt anymore’ he does the tragic deed; he ends it all on some tree. As he hangs himself his ‘bowels’ gush out, his insides were killing him and it just seems fitting that he detached himself from them in his death. He chose wrong, make no mistake about it, this act is never acceptable! Well Peter will go on to be one of the greatest leaders in Gods church, I’m sure he remembered the words of Jesus when he said ‘don’t forget Peter, the least will be the greatest’ Peter will ascend the heights of church leadership; he will be used of God in a great way. History tells us when Nero killed him that he requested to be crucified upside down, he did not feel worthy enough to die like his Lord. Old brother Peter, I guess he never really overcame the guilt of that day. That one damn offense that haunted him thru out his life, this terrible thing allowed him to taste death in such a way that would qualify him for great things. But why couldn’t there have been some other way? who knows, Peter will write to the believers ‘it’s good if a man suffers justly, if he lives with difficulty as an innocent victim’ but he also said ‘let none of you suffer for your own faults and actions. Don’t put yourselves in situations where you will have to live with the penalty of your own guilt, it can be tormenting!’ Peter knew what he was talking about.
(1092) Wasn’t too sure which way to go? Was thinking of the verse ‘for this reason have I brought you to this PLACE [of mourning] so you could see and understand and meditate on the things I am showing you and then you can speak it to my people’ [have no idea where this verse is!] Then started reading Jesus great Sermon on the Mount; he starts [Matt. 5] ‘blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are meek’ these are the ones who will inherit the earth. Just finished an early prayer time, it’s strange but when you pray regularly for nations and regions, in some cosmic sense you are ‘dwelling in the nations’, I mean you can see/sense yourself inheriting the earth! Yesterday I was going to get with the homeless brothers, but I had to run some errands with my daughter so I changed plans. I wound up driving to the gulf, where I live I am surrounded by bays, oceans [Gulf of Mexico] and all sorts of streams. So I spent a few hours under a bridge where you can listen to the cars driving overhead, right next to this channel. My truck radio went out a few weeks back, good! I would have probably had the news on and would have missed an opportunity to meditate. I was thinking about how I always have had the next project, mission, ‘thing to accomplish’ on my mind. I was too consumed with accomplishing some task. No matter what stage of my life, there always seemed to be the never ending thought of ‘what’s next’ and all the baggage that’s comes with it; ‘what will it take to accomplish it, what’s the ten [5] year outlook, who are the key people who will be involved’ [remember- don’t associate with people who will kill your vision!] Jesus is talking to his disciples and he says ‘blessed are those who struggle with stuff, who mourn [go thru deep valleys] these are the ones who inherit’ Jesus style of ministry is so radically different than ours. He had no need to make it to Rome, he was content to give himself away for ‘the least of these’. He invested in people who seemed worthless, people that you would disassociate from ‘look Jesus, we caught this woman in adultery, in the very act!’ [I guess they were voyeurs?] and how does he respond? ‘I don’t condemn you, go and sin no more’ he doesn’t whitewash the offense, chalk it up to some religious system of morality that man has inflicted upon society [Freud’s theory] but he plainly says ‘yes, you have been found out. You have sinned, like every one else on the planet, you have sinned’ this was no secret, she couldn’t hide anymore. Her dark secret has now been exposed, the lifestyle she has struggled with is now in the open for all to see! Not only that, but the long awaited for Messiah, the one who was foretold by the prophets, the holiest man to ever walk the planet! He too has seen my humanity, my utter failure to live up to the moral code. My story is forever recorded in the gospels for heavens sake! [Well, she didn’t now that] All the efforts to cover up, to bide a little time until she could get her act together have now been crushed. Her day of mourning has now arrived. Jesus tells her ‘I do not condemn you, don’t do this again’ Wow! Blessed are those that mourn.
(1093) woke up too early today, around 1 a.m. The first sound I heard was Dick Van Dyke singing ‘put on a happy face’ from some classic movie on the AMC channel. I never really listened to the words before, but he sings ‘don’t use the word tragic/tragedy in your vocabulary’ I must admit I have been using those words a bit too much. It sounded like a Joel Osteen sermon in stereo for heavens sake! I guess the Lord knew I wouldn’t have received it from a prosperity preacher. But how could I brush off Van Dyke? I know ‘who does Van Dyke think he is! Mr. big shot, big screen actor who stooped so low that he made the Dick Van Dyke show, no REAL actor would do a TV series’ yea, that makes me feel better. I was at the homeless hangout the other day [will be there today as well] now there are also a bunch of gang kids who hang out there, in Corpus we have somewhat of a gang problem, kids shooting every week and all, deaths every so often. I was walking with one of the homeless brothers passed a few of them, I mean you can tell by the way they look, I could never wear my pants half way down my backside! What the heck kind of cool look is that, I think it makes you look like an idiot! Well anyway one of them said something as we walked passed, I of course had to stop and give them one of those ‘are you talking to me’ type looks, to be honest I think the kid got a little scared, just being honest. Okay, I never listen to myself on the radio [maybe 5 times total in 13 years] and the other day I put the station on, seeing who’s new in the area and all. Sure enough I hear this brother, can’t really recognize the voice, but he sounds pretty good. It took me a minute to realize it was me! I quickly turned it off. Remember the Jeff Foxworthy thing? You might be going thru some stuff if you hear yourself on the radio and don’t know it’s you. Thought it fit in good here. My wife got an email from an old friend, she lives in Germany with her ‘new’ husband. We were friends with the lady years ago, I was friends with her first husband. She was the secretary at a Baptist church and yes, she ran off with the Pastor! She divorced my friend and married the Pastor. He left his family and they have been together for around 10 years now. I know people are human, they fall into stuff [I really know!] But I can’t see how the ex pastor can try and get things right and stay in the marriage, over the years I have had ups and downs, yes even times where me and my wife were separated but after getting things right, any side relationships had to go! I mean even stuff like ‘maybe God is in this’ being said by the other person [talking years ago by the way!] wouldn’t even register in my mind! I don’t know how pastors/ex pastors can continue in these types of relationships, God forgives, but the relationships just can’t go on like that. And I am not judging, been there done that, just when things are over you have to do your best to make things right. Just read ‘blessed are the pure in heart, they shall see God. Blessed are the merciful, they shall obtain mercy’ I have learned in my life that there are times where I can ‘see’ God. Days when I know if I stay on course I will hear him, I am the type that if I backslid into drugs and bought a bunch of stuff, that I would not be able to keep the stuff overnight, I would have to throw it out. Or if I woke up and thought ‘later on I will mess up, but for now let me do the prayer/teaching thing’ I wouldn’t be able to do it. Now, if later on wound up being bad, that’s another story, but to actually premeditate the thing doesn’t happen with me, I know I ‘cant see God’ when not truly desiring a pure heart! Now, I have had Christian friends who could do stuff like that, i.e.; staying in the new marriage after leaving your former family, I know I could never do this. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are divorced people who move on with their lives and God forgives them, but the above situation is much worse than that. God says ‘if you regard iniquity in your heart, the Lord will not hear you’ to live with the conscious, ongoing acceptance of sin in your life will cut you off from the presence of God! Blessed are the pure [not perfect!] in heart, for these are the ones who get to see God.
(1094) I know I shouldn’t write posts when mad, but I can’t help it! I am on the verge of just deleting the Emergent Village icon from my blog roll. Just listened to an interview by Tony Jones, he’s talking to a Christian minister who wrote a book from the view point of Evolution as fact; now, I know there are many theistic evolutionists [Christians who embrace evolution] and I do understand their arguments, but the tone of this interview just irked me! ‘what’s the psychological reason/problem with believers not accepting it as fact’ [paraphrase]. I don’t want to get into all the scientific reasons that Christians [and many non Christians!] do not accept the theory, but it just seems like Tony Jones has responded to his many critics by taking on a casual persona that allows him to make statements that turn many sincere believers away. Any thinking Christian can easily find evidence against Darwin’s theory; the problem is certainly not a psychological one!
(1095) I had one of those weird prophetic experiences yesterday, I was reviewing a radio tape that I made a while back [6 months to a year?] though I don’t listen to myself on the radio, I review the tape one time before airing, and I will be surprised how many times the thing I just wrote on the blog matches what I said a year ago! I mean the exact words. So yesterday as I am listening to the tape while cleaning the house, I am saying to myself ‘wow, this is exactly what I just taught’ and then on the tape I say ‘you know, sometimes people hear these messages years later and say “wow, that’s exactly what I just went thru”’ weird, isn’t it? Okay, being we have been talking somewhat about Jesus and his movement, let’s do a little about style/procedure. A few weeks back we had a busy day around the mission where I hang out; various Christians/ministers donating time to help out. I met a new brother who introduced himself and we both shared about our various ministries, I told him how I have made many homeless friends and we get together and do stuff. Sometimes we travel to another town and ‘see how the brothers are doing in all the towns where I have preached the gospel’ [Paul does this in the book of Acts] But most of the time we are just friends. During this day as the other Christians were chipping in, fixing things and stuff, my other ‘ministry friend’ kind of wanted to talk ‘ministry’ he saw me sitting with my friends and kind of couldn’t understand what I was doing [just being friends!] sort of like ‘when are you going to do the preaching/teaching thing and then talk ministry?’ He was well meaning, but he just didn’t get the whole point. I do not see/have a ‘ministry’ thing that takes place outside of the confines of simply trying to live out the kingdom of God as a real person with other real people. These people ARE REALLY my friends, I don’t wrap things up and then ‘talk serious ministry’ this is serious ministry! It took some of my preacher friends some time to really see this, sort of like ‘gee, John has some ability to teach and all, if he would only get his act together and start a ‘church/ministry’ he could really be successful’! I have heard/felt this mindset many times. I believe we need to live as real people in society, the great need isn’t for more ‘ministries/businesses/churches’ to stir people up to give more money in order to carry out another endless series of projects! The need is for us to return to the ethos of Jesus as seen in the gospels and try to emulate [by the Spirits power] the things he did and taught. Jesus spent much time among the hopeless; he was teaching and doing good deeds. At the same time you had the religious class of professionals living as some type of upper-class clergy. Jesus style works a lot better.
(1096) THE FINAL DAY these past few weeks we have looked at the circumstances surrounding Jesus and his friends, their struggles and weaknesses. Thought it fitting to do one from the perspective of Jesus himself. Theologians have questioned how much Jesus himself knew of his own purpose and destiny. When he was 5 years old did he fully comprehend the things that awaited him? Of course not, but at the age of 12 he most certainly was seeing the ‘writing on the wall’. His own mother Mary was told early on ‘this child will effect many, nations and people groups will stand or fall based on his life’ oh, and one more thing Mary ‘a sword will pierce thru your own heart also’. Did she reveal this to her son? Did she embrace the fact that she too would experience terrible loss over her involvement in the life of Jesus? The bible says she ‘pondered these things in her heart’ she basically realized that a little more was going on than meets the eye, this strange experience, prophets and religious experiences that are intruding into her average life. Seeming to see future things about her son, things that he wasn’t fully aware of at the time. Oh well, file it away until another day. As Jesus grows in wisdom and stature he begins to grasp more fully the day that awaits him, he sees the prophetic things that surround him, things that were unexplainable, except for the fact that God was showing him what must happen next. Is he wondering somewhat? He goes out to his cousin John at the age of 30, John says ‘behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ he tells Jesus ‘I am not worthy to fulfill this task, I am not worthy to even untie your shoes!’ Now steady John, I know this seems to be going too far, you being the one prophesied by Malachi, the ‘Elijah to come’ but I have to deal with a much heavier matter, you said it right when you just called me ‘Gods Lamb’ I will fulfill my destiny in a way that my closest friends don’t understand yet. Some of them are very close to me, ‘swords’ will pierce thru their hearts. They do not fully see the bigger purpose, their attachment to me was meant for a higher purpose, my father knew that to get their attention they would need to be involved with me in some way, then when my destiny is complete, they will forever have been effected. John baptizes his cousin and from the sky a voice says ‘this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased’. Jesus knew the course by now, too many signs for all of this to be some type of coincidence. But what about my friends father? My disciples, people who have become emotionally attached in some way? The recent discussions over the DaVinci code and stuff like that have caused many to wonder about Jesus’ ‘love life’. Was Mary [the female follower] possibly more than a friend? [By the way, the answer is NO!] But people have asked. The Catholic Church has changed it’s stance on the traditional belief that Mary Magdalene was the same woman that Jesus cast 7 unclean spirits out of, the prostitute. But whether she was that Mary or not, we don’t know. But surely she must have been affected by this whole scenario. This person who accepted her fully, he truly did love her, but not in the way normal people would define it, but yet in a greater way! It’s hard to explain, he knew her brief attachment to him would end with a sword piercing thru her soul as well. But what could he do? This was part of the destiny he now fully understood, his friends can’t really see it all yet, they are being drawn into this drama by events that seemed to be an accident, Jesus knew better. As the tragic day draws near, though it will end great in the victory of mans redemption, yet tragic in the sense that he could not really live a normal life with his good friends ‘attending the school reunion’ are you kidding! I am about to fulfill a destiny that will impact the world! No time for that sort of stuff. Now we have already covered the emotions of Judas, Peter and others. Is Mary [the disciple] thinking ‘who knows, maybe Jesus will marry me? After all it is a custom for many of the religious leaders of the day’ was she hoping for more than his destiny would allow? He realizes that he has brought these friends along for a ride that they didn’t fully see yet, but when it’s all over it will have turned out all right, but for now they will sacrifice the normal pleasures of life. Jesus has now spent 33 years contemplating the big day, he now fully grasps what it’s all about, no more possibility of persuading him to not go thru with it. Sure, his friends will try ‘God forbid that you even have the thought of going to Jerusalem to die! Why are you even having these thoughts’? Peter felt responsible in some way to help his friend out, to intervene in any way he could. Jesus was determined; there was no stopping him now. Oh well, let the chips fall, we did all we could do. He begins to agonize over the actual event itself, wondering if there might be some other way. Mary [his mother and the disciple] was surely praying for it, they hoped with all of their hearts for another end, they have prayed and asked God ‘please help him, we love him so much, please let him live!’ Jesus is very tired now, it’s been quite a long road to this point, he now fully grasps what’s going to happen, he hoped he could have handled it a little better. He doesn’t want to show weakness right now, but he is fully man and fully God. The man says ‘Father, I know we have come to this predetermined place. My mother heard about it from the prophet at my birth, I realize that I have come for a much greater purpose, but PLEASE, PLEASE listen to me, if it’s possible, let me not go thru with this. If there is another way, please lets do it that way’. He knows deep down inside that he shouldn’t be asking this, he prepared himself mentally for this day for quite some time now, but a big part of ‘this day’ would be his struggle, his inner turmoil. His friends will one day read what went on behind the scenes, they will get a glimpse of the intensity of the struggle; they will see why he seemed so intense at times, things that they didn’t really know about, but the agony was part of the whole story. He will sweat drops of blood; the turmoil seems too much to bear. Sure, those around him would taste part of it, but they would have no idea how much it was effecting him, he was the target. He comes back to his disciples, they are sleeping! ‘Didn’t I ask you to pray? I really need you guys right now, please don’t give up on me now!’ they were dumbfounded ‘why is he so upset?’ they weren’t seeing it from his perspective. ‘It is enough, I am now going to be given to sinful men, they will do to me as they will’. Jesus once said ‘when the salt looses it’s flavor, it is good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under men's feet’. The three year ministry of Jesus had lots of flavor, many who followed his calling were really blessed, I mean no one could teach like him! Plus he really did do a lot of good, lives were touched for ever, but things are now wrapping up with him, his friends didn’t turn out as good as he had hoped, they are denying him left and right! The flavor is being lost, he is about to be cast out and trodden under men’s feet! His long awaited for day has arrived, the day he looked forward to ‘for this purpose was I born!’ he would say, but yet he was in agony, you could almost taste it! So here we go Jesus, the time has come, any last words ‘You will see me coming in the power and glory of my fathers kingdom, do what you have to do’. Wow, we never had a final statement like that! They scourge him, a brutal act of whipping a person until his flesh falls off of his bones, ‘some king’ quick lets cover his face with this bag ‘Whack’ they beat the hell out of him ‘prophesy now Jesus, who hit you’. Well let’s nail the prophet to the tree. He is suspended between heaven and earth, he looks down. His mother is there, his poor mom. She somehow knew this day was coming, she hoped it could have been avoided, but it’s here. She remembers the prophecy from years ago ‘a sword will go thru your soul Mary’ the sword has penetrated. The other Mary now knows ‘it will never be! I had hoped that maybe this person who loved me more than anyone would be mine alone’ but he was given to the world, Mary will never be the same. Jesus is determined, it’s gone too far now, his friends are tasting death themselves. He mentally knew what the Cross would entail, being forsaken by God for the sins of men. A feeling of ‘forsaken-ness’ that no other person would ever be able to comprehend, though he intellectually knew it, yet he still had never really tasted it. No man ever has. What’s it feel like Jesus, if your who you said you were, come down and we will believe. They put a sponge on a stick with ‘vinegar and gall’ actually an act of mercy from his executioners, they had experience with others who have died this way, right at around this point they all drink the gall, it was a painkiller of sorts, helps you thru the pain- Mick Jaggers ‘mothers little helper’. He refuses ‘no, I'll drink in the pain’ seems a little self destructive? He cries something that is misunderstood, they think he’s calling for Elijah, but his words are garbled, he is unrecognizable for heavens sake, a truly tortured man! He was once again calling to his God. It all seems too much, way too much intensity for such a short life. He had his struggles, don’t get me wrong, HE NEVER SINNED, but did go thru stuff. We heard lots of rumors about him, but now this day, this tragic day has arrived. Of course we know it was really a great victory, but tell that to the pitiful figure on the Cross as he screams ‘Oh my God, why have you forsaken me like this’ and dies.
(1097) Okay, lets do one on apologetics, the last few posts drained me too much! During the time of the Reformation, Enlightenment and scientific revolution [15-1700’s] you had people dealing with the reality that many of the former institutions that they trusted in [Catholic Church] were being challenged at the core. Though the scientific method was introduced by the church, yet as time advanced many would use science as an excuse to challenge the existence of God. As certain philosophers grappled with the effect that this would have on society [Immanuel Kant] they developed belief systems to explain the necessity of some type of belief in a moral higher power, versus the other extreme which is defined as Nihilism. That is the basic belief that nothing really has meaning at all, as the rock group Kansas put it ‘all we are is dust in the wind’ [p.s. try not to listen to this song if your feeling depressed!] Those who advocated Nihilism [Niestche] still had to explain away the reality of this almost universal belief in God. Where does it come from? Why do people gravitate towards this belief? For the most part the atheistic philosophers said it was born out of this innate desire of man to want more than Nihilism, basically man could not accept the reality that he came from nothing and was heading nowhere, so that’s why he came up with God and religion. Now it was important for the atheistic philosopher to come up with some answer to the dilemma, and this was basically it. What's the problem with this answer? The majority view of God [Christian, Jew, Muslim] is a view that God is this all-powerful being who knows all things. He also has this moral code that if broken demands strict punishment, and man in his humanity has a really difficult time living up to this code [of course Christians solve this problem thru the Cross!] and any man who lives his life as a lawbreaker will not be able to escape this all knowing judge who has all power to carry out all justice for all men. In short, if man developed a god for psychological reasons, as some type of cosmic crutch to help him thru his meaningless existence, for heavens sake it wouldn’t be this one! Thus the explanation that the atheistic philosopher gave didn’t really solve the problem. Now Kant rejected natural theology, he did not believe the arguments used to prove the existence of God from natural means were valid [Anselm, Augustine, Aquinas] but he was accused of driving God out of the front door and letting him in thru the back. Kant said in order for man to have rule and order, civil society, that you would need some basic things. Man would have to have some type of moral code to live by, he would also have to be assured that those who broke it would have to pay some type of penalty [in the after life as well as now]. In order for a just future judgment you would need an all knowing judge who you couldn’t slip something by, he had to be just, not one you could bribe! He would also have to be all powerful, if by chance he couldn’t execute the judgment then crime would still prevail. Kant called this basic moral requirement ‘ought ness’ that is the things that all people ‘ought to do’ the moral code implanted in man. Kant recognized the danger of Nihilism, if man had no outside moral agent to whom he was accountable to, then civil society would eventually be lost. So you now see the problem with the period of human history where men went thru a revolutionary stage. As they tried to cast off the church and God, they also realized that these things provided the very foundation of civil society. If Nihilism won out, society would eventually collapse.
(1098) been reading a little in Matthew, lets look at chapter 4. After Jesus fasts for 40 days and goes thru the temptation, he ‘re-locates’ he hears that John is in jail and leaves Nazareth and goes to Galilee. Now in another gospel account we read how the imprisonment of John upset Jesus. John’s course is already fixed, he is going to die. Jesus knows this. Jesus also realizes that these things are happening to John as a result of his calling and relationship with Jesus. John actually sends a note to Jesus while in jail, he asks ‘are you the messiah that was to come, or should we look for another?’ Some feel John was doubting, others think he was saying ‘Geez, I am your cousin for heavens sake! Don’t you remember the day I baptized you? Even when Aunt Elisabeth, my mother, saw Mary when they were both pregnant with us, the story goes I ‘leaped’ in my mom’s womb. What’s going on FRIEND, cant you get me out?’ So it’s possible that Jesus was having a hard time not intervening for John. Maybe Jesus was thinking ‘John, I want to help you more than you know. For heavens sake I don’t want you to die! But some day you will go down in history for fulfilling this purpose. I too will die soon as well, you must foreshadow my death as the forerunner, the one prophesied to come and prepare my way. Its hard for me to let this happen, it’s part of my Cross too’. Now Jesus enters a new phase of his ministry, he begins teaching and gaining a crowd, the bible says ‘his fame went all thru out Syria’ and the last verse of chapter four says he gained a following that extended to 5 different regions/cities. God expanded Jesus’ borders and influence thru great difficulty. He just went thru a great test and the realization that he was about to lose a close ally in John. Certain sign posts on the journey are beginning to happen, and God is increasing his influence thru it all. I want to encourage you today, you might have just gone thru [or going thru!] some stuff, be aware that God might be expanding your influence, he might be positioning you for the next step. When God told Moses ‘my name is I AM’ God was saying ‘I am the one who is here in the present moment’ can you ‘see’ God from where you are at right now ‘in the present moment’ if you will? Yes, you might ‘lose a John’ someone that has been with you for quite some time, a person who identified and saw things like you, but we all eventually walk the road alone, doing what we know needs to be done because it’s our purpose. God told Abraham ‘I called you when you were by yourself, no one else was around, I made you into this great nation and people. Don’t forget your beginnings’ it’s difficult to lose those close friendships, it feels like we lost part of us. But God says ‘I AM present’.
(1099) in the temptation of Jesus, he told satan ‘man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God’ proceedeth seems to indicate an ongoing act, that God is ‘still speaking' if you will. Now, as believers we understand that this does not mean God is giving more scripture, the canon [bible] is complete. But this does mean that God is the I AM, that is he reveals himself in the moment, we live daily by Gods directions and voice [not audible]. The word we use to define the nature of our bible is ‘inspiration’ it comes from the verse where Paul says to Timothy ‘all scripture is given by inspiration from God’. Some scholars feel a better translation would read ‘expiration’ not meaning it has expired/died! But that the actual meaning is ‘God breathed’ and it has the connotation of God breathing out his life/word [like when he created man, he breathed into man and man became a living soul] and the writers of scripture spoke out that which God breathed in. I like that, I feel this is the heart of all true teaching/preaching, it needs the element of being extemporaneous, a spur of the moment type element. Of course this doesn’t mean not to study, Paul also told Timothy to study to show himself approved, but we need to embrace the ‘I AM-ness’ of God. We need to live our lives based out of him being the source. Jesus also said in John’s gospel ‘my meat is to do the will of him that sent me’ the thing that sustained him was living out the Divine plan. These past few weeks I have tried to re-think some things, understanding that I need to wait on God a bit more [okay, a lot more!]. Sometimes as I review my mission statement I will hear ‘John, if you never made another radio message, or wrote another blog entry- there is still enough in storehouse to complete the job’. Sort of like learning to rest and understand that I don’t have to always be in ‘production mode’. I do have to struggle at times to enter into this rest, this idea of ‘standing still, and seeing the salvation of the Lord’ one translation says ‘you don’t have to do anything, God will fight for you’. I have a verse written down in my mission statement, it says ‘your warfare is accomplished, your iniquity is forgiven. Now is the judgment of this world, now is the prince of this world cast out’ it is a compilation of various verses, it grounds me in grace when I meditate on it. What do you ‘feel’ like today? Are you struggling with acceptance, wanting people to approve of you? Are you trying to earn Gods acceptance by what you do? Even in ministry things? Jesus said man lives by Gods breathed out word, his daily, active revealing of himself and his purpose to you thru an intimate fellowship with him. It’s hard to hear him if your always building stuff, the noise of construction drowns him out!
(1100) Yesterday I went to my P.O. box and had a bunch of mail. My prosperity friend wrote again, he writes every so often. He’s the older brother I mentioned before, kind of ‘corrects’ me every now and then, recently he has simply thanked me for the messages [long letters!] I also had a package from Jackson, Mississippi. It was a book by a brother who emailed me about a month ago. He is a reformed elder [minister] and must have found out about my site. He kindly asked if I would review a book he wrote last year. I really don’t have time to do a full book review; but Jack, if your reading this here are a few comments. I read the book yesterday, the title is ‘Corinthian elders’ by Jack Fortenberry, put out by bridgepoint publishing co. Brandon MS. I liked and agreed with 90% of the book, much like the themes I teach on organic church life. Jack lays out a good case for unpaid elders, but also makes the case for ‘paid’ apostles [not salary, just worthy of the hire type thing] I have heard and am familiar with this distinction. I believe the New Testament leaves room for the monetary support of elders/leaders, whether apostles, pastors or whomever. I also believe strongly in the ‘do it at your own expense’ mentality of Paul [I receive no money, ever!] But this would be about the only disagreement I would have. I do recommend the book to our readers. Okay, just read a little more from Matthew, Jesus healing and doing good, teaching in ‘their’ synagogues and going thru the cities and villages. I just like his style! Freewheeling, couldn’t care less about what the religious class were saying, his disciples said once ‘don’t you know your offending the leaders’? He said every plant that his Father didn’t plant would be rooted up. He had no time to present a phony image of himself to people, he knew he was losing support amongst the religious class, but he also knew that system was on it’s last leg [Judaism apart from Christ] so he said ‘let them be offended, who cares!’ Ah, what a preacher. The blind men come, he says ‘do you really believe I can do this’? He heals them, but he wanted to know that they were becoming convinced. They had to be willing to go out on a limb for him. After all, Jesus healed people who did not fully believe in him before. They asked once ‘who healed you’ and the man said ‘I don’t know, all I know is I was once blind but now I can see’ [Johns gospel] but this time it’s different ‘do you believe or not’! It was time to be willing to lay it on the line for Jesus. ‘Yes, we have been sick for too long, we need help! To hell with our damn pride, please help us’! Okay, they walked away seeing. No one did this stuff like Jesus! How could you not hear his teaching, the religious leaders were telling the people ‘he doesn’t fit our mold, stop listening to him!’ They were being eaten up by jealousy, the same thing that haunted Cain. He killed his brother Abel because his brothers works were accepted, his weren’t. The religious leaders could not stand the fact that Jesus was being accepted by the common folk, he was moving in on their place of authority. They fed off of the limelight, the prestige of position. Jesus would have none of it, he tells the people he’s healing ‘Don’t spread the word about this, okay’ and sure enough they go out and tell everybody! Jesus fame spread abroad thru the whole country, but he was heading to the Cross for heavens sake! No time to gloat in the honor of men. Yes Jesus was truly one of a kind, people were fascinated by him ‘isn’t he the carpenters son? Isn’t this the kid we played stick ball in the street with’? They couldn’t connect this Divine destiny with the boy they grew up with, he had them all wondering. But don’t forget, he told Peter and Andrew ‘follow me guys, I will teach you how to catch men’. He knew the way to ‘catch them’ wasn’t the route of the religious class, they just spouted their doctrinal positions all day long, told the people how bad they were, the average folk saw right thru the hypocrisy. Jesus had a different style, it would take him all the way to Golgotha, the ‘place of the skull’ [death].
(1101) Jesus was telling the disciples that they were going to go thru some stuff ‘you think that I am come to bring peace? No, but a sword! Families will be divided, they will deliver each other up to death!’ he said we would be brought before kings and governors for his sake. How? By some type of presidential invitation to give the inaugural prayer? I don’t think so! We would be brought before authorities as a witness, just like Peter said, that Jesus gave a good testimony before Pilate, he certainly wasn’t on the way to a prayer breakfast! So Jesus is preparing his men, he is telling them that they too will have cross’s to bear, they will suffer and sacrifice for the greater purpose, they will die to their own desires and dreams, it’s not about us or what we can get or accomplish in life. This is what’s so insidious about the American gospel, it's basically a cross-less message. We go to church and live our lives for self attainment ‘what can I get out of this’ type of mentality, Jesus told us those who seek to save/preserve their lives will lose them. Yet the American church is consumed with building our portfolios for heavens sake! We need to hear Jesus words, there most definitely will be times of difficulty and suffering for a higher purpose, don’t try and get around the cross [your weaknesses] don’t cover them up [cross’s entail public humiliation] simply recognize the reality of them being part of the Christian life, when you get to the point where you can embrace it, allow it to take it’s full course, full impact if you will, then you can embrace the death experience and come out on the other side. That’s the only place where truth and life exist, every thing ‘pre-cross’ is simply mans agenda.
(1102) FOOTBALL JIM- I have never written about ‘football Jim’ before, he is one of the first ‘street people’ I met around 15 years ago. Jim is in his 70’s and doesn’t really qualify as homeless. He lives on social security and shares a small apt. with his brother. He walks around a lot, goes to the mission to eat the meals and I have taken Jim out to eat over the years. Jims the type that doesn’t really want to ‘talk religion’ that’s fine, I actually hardly talk it myself! A few weeks back I heard he was in the hospital with walking pneumonia [or should I say ammonia?] I asked a lady friend of his where he was at and she told me. Then yesterday I saw his lady friend and asked how he was doing and she said he’s out and will be here soon. So when he showed up I asked how he was feeling and all, he’s doing fine. I told him I did ask about him and had him in my prayers. As the serving time comes for the meals I just sit out front [where you see me sitting in my photo] and read or meet new friends. Jim came out and sat with me a little, told me how he heard some people didn’t ask about him and all, I could tell he was keeping score, asking his lady friend ‘did anybody ask about me?’ and stuff. He must have heard that I did ask. Jim sat with me for a few minutes, told me why he doesn’t go to the other free meals that a Pastor friend of mine does twice a week. He said he doesn't like it when people offer food but require you to hear preaching. He then told me that even though he doesn’t go to church that he does believe in the Lord, that when Jesus was on the Cross he told the thief ‘today you will be with me in paradise’. I told Jim it’s true, that all who believe and accept the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus will go to heaven. I didn’t want to really go any further, Jims been around for many years, he’s heard it all. But I found it interesting that after 15 years of Jim knowing that I was somewhat of a ‘street preacher’ that he shared this story with me. It meant a lot to him to know that I simply asked about him when he was sick, somehow this broke a barrier and Jim talked ‘religion’ for the first time in 15 years. Funny thing isn’t it?
(1103) A few posts back I discussed John the Baptist, just read Matthew 11 and this is the chapter where Jesus says much about John. Now John was in jail and he sends the messengers to Jesus asking if he is the Messiah or not. I explained this a few days back and won’t do it again here. But Jesus begins telling the people that John was the one the prophet Malachi spoke of ‘God will send the messenger Elijah before the Messiah; he will prepare things for me’ John was also called ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness’. Jesus says to the people ‘what did you go to see? When you went to hear John in the desert, were you finding a reed shaken with the wind [a wishy washy pleaser of men] or did you expect someone in a three piece suit?’ John basically ran rough shod over the entire image of sophistication and affluence, yes he was rough and looked a little scraggly [leather loin cloth and eating locusts!] didn’t dress the part, that’s for sure! Then Jesus gave a description of the day, he said they were like kids in the market place saying ‘we sang for you and you didn’t dance, we mourned for you and you didn’t cry’ he was telling them that they expected performance, they wanted to illicit a response from those who were supposed to be teachers of the law. He said they were never satisfied, they complained that John didn’t eat regularly and must be demon possessed. Then they accused Jesus of eating too much! Ah, there was just no pleasing this bunch. Reminds me of the political world of our day. A few things; these last few weeks I have tried to share the story of Jesus and his disciples. The feelings they were experiencing and the things they had to deal with. In the case of John the Baptist Jesus said he was the specific person spoken about in the Old Testament, as we identify and see ourselves in these stories, we should NEVER begin viewing ourselves as the actual persons spoken about in the stories! For instance, many have read revelation chapter 11 and began seeing themselves as the actual witnesses spoken about, the ‘two witnesses’ thing. Many have become cult leaders by doing this! From my part of the world David Koresh did this in Waco. But the Muenster prophets did this 500 years ago during the Reformation, so the tendency to begin seeing yourself as actual biblical characters ought to be rejected! But you say ‘well brother, how do you know I’m not one of the two witnesses spoken about in revelation’. The reason I know is because I’m the other one and your not one of them! ONLY A JOKE!! Take my word for it, none of us are the two witnesses in Revelation 11. Just needed to make sure everyone stays on track here. Now back to John [the Baptist!] he challenged the people to ‘repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ in the message bible it says ‘change the way you think and act, because Gods kingdom is here now’. Yes, this does include turning away from sin, but it also means we need to look at things from a different view. Much of what I have written on the nature of the church would fit in here. As people see the church for what she really is [community of people] they will act differently, their priorities will change. I took a few homeless brothers to a park/lake area in my town and we had a good fellowship. These guys are smart! One was a realtor in San Antonio for many years, the other is like a scholar of sorts. I mean I mentioned the philosopher Immanuel Kant and my friend read and was aware of his system of belief! As we talked we shared a little about the wrong priorities of much of modern day church. My one friend [the realtor] said if the church was really doing it’s job in reaching out to the poor and oppressed, then there would be no need for the mission out post that we meet at. He understood how so much of modern church spends millions on facilities and salaries and stuff, yet the lost world is really not being touched in a real way. The overall discussion was good, these guys knew their stuff. The lake area we were at is off the beaten path, hidden inside some nice subdivision. We were surrounded by nice expensive homes, I’m sure many sincere believers were in them at the time, others at work trying to make a future for themselves. The collective offerings given by all the residents on any given Sunday is probably in the thousands, yet right outside their windows were a few homeless Christian brothers. If I weren’t with them they probably would have had the cops come and harass them. John was preaching in the wilderness telling the people ‘change the way you think and act, God’s kingdom is here right now’ I think John knew what he was talking about.
(1104) was watching one of those ‘prophecy conference’ things last night, you know, the brothers with the charts on the wall and all. Kind of funny, as they were being introduced the moderator shared their backgrounds ‘he belongs to the pre-trib study group for advanced stuff’ and then mentions the books and all the brothers wrote. ‘In the 1990’s he wrote the best seller THE END IS NOW UPON US, THERE IS NO TIME LEFT!’ [something to that effect] it does seem strange that it is now 2009 and he’s still around to talk about it! Don’t get me wrong, these are all fine believers, it’s just we need to take a second look at the persona/image that we are projecting out to society at large. As I have been reading the gospels I like the mindset of Jesus ‘the Kingdom of God is now here/coming’ to be sure the historic church has had battles over these concepts, and I don't want to re-do it all here, you can read more on it under my end times section. But I want to look at the scope of Jesus teaching/outreach ‘ministry’. Even though he limits himself physically to a small region of the world, he had no desire to travel the globe, but yet he sees his purpose thru a much broader paradigm ‘the kingdom of God is here!’ How could such a limited charitable ministry make such bold claims? He was giving himself for ‘the least of these’ and the Father would recompense him for it ‘the gentiles shall come to your light, kings and nations shall be influenced by you’ declared the prophets. Now, in the current day we often see ‘ministry’ as going to a town/area and establishing some type of meeting environment where people will attend every week and hear preaching. While this is okay to a degree, it is fundamentally disconnected from the kingdom mindset of Jesus. He believed that he was starting a word-wide movement that would shake the foundations of all mankind! Quite a bold mission statement from such a seemingly insignificant life ‘Come on Jesus, you have never even studied in the upper-class schools of the day’ but that didn’t stop him. These followers of his are not the primary focus of his calling; understand that in today’s ‘church mindset’ everything is focused on getting so many people to attend/join/partner up [money!] we measure our self worth by these things. Jesus told us ‘cast the seed on the ground; sure some will be eaten by birds, others will spring up quickly and have no root. But some will take root, these will change the world!’ He didn’t spend a whole lotta time trying to convince the unproductive seed/plants to ‘re-dedicate’ give it one more shot ‘please attend my meetings’ type of a thing, he had no time for that sort of silly stuff, he was changing the world for heavens sake! I want to challenge you today, God does have a great purpose and destiny for you, you do not exist simply for the purpose of helping people ‘get saved’ while the rest of the planet goes to hell in a hand basket! Jesus started a world wide revolutionary movement that has competed with all the major world philosophies of the last 2 thousand years, the church has been the greatest influence in society for good, more than any other single institution [despite what Christopher Hitchens says!] we are truly the people of God. See yourself as a citizen of this movement, as Christians we are members of the city that is set on a hill; our purpose isn’t just to ‘be the city’ but it is to shine to all of those that see us on the hill and affect the planet for good. It’s time to tear down the silly prophecy charts and get to business, don't you think?
(1105) Isaiah says ‘before you call/ask I will answer’. Have you ever had your prayers answered before you called? Here in my office I have these maps all over the place; Texas maps, U.S. ones and world maps. I recently felt like I should pray for the Lord to expand us on the world map. I picked India and simply began praying for India. I mark off the countries/nations when they contact me and I can see the progress as time goes by. I mean I was believing for India! ‘Lord, let me mark off the country, I know I will mark it soon!’ Then as I was updating the ‘Texas/global’ section of the blog, I realized that I have had India on there all along. They contacted me a while back and I simply forgot! They were on the blog, but not on the maps. So now I marked them on the map, they weren’t there before, I trusted they would be there soon, does this qualify for an answer to prayer? Yes. God said he would answer before we ask, he simply gave me the exact answer to this payer before I asked, strange isn’t it? Jesus tells his disciples ‘you guys are seeing and hearing things that many prophets and holy men have desired to see and hear, and have not’. As Jesus was teaching the terms used to describe the responses from the people are ‘astonished at this teaching’ ‘where did he get this wisdom from’ ‘he teaches as one who has authority, not like the regular preachers’ it was obvious that when you heard him there was something more going on than just the dispensing of knowledge. Jesus was fulfilling a divine destiny that would impact the world, those listening were just experiencing the tail end of the great drama, he wasn’t doing these things to gain a audience for heavens sake! He was simply fulfilling destiny; the audience came along for the ride. Scripture says ‘the people who sat in darkness saw great light’ the confluence of events in Jesus’ life allowed people who would normally be in no position to hear good teaching, to hear it. These people would benefit directly from the destiny of Jesus. In 1st century Rome there was a profession called ‘rhetoric’ if you lived in an influential cosmopolitan city [Rome, Corinth, etc.] you had the benefit of availing yourself of higher learning. Sort of like saying ‘I went to M.I.T.’ or Harvard, but in the lower class areas of Jesus ministry these things were not readily available. The Old Testament prophets said that ‘those who sat in darkness [these areas that had no real opportunity for improvement] would see great light’. God permitted the ministry of Jesus to bring ‘higher education’ to those who normally would not be able to access it. Jesus said ‘many prophets and holy men wish they were seeing the things that you are now seeing, but have never seen them’. God reveals things ‘to babes’ the humble class, so they might confound the wise! [Corinthians]
(1106) been reading some of the parables, I have already covered them in the past and don’t really want to do them again. But do want to share a few thoughts; recently I have struggled with regretting certain words and things that I have said; the book of James says ‘in many ways we all offend others, if we learn not to offend with our words we are mature’ so anyway mistakes were made. But as I read the parables of the sower [planter of seeds] and the man who planted seed in the ground [2 separate parables in Matthew 13] I liked the idea that only 1/4th of what you ever say makes it! I know I’m taking it out of context, but it spoke to me. The birds eat some seeds [words we plant] thorns and weeds kill others, and the cares of the world creep in and people forget/forgive the past. In the parable of the guy who planted good seed, while he slept an enemy came and planted tares [weeds]. His men come and say ‘do you want us to go and root up the weeds’? And the owner says no, let them grow together until the harvest; because if you try and undo the mistakes you might affect some of the good stuff as well! Sort of like some of the people we offend have also learned some good things as well, and if you try too hard to make things right the end result could be worse. So I felt the lord spoke to me thru these things. Of course Jesus explains the parable to the guys, he tells them the field is the world [not the church!] and in the world you have good seeds/plants [Gods people] and bad seed [unbelievers]. I find it interesting that the servants wanted to tear out the weeds so they wouldn’t effect the good plants [they were members of the Moral Majority- you know the whole culture war thing!] But the owner [God-Jesus] says ‘leave them alone!’ let them both grow together until the harvest. Leave them alone! Don’t you understand if we allow gay marriage it will be the ruin of society!! Jesus says ‘leave them be’. At the end of the world [age] he will send forth his messengers [angels- or some translate ‘messengers’ as us! Christians] and they will separate the good stuff from the bad, he says the angels will ‘remove the bad weeds from my Fathers kingdom’ and the good stuff gets to say. What, a reverse Rapture? Yup. We see a redemptive purpose for the planet in these teachings, Jesus doesn’t take away the church and let the world [earth] go to hell in a hand basket, he takes away the bad stuff and calls the world his father’s kingdom! I guess he was one of those progressive types, always worrying about the environment and stuff? All kidding aside, God has a plan and purpose for society and the world, it is redemptive in nature [Romans 8] we need to avoid the ‘culture warrior’ mindset that is always looking to pull the weeds out of society, they wont hurt you! Jesus said so. And as we ‘re-think’ our purpose and place in the world, lets also hope that the bad seeds we have planted will soon be forgotten.
(1107) let’s teach a little today. Recently I have been listening to lectures on Philosophy; they got into the modernist/liberal movement that took place in the 19th/20th centuries, the higher criticism that was taught mainly in the Christian universities in Germany. This view tried to ‘modernize’ the bible and make it more compatible to modern man, though these brothers meant well, they for the most part would come to reject the historic truths of the faith, including the bodily resurrection of Christ. But you had others who were not quite that extreme. The famous theologians Karl Barth and Emil Brunner taught that it was possible for Jesus, in his human nature, to make mistakes! Why? Jewish tradition attributes the first five books of the bible [Pentateuch- Greek word meaning ‘5 scrolls’, Torah in Hebrew, meaning Law] as being written by Moses. Later on certain scholars would challenge that assumption [after all Moses didn’t sign the books!] and reject the Jewish tradition. Is that a problem? Somewhat. Jesus himself speaks of the books as being from Moses, he often says ‘Moses said to you this’ and he is quoting the Torah. So now we have a problem. Barth and Brunner reconciled this by saying Jesus was simply speaking out of the tradition of the time, most Jews believed the books were written by Moses, Jesus in his humanity would have no way of knowing who wrote them, so he attributed them to Moses as well. Now this is a problem, theologically speaking. Barth and Brunner used a classic belief of historic Christianity to back up their idea; the early church councils had said that the human and divine natures of Jesus were separate and that they did not share each others attributes. The example would be when Jesus was asked about his coming and he said ‘no man knows, not even the Son, only God’ so Barth was on some good grounding for his idea. The Catholic Church would come to reject the division between the human and divine natures of Jesus. Why? For theological reasons, the Mass teaches that the physical body of Jesus is actually present in all Catholic churches at the same time. The only way this could happen is if the Divine attribute of omni-presence was shared with Jesus’ physical nature. St. Thomas Aquinas would call this ‘the communication of attributes’. So anyway the liberal scholars tried to reconcile so called ‘modern historical truth’ with scripture. I personally do not accept the theory that Jesus might have made a mistake in his teaching, this would verge on the questioning of his sinless perfection and challenge his requirement to die for mans sins! During the time of the higher critics an interesting thing happened, you had the industrial revolution take place. Men began laying rail road tracks, digging up the earth for commercial purposes. And what did they ‘accidentally’ find? A ton of evidence backing up the historical claims of scripture! The very things the critics were doubting! This was the era of Archaeology; the historians would find evidence backing up the historical accuracy of scripture. Many critics doubted the New Testament [and Old] documents, they said the names of political rulers of certain districts were false. When Luke records things in Acts they said there was no proof of Luke's accuracy. All this changed thru the science of archeology. As a matter of fact the historical accuracy of Luke [Acts] is now said to have been at the highest of levels! In the Popes recent book ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ he critiques the historical method [not the true historical findings, but the liberal trends coming from the universities] and warns that if your view of Jesus devolves into this forensic examining of him thru an historical lens only, then you run the risk of missing out on a true devotional experience with Jesus as Lord and savior. I agree. One time the religious leaders said to Jesus ‘tell these people to stop praising you’ and he said if they stopped testifying to who he was, that the ‘rocks’ would cry out. I think they have. [Rocks- archaeology, get it?]
(1108) got up early today, did one of those 2-5am prayer things, happens every now and then. Here in my office I can see my old sea bag from the Navy, I still have it! I remember getting it around 30 years ago in Great Lakes IL. My boot camp city, I actually live right next to the base in Corpus Christi, the spot where they kicked me out 20 something years ago! Though I was stationed in Kingsville, I attended my ‘captains mast’ [court thing] in Corpus. It reminds me of a funny story, one of the guys went to his hearing and the judge says ‘salute’ so he puts his hand up and salutes, then the judge says ‘to’ which means put your hand down. Instead, he saluted with the second hand! [two- get it?] and we are the guys protecting you! Okay, I was thinking of sharing the verse where Jesus says ‘every scribe taught about the kingdom brings forth both new and old things from his treasure [teaching]’. Over the years I have noticed the different dynamics at work amongst various strains of Christianity. The danger with the strong independent churches is you can go thru stages where you are never taught ‘things new and old’. I used to read the prophetic type sites [Elijah list] but haven’t been there in quite a while. There is a tendency for various groups to overdose on one particular slant and to never ‘bring forth the old’ [sound, stable teaching on the scripture and foundational truths of Christianity]. You can spend years feeding at the trough of well meaning ‘prophets’ but the message never seems to move on, how many thousands of words about ‘rebuke the spirit of poverty’ ‘this is the year of increase’ ‘now is a season of suddenlies’ I mean all well meaning people, but the poor saints are overdosing on stuff that might be simple repetition of what people feel like saying! We need both new and old [sound doctrine]. The same can be said of the prosperity groups, or any other Christian group that has no real connection to historic Christianity. A good Pastor may get a hold of the truth of prosperity, then you might spend a few years simply talking about finances, every thing will be seen thru that lens. New Christians entering that environment may never learn the reality of justification by faith, or other foundational truths [things old!] that are vital for a strong walk with the Lord. So anyway I felt the Lord simply wanted to challenge us to bring forth both new and old. It’s okay if people focus on different areas for a short season, but avoid spending all your time and energy in one doctrinal ‘room’ we all need both new and old stuff to stay healthy.
(1109) Last night my wife plugged in the vacuum and we lost power to part of the house! I have had this problem before, it was a loose outlet. So I started pulling out the outlets that were not working and began tightening the loose connections, of course I’m the type that over reacts so it’s getting late and I’m moving furniture, outlets hanging out all over the place [with the power on] and my wife is saying ‘are you sure your not going to electrocute yourself?’ ‘What, what do you think I am, some novice’! [To be honest I am the type that would electrocute myself]. So anyway I think I found the outlet that’s bad [they run in series, so if one goes out you loose the rest down the line] and hopefully will get to it soon [it’s 4:30am, too early to be waking everybody up- you know ‘where’s the screwdriver! Quick, go turn this breaker on and off!’ Somewhat of taskmaster!] It actually reminds me of a funny story, one year at the fire dept. me and one of the guys took the fire truck to some pre school church thing; you know, shoot some water, do a little safety class. So as we are doing our thing, I see out of the corner of my eye that one of the kids is grabbing on to what he thinks is a power line. It’s simply a cable going to the power line, but it’s still a bad thing to do! I hear the kid telling his buddy ‘see, it wont shock you to DEATH’! Geez, I’m like ‘hey, cut that out’! I could just see the story in the paper ‘Fire dept. electrocutes two church pre schoolers while giving a safety class’ that would have been an early retirement for sure. Okay, I was reading Matthew 16 and the famous confession of Peter; Jesus asks ‘who do men say that I am’ and Peter responds ‘thou art the Christ, the Son of God’ Jesus says ‘blessed are you Peter, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my father in heaven. And upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it’. Our Catholic friends focus on Peter, they see Jesus giving special authority to Peter [by the way, he does!] and have developed the Papacy from this. Our Protestant brothers see little about Peter, they say Jesus was saying ‘you Peter, your just a pebble [a play on the Greek wording] and I Jesus, am the rock’ true enough. Our Word of Faith friends have said Jesus was speaking about ‘revelation knowledge’ [a type of prophetic thing] that Jesus was saying he would establish his church on the gift of being able to receive spiritual knowledge directly from God. To be honest about it, I think there is some truth to each one of these views. I primarily think Jesus was saying ‘Peter, this confession of me as Gods Son is the foundation of the spiritual temple that my father is building’ Peter referred to us a ‘living stones’ in his letter. We are called a spiritual temple that God is building out of spiritual stones, so we qualify as building stones in this temple, as ‘stones’ we are ‘chips off of the rock’ so to speak, so we are the corporate expression of Jesus in the earth ‘the Body of Christ’ and therefore Jesus is the rock, and as he ‘grows thru us’ we show forth his glory to the nations. But I also sensed the lord telling me ‘John, the things you build out of a response of hearing and ‘seeing’ me are the things that will last, the gates of hell will not prevail against these things’ [communities, reached people groups]. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would ‘take of mine and show it unto you’ God reveals his Son to us, Jesus told Peter that’s how he knew who Jesus was, when we live out our lives as a response of the revelation of God to us thru Christ, then these are the things that will last, the eternal riches if you will. When we live our lives based on our own priorities and desires, these are the things that fade away. I want Jesus to see me as one who is blessed because the father has revealed his Son to me, someone who is living and teaching and acting out of divine revelation, not out of human desires.
(1110) yesterday I fell asleep on the couch watching Shindler’s list, of course I have seen it before but it’s worth watching a few times. My daughter woke me up to give me a letter she found in the mail box from an old friend of mine. I was surprised to have received a letter from Leonard; I used to preach to his dad in the county jail back in the 80’s, I became friends with the whole family [6 sons 5 daughters- if I can remember?] One of the boys eventually became one of our best brothers in Kingsville today. Still serving God and drug free after many years in prison and on hard main line drugs. The last time I spoke to Leonard [now in prison] was around 19 years ago. At the time I was ‘backsliding’ and ran into him in some alley in Kingsville. He ‘jumped’ me, hit with a sucker punch. I can still remember it. I took my glasses off and whacked him hard, I had him on the ground nailing him in the face, his sisters pulled me off. A bad time for me. I don’t think I have spoken to him since, I know all is forgotten. I have heard from his brother how he is back serving the Lord and all [in prison!] and his brother has kept him updated on ‘our journey’ [the progress of the ministry since those days]. I will read the letter later today. Now, Shindler’s list was good, there is a scene where the kids are being separated from their mothers and being taken to the death camps, the mothers are weeping. It reminded me of the Old Testament prophets words ‘Rachel weeping for her children, they are no more’. This verse was fulfilled in Jesus day when king Herod slaughtered the children, the wise men did not reveal to the king who Jesus was so he slew the kids from 2 years and under. God had his prophet speak about young children who would be born at some future date and who would live very short lives. They were important enough to make it into the prophetic history of Israel, don’t tell me God doesn’t care for the unborn! At the end of the movie Shindler buys as many Jews as he can to save them, and he begins regretting that he didn’t do more, he cant seem to see what he did as noble, something effects him and he is wracked with the guilt of not doing more. There are a few verses that I come across every few years, and when I read them I stop and allow them to have full impact. One is the verse from King David where he mourns over the death of his son ‘Oh Absalom, my son Absalom, would to God I had died in your place’ this verse reveals the brokenness of God over the loss of his Son, an aspect that is rarely seen when discussing the Atonement [God was punishing Jesus on our behalf, Penal substitution. Yet at the same time broken over his death!] The other verse is when Jesus says to his friends ‘the things concerning me have an end’ it strikes me as both sad and tragic, his friends were hoping for a full life ‘long live the king’ type of a thing, but Jesus was surrounded with the reality of death. His close friend John recently died, they took his head off in prison. He is traveling a road that will end fairly soon, his friends wanted more. Jesus said ‘greater love has no man than this, that he would lay his life down for his friends’ how does a statement like ‘the things concerning me have an end’ affect you? What would you say to Jesus if he expressed these feeling towards you? We would want to say ‘No way, don’t talk like that!’ we would be more concerned with the things of men than of God. Live your life to the fullest, don’t get me wrong, but live it with the understanding that we are all mortal ‘the things concerning us will soon come to an end’. Shindler did all he could do, at the end he felt like he didn’t do enough. Live well.
(1111) was reading where the disciples ask Jesus ‘who is the greatest among us’? And Jesus takes a little child and says ‘unless you become like this, you wont even see the things that I am doing’ [Gods kingdom]. Yesterday I was reading up on the Orthodox church, how in the 9th century the two great missionaries Cyril and Methodius evangelized the Slavic peoples of Moravia, the Latin rite churches were already there [Catholic/western] but these brothers knew Greek and had the ability to hold the Mass in the common language, the Catholic brothers were doing it in Latin. Eventually this drew more Slavs to the Greek Church than the Latin one. Well this caused some friction with the Bishop of the area and they sent them packing to the Pope, at this time the eastern rite churches [Orthodox] were still submitting to Papal authority to a degree. After making their case the Pope sent them back to continue their work [well one of them passed away while at Rome, but the other made it back]. True servants of God who gave their lives for the gospel, as opposed to living the comfortable life. In the 10th century, the story goes, the Russian prince Vladimir sent his men out to examine the various religions. They said the Muslims were okay, but they lacked joy. The Catholics seemed dedicated, but you can’t understand the Mass! It’s Latin. But when they visited the great Orthodox Church at Constantinople, they said you couldn’t tell if you were in heaven or on earth! The Divine Liturgy floored them. How true these stories are [this one comes from a 12th century telling] we don’t really know, but we do know that in their own way these churches have impacted entire regions of the earth with the gospel, long before we Evangelicals even existed! What am I saying here? In today’s world we measure ourselves ‘amongst ourselves’ to see who is the greatest in the kingdom, half the times we are not even aware of the history of the kingdom! There have been, and will continue to be many people whom the Lord will use to bring his truth to various people groups, these ‘little children’ will spend no time trying to gain a name for themselves, or to make it into the history books. Little children have no time for that sort of stuff, all they want to do is go outside and play with their friends. They don't really get all uptight about their little Jewish buddies, the Protestant kid down the block. The little black kid who might be Baptist, they simply see them all as friends. Do you want to be great in Gods kingdom? Then start playing like a kid.
(1112) I was just reading Matthew 19 and the story of the rich guy. He asks Jesus ‘what GOOD THING must I do to be saved’ reminds me a lot of Evangelicalism, many sincere believers are hung up on ‘the good thing you must do’ or the singular act of conversion. While it is true that regeneration/conversion takes place in an instant, yet oftentimes believers can’t pin point that instant! Like Paul told the Galatians ‘I travail with you again in the birthing process, until Christ be formed in you’. So sometimes it’s more of a process than a singular act [or better- conversion has both of these aspects present]. Now Jesus tells the brother ‘keep the law’ ah, now were getting somewhere! He’s pinpointing Jesus down to a yes or no answer on conversion; the man asks ‘which one’? Again, back to the ‘one thing’. So Jesus quotes a few of them, the man says ‘great, I have kept these ever since I was a kid’. Jesus says ‘one more thing, go sell your stuff and give it to the poor, and come follow me’. The man left sad, because he was rich. Then Jesus gives the famous statement that I have explained many times on this site, it’s harder for a camel to pass thru the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom [for an explanation go to my ‘prosperity/word of faith’ section]. The disciples are shocked ‘who then will ever make it’ Jesus says not to worry, with God all things are possible. Peter says ‘we left all, what do we get’ Jesus says those who have forsaken things for him will receive back a 100 fold and in the world to come eternal life. I have taught this before as well, how did Peter get more ‘houses and mothers and brothers’ in this life? In the book of Acts they all shared and helped each other, their conversion brought them into a big family who had ‘all things common’ [common purse] and that’s how this was fulfilled, it is obvious Peter did not become rich [silver and gold have I none- remember?] But we see an interesting thing here, the rich young man prospered according to the laws of the old covenant, which many prosperity believers will rightfully tell you brings prosperity. The verses in Deuteronomy that speak of God giving us the power/ability to obtain wealth so his covenant might be established [chapter 8?] But Jesus is doing more here, he is telling the man who did become rich by obeying Gods law, he is saying ‘now it’s time to give it up’. What! I have prospered according to Gods explicit will as revealed thru the prosperity promises in scripture! What kind of preacher are you Jesus? Don’t you know that it’s mans tradition to tell the rich to give up their wealth? It’s the devil trying to trick us out of our wealth! Jesus says ‘give it up’ you have learned and mastered the basics of Old Testament law and blessing, and now you must master the art of self sacrifice, of laying everything down to follow me. It was my father's will to have prospered you thru your obedience to his law, this was necessary, how else would I have ever been able to challenge you to lay it down? If you never had something to give up, then you could never have been in a position to show me your sincerity in giving it all away. Jesus was not telling him it was wrong to have attained this status in society, but he was giving him the choice of whether or not he would willingly lay it down for a higher cause. Are you willing?
(1113) just read the parable of the vineyard owner who goes out and hires workers at different times of the day. The ones he hires early in the day agree to a ‘penny’ a day. Thru out the day he brings more workers in and agrees to pay them the same. When time comes to pay them, he calls the workers who only worked a few hours and pays them the penney. Now the guys who worked all day are thinking ‘Geez, he probably will pay us more than the original agreement, surely he wouldn’t pay these guys the same as us, we worked all day for heavens sake!’ But when it was their turn he paid them the same. Now, these guys got mad, why? Simply out of their own view of ‘fairness’ they were mad that the land owner made these other ‘less worthy’ workers equal to them. The guys who worked all day were not cheated, they got what the boss told them they would get, they were simply mad that the boss treated the less worthy guys the same. This story speaks to the mindset of the first century Jew with regards to their offence at Jesus acceptance of the Gentile nations. What offended the Jew was they felt like Jesus should not have been so willing and accepting of those who came in ‘at the last hour’ so to speak. The Jews went thru hell for many years, suffered as Gods people, stuck up for Gods name and honor. They were waiting for the day that God was going to teach these pagan nations a thing or two! Instead God treats them as equal partners! This offence would cause them to reject their Messiah, Paul speaks about this in Romans. God will work thru the jealousy that the Jews are feeling over his receiving of the Gentiles and this will eventually bring the Jews in, God ways are higher than ours. When I first read the story earlier I felt like it spoke to my situation as well. After I moved to Corpus from Kingsville, I had some of our old buddies feel bad ‘hey, John is now spending all his time with these homeless bums!’ They wouldn’t say it like that, but they did say things like ‘don’t forget about us!’ One of my buddies from Kingsville was the son of one of the heroin addicts that was part of the first-generation of guys I worked with [not the same family I mentioned the other day, we had a few families of addicts/convicts that made up the core ‘membership’ of our church] But it was funny, I would go and pick up the son [he was only a couple of years younger than me, I was in about the same age group as the sons, though the fathers were my friends] and the aunt would tell me ‘Emits in the back room brother John, go get him for church’ the whole family would come to our meetings. I would knock on the door and tell Emit ‘brother Emit lets go. I hope you guys are not in their smoking pot!’ [I was just kidding, or prophesying?] Years later Emit would tell me he was in their with his buddies getting high, and they would be in shock ‘who the hell is banging on the door!’ and ditch the pot! I would loved to have seen their faces! Emits dad would raid my fridge when he came to our garage meetings. We rented a building at first [an old hospital- just a conference room area] but eventually moved the meetings to my garage, I fixed it up nice, it looked good. As soon as Emit senior would arrive, he’d go into the house and raid the fridge! I eventually would hide the good stuff before church. These are the brothers that have expressed to me the feelings of ‘hey, we were with you from the beginning, these Corpus guys came in at the end, why are you making them equal to us’? Because they never raided my fridge! KIDDING! People go thru various stages in life, in the past I have struggled with letting go of some of the old ministry patterns, still wanting to travel to the old towns and help. I had to recognize that certain things were meant for only a season, they will hopefully bear fruit for a long time, but my active involvement was only for a season. They said to the vineyard owner ‘you are making these others equal with us’ and it offended them, but Jesus wasn’t dismissing his first group [Jews] he was simply helping others get in on it while there was still time left.
(1114) Jesus makes his entry into Jerusalem and the Pharisees are mad, the people and children are praising him. He overturns the prosperity preacher’s tables and whips them! He rebukes the Pharisees ‘the whores and tax collectors are entering the kingdom ahead of you!’ WOW, talk about rough speech! He tells them that the sinners listened to John the Baptist, they came to hear what he had to say and changed their lifestyles, but the religious leaders were too hung up on their own agendas. And after they saw the results of John’s ministry, they responded out of jealousy and still didn’t re-think their views. Who were the Pharisees, how did they come to represent hypocrisy and religious vanity? A few hundred years before Christ you had the nation of Israel taken captive and living under foreign occupation [like Rome was doing during Jesus day] it was in this environment that the Synagogues were established, they were meeting places where the Jews could gather and practice their religion while in exile. This was when the Pharisees and Sadducees were introduced. They regulated the religious worship of Israel while in exile. The Sadducees were less of a religious order than the Pharisees. The Sadducees were more of a political class that traced their natural bloodline to the priest Zadok [sort of like a Holy Grail thing, the DaVinci code type stuff]. Eventually the Pharisees turned into a class of professional ‘pains’. They knew all the rules and traditions surrounding their religious office and often laid these rules as burdens upon the people, rules that went against Gods commands. It is real important not to underestimate the common themes found in synagogue worship and the ‘church service’. I have written much on what the New Testament church is and how she should function; I have also traced the modern day practice of church to Constantine and the 4th century. But I have also taught that it is very possible that much of modern-day ‘church practice’ might also have come from the practice of Jewish synagogue worship. They bear a striking resemblance to say the least! It is a common mistake to think that Jewish-Christian worship ceased as a distinct practice after the destruction of the temple in a.d. 70 under Titus, but the synagogue made it all the way into the 2nd century, I believe it was the Roman emperor Hadrian who finally put an end to it. Some historians will tell you that there remained a Jewish church all the way up to the 5th century! If so, then it would be a major historical mistake to discount the possible role that the synagogue played in the ideas of Christian worship. Well anyway, these are the same religious leaders that Jesus rebuked in his day, they had their own ideas of what true worship meant, and they would not receive correction! Jesus said the whores and tax collectors had more spiritual discernment than them, sad thing.
(1115) I have been driving around the past few days with a package of materials that I needed to send off to my buddy in prison. I kept putting it off, then I got a message on my cell from his brother in Kingsville, he wants to know if I can send his brother a bible too. So I will stick a bible in the package in a little while, it saved me the extra mailing. Just read the parable of the vineyard owner who leases out his land to caretakers. When the owner sends his servants for the produce, they beat the brothers up! The owner sends his son [Jesus] and they say ‘here’s the son, if we kill him we can have the inheritance [worldly wealth] to ourselves’. I have seen ‘an evil done under the sun’ it’s virtually impossible to preach a materialistic gospel with the Jesus of the New Testament in it. I mean he rails time and again against wealth ‘what does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and loses his soul’ I can go on forever quoting him. But some have ‘killed the son’ [eliminated his true image] from the vineyard, and now they can cease upon the inheritance! OUCH! [By ‘eliminate’ I mean they have refashioned his image and message and have presented him in a different light than what the scripture portrays]. I have been reading a little on the church fathers, these are the brothers during the post apostolic period up until around the 4th century. Many Anglicans/Protestants have converted back to Catholicism because of the reading of these men. These church leaders shared a sort of general view of conversion and Christian living. Evangelicals often have difficulty reading them, they don’t teach a strong ‘one time’ ask Jesus into your heart type conversion, more along the lines of ‘believe the gospel, obey Gods commands, get baptized in water and become a member of the church universal’. I love studying the brothers! Cyprian, the 3rd century bishop from Carthage, North Africa was embroiled in the ‘lapsed’ controversy. During one of the persecutions many of the believers forsook Christ and burned incense to the cult of the emperor. After the persecution ceased, some wanted back in to the church. Those who did not reject Christ said ‘no way, you guys walked away, it’s all over’. But Cyprian would say that Jesus told Peter that even if your brother sins seventy times seven, you are to forgive. Cyprian erred on the side of mercy [a good way to err!] he would ultimately be killed in the year 259 for the faith. Though these church fathers were not doctrinally perfect, and they also weren’t the only expression of the Christian church in the first few centuries, yet they supply a wealth of knowledge and experience that we can all learn from, these are ‘part of the vineyard’ if you will. When you have a broad range of reading and study from all the various Christian communions, then it’s easy to spot the false, these might try to ‘kill the son’ but wisdom won’t allow it.
(1116) This past week Pope Benedict made his first visit to the Middle East. I caught a few of the appearances on E.W.T.N. I really liked his spirit and Christ centered approach, of course there will always be some disagreements [a little too much ecumenism when it came to Christian/Muslim stuff, but that’s to be expected, the Pope not only represents a large portion of Christians, but also is seen as a head of state to some degree]. Overall his words were measured and clear, human rights were at the top of the list. I then watched an apologists T.V. show, it’s a good show I catch every now and then. But sometimes they ‘stray’ into the old prejudices that have been around for many years. They were discussing Tony Blair [former P.M. of Britain] and mentioned how he took this new position where he is going to work for world cooperation amongst various groups, they then showed a picture of him with the Pope and mentioned Blair’s recent conversion to Catholicism, they were nice enough to say ‘we are not saying for sure that Blair is the anti christ [gee, thanks!] but we see in him all the signs of the anti christ’. I don’t want to do the whole anti christ thing again, I’ve hit on it in the past, but I want to mention the mindset that sees any ‘world cooperation’ amongst Christian groups as ‘the one world religious system of the anti christ’. Most of this mindset comes from the book of Revelation; John speaks about Babylon [Rome] and the religious ‘whore’ and stuff like that. Of course Rome was known as a great persecutor of the saints, and part of it had to do with the cult of emperor worship ‘Caesar is Lord’ type of a thing. So the apostle John is writing his Revelation while in exile under Nero’s rule. What type of connection would John be making when speaking of a one world religious system that uses the power of human govt. to kill and persecute the saints? Obviously the religious/governmental system of Rome, not the Pope for heavens sake! And any ‘anti christ’ figure is not going to be part of a Christian church that confesses Christ! During the Reformation of the 16th century, it was common for the Protestant reformers to view Rome and papal authority as ‘the anti christ’ they were battling centuries of religious tradition and dogma that they felt contradicted Gods word, so it was natural for both sides to brand the other as ‘the anti christ’ [both Luther and the Pope tagged each other with the title] and it was also common to read the commentaries and histories of this time thru the lens of ‘Babylon/Rome is persecuting the saints, Rome is even mentioned in the book of Revelation [city on 7 hills] as the oppressor, so there you have it, how much clearer can it be?’ The problem with this thinking is it overlooks what I just told you, the primary religious/governmental persecutor during the time of John, and well into the 3rd century was the Roman empire, not the Catholic church. So we need to read these books [Revelation, prophets- Daniel, Ezekiel, etc.] thru an historical lens. Of course this doesn’t mean there are no future applications to these writings, but to miss the historical aspect can cause real trouble. When reading the Old testament prophets there are stunning prophecies about Alexander the great, Antiochus Epiphanies and other world shaking events. Most of these prophecies have been fulfilled already. But some ‘prophecy teachers’ teach these things in such a way as to cause real problems for any true ecumenical spirit amongst believers. Jesus wants unity for his church, not at the expense of truth, but unity never the less. I have stated in the past that the system of belief that I most align myself with is Reformed theology, but I simply see myself as a Christian who is part of a 2 thousand year tradition [Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox] there are serious doctrinal differences that do need to be understood and not ‘white washed’ but at the same time we need to advance from some 500 year old ideas that were birthed at the time of the reformation, viewing other Christian traditions as ‘the anti Christ’. Jesus told the religious leaders ‘you do err not knowing the scriptures or the power of God’ when we make the mistake of reading scripture thru a limited perspective, we err.
(1117) Was just reading the chapter where Jesus rebukes the religious leaders for their love of fame and recognition, they loved to be known and recognized. They loved places of honor. It’s the same chapter where Jesus tells his leaders ‘it shall not be this way with you guys’. He is trying to instill a new mindset in this fledging church. The New Testament speaks of godly leadership, but it warns against authoritarian leadership [see 3rd John- Diotrophes] Jesus tells his men ‘he that humbles himself [on purpose!] will be the greatest, have the most effect’. Would you be willing to live a life where you purposely removed your image and persona from those who wanted to exalt you? To purposefully not allow others to become too enamored with your gifts and abilities? Jesus says ‘among you guys, let none of you be called master, rabbi [leader, the main one] for you are all equal’. How do we reconcile this with the obvious portions of scripture that speak about leaders? A careful study of the New Testament will show a type of leadership that was not the predominant voice of any believing community [local church]. Though you see Paul traveling to different regions and having no problem telling them ‘listen to my instruction’ yet you don’t see any office where one person is the main functioning person in the community. Because of lots of reasons we do this in today’s ‘church world’ environment, but it was not this way at the start. I find it interesting that Jesus taught his men about true leadership in the same chapter where he rebuked those who loved the glory of being a successful leader [there is a difference between being fulfilled as a godly leader, and deriving great joy from the recognition of fame and success!] I see Jesus’ frustration with the religious leaders; he calls them vipers, hypocrites, fools! I know we have a tendency to read these words in King James English, and not realize what he is saying. It would be like basically saying ‘what a bunch of idiots you guys are! You have come to religious understandings that don't even make sense’ they developed an idea that said the gift on the altar was special, but the altar that sanctified the gift wasn’t [they were technical hairsplitters!] Jesus says ‘what's greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies/makes the gift what it is’? Well, I guess the altar? All leaders and gifted people face the temptation to exalt the gift to a place of honor that God never intended. All we have and accomplish in life is simply a gift that comes thru Christ’s Cross [the altar that sanctifies the gift] when we put the Cross first, ahead of the things it can give us, then we will do well.
(1118) In Matthew 24 Jesus speaks about the end times, some day I will try and fit everything into what I believe is the proper perspective. I basically hold to the classical view of end time events. I realize there are varying ‘classical’ views, but I mean I reject the late development of dispensationalism. One thing I will note is in this chapter Jesus warns the Jews that a time is coming when the temple and city will be utterly wiped out, most teachers rightfully see this as the destruction of the temple in a.d. 70 under Titus, but Jesus says ‘when you see the abomination that makes desolate stand in the holy place’ and then the writer says ‘[let him who reads understand]’. My bible has this in red letters, meaning these are Jesus spoken words. They might be the words of the writer of this gospel. In the last few years Christian teachers have come to understand more fully the oral nature of first century Judaism. Many things were passed on by word of mouth, some feel the writer of Matthew [or Jesus?] might have been saying ‘when this is read someday, make sure “he that readeth” understands what in the heck they are saying’! Get it? This insert might be a warning to the future lecturer. They were warning of the possibility of people misunderstanding this part of the teaching. Most modern prophecy teachers read this ‘abomination of desolation’ as a future political figure who will enter into a restored Jewish temple and claim to be God. Others view this thru an historical lens and see the invasion of the Roman soldiers with the marks of pagan gods on their shields as the desecration of ‘the holy place’. In Jewish thought, the room of the temple that contained the box that held the 10 commandments was super holy; the fact that Roman pagan soldiers went in and defiled it could be what the abomination of desolation is speaking about. It is an historical fact that many Jews who believed that Jesus was a true prophet took his warning literally, when they saw their city compassed with the Roman armies they ‘fled to the hills’ and did escape destruction. This was somewhat of a testimony to the accuracy of Jesus prophecy at the time. The whole point today is we need to be aware of various ways to read these prophetic portions of scripture, the original writer of Matthew said ‘let him who is reading this stuff understand for heavens sake!’ I think we need to ‘understand’ a little bit more.
(1119) yesterday I took a ride to Mathis [a small town in the area] my daughter and her boyfriend invited me to do a BBQ at the lake. As I drove thru town [it was Sunday] I noticed all the church buildings, some had 20-30 cars, others just a few. It was obvious that the city didn’t need any more places for believers to sit on Sunday! Jesus said ‘who is a faithful AND wise servant whom his Lord makes ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season, when the Lord comes he will make him ruler over all his goods’. Recently the church suffered a loss, a very famous church leader passed away. The loss was two-fold, though this man was influential in fostering unity and was helpful in civil rights and other social justice issues, he was surrounded by scandal most of his life. I used to watch him on TV and did enjoy his ministry, but he was plagued with accusations of sexual impropriety. The straw that broke the camels back was the current pastor of this huge mega church [cathedral that’s worth 25 million dollars!] was thought to have been the nephew of the famous pastor, it was found out that he was actually his son, the ‘father’ was really his uncle, tragic indeed. The building is now on the market and the son now preaches ‘the gospel of inclusion’ [a message that accepts all religions as from God]. I remember one time hearing the famous pastor speak on tithing, he actually taught that those who did not tithe were violating Gods covenant and would not be saved! Much more radical than the normal fare. I thought how sad, the 25 million dollar facility was paid for by many innocent believers who were told if they did not put 10% of their money in the basket, they would go to hell. Now all the money will simply fall into the system of a real estate deal. Jesus said the servants who were wise and faithful would be given charge over all his masters goods, is it wise for Gods people to continue building facilities all over the world, at the cost of billions of dollars? Is it wise for any small [or large] city to see ‘church’ thru a lens that has all these buildings sitting empty on any given Sunday? Many good men start their service to the Lord this way, the church meeting thing, I started this way myself. Over time God adds wisdom to ‘our faithfulness’ he shows us smarter ways to apply our efforts. There are currently worldwide church planting movements who pay no salaries, own no buildings, take no tithes, yet they are literally reaching the world. This should cause us to re-think some things. Is it proper to tell Gods people they will be under a curse if they don’t tithe to the old system? Especially when the ‘new system’ [not really new, it was Paul’s system in the book of Acts] does the whole thing for free! Jesus said the servants are to distribute the meat in due season, faithfully and with wisdom. Paul said to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 ‘feed the flock of God over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers’ he is talking to church leaders here, he tells them [the elders!] ‘All the time I was with you [around 3 years] I did not take offerings from you, I did not allow you to fund me or ‘my ministry’ I worked with my own hands to support myself and those who were with me. I did this to give you [leaders!] an example, so you too would see your ministry thru this voluntary lens, not as some type of career!’ [my paraphrase]. Its makes you wonder how ministers can read the bible and not see this stuff! I want to encourage all my Pastor/leader friends who do frequent this site, seek the Lord for wisdom to go along with faithfulness, examine the way you present Gods word to people, don’t say to them ‘I am appealing for money because this is Gods plan’ Paul didn’t think it was Gods plan [in the salary, building way- he did in other ways] Sometimes God gives us time to step back and sharpen the ax, you might feel like it’s your responsibility to keep hacking away at the tree [faithfulness] but wisdom allows you to step back and sharpen the ax, sure it means you might go a week or month or year without the familiar habit of hacking away, but after you sharpen the ax you will accomplish much more.
(1120) Was reading the parables of the ten virgins and 5 talents [money]. The key to all the parables is reading them in the historical context in which Jesus gave them; The Jews are a nation that were entrusted with great riches [oil, talents] and they will be held responsible for how well they ‘spread the wealth’ so to speak [ spiritual truth, not money!] I also saw some practical stuff as well, all ten virgins had lamps [the capability to communicate, shine] but only the wise ones made preparation for the long haul, they ‘stored up’ oil in their vessels, the others were just winging it. We too often approach ministry with the mindset of ‘Lord, give me a pulpit and auditorium [church building] to speak, and I’ll be faithful’ the problem with this mindset is it is very limited in its capacity to ‘store oil’. Usually the well meaning weekly speaker [Pastor] shows up on Sunday with his lamp and does his best to tell you what he felt like God was saying in the past week; well meaning, but very limited. The wise virgins told them ‘go buy some oil from those who have it for sale’. Over the years I have ‘bought oil’ tons of books and teaching aids that allowed me to store up some stuff. Thru writing and radio I have had the privilege to share a storehouse of stuff that has been accumulated over many years, I am not simply trying to come up with ‘a message’. The Lord also gave 5 pieces of money to one guy, 2 to another and 1 to the last. As he reckons with them some turned out a profit, the last one buried the money in the ground. Those who put their gifts to work and gained more were rewarded, those who didn’t suffered punishment. Wisdom allows you to put the gifts and abilities God has given you to work. Establish systems that are not dependant on you actually having to be there all the time! I know we think ‘the weekly pulpit’ is Gods ordained way, after all we read how God uses the ‘preaching of the Cross to save the lost’ or ‘how can they hear without a preacher’ [Corinthians, Romans] yet we forget that we are READING these things! Paul had enough discipline to pen this stuff down and circulate the letters to the early communities of believers. Paul understood that it was necessary to write in order to have long lasting influence. We live in a day where it is much easier to write and communicate to the whole world [like this blog!] yet we don’t usually use the tool effectively. Many church web sites are simply ways to advertise their meetings. If I had the cure for cancer, I mean I knew exactly what you needed to do to get cured; and then I started a website that could reach the world with the cure, and if you went to my site and read 'please show up Sunday at such and such location and I will personally tell you what the cure is’ you would think I was nuts! For heavens sake, if you have something worth saying, then say it! God has given us ‘lamps and talents’ to complete the mission, only the wise ones utilized what God gave them to the full potential, are you a wise one?
(1121) ‘Dinosaurs with wings and Darwin’s winged rats’ Let’s do a short thing here; recently I have seen a few silly things and thought I should expound. First, the common argument on the road of evolution is that dinosaurs turned into birds [or as G.K. Chesterton expounded, evolutionists would have you believe that running rats turned into flying ones!]. I know that the average consumer of public school evolution does not fully realize the total lunacy of many of evolutions claims. What would be the most obvious problem with dinosaurs turning into flying reptiles/birds? If you had a very slow period where many thousands of species SLOWLY evolved wings where their front legs used to be, this species would be the first to die off! For Darwin’s theory to work, only the fittest survive! So according to Darwin’s own theory, the so called ‘in between’ species would have never been able to have made it! This is the exact observation that G.K. Chesterton used [famous Catholic writer] about the rats, he said it was quite obvious to any rationally thinking person, that if the walking rats slowly developed wings and turned into the flying ones, how in the world would the sad little rats have survived during the many thousands of years where they couldn’t walk or fly? You say ‘Now John, surely there must be a reasonable explanation to this dilemma, true thinking evolutionists aren’t that dumb’ the majority of evolutionists believe that all things came from no thing, a scientific impossibility. If they could swallow that, then surely they could swallow anything.
(1122) Jesus is getting ready to eat the Passover meal with his disciples, a woman pours very expensive oil [perfume] on his head. The disciples [Judas] are mad ‘we could have sold this perfume and made money! Oh, and we could have given it to the poor too’. Which meant put it in the offering bag Judas was in charge of. Jesus rebukes his disciples ‘you always have the poor with you, but my time is very short now. What this woman did was a prophetic act preparing my body for burial’ [I wish he would quit talking like this!] Jesus says what this women did would be told all over the world, wherever his story would be told. Quite a bold statement, don’t you think? Jesus has this little rag tag group of followers, they are feeling somewhat let down, I mean Judas goes out to betray Jesus right after this act. He goes and makes a deal for thirty pieces of silver, what was in his mind? The trigger seemed to be the fact that he didn’t get his hands on the perfume money! Go read the story, it’s in there. We often brand Judas as this guy that was all bad right from the start, understand, Jesus knew his men were in his movement for political reasons, a sort of messianic group that was challenging the system if you will. His men did not realize the nature of his movement yet. So it was quite natural for Judas to feel disappointed, in some way he realized he was not going to get what he wanted by being a member of ‘Jesus church’. So Jesus sits down with his men, takes the bread and wine and breaks it, showing them that it will be his own act of brokenness that would be the glue that would hold this group together. The prophet Isaiah said ‘as many as were astonished at your torment/suffering, so likewise you will reach many nations’ Jesus knew it was in this act of sacrifice that he would be planting the seeds of true revolution, a little too much for the average follower. He even will pray in the garden ‘if its possible let this thing pass, lets do it another way God’ when he returns to his disciples they are sleeping, he will tell them ‘its enough, I now have settled what will happen, lets go’. We often think that the Father told Jesus ‘no Son, you must do this’ but in a little while Peter will cut off the ear of a soldier in trying to protect Jesus, Jesus will respond by saying ‘don’t you know I could call down angels right now and get out of this’ maybe the fathers answer was ‘Son, this is up to you, its totally on your shoulders now. If you decide not to go thru with it, its your choice’ the bible does say that Jesus purchased us by himself, that is it was riding on him. I don’t want to be too dogmatic about this, just something to ponder. Of course we know the rest of the story, this selfless act of Jesus would be the seedbed for a great worldwide revolutionary movement that will touch all nations, it was not an easy cup for him to drink.
(1123) FORM CRTICISM back in the early part of the 20th century you had various scholars come up with new ways to approach scripture, it seems as if the intellectual capacity of certain scholars was not being satisfied by the normal historical approach and belief in scripture. While most scholars accept the reality that there are different styles of writing in the bible; poetry, symbol, apocalyptic, etc. The form critics would take this study another step [out in left field!] and say that the gospels are actually stories that ‘were formed’ by the evangelists from small portions of deeds and sayings of Jesus. In essence they were saying that between the time of the actual events in the gospels and the recording of them [20-25 years] that the early Christian communities simply developed the stories in the gospels for the sake of the community, the only ‘reliable’ historical portion was the passion narrative. One of the most famous of the form critics was Rudolph Bultman. Over a period of time these brothers would make it next to impossible to accept the basic truths of the gospels. The famous writer C.S. Lewis found it amazing that these 20th century German thinkers, some 2 thousand years removed from the actual events themselves. Those who did not live in the actual culture of the time, didn’t speak the language. Yet these modern day critics somehow stumbled across this way of interpreting the bible that really unlocked the true intent behind the writers. Lewis himself lamented many times over the way the critics of his own writings were almost always 100 % wrong when it came to their judgment of his own motives behind what he wrote. He did not ‘mind’ the actual criticism of his writings, but the criticisms that said ‘this is what he really meant to say’ or ‘this is why he said this’ Lewis would testify that they were almost always [if not always!] wrong when they leveled these charges at him. He then turned the table on the form critics and said that they were engaging in this same type of criticism of the gospel writers, who were removed from the present day by some 1900 years! Lewis simply found it unbelievable to accept the possibility that they were even right 1% of the time. Ultimately these higher critics would be proven wrong for the most part by the discoveries that were taking place in archaeology. Many doubted the stories of scripture, their historical accuracy; things like the names of families in the book of Genesis, many said these family trees were fake, archeology proved otherwise. Or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, most of the new critics simply saw these stories as ‘myth’ symbolic stories meant to convey spiritual truths, but were not really true. Then lo and behold, they uncovered the historical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and also found evidence of some type of natural disaster that actually ‘rained down hot hailstones that burned up the cities’ Ouch! The higher critics were squirming in their seats as these historical facts were being uncovered. For the most part these popular early 20th century ways of approaching scripture have now been rejected. Of course you still find some who lean towards that system, but most able scholars realize that these brothers went so far out into left field that they were ignoring the most basic principles of true historic criticism and were engaging in a type of philosophical critique that had no real basis in truth. How in the world did these brothers determine what sayings of Jesus were really his, and which were not? The same goes for Paul's letters and the rest of the New Testament. C.S. Lewis was open to modern ideas and concepts about Christian truth, but he could also see the things that were simply trends that had no real foundation in truth, Lewis was a wise man indeed.
(1124) Let’s do some more apologetics [by the way, the word means ‘give a defense’ it does not mean to apologize! It comes from the bible, in Peter it says ‘be ready to give an answer to those who ask for a reason for the hope in you’] One of the other areas of doubt raised by the atheist is the fact that there are various accounts of creation and the ‘flood story’ found in other civilizations. The Babylonians have ‘the epic of Gilgamesh’. This is an account of a worldwide flood. The fact that there are other stories about a major world event, would not in and of itself cast doubt on the event! Where I grew up in New Jersey you would have been able to actually see the world trade center disaster on 9-11. As an Italian, say if I wrote a report of the events for my fellow Italian buddies. Then let’s say a thousand years go by and you find out that the Cuban papers also reported it, and the Puerto Ricans, as a matter of fact you might find many cultures that have their own reporting of this event. Would that cast doubt on my report? No, as a matter of fact if no one else had a report, except me, then that would cast doubt! Now, how do we know which report is true? Out of the various other stories about creation and a flood, the one that is the ‘least fantastic’ is the biblical one. The others definitely have a tinge of unreality about them. Some say the earth was flooded, but it rained for 7 days [not long enough to flood the earth!] and the waters receded in one day [cant happen!] the biblical account has both a longer period of rain as well as a longer period of the waters receding. The actual dimensions of Noah’s Ark were huge! The huge boat looked more like a giant rectangular barge, you could fit huge jetliners in the thing! It was three levels high, but not like the silly kids pictures found in fables. That topsy turvy thing with animals peeking off the deck! The actual dimensions could have worked, really! The point is the simple fact of other cultures having their own stories of events like this does not mean the events themselves were fake, to the contrary, if only one culture had these stories, that would cast more doubt on the events themselves.
(1125) If you have been paying attention, you’ll notice that I have been reading thru Matthew these last few weeks. Let’s finish this sporatic thing with Jesus final command ‘go into all the world and preach the gospel to every one, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Teach them to observe all the things I taught you, I will always be with you, all power is now given to me, I authorize you to go’ [my paraphrase] I wanted to hit on the command of Jesus for us to teach the nations the things he taught us. Over the years you will notice that one of my pet peeves has been the emphasis the modern church puts on the command to tithe found in Malachi, yet the many commands of Jesus about giving to the poor, helping out the down and out; these commands of Jesus seem to take second place in the tier of importance for the average church goer. In a sense we [leaders] have failed to actually teach the nations the things Jesus taught us! We have taught the nations good stuff from Malachi, boy do they have a grasp on Paul! And oh yes, John writes with such love and compassion, doesn’t he? I don’t want to be crude, I understand that as Evangelicals we believe all of Gods word [Malachi, Paul, etc.] the point I am making is all of these writings have to be seen thru the primary ‘constitution’ of Jesus and his gospel. The Old Testament says we should execute homosexuals, kids who curse their parents and women caught cheating! Now, most of us realize that these commands are no longer valid in a literal way [I hope you understand!] So as believers we need to view all of the words of scripture thru the ethos [values] of Jesus. How did he respond when the Pharisees brought the woman taken in adultery to him? They even said ‘Moses in the law said she should be stoned, what do you say’? He forgives the woman, does not condone her sin, and lets the religious leaders know that they were in no position to judge this woman. As the church embarks on the next millennium, we need to re focus our efforts and instructions on the life and purpose of Jesus. I am not advocating rejecting Paul’s teachings [as some advocate!] or doing away with the Old Testament [as others also advocate] but I am saying we need to take seriously the great commission that Jesus gave us. Are we really teaching people the actual things that Jesus made the priority? I know he told the religious leaders ‘you tithe and stuff, but have overlooked the heavier matters of the law; yes, you should have tithed [telling this to Jews under the law sitting in ‘Moses seat’ not to Gentile believers!] and also have shown mercy and love and compassion’ even the law put the emphasis on these things! Lets try and re balance some things these next few years, lets look seriously at the things that Jesus actually taught [the red letters!] and see if these are the same things we are focusing on. He doesn’t say a whole lot about the ‘just war’ doctrine, he seems like he’s always rebuking the wealthy folk! Let’s see the things he actually taught, and then teach those things! Got it?
(1126) Just started Nehemiah, I always loved the restoration books of the Old Testament; the prophets who were involved with the rebuilding of the walls and city of Jerusalem. Nehemiah hears about the sad state of affairs back in Jerusalem, he gets permission from the king to go back home and build. He faces opposition [of course!] and organizes the people to build their portion of the wall and gate. You will notice that once he gets a system going that works, he sticks with it! I recently read an article from David Brooks [writes for the Wall Street Journal?] it was in my local paper. He talked about a recent study that evaluated the top C.E.O.s of successful companies, the article was in keeping with previous studies. It basically showed that the most effective [not famous!] leaders were the old school guys who knew how to get the job done. They were skilled in their field, they knew how to implement steady growth over the long haul, and they were not ‘touchy, feely’ type leaders. They didn’t spend time getting their people to like them, or tried to empathize with them. They weren’t looking for the new fad thing to implement; they were steady, old fashioned guys that did not fit the mold of ‘the new, big idea’. Nehemiah was that type of leader. Once he organized the people and got them moving, he simply stuck with the plan. The critics said ‘what in the world do you think you’re doing!’ he just ignored them and moved ahead. I always get a kick out of it when I run into some ‘preacher’ during my normal rounds with the homeless brothers. My buddies will often introduce me as ‘John is a retired firefighter, and also a minister’ I have asked them not to say ‘minister’ but they say it anyway. I often look a little scraggly and the preachers will hear about ‘my little outreach’ and sometimes I get the sense of like ‘bless his poor heart, he’s trying’. They might say ‘and what do you do’ and it’s kind of hard to explain it to be honest, but every now and then they realize I’m the guy they’ve been hearing for years on the radio! Or they see the blog is all over the place and then they kind of change their tune, like people treat you better if you’re successful. I basically ignore the whole thing, it just hinders my work to be honest. But Nehemiah had his critics, they laughed at him ‘oh, and you think your gonna do what?’ One of the enemy’s strategies is to get you to listen to the critics, now there are times when you need to hear reproof and correction, but the critics are another thing. There the ones who can always tell you what you are doing wrong, but never get anything done themselves! These are the brothers that Paul called ‘busy bodies’ in the New Testament, they weren’t working or providing for their families, and had all this free time to critique everyone else. Let God give you the patterns and principles of how he wants you to accomplish the task, once you implement it, the key to success is sticking with it in the face of opposition. As the critics kept laughing, the walls kept going up, eventually you won’t be able to see them anymore!
(1127) let’s see, I wanted to do Nehemiah, talk a little about the recent abortion debate, and also discuss modern philosophy! Let’s see what we can do. In Nehemiah the workers are scattered all along the wall, they are responsible for their section. Nehemiah tells them that because they are so far apart, they need the ability to be able to hear the warning from the main overseer of the work [namely him!] so he has this trumpet guy next to him, if danger shows up he will blow the trumpet and they will be forewarned, hey in a day without electronic communication, this is a good idea! Recently [5-09] there have been some debates over the abortion issue and some high profile cases as well. Just 2 days ago one of the most notorious abortion doctors in our country was shot down in cold blood, his name was George Tiller. His abortion clinic was only one out of three places in the U.S. that performed late term abortions. This is the procedure where you insert a forceps into the womb, pull apart the legs and arms of the baby. Then you position the forceps over the head and squeeze till the brains come out [I know this is graphic, if you want to learn more about it, go to the Priests for life icon on my blog roll]. While we in no way shape or form condone the murder of doctor Tiller, it should be noted that he took part in the most wicked act that can ever take place, the murder of unborn children. Now in this debate some Christians [Catholics] have brought up the recent speech by president Obama at Notre Dame, some boycotted the speech. The problem was that Notre Dame actually honored the president with an honorary law degree. It is one thing to allow both voices to be heard, quite another to honor the most anti life president in the history of the untied states! He has made more pro death decisions than any other president in history. The U.S. Catholic Bishops had passed a resolution a few years back that stated no Catholic institution should give honorary degrees to those who are in violation of the churches teaching on major issues, obviously Notre Dame violated this rule. Now, some Catholic media persons were defending Obama, they even criticized their own church for hypocrisy! They were saying that honoring Obama was no different than honoring any other leader who might be pro capital punishment. These Catholic media persons were equating the churches stand on abortion with her stand on capital punishment; these two are not in the same league! The Catholic church teaches a sort of hierarchy of offenses [as a boy I still remember being taught mortal and venial sins] the church sees abortion as an intrinsically evil act, the outright murder of innocent defenseless persons. The church also teaches against the death penalty, but the execution of a criminal is not to be equated with the murder of unborn innocent children [some 4 thousand per day!] so these Catholic believers were wrong on the stance of their own church. Today’s ‘post-modern’ philosophy will argue that truth and morals are relative [subjective] they see truth thru the lens of ‘that might be wrong for you, but not for me’ or ‘I personally am against abortion, but I don’t want to push my views on others’. In the world of postmodern thinking, this is considered acceptable. This view of right and wrong is based on the view that there really is no objective truth, that is truth does not correspond to any outside reality. Truth, in their view, is simply the way various cultures perceive and understand things at different times in human history, but it’s possible for other societies to interpret the data coming into their senses and arrive at another view of truth, and who am I to say that ‘my truth is real and yours is false’. Obviously in the field of theology this would be [and is!] disastrous. Paul himself would say ‘if Christ be not risen [a real fact!] then we are of all men the most miserable’. The biblical worldview of truth is objective; truth is something that corresponds to something else that is real. This does not always mean material, but real never the less. For instance mathematical equations are real truth, or feelings of love are real, but not material. This would be the foundation for saying ‘the murder of babies is wrong, always has been, always will be’ whether my view is contrary to your view is meaningless, the act itself is wrong! Your view of that oak tree might be different than mine, but if you run into it with your car, the only view that counts is what reality is. It really was a tree that was there, it was not simply my perception of ‘a tree’ my perception corresponded with reality and the truth was that the tree really was a tree, whether you like it or not! The modern philosophers would say ‘the only real question left for philosophy to answer is the viability of suicide’ [either Sartre or Camou said this] When philosophy severs itself from true moral reason and foundational ethics, it has no leg to stand on. When society can accept that murder might be wrong for you, but not for me, then the basic fabric of civilization is no more. Well I think I covered all three of the things I set out to do at the start, hope it helped.
(1127) Let me share a few testimonies; I type all this stuff from my laptop, I never work from a desk top. I have 2 laptops that I use, one as a backup if the other goes down [I realized a while back that it disturbs things too much to not type until it gets fixed!] One laptop misses letters as you type, I used to think it was my novice typing skills [I am bad! My daughter caught me doing the one finger thing while looking at the keys and couldn’t believe it] that was the problem, but I actually started looking at the screen while typing and realized certain letters don’t show up, you have to backspace and do it again. The other laptop has a mouse problem, it won’t always respond, this is frustrating for someone who cuts and pastes all over this blog! So when one computer gets me mad, I switch to the other one. Yesterday as I was battling with the mouse problem, out of frustration I said ‘Lord, give me a break! I can’t deal with this’ and it immediately started working, for the first time ever since I got it [it was a used computer when I bought it]. I also prayed about it these past few days while typing, sort of like seriously believing the Lord could fix it, you know you forget stuff like this at times. Then the other day I told you guys how I had an old buddy from prison write me, I had a package of teaching stuff I was going to send him. In the old days I would write the brothers in prison while at the fire house, you have time to sit around and do this stuff. But it’s really been a while since I regularly wrote any prison buddies [I have written many hundreds of letters in the past, no exaggeration] but I had the letter and stuff in the truck and kept putting it off. Finally the day I sent it was the same day my daughter got hired for a job with the state. My two oldest daughters attend college and have had good jobs. My oldest [24] is now a teacher at the high school she graduated from. My second oldest was a veterinarian assistant, but was looking for something else. She applied for some counselor thing with the state, a job that you usually don’t get unless you have connections. Sure enough the day I sent the packet, she got it! The bible says if you help the poor, reach out to the hurting, spend your time and resources freely for others, that God will reward you. I felt like the Lord returned the favor. As I just read Nehemiah chapter 5, Nehemiah rebukes the leaders for charging interest from the people. The Jews were mortgaging their lands and homes and going into debt trying to accomplish Gods work. The leaders were profiting from the situation. Nehemiah rebuked them, he even sounds like Paul when he says ‘all the time I was with you as governor [type of an apostle] I never took a salary, I provided for myself and my staff’ Paul says the exact same thing to the elders in Acts chapter 20. I think we as leaders need to re think some things. I was thinking the other day how that I have no Christian relationships with anybody in which I ever ask, or receive any financial reward. No offering thing, never speak in ‘a church’ and take an offering. I simply have the freedom to by pass the whole mess. One time the homeless brothers told me ‘brother, if you need your yard cut, or any work done at your house, let us know’ I could tell that they talked about it amongst themselves, sort of like ‘hey, the brother spends a lot on us, lets help him’. I turned down the offer anyway, they are used to local contractors hiring them at slave wages, I wanted them to know I wasn’t trying to get something from them. Although I have kidded about it at times, one time one of them finally got accepted for social security, they were gonna get a big check. I told them ‘you know I sense the Lord telling me that I am supposed to start hanging out with you a little more’! In the long run God will reward you if you really do stuff for free. Leaders, do you have regular friendships with people whom you never bring up money or offerings with? Are the people who know you most always being challenged in a financial way? Always needing to give more? Nehemiah rebuked the nobles because the ‘laity’ were being consumed with having to pay their own bills, plus support the nobles financially, and pay for the structures! Nehemiah said he wouldn’t charge the people, that God would reward him instead, I think he did.
(1128) yesterday I got with a few homeless buddies, found out that Eddy got arrested and sent back to San Antonio, some sort of serial killer charge, KIDDING! A child support thing, it is funny, the guys have picked up my morbid sense of humor. One time I had Tim with me, a good friend who has been homeless for years. We picked up my daughter from school, they know my friends and all, sometimes as they were growing up they would drive by them with their high school friends and all, see them at the corners. They would be like ‘oh, those are my dad’s friends’. So when I had Tim in the truck as we were picking up my daughter, I tell her ‘this is my friend Tim, he has spent many years in prison [she looks at me like ‘are you kidding me dad, picking me up from school with these bums in the truck!’] Tim tells her ‘yes, I had some serial killer charges that I was dealing with at the time’ he was kidding too! But anyway Eddy got sent to San Antonio, and the cops have been harassing some of the guys. I also wanted to talk a little bit more on Nehemiah chapter 5, Nehemiah really gets on the nobles/elders, he tells them that they were putting too much of a burden on Gods people, some of them were going into debt to simply pay the required taxes to the leaders. Nehemiah rebukes them strongly! He says ‘all the time I was laboring among you as a governor, I turned down the normal pay governors get. I also paid out of my own pocket for the expenses of my team and staff, plus I did not purchase any real estate of my own, but totally dedicated myself to the cause’. The nobles were engaging in the building up of their own financial fortunes, understand this wasn’t forbidden in and of itself, but at the same time the average people were being told to do and give more, to the point where they were actually going in debt as the leaders were increasing in wealth, Nehemiah felt this was wrong. Like the apostle Paul, he would lay down the right to build wealth [purchasing his own land] while working and leading Gods flock. He simply felt it to be a wrong example for him to be gaining in wealth while the people were going into debt; he laid down his own right to prosper for the sake of the people. One of the things Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for was they were putting heavy burdens on the people, but they themselves were not willing to bear the same load. Often times in the world of ‘full time ministry’ we see good men get into scenarios where they unwittingly fall into this mindset, they fall into patterns of becoming wealthy, receiving large salaries at the expense of many low wage supporters, they often see this as a legitimate expression of ‘church/ministry’ while the scripture warns against leaders profiting from the people, while the people themselves are under a burden. I like Nehemiah’s example, he willingly gave up the right to grow his own portfolio while the average church goer was struggling, although he had a right to the governors salary, he saw it to be more noble to donate his time and skills at his own expense, freely he had received, freely he gave back.
(1129) I am somewhat hesitant about sharing this, but will do it anyway. This morning I had a dream, I was back at the fire house and we had a major wreck. Somehow I found myself preserving the severed hands of a victim. Either his hands were purposefully amputated to save the limb, or maybe just severed. My job was to preserve the hands [to be honest, I think I also might have been used to remove them?] I wasn’t sure if this had any meaning at all. Then I read Nehemiah chapter 6 and he says ‘oh God, strengthen my hands for the work’. I also felt like the words of Jesus ‘if your hand offends you, cut it off’ applied. While we know the Lord doesn’t mean this literally, it does speak of removing the things that are in the way, getting rid of the trash, so to speak. One of the verses in Nehemiah says ‘the workers are tired and there is much rubbish’ speaking of the hindrances to the work. In this chapter the critics are trying to get a message to Nehemiah, they keep sending signals, but he won’t bite. They want him to come to them and justify his work. He says no way ‘I am doing a great work, I don’t have time to set it aside and go justify it to my critics!’ The critics went out on a limb already, they publicly prophesied of failure, now they have a personal reason to make their prediction come true! In this chapter we also read of a bunch of ‘prophets’ and a prophetess who tried to hinder Gods work. Let me make a note here, in Gods work in general you will always have people who feel that they are personally called to be ‘your prophet’ that is they become consumed with how you personally respond to their views. Some of these people mean well, others do not. In Nehemiah’s case the men who publicly reproved him were trying hard to stop him. They finally send an open letter accusing him of wanting to build the wall so he could become the new king! The charge was ‘he’s in this for himself, self gain’ now be careful here, Nehemiah thwarts this charge by actually not ‘being in charge for good’! There are many contemporary challenges to present church structures that do say ‘the modern view of church leadership is geared towards the promotion of the talented leader’ in many cases this reproof is accurate. In order for this charge ‘not to be accurate’ you must ultimately do the John the Baptist thing and decrease! John said ‘he must increase and I must decrease’ so here we see that Nehemiah had no problem using his skill and position to accomplish Gods work, but he will eventually walk away and leave the city in the hands of the people, he is not building the wall and city so he could have some permanent type of leadership position, he was not trying to ‘become the king’. Nehemiah finishes the wall in 52 days, quite a feat. He faces accusations, false prophets and much criticism, if you read the one liners from Nehemiah, you get the sense that he was so occupied with the work that he didn’t take a lot of ‘down time’ to think things out. He just shoots up a quick prayer ‘strengthen my hands’ or ‘look upon the critics and help us’ he simply rolls along and finishes the work as God ordained. He listens to good advice, but manages to discern between the good and bad. He refuses self preservation, one of the schemers tries to get him to hide in the temple [use Gods work for self preservation] and he refuses to do it! It would have taken away from his radical reputation as someone who was not seeking self gain. He asked God to strengthen his hands, to help him have the sufficient skills to complete the task. He, like the apostle Paul, will eventually walk away from the work, he will not create a ‘church/ministry’ that will become a lifetime financial source of income or personal prestige, he will simply build Gods work and then move on, how bout you? [note- this does not mean all Pastors have to eventually leave town! You did have elders who stayed in the communities of the new testament, but as an apostle, Paul functioned in an itinerant way. He was not looking to the churches as a permanent source of income or position]
(1130) Nehemiah gets the walls up, the doorways [gates] are in place, all that’s left is to put the doors on the hinges! The bible says ‘the wall was built, the spaces were large [broad in space] but the houses and people were not established yet’. As a man of wisdom Nehemiah knew that he had to get the walls up before he could build the town. Often times in ministry leaders read these verses and apply them to actual building plans for, well buildings! The better way to view these is thru the paradigm of Gods people being a glorious city, the ‘city that comes down from God out of heaven’ and we as leaders are given skills to help get Gods city established. One of ‘the walls’ that needs to be repaired is the basic lack of belief in the authority of scripture. Many believers struggle with the concepts they learn at college, the things the public schools teach ‘as fact’ that seem to contradict what they were taught as kids. Okay, let’s hit evolution again. I was reading an article from a scientist [I don’t believe he was a Christian?] who simply said that enough time and research has passed in the effort to prove whether or not life can simply spontaneously appear from dead matter. In order for the most popular form of atheistic evolution to have happened, you need spontaneous generation. Now, science has two major problems when it comes to trying to prove that atheistic evolution can actually happen; the appearance of matter from nothing, and the appearance of life from dead matter. Both of these things have been shown thru science that they never happen, not once! The scientist mentioned above simply was saying there comes a time where enough evidence comes in and you have to admit that the possibility of your theory is simply unworkable. Evolution [macro-Darwinian] has seen its day come and go. It is interesting that the foundational belief for many evolutionists, the science of ‘abiogenesis’ [the belief that living organisms can spontaneously come about from decaying matter] was actually disproved by Louis Pasteur in 1861, just a couple of years after Darwin published Origin of Species. Pasteur showed that the common belief that life sprang forth from dead stuff was false! This has nothing to do with religion or faith; this is pure scientific fact that simply states that the spontaneous generation of life springing up from some type of primordial soup can not happen! Now, is it still possible that matter came into existence from nothing? Or that life, living cells came forth from dead matter? Can ‘chance’ make the impossible happen? Chance is only a word that describes the odds of a certain thing happening, chance in itself can not make anything happen! The point is we as a society have swallowed the prevailing secular view that Darwinian evolution is a scientific fact, and the biblical worldview needs to be adjusted. This wall of secular thinking needs to come down, while the ‘wall’ of true biblical and scientific reason go back up. True science is in no way an obstacle to biblical faith, the problem is false science is too often peddled as true!
(1131) Nehemiah 8- This is really a key chapter. After the walls are built the process of reviving the community can move ahead. Nehemiah already gave the ‘charge’ of the city to two men who he could trust [last chapter] sort of like a Timothy, Titus deal with Paul. Now he lets Ezra do the pulpit preaching! Ezra begins reading straight from the law and gives the understanding, read this chapter and see how many times it says ‘they gave the understanding, the people were very attentive’ it reminds you of the description of the people who heard Jesus! I want to emphasize that Ezra and the teachers [Levites] were simply giving the people Gods word in context! There is a trend going on right now where some of the ‘flashy, young’ pastors are returning to the historic gospel and preaching the word IN CONTEXT! These past few years many of the mega churches focused on a ‘be all you can be’ type message, but there is a new focus going back to the ‘old word’ and simply teaching it in context. You don’t need Paul’s ‘new perspective’ on justification to make it interesting, while some of these viewpoints have stuff to add to our learning [I like N.T. Wright personally] yet the classic Pauline doctrine of justification by faith is more than enough to satisfy the hungry heart! Ezra gave the ‘sense’ and meaning of the law, and the people soaked it in. They are all gathered together at the ‘water gate’ [too much typology to do it all] and the people as ‘one man’ receive the word. Let me quickly quote a bunch of scattered verses ‘the people will come up like a river who overflows her banks and pour out into Judah’ ‘the people will be like fountains dispersed abroad’ ‘out of our bellies shall flow rivers of living water’ ‘pour out your Spirit on our seed’ ‘let your doctrine drop down like rain, your speech distill like dew’. God pours and flows his Spirit thru his people to the nations. The fact that Ezra is pouring Gods word into the people, before the temple [building] is even rebuilt is important. In this picture Gods people are the temple! A few points; Nehemiah willingly functioned as the governor [a type of an apostle] when it came time to hand over the leadership to others, he did it! Often times in modern church scenarios we don’t practice this part well, we feel like ‘geez, I spent my time building this thing, I deserve to be the main person’! In the New Testament churches there were no ‘main persons’, that is the communities that Paul was building were not ‘local churches’ that were providing him with long term income. These communities were the people of God who had the ability to function on their own after Paul left. The local leaders [elders/pastors] were simply men who had a stable grasp of doctrine that the local believers knew they could look to for support. Elders were more like facilitators of the corporate/communal experience, they were not professional speakers that the people listened to week after week! So this distinction is important to see. To all you ‘church planters’ out there [we have a lot of contacts from Kenya, some from Pakistan] understand that the apostles/governors played an important role in setting doctrine, letting the elders and people know what was true and what was false, but the apostle/church planter doesn’t have to be ‘the weekly’ speaker to any specific group of people. It’s okay to have a routine forum in which you can communicate on a regular basis to the communities that your are planting [I use this blog and radio] but don’t think you personally have to ‘be there’ every week! Nehemiah had the self security to hand the daily functions over to trusted men and allow them to ‘get the glory’. I find it interesting that after many years of church planting the apostle Paul wound up living in a rented room in Rome and preaching to those who would listen. Was poor Paul ‘devaluing himself’ by not setting a high salary! [silly things that preachers fall into by using the standards of modern business as opposed to the New Testament] Paul purposefully told us time and again why he did not set up for himself a steady ‘cash flow’ from the communities he was establishing [read Acts 20]. Leaders today need to re evaluate what their doing and why their doing it. Leaders need the self confidence to be able to ‘walk away’ from the communities they are building and to allow the saints themselves to learn how to become dependant/interdependent. Governors [apostles] need to have the self assurance to let the Ezra’s [scribes/teachers] come in and ‘get the glory’ leaders need a basic overhaul in why they do the things they do.
(1132) Nehemiah 9- as the people repent, they stand, fast, confess their sins and read from God’s law for a quarter of the day! There is a real renewal that takes place thru the reading of the word. In the last chapter we saw the emphasis on the teaching of Gods word, the bible says the Levites not only taught/read, but also gave the sense, the meaning of it. Jesus rebuked the religious leaders of his day, not because they weren’t ‘reading/quoting’ bible verses, they were doing it all the time! But because they weren’t really grasping the principles behind the word. In this chapter the people were not only hearing, but also understanding. Now they also do an historical remembrance of Gods great past works. They recount his promise to Abraham, the story of Egypt and Gods great deliverance. The giving of the law to Moses and the rebellion of their fathers during the time of the judges. It’s a great retelling of their history, sort of like Stephen in Acts 7. They also praise and worship God as the creator of all things. I have been reading a good book on the current debate between ‘young earth’ and ‘old earth’ creationists. Though I personally lean towards the old earth idea, yet the book brings out very good arguments for a young earth. They show the historical development of the geologic table [the levels of earth and the dating of these levels] and the book also brings out the fact that though many of the church fathers spiritualized the days of creation, this did not mean they were old earth creationists! Augustine believed in ‘instantaneous creation’ in a moment. So his idea was really young earth, even though he did not take the creation days as literal. One of the points brought out is the basic belief in God as creator, man seems to have a difficult time simply believing in the fact that God made all things out of nothing [Ex-Nihilo] whether you are an old earth or young earth advocate, the fact is God made it all by his word! The people in Nehemiah’s day praised him for his great works as seen in creation. It’s important to see the role that the reading of the law played in this national revival. We see this happen a few times in Israel’s history. Times where they rediscover the law after many years and repent as they return to Gods precepts. Recently I have been reading/studying from around 11:00 am to 3-4 pm. Not every day, but a few days a week. I found it interesting that the people were giving one fourth of their day to reading the law; God saw it as vital for the restoration of his city and people. I want to encourage all my Pastor friends, as you build Gods people, don’t underestimate the importance of good bible teaching. Don’t just give people verses to memorize/hear [what the Pharisees were good at] but give them the understanding too. God used his law [word] to revive the people after the walls were built.
(1133) Nehemiah 10- Because of the reading of the law, the people reform. They were ignorant of many of Gods commands, after they had their minds renewed to the Word, they made adjustments. The scripture says they separated themselves and walked according to God’s wisdom. Let’s talk a little. What does it mean to be ‘separated’ from the world? I have mentioned in the past that right after becoming a believer I attended a Fundamental Baptist Church for a few years. The church and the Pastor/people were and are great people. After leaving the church [and while attending as well] I came to see that certain groups practice a form of ‘separation’ that can be legalistic. This view sees current dress standards, watching movies [or TV] and other cultural trends as being worldly. Now, there is no doubt that movies and the media bombard the Christian with images and ideas that are contrary to Gods Word! But my view is these things [forms of media themselves, or changing dress codes] are not the heart of the matter. But there is a ‘worldly’ mentality that people can embrace. The current debate on abortion has the pro abortion groups lobbying for changes to the law on who has to provide abortions. President Obama is changing the standards that have been in place for years. There is currently a loophole for Christian doctors to abstain from this procedure because of conscience sake. Obama is trying to change that. They want to make it where if there are no other providers around, that the Christian doctor must ‘kill your kid’. Think of this for a moment; some people are so influenced by the culture of death that they would see it as a great victory to make a Christian doctor dismember their baby! The world’s mindset can be deadly. Now as the people in Nehemiah’s day repent, they restore the practice of the Sabbath year forgiving of debts. Israel had both a 7 year ‘bankruptcy’ type thing, where after 7 years the books are cleared. They also had a 50 year Jubilee, at the end of 50 years the title deeds to properties went back to the original owner. Once again, lets examine our mindsets; what would you say if Obama tried something like this? Would you rant and rave about socialism? Would Rush and Hannity fall over dead? Yet Gods ways are not ours, he is neither a Republican, Democrat, Socialist or any thing else. His kingdom is a Divine monarchy for heavens sake! He is the King and what he says goes, that’s it. By the way, this principle of letting things go back in the 50th year engrained in the community that they really didn’t own stuff. They were just stewards of Gods stuff. The biblical picture of land and homes and farms was that people simply were taking care of these things, God was the true land owner. That’s why Jesus and his men ‘picked the corn [grain]’ and ate it. God had already instilled this command in the law. Though the farms and fields were ‘owned’ by the land owner, yet ultimately everything belonged to God. How do we live our lives? Have we become affected by the culture to such a degree that the U.S. constitution takes precedence over Gods Word? Do you get upset [or enraged!] when some politician questions your right to own a gun? Jesus said someday the guns will be beaten into farming tools! I don't want to debate the whole gun thing, I just wanted to give you a little test to see whose standard you are being effected by, we all need to re-tool our thinking to a biblical worldview, it is often mistaken with human world views.
(1134) Nehemiah 11- After the walls are up, the city now needs some residents! At one time Jerusalem was a glorious city, when David captured it, it was considered a tuff city to take. He built it into a strong capitol city. But after many years of captivity and difficulty, it lost its luster. Sort of like when Katrina hit Louisiana, at first there was lots of talk about rebuilding all the devastated areas, but the ‘rich folk’ [politicians and others who stood up for the rebuilding of the minority areas] underestimated the ‘detachment’ that poor folk have to temporary things. Many of the evacuees relocated [many to Corpus] and simply started over. So Jerusalem needs some volunteers! The bible says the leaders dwelt there [influential kingdom men] and they cast lots for 1 out of 10 to move back. God also didn’t want everyone at the home base; this would have limited Israel’s influence as a people. Let me be honest, pioneering is difficult; times of relocating to new places, starting over again. Thru out my life I have gone thru these various stages and it’s not easy. Abraham’s life and destiny depended on his willingness to uproot and ‘search for a city that had foundations’ [a symbol of the church, the ‘city that comes down from God out of heaven’]. The bible speaks of his willingness to go to a place that he didn’t even know yet! God would give him the plans as he moved ahead. Let me quote a few verses off the top of my head ‘get out of the city and dwell in the fields, even Babylon, and there I will be with you and deliver you from the hand of the enemy’ ‘remember the word which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying your wives and your little ones and your cattle shall remain in the land the Lord gave you on this side of Jordan, but you shall go before your brethren armed, all the mighty men of valor, and help them to obtain their inheritance’ [saying this to the two tribes who settled outside of the promised land]. And the last one ‘David dwelt in the fort and called it the city of David, he built round about from the surrounding cities and inward, and the Lord was with David and prospered him for the sake of his people Israel’. God wants his people to be willing to dwell in the places that he has ordained, some made the sacrifice to move back to Jerusalem and rebuild. Others made the sacrifice to go out and pioneer new cities and nations. The key is being able and willing to make the steps of faith at the right time, don’t let anybody kid you, it’s not easy! But it’s always worth it in the end.
(1135) Nehemiah 12- Nehemiah restores Davidic worship, he sets praisers on the city wall. They provide financially for full time worshippers of God to continually worship the Lord. They give much thanks and praise! When I just read this chapter a few hours ago, I did my normal prayer/praise time before writing; I made a conscious effort to thank and praise God. This chapter also speaks of the key leaders/books that are still to come in the Old Testament [Ezra, Jeremiah, etc.] Some men are mentioned as ‘chief among the priests/leaders’. God’s city [the church, the New Jerusalem] has various gifted ones. Some are leaders of other leaders [Apostles/Pastors type thing] others are priests [Pastors- note, we are all priests as Christians] Some gifts are meant to play a foundational role in the community, there are good gifted teachers that often share good truth, but there are times of upheaval and reformation/revolution that call for more than simply being faithful to a ministry. These times require Prophetic voices who often run rough shod over the routine experience of church and ministry. These men are no better than any one else, they just play a different role in the city/community of God. We also see the Fish gate, Sheep gate. We have already discussed the Water gate. These gates are obviously prophetic with meaning. Jesus said we are ‘fishers of men’ we are also called sheep, this picture of the city of God surrounded by worshipers on the wall; with gates that let things out and in [Jesus said he was the door, by him the sheep go out and in- access] these pictures are all prophetic types of Gods spiritual community, they pre figure us, the people of God.
(1136) Nehemiah 13- Nehemiah takes control once again and settles some scores. First, the main instigator who butted heads with him the whole time, Tobiah, is exposed. All along he had an ulterior motive; he had a personal chamber [room] for personal wealth that was part of his connection with ‘the ministry’ [like Judas]. He had connections to the regional priests and the money that was supposed to be used for Gods work was being used instead for personal cash flow! Nehemiah rebukes this strongly and also reinstitutes the real purpose for the tithes and offerings. Now, to be fair here, he does rebuke the people for not rightfully distributing the tithes to the Levites; they were supposed to provide for the leaders who were giving their time and efforts for the work. A few things; this also included the singers. The money was to be used as support for God's city/work. I do teach the New Testament doctrine of ‘the laborer being worthy of the hire’ and I believe it can apply here. But we also must understand that the personal development of wealth was just rebuked! And these Levites [leaders] were not allowed to own anything themselves, the support from the tithe could not be used for their own personal investments. And last but not least, New Testament elders/pastors are not Levitical priests! He also rebukes the merchandisers, it reminds you of the scene where Jesus turned over the money tables in the temple. These business guys were doing business on the Sabbath, Nehemiah rebuked them and ran them out, they hung out at the gates for a few days and Nehemiah says ‘if you keep doing it, I will come and lay hands on you’ he was not talking ordination here! All in all Nehemiah was a radical reformer, he challenged the leadership and the people. He gave 12 years of his life free of charge, at his own expense. He restored the walls and dignity of the people, he often prayed ‘look upon me God, reward me for my sacrifice’ he really seemed to have a grasp on God being his audience, that he was not deriving some sort of self respect from the people. He wasn’t trying to impress the crowd or his peers, he had a job to do and he did it! When I first started this book a few days ago I had no plans on doing a study. So this is a ‘short study’ [no in depth chapter by chapter teaching]. In the future I will try and hit on short and in-depth stuff, let the Lord lead you guys in what you read from this site. Don’t get me wrong, I believe it’s all good, but many of you are at different stages of the journey. Try and be open to the Lords leading as you venture thru this very long blog, my goal is to deposit ‘meat in due season’ to be open to what the Spirit is saying and sharing it at the right time. God bless you guys, not sure what will do next, John.
(1137) Not sure which way to go, either the danger we are in right now as a country; that both sides [right and left] seem to be going to extremes, some wanting failure for the purpose of feeling vindicated. Or the liberal side that seems to always overlook the devastation of late term abortions. Never able to actually see and realize that we are actually dismembering real babies, babies that cry and squirm and wince on screen as they actually have taken pictures of this horrible act! Of course the murder of the man who engaged in this act for 5 thousand dollars a shot was wrong, very wrong. But the act itself is still horrendous! Both sides [right and left] are truly wanting the failure of the other side, even if it means national disaster! Bad stuff indeed. Okay, recently I have been reading up on the various views of Genesis and the recording of creation. Some scholars see the reality of other ancient near east [A.N.E] stories about a flood and creation, that have similar things to the biblical account, they see this as a key to understanding the Genesis account [I don’t fully hold to this myself]. While it’s interesting to note that some of these other stories have similarities [7 days are used frequently, the story of a man building a boat and saving his family as the world floods] and some of these stories existed before the Genesis account was written [around 1500 years B.C.] this in and of itself does not cast doubt on the biblical version. So what was the reaction to those who found out that these other stories had similarities to Genesis, and were written before Genesis? Some saw this as a clue to understanding the Genesis account; for instance they would say that when Moses recorded the Genesis account, he was a man influenced by his time and culture, so he obviously wrote in a sort of symbolic way, a style that he knew would be understood by the culture of his day. These scholars don’t reject the belief that creation did happen by God, they are simply trying to resolve some of the seeming problems [like God creating light on day 1, while the sun wasn’t created until day 4!] and feel there are some answers by using this paradigm. How else could you resolve the fact that other cultures [Babylonian, Egyptian] actually had their own stories of creation and a flood, before Genesis was written? Well the other possibility is that if Genesis is telling us the literal truth, that all people came from Adam [and later Noah] and that a great flood occurred, and that God really did make everything in 7 days, if these things really happened [by the way, I believe they did!] then why would you think it strange that the Babylonians and Egyptians had their own telling of these events, the other explanation for these other cultures having their own stories about these things is that these things really did happen to them! If all people really did come from Adam, then every culture would eventually have some type of telling of these stories passed along thru their culture. The possibility that some of these stories would be recorded before Genesis, does not diminish at all from the biblical account. No where in scripture does it tell us that the bible is the only book that would ever record the events of creation or a worldwide flood. The way people view these various truths depends a lot on their pre conceived mindsets. If you lean towards skepticism, then you tend towards seeing these things as ‘aha, I knew the bible was fake all along’ but if you lean towards a real belief in scripture, you could see it like the way I just showed you. In the future I will tackle some more of these issues [like light being created before the sun] and will try and give you both sides of the debate. But for now I wanted to just drop this in, to give your mind some things to chew on. The over spiritualizing of the creation account can be dangerous, Paul and Jesus both use the creation account in their teachings as historical narrative! In Romans Paul even says ‘like death entered into the world by one mans disobedience [Adam] we receive eternal life thru one mans obedience [Jesus]’ so to over spiritualize the creation account can be problematic. But even the literalists have some hurdles to overcome when reading the account. Most of all we know we can trust God’s word, and if there are portions of it that are Prose, Narrative, History or Phenomenological in language, this does not mean the Word of Gods is not true.
(1138) CREATION DAY 1- In Genesis 1:1-5 we have the first recording of Gods creative acts, over the years Christians have struggled with this text. One of the main reasons believers ‘struggle’ with it is because modern scientific understanding [majority view- not all!] indicates that the earth is quite a lot older than 6 thousand years. Some scholars believe that the church has been duped into believing in old earth science and because of there acceptance of science, above Gods word, they have come to compromise Gods word. A simple reading of the first 5 verses of Genesis tell us that ‘in the beginning’ God made the heaven and the earth. At this point, God is not constrained to a time/space continuum of ‘day’ [the Hebrew word Yom]. The day itself will be created in this time period called ‘in the beginning’. God will create light and separate the light from the darkness and call this ‘day’. I see the possibility of there being a very long period of time having passed at this point, at least according to this text [we will look at Exodus 20:11 in a moment]. I do not see a need to create a ‘gap theory’ between verse one and verse two, some theorize that you had an entire pre adamic world, that God judged this world and this is how they explain the long age of the earth. I believe that a simple reading of the first five verses could go like this ‘at the start of all things, God made the heaven and the earth [no day constraint yet] and he also made light and dark [now we are getting into Gods cycle for man] and he saw that all these things were good. He made the day itself at this time, and the day became mans measurement of time’. Now, this is my paraphrase on how this text could be read. I do find it interesting that out of all the scholars I am presently reading on this subject, none of them are making this simple point; that the 24 hour day constraint was itself created ‘in the beginning’. Now, exodus 20:11 does say that God made all things in ‘6 days’, this verse seems to indicate that there was a time constraint to the actual making of the heaven and earth ‘in the beginning’ so to be fair to both sides [young and old earth creationists] I had to throw this in. Jesus also refers to the creation of man as an historical event [as opposed to a theistic evolutionary view] he says ‘in the beginning God made them male and female, and for this cause a man leaves his parents and is joined to his wife’ the young earth brothers will use this to show that Jesus believed that God created man ‘in the beginning’ as opposed to there being billions of years passing before man showed up [which is also a progressive view of creation- a sort of joining together the timeline of long age science with the Genesis account]. The point I would make is if God created time at ‘this point in time’ then the phrase ‘in the beginning’ could refer to thousands, or millions of years all being ‘at the start’ [compared to forever!]. I do not hold to a ‘progressive view’ myself, I simply believe that a plain reading of the first 5 verses of Genesis shows that the time constraint of day [Yom] was itself created at this time. The Exodus verse does seem to say that all the events of Gods creative acts did fit into the time/space of 6 days, but this first Genesis reading seems to leave room for a longer period of ‘one day’ when speaking of the creation of heaven and earth. While the young earth creationists do seem to fault the old earth creationists for trying to make scripture fit into current scientific theories of the earths age, I would like to point out the fact that both sides [young and old earth groups] see the first 3 days as distinct from all the other days that have occurred since that time. All agree that the sun was not the original light source for the first three days [well, some believe God was not giving us an exact consecutive recording of creation. So these see the sun as being the source of light for all the creation days] the charge could be made that even the young earth creationists are admitting that some of the creation days are not ‘days’ in the classical sense of the word. These first days were not solar days! The whole point is we do find some room for the interpretation of the creation days as having some areas that we don’t fully understand, or at least we don’t know all that was going on in a scientific sense [was the light for the first three days God himself? Possible. But then that would leave the door open that God created himself! A much greater theological heresy than the long earth view!]. I also believe that the fact that ‘the day’ itself was said to have been created by God ‘in the beginning’ leaves much room for a longer time period of the earths age. Out of all the other ancient near east [A.N.E] stories of creation, none of them have ‘a god’ who himself transcends time and space and actually created time itself. For thousands of years the common belief was that either matter itself always existed, or that time always existed. So the competing stories of creation found in other cultures have a god that was himself formed from matter, or creation itself was a process of these dependant gods fighting each other. No other view has a god that transcends time and space and actually creates time and space. It wasn’t until the 20th century that science itself proved this to be a fact, Einstein’s theories on time and space gave us proof that all things did have a starting point [big bang cosmology]. So anyway, in the coming weeks I might hit on these things a little more, but for today I wanted to emphasize that a simple, literal reading of Genesis 1:1-5 does show us that God created ‘the day’ [the actual time measurement that man goes by] during his initial act of creation. God himself was not ‘bound’ or constrained to the time/space continuum, he actually made the time/space continuum at ‘the time’.
(1139) CREATION DAYS 2-6 There are various views on these days; of course the literal view, each day is a 24 hour day that ends with the description of ‘evening and morning’. The symbolic view would argue that there was no ‘real’ evening and morning until day 4, because on day 4 God made the sun. So an ‘evening and morning’ that would be measured by the earth’s rotation as it relates to the sun [solar day] could not happen in a literal sense. These see certain poetic elements in these verses. A repetition of certain phrases- evening and morning, let there be, God said. These repetitive phrases show a stylized Hebrew narrative. It should be noted that this argument is true, whether you believe in the literal or figurative reading. It is still possible to have this type of stylized element, while at the same time speaking a real historic narrative. Another interesting view is called The Framework Theory. This view has been around since the early 20th century. It’s a topical view of the creation days. It sees the first 3 days and the 2nd set of three days as basically describing the same time frame. Basically this view says that God simply used the ‘framework’ of the 7 day week to give to man a real historic explanation of creation, but God used the framework of the 7 day week in a symbolic way for mans benefit. This view will compare day 1 [the first day of the first 3 day set] with day 4 [the first day of the second 3 day set]. Day one has God creating light, day 4 has the sun and stars. This view says these are 2 descriptions of the same creation act. The light from day one comes from the luminaries in day 4. Day 2 coincides with day 5. Day 2 has the heavens appear when God divides the waters [heaven and sea] day 5 [the second day of the second set] has the things that fill the heavens and seas- birds and sea creatures. Day 3 has land and vegetation, day 6 has land animals and man- things that eat the vegetation and walk the earth. It’s interesting, though not exact. You could see the seas as being part of day 3, and as you read both creation accounts [Genesis 1 and 2] there is a mixture of when things showed up. Are there other explanations for why the account in chapter 2 differs from chapter one? [chapter one has man being made after the animals, chapter 2 shows Adam before the animals, God brings the animals to show Adam, he sees nothing fitting for him and God then makes Eve]. Some see a purposeful inconsistency, put in the text by God himself, to show man that this was not to be taken in a literal, consecutive way. Sort of like the critics of the gospels, they will find various inconsistencies in the gospel narratives, like one gospel having two angels at the tomb, the other showing one. The critics say ‘see, inconsistent’ but the other argument can say if you had exact testimony from various eyewitness accounts in a courtroom, this would not convince the jury that their testimony was true, to the contrary it would indicate that the witnesses were coached. So the various different details might be actual clues to the validity of the gospel writers! So in Genesis, some feel there are purposeful poetic structures and differing accounts for the purpose of telling the reader ‘don’t take this too literal’. I don’t personally hold to this, but do see the point. It should be noted that in Exodus 20 and 31 Moses will speak about the creation days as historical narrative. No matter which view a person takes [literal or symbolic] the fact that creation itself happened by the hand of God is an undeniable fact of history and science. All things could not have come from nothing, there had to be an initial cause some where down the line. This initial cause himself had to have had no beginning [logic and science show this] and it just so happens that these attributes belong to the God of the bible, even before we knew that creation needed an initiator that possessed them!
(1140) CREATION DAY 7- On the seventh day God rested and enjoyed what he had made. This does not mean he was tired, or that he ceased from activity. But it shows us the process and ways of God. When you read the parables of Jesus he often uses land and seed analogies to explain God’s kingdom ‘the kingdom is like planting a seed’ and stuff like that. God rested because it was his purpose to initiate the first 6 days of creation and for that creation to be self sustaining/propagating [under his sovereignty]. It’s important to see this aspect of creation. In chapter 1 God chose to use the words ‘let the waters bring forth’ and ‘let the ground bring forth’ when speaking of land and sea creatures. Why not simply ‘let there be animals, fish’? It seems as if God himself is leaving some room here for a reading of the text that has more to it than meets the eye. Does this mean the Progressive creationists are right? [or theistic evolutionists] not necessarily, but it shows us that there is some language in the text itself that shows a sort of ‘co-operative effort’ where God caused the initial base elements to ‘bring forth’ life. Some see this as God using simple language to describe deep scientific truths that would be found thru out the ages. Some equate this language with deep time ideas [old earth]. Also in chapter 2 we see the Lord describe the entire creation event as happening in ‘a day’ [singular]. This simply meaning ‘at the time period’ the young earth creationists are correct in pointing out that this does not mean the first 6 [or 7] days were not literal 24 hour periods. Scripture does use the word Day to speak figuratively at times; the ‘day of the Lord’ and stuff like that [meaning both a day and a time period]. But the point can be made that very early on [Gen 2] God chooses to use the word Day in the singular to describe the entire event. Also the writer of Hebrews will ‘spiritualize’ the phrase ‘and God rested on the seventh day’ to describe the age of grace, the new covenant ‘rest of God’ [read my Hebrews commentary, chapter 4- To be honest I don’t remember what I said at the time, but I’m sure I must have explained it!]. Once again, this would not necessarily leave the door open for a symbolic, non literal reading of day 7. But it shows us the various ways other new testament teachers used these scriptures, they were not afraid of applying them in theological ways. Of course we can get into trouble if we carry this too far. In the early days of the church you had the Alexandrian school, a great 3rd century Christian school, that adopted a highly symbolic way of reading scripture. The famous teacher Origen would head up the school at one point. He taught a type of spiritual interpretation of the bible that had 4 meanings to it, it was a little [or way] overboard to be honest about it, but the school was very influential. Eventually saint Augustine would embrace many of these ideas. Augustine was a titan in the early church and has been said to have had more influence in the later centuries of the church than any other teacher next to the apostle Paul! So we have had somewhat of a history at how far we should go when reading these texts. I would simply point out that there is some room here, early on in the bible, to see that even a straight forward reading of the text leaves room for some progressive ideas, some ‘spiritualizing’ of certain aspects, and a certain feel for the text that seems to say ‘there’s more going on here than initially meets the eye’. This does not mean we should abandon a literal view of the days, but shows us that God can use natural, normal days and extend his ideas to us in a manifold way [like Jesus use of the seed in his parables- real seeds, greater meaning]. Also the text shows us that God created the heavens and earth first and used language that said ‘let the waters/ground bring forth’ showing us that all other things were made from the basic stuff of the original heavens and earth. Does natural science go along with this? Yes, science shows us that all the base elements of all things come from the initial base elements that were used in the creation of the material world [The 90 or so elements found in the periodic table- hey, it’s been a long time since high school!] So even science itself would agree with the biblical record! How would the writer of Genesis have known this at such a pre scientific time? These things testify of the Divine nature of scripture itself. So we need not abandon a literal view, but we also see there is room for more than initially meets the eye.
(1141) UNIFORM OR CATASTROPHE ? One of the key verses in the debate between young and old earth creationism is in 2nd Peter chapter 3. Peter says that in the last days scoffers will doubt two specific things; the second coming and the flood of Noah’s day. I find it interesting that some theories on the long age of the earth also incorporate a local flood for Noah’s day. The young earth guys will use the Peter verse to show that if you purposefully rule out a world wide flood from your theory, that you fall into the snare of viewing certain scientific data [geologic table] as being a result of millions/billions of years of gradual uniform time [uniformitarianism] as opposed to being a result of the flood. The young earth brothers point to the fact that much of the fossil evidence and geologic column [like the Grand Canyon] can be a result of the universal flood. These brothers see the catastrophe [catastrophism] of the flood as the cause for these things. Does Peter [or any other bible passage] shed light on this subject? Yes, even though the bible does not speak to us in scientific language, it is reliable on all the things it does speak about; history, events like a flood, the future judgment, the second coming, etc. So it is important to not rule out the effects that a worldwide flood might have had on the data. Do we have any examples of the bible referring to worldwide things, and not really meaning ‘the whole world’? Yes, in Acts 2 the bible says there were people gathered from ‘every nation under heaven’ at the time, but the chapter gives us the nations that were there, there were obviously no people from America! So does ‘every nation’ simply mean every nation from the known world of the time? Yes. So some local flood believers use this type of stuff to defend their view. We do need to be careful when doing theology like this. Does the biblical account give us other clues that the flood was worldwide? Sure, why in the world would God have Noah build a huge ark, gather all these animals, have them in it for a long time while the earth floods. If the flood was regional, just tell the guy to move! The biblical account says the waters covered the highest mountains of the day, this could not happen unless the flood was world wide. So even though the bible does say ‘world wide/all nations’ at times in a non literal way, this does not mean we can change all the events described as world wide into local events. Some who read the first few chapters of Genesis in a poetic language way, also have the problem of deciding when the poetry stops! Is the Genesis 6 account of a flood real? What about the tower of Babel in chapter 11? Once you start going down the road of over spiritualizing the bible, you can run into problems. Overall I believe we need to be open and willing to see both sides of this argument [young and old earth views] there is somewhat of a tendency to view opposing views as real heresy [I sense this mostly from some of the young earth writers]. But there is also a condescending attitude towards young earth believers that at times seems to say ‘how can you be so behind the times in your views’? This debate on the age of the earth and the various progressive stages of evolutionary progress [cosmological evolution- stars producing basic elements over billions of years and these things ‘birthing’ planets and so forth] these theories are in no way definite! There are a lot of things that we simply don’t know for sure. But at the same time there are and have been true scientific breakthroughs that have challenged the mindset of the church and have corrected the church’s view in certain areas. As believers we need to hear both sides, while avoiding the warning of Peter who did say that there would be scoffers who purposefully would overlook the historical event of the flood of Noah’s day, we must let scripture form our views, while at the same time understanding that the bible does not give us a scientific explanation for all things.
(1142) MAN, GODS UNIQUE CREATION- Okay, we already saw how God made the animals and fish and birds, but when he describes mans creation he shows us that it is unique. Out of all the other created things, man alone is in ‘Gods image’ and bears his likeness. Man is a moral being with a built in conscience, he has the capacity to know God and live with him forever. This is the basis of the Judeao Christian value on human life. Those religions who believe in the Genesis account of creation, see man as having special value. The Darwinian worldview [social Darwinism] sees man as a simple blob of meaningless flesh, no different than the other life forms along the line. I always found the atheists reasoning to be a little illogical; they will argue that they are the real intellectuals, the so called ‘brights’ [a recent term they have come up with to describe their group] they will then explain to you how their view of their mind and brain is purely naturalistic, their brains are simply these jumbled masses of cells that are the result of thousands of years of meaningless process. Their whole being started as an accident, they have no initial purpose or final end. They see themselves, and along with it, all their reasoning and education and knowledge as being the result of years and years of luck and chance, and then they want you to trust in their conclusions! Ah, the utter foolishness of mans wisdom. God formed man from the dust of the earth and breathed into him his own breath and man became a living soul. Though the basic material of man is the same as the other material things God made, yet he only breathed his own image into man. The great 17th century philosopher/mathematician Blaise Pascal was reading the gospel of John one night, he was meditating on John 17 and had an awakening, he began to see that God was ‘the God of Jesus’ not the God of the philosophers. He saw that having a real relationship with God was different than simply knowing the things about him. God built into man the capacity to know him, while all other creatures are valuable and special to him [Jesus said not even a little sparrow dies without God caring about it!] yet man alone has the capacity to know and be in true communion with his creator, man was created in Gods image.
(1143) THE FALL- God puts man in the garden, he gives him only one restriction ‘don’t eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil’ sure enough, he does! The serpent [satan] tempts Eve in 3 areas, the tree is good for food [lust of the flesh] good to look at [eyes] and can make you wise [pride]. In 1st John 2 we see these three areas mentioned as the common categories of all other temptation. These were the same areas the devil used on Jesus in Matthew 4. The temptation to Eve essentially said ‘look at this God of yours! He wont give you the freedom to do anything you want, he is withholding such a good tree from you’ sounds like the philosopher Freud, he taught that the problem with man was Gods restrictions. That if man would cast off the limits that religion imposed upon them, then all would be well. But what man did not know was that these basic limits were for his own good. When man would choose to walk out from under Gods limits, he would suffer for it. In this chapter [Gen. 3] we also see the great prophecy of the child of the woman eventually crushing the serpents head [called the Protoevangelium- Latin] a prophecy about Christ’s future victory at the Cross. God also covers man with animal’s skins, a type of the future sacrifice of Christ on behalf of man. Man tried to cover up with leaves, God said it wont do, so he sacrificed the life of an animal and used the skins as a covering. The wages of sin is death, the price was paid. In Romans chapter 5 Paul will show us that death and sin passed upon all mankind from Adams sinful act, but thru the obedience of one man [Jesus dying on the Cross] righteousness comes to those who believe. This is the basic Christian doctrine of original sin. Some refer to this as the federal head theory of redemption. I believe it’s vital for Christians to have a grasp of this doctrine. In the 19th/20th centuries you had liberal theologians deny the doctrine of Jesus dying on behalf of man. Along with this they also denied that original sin existed. Most believers realized that this denial was heresy and avoided it, but some are playing with the idea again. The bible clearly teaches the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ on the behalf of man [Isaiah 53] and it is a foundational doctrine for all true believers. To some it seemed unfair to charge God with the doctrine of original sin, and along with it the doctrine of Penal substitution [Christ being punished for us] these are core Christian truths, if people want to deny them, that’s their choice. But to be a Christian in the biblical sense of the word, these truths are necessary, they are part of the foundation of all true Christian churches.
(1144) CAIN AND ABEL- After the fall of man, God kicks him out of the garden and he loses intimacy with God. Eventually Eve has kids and Cain kills Abel his brother. In Hebrews 11 and 1st John we read the story. Abel brought an animal offering, Cain brought from the fruit of the ground. Some say this was a comparison between Jesus [typified in Abel's sacrificial animal] and the law [Cain’s work of his hands, the ground]. Maybe so? Hebrews says God accepted Abel’s offering because it was in faith and rejected Cain. Cain got jealous and killed his brother, the first recorded murder in the bible. Cain has a son named Enoch [which means teacher- rabbi] he builds a city and names it after his son [God is building us, the city of God- we are named after his son, the Body of Christ] and Enoch will eventually be caught up bodily into heaven [a type of the ascension]. The skeptics often ask ‘where did Cain get his wife’? The most likely answer would be from his extended family. There was no rule against marrying your kin back then, so this sounds reasonable to me. But wait! The skeptic says because we don’t know for sure where Cain got his wife, therefore atheism is true. They then will tell you where all people really came from. Around 15 billion years ago nothing existed [not even God] and from this point of nothing something exploded into existence [without an exploder!] eventually the earth showed up and it rained on the earth for millions of years. Somehow the rain on the rocks produced this soupy mixture [primordial soup] that all by itself produced the first living cell. After millions of more years man showed up. Yeah brother, that explanation sure puts to shame the Cain and his wife thing! The story of Cain warns us of the danger of jealousy, comparing ourselves with others. Putting pressure on people to make things happen so you look better. I recently read a story about a mega church [not in Corpus] and they went thru a few years of battles. They were building a new expensive building; the pastor put pressure on the people to give. Some of the people felt like they were always being challenged to give more money. Then word got out that the Pastor bought expensive gifts for his friends with church money, 3-4 thousand dollar suits and jewelry. He was flying all over the world at great expense, doing public speaking and stuff. It was a big mess, lawsuits entailed and relationships ruined. From what I read about it in the news paper stories that were on line, it seemed like there were mistakes on both sides, both the church leadership and those who wanted to expose it. The bigger problem is this basic style of church, the high powered world traveling leader, spending lots of money on seemingly okay things. The people being supporters of the gifts and persona of the charismatic personality [whether thru media or personal travel] this whole system is being rightfully challenged at the present time by a new generation of community minded believers who see that this high powered style of an individual leader is not the pattern of church found in the New Testament. Often time’s jealousy can be a factor on both sides of these issues, but we also need to understand that there are legitimate challenges against this whole expression of church. Most of all we want to avoid taking things into our own hands, trying to personally stop what we might perceive as wrong. Cain was jealous; he allowed his rage to lead him to the killing of his own brother. He might have gotten rid of the thing he felt was an obstacle, but he would live with the guilt for the rest of his life.
(1145) THE FLOOD- Okay, this is a hot topic. First, the flood really happened! Some old earth creationists insist on a local version of it, others say it was worldwide [I’m in the world wide camp]. God tells Noah to embark on a very long building program. He certainly looks like a nut to those around him. Eventually the Ark is finished and Noah and his family get in, they bring 7 of every clean animal and 2 of every ‘unclean’ type. It rains [some say 40 days and nights, others think it rained longer] and the ‘fountains of the deep are opened up’ obviously a reference to some type of Tectonic action. After everything dies, the Ark rests and Noah and his family repopulate the planet. The young earth creationists have good arguments from this story [real event!] some of the old earth brothers tend to trivialize it. Ever since the science of geology gained ground [19th-20th centuries] many have argued for a very old earth based on the geologic table. They look at the different strata of the earth [levels] and say ‘see, these levels took millions of years to develop, you have dinosaurs buried in the lower levels, then other types of animals, birds and then man is rarely found fossilized’ these brothers see a sort of scientific record that backs up the progressive creation view. They say the creation days are ages, and the science shows us deep time. Are there any other explanations for the various fossil levels? Yes. The young earth brothers will make a very good argument that the cataclysmic effect of the flood caused the levels. They say the reason you find dinosaurs and other land animals at lower levels is a result of natural panic and survival during the flood. The slower, heavier animals would die first and get buried first. The birds lasted longer of course; they kept flying to high land until they too died off. Man was the smartest of the bunch, he managed to survive longest, and that’s why you don’t find as many fossils of man as you do other creatures [those who die late would not get covered in sediment and would simply rot!] This argument isn’t that bad, to be honest. There are of course many other things besides this, the point I want to make is if you rule out the biblical record of a world wide flood, then you are leaving out other interpretations of the data. Most young and old earth brothers agree on the actual record [i.e.; we do see things buried at different levels] they simply disagree on the interpretation of the data. Lets do a few practical things here, God had Noah prepare things ahead of time. He also spent some down time in a huge boat with a ‘lot of dung’ [ouch!] Often times on the journey we hit spots that don’t look [or smell] that great. People might even mock us ‘look at that idiot Noah, he’s even got his family believing in this stuff!’ but when it was all said and done he was vindicated. Those who tend to spiritualize the stories of Genesis usually see the first 11 chapters as a mix of symbol and history. The genealogies of chapters 4, 5 and 11 are sometimes seen as not exact [by the way, in the last entry I used Enoch as an example of the ascension, the Enoch who was taken up was the Enoch of chapter 5]. The reasons are various [like the other ancient near east genealogies used 10 generation lists, both chapter 5 and 11 are 10 generation lists]. Some do this in order to fit more time into the biblical record. Jesus, Peter and the writer of Hebrews all speak of Noah and his flood as a real historic event! There should be no reason for believers to doubt or spiritualize these stories away. But we also want to be open to the reality that other cultures had their own tellings of these stories, and that the recording of genealogies does not mean there is no room for an older earth [the genealogies are accurate, but they don’t start right at the beginning of time!]. And let’s finish in a practical way, are you going thru a season of feeling stuck in a big box with a lot of dung? Sometimes the word of the Lord to us is ‘just survive at this time, when the storms over things will look better again’. The Lord used Noah to have an influence on the entire civilization that would re-populate the planet! God will increase your influence if you simply find a way to survive the flood.
(1146) SONS AFTER THE FLOOD- In Genesis 9 we read the account of Noah and his sons repopulating the planet. God promises Noah that he will never destroy the earth again [by way of water- what about fire? We’ll get to that in a minute] and we see the beginning of man eating animals for the first time, the institution of the death penalty and civil justice [Romans 13] and the famous promise of the rainbow ‘when ever it rains again you will see my bow in the clouds and know I will not flood the earth again’. Are there natural explanations to things that the bible ascribes to God? Yes. Does that mean the bible is a book of myths and fables that were fake and only meant to give us moral lessons? No [contrary to liberal theology]. The fact that we know every time there is a rainbow in the sky, that there is a natural explanation to it, this does not mean this story is fake. God obviously created a repeatable situation that never occurred before, and he told man it was for a sign. Just because science can ascribe a naturalistic explanation to a thing, this does not mean the thing has no supernatural elements to it. This is also where the theistic evolutionists/progressive creationists make parts of their case. Does the fact that God created something mean that there are no possible natural means for him to work by? They will show you that when David said God formed him in his mothers womb, that obviously ‘God formed’ David in a different way than Adam! When you look at ‘a test tube baby’ do you not see a creation of God? Yes, even though there are obvious natural explanations to the conception and birth [like the rainbow being explained by nature] yet the actual life itself is still a mystery that can only be attributed to God. Also God reassures man not to worry about a total future destruction of the planet, in the last verse of chapter 8 he says as long as the earth remains there will never be another worldwide ceasing of the created order [seedtime and harvest]. How do we square this with the Christian doctrine of ‘the end of the world’? Now, this can get complicated and take more time than I have right now, but let’s try and take a quick ride. The famous New Testament verse on the future ‘destruction’ of the planet is found in 2nd Peter 3 [the same chapter that deals with the flood] Peter says the elements will melt with a fervent heat and we await a new heaven and earth. In the gospels Jesus also speaks about ‘the end of the world’ the word for world does not mean the planet, but the age. Just like when the bible says ‘satan is the god of this world’ it speaks of age, not earth. So a careful reading of the ‘end of the world’ verses show us that there will be a future time of cleansing ‘by fire’ that will usher in a new age/order. Preterists [those who believe the future judgment scenarios were speaking of a.d. 70 and the end of the old order of the law] take these verses to mean that God was ending ‘the old order/age of law and bringing in a new age of grace’ I see partial truth to this, but don’t fully accept that there is no future aspect to it. The futurists [dispensationalists] see a destruction of the world and sometimes allow this view to effect their responsibility to the planet and society at large ‘heck, why worry about the environment and future stuff, it’s all coming to an end soon’ type mentality. Some, not all, have this mindset. The Preterists think the Futurists have made a fatal mistake in misreading the verses that should say ‘age’ instead of ‘world’. There are very good points that the Preterists make, though I don’t fully embrace everything they have to say. Overall we see that God wanted to reassure man that he was not going to totally wipe the earth out again like he did in the past. Whether you see the future fire burning up the elements as some sort of nuclear thing [I don’t] or a reference to the glory of Jesus burning up the chaff at his return, the important thing to remember is God wanted man to know that the natural order of day and night would go on, and a new heaven and earth would continue to exist for all eternity. The mindset of ‘don’t give up on the mandate to have dominion and care for the planet’ was being instilled in Noah and his sons. I think it would do the evangelical church some good if we looked more seriously at some of these issues.
(1147) Lets do a brief overview. Those of you reading these last 10 or so entries from the Genesis Study will see that I taught the chapters 12-50 a few years ago. I had no real reason to have left out the first 11 chapters; it just worked out that way. It gave me some time to look at both sides of the creation debate [young versus old earth]. First, I want to say that I still lean towards old earth myself, but do not consider myself a Progressive Creationist. These brothers view the creation days as long ages, the problem I have with that view is it has God intervening directly and creating life at many different intervals over millions of years. I don’t hold to that. But I do believe it’s possible to have an old earth and a literal reading of the days [I already explained it in these last few posts]. Most of all I want to stress that the bible is not clear when it comes to the age of the earth. The young earth brothers have made a very noble effort from verses that connect the beginning of creation with man [Mark 10:6] or other verses speaking about things from the start [Mark 13:19-20, Luke 11: 50-51]. Too much to do now, but it is a long argument for a young earth. The other word that comes up often is Phenomenological, this word is used to explain the language of scripture that is used when speaking to the common man. Like when the bible speaks of the Sun set and Sun rise, most of us realize that the Sun is not the object that is moving! So to technically argue something that we know is ‘not true’ would be silly. Mark Noll wrote about stuff like this in the popular book ‘Scandal of the Evangelical mind’. So, how much science do we accept? Do we use these arguments to open the door to Evolution and everything else that comes down the pike? Of course not! But we try and stay open to science while at the same time staying true to Gods word. For many years science and philosophy believed in an eternal earth and universe. It wasn’t until the tremendous breakthroughs of the 20th century that the Big bang Theory became accepted science. If you listened to Einstein’s theories at the beginning, they seemed utterly ludicrous! His ideas about time not being fixed, and the relationship between time and space were way out there. Many Christians did not accept his ideas. But there were many atheistic scientists who were more troubled, if Hubble and Einstein were right [they were] that would mean the universe had a starting point [the so called point of singularity] the atheists knew that this would sound the death bell for their belief in atheism. If there was a starting point to time and matter, then there was no way to get around it, you would need an initial starter [Aristotle and Aquinas would be right- prime mover, though they both believed in an eternal universe]. So today the majority view of cosmology is the Big Bang theory, some scientists still argue for the eternal universe, but most believe in the Big Bang. In essence this is an example where science has handed to the theologian one of the greatest weapons to argue for the existence of God. But just like the age of the earth debate, you have believers who challenge Big Bang cosmology. Some are smart and have good reasons to challenge it. When I say I believe in the Big Bang, I am not saying I hold to the various views of evolutionary processes that come along with the theory; things like the stars producing the matter that swirled out over millions/billions of years and formed planets. There are obviously parts of the Big bang theory that are questionable. So scientists try and come up with ideas to make the questions go away. A major problem to the Big bang theory is how can the universe have such a stable balance of temperature all over the place. If everything expanded [that’s really a better word to explain it than explosion] at such a rapid rate, you would not have the stable atmosphere that science shows us. So a professor at M.I.T., Alan Guth, came up with an idea called ‘inflation’ he guessed that at the initial point of singularity, everything first expanded to the size of a basketball and all the matter of the universe was stabilized at this point. Then the massive expansion took place and that’s why you have a steady balance when there shouldn’t be one. To say the least these ideas are very questionable, that’s why some scientists don’t accept the whole theory. But for the most part the accepted truth that all matter did have a beginning point is one of the strongest apologetic arguments that science could have ever given to the church. The point being we as believers need to look at both sides of these issues, the debate between young and old earth creationism has at times lost the Christian mandate to deal charitably with each other. I realize the views held are sincere, and many believe the integrity of Gods word is at stake. But we need to present our views and let the chips fall where they may. I will probably finish this short excursion into Genesis tomorrow, but those of you reading these entries from other parts of the blog besides the ‘Evolution/Cosmology’ section, I would suggest reading the stuff I have written in that section along with these last 10 posts. It will help give you a better idea of where I am coming from.
(1148) THE TOWER OF BABEL- Today I finish the Genesis study that I started a few years ago. Sort of a milestone if you will. In chapter 11 we see the famous story of the Tower of Babel. Man united his efforts, learned how to build things contrary to God's initiative [brick and mortar versus stone] and gave his time and efforts willingly in order to make a name for himself [image building]. Over the years I have observed the church of God go thru various seasons, sometimes I cross paths with good men who are at different levels of the journey [like myself]. One of ‘the levels’ is the realization that ministers/pastors have often unconsciously built towers of Babel when they meant to build Gods church. Babel was an affront to what God wanted. Babel was an edifice that drew your attention to man and his ability to get things done, it shouted ‘look how much I have been able to accomplish, cant you see what I’ve done’! Contrary to mans building plan, God used stones that were honed and fashioned at the quarry before they were brought to the temple site. This represented the reality that though man is used in Gods building program, yet he is simply a stone carrier/placer. He doesn’t actually produce the building materials [brick and mortar]. The Lord stopped the tower of Babel by confusing the languages of men and scattering them throughout the land. The contrast to this chapter is Acts 2, where the Lord supernaturally allowed men of many different languages to once again come together and understand each other. Sort of like Gods divine imprimatur on the new building/tower that he was going to build [the church]. He would allow men once again to take part in this unified effort to build something. But it would be like the prophet said ‘not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord’ [stones versus brick]. On the journey most leaders will eventually see the common mistake that many Protestants have made in allowing the things we have built to bring honor and attention to who we are, what we have been able to do. This mindset of building is exactly what God rebuked at Babel, he did not want man to ‘build a tower unto heaven’ and believe in his own intellect and abilities. Jesus often challenged the mindset of the disciples on the nature of leadership, he built into them a new way of seeing leadership, it would not be a means to become the greatest, the most well know one among the group. It is common today for the leader/pastor of a congregation to unconsciously become the center of attention; this is a mistake that Christians have made by not seriously following the commands of Jesus about leadership in his kingdom. Most leaders will face a time where they will have to die to this addiction that is common among good men, men who mean well. When confronted with this challenge it is a conscious choice that leaders will make that is not easy, it truly will be a Cross to bear. But it’s better than God having to come down and personally stop the building program!
(1149) Just started reading Luke, in chapter one we see the story of the birth’s of John and Jesus. We see the dual ways that God works. In John’s birth the angel appears to his parents and reveals that Elisabeth will get pregnant, though she and her husband are old. She has been unable to have children and they have prayed for kids. God does it thru a miraculous intervention and reveals it thru an angel. The same angel appears to Mary and tells her she will have Jesus, Mary asks ‘how can this be, I know not a man’. It’s almost if she was looking at the miraculous situation of her cousin and the fact that God allowed her to get pregnant, but yet there were natural means that God used. John’s parents did sleep together and God gave them the child; miraculous in that Elisabeth was beyond the age of kids, but also a natural explanation can be seen. So Mary must be thinking ‘now Gabriel, I do realize you are an angel and all, you have a pretty good prophetic track record when it comes to announcing births; but you must understand there is only so much God can do, if you don’t know yet, I’m still A VIRGIN!’ The fact is that both John and Jesus births were considered miraculous, the fact that a natural explanation could be attributed to the process with John, this did not mean that there had to be a natural explanation to all miraculous births! As we just came off a series of posts on creation and science, I want to overview a few things when it comes to the miraculous. First, the act of creation itself is a tremendous miracle that can never be fully explained by naturalistic means. Hebrews says ‘by faith we understand the worlds were framed by the word of God’ there are things that God does, that often can not be explained thru science. Though we try and make a noble effort to use the tool of science to argue for the reality of God, yet we don’t want to fall into the trap of Mary, who thought ‘how can this be?’ It ‘can be’ because God said it can be! God’s creative power causes things to be! There is a danger of skepticism creeping into the ranks when we try and affix a scientific explanation to all the aspects of creation, the fact is the actual act of God bringing things into existence by his spoken word is a mystery that can never be fully explained by science. We can try and understand things as much as possible, like the light from galaxies that are supposed to be 13 billion light years away, if the earth were only 6-10 thousand years old, then we wouldn’t be able to see the galaxies yet. The light wouldn’t have had enough time to travel to our telescopes! Okay, sounds good. But then the young earth creationists will explain that the light from all the super novas that occur [the deaths of stars that put off tremendous light] if the planet were billions of years old, we would be seeing the light from many more of these star deaths than we currently see. The light from these explosions would literally be bombarding the planet at a much higher rate than we now observe. So these are two good arguments made from both sides of the debate. But can we hold God down to these types of natural explanations? How can science fully measure the creative act of God? The appearance of all things from nothing can not be measured in the same way as all other things that currently exist. The divine act of creation was a one time event that can not be repeated. It does not fall under the scientific category of testability, it is in the category of observable past events. We know it occurred, we look at it, but we can’t repeat the process and test the event itself. Some say that at the initial creation God created the light ‘in transit’ he was not limited to the natural speed of light that would need 13 billion light years to travel from the furthest galaxies to the planet, he made these things in a truly miraculous way! To be sure there are many other things like this that can be used to defend both sides of the issue, today’s point is in the situation with the miraculous births of John and Jesus, both were considered miracles, but one birth had a natural explanation to it [God used his power to enable the barren womb of Elisabeth to conceive thru natural means of conception] and the other didn’t [Mary was really a virgin, the only way you could explain the event itself was that it was a miracle from God- no natural explanation could suffice]. When it’s all said and done we do our best to understand and love God with our minds and intellect, but there are things that we cant always wrap our minds around, these are the ‘things we understand by faith’.
(1150) In Luke 2 we see the prophetic events surrounding the birth of Jesus, notice how his mother Mary is keeping these things in her mind. We also see the first recorded relationship of Jesus with the temple and its leaders. He is 12 years old and questioning the doctors of the law. Both his questions and later teachings amaze people. This will begin a long and strained relationship between the popular themes of the religion of Jesus day and the breaking in of God’s kingdom. He will combat a mindset in Judaism that was obsessed with the temple and the rites that surrounded it, the religious leaders had their ‘tower of Babel’ if you will. A system of temple and religion that said to the world ‘look at us, look at how important we are!’ Jesus will later rebuke the leaders for their love of men’s glory. He will say ‘how can they please God, who seek the honor that comes from men’. I believe one of the areas the evangelical church needs to ‘grow in’ is the popular end times scenarios that seem to be focused on a future literal temple being rebuilt, and the anti-christ making a covenant with natural Israel, and the whole teaching that places so much emphasis on some future temple. While there are varying views among well meaning Christians on this subject, we need to keep in mind the significance of the ministry of Jesus and the temple of his day. It would be a mistake to miss the spiritual significance of the destruction of the temple in a.d. 70 and how that represented the change from the old law to the new covenant age. I believe the most significant signs surrounding the temple and its destruction have already happened. I seriously question the popular teaching of the prophecy teachers and their obsession with some future temple. Jesus will eventually overturn the tables of the money changers in the temple courts. The religious leaders will even arrange the events of the crucifixion around the rites of the temple, making sure the religious requirement for cleanness was not violated while they kill their Messiah! The eventual destruction of the earthly temple will signify a new glorious building plan of the New Testament church, the true temple of God [made up of all ethnic races who receive the messiah]. Yes, Jesus had a long history with the temple, he told his men at one time ‘see all these expensive buildings? There shall not be left one stone upon another when all is said and done’! I wonder why we keep looking for the stones to be ‘set back one upon another’?
(1151) Just finished reading ‘Coming to Grips With Genesis’ by Terry Mortenson and Thane Ury, probably the best argument for a young earth view put out in the last few years. Though I am still an ‘old earther’ it’s a good read. I am in the middle of ‘Last days Madness’ by Gary Demar [Preterism] and yesterday the book I ordered last ‘Why we’re not Emergent’, by Kevin Deyoung and Ted Kluck, showed up at my door. I am about 1/3 rd thru it. I recently read a quote from one of the famous philosophers that said ‘it is the mark of a mature intellect to be able to read and grasp another persons view, to understand what they are saying and where they are coming from, without fully embracing their view’ [paraphrase] I am applying this wisdom to all three of the above books. Not because they are not good, or because I disagree with everything in them, but because all people share from a limited view of the things they are seeing from their perspective [yes, me too!] that’s why God tells us there is safety in a multitude of counselors [not all counselors from your limited group either!] Okay, in Luke 3 John the Baptist is baptizing and calling people to repent [obviously not an emergent brother, or post modern or neo orthodox- yes, this can go on for ever- he told them what was right and wrong!] Look at the three groups coming to him; he tells the regular people ‘sell what you have, give it to the poor, share your stuff with those who are in need’. He tells the tax collectors ‘stop taking more money than you’re supposed too! It’s okay to collect a normal amount, but don’t go overboard’ and he tells the military ‘don’t use your power in an unjust way, when things go wrong, don’t bear false witness. Don’t cover it up’. I think all of these areas can apply to our lives today. There is somewhat of a resurgence of liberal social justice issues emerging in the church. It’s not out of the mainstream to talk about ecology, or ‘the military industrial complex’ and things of that sort. But we also must realize that in order to have these types of discussions there are times where we say to people ‘yes, we are not perfect, we have our faults. But it is still wrong to kill babies, or to discriminate against minorities, and to neglect our neighbor’. Would you tell a backslidden Christian who was hiding Jews in Nazi Germany ‘who do you think you are hiding these Jews, you are just as bad as Hitler’! Though the church has made mistakes, and Christians have been hypocrites, yet the reality of the ‘wrongness’ of killing Jews is not effected in any way by the perceived hypocrisy of the religious right. It’s still wrong to kill Jews whether or not Jimmy Swaggart messed up! The point being as the church tries to cast off the image of moral superiority that offends the world, we at the same time need to tell the world ‘yes, these things are still wrong, and these other things are still right’. When society came to John in the wilderness, he told them ‘what they must do’ he did not engage them in a long discussion on whether or not we can even determine what they need to do! He simply called them to repentance and back to the original intent of the law, he was preparing the way for Messiah.
(1152) In Luke 4 we read the temptation of Jesus by the devil. The basic temptation to lust [eat bread- hedonism] to gain self glory [all the kingdoms will be yours] and last but not least, the temptation of victim hood [cast yourself down!] Being I am reading somewhat on the various ideas of the inspiration of the bible, let’s do the response of Jesus to the bread test. Jesus said ‘man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God’. Over the centuries you have had various views on the inspiration of scripture, did the historic church believe in it, some ask. Others say the doctrine was invented by scholars in the 19th century. Some say the main intent of God is inspired ‘the voice’ of God, while the individual words are not. Karl Barth is considered one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. The Swiss scholar had a view of inspiration that said the bible ‘becomes’ the word of God to us when the Spirit himself communicates to us thru it. It was sort of a ‘Rhema’ type teaching, that which is popular among Word of Faith churches. Barth was actually making a noble effort to regain the authority of scripture at a time where many scholars were throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Is Barth's idea the same as what the historic church believes? No. Does his idea have some truth to it? Yes. There are times where we as believers ‘hear’ God in a special way thru scripture. He might even speak to you in a way that is ‘out of context’. Sort of like if you were seeking insight to something, and then a verse says something that causes you to see things from a different perspective. The verse might not be speaking directly about your situation, but you know the Lord has spoken to you. This is okay for personal stuff, but you should not use this method to develop doctrine. Jesus told the devil that we need to live off of every word from God, the whole voice of God in context with the whole story. To proof text stuff [picking out single verses and making them say what you want] is not eating every word! As the church changes and reforms in our day, some have seriously questioned the idea of inspiration. Some have questioned the idea of whether or not we can even know what God is saying! Ultimately, the truth of God must be objective in order for any case to be made about anything. Is it possible for things to be true even if the record of those things are not infallible? Of course! We believe the history of our country and the history of the world based on fallible documents. We can know certain facts beyond a reasonable doubt with out having to have an infallible recording of those facts. But this is not what the church teaches about the bible. The church teaches that we have an inspired record of those facts. The word of God is true, it does not err! I believe this, though I am somewhat of a radical in the things I teach, whether it’s on church reform or end time stuff or railing against the prosperity movement. Yet without a truth standard that we can all go by [the bible] these arguments would all fall to the ground. As we change and reform as the people of God, we want to be open to different sides of the debates that go on in the church, hear and listen to what people are saying. But don’t reject/challenge things just because it’s popular to do so, in the end we don’t want a whole new crop of believers who don’t believe in the word of God, this would hurt the cause of Christ.
(1153) Almost finished with the book ‘Why we’re not Emergent’ [by Kluck and DeYoung]. It’s an excellent book, I recommend all of you guys to read it. I agree with much of the book, but it comes short when defending the historic reality of public preaching. It does show the biblical basis for declaring truth [public preaching] and shows the connection between a movement that questions whether or not truth can be known [Emergent subjectivism] and it’s de-emphasis on pulpit ministry [the two go hand in hand] but fails to see that the organic church reform movement does not really challenge the need for ‘preaching’ in so much that it challenges the style of church being a lecture hall environment where people simply sit and listen week after week, month after month and practice a form of ‘church’ that was absent in the new testament story. But all in all I liked the book. Now in Luke 4 Jesus says ‘you guys will want me to do the same miracles in my home town as in other places’ he prophesies their future questioning of him about the legitimacy of his calling. Jesus was ministering in an environment that was performance minded. The Pharisees and religious leaders loved to put on a public display. The people saw ministry as ‘we will pipe and you will dance!’ Yet Jesus will correct this mindset, he tells them the story of both Elijah and Elisha. He says there were many people who lived in ‘the days of Elijah’ who did not see him function. There were many lepers in Elisha’s day and only Namman got healed. He is telling them ‘your measurement of prophetic ministry is not based on Gods truth, you are basing it on public exposure instead’. They even tell him at another time ‘if you are for real, show yourself to the world!’ they simply associated ministry with public performance, and Jesus would have no part of it. Just because someone is sent by God, does not mean they will come and preach/publicly perform at the drop of a hat! Jesus actually offended people by not stopping and mingling with the crowd. In John’s gospel Phillip says ‘the Greeks want to see you’ they were at the big public gathering, the great feast. Word had gotten out about the success of Jesus ministry, now is the time to gain some exposure! Phillip tells Jesus ‘hey, these intellectuals are willing to hear you speak’ Wow, what an open door to the Greek thinkers, now's the chance to show them my talent. Not! He tells Phillip ‘unless a grain/seed falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone. But if it dies it will bear much fruit’ in essence he was saying ‘these Greeks can find/see me if they want to die to themselves and take up the Cross and follow me. They can find me in true discipleship, but I am not going to go and put on a public show for them’. Leaders, have you fallen into this trap? We all have at times, don’t feel too bad, just repent!
(1154) Something else I wanted to mention about the book ‘Why we’re not Emergent’ was they bring out the penchant of some bible teachers to over do the comparisons between pagan myths and Jesus as Gods Son. When I was reading the book by John Crossan [ultra liberal scholar who denies the resurrection] I found the book to be full of examples that Crossan would quote, then after the quote he would say ‘see, the Romans believed in a divine incarnation who would come and save the world from sin’ but if you read the actual quote he used, it said nothing of the sort! Likewise the Emergent movement has some associated with it that do this same thing. It’s become a common internet ‘truth’ that there was a saying running around about Caesar in Jesus day; it said ‘there is no other name under heaven given among men where by we must be saved’. Wow! Doesn’t that sure seem to cast doubt on the Christian religion? The brother who popularized it seems to honestly want to challenge the traditional church and her views, sort of like saying ‘look how much we have been affected by the culture’. The problem is there is no evidence that this saying is true. As far as I can tell, this story about Caesar is not true. So in general we need to be careful when reading certain sources, some are over associating the early pagan myths with Jesus. Now, there are no doubt certain myths that shared common traits to the early church, but to over do these associations is not right. Also when I was reading the book from Crossan [in search of Paul] it had lots of heavy historical information, stuff that I personally like to read. But for some reason I could not get into the book. I got around half way through and quit. I very rarely do this. Then I was reading in another source how at one time Crossan posited the possibility that dogs came and ate the remains of Jesus Body, that’s why you had the empty tomb. Needless to say this is blasphemous. So when studying any subject, be open and willing to hear both sides. Don’t jump to early judgments about people or movements, but if there are enough warnings along the way, then feel free to come to a final conclusion. One of the more popular quotes from an emergent leader has him answering a question about homosexuality, he basically says no matter what way he answers some one will get offended, so he gives no answer. This response has been quoted a few times as a type of wise answer. I think this sums up one of the problems with the church, we at times want everybody to like us, there are times where we need to say what is true, sure we might not be 100% sure of our belief, but there are many beliefs we can be sure on. I am sure the dogs didn’t eat the remains of Jesus!
(1155) let’s do something for our intellectuals out there. Over the course of the last few hundred years you have had smart philosophers/atheists challenge the Christian faith. The current bunch [Dawkins, Hitchens or a comedian like Bill Maher] are really lacking in the intellectual prowess of past atheists! Let’s hit a few arguments that are made against the Christian faith. In the field of proving the reality of God, one of the classic arguments is a First Cause. I have taught it before under the evolution section. If you study things you realize there are no events in history that happen without a cause, nothing happens out of thin air. Logically this would lead us to the conclusion that somewhere down the line you have to have an ‘original causer’. Logically you can’t go on forever without an initial cause somewhere down the line. This is a real argument made for the existence of God that has been popular over the centuries. In the 18th century you had a Scottish philosopher by the name of David Hume who challenged our ability to know causes. He taught that man simply observes stuff happening, he perceives supposed connections to what the cause is, but he can not say 100% what the cause is. The famous example he used was the pool table, we see a man use the cue stick to hit one ball and it bangs into another and goes in the hole. Hume said it sure seems like the cause of this series of events is the act of the pool player hitting the ball, but he said we don’t know for sure whether this is the cause. Grant it, Hume had a point, but we observe things all the time in the field of science, we come to conclusions based upon reasonable evidence, and we ‘trust’ our senses to a degree. But some have taken this argument by Hume and have used it to rebut the Christian argument for a first cause. This use of Hume is dishonest. Hume did not say there were no causes for things, he simply said we can’t be 100% sure of what the cause is. Hume himself said ‘chance is simply a word used to define our ignorance of real causes’. Many appeal to Hume and use the argument that things can happen ‘by chance’ sort of like chance has the ontological status of causing things to come into existence! Hume said chance was simply a word we use to fill in the blank until a true cause is determined. Well, I hope I didn’t lose you guys today, but this is one of the more popular arguments used in the field of philosophy to try and refute the Christian faith. So I thought it good to refute the refuters!
(1156) Okay, lets talk about something simple today, no more quoting 18th century Scottish philosophers for heavens sake! I know, let’s talk Quantum Physics and the study of sub atomic particles! [No, I am not kidding ] One of the most difficult obstacles for the atheist to overcome is the question ‘what was there before the big bang’? They really have no answer to this question, the answer can’t be ‘nothing’ and if it was ‘something’ then what was it? [Of course we know that something is God] So this has lead the atheistic scientists down a path to see if we can find something popping into existence from nothing, the ultimate uncaused effect. Have they found it? No. But this won’t stop them from trying. The most popular scientific evidence used to prove that you can get something from nothing is found in the field of Quantum Physics [the study of really small things]. Scientists have discovered a phenomenon that occurs when a Proton strikes an Atom. It seems as if the Electron will disappear and reappear at the same moment in another location, without having traveled the distance. The second it disappears it shows up at another location. Some type of metaphysical wormhole? Who knows. The point is some have said this is proof for the idea that matter can pop into existence without a prior cause. Not! All this shows us is that material things can act in such a way that the examiner cannot explain what’s happening. In the above case you have matter already existing and a clearly recognizable repeatable pattern that can be observed. This in itself is an argument for an intelligent designer and a caused effect [the proton striking the atom and causing the electron to disappear/reappear]. So today I thought I would show you what goes on in the debate over trying to come up with an uncaused effect, and how vital this question is in the area of apologetics. Oh, I almost forgot, do you know what the name of this phenomenon is? It’s the famous ‘Quantum Leap’.
(1157) I have been stuck in Luke 6 for a few days, let’s hit it briefly. Jesus is walking with the disciples thru the grain fields; they pick the grain on the Sabbath and eat some. The religious watchdogs got him now! ‘Why do you and your followers break the commands’ the religious leaders of his day are 3rd-4th generation Pharisees, their office began a few centuries earlier during a time of captivity from foreign powers. Though they know a lot about ‘the bible’ they have developed this entire tradition around their religious lives [the tradition of the elders- rabbinic Judaism] and it was this interpretation of the law that they used to judge people. Jesus responds by reaching back into the history of David and says ‘don’t you remember when David was on the run from Saul and he entered the house of God and ate the special bread and gave some to his men’. Notice, Jesus will also tell them ‘which was unlawful to do’. He doesn’t seem to challenge their accusation by saying ‘no, I am not violating the Sabbath, just your view of it’ instead he says ‘yes, I am greater than the Sabbath’ in so many words. I find it interesting that Jesus saw himself as the David who shared the holy bread with his men, a type of the future communion meal that Jesus will inaugurate. He associates his movement and followers with a time in David’s life where the world was against him. David was on the run, he was attracting disgruntled men around him, a time of difficulty and going up against the authorities of the day. Sure, David will also go thru a stage of life where he will become the legitimate king, but this is not the David that Jesus is identifying with at the time. As you read thru the chapter they will accuse him again of healing the mans hand on the Sabbath, and Jesus will give the famous ‘if the blind are leading the blind they will both fall into the ditch together’. It really took guts for Jesus to say stuff like this, he had more problems with the religious folk than any other group! In today’s ‘church world’ you have well meaning people who believe the main job of the church is to defend orthodoxy, to fight for the truth at all costs. Others see a re-thinking of everything, they will say things like ‘Jesus was not a Christian’! Simply meaning that Christianity developed a culture and system that became more important than the person himself. I see validity to both views at times. When you read Jesus and his following, try and look past the technical examining of Jesus thru a microscope, and see him thru a magnifying glass [the big picture] the psalmist said ‘magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt his name together’ the religious crowd were always looking thru a microscope.
(1158) Just finished an early morning prayer time [early means 3:30 -4:00 till around 5:30-6:00 am] I say this to let you know that doing regular prayer is still really important! We can get so hung up on the ministries [Christian business] that we are building that we neglect the real house of God [my house shall be called a house of prayer- remember?] Any way I got a letter the other day from a childhood buddy who is doing some serious prison time in Rahway N.J. I have had many, many good friends over the years who spent lots of time in prison, usually for robberies related to drug addiction. This friend has much more serious charges, he will not get out in a long time. He’s really going thru some serious depression, he is ‘trying’ church and all, but it’s not helping. It’s funny [not really] that this old buddy has kept in touch over all the years. This old friend knew me to be somewhat of a violent person, he ‘experienced’ my violence a few times. But after I converted to the Lord he still kept in touch, sort of like ‘wow, who would have thought John would get into religion’? You know, one of those types of things. But now, after 30 years I guess a real door is opening. I was copying some stuff for him off this blog [p.s. you preachers/churches that are copying our studies and books from this blog, great, keep doing it. But if you can, make me a bunch of copies and send them to me, I don’t have the capability to print mass stuff!] and the ‘darn’ printer messed up. I then went to delete the document, and lo and behold, I deleted the printer from the computer. You know, its stuff like this that makes it tuff to do the Christian thing. You wind up getting mad [at least I do] say a minor curse [you know, not the big one like the kid in the TV movie Christmas Story] and then you finish the project, asking the lord to forgive you, trying to download the printer hardware [who in their right mind saves the disk!] and trying to be spiritual while performing the whole task. Well anyway I got the stuff printed and will send it out soon. I have had a few letters from old friends in prison that I need to respond to. I already sent them some study materials, but need to do some more. I was reading Luke 7 earlier, Jesus heals the roman soldiers servant, raises a woman’s child from the dead. He’s doing one on one ministry while fulfilling the greatest ministry that any one could ever have. Jesus made time for people, while at the same time avoiding the ‘fame and recognition’ crowd. He just didn’t rub shoulders with the elite class! I had a good friend tell me ‘I don’t know who those people are’ when discussing some famous media persons [Benny Hinn, etc.] he was a homeless brother, who knew lots of stuff about the lord and Christianity, but told me ‘if these people you are naming are TV stars, I don’t know them’. I thought it strange how there are different groups of Christians who live their whole lives and never interact with the famous crowd [good thing in my view]. Jesus fame went out, don’t get me wrong. After he raises the kid in Luke 7, word got out. But you get the feeling that he really didn’t want the word to get out! It seemed to hinder his ministry, the whole town winds up at his door and he can’t hear the father’s voice like that. He finds time to pray all night, or to launch out in some boat. He had a mission to complete and becoming famous was not a secret desire of his, sort of like ‘I knew if I waited long enough my day would come’. His day came alright, but like the prophets said ‘why are people saying “we want the day of the Lord” they don’t realize what they are asking for’. Jesus day was great agony and suffering, yes a resurrection too, but first the Cross.
(1159) Just read the story where the prostitute pours expensive perfume on Jesus. A Pharisee named Simon invites Jesus to dinner, the woman comes and does this act of worship, she wipes his feet with her hair, she cries and worships him. The Pharisee thinks to himself ‘wow, if he were a prophet he would have known what type of woman this is’. The problem? He did know. Simon simply assumed that a true prophet would not receive a wicked woman. So Jesus does one of those things where he tells a simple story that even a child could understand, he says ‘Simon, there were these 2 guys that owed money to a lender, one owed much more than the other. The lender forgave them both, which one do you think would be more grateful’? Simon, not realizing that he’s on the hook, says ‘O, I don’t know, I guess the one who owed more’. Caught ya! Jesus says that’s why this woman is so extravagant towards Jesus, she was forgiven more than Simon. A few things, it is becoming popular today to teach that all religions mean well, they want to worship ‘the God of Abraham’ and we should be open and accepting of them. First, this woman worshipped Jesus. She was accepted because of her willingness to love and know him. Paul told the religious folk at Mars hill ‘I will reveal to you the unknown God that you have this altar set up for’ [Acts 17]. In all of our pluralism, we need to bring people to the Cross! Two, Simon simply misjudged Jesus. He figured if a prophet was really a prophet, he would act a certain way. Simon was simply wrong. If you look at this woman’s conversion, most evangelicals would say ‘she didn’t get saved’. I mean Jesus does put some liberal spin on it. The woman loved much, so she is forgiven much. What! Where are all the steps that end in a sinner’s prayer! You know according to that standard none of the apostles made it either [you find none of them asking Jesus into their hearts!] The point being we want people to come to Jesus, to know him and accept him as the messiah. Too often Christians can be a little technical in all the aspects of conversion while overlooking the main thing. The apostle John will write ‘those that do good are of God, and those that do evil are not’ Wow. Of course John also taught that those who deny that Jesus has come in the flesh are antichrist. So the basic belief in Jesus as Gods Son, the deity of Christ, is a foundation of the faith. But John’s test is not what type of conversion prayer you prayed, but a changed life. Simon invited Jesus to dinner, he was a Pharisee who was willing to give Jesus a chance. But he was too quick to come to a judgment about him. Over the years I have had friends who might get challenged in some area of reformation, something that God is doing to change things. Often they will say ‘O, I know about that belief. I have had friends try and tell me that before’ but they respond in a way that says ‘Yes, I have heard it and judged it and rejected it’. Too quick to think that God can’t be in it. Yes, John also told us to test the spirits, because every thing out there is not from God. But make sure you are not rejecting a prophet because you think he’s hanging out with the wrong crowd!
(1160) In Luke 8 Jesus gives the parable of the sower, in the parable the last group are the good ground that the seed takes root in and bears fruit with patience. In psalms one David says that the good tree planted by the water source brings forth fruit in its season/time. Both of these teachings show us that God’s kingdom, though explosive in nature [starts really small, gets really big!] works along the lines of patient, steadfast plodding. Faithfulness is needed because it takes time for the root system to develop and get to a point of consistent fruit bearing. When I moved to Corpus around 17 years ago, I bought a small grapefruit tree. It was about a foot high, now it’s a huge tree that always produces fruit. I have fruit all year long. Right now it’s got around 50 ripe grapefruits, and around fifty new ones ripening. I have had friends tell me that it’s not natural to have them produce all year like this. Maybe so? The point is it took a long time and lots of watering for the first few years. But now I hardly ever mess with it, just prune it every now and then. Jesus also taught that the things which grow fast [the seed on the rock] don’t have enough time to develop strong roots. They shoot up and are not around for the long term. This doesn’t mean every big ministry has no roots! But it warns us to be careful when things grow big fast, make sure there is some strong root connections to under gird the tree [good ministry relationships with other stable people!]. I like the parables of Jesus, they make a lot of sense and are not long, drawn-out sermons that nobody ever remembers! The psalmist said the tree planted by the water brings forth fruit that lasts, it is a mainstay for those who come back year after year looking for fruit. It is no good to have a tree that has great tasting fruit, but dies in a few years. It’s better to have fruit that might not be as flashy, but can sustain you for life.
(1161) As I sat down this morning, I wasn’t sure what to share. I felt like the Lord wanted me to re-read my friends letter from prison. I always read them again before I send the packets of materials out to them, they usually ask a question or two and I try and make sure I respond to them. Sure enough, as I am reading the letter [a minute ago] he makes note of the drawing he sent me. It’s a great picture of a gang brother with tattoos and all, giving praise to God. Many of the brothers in prison are good artists and they have sent me things like this over the years. I hung it up yesterday, it’s been sitting in the envelope for a month. Well in the letter he reminds me that it is a drawing of a candle/man on fire for the lord, being ‘lit’ for God. So I got up and turned on my desk light and sure enough the picture is a man whose bottom half is a candle, I didn’t see it before. It’s significant because the past month or so I have been quoting ‘no man lights a candle and puts it under a bushel, but on a candlestick’. The image of Jesus words have been in my mind recently, so I felt the ‘candle-man’ to be prophetic. I really re-read the letter because I wanted to share Leonard’s testimony with you. Like I said in the past I have known Leonard for around 30 years, used to preach to him and his dad and brothers at the county jail. Many years of knowing him and his family. In the letter Leonard testifies and thanks me for the times I spoke Gods word to him, he testifies how Gods word has always stayed with him, thru the good times and bad. Days where he was living on the streets trying to grub up money for the next fix, yet the Lord was always with him, the ‘hound of heaven’. By the way he asked me if I could find this famous poem for him and send it, it took me a while to find a free copy on line! Everyone wanted to sell one [shame] I would have bought it if I had to but I needed to print one quickly, finally found one. Leonard testified how the Lord was the ‘hound of heaven’ who would never give up on him. Well I included the poem with my study on Romans in the packet [I already sent him Acts] and will be mailing it off soon, along with the other packet for my buddy in Rahway prison in N.J. Even though these are simple tasks, one on one stuff that might seem to have little effect, yet Jesus modeled this style of ministry for us, he showed us that if we faithfully plant seed, eventually we will get a harvest. Occupy yourself with helping and reaching out to others, don’t spend time trying to build ‘your ministry’ but give yourself away for Gods kingdom, whatever you do for the least of these, Jesus friends, you do for him. It’s hard to have a greater impact than that!
(1162) I mailed the materials off yesterday, let me mention one more thing about the letters from my friends in prison. The letter from Leonard, it is full of praise and thanksgiving and glory; it reminds me of the testimonies of new believers. Many times over the years I have noticed good friends of mine come to know the lord, doing things in ministry and fellowship together. Sometimes these brothers struggle for years and go back to prison. The genuine brothers really do experience a ‘mini’ revival when this happens. It’s common for the average person to judge them as getting ‘jail house religion’ they can’t see that the process of chastening and the guys renewing their faith are a real process that brings great joy to them. Believe me, I have seen this happen many times and know that for the most part these guys are not faking. Okay, in Luke 9 we have lots of good stuff; Jesus sends his guys out light ‘don’t take money, extra goods, etc.’ Herod hears about Jesus and wonders if it’s John the Baptist risen from the dead [guilty conscience no doubt!] Let’s hit the statement ‘some of you standing here will not die until you see the kingdom’. Over the years commentators have had various views on this, a common view is right after Jesus says this the transfiguration happens and this might be referring to that, it’s possible? The New Testament has various statements like this that the critics of Christianity have used over the years to debunk the faith. The famous atheist Bertrand Russell wrote a book called ‘why I am not a Christian’ one of the reasons stated was the so called missed prophecies of Jesus, these statements in the bible about Jesus coming kingdom that would take place within the lifetimes of those who heard him. Russell also rejected the faith based on a faulty idea from the philosopher John Stewart Mill. Mill said if every thing must have a cause, then God must have a cause, and if God is the first cause, then why not say the universe/world are the first cause instead of God. Russell believed this faulty argument, the law of causation does not teach that every thing must have a cause; it teaches every effect must have a cause. Any way Russell got duped by this fictitious argument and kept it his whole life. But back to those who read the statements in the bible about Jesus coming quickly, the things being written that will happen shortly [revelation] and stuff like that. There is some truth to the Preterists argument that the ‘last days’ that were taking place were speaking of the end of the present age of law and the introduction of the new age of grace. These brothers also link most of the ‘seeing the kingdom come’ verses with a.d. 70 and the destruction of the Jewish temple and law system. There are various views on these subjects. What about Jesus saying that some of the disciples would not die until they saw God’s kingdom? Preterists think the transfiguration happened too quickly after the statement for it to be speaking of that, it’s possible? I think some of the Preterists are too ‘futuristic’, let me explain. Jesus is functioning and operating out of the reality of Gods kingdom, he’s healing people, raising the dead, doing all sorts of things that are contrary to the natural order of things. He is introducing God’s kingdom to his disciples, they are actual witnesses to the events of Gods order breaking into mans order. The greatest events of this kingdom that they will witness will be the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, these ‘parts’ of the kingdom will be the most significant aspects that they will ever SEE in their lives. I prefer to see the reality of God’s kingdom, and the statements about certain followers being alive at the time of God’s kingdom coming, thru this lens. To push the majority of the significance out to a.d. 70 and the destruction of the temple seems to miss the great reality of Jesus death, burial, resurrection and ascension as actual witnessed events of the first century church. So, Russell and others who thought Jesus statements were false prophecies did not really see the reality of these things. I do believe that the events surrounding the destruction of the temple are important, and that you can find many verses that speak of the passing of the old testament order as the ‘end of that world/age’ but I believe the actual work of Jesus in redemption, as being witnessed by the early church, would be a better ‘location’ for the explanation of these types of things. Got it? [note- the main point being the importance the new testament puts on the eyewitness accounts of the disciples to the work of Jesus in redemption, any connecting with ‘the seeing’ of things and the witnesses of those things ‘seen’ has to be viewed thru this lens, the most important ‘seen things of the kingdom’ are without a doubt speaking of the great work of Jesus. This was so important that when Peter mentions the replacement for Judas office, he states that the new apostle must have been a witness of these things from the beginning of Jesus ministry]
(1163) Just read the story where the disciples tell Jesus that they found some people casting out demons in Jesus name and the disciples told them to stop because ‘they followeth not us’. It reminded me of one of the first official ‘church sermons’ I preached. It was during the early days of ministry, I was a youth pastor at a Fundamental Baptist Church, the pastor was a good man, he would ask me to preach every now and then. I remember speaking on this verse and sharing how we as Christians shouldn’t cut others off because they are not part of our group, it was a courageous message at the time, being young and all. This type of sectarian mindset was strong in this group. Jesus told his men to not forbid others who claim the name of Jesus. I realize that there are many different groups of Christians in the world today, it would be ignorant to believe that some of the doctrinal differences do not matter any more. But it would also be childish to view these brothers and sisters from a view point that sees them as all wrong, or even lost! The real fundamentals of the faith are held by the majority of these groups. Yes, it sounds liberal, but we all meet at the Cross. I noticed recently in the Corpus paper, that a church that advertises in the section where I run this blog ad, changed the name of the ad [and church?] they are a good Baptist church that would emphasize the ‘come as you are’ type of thing, the last time I saw the ad, it had a new name for the church called ‘acceptance’. I believe sometimes we might go overboard in the unity thing, we don’t want people to think there are absolutely no ground rules to this thing, there are some basic rules. But we want them to know that they do not have to be just like us [whoever ‘us’ is!] in order to be accepted, Jesus says if you name the name of Jesus, you’re in, can’t get much better than that.
(1164) Went to the radio station yesterday to drop off some programs, picked up a local Christian paper and read an interesting prophetic word for our area, I did like it but felt some of the more ‘interesting’ aspects of certain images need to be kept to ourselves unless we feel strongly that God wants us to speak them. I stopped reading on line ‘prophetic words’ a while back, too much area for error, to many wild images that might, or might not, mean anything. To publish them to the world might be a mistake. Okay, I read Psalms 2 and Luke earlier, felt like ‘the word’ for today had to do with declaration/decree. In Luke Jesus sends them out by 2’s and when they come back they are excited about being able to cast out demons. Jesus warns them to rejoice over their names being in heaven and not over their authority. He tells them they have power over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall hurt them. In Psalms 2 God says he has set ‘his king on his holy hill- declare the decree, this day I have begotten thee, thou art my Son in whom I am well pleased’. There are times in prayer where we simply decree/declare stuff. I just finished praying from 4-5:30, early outside prayer under the stars. I look towards the regions of Texas and the country while praying for those areas. My yard ‘just happens’ to be located perfectly for this. I look south to the valley, scan over the Texas Mexico border and pray for the areas working up to Laredo and over towards Del Rio. Then scan over to the San Antonio/Austin section. Up thru Houston/Galveston, jump thru Beaumont and hit New Jersey, then the nations. I do lots of decreeing/declaring during this time. Things like ‘cities of Judah, behold your God’ ‘let your doctrine drop down like rain, your speech distill like due’ ‘you will call a nation you do not know, nations that do not know you will come running to you’ [bible verses]. Lots of stuff like that, this decreeing is a form of prayer. Now Jesus said we do have the authority to do stuff like this, but the church went thru a whole spiritual warfare stage where we spent years decreeing things to the devil! Every now and then you might need to tell him ‘get thee behind me satan’ but avoid getting into long drawn out conversations! In Psalms 2 Jesus is pictured as the king who is PRESENTLY sitting in his place of rule and authority, we are ambassadors of his kingdom on the earth, he tells us ‘ask of me, I will give you the heathen for your inheritance, the ends of the earth for your possession’. He says this right after the decree thing. You say ‘now brother, you don’t believe that for real, do you’ you bet I do! As I pray for these ‘ends of the earth’ on a regular basis, we have blog ad’s running in these cities, our radio show hits the Texas borders, and I get contacts from all over the world from people reading the blog. Yes, God will do what he said if we do our part. He said ‘ask of me-decree/declare’ are you speaking?
(1165) Just read the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus is confronted by a lawyer. He asks Jesus what good thing he must do to have eternal life. Jesus asks him ‘what do you read in the law, how do you see it’? We all come to the table with glasses on, we have preconceived prejudices that taint the way we view scripture. Jesus was asking the man what pair of glasses he used. The man tells him ‘well, the law says we are to love God with all that is in us; our hearts and souls and minds, and love our neighbor as ourselves’. Wow, you got it right man! What an intellect, you sure showed us how smart you are. One more thing Jesus, who is my neighbor? Ah, he couldn’t leave well enough alone. So Jesus says there was a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, on the journey he gets mugged. The robbers beat him, strip him and leave him on the road ‘half dead’. Sure enough a priest and Levite pass by, they probably are on their way [or coming from] some great religious conference, you know, the type where we all get to show off our knowledge and skill, sort of like what the lawyer was just doing. When they see the man they pass him up. Were they thinking how they might use the poor victim in their next sermon? Maybe they will go home to their religious communities and bring the need before them and start some type of mission to the ‘road to Jericho’ homeless? Either way they certainly never thought about actually acting themselves! What, are you kidding me? I am a priest/Levite; my calling is to engage in the teaching/preaching of what God wants, to build a life/ministry around telling others what they should do. I am not responsible for this poor slob, he is reaping what he sowed. But Jesus says a Samaritan [a half breed, low class mutt!] passed by and saw him. He stopped, helped him and brought him to a place to stay. He took money out of his own pocket [not some church budget] and paid the hotel owner and told him ‘if the cost is more, when I get back I’ll cover it’. Wow, all the religion and ministry and preaching in the world didn’t help this man, but a simple act of true compassion reached him. Jesus asks the lawyer ‘which one of these do you suppose treated the man like a good neighbor’? The lawyer says the Samaritan. Great, you answered right again! You do seem to have all the correct answers to these questions. Now, go and do likewise. The problem with most of us is we really don’t want to act ourselves, we want to take this story, and maybe use it in a sermon [like now!] or think about the spiritual lessons of how if you don’t serve God you will wind up like the poor man. But we very rarely read the New Testament and think we are required to do these things. There are many people within the vicinity of your home that are in some way like this poor man, they are surrounded by religious institutions [priest/Levite] that mean well, most of them have some type of charitable outreach that tries to meet the need. But the man needed someone to pro actively get involved with him, someone who would simply act like Jesus acted. Not keeping a record of how much he already tithed to the church this past week, but someone who would reach into his own pocket and cover the cost, no questions asked. The lawyer already knew the answers to Jesus questions, he knew what was right. The only thing he lacked was the doing of the things he knew in his heart were the right things to do. He knew that to truly love God was to also love his fellow man, Jesus helped him to see what he needed to do.
(1166) yesterday I was finishing up Last Days Madness, by Gary Demar, and the book by Mark Noll showed up at my door [the scandal of the evangelical mind] I got thru the first 50 pages and really like it a lot. I do realize these books are dated, they’ve been around for a while, but I have been trying to catch up on the classics that I have never read before. Lots of my library has scholarly stuff, but most of the books were purchased at half price books, or ordered from Amazon, so I tend to miss some of the classics. I just read Luke 11, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray. I like Luke’s version of it ‘give us bread day by day’ the daily bread request. Then Jesus goes right into the story of the guy whose friend shows up at his door, he realizes that he doesn’t have enough bread for his friend so he goes to another friend at midnight and asks for help. The other friend is in bed, but because of his friend’s boldness and persistence he gives him bread. James says we have not because we ask not, then he says sometimes we have not because we are asking out of selfishness, to simply get stuff to feed our lusts. Did James contradict Jesus? Did Jesus teach that we get whatever we want? I do find it interesting that Jesus gave us the story about the friend right after the Lords Prayer. In the Lords Prayer we ask ‘give us enough bread for today’ and then Jesus shows us what type of ‘bread asking’ this is. Asking for another! Basically when we recognize that we don’t have the wherewithal to meet the needs of others, we go to God and say ‘lord, I know these friends of mine are looking to me for answers, I really don’t have what it takes to be honest about it, but if you can give me some bread/life for them I will do my best to share it with them’. I like that, Jesus gives the bread to those who recognize that they are insufficient, they know they don’t have the ‘intellectual gravitas’ to cut it! When I was reading yesterday, I also grabbed one of my church histories off the shelf and started thru it. I like re-reading the good stuff, there are too many facts in these books to read them only once and think that’s enough. So as I’m reading thru I realize that it’s a very good read, you know, one of those books that reads easily. I was reading Karl Barth's history on 19th century Protestant Theology and it was a tough read. He was teaching on Immanuel Kant and it was rough, maybe because it’s an English translation of the Swiss theologian? Kant is tough enough on his own, but reading him thru a translation of Barth might be a little too much. So anyway I felt good about myself when reading Bruce Shelley’s church history, I mean it was easy, I thought ‘yeah, maybe I can hack these intellectuals, look, this read is child’s play’ I then flipped to the title to see the exact wording, it’s ‘church history in plain language’ which in layman’s terms means ‘history for dummies’ oh well a good dose of humility does the soul some good. Jesus said those who recognize that they don’t have ‘the bread’ for their friends on the journey are in good shape, they know to go to ‘other friends’ and ask for help, they’re not too proud to realize they don’t have all the answers. I think we need more of this in today’s church world. We all need to receive from one another. I like Nolls book, he shows the need for the intellectual wing of the church to receive from the ‘non intellectual’ wing. But he also takes the evangelical church to task for its neglect of the Life of the Mind. Hopefully I’ll share more in the coming posts. But for today this is all ‘the bread’ I have, thank God we all know where to go for some more! [I also ordered Brian Mclaren’s Generous Orthodoxy, but the order messed up. I will try and review it in the next month or so, it’s important for the emergent critique]
(1167) Last night I had a rough night, I thought I would skip the Monday morning intercession time, I do pray regularly during the week and figured it would be no big deal. But when I got up [a few hours ago] I felt the Lord wanted me to pray, so I did the normal intercession thing [3:30-5-5:30]. I read earlier in Luke 11 where Jesus is accused of casting out demons by the devil, he then corrects the accusers and says when a strong man is in control of his house, his goods are at peace, but when a stronger man comes upon him and overcomes him, he robs him of his goods. During my prayer time I quote lots of stuff, one of the regular quotes is ‘strengthen the bars of our gates, bless our children within, let peace be within our borders and let out garners be filled, providing all manner of store’. I felt like the Lord was telling me that when we pray we are ‘binding the strongman’ and ‘our goods’ [the people/communities we are working with] experience peace. Jesus said when the leader is leading his ‘goods are at peace’ I thought this was interesting. I at first felt like I was the one who was being overcome by the strongman, having a tough day and all, but then I felt like the lord was saying ‘no, when you persevere in prayer, you are overcoming his goods!’ [The people he holds in bondage]. Jesus also gives the famous quote ‘a house divided against itself can not stand’ I think Lincoln quoted this during the Civil war. As of today [7-09] I feel this is a sad description of the political environment of our country. I am not a conservative per se, or a liberal! But as a Christian I think we should be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. I want national heal care! I don’t have any medical coverage for myself right now, so yeah, I want it. Our country is in pretty bad financial shape right now, don’t let the media fool you. We have sent representatives to China and other nations that lend us money, we have asked them to please not cut us off as borrowers, this my friends is not a good thing. California has the eighth biggest economy, in the world! They are giving out i.o.u’s for heavens sake! I am not an alarmist, but you would have to be blind to think that things are all right, and yet the politicians are making decisions based on their political interests. I know our president means well, but it is simply irresponsible to try and initiate a trillion dollar national health plan at this time, he realizes this, but they still talk about it as a possible option. Or to be the only country that passes ‘cap and trade’ laws [cutting back pollution- or simply new laws to make more money for the govt.] as of now the bill has passed in the house, but is having problems with the conservatives in the senate [Democrats and Republicans]. Obama just went to the G-8 [meetings with the top industrial nations] and not a single nation would bind itself to any pollution control mandates. But they agreed to ‘try not let the world temperature rise by more than a few degrees over the next 50 years’ wow, what a deal! The whole point being these other industrial nations laugh at us for doing what we do. In a time of national economic crisis, you cant pass laws that would put an extra burden on any type of business in the U.S. Now, I believe the environment is important, but we our not ‘the globe’! Global warming is warming effecting ‘the globe’ if the other nations on the globe don’t give a rip, we are fooling ourselves by strapping our nation with restrictions, we cant change the global environment by ourselves. Now to be doing all this at a time where the world markets are thinking of raising our debt risk is truly irresponsible. Then why are we doing it? Because the political wars are on and each side wants to score points with it’s base, truly sad. Lincoln quoted Jesus and realized that a nation divided against itself would not stand, I fear we are looking like that nation more and more each day.
(1168) Jesus told the Jews that they were seeking a sign and they would get no sign except the sign of the prophet Jonah. He was speaking of his death and resurrection [I explained this in the ‘Messianic, Jewish, Gentile’ section under the John Hagee comments]. Jesus also warned us about the things we see, accept as models for the way we live as individuals and as a society. He talked about the eye being the gateway to the body, what we ‘look at’ informs the way we live. Whenever I hear of these reports of a 5 year old accidentally shooting someone, I think to myself how in the world do these kids know what to do with a gun? They obviously were informed to some degree by ‘what they saw’ whether it be a cartoon or whatever. The point being what we see gives us information that can be acted upon. Now I am not saying that every person who sees a shooting will commit murder! But you get the point. What ‘we see’ as a society also effects the way we live. Right now the senate is grilling Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Sonja Sotomayor. She is the first Hispanic women to be nominated to the court. I really have nothing against her to be honest, but she has made statements saying she believed that the fact that she is Hispanic and a woman, that that would help her to come to better conclusions than white men. Maybe so? The main point is if you had a white woman say that her ‘whiteness’ would help her make a better decision than a Black/Hispanic woman, she would be thrown out as a racist. But we allow minorities to make statements that are at their heart racist in nature, because it’s cool to be on the side of the minority. So we ‘see’ how this is wrong, basically a double standard, yet we allow it because it’s trendy. Now, I know I lose readers when I talk about this stuff, but frankly I could care less. I do not believe this woman is a racist, and I think she should get on the court. But we need to stop allowing double standards like this to slip by. Of course she just got overturned by the Supreme Court for her ruling in the Connecticut firefighter’s case. The fire dept. gave a promotional test, around 16 White firefighters passed and 1 Hispanic, no Blacks passed. So the city simply thru out the test. This stuff is blatantly racist at its very core, every body knows this! Things like this fuel these white skinhead groups; this makes other ethnic groups mad at Blacks. When you allow certain racial prejudices to exist in society, it affects the ‘whole body’. Jesus said we function according to the models that we are given, according to the things we see others do. When young kids see the blatant acceptance of racist actions as acceptable, they will grow up with the same frame of mind. I realize that many people who use this lens for their worldview are good people, I also realize that because of past sins against minorities that we do need to try and make up for these sins as best as we can. If institutional racism has kept minorities out of the colleges and other professions, then lets do our best to right these wrongs, but you cant right them by discriminating against the white grandchildren of those who might have been part of this institutional racism, it simply breeds future generations of racist thoughts and ideas. If the ‘light’ [the things that inform us as a people] that be in us is dark, then the whole body [society] will be affected in a negative way.
(1169) let’s finish up Luke 11. Jesus is invited to dinner again at a Pharisees house, you think the brothers would have learned not to do this by now! So as Jesus eats he doesn’t wash his hands first, the Pharisee ‘thinks within himself’ wow, this is the proof I was looking for, he’s not the one! Of course Jesus knows his heart and rebukes him for being more concerned with outward religion/cleansing than the heart. Jesus tells him ‘did not he that made the outer things [material world] also make the heart/soul of a man’? He was rebuking him for having a sense of ceremonial cleanness, a view of ‘being clean’ that was legalistic, but Jesus said God was more concerned about our inner actions and thoughts. Now, he does connect the ‘right heart’ with a particular act of worship. He says ‘give alms [do charity] with all that you have and this is what cleanness is about’. The same rebuke the prophet Isaiah gave to Israel of old, he said ‘this is not the type of fast God wants, to do outward acts of casting yourself down and rending your garments, but God wants you to loose the chains of those who are suffering, to set the oppressed free’ the same type of idea that is expressed when Jesus quotes Isaiah in the synagogue and says ‘the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, he has anointed me for opening blind eyes, preaching the gospel to the poor’ the anointing of Jesus, God’s religious way of ordaining people, was to do justice and show mercy. Jesus rebuked this Pharisee because he lost the original intent of Gods law and digressed into this religious mindset that was looking to find fault, that was obsessed with outward standards of holiness [they washed their hands obsessively! It wasn’t just a one time deal before a meal, this ‘washing’ became a religious obsession with them, this is the mindset Jesus is rebuking]. Jesus corrected this mistaken view and showed him what was really important, to do charity, justice, mercy and good deeds, this is the new testament sacrifice of the believer [along with praise- Peter] and Jesus said when you do charity, this is what makes you ‘ceremonially clean’ in the eyes of God.
(1170) yesterday I was reading the paper and saw an article on a local guy who attacked a cop with a meat cleaver, as I looked at the brothers face he looked familiar. It took me a few seconds to recognize it was Martin, a friend of mine. He stopped by a few months ago, just to say hi and all. I have had Martin over a few times, been to his apartment a few times. We fished together; he had lots of good questions. Martin is a good friend who I would get together with again if the chance arose. The picture and story in the paper would have you thinking he was an ax murderer, in reality the cop was off duty when he approached him. He is paranoid, and he probably thought they were going to jump him. Meat clever does sound bad, but it was probably a kitchen knife! We see people from different perspectives than God, people need the Lord. Well I know I said we were done with Luke 11 yesterday, but let’s get in one more. Jesus rebukes the lawyers for taking away ‘the key of knowledge’ and hindering others to find the truth. A few years back when Texas passed tort reform, I would be at the fire house and see the new commercials the lawyers came up with. Instead of advertising for accident victims, they ran commercials on other lawyers who were ambulance chasers. They were wanting the public to contact their law firm, so they could sue the other law firm who got to them first. Lawyers suing lawyers, now that’s what I call poetic justice! Here Jesus rebukes these ‘lawyers’ [religious leaders] because they did a specific thing, they rejected the gifts that God sent to them in the past. Jesus says ‘God sent you prophets and apostles and you rejected them’. In essence they wouldn’t hear the corporate wisdom/correction of God. I have heard this verse used in various ways over the years; some said this was speaking of the Christian church who reject these gifts today [apostle/prophet] some say it’s speaking of their own religious view of things. I think an overall understanding is God sends us messengers thru out the history of the church, we become acquainted with them thru their writings and the histories that tell about their stories. Often times the modern church is too quick to associate all past ‘churches’ as traditional, dead churches. This is a serious mistake in my view. When Jesus rebuked those who held to the traditions of men over God’s word, he was not saying that we should reject all tradition! He was primarily speaking of ‘the tradition of the elders’ a specific body of tradition that rose up around rabbinic Judaism, not tradition in general. Paul will instruct timothy to hold to the traditions that he was giving him [grounded in the word!] So Jesus rebuked the lawyers for their rejecting of the messengers of God, in essence they wanted to re invent the wheel all over again for each new generation, this in itself is a rejection of the communion of the saints that understands that we are all part of a 2 thousand year tradition of Christian believers. While wisdom allows us to discern between what traditions are good, and which are bad. Yet we don’t want to reject the entire body of Christian tradition that has come down to us from our forefathers. Jesus said he who receives those he sends, receive him. Jesus has been sending us prophets and wise men for centuries, are you hearing them?
(1171) Just read the story where a brother asks Jesus to help him with his finances; he asks ‘tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me’. Jesus says ‘man, who made you think I was about money stuff’? Then he gives a famous verse ‘beware of covetousness, for a mans life consists not in the abundance of the things that he owns’. It’s strange, but this is one of the first verses I memorized as a Christian, there was no particular reason for me to have focused on it, but now all these years later it seems to have been prophetic, being a major part of our teaching is based on this verse. Jesus then gives the parable of the rich man who tore down his barns and built greater ones to store his goods, Jesus puts these words in his mouth ‘I will say to myself, soul you have many goods for many years down the road. I can now find comfort in my wealth and enjoy the coming years’ Jesus says the man died that night. He then warns the rich to be rich towards God, and not to find a sense of security by the size of their 401 k. I remember seeing a commercial on investing, it shows a woman discussing her wealth and she says ‘I feel so safe’ about her wealth. She was expressing the feeling of security that comes from investments. It caught perfectly the warning of Jesus, covetousness has effected the church because we have allowed our financial empires to give us a sense of peace and security, contrary to the teaching of Jesus. Jesus warned us to beware of this type of mindset, if it wasn’t a real danger that people would fall into, he wouldn’t have told us to beware!
(1172) Yesterday was my birthday, I turned 47 [7-17-09] I don’t do stuff for my birthday anymore, but last night I caught the trilogy of the Gatti/Ward fights, watched all three back to back on HBO. It was a true present for me. The only sport I have ever really followed thru out my life has been boxing. Last week I saw a news brief on the death of Gatti, it effected me more than Michael Jackson to be sure. It’s sad for any one to die, but for boxing fans Gatti was a real hero. I grew up in the same area as Gatti [Jersey City, N.J.] Actually I run the blog ad in the Jersey Journal. Both Arturo Gatti and Mickey Ward [Lowell, Mass.] were not world champions, but their fights were considered world class. It was interesting to hear Emanuel Stewart, one of the all time great trainers, really enjoy the fights. Plus the fact that these fights allowed the fighters to make more money [especially Ward] than ever before was a good story. They deserved it. Gatti and Ward became good friends during this time, Ward retired after these fights and Gatti fought seven more fights. Ward trained Gatti for the last fight. One of the things I like about the sport is you have Blacks/Whites rooting for their guy whether he’s Black or White. Gatti and Ward are White, yet Gatti’s corner man was Buddy McGirt, a great Black fighter in his own right. When Gatti broke his hand early in the second fight, he tells Buddy when he goes back to the corner, Buddy asks ‘what do you want me to do’ meaning you want to stop the fight, Arturo says lets go on. Only a good trainer is willing to stop a fight if his man is hurt. At the end of the Atlantic City fight you see a Black brother wearing a suit in the ring, you know when they are announcing the decision and all, he is happy about the results, the fight went all 10 rounds [as did all of them] and the Black guy tells Mickey ‘I am proud of you’ you could tell he meant it. He seemed to have been one of the promoters. Mickey was hurt at various times [as was Gatti] and it would have been easy to have not fought on, but he did. The promoter of course wanted to put on a good show, and he was proud that Mickey didn’t take an easy paycheck and quit. I liked the whole environment of these various ethnic guys all in it together, to accomplish a common goal. Sure you have bad guys that have been in the sport, but the Whites/Blacks [Hispanics] all working together, rooting for their guy regardless of race, the whole trilogy of fights was a real treat. True champions at heart who became good friends during their fights, guys who had many chances to stop their fights for valid reasons [Gatti’s broken hand!] but chose to fight on, I enjoyed re-watching the fights last night, it was one of the best birthday presents I could have gotten.
(1173) I have a few things that I need to hit on today. First, recently there has been some criticism of the freedom to blog. Some have said that because blogging is so accessible, that for that very reason those who blog are not credible. I would like to point out that any venue of ‘speaking’ whether it be Pulpit, TV, Radio, whatever- has both good and bad aspects to it. Around a month or so ago the lord spoke to me from Romans [I think 13?] ‘The powers that be are ordained of God’ while it is true that anyone can do anything [blogging, public speaking, etc.] it is not true that anyone/everyone is doing it by Gods grace. So to be sure, anyone can blog, but if God is giving anyone a voice of influence, be assured that he alone [God!] has the power to ‘ordain powers’ or set up those who have authoritative voices in the community. Number 2, I want to comment on the book ‘scandal of the evangelical mind’ by Mark Noll, but I still have a few chapters left. But let me say I want all of our ‘followers’ to read it, especially you pastors and leaders. I recently checked my email [something I only do every few weeks, or once a month! I got away from the distraction that it can cause] and I had a few church planting networks contact us. I am glad we have some readers who are actively planting churches. One of the things Noll brings out in his book is the lack of good intellectual learning available to the average evangelical Christian. I like Noll, don’t agree with every thing he says, but I do agree with him on this. To all of our leaders/church groups that follow us, make an honest effort to buy, borrow or READ BLOGS that have good in depth teaching. You are a product of what you read. If the majority of your Christian experience is simply listening to modern success type preaching, then you and the people you lead will suffer for it. Now, lets do Luke 12; Jesus gives the famous story from the birds and flowers, he is rebuking the natural instinct of man to find security and interest in the pursuit of material wealth. He says the birds do not invest, they have no storehouses or barns, yet God feeds them. The flowers don’t struggle and toil, yet they look great. Then Jesus says he doesn’t want us preoccupied with the material pursuits of life. He says the unbelievers allow their lives to be consumed with this stuff and we should not be like that. Okay, Jesus is not teaching financial irresponsibility, but he is telling us not to allow wealth building to become an adventure that consumes our thoughts and time. When I first became a Christian I had the ‘disconnection’ that Jesus spoke about here. For many years I passed up chances to make wealth and stuff like that. Then after a period of listening to a lot of off balance teaching that focused a lot on money, I got into the money thing. Investing, real estate, the whole 9 yards. It wasn’t that awful, but I did notice that I spent lots of time thinking about investing, buying books and tapes on the subject; catching all the business and investing shows on TV. I did it all. Then I went thru a period of time where I walked away from the whole deal. It took time to sell the rentals and all, but I realized that for me it was a distraction, it affected the way I viewed God’s kingdom and work. Most of the money teachers/preachers had a feeling of disdain towards the verses like this. I realized that the overall environment of the financial/wealth building focus was something Jesus was against. Being consumed with the stuff. So today, where are you at personally? If you’re a Pastor, do you do this? Has your teaching become affected too much by personal success and wealth? Are you simply a believer who wants to sell out for the gospel? After I retired I stopped balancing my checkbook, put my investment money in a fixed interest savings, and really backed off of the regular overactive concern about wealth. Of course I still check my account on line a few times a month, making sure the automatic bills are being paid, checking up on my direct deposit from my retirement. But that’s all; I have no other schemes or ‘fishing lines’ out there trying to bring in some type of financial harvest. That’s a simple return to basic responsibility without spending an inordinate amount of time thinking ‘money thoughts’ all day long. Jesus said the world was consumed with this stuff, are you?
(1174) Almost finished with Noll’s book [scandal of the evangelical mind] and thought it time to comment. The book was published in 1994 and I realize a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. Noll brings out great points; he shows a fundamental weakness in American evangelicalism because of the way the movement shaped a sort of anti intellectual way/thought pattern of viewing the world and society. He really takes the dispensational wing of the church to task, frankly, I was surprised how willingly he dismantled many of their belief systems. I agree with him on this issue, but was surprised that a very popular book would go this far [and still be nominated book of the year by Christianity today- back in 1994!]. I think an area of weakness in the book is Noll’s ‘over association’ of young earth creationism with the Seventh Day Adventist church, and his repeating of the charge that creationists [and fundamentalists in general] are practicing a form of ‘modern Manichaeism’. He basically links an ‘anti material spirit’ that was seen in the early Christian heretics [Gnosticism, Docetism and Manichaeism] and applies this to the views of creationists and their so called unwillingness to allow the facts from nature speak for themselves. I wrote the note ‘way too much’ a few times when reading the book. I think he’s basically mistaken on this, many early Christian thinkers did hold to a young earth view, and they were the same thinkers who rebuked these cults who rejected the natural world as evil. Overall the book is a worthwhile read, it exposes the weakness of the fundamental/evangelical movement to ‘think Christianly’ about the world and society around them. Too often believers think ‘thinking Christianly’ means introducing bible verses into the conversation, this is not what Noll is speaking about. He shows the fundamental error that arose during the modernist/fundamentalist debates of the 19th/20th centuries, and how this caused the church to accept modes of thinking and learning that were disconnected from the fathers of these movements. For instance, Jonathan Edwards, who is considered to be the greatest homegrown thinker of the American experience, he embraced an acceptance of the natural sciences as a way to learn more about the ways of God. True studies of the earth and universe and things in the world were accepted as a means of God communicating truth to his people thru the ‘book of nature’. Noll shows how the fundamentalist movement came to reject this willingness to look at the natural world and learn from it. Thus his overstated charge of Manichaeism, a group that saw the natural world as evil. A blind spot of Noll is his seeming belief that the majority of all Christians/scientists accepted as fact the old earth views of the Geologic table and the other sciences that arose at the time [like evolutionary theory]. He paints a picture that says ‘see, most believers were open to learning from science back then, but the fundamentalist movement and the rise of creationism side tracked the church’. This is simply not true. Many scientists and Christians did not accept the science of an old earth and the interpretation of the geologic table. Many fathers of the church accepted a young earth view [Noll's creationism] since the beginning of church history. Though Noll quotes saint Augustine in his defense of thinking critically, yet Augustine himself believed in a young earth. He actually believed God made everything in an instant and the 6 days of Genesis 1 were symbolic, that God used the ‘6 day framework’ to show us his creative acts. The point being, Augustine’s spiritualizing of the days of creation did not make him an old earth believer! So there were a few things like this that I take issue with, overall I think every evangelical/protestant believer would benefit from reading the book. Noll’s challenge to the evangelical church to ‘think Christianly in all areas of life’ is a needed rebuke to many in the church. Noll is correct in showing the weakness of the American protestant church and her basic disdain of intellectual learning, thinking that higher learning in and of itself is a bad thing. This has fostered a community of believers that has cut itself off from the basic institutions that effect society as a whole [the research universities being one example]. If Christians shy away from the natural sciences and the reality that even unbelievers have at times revealed to us true things thru these studies, then we are going down a road that will eventually cut our influence off from the broader society at large.
(1175) Let’s talk a little; here in my office I have a couple of tool boxes that are around 70 years old. They are machinist tools that belonged to my father’s dad. He died before I was born, but as a boy growing up I used to regularly go thru the interesting tools, micrometers and stuff. The reason they are in my office is funny, a few years ago I was in New Jersey visiting family. My mom would kid with me about stuff, and sure enough I found out that my sisters ‘boyfriend’ was gradually depleting the inventory of the tool boxes for drug purposes! My sister has had a long, sad history of drug addiction, and her friends too. I actually have made some headway in helping her present boyfriend of a few years, he is almost like one of the buddies I help here in Texas, the same type of friendship and all. So I would kid my mom ‘gee, I always looked forward to getting these tools as an inheritance someday, I thought at least I will get something. And now I find out that they have been making their way out the back door for the last year or so’. Now, my mom laughed and all, I know it sounds strange, but it was kinda funny. But she does ask me if I feel bad about it, I told her I would get over it. But I said if I’m on my way back to Texas on the plane, and we have some bad turbulence. And per chance the pilot informs us ‘folks, we regret to inform you that we have encountered mechanical problems. They are so serious that we believe we might suffer loss of life before the flight is over. If you have loved ones you need to call, go ahead and do it now. One more thing, we might have a slim chance of repairing the engine, but we don’t have the proper tools. Does anybody on board happen to have a micrometer’? I told her then I will be mad! One other thing, my mom asked my advice about borrowing money from a reverse mortgage, I told her if the charge and interest are in a reasonable range, then do it. I feel my parents at times have felt guilty over the years because I left Jersey when I was 18 years old, and they thought I would eventually move back. You know, it’s common for kids to launch out when their young, to face the brave new world. And after a few years wind up back home. But in my case I never went back. So there has always been a sense like ‘gee, we never really helped John, he’s had to fend for himself all these years’ and I felt my mom was asking me about the reverse mortgage sort of like getting permission to ‘sell’ part of any future inheritance. I of course have advised her to sell her house and do whatever she needed to do to get herself in a better situation. My parents are divorced and my mom lives in an expensive home that is taxed at a very high N.J. rate. So my advice has been to sell it years ago. But anyway I told my mom to do the reverse mortgage if the price was right. So she borrowed around 25 thousand from the equity at around 6 %, an okay deal. Then I find out that they charged her 25 thousand as a one time fee, along with the 6%! I told her ‘mom, that means they charged you 106%, not a good deal’. Oh well at least I still have a few micrometers. The point is my poor mom does not know financial stuff, I felt bad for her, not me. They basically ripped her off. In Luke 12 Jesus said some servants that knew their lords will and did not do it would suffer many stripes [punishment] and those that were ignorant and did wrong stuff would suffer few stripes. The fact that my poor mom was ignorant of the deal didn’t protect her from taking a loss. In the world of reformation, God changing things in the church, new ways of seeing and doing things, I have Pastor friends who really are like my mom, they are good people who have a basic grasp on stuff, but they are out of their league in other areas. Then there are those who do see and recognize the real problems that the church is facing, they see the limited paradigms that the people of God have functioned under for all these years. Jesus said both groups would give an account for their response to truth. Those who really knew what was wrong, and let it slip by will suffer much. But those that didn’t really know what was going on in the current church world, they served faithfully to the best of their ability in the limited mindset of church and ministry, they too will suffer, not as much as those who had more understanding, but yet they will suffer. I believe God wants all of us to serve him and do our best to live up to the things he requires of us. I also believe that too many of us [Pastors/Leaders] struggle for too long in places and ideas that are outmoded and calling for change. If we simply take the attitude ‘well, people have been doing it this way for years’ without truly educating ourselves as much as possible, then we too will suffer. Hey, don’t get stuck on the plane with out a micrometer, it could prove hazardous to your health! [get it? The right tool for the journey- hey it’s the best I can do]
(1176) In Luke 13 the people ask Jesus about a current event, there were these people who Pilate executed and mingled their blood with their sacrifices. Jesus says ‘do you think these sinners were the worst? No, but unless you repent you too will perish’ and then Jesus volunteers another news story ‘and what about the 18 people that died when the tower of Siloam fell, do you think they were worse than the common man? No, but you all need to repent’. Recently there was a story in the news about a nurse who worked for an abortion doctor, she testified to the fact that there were times when the babies were born alive, and you simply left them to die. She explained that on one occasion the doctor placed the tiny baby in a disposal basin and put it in a closet. She went back into the room and heard the poor mutilated baby crying its brains out. She finally took the baby out and held it until it passed away, the baby lived for 45 minutes. We as a society have a tendency to look back at the past injustices of man; we see the horror of slavery or the holocaust. We often think ‘how could people have been so blind to have allowed these atrocities to happen’ and yet we allow for things that are worse. Jesus rebuked the people of his day for thinking that other people must have been worse because of their fate, he said not so, you too allow for evil things. Picture a white doctor dismembering a baby, the arm is cut off. But by some accident the baby comes out alive and screaming. Let’s say the baby is Black, then let’s say he stuck it in a disposal box and left it to die while screaming in a closet. Can you honestly tell me that this act is not as horrendous as the poor Black slaves that were killed on the ships from Africa to America? Or the innocent Jews who were gassed under Hitler? One of the things that disturbs me about our current president is when he was in the Illinois senate he was one of the few [if only?] senators who voted against a bill that would have protected the live birth abortions. They tried to make it illegal to not administer treatment to a child that came out alive. I know the politicians lie and say ‘well, we voted against it because it would have opened the door to the pro life groups’. I don’t care what your reasoning is, if you cant protect the life of an innocent living baby, you have no right to be in office. We are talking about the babies who popped out alive for heavens sake! Jesus told us to beware of the tendency to look at the abuses of others while not seeing that we are just as bad. I can think of no greater application than this.
(1177) I would like to talk on a few things today to be honest, I just heard a good radio debate on evolution and it gets me in the mood to argue; but I am still in Luke and want to hit some stuff. Jesus said he came to set a fire on the earth, that he would cause divisions in homes and among ‘families’ [even church families]. His radical kingdom passion had people lining up on opposite sides. Mother and father against son and daughter, stuff like that. I have found that most revolutionaries get this type of response, it comes with the territory. You find some who hear and think ‘wow, this is the best teaching I have ever heard’ and others who say ‘look, he’s stirring the waters too much’ Jesus was that type of a preacher. Okay, let’s do the science thing; the debate I just heard was good, the presenters of the Christian show did a good job airing it, yet they were a little confused on thinking that Intelligent Design and Creationism were the same thing, they are not. Lets talk a little on the Scientific Method, during the enlightenment of the 18th century you had the method develop called ‘the analytical method’ this added to the scientific method and stated that you had 2 sides to examining and learning stuff- the inductive side [gathering of facts/data] and the deductive side [coming to some basic conclusions based on the facts]. The biggest problem with modern science in my view [if I can be so bold] is it’s inability to rightfully use the second part of this method, that is there comes a time where any scientific endeavor has to capitulate to the overwhelming inductive data and come to some basic set of beliefs. You can’t go on ad infinitum looking for missing facts to prove your conclusion. That would be getting the method backwards. So for example if you are looking to prove that a living cell can come into existence ‘by chance’ without any real cause, then you look at as many examples of living things and try and trace a point where something popped into life without a prior cause. After a few hundred years of doing this, science has gathered tons of real evidence that show us that this never happens. Now, if your theory on evolution NEEDS this to happen, and you continue to promote that this ACTUALLY HAS HAPPENED, you are basically taking the scientific data and coming to a false conclusion, you have deduced an idea that is not consistent with the facts. Now, you can argue that there still is the slight possibility that new data will arise to back up your theory, possible. But the point is you can’t promote your theory [evolution] over other theories [creationism or intelligent design] and say yours is science while the opponents is not. This just is not true. The field of intelligent design is loaded with scientific facts that lead to the conclusion that there was intelligence behind the created order. They have the science to back up their theory, evolution does not! [Darwinian macro view] So anyway Jesus said he was going to set fire on the earth, he was starting a revolution that would get out of control, I think it’s time for us to start some fires.
(1178) Jesus is in the synagogue, the religious leaders are watching, sure enough he does it again. He heals a woman who had a sickness for 18 years. The ruler of the synagogue stands up and in a non direct way says ‘well, we have 6 other days to come and get healed, if you need to be healed get it in those days, not on the Sabbath’. Now this brother is the God ordained leader of this group, I mean Jesus himself said to obey those who ‘sit in Moses seat’ [basically the pulpit of the synagogue]. So how does Jesus respond? Does he simply think praising God and speaking only ‘nice’ words will get the job done? Jesus responds ‘you hypocrite! Don’t you rescue your own beast on the Sabbath if it falls into some ditch?’ Jesus minced no words, he let him have it. Paul does stuff like this as well, he says some teachers mouths needed to be shut, and Paul was on a mission to shut them! The point being we don’t take this approach with every one we disagree with, but there are times when leaders get in this mode of survival, they want to be happy and wealthy. They want that for their people, and any perceived intrusion by the Kingdom of God into their little world is seen as a threat, in these cases truth trumps personal doctrine and security. Sure Jesus was tough on the brother, but he showed him an error in his thinking, he showed him how he wasn’t allowing the same grace and mercy for human beings as he was for animals! He showed them how their ideas of Gods law [Sabbath keeping] were way off track, he then let the chips fall. The people in the room were obviously in shock, Jesus by passed Pastoral etiquette and rebuked this man to his face [Like Paul did with Peter] I know one thing, this was a lesson that he [they] would never forget.
(1179) OFFICER CROWLEY VERSUS THE PROFESSOR- Okay, this week there was an incident that happened that has riled up the racial tensions in the country. In Cambridge Mass. a Black Professor was locked out of his house without his keys, a neighbor sees him trying to get into his house with a Black cab driver who drove him home. The neighbor calls the police thinking it’s a possible break in. The cop gets there and sees the Black guys in the house, he questions them. The Black owner [Gates] is mad, he is in his own home and a cop is there questioning him. Sure, I could see how I would be mad if this happened to me. Now, the White officer is simply doing his job, he was called to the scene by a concerned neighbor and he is being treated disrespectfully by the Professor, as was the Professor feeling disrespected too. So during the incident the Professor gets mad, it seems as if he was out of line in the way he spoke to the cop [can you really blame him?] but the cop is doing his job and is being labeled as a racist by the Professor. Now, Professor Gates is a Harvard Professor who teaches African /American studies, his whole life is dedicated to examining the class/culture realities of Black Americans. He is up on all the latest statistics on racial profiling, he has studied past incidents of Blacks being targeted by White cops, and he for the most part has spent more time than the average person looking at these things. Now the cop just happens to be the local officer who was chosen by the Black police commissioner to teach other cops how not to racially profile. Good enough so far. As things seem to get out of hand at the scene, the cop tells Gates to go outside and talk, obviously Gates knows he will be more susceptible to arrest if he leaves the house, so he musters up all the intellectual resources he can find, he draws upon his years of experience on how not to fall into the stereotypical Black mans response, and he says- quote ‘I’ll meet your mamma outside’. Probably not a good thing. So he gets arrested and the nation is up in arms, oh one more thing. As President Obama is giving a very lack luster speech on his effort to save his health insurance policy, he struggled thru a difficult time in trying to present his case. The last question of the night is ‘what do you think about the Professor Gates incident’ and he does his best to be measured, he says he wants to be careful because he doesn’t know all the facts, and then he ads ‘The police acted stupidly’ ah, just the thing we needed to tone down the tensions. The President is a personal friend of Gates and he knows he is an upstanding man, he of course assumes that something went wrong. Most of us would, but still he jumped the gun. And of course the conservative talk shows can’t get enough of reminding the world that Obama called the cops stupid. What happened here? Innocent people were drawn into a drama by innocent events and both sides are being demonized. It’s a shame that the cop does seem to be an outstanding cop when it comes to racial profiling. There are truly rogue cops in the world, who do treat minorities bad, this guy isn’t one of them. Gates has every right to be mad, of course he thinks the cop is a racist, he is in his home and being targeted. Does he know that a neighbor called about a possible break in? Not at first. Did race play any role in this, probably. We would be ignorant to think race played no role. Did the neighbor feel like there was a break in because there were 2 Black guys there? Possibly so, now that doesn’t mean the neighbor was racist, but I’m sure it played a role. But it seems wrong for Gates to have called the cop a racist, just as it was wrong for a Black man to be questioned in his own home as in if he was a criminal. It was not wrong for the cop [Crowley] to question him, but for Gates to feel like he was being treated like a stereotypical Black man by being treated like this in his home. We as Christians need to tone down the rhetoric, I have been strong on my disagreements on racial things [like affirmative action] and I have disagreed with the president on lots of stuff, but we need to be careful when choosing sides in these types of situations. Both Crowley and Gates have real legitimate complaints in defending their points of view. The national voices who are defending both sides also have real legitimate issues they are bringing up, but to only see one side of this issue would be a mistake. The President has since said he overreacted in his initial statement, the poor guy is trying his best at a very difficult time in the world, North Korea refers to Hillary Clinton [secretary of state] as a schoolgirl, or a pensioner shopping at the mall! I do find it ironic that Hillary was one of the vocal critics of Bush’s ‘Cowboy Diplomacy’ and used to criticize him for losing respect in international affairs. But Obama has since invited Gates and Crowley to the White House for a beer, I think we should try and see both sides to these types of issues and forgive those who we seem to disagree with. [note- since I wrote this post, we have found out that the caller did not identify any of the men as black, she thought one might have been Hispanic]
(1180) FRIEND, GO UP HIGHER- its 5 a.m. right now, just finished around an hour prayer time. In a few hours I will be heading to San Antonio for the day. My daughter’s birthday is today [7-25 Bethany, the oldest is 24]. Her boyfriend of a few years proposed to her last night. We will be riding the inner tubes at one of the rivers and hitting the good spots, river walk and stuff like that. San Antonio is one of our outreach cities; it will be a prayer time as well for me. In Luke 14 Jesus says when you get invited to a wedding don’t take [seek] a place of honor and recognition, but take the humble seat. Because if you go ‘for the glory’ the person who invited you will have to tell you ‘I’m sorry, but this seat is reserved for someone else, but you can sit here in the back’ and the man will have been humbled on purpose, as opposed to having done it himself. This theme is pretty consistent in the teaching of Jesus, he was instilling the mindset that greatness in Gods kingdom would not be measured by worldly standards. Religion in Jesus day developed along the lines of class warfare, you had the leaders hold a special place over the people. God’s people were already under Roman dominion, they felt like they were always having to answer ‘to the man’ being on their guard for stepping on the wrong toes. And religious Judaism fell into this same mindset. The leaders primarily saw their role as being in charge of people, that is they derived joy out of knowing they were a special chosen group, better than the average laymen. In essence the leaders were always going for the best seat in the house. Now Jesus comes along, he really rebukes them all thru out his ministry, he’s been taking the outcasts of society and elevating them to a position that really offended the clergy! At the same time he’s been telling the elite class ‘you belong down here, in the back of the room’. Ouch! He was really changing the mindset of authority and leadership in a major way. Leadership was not to take a pre imminent role among the group, they were to be servant leaders. Jesus tells those who take the low road ‘friend, go up higher’. It’s funny, Jesus will exalt and use the lowly in a great way, it’s just they aren’t in it for the fame.
(1181) Well we had a good day at the river yesterday, we went to San Antonio [New Braunfels] and rode the river in the inner tubes. I actually pray regularly for this area, stuff like ‘your people will rise up and overflow the river banks and flow into Judah’ ‘you will be like fountains dispersed abroad, like rivers of waters in the streets’ [bible verses] so it was cool floating down a river with hundreds of people who you regularly pray for. On the ride back I also noticed some famous churches along the highway, basically good people, charismatic type personalities who I used to catch on TV [I haven’t watched shows like that in a few years now, not because their bad or wicked, but too disconnected from the historic context of Christianity- a simple success gospel with no real attachment to the historic church]. So it was fun. Okay in Luke Jesus says when you have a dinner [B.B.Q.] invite the poor and down and out, don’t invite the rich and well to do [man, he is so hard on the affluent!] because if you invite people with the mindset of ‘reaping a harvest’ now, you forfeit a true reward. Jesus says the reward you get will be at the resurrection [no material mindset here, no money thing in the here and now] this is Luke 14 by the way. It’s a mystery to me how so many well meaning streams of Christianity can completely by pass this central mode of Jesus teaching. James, Jesus’ brother, wrote in his epistle ‘when you favor the rich in your assembly and treat them better than the poor you are doing wrong’ [James 2- by the way this is the only reference in the New Testament that speaks of an assembly that can be translated as a place to meet. The context of James is Jewish believers, he obviously is referring to meeting at the synagogue. That probably would have been a better translation. The term for church, Ecclesia, never refers to a building]. So James obviously picked up this mantra from Jesus, you know, the whole negativity on the rich type preaching! Well today we see how Jesus wants us to approach our service to him, when we love our neighbor we are to act and show kindness and spend money [hey, brisket isn’t cheap!] and do it all with a mindset that says ‘no, I am not doing all this so I can get some type of financial reward in the here and now, Jesus will reward me at the resurrection’ I like this stuff, you might not like it, but I love it.
(1182) I JUST GOT MARRIED AND AM NOT ALLOWED TO COME- Ouch! In Luke 14 Jesus gives the parable of the great supper; he says a man makes this great feast and sends out his servant to tell the intended guests ‘all things are ready NOW, it’s supper time’ [not breakfast time! Supper time is a time of completion, Galatians says the fullness of the times were already present in the 1st century]. So the servant goes and tells the people ‘come’. But the people make excuses, one says ‘I have bought some land and need to go see it’ [his lucrative real estate business was too important] another said ‘I have bought some ox and need to go try them out’ and the last guy said ‘I just got married, I can’t come’. It’s been said in the annals of famous repeated jokes from previous Pastors/Teachers that this was the only brother who had a legitimate excuse [sorry about this]. So the servant comes back to the man and says ‘I invited all the intended guests [1st century Israel] and they couldn’t come’ and the master gets mad and sends the servant back out to gather all the poor and lame and outcasts of society, and they come. But the original guests are left out. This parable, like all the others, must be seen in context. Obviously Jesus is speaking to the nation of Israel and telling them that as a nation their time has come, he is their Messiah and the supper is ready. In New Testament thought [as opposed to the multitude of various theologies that people espouse] the appearing of the Messiah in the first century was the defining moment in all of human history. The national rejection of Jesus by Israel did not postpone Gods intended Kingdom work. The other guests that came to the table were all the Gentile nations who benefited by the rejection of Israel [book of Romans]. The supper time indicates that Jesus initial presenting of himself to Israel was not a sort of evangelistic call to get saved [though that was a small part of it] but it was Gods plan for the ages being fulfilled, it was a passing away of a former age [law- Old Testament economy] and a bringing into existence of a new way, the Blood of Jesus and his New Covenant. This new way was presented as ‘a full course meal’ so to speak. It was there in its fullness and would be inaugurated by the Messiah, whether Israel wanted it or not. So when we read the epistles in the New Testament we read a story of God bringing in many Gentile nations, the non Jews are now considered citizens of God’s kingdom and fellow partakers of all the Divine blessings that were restricted to Israel under the first covenant [Ephesians]. When we read the New Testament it is important to read it thru the proper lens [this being one of the pairs of glasses!] when you do it this way it allows you to see the truth of many other things. It puts the proper perspective on things. We as Christians are not waiting for a Kingdom that has been postponed for 2 thousand years, but we are already partaking of the benefits of ‘the supper’. Sure, there will be a great future day when the King returns, that’s true. But we are already living in the Kingdom at this time. In essence we are the eternal generation that Jesus spoke about when he said ‘some of you will not die until all these things are fulfilled’. If you see this ‘some of you’ as the church age, the people of God from day 1 until now. Then truly some of our brothers and sisters have gone on to be with the Lord, but there are still some of us hanging out on the planet; but whether we are alive or not when Jesus returns, I know for sure that ‘this generation’ [the church] will not pass away until all these things are fulfilled [note- I am not saying this is the only way to read these verses, but I think there is much truth to some of the way I just taught it]
(1183) I HATE YOU! Felt like this was a prophetic word to all of my critics [KIDDING!] Jesus said unless we hated our families and lives we could not be a true disciple. Over the years I have seen the church go thru stages; one of the areas of popular teaching is the entire field of family life. Now to be sure the bible speaks about family life, husbands loving wives and bringing up their children in the fear of God. But I want to give you another side, while I don’t believe Jesus was speaking of ‘hate’ in a way that means anger, but I do believe the people of God have at times made ‘family things’ an idol. I remember years ago when first coming to Texas, I had a good friend who made the second trip back to Texas with me. He had a hard time [as I] in trying to make it as young kids in a strange new world [you know, cowboys and stuff shooting regularly in the streets- or Bush and his cronies running rough shod over the population as Cheney acts as an oil czar!] At one point my friend, who was now married and had kids, was having a hard time making it. We were both in our mid 20’s with families and kids. I had just started our church and he was an original member. My focus was on doing Gods work and branching out in outreach to as many people as possible. I was working at the Fire Dept. and doing my best to ‘run the church’. My friend told me one day he decided to leave Texas and take his family back to New Jersey, it was rough on him to be sure. At one point I could sense he was missing his natural family back home, he was raised by his Cuban grandmother [she used to make us some great Cuban food!] and he expressed a feeling of ‘wow, I can’t wait until I get back home and grandma can make us good food again’. While his love for his natural family back in Jersey was fine, yet he based his decision on past family affinities, as opposed to current situations. I felt he made a mistake in going back. Jesus challenged us to put his kingdom first, even ahead of well meaning family things, things that can be hindrances at times. When I first started helping street people and addicts, I had some people say ‘gee, why don’t you help your natural family and not worry about all these other people’ some thought I was rich and spending lots of money on these friends. Then when they found out I was simply doing it on a fire fighters salary [now a retirement check] they kind of had the feeling ‘gee, the guy doesn’t make that much, he shouldn’t be spending the little he has on these bums’. You know, you can’t win for losing! Jesus wants us to do what he says, sure he also wants us to be responsible people as well, good family lives and well adjusted kids. But as in any area of life, we need to keep the proper balance, there will be times when you will need to make a choice between what’s better for you and your family situation, or moving ahead by faith in the Kingdom. My buddy went back to eat some good Cuban food, but I fear he might have missed out on the real supper the Lord had for him in Texas.
(1184) LETS TONE DOWN THE RHETORIC As of this month [7-09] the president has been in office for 7 months, and we need to talk. First, the present media atmosphere [radio, TV, blog] is really bad. The racial accusations are too high, you have both ‘right’ and ‘left’ wing voices that are way over the top. The president also suffers from inexperience, though he is a smart man, he is very inexperienced in executive stuff. I remember how during the campaign this was an issue, many Obama supporters actually appealed to his experience at running his campaign as the actual experience that he had. Are we kidding ourselves or what? I mean serious voices said this, then if you asked these same media persons ‘what about the experience of Palin’ they would ridicule her experience as governor of Alaska and mayor. If you then asked ‘why aren’t you counting her campaign as experience’ the answer was not given. I like our president, he was asked how he wanted to fund health care reform, how would he pay for it. He said it wasn’t his idea to tax current health care benefits. Okay, got it. What about any specific ideas at all? The problem is he is asking his fellow Democrats to make the tuff choices, Max Baucus [top financial guy for the Dem's] is taking heat for trying to foster an agreement, his idea is you do need to take away the tax free benefit for other health care policies, this is a way he feels you can accomplish reform. But if the president is saying publicly ‘hey, that’s not my idea’ and at the same time asking them to pass something, hey, this doesn’t cut it. People don’t work like that. This is what you call ‘executive inexperience’ ah, maybe some of the critics were right after all. Fine, we are here now and we should support the president as much as possible. The media types who are playing the race issue are in dangerous territory. Frankly, some of them seem to really believe in the conspiratorial idea of the president being involved in some type of purposeful destruction of our economy for the sole purpose of instituting socialism. These guys really believe this! This is bad. But some of the liberal voices constantly accuse the critics of Obama as being racist, geez, can’t you disagree with a Black person without being tagged a racist. So both sides are going way overboard. Those who doubt the legitimacy of the presidents citizenship, okay, I think there a bit nuts. But why in the world does the president not release the actual birth certificate from Hawaii? By not doing this he feeds into the hysteria of the nuts. I heard Bernie Goldberg espouse the idea that Obama’s insiders [Rham Emanuel] are purposefully withholding the actual documents so they can associate the Republicans with the right wing nuts. That is the more the right wingers accuse Obama of not being a citizen, this feeds the ‘Limbaugh/Beck’ stereotypes and will help Obama in the end. I don’t know if Goldberg is right, but if he is this ‘Chicago’ style stuff is just as bad as Beck’s rants. And then Chris Matthews accuses the ‘birthers’ [those who question Obama’s citizenship] as trying to brand Obama as an illegal alien so they can deport him out of the country! As he interviewed Gordon Liddy he said ‘the papers reported Obama’s birth when he was born, this would mean his mother knew he would run for president someday and pre planned all the right moves’ Liddy tells him no, he says it’s perfectly possible for a good mother to want her son to have U.S. citizenship, and it’s possible that Obama was born in Kenya and quickly flew back into the states and the mom did her best to establish U.S. citizenship. Okay, stuff like this does happen, many Mexican moms have their kids on this side of the border for that very purpose. Do I think this happened with Obama? No. But those who do think this would benefit if the president released the real birth certificate, but once again he won’t do it, ah the politics of the whole thing. But Matthews is publicly stating that those who have doubts about this are claiming Obama was born ‘in the slums of Kenya’ and they are trying to get him deported because of his race, this is just as bad as what Beck does. Our president is not a socialist, he is not purposefully trying to destroy our economy for this purpose. But he is inexperienced, he very much underestimates the reality of spending way too much money at a time in our economy when we are still very shaky. We need to be able to disagree with people over real issues, without accusing each other of racism. We need to tone down the rhetoric on both sides. We need to pray for our president and the country.
(1185) THE SHEEP AND THE COIN- Once again Jesus stirs up the crowd, as his teaching ministry flourishes he gains a listening audience of tax collectors and sinners. Basically he’s speaking the language of the people. It’s interesting to note that around 70 % of the Old Testament quotes of Jesus found in the New Testament are taken from the Septuagint version of the Old Testament. This translation was a collaboration of 70 scholars [so the tradition goes] and was the Greek cultural version of the Old Testament that was popular in the Greek speaking world, it was also seen as an ‘impure’ version among the religious leaders of Judaism, it was not the most pure Hebrew text that the orthodox used. But Jesus was attempting to speak to the common people as much as possible and he wasn’t the type of preacher to engage in these long debates over the most pure text of scripture! So anyway he gives the stories of a man who lost 1 sheep out of 99 and goes and finds it; also the woman who lost 1 coin out of 10 and she too seeks for it. Jesus says that’s what he’s doing when he receives these so called low class people; he’s seeking the ones who are lost. He says when they find the lost sheep/coin they bring it home and call their neighbors and friends and rejoice with them. Jesus did put a priority on spiritual riches versus natural stuff, to seek the lost and save them was valuable in his eyes, to live your life based on class issues was not valuable. The religious leaders despised these down and out folk, they wouldn’t stoop so low as to actually befriend them. That was the real accusation they made against Jesus, he was ‘their friend’ this just irked the religious leadership terribly! It’s too easy for well meaning Christian leaders to live their lives in an environment where most of your time and thought is spent in public speaking, running the 501 c3 operation of ‘ the church’ and mingling with the elite crowd as much as possible. The lifestyle of Jesus was a total repudiation of this professional ministerial class, they were building their careers while Jesus was out looking for sheep.
(1186) PARABLE FROM A PARABLE- I woke up this morning and was praying for ‘my sons’ [this refers to all the people we are reaching out to] I had a dream and after thinking about it I felt the Lord wanted me to pray this. Then I opened Luke 15 and read ‘a certain man had 2 sons’ and figured I’d better do it. In Luke 15 we have the parable of the prodigal son, a younger son [inexperience] approaches his dad and requests too much money to soon [economic stimulus- 800 billion, possible health care cost- 1 trillion. You get the point] and the son goes into a far country and wastes the money [it could have had a better effect if spent properly, i.e.; I like Nancy Pelosi, but I heard her defend the Democratic plan for the economy as green jobs, energy reform and insurance reform, while these are noble things, they are not things that drive our economy] so after the son wastes his money, he repents and says ‘I will go back to my dad and admit I blew it, I will tell him I am no longer worthy to be called his son [doubting his legitimacy, citizenship!] and will work as a hired servant’. The father receives the son back, makes a huge feast [media adulation] and all is well. Oh wait, the older brother [more experienced conservative type, he knew all along that this younger inexperienced person would blow it, he’s just waiting for others to see it too] the older brother comes close to the house and hears all the ruckus ‘what’s going on’ he asks. They tell him your younger brother is home and your dad thru him this big bash. He gets mad, he says he has been doing right all these years, faithfully serving in a conservative way, he never wasted the people’s money! And now, after all this waste, this younger guy is getting all the credit for things. He’s being treated in a way that I have never been! Being appreciated and all. The older brother refuses to rejoice as well, he really doesn’t want the young brother to succeed. I believe many people who voted for ‘the young son’ thought he would be more main stream than he actually turned out. Some fiscal conservatives thought he would be a pragmatic type, who could talk to both sides and come down in the middle. The truth is he has turned out much more liberal than expected by the moderate group who voted for him. I am not saying this is bad in itself, but this is political reality. Now, there are some major things that can go either way right now, and I fear that some of the more conservative ‘brothers’ really don’t want the younger brother to make it. Just like they did to the last president [the Dem's to Bush]. The point is we do need to root for the success of the younger brother, even if his wasteful spending lead to ‘a famine in the land’ we need to allow room for rejoicing once again, and the possibility of things going well for all parties involved. It’s only natural for the older group to feel animosity towards the younger brother, he was treated with great bias by the media, they truly did a disservice to the country by not fairly presenting both sides. Too much adulation, I heard a recording of two reporters at one of the appearances of Obama during his campaign. On the air they were having a conversation about Obama’s I.Q. it went like this ‘What do you think his I.Q. is? I don’t know, but it must be one of the highest I.Q.’s of any president ever. Do you have any idea what the number is? No, but I have a feeling it’s really high’ now, lets be honest, when the opponents hear this stuff, they develop a natural animosity to the man. The older brother heard the tremendous noise from the party, a party he really didn’t deserve. And this caused him to not want to side with the younger man. The father finally says ‘look, you are all in this together, you could have partaken of the inheritance all along, just like your brother is doing now’ the father turned the conversation from ‘us versus them’ to one of ‘we are all the same family’ I think we need to heed this parable.
(1187) CASH FOR CLUNKERS- In Luke 16 we have the parable of the steward who wasted his master’s money. Jesus says there was this employee who was reported to have swindled his boss. The boss calls him on the carpet and the employee gets busted. He thinks ‘geez, I am going to lose my job [you know, the recession and all] what will I do for cash?’ [Oh, I don’t know. What about taking whatever you can find?] He says ‘I can’t dig [why not?] to beg I am ashamed [now we are running out of options] I know, I’ll contact all my bosses debtors and reduce their bills’. He takes option number 3 and gets in good with the guys who owed his boss money. Notice, this option really didn’t produce wealth, it simply lost it. Right now our country is doing the ‘cash for clunkers’ program, you can take your old gas guzzler in and the govt. pays the dealer $4,500 dollars for the car. The dealer then destroys it. The idea is the govt. is getting the polluters off the road while the dealers are doing business. You know how many of these clunkers could put my buddies to work? Guys trying to buy clunkers for a few hundred, these so called clunkers that are being traded in are pretty good vehicles. If you simply gave them to unemployed people who really needed them this would help them and the economy. How many junk yards could have done business with the parts? I realize the reason for destroying them is for environmental concerns, but we are having major unemployment right now, this deal doesn’t help them. So the steward wrote off some value. Then at the end the Lord commends the guy for being wise, doing what he had to do. The parable ends with the famous verse ‘you cannot serve God and money, if you try and do both you will wind up hating one and loving the other’ note to you readers, if this verse just offended you, in a small sense you are ‘hating one of them’ right now. I like Jesus forward preaching, you never left the sermon wondering what his point was. In life we all do what we need to at times, this employee cut off two viable options right at the start [work, beg] make sure the reason you seem to have no options isn’t because your standards are too high. I get a kick out of some of my buddies who wont work for a ‘measly 7 dollars an hour’ but have no problem dumpster diving for a left over pizza! Sometimes we are the problem. And sometimes we are ‘unprofitable’ because we are too caught up in the material pursuits of life. Jesus does say those who were not faithful in temporary riches [money] would be unfaithful in the true riches [spiritual wealth]. I know there are many ideas on what this means, but one way we become faithful in natural wealth is by not letting it consume us, by not being too preoccupied with the obtaining of the stuff. These are the main points of Jesus in these stories; we seem to miss the main points a little too much.
(1188) Right after Jesus gives the parable of the wise steward [Luke 16] he launches into the parable of the rich man and Lazarus [yes, I know some think it not a parable! I explained this before] it’s like Jesus was hitting the subject of riches and poverty thru the whole chapter. In verse 14 the bible says the Pharisees, who were covetous, were there. We often don’t think of them as covetous, Jesus says they esteemed the things of men highly while those things that men value are an abomination in Gods eyes. They valued their image/status a lot, how others viewed them. Often times people seek wealth and fame for these reasons, thus they coveted money for the wrong reasons. Jesus also speaks of John the Baptist ‘the law and the prophets were until John; since John came on the scene the Kingdom is being declared’. John was a transitional figure, the people of Jesus day knew lots about the law and prophets, they were sticklers when it came to ‘bible facts’ but John came on the scene and turned the tables upside down. He was a different sort of preacher, that’s for sure! With the preaching of John [and Jesus] all of a sudden there was this whole new context to put everything else in. The didactic teaching of the Old Testament was not being seen in context. Jesus himself will show his men all the things that were written about him in the law and prophets. In the end of this chapter Jesus tells the rich man that if his brothers don’t hear ‘the law and the prophets’ then they will not listen, even if one rises from the dead. Jesus was showing us that it’s possible to know bible facts, without really grasping the reality of God. I just read an interesting article in Christianity Today magazine [8-09] it showed how the countries of Latin America were being inundated with a very limited preaching of the prosperity gospel. How the country is flooded with ‘Christian TV’ and how many uneducated preachers have gotten a hold of the principle of ‘sow money into my ministry and God will bless you’ yet many of these ministries have no real preaching of the gospel. Jesus rebuked the lifestyle of the Pharisees because of their underlying sin of covetousness, they knew how to quote scripture and function as religious leaders of the community, yet they weren’t really listening to the one whom scripture testified of [Him]!
(1189) In Luke 17 the Pharisees ask Jesus when the Kingdom of God is going to come, Jesus tells them that the kingdom does not come by observing things; it’s not about geopolitical events if you will, but it is ‘within you’. He then says some will come and say ‘see here’ or ‘look there’ and Jesus says ‘go not after them, don’t follow them’. What were the Pharisees asking Jesus? To the first century Jewish mind, their expectation of the kingdom entailed the setting up of the messianic rule thru the messiah. They were looking for an outward, physical kingdom that would be set up at the capital city of Jerusalem and throw off the dominion of Roman rule. They in essence were looking for the same exact thing that the modern prophecy teachers have popularized over the last 50 years or so, they wanted Jesus on the throne and openly fighting off Israel’s physical enemies. Jesus clearly told them this was not the way the kingdom would come, or be expressed. He also warned of those who would be obsessed with ‘looking there’ or ‘seeing here’ those who would be scanning the geopolitical landscape with the goal of finding specific signs that would ‘hasten the kingdom’. Over the years I have observed various strains of belief that exist within the Christian church, I have always been uneasy about the proliferation of end time books that espouse a very limited view of end time events. Many of these scenarios are a compilation of prophetic portions of scripture from all over the bible, but they seem to ‘paste’ them together as one divine master plan that will all culminate in our day. They take Daniel, Ezekiel, Thessalonians, the Gospels and Revelation and seem to find a pattern that has all these various references speaking of one specific period of time, namely the late 20th [or early 21st] century. These passages speak of ‘the beast’ ‘the anti christ’ ‘the prince that will come’ and other descriptions of wicked men and rulers, but they apply all these verses to one man who is yet to appear on the scene. This is not the proper way to do ‘bible study’. Some of these passages might refer to the same person, but some have had their fulfillment centuries [or millennia] ago. Let’s just hit one scenario for today. In Daniel we read of a prince that will come and in the middle of the last week [7 year period] will cause the sacrifice to cease. Most commentators teach this in a way that has a future ruler who is yet to establish a peace treaty with Israel and in the middle of a 7 year period he breaks the covenant and stops the sacrifices that are taking place in a restored Jewish temple based out of Jerusalem. Now, the prophecies of the Old Testament do have remarkable accuracy. You find the appearing of Jesus prophesied to the tee from the 490 year prophecy of the ‘70 weeks’ of years. You can actually trace the years of the prophecy and they do bring you right up until the time of Christ’s appearing to Israel in the first century. But what about the last 7 [or 3.5] years? Does the prophecy about ‘the prince causing the sacrifice to cease’ mean that we have to postpone the last 7 year period for at least 2 thousand years? Right after Jesus appeared to Israel he entered into a 3 and a half year period of ministry, he in essence was with them for the first part of the last week. What happened in the middle of the week? He dies on a Cross and becomes the final sacrifice that God will ever accept for the sins of man. He in effect was the prince that caused the sacrifice to cease in the middle of the last week. But what about the other 3 and a half years? And the abomination that makes desolate that Jesus himself talked about? Let’s see, you have the nation of Israel rejecting the messiah for a 40 year testing period. They continue to practice animal sacrifices and this practice itself is called an abomination in the book of Hebrews. God was telling the 1st century Jewish community that they had so much time to accept or reject their messiah. 40 years has always been a time of probation for Israel. But they continued to reject the final sacrifice of Jesus right up until the destruction of their city and temple in A.D. 70. When Rome sacked the city under the military leader Titus, they actually besieged it for 3 and a half years. This time period was considered one of the most terrible times of trials for the nation. It was reported that women actually reverted to eating their own babies! There were also a few candidates for the ‘abomination that makes desolate, standing in the holy place’ you had the zealots [radical group] who actually desecrated the holy of holies on purpose to bring a quick uprising, you had various periods of time where certain Roman emperors attempted to set up an image of themselves in the sacred court [Caligula]. You had times where swine were purposefully sacrificed on the altar of God [Antiochus Epiphanies in the days of the Maccabees] and of course you had the actual sacrificing of animals, which the New Testament describes as an ‘abomination’ taking place in the city of Jerusalem. The point is we have a whole bunch of historic events that we can look at and see if they play any role in the various scattered prophecies in scripture. I am not saying that this view is the only valid view, but we have a type of ‘prophecy teaching’ that takes place in the U.S. that seems to discount all these other options. It is a view that is obsessed with outward signs and telling the average Christian ‘look over here, see this sign’ it is a view that Jesus rebuked when he was confronting the Pharisees. They, of all people, had every right to believe that Gods kingdom was about an actual setting up of a military type rule that would throw off Israel’s enemies, Jesus flatly told them that this was not what the kingdom was about. If the Jews of the first century were told not to look at the kingdom thru this lens, how much more should the American church re evaluate her view on end time things?
(1190) In Luke 18 Jesus gives the story of the woman who keeps hounding the judge for vengeance, the judge is not a good man. He does not fear God or care about man, yet he finally avenges the woman because of her consistent pleading. Jesus says we should learn the principle of consistent prayer thru this story. At the end of this chapter a blind man comes to Jesus and begs for mercy, Jesus asks ‘what do you want me to do’? The man says ‘restore my sight’ Jesus did. Some times we as believers overlook the obvious, we plan and scheme and strategize, we come up with bible formulas to make stuff happen, often times we forget to simply ask. Now, sometimes we have to wait for a while before we see results, but it is during these waiting periods that God enlarges us. I like studying Cosmology [universe] and science, one of the major breakthroughs in science occurred in the last century with Hubbell’s discovery of the expanding universe. Some have a limited idea of what this means; for instance if you took a game board and placed a bunch of stars and planets on the board, you could move the planets and stars away from the earth and it would give the appearance that the earth is the center of the universe, how else could everything be moving away from one point, unless that point were the center? Well this really isn’t what is meant by the expanding universe, a better model would be like taking a balloon and placing a bunch of stars and planets on the balloon, as the balloon inflates the stars and planets all move away from all the other points at the same time. The stars and planets are not actually moving; they are simply part of an expanding universe. So in this model the earth would not necessarily be at the center, because the expanding universe creates an environment where all things are expanding at once. Okay, I don’t know if you got it or not, the point I want to make is during times of waiting and asking and trusting, God ‘expands our universe’ if you will, he doesn’t just bring us along further down the road [distance] but he ‘enlarges our steps under us’ [Psalms] The bible says a mans gift makes ‘room’ for him. Jesus said he was going away to prepare a place for us, that in his Fathers house there were many rooms/mansions. We often read this as meaning Jesus is building us a spot in heaven. A better reading would be that Jesus was leaving the disciples so that they would ‘move into the room/place’ that God had for them [on the planet]. His leaving would allow the Spirit to come and then they would function in the capacity that God had for them. Sort of like saying ‘I am leaving to prepare a place for your gifts and abilities to function, they will only function by me leaving and creating space for you to function in by my absence’ got it? So the bible says a mans gift makes room/space for him, it expands your field of operation. The gifts are described as precious stones, in whatever way it turns it prospers. This speaks of a multifaceted gem, a diamond that you can observe from many different angles. During times of waiting God allows us to grow, not just in size, but depth. The bible says ‘God stretches out the heavens’ this is a good description of the expanding universe, given centuries before science knew about it. God also taught us that we would grow and expand during seasons of waiting and trusting, I think he knew what he was talking about.
(1191) THANK GOD I’M NOT LIKE YOU! - Jesus said 2 men went up to the church house [temple] to pray; one was a tax collector [a despised class in the 1st century, they collected taxes for the Roman govt. from their own people [Jews] they were seen as sell outs] the other man was a Pharisee, those who were deemed more holy than everyone else. You know, the whole aura of the room would change when these guys showed up [the preacher/pastor is here, watch what you say type of a thing] the Pharisee prayed ‘I thank you God that I am not like other men, adulterers, liars and even like this low class neighbor of mine, this tax collector’ he saw his religious life as a means to self betterment. Something that made him a cut above the rest. He tithed, fasted and attended the temple meetings. Now the tax collector was struggling with guilt, the weight of all the years of being hated and despised, sure he pretended it was just part of the job, but it affected him. He even feels unwanted at the temple, I mean this Pharisee is using him in his sermon illustration for heavens sake! He does not even feel worthy enough to look into the eyes of other people, fearing he might see someone that he has had shady dealings with in his extortion type job. He simply says ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner’ Jesus said this man went back home accepted in Gods eyes, the religious leader did not. This week [8-09] the congress went on break, they are back home in their districts and getting an earful, angry constituents chewing them out. The conservative media says these folks are mom and pop types, just innocent citizens expressing themselves. The liberal media say they are republican plants who are part of the K street lobbying conspiracy to thwart health care by the corrupt insurance profiteers! Probably a little truth to both views. The problem is our country has about 20-25 % who are uninsured [around 40-50 million people] the rest of the population has insurance, when the liberal media portrays the country as being willing to sacrifice their present system [whether it’s broken or not] and to have a possible increase in taxes, when the media says the 80 % of the insured really do want to do this for the 20 %, they are not being realistic. I want universal health care, I don’t have insurance right now and I need it! But the reality is most Americans are not willing to make more sacrifices for a group of uninsured people who for whatever reason have not been able to get insurance. Many seniors are worried that their Medicare will be affected, it surely will. Right now about half the country wants it, about half say leave the thing alone. Our society measures ‘winners’ by the success that they have attained, one of the scoreboards is how well you are doing compared to the next guy ‘I thank thee that I am insured, been responsible, done what I was supposed to do. I give tithes/taxes of all that I possess, fasted [been frugal] but look at this other 20 %, they are reaping what they sowed, sure they don’t have health care, but why couldn’t they have done the responsible thing and gotten it like me? Now you’re asking me to sacrifice for them’ the main reason why people are against it is not because the conservative lobbyists have tricked grandma to go to the town hall meeting and scream, the reason is people will only go so far to ‘help the other guy’ when you tell people that they should be willing to make all types of sacrifices for the betterment of the whole, this usually does not work. Some people are saying ‘hey, I don’t even have a job and you’re asking me to agree to support one of the biggest expenditures in U.S. history’. There are many reasons why people are disgruntled, as of today I think the president is not going to pass reform. Maybe some type of a private co-op thing, but not reform with a public option [like Medicare]. When society digresses to a point where one group is pitted against the other, ugly things happen. Both sides [liberal/conservative] have misrepresented stuff, have used racial/class distinctions to fight the other side, no group has clean hands in this stuff. The church/people of God should function with a higher morality, speak with a clear voice and not misrepresent issues or people. I believe that overall, we should have true health care reform. I realize there are many pros and cons to the debate, but as a principle, we should strive to provide care for all Americans whether or no they can afford it. This principle is noble, it doesn’t help when both sides brand the other as the real enemy, look at the issue, take a principled stand and let the chips fall where they may.
(1192) ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BE DUMMIES? Still in Luke 18, the disciples forbid the young children from coming to Jesus; Jesus rebukes the disciples and tells them that the Kingdom of God is made up of little children. There is a theme in the New Testament that goes like this ‘become childlike in your faith and trust in me, but be mature in your thinking and understanding’. Often times these two things are confused. Why? In the letter to the Corinthians Paul will rebuke the wisdom of the world, he states that when he was among them he did not use men’s wisdom to convince them of the message of the Cross. Paul also encourages believers to be ‘child like’ as well. Many confuse Paul’s teaching with an idea that says Christians should not be engaged in the development of the mind. Paul was not rebuking all wisdom and forms of knowledge, but a specific kind of wisdom. In Acts 17 we read of Paul at Athens, the Greek intellectual city of his day [Alexandria was the philosophical center in Egypt]. As Paul disputes with the philosophers of his day he actually quotes their own poets/philosophers in his sermon, he does not quote from the Old Testament, but uses the sources that they are familiar with. Right after Athens Paul goes to Corinth, the cities are very close geographically. There was a form of philosophy at Corinth that was very popular, you had the Sophists and the professional speakers [Rhetoric] operating out of Corinth. The Sophists were the philosophers that came right before Socrates in the Greek cultural world, around 6 centuries or so before Christ. Their form of philosophy was what you would describe as the first Relativists [or post modern thinkers who appeal to subjective knowledge as opposed to objective] they taught that philosophy and arguing were simply things you do ‘just for the heck of it’. Sort of like a hobby of simply disputing things while never being able to arrive at truth, something Paul will rebuke in the New Testament by saying some people were ‘always learning and never being able to come to the knowledge of the truth’ Paul himself tells the Corinthians ‘where is the disputer of this world’. So the Sophists were famous for this type of thing. Now the great philosopher Socrates disagreed with the Sophists, Socrates taught that thru the practice of thorough debate and the art of constantly asking questions, that you could arrive at truth [seek and ye shall find type of a system]. He believed real knowledge could be found thru seeking after it. Socrates stirred the waters too much, he was put to death by being made to drink the famous hemlock, the city where this happened was Athens. So Paul more than likely is disputing the system of thought that said you could not arrive at objective truth. It’s no secret that his letter to the Corinthians has one of the strongest statements of factual [objective] belief found in the New Testament. The great chapter 15 reads like an early creed to the church ‘Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures…’ It’s very probable that this chapter was used as a sort of creed in the early Pauline churches. So, what exactly was Paul saying [and Jesus] when they taught us to be like children, to reject the wisdom of the world for the wisdom of Christ? Simply that our approach to God and the things of God should be done in a humble manner, being childlike and open to God all throughout our lives. Paul was not teaching us that the following ages of great Christian thinkers was wrong; men like Anselm, Aquinas, C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton. It is perfectly acceptable for the believer to become well versed in the field of philosophy, to argue the Christian worldview from a biblical perspective. While it is true that no church was founded by Paul after his Athens visit, and some feel he abandoned his use of ‘worldly wisdom’ at Corinth because of this failure, but I think Paul continued to appeal to the intellectual world thru his great wisdom [God given] thru out his life [read Galatians and Romans!]. Ultimately it is the wisdom of the Cross that saves people, a wisdom that Paul said he communicated not in the words of mans intellect, but in the direct ability of the Spirit to speak. Sometimes that ability came thru a sermon that quoted the philosophers of old [Athens] sometimes thru the simple sharing of the message of Christ. Jesus grew in wisdom and stature with God and man, he knew the ideas of his day, so did Paul. Do you?
(1193) The rich ruler asks Jesus ‘what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life’? Jesus responds ‘you know the commandments, do these and you will live’. The man says I have kept them since I was a kid, Jesus says there is still one thing lacking ‘go, sell all that you have, give it to the poor. And come and follow me, you will have treasure in heaven’. As you continue thru the chapter [Luke 18] you see that Jesus then gives the famous ‘it is easier for a camel to pass thru the eye of a needle than for a rich man to make it to heaven’. The disciples wonder ‘who then can be saved’ and they also tell Jesus they forsook all in this life to follow him, Jesus says they will be rewarded both now and in the future for their sacrifice. Now, I explained this section of scripture many times over the years, the camel quote and what Jesus was telling Peter about ‘getting more in this life and later as well’ either read the short book ‘house of prayer or den of thieves’ [on this site] or go thru the ‘prosperity gospel/word of faith’ section on this blog for an explanation. I just want to hit on one angle today, over the years it has become popular to make a charge against the historic church that when they made vows of poverty and did stuff like that, that they were simply being deceived out of the truth of wealth and the devil tricked them into ‘forsaking all to follow him’. Many preachers who have made this charge are well meaning men who have been wrongly influenced by the prosperity/materialistic gospel without realizing it. In this story Jesus clearly challenges the rich person to sell his goods, give to the poor and follow him. If this type of teaching was limited to this one story, then I could see where people might be taking it out of context, but this theme of choosing Christ over the material pursuits of life is woven all throughout the New Testament. You find it in the writing of the epistles, the book of Acts, the Revelation of John. I mean this is a central theme of scripture. To charge that the people in church history who have actually felt that Jesus wanted them to ‘sell all and follow him’ to say that they were being tricked into doing this by ‘church tradition’ simply is not true. Many believers have made these choices because of what they read in the bible, many of them went on to found great worldwide movements [some of the famous Monastic movements were started this way] and their lives truly were a fulfilling of this type of teaching. In essence they left the pursuit of material wealth and founded movements that continue today for the cause of Christ. I do realize why many well meaning Pastors have overlooked this, but this still does not excuse the fact that a majority of the New Testament speaks against the pursuit of wealth versus the Kingdom of God. It wasn’t a Bishop, or Pope, or Reformer or Orthodox priest who told the man ‘sell all you have and give it to the poor’ it was Jesus himself! I think it’s time we stop accusing the saints of old who have made this same decision because of the words of Christ, they were not acting out of ignorance or tradition. It is our modern day ignorance that often is the problem.
(1194) HELP THE POOR AND YOU WILL GET TEN CITIES- It’s Sunday morning right now, around 4:40 a.m., just finished around an hour and a half prayer time. I want to mention that there are regular prayer times when I pray a specific intercession thing, and also just times where I talk without any particular structure. I have noticed that the structure really helps a lot, when you’re done praying your focus is much stronger, just a hint to all you Pastors/leaders. Now, I was going to do Zacchaeus [Luke 19] but think I will just hit a few things. Notice in the story that when he repents, he ‘gives half of his goods to the poor’. Also in our last post I mentioned how the rich ruler was told to ‘sell his goods and distribute to the poor’. Ever wonder why these guys don’t feel lead to run down to the temple and put in a tithe? We have a habit of reading the bible thru a certain lens, that lens ‘colors’ everything else. Now, when Jesus gives the story of the guys who were given so much money [pounds] and then when he returns he asks ‘what did you gain’ you’ll notice that the 10 pounds [around $450.00 dollars] gained the same amount, good, this guy gets ‘10 cities’. The guy with 5 pounds [around $250.00 dollars] gets 5 cities and the guy who hid the pound in the ground loses out. As I was reading this story, I realized that the money I spend every month on ministry stuff is between ‘5-10’ pounds. That covers all of the stuff I do, yet when praying this morning I realized that we are regularly preaching/reaching a whole region of Texas [at least 10 cities] plus the New Jersey area, and of course thru radio, blog and paper ads we have contacts all over the world. What! How can you have a ‘10 city outreach’ [large region] with only ten pounds? Don’t you know we need millions to reach the world? There goes that stinkin thinkin again. Jesus said ‘the things that are impossible with men [like reaching a large region with 10 pounds] are possible with God’. I want to challenge you today [especially you leaders] have you fallen into a mindset that sees money as the solution to the problem? Do you see ‘faithfulness to God’ thru the lens of giving money to ‘the church’? How often do you regularly, personally meet the needs of others out of your own pocket? When we obey the Lord in giving to the poor [not thru the church budget, but personally] then God will increase your parameters. As I was doing the Sunday morning prayer thing a little while ago, I walk around the yard and prayer over regions. I have around a 5 foot section of railroad track set up in my yard, these are real parts of track and piling that I picked up over a year period when they were tearing up all the old tracks and putting new ones in. They are a composite road of all the cities that I used to drive thru on my way to work. When I pray in the yard and see the tracks it reminds me of the Lord increasing our parameter. I used to personally drive by the tracks in Kingsville when picking people ‘up for church’ now we reach all the cities on a regular basis, the ‘10 cites’ if you will. Be faithful in the little and God will give you 10 cities.
(1195) Was reading Psalms 19 and it speaks of Gods law being perfect; it converts [restores] the soul, makes us wise. By them we are warned and in keeping of them there is great reward. It reminds me of James ‘be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves’. Some day I will teach the letter of James in its entirety, it is important and generally misunderstood. Many Reformers [I lean towards reformed theology personally] tend to say that James was saying ‘the faith that saves is active/working faith’ and that’s what James was talking about. While this certainly is true, James does say ‘see how Abraham/Rahab were saved/justified by their works’. This statement is saying something different than just ‘the faith that saves is active’ this is saying these folks ‘were saved’ by their works. I believe in the classic Pauline doctrine of justification by faith, don’t get me wrong. I think we miss it when we don’t leave room for something like ‘see how God also declared them righteous/acceptable when they did good works’. I think the statement ‘saved by works’ can actually mean something different than ‘accepted the Lord and got saved’. The solution is in seeing the fluent language of the New Testament when it deals with salvation/justification [soteriology]. It’s perfectly biblical to say ‘these people were saved [declared pleasing and acceptable in Gods eyes] by their works’ without having to apply it to the initial act of legal justification that Paul emphasizes in Romans/Galatians. Well I cant do it all right now, but will get to it someday. Today’s point was ‘keeping Gods commands, doing what he says’ brings great reward. It is easy to fall into the trap of becoming a professional learner/hearer of Gods word. Basically seeing our role as someone who learns a lot about the bible, preaches it, talks about it, but has little time to actually apply the things that it says. I was listening to a preacher who excelled high up the ranks of scholarly things; he became very smart in many things. He earned his masters and other degrees and was an accomplished writer and theologian. He then shared how the Lord began leading him to actually obey the things he learned in the Gospels. To take literally the words of Jesus on serving others and giving all your material goods away to serve the poor. He did it. He left his influential position as a teaching scholar, he moved to a foreign country and started a mission to the poor. I heard him speak on TV. I find it interesting that it can be so easy to make Gods word and Christian doctrine a priority, that is we can master knowledge of the things in them, but yet we might not actually be doing what it says. This is a danger for all of us. A big part of the present challenge to ‘institutional church’ deals with this. Many organic/community based movements are trying to get back to functioning and acting like the early churches acted. I of course think this is a good thing. One of the dangers can be falling into the trap of seeing ‘how we meet’ as the main criteria of what’s really ‘true church’ versus ‘institutional’. The New Testament does not teach that the way we as believers meet is the way to identify who are ‘true or not’. The New Testament says those who do the works are the ones who are of God. Works in an active/charitable sense, you know ‘pure religion before God is visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction and keeping yourself unspotted from the world’ type thing. So anyway today we learned that actually doing what God says brings great reward. It’s good to pray and read the bible and attend church, but if we are not doing the stuff, we are missing out.
(1196) WE STILL KILL THE PROPHETS- At the end of Luke 19 Jesus rebukes Jerusalem for not knowing the time of her visitation. He says there were things that were presently part of her peace, but because of a wrong ‘timing’ issue, she couldn’t see them. In Revelation 21 we read of the New Jerusalem, God’s holy city. The chapter says she is the Bride, the Lambs wife. She is ‘coming down from God out of heaven’ this city truly is a product of God. Jesus sits at the right hand of the father as its head, a ‘present’ [not future!] reality. In the New Testament the church is described as ‘The Israel of God’ ‘The New Jerusalem’ ‘The Bride of Christ’ ‘The City of God’ it’s not hard to see that John is speaking of the church. He also says there was no temple in the new city, but the lamb is the light of this city and God dwells [tabernacles] directly in this city with his people. The gates of the city bear the names of the 12 tribes of Israel and the ‘foundation’ has the names of the 12 Apostles, this being a symbol for the church being comprised of both Jew and Gentile people [though the Apostles are also Jewish, they represent the new Gentile church, and the 12 tribes show that natural Israel would still play a part, but only as she is connected with the church]. In the New Testament [and Revelation] natural Jerusalem and natural Israel are described in strikingly bad terms, John calls her ‘spiritual Sodom, the place where our Lord was crucified’. The writer of Hebrews says those who continue in the sacrificial system and law, after the Cross, are treading the Blood of Jesus under foot. The basic theme of the New Testament is that thru this New Covenant in Jesus Blood, all nations and people groups [including Israel] can partake of this new City that comes down from God out of heaven. The temple and its sacrifices are associated with ‘old Jerusalem’ and the coming judgment [that came in A.D. 70]. John’s description of the new city having no temple was theologically significant; he was saying the old law system had no part in her. Truly the book of Revelation is a wonderful prophetic book given to the ‘new Jerusalem’ and Jesus himself said the things that John wrote about were realities that would ‘happen soon’ [soon even to the 1st century readers of the letters!] Johns prophetic vision [actually Jesus’] is a wonderful prophecy that belongs to us, it is ‘part of our peace’ if you will, but because we know not the ‘time of our visitation’ many of the things written in it are hidden from our eyes.
(1197) JESUS ASKS A QUESTION- In the beginning of Luke 20, the religious leaders ask Jesus who gave him the right to do what he was doing ‘who gave you this authority’? He tells them ‘I will answer you if you answer my question’ say on ‘the baptism of John [John’s destiny to impact the nations] was it from men or God’. Jesus clearly shows us that there are 2 different ways that men receive authority, from men or God. Now the religious leaders were no idiots, they knew that John was a prophet from God. So they reason among themselves that if they say God, then Jesus will say ‘why didn’t you believe him’ and if they say ‘from men’ well all the people would be in an uproar, they knew John’s mission was from God. So they tell Jesus ‘we can’t answer the question’ Jesus says neither will I answer you. What was going on here? Religion in general has certain protocols that people go thru to receive authority to function. In Jesus day you had all the hoops that the Pharisees and religious rulers jumped thru to become legitimate, to ‘be ordained’. Jesus operated outside of that system. Now, this did not mean that all those ‘in the system’ were not of God [you know, the strong anti –institutional church thing] but yet Jesus and John were not ordained in that way. Over the years I have seen how certain limited views of ‘local church’ and what it means to be ordained have at times fallen into this mindset. Ordination, in the bible [Paul ordaining/recognizing elders] was the simple process of Paul telling the local believers who they could look up to and go to for advice in his absence; it was a simple type of a thing. Though Paul himself had the official ordination of the day [he was a Pharisee] yet he himself would say that he had to go thru a process where he counted that past as ‘dung’ so he could gain Christ [Philippians]. His past knowledge and learning was not dung, but the whole idea of status and legitimacy that came thru that way of feeling authorized/accepted had to be abandoned. I believe the Lord uses both ‘ordained’ and un-ordained people to carry out his mission on the earth, when people are sent by God with a divine mandate, their authority comes directly from God. Ordination and all the other tools that the Christian church has used over the years are okay things in their proper place. But when it comes down to the bottom line, your authority either comes from God or man. I think I know who’s I want, how bout you?
(1198) GET OFF THE TRACKS! Jesus said the stone that the builders rejected became the head of the corner, the chief cornerstone. Whoever falls on the stone will break, but whoever the stone falls on, watch out, you will be ground into dust! Jesus said this in the context of Israel rejecting him as the Messiah. Christians are notorious for making the main thing a side issue, and then making side issues the main thing. In the history of Christianity there have been numerous times when the Lord used people to encourage radical change in the church. Right before the 16th century Reformation you had a sort of pre reform movement. The English scholar/clergyman John Wycliffe headed up a strong teaching ministry out of England [14-15th centuries]. He had such a strong influence on the population that during the Catholic repression of his movement many people died all over the country. Wycliffe taught the basic New Testament doctrine of the mystical church, he had said that the true church consists of all the spiritual children of God, whether they are part of the institutional church or not. He did not claim that there were no believers in the Catholic Church, but he resisted the idea that God had placed the sole authority on the earth within her. He rejected the Petrine doctrine of the Pope. His books were eventually condemned and he died for his position. Then you had John Huss, the Bohemian reformer [modern day Czech Republic] who also headed up a strong movement in his land, he was a student of the writings of Wycliffe and many local Bohemians supported him. He too would eventually be killed for his position. A few years ago the Catholic Church officially did an investigation into their treatment of Huss, they apologized for the mistakes made and recognized that Huss accepted the Pauline idea of the mystical church versus the Papal system. I found it interesting that the church acknowledged that there was a difference between the two. These men were fire starters who’s ‘fires’ would burn right up until the present day. Jesus said when you live in a time of significance, a time when God is doing real reform. You can respond in a few different ways; you can resist the thing the Lord is doing and hurt your purpose and destiny, in effect you can ‘fall on the rock and be broken’. You can fight the thing God is doing [the main stone] and suffer for it. Or you can find yourself sitting on the tracks, not realizing that the thing ‘the stone’ [prophetic voices] is targeting are the actual things you are doing! When that happens the best option is to get off the tracks, these reformers have a tendency to not slow down.
(1199) WHY ME? As we wrap up Luke 20, we see Jesus dealing with a few issues. The religious leaders are trying to trick him into saying something that will offend the people [or the govt.] ‘Should we pay taxes or not’ one of those questions that gets you into trouble no matter what you say, Jesus answered with wisdom. Again they put a question to him about the resurrection; he stumps them on this one too! Now it’s his turn ‘you tell me, how can Christ be David’s son if David prophesied about him, saying “the Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool” [Jesus was quoting King David in Psalms]. They had no idea how to handle his wisdom, they decided to go another route [like crucify him]. I find it amazing that Jesus saw himself in the prophetic portions of the Psalms, I mean He and the Father and Spirit all existed together from eternity, they had a Divine counsel that knew that one of them would eventually become man and die for the world. Yet the Holy Spirit would ‘give voice’ to the Sons agony and victory before the Son was born into a human body. Sort of like a pre incarnation of the Spirit thru the prophets, King David being one of the most significant of the prophets. Jesus would see his own agony being prophesied thru the prophets ‘my God, my God, why have you forsaken me’- ‘thou hast done this to me’ David would say in Psalms 22. I read a good article last week about a Christian professor from Harvard. He shared how thru out the years he felt guilty that he had such a good life, that things always seemed to turn out good for him. Then one day he had a flat, got out of the car to change the tire and did something to his back. Since that time he has suffered chronic back pain that is excruciating, I could identify. Then after he took the job at Harvard one of his children contracted a deadly disease and his marriage was on the rocks. Then he found out that he had cancer, they treated him and he prayed that the lord would heal him, after a year or so it has spread to his lungs and other areas, he has around a year or so to live. He shared his thoughts and spoke of the sovereignty of God. Talked about what the biblical characters went thru, things that they suffered. He placed everything in proper balance and understood that though God didn’t ‘do this to him’ yet God did permit it to happen. I also realize that there are whole belief systems that as soon as they read this entry they started looking for the reasons ‘a ha, see, he didn’t know/practice a positive confession. That’s what happened’ this belief system confronts the suffering person with the same accusations of Job’s friends, not much help when your going thru hell. Jesus was reading the Psalms ever since he was a boy, he began seeing how he was fulfilling something that was put into action before the foundation of the world was laid. He was the second person of the Trinity who would come to the planet and suffer many things, he would be rejected of men and rise on the third day. He knew a lot was riding on his shoulders, he must have been impacted to some degree when he realized he was reading his own biography thru the writings of Kind David, especially when he said ‘thou hast done this to me’.
(1200) MICHAEL VICK, THE LIBERAL MEDIA AND OTHER MUSINGS- Yesterday Michael Vick, the football player who did 18 months in prison for running an illegal dog fighting operation, was reinstated by the N.F.L and signed on with the eagles. I heard 2 conservative pundits debate it. One said lets forgive, the other wanted Vick to serve the whole term [I think 10 years]. Michael is a black man and racial tensions are high right now in the country. I am an animal lover; own many cats and 2 dogs. You have had other pro athletes accused/involved in actual cases where people were murdered. Some were involved in shooting crimes and all sorts of stuff. These guys played the game right thru the legal wrangling and some never paid any penalty at all. I think Vick should have been suspended for 18 months [no prison time] and paid a fine. I am not excusing what he did, but in comparison to the way others have been dealt with, I think this would have been a better deal. Of course he should play again, it’s the mans livelihood for heavens sake! Now, the disaster that is taking place with health care and the town hall meetings. First, President Obama is very inexperienced at actually running things. I like and pray for the man regularly, but he has made some major mistakes. The strategy he used to try and pass health care reform was to not personally shape the plan, but let congress do it. They went into the current recess with 5 plans floating on Capitol Hill. This created an environment where the representatives had to defend 5 different things, and the media lying about it. Okay, MSNBC has said those against the plan are racists [yes, this was said] they mocked the peoples concerns. They tried to portray ALL the opponents as idiots. Some real concerns are on ‘end of life’ issues, [not death panels] rationing and other real things that are being mentioned in the plans. MSNBC implies that the people raising these concerns are uninformed idiots ‘no plan is going to kill grandma’ ‘no plan is going to fire doctors or prevent students from becoming doctors’. But these are not what the serious opponents are saying; end of life issues were part of one of the plans, fine. Not killing grandma, but a serious discussion went on over the fact that most health care money is spent on a person during the last 6 months of life; therefore any serious reform will have to deal with this issue. But some in the media made it sound like the people who brought up these concerns were totally misinformed, not so, these are real concerns that serious people look at. Senator Grassley has since dropped the wording from the plan on end of life issues [the wording in the plan simply said the insurance would pay for the consultations over living wills and stuff like that, the point is a real discussion does go on over how to voluntarily, or in some countries its forced upon people, that at the end of life people should consider how much should be spent on the patient]. Rationing, is this also a question that only idiots have been asking? When you take a system, any system, and inject another 40-50 million people into the system, rationing will occur to some degree. If you took your high school and doubled the students in a year, you get less one on one time between teacher and student. This is a simple reality that many older folks are asking about; the media portrays them as ignorant. The political strategy of some Democrats was to push back and portray all of the town hall opponents as misinformed insurance lobbyist plants. Big mistake, more than half of the American people are now against the present reforms being floated, and the independent voters have turned 2 to 1 against it. When you portray more than half of the country as ‘the enemy’ you are making a major political miscalculation. I believe those in the media who have said the current behind the opposition is racism; these pundits are the most dangerous. Of course you have those on Fox news who have made just as outrageous comments on the other side, but the media usually does not cover the liberal slant, they don’t see their own biases. I still believe universal health care is a noble goal that our country should strive for, but if our representatives portray the voices of their own constituents as ‘un-American’ [yes, Pelosi and Hoyer did say that those who were shouting down the other side were acting un-American. Yet every year you have liberal voices who shout down [and tear down] stuff at the world summit meetings, and they are not portrayed as un-American] then the odds of something passing looks worse each day.
(1201) In Luke 21 Jesus tells his men that there will come a time when they will be persecuted and brought before the authorities as a testimony. He tells them not to pre meditate what to say, but that the Spirit will speak thru them. God will supernaturally give them ‘a mouth [ability to communicate] and wisdom’ [something worth communicating!]. In Isaiah 8 the word says ‘take a great scroll and write in it with the pen of a man’ in Jeremiah 36 the Lord says ‘take another scroll and write in it all the words of the first scroll’. God historically has communicated truth to his people. Our bibles are like ‘2 scrolls’ if you will, all the words that were in the first part [Old Testament] were brought forth and revealed in the 2nd part-scroll [New Testament]. God has communicated much to his church; Isaiah was to write on a ‘great scroll’ lots of good stuff. Now, we [American church] have a tendency to master one part of the verse that says ‘mouth AND wisdom’. We have all the techniques down to get our message out, we know how to teach the verses that talk about ‘sowing into this ministry for a harvest’ and we communicate this type of limited message to the nations. I recently wrote an entry on how the Latin American countries have been inundated with this type of TV message, and many preachers proclaim this limited message over and over again to the masses, we have mastered ‘the mouth’ part. There are many African churches who have read the Gospels and New Testament and have come to reject the American success gospel. They came to this conclusion by their own reading of scripture, yet the American gospel mastered the techniques of broadcasting a limited message into the country. The natural indigenous church has come to rebuke us. We had the ability/finances to communicate, but lacked wisdom. In the 5th century [452 to be exact] Attila the Hun and his hordes marched up the Danube and struck fear into the hearts of the people, he seemed to be this unstoppable force that would make it all the way to Rome and topple the seat of the Western Empire. The emperor sent a party to try and reason with him, Pope Leo would personally speak to the raider and turn him back from sacking the city [though it would fall a few years later under Geaseric]. How could a simple Pope, without military might, stop a man that no human army could stop? God gave him ‘a mouth and wisdom’ he obviously spoke something that touched the mans heart. I think the American church needs to trust the Lord for more wisdom to go along with ‘our mouth’. We simply speak/communicate much too much, we have too much to say and not enough depth in what we say. We have churches in other countries who have been hurt by the tremendous immaturity of the things we are teaching them. These fellow believers have rebuked us and told us to please stop teaching this materialistic gospel to their nations. We desperately need both a mouth and wisdom to go along with it.
(1202) I hit Barnes and Noble yesterday, picked up; 1- everything must change, Mclaren [couldn’t find generous orthodoxy] 2- surprised by hope, N.T. Wright [the one on justification was there, but felt this one would be better] 3- why we love the church, Deyoung and Kluck [I liked their first one, ‘why we’re not emergent’ they seem to be filling in the role of countering Viola, Barna] and last but not least 4- will Catholics be left behind, Olson. I have heard him before, he is an ex fundamentalist/evangelical and defends against the dispensational model of eschatology. The reason I wanted to mention these books is not to show off, but I want to encourage our readers to get a broad depth of what’s going on [and has gone on] in the Church worldwide, the current trends if you will. I of course realize that these few books don’t cover everything, but they challenge us to think and read from a broad based perspective, hearing what the Lord ‘might’ be saying thru other groups of Christians. Okay, lets hit one verse, in Luke 21 Jesus says as the times of judgment draw near, be careful to not fall into three traps; 1- Overeating 2- Drunkenness 3- excessive worrying. I find it interesting that Jesus mentions excess and worry as traps that believers need to avoid. How do these fit together? I finally started a subscription to the San Antonio paper, I’ve been running our blog ad in there for a while and got tired of picking the paper up every other Saturday to make sure the ad was running. I also get the Corpus paper delivered. Sure enough they did an article on one of the major prosperity ministries in the Fort Worth area, they were holding some meetings in the area. They were critical of course, quoted the main speaker ‘God has ways to get the money to you’ spoke on reassuring the audience to give, don’t let fear keep you from giving. One trucker who was in debt said he came to test God because he really needed to get out of debt. The whole environment was money focused, the article mentioned how many millions the ministry brings in annually. Jesus said fear and worry lead to excess, wanting ‘excess food, drink’ or creating an overabundance to kind of be your safety net if things go bad. Paul said we live in the world, but we use the things in it [money, material stuff] without abusing them, we don’t center our lives around wealth and investing like the unbelievers do. Sure we can be responsible and knowledgeable in these areas, but don’t make it your God. After reading the article in the paper you got the feel that the Christian group who was holding the meetings were joined by a common bond of wealth, that is the desire to make it, talk about it, focus on all the scriptures and techniques to get it. And of course at the end of each sermon they would be challenged to ‘give it’ these types of environments are focused on the wrong thing. Jesus said beware of excess, beware of letting the cares and worries of life lead you down a road where you are trying to find security in your portfolio. God will meet your needs, don’t get me wrong, but the focus should be on God, not on getting our needs met.
(1203) In Luke 22 Jesus sends Peter and John into town to get things ready for the Passover meal. They ask Jesus where they should get a room, how will they know where to go. Jesus gives them real specific instructions ‘you will meet a man carrying a container of water, follow him into the house. Then ask the owner of the house “where will we meet” and he will show you a room all ready for the purpose’. How did the man know what to do? Did he have a dream/vision from the Lord? Probably. I was watching a show the other day that was dealing with angels, they were showing clips from the popular TV shows about angels. They showed a clip from ‘touched by an angel’ and it really spoke to me. The angel is sent to some guy and tells him ‘God loves you, but he does not like what you have become’. Sort of like the saying ‘God loves the sinner but hates the sin’ but it was powerful because it was done dramatically and open for the public world to tune in and watch the show. Then the clip ended and the preacher hosting the show rebuked the use of stuff like this on TV and said how in the bible angels only mete out judgment when dealing with sinners. I got the type of feeling that they were from the camp that gets offended when other groups/media try to deal with biblical things, sort of like ‘how could God step outside of the parameters of orthodox belief and speak to people’. The brother wasn’t offensive, he was simply sharing their point of view that ‘true, biblical angels’ don’t do stuff like that. Actually biblical angels do do stuff like that! You do have stories in scripture where angels appear to unbelievers and give them direction [Acts 10, Cornelius]. The point is sometimes believers develop belief systems, and these systems become our identity. If in any way we feel that others are ‘moving in on our territory’ [holy things] we often respond out of ignorance/arrogance. We feel like our very identity is on the line. Many good Christians/preachers live their whole lives this way. I don’t know if the man that Jesus sent Peter and John too for the room was a believer or not, but God is able and willing to use whatever means possible to accomplish his purpose. Now, I am not saying that God uses all religions and any type of belief to get stuff done, but I am saying that God is not boxed in by a system that must respond only in a certain perceived way. Christians need to let down the mindset that seems to say we have a corner on the market of God acting in the nations/world. While we know and believe Jesus is the only way to the Father, yet the Father is creator of heaven and earth and he most certainly can send an angel to get his message across if he wants to.
(1204) There was this man stuck on a deserted island, he was there for 30 years. Finally one day he saw a ship pass by and he started a fire to signal it. When they came to his rescue they saw that he had made 3 huts. They asked him what they were for; the first one was his house, the second was his church. What about the third one? Oh, that’s the church I used to go to [you have to be a Pastor/ex-Pastor to get his one]. I am about 1/3rd thru with the book ‘why we love the church’ [Deyoung, Kluck]. While it’s too soon to review it, let me make a few comments. First, I really like these guys a lot, I read their first book [why we’re not emergent] and will stick with their journey for now. They write from an informed historical perspective. Unashamedly Calvinist [like myself] but yet cool enough to challenge the other cool guys [emergent cool]. I don’t know if they did a chapter on ‘ecclesiology’ [their view of local church] but it would be helpful if they did/do one. They do a great job defending the historic gospel, they defend the ‘church’ and all of the great things the old traditional ‘churches’ have done over the years. They rightfully take the emergent crowd to the woodshed on their willingness to reject certain historic claims of Christianity. But I think they do not really see the legitimate challenge to the church as community versus the people who ‘go to the church on Sunday’. I think their voices are important to hear, and everyone who is reading the organic church stuff should read these guys, but I am not sure they fully see the biblical idea/concept of church as community in the New Testament. In their noble efforts to refute those who have gone too far in other areas, they might be missing the truth of the Ecclesia as defined in scripture. Okay, enough said. Jesus is eating the Passover with the disciples, he tells them he will not eat/drink with them again until the Kingdom of God comes. Was he speaking of a future restoration of nationalistic Israel and his eating the restored Passover/Communion meal at that time? I don’t think so. After Jesus rose from the dead it was important for the ‘witnesses’ [disciples] to have seen testimony that Jesus rose bodily from the grave. He tells Thomas ‘thrust your hand into my side’ he eats with them on a few occasions. He was showing them he was really alive. John’s gospel is the only one [I think] that mentions the blood and water coming from Jesus side after being pierced on the Cross. In John’s letters he speaks of the blood and water as a testimony. John also says that they were testifying of the Son, who they saw and whose hands have handled. John was combating the soon to rise Gnostic/Docetist heresies that would doubt the physical resurrection of Christ. They would say he was ‘a phantom’ [spirit]. So, why did Jesus emphasize his eating with them ‘when the Kingdom came’ [after his death and resurrection]? I think he was giving them a sign/truth that he was physically coming back. They still did not fully grasp what he was going to do, there would be some who would doubt that he really died and rose [see 1st Corinthians 15]. He was telling them that he was really going to die and really come back from the dead. The whole Christian faith stands or falls on this single reality, Paul said ‘if Christ be not risen then we are of all men most miserable’. Jesus said ‘don’t worry guys, when I come back we will eat again’.
(1205) THE LAMBS TABLE- Jesus has the meal with his men, he tells them because they have stuck it out with him thru the temptations he is appointing to them a kingdom just like his Father did with him. They will rule [exercise authority] over the 12 tribes and ‘sit with him at his table’. A few verses earlier Jesus said ‘the hand of him who will betray me is at the table’. I want you to see that ‘the table’ is a reference to the communion of the saints that Jesus brings into existence by the breaking of his Body and shedding of his Blood. Jesus was more than likely telling the disciples ‘because you guys have stuck it out, you will be the first tier of leaders in my new kingdom [the church] and will sit at my table in this kingdom [a type of the communion table]’. Now, he just gave them a lesson on what it means to exercise authority in his kingdom. He told them the world exercises authority over people by being in charge of them, ruling over them. But Jesus says he is among them as one who serves, that authority in the kingdom means you will serve others and give of your life for others. Truly the apostles will go on to found the great church of Jesus Christ thru much difficulty and suffering, none of them held the honor of a 4th century bishop in Constantine’s Rome. So the picture of them having authority at the table in his kingdom can very well mean the church. Now, I do not discount a real [literal] future application to stuff like this. I know I have riled up all my dispensationalist friends over these last few years, and I fret every day because of this! [Not] But I do realize that many good Christians read these verses and do not apply them in this way, that’s fine. My job is to show the other points of view and allow believers to come to their own conclusions. I like the Catholic scholar Scott Hahn, I don’t agree with everything he says, but I like his teaching on the book of Revelation and the ‘Lambs Supper’. Scott sees the prophetic significance of the kingdom and the church meeting around the communion table thru these images. It’s a glorifying of the Lamb type of a view, as opposed to seeing the anti- christ on every page. I disagree with Scott’s application of these truths when he applies them only to the Catholic faith. I like the idea of seeing ‘the lambs Supper’ as a glorious view of the communion of the saints of all ages, I would just give it the broader application of applying to all the saints, not only Catholic ones. Jesus told his men that they continued with him in his time of trial, because of this they would have authority in his church. I think this is a lesson for us all.
(1206) CASH FOR KLUNKERS AND KLUCK- Okay, I mentioned a few weeks back about the cash for klunkers program, I thought it was a bad idea. A day ago the govt. officially scrapped the plan. Dealers all over the country were decrying the red tape and bureaucratic hoops that they needed to jump thru to get their money, they started dropping out. I also read a story in the paper how many used car dealers were losing their normal used vehicle flow; some actually went out of business. One guy said ‘what about all my customers that needed the $3,ooo dollar cars? Where can they go for the cars, the govt. is crushing them at their expense’ in essence the people who were smart enough to trade in their $1,ooo dollar cars for $4,500 were not the ones who were really struggling financially, these folks had enough to finance new cars at the publics expense, the public tax payers were footing the bill, and losing the used cars that they needed to meet their needs. Wow, and you want the govt. to run your healthcare. Okay, I read a few more chapters of ‘why we love the church’ Deyoung [Pastor] and Kluck [sheep- he attends Deyoung's church] take turns writing their own chapters, just like their first book. Kluck shares a story about being at a Pastors convention, all the good preaching and a few top notch evangelicals. He shares from a sincere perspective how all these men are sincere, how they were encouraged to get back to expository preaching in ‘their churches’ and he gives a few examples how ‘at his church’ they have a time when everyone gets a chance to talk every few months, you know a service of testimonies. And how it usually is not the most edifying thing in the world, but he appreciates it when his Pastor [Deyoung] is prepared and teaches a good old expository message. Okay, I think I too would appreciate attending a theologically reformed church [I don’t] and probably would like hearing good in depth stuff, but these examples show me that Kluck and Deyoung are dealing with a different type of thing than the organic church movement is trying to address. They are basically saying the ‘churches’ on every corner are a good thing, the stable preaching from the heritage of fine pastors over the years has served a noble purpose, but they don’t seem to realize that the New Testament concept of church [Ecclesia] is much different than this. Now, I too think lots of good men have pastored noble ‘churches’ and have served the Lord well. I too think many emergents have stepped over the line and have fallen into the category of heresy, questions on the Atonement and stuff like that. I just get the feel that these brothers [Kluck and Deyoung] are addressing certain issues, while probably not fully seeing the other side. The whole idea of ‘churches on every corner’ [a critique that the authors made of another author] and defending that mindset is really not biblical. While the example used, that the ‘churches on every corner have done a good job’ was understood, yet this idea of buildings on every corner, as separate ‘local churches’ where the main form of community is sitting in a room every Sunday and listening to a sermon, as noble and well meaning these expressions are and have been, yet this very concept is being challenged by the organic church movement. It simply is not biblical to see all these fine church buildings, with fine Pastors and parishioners as ‘local churches’ in the biblical sense. So, without re-teaching everything I have already taught over the years, I appreciate these authors’ skill and honesty in their writings, but I think they are not fully seeing the other side.
(1207) Jesus said ‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but yours be done’. David said in Psalms ‘the troubles of my heart are enlarged, bring me out of my distresses’. Yesterday [Friday evening, the time Presidents release bad news for the least possible effect] the govt. released an updated deficit number. It went up an extra 2 TRILLION for the next ten years, it’s estimated now to be 9 trillion. This is totally unbelievable and absolutely irresponsible. Even Warren Buffet, who publicly endorsed Obama, recently wrote an op-ed warning of the global economic danger that this type of deficit can cause. I was reading in the paper how many of the normal 30 year mortgages are beginning to go into default, these are not the shady ones that already went under. These are the homes of unemployed people who can’t find jobs. Okay, what could we [the country] do? First, if you use the 800 billion dollars of stimulus to actually lift the burden on small businesses [tax breaks] that would do wonders. Second, if you simply stop using a national credit card [increased deficit spending] it would help bring down the debt. And for heavens sake, don’t implement any new laws that will actually hurt the economy [cap and trade]. Then why are we not doing these things? Because certain political leaders believe that the American people want all these things, Nancy Pelosi lives in a very liberal part of the country, she perceives these things as what everyone wants, even though California has an entire immigrant population going under because in their efforts to save a certain species they have stopped the water flow to these farmers. Unbelievable. I was talking to someone the other day and explained to them that many businesses would fire employees if the govt. mandated them to either cover the health ins. of their people or pay an 8 percent charge per person [of their salary], the effect; cut their pay or fire them. We don’t need to be geniuses to figure this stuff out. I believe our nation is going to ‘drink from a cup’ whether we like it or not, we are going to seek God and ask him to ‘bring us out of all these distresses’. I do not believe the overall economic picture is as good as the media seems to be portraying it, and we still are losing 200-250 thousand jobs a month, and the media says that’s good news! The responsible thing for the president to do is realize that he came in with many good intentions, people did want to hope and believe in change. After he got the job he saw the numbers were a lot worse than he thought, in this type of environment the responsible thing to do is spend the next 3.5 years dealing responsibly with our books. Sure, this will not create a great legacy, and it is easier to simply start a new program [Social Security, Medicaid,- universal insurance] because the programs will be remembered, whether or not they get funded. So it is a matter of having a fiscally responsible leadership, or leaders that are willing to cut off the water supply to thousands of farmers in order to save some rat.
(1208) yesterday I went to my daughter’s ranch house to work on her A.C., it was over 100 degrees in the direct sun. I thought I threw my tee shirt in the car, but couldn’t find it. I worked in a long sleeve black shirt, wound up taking the whole darn thing apart [in direct sun at noon!] and felt like I got some heat exhaustion. So, it was in this environment that I finished [almost finished] the book ‘why we love the church’, boy do I have some major disagreements with Deyoung’s fundamental view of church. I think his view is very limited, I think it’s unbiblical and I almost don’t want to recommend the book at this stage [contrary to my earlier endorsement]. I was not sure if I should try and go thru some quotes and refute them, this mode often turns into a ‘he said, you say’ type of argument and usually does not convince either side. Let me simply hit a few things; page 110 ‘I do appreciate church as staged drama’ [quoting someone else] page 164 ‘the Body of Christ becomes visible to the world in the congregation gathered around word and sacrament’ [quoting the great martyr Bonhoeffer] 166 ‘you and your buddies who never ‘go to worship services’ are under no ecclesiastical authority’ 168 ‘the office itself [pastor] is not to blame’ then quotes Ephesians 4:11 to justify the modern office of ‘the pastor’, and on pages 132-135 his overall view of the crusades, well I simply wrote ‘unbelievable!’ on the margins. I always found it untenable when someone quotes the actual interaction between Paul and his first century ‘organic, communal, mystical, house churches’ in order to justify the institutional church against the ‘out of church’ church. Many learned scholars have looked at the term ‘pastor’ in Ephesians 4 and none of them [learned!] believe that this term defines the later development of pastor as the head of a local congregation who ‘administers the sacraments to the people in the building on Sunday, the Lords day’. Which reminds me of Deyoung's use of John ‘on the Lords day’ in the book of Revelation. He believes John was speaking of Sunday ‘the Lords day’, this term more than likely is speaking of the great dramatic view of revelation and of course Jesus future coming as well as the whole period of conflicting kingdoms and Jesus final great victory. ‘His day’ simply speaking of Jesus victorious time period. Some see a set period of wrath as ‘the Lords day,’ to see an early ‘Lords day’ as Sunday as church day from this verse is ridiculous. And the overall argument that Deyoung makes about Christians ‘leaving church’ and trying to be Christians ‘without church’ is simply a huge blind spot of Deyoung. He tries to say [or says] that because the word ‘church’ [ecclesia] means assembly [true enough] that those groups who practice community without ‘church building, liturgy, offices, etc..’ are trying to ‘be the church without the church’. Yet every single New Testament church in the bible, according to Deyoung’s view, would be ‘the church without the church’. Needless to say I disagree almost 100 percent with his view of what the Ecclesia is. This will probably be my last entry on the book [unless the last chapter has some major things that need to be addressed] Deyoung’s view of church is important for all to see [emergents, out of church believers, etc.] it is probably the basic view that most well meaning men would use to defend the traditional view. I believe this view to be very limited and fundamentally disconnected from scripture and the first century churches described in the bible. For the record, in a few hours I will be ‘attending church’ at the mega church I attend here in Corpus. I also appreciate the historic church tremendously, I agree with Deyoung [and Kluck] on the bad attitude that many in the ‘out of church’ movement have towards the historic church. I just think Deyoung went way over board in trying to say that ‘the Sunday church meeting, in the church building, with the liturgical sacraments being administered by the ecclesiastical authorities’ is what church really is. I see this view to be extremely limited and disconnected from the Ecclesias spoken about in scripture. I simply believe Deyoung has got it wrong. [If you think this review was too tough, just imagine if I wrote it yesterday with the heat exhaustion!] Note- To be fair Deyoung does say that you can ‘have church’ without the building, as long as you have the offices, liturgy, etc. Sort of like saying if you move the entire Sunday liturgical drama into the basement, then yes you can ‘have church’ without the building. I simply disagree with his entire view of ‘having church’.
(1209) Okay, in the last post I was kinda hard on Deyoung. I said I wouldn’t write any more posts on it unless there were some real surprises in the last chapter of the book. Well, lo and behold, in the last chapter Deyoung gets saved and admits the error of his way! [Not] Well actually I want to end my critique in a nice way. I did go to ‘church’ yesterday and on my way out heard someone call my name. As I turned I saw it was a former church member of my original church that I planted in the 80’s. She was married to one of our main guys, was the daughter in law to one of the original drug addicts that we worked with [who died a while ago] and was the daughter of one of our faithful women preachers [ordained by Joel Osteen’s church when Joel’s father was pastoring] all in all we have quite a history together. We had a good talk; I asked her how long she’s been attending, around 4 months. She introduced me to her young family [she has a few young kids, the ones I knew from the early days are all older [20’s] but these she described as a new crop]. I was real glad to see her, glad to see she had her kids in church and all. I wanted to mention this because the last chapter of Deyoung's book [why we love the church] was pastoral and came from a concerned heart. Deyoung is writing from the view of a pastor who has been reading all these emergent books, with titles like ‘velvet Elvis’ ‘blue like jazz’ ‘blue steel’ [oh wait, that’s a Ben Stiller character!] names that make me want to say ‘what the hell does this mean’ [sorry] when browsing thru the book store. Many of these types of books have espoused real heresy, denying central truths of the gospel and stuff like that. Deyoung, as a good pastor, also sees the danger of many believers thinking its fine to just drop out of church all together and simply meet at Starbucks. I understand his concerns and they are sincere. To be honest I have never read any of the emergent books with all the strange titles, my first emergent book will be Mclaren's ‘everything must change’ that is here sitting on my shelf [just remembered, I read Tony Jones sacred way] the point being I have come to rethink the usual model of ‘local church’ thru years of personal experience, reading scripture, and reading the works of those who teach on the organic expressions of community/body life. I don’t come to the table having overdosed on a bunch of theologically questionable authors [which is the feel I get when reading Deyoung, he has researched and read all these books in a short period of time, and it’s natural to blast the whole bunch of them in one shot]. So I too was glad that a past friend of mine was ‘back in church’ and had all her kids in the cool looking youth groups [boardwalk stuff, Noah’s ark theme, cool things that mega churches do] so as an ‘ex-pastor’ I understand Deyoung’s concerns. There is always the danger of Christians just dropping out of community all together and leaving all expressions of meeting as believers and praying and sharing the common meal and continuing in the apostle’s doctrine; all important things that Christians should be doing. My main disagreement was the limited concept of the traditional Sunday meeting as being the actual ‘local church’. This theme is engrained into the minds of many well meaning believers/pastors and is quite unbiblical. So any way this really will be my last post on the issue, unless something really big happens [like say Deyoung flips out and makes the headlines by cursing out Obama at a town hall meeting, then yes I will write one more post!] I am not sure what we will do next, I’m finishing up Luke and going thru Psalms, kinda hitting some high spots. Tune in tomorrow and let’s see what happens.
(1210) SAVE THY PEOPLE AND BLESS THINE INHERITANCE. FEED THEM ALSO AND LIFT THEM UP FOREVER- Psalms 28:9 I guess I will hit a few scattered Psalms, these last few weeks I have been reading the Psalms and trying to add a verse to memory every day or so. Sort of praying/meditating on them like the famous ‘Jesus prayer’. The Jesus prayer is an ancient simple prayer that says ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner’ but you actually say it all day long until it becomes part of your psyche. So these single Psalms can be used in this way. Okay, God wants to feed his people and bless them, Jesus told Peter ‘if you love me, feed my sheep’. In the 20th century you had the famous existentialist/atheist philosophers like John Paul Sartre and Albert Camou, these guys sought for purpose and meaning thru philosophy but wound up as nihilists [no hope] because of their rejection of God. Sartre would say ‘man is a useless passion’, Camou would say the only question left for philosophy to answer was the viability of suicide. The famous atheist Antony [Anthony] Flew, who has now become a believer in God [Theist], used to use a parable about a garden to challenge belief in God. He said man and his religious quest is like men who are journeying thru a forest and all of a sudden they come upon a garden; it is manicured and detailed in every way, it ‘appears’ to be a product of a designer. But then flew said as the men look around for the gardener they can’t see him, they then espouse all types of ideas about the master gardener. They come to various conclusions; he must be all knowing, very talented, transcendent- they develop views about this gardener/God that in Flews mind were just as silly as saying you might as well have no gardener at all! Flew thought if believers came to all these ideas about God, what’s the difference whether you believe in a God or not? The obvious answer is ‘then where in the world did the garden come from’. The challenges to Christianity, Theism, Deism try and convince people that there really is no purpose to your existence, you are a ‘useless passion’ you came from nowhere and are heading nowhere. Initially, this philosophy sounded liberating to those who embraced it. Sort of like telling the kids that schools out and you have no more teachers to listen to. But when you embrace this form of meaninglessness, you can not then try and instill purpose and meaning into people. Sartre and Camou rejected the foundational basis for man to have meaning in life, they tried to tell man ‘look, here is the purposeful garden, but it came from nowhere’. After many years of Anthony Flews insistence that there was no gardener, the evidence that caused him to change his mind was the evidence of design. He kept telling himself ‘there is no gardener’ and realized he was trying to convince himself of a lie, he knew he was logically wrong. He has since joined the ranks of those who now seek to know more about the master gardener.
(1211) LIFT UP YOUR HEADS, O YE GATES; AND BE YE LIFT UP YE EVERLASTING DOORS; AND THE KING OF GLORY SHALL COME IN. Psalms 24:7 God sees us as his temple, his city, his vineyard. We all have ‘gates’- doors, areas where we have been ordained to function; people groups who make up our parameters. God put Adam in a specific setting, he placed him in the garden and told him to take care of it, watch over it. Many animals would come and go and dwell within its borders, there was even a 4 lane river that flowed out of it. There was much activity in the garden; Adams job was to maintain the garden. The other aspects would basically take care of themselves. Over the course of Christian history there have been times when Gods garden has lost her focus, become haphazard and full of weeds. At these times he raises up people/movements to help bring her back into shape. Around the 7th century you had a man named Benedict start the first monastic order, the Benedictines. He would establish the famous abbey at Monte Casino; these monasteries would eventually become centers of learning and wisdom for the people of the time. In the 13th century you had the Dominicans and the Franciscans. Around the time of the Reformation you had the Jesuits, a brother named Ignatius left his wealth and former life as a soldier to found these ‘soldiers for God’. The Jesuits would play a major role in the scientific revolution, the percentage of leading scientists who were Jesuits was very high compared to their numbers. They would send missionaries into Japan and make the first inroads for the gospel. They would be persecuted and martyred in a famous city, they were crucified on the sides of the road as a witness for their faith. The name of the city where this happened was Nagasaki, sometimes the previous acts of violence that a society permits opens up the door for all types of future bloodshed. These movements arose out of a sense of the people of God losing her way, the church becoming rich in goods, but not in spirit. So God raises up people/movements to tell his people ‘lift up your heads o ye gates- look to me again and I will come in’ there are times when the garden lost her luster, the Lord didn’t simply plow it under, he allowed those who were tilling her time to get her back in shape. I think it’s time for all of us to ‘lift up our heads/gates’ so the king of glory can come in, he is a strong king, mighty in battle. When he comes in [thru our praise] then a banner of war is lifted up against the enemy, victory will not be far behind.
(1212) THOU PREPAREST A TABLE BEFORE ME IN THE PRESENCE OF MINE ENEMIES, THOU ANOINTEST MY HEAD WITH OIL, MY CUP RUNNETH OVER- Psalms 23:5 These last few weeks I have been praying/meditating these single Psalms. Remember, try and pray them in the attitude of the ‘Jesus prayer’ [continual repetition thru out the day]. In the last chapter of Luke Jesus ‘opens up their understanding’ he shows them all the things in the law and the prophets and the psalms concerning him. They say ‘did not our hearts burn within us when he spoke to us’ they were fixated on his ability to reveal the scriptures to them. He also tells them to wait at Jerusalem for the promise of the Spirit, he sends us out like him. In Luke we read Jesus quoting Isaiah about the Spirit of the Lord being on him, how his calling and teaching were Divine functions. He tells his men he will do the same for them. Here in my ‘prayer yard’ I have all these scriptures and maps of nations and signs all over the place, my yard is designed for early morning intercession. A few weeks back I painted a plastic table with this verse, it was an old table that I had for years. I drew a picture of the loaves and fish that I saw on the church page of my paper and added this Psalm. It speaks to me of ‘the table’ that the lord sets before us. Proverbs says wisdom prepares her table, mingles the wine and sacrifices the animal. Wisdom also ‘sends out her servants’. I see a great picture of Jesus and his disciples thru this. He prepared his table [with his own Body and Blood- mingled wine and sacrifice] he sends us out to tell the world ‘all things are ready, come and dine’ and he gives us the Divine unction to carry this out [1st John]. David said the Lord prepared a great table before him in the presence of his enemies, God didn’t say in their absence. Psalms 110 says of Jesus ‘sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool- rule in the midst of your enemies’. Paul said ‘a great door has been opened for me, and there are many adversaries’ [Acts]. God has prepared a table for you, a place and giftings for you to function and feed his people. The process is not without difficulty and testing, but the important thing is to get the riches from the table to the people, to ‘send out the servants’ if you will. Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days it will return. Have you cast the bread yet? Or is the seed still in the barn.
(1213) MY EYES ARE EVER TOWARD THE LORD, HE SHALL PLUCK MY FEET OUT OF THE NET- Psalms 25:15 There’s a verse that says ‘our souls have escaped like a bird out of the snare of a fowler’. I hate snares, here where I live we have these lawn stickers, you know the type that when you walk in the house they stick all over you. You usually don’t know they are there until you take your shoes off and step on them. Proverbs says that when you walk by the house of the sluggard the weeds and stuff have overtaken it, the wall is broken down. God delivers us from these snares, he ‘plucks’ our feet out of the net. When you’re in a net you can’t pull yourself out. It’s not a matter of strength or effort, its gravity! You basically need an outside source to act on your behalf. That’s what we call original sin and substitutionary atonement. I just started N.T. Wright’s book ‘surprised by hope’ I think I am going to like it. He lives in England and is sharing from a ‘beyond the pond’ perspective. He already has laid out the case that the hope of the believer is resurrection, not evacuation! He will challenge the traditional belief of heaven as the goal, and speak about resurrection and how it relates to the here and now. That is when the church embraces a view that sees the departed soul in heaven as its goal, then we have a tendency to neglect the kingdom here and now. I get the point, and also see how Wright would appeal to the emergent brothers, but I have read Wright on line in the past and felt like he might go a little overboard in the ‘soul sleep’ category. These are the groups that believe the soul is in a state of ‘sleep’ or unconsciousness at death, and at the resurrection it reunites with the body again [true enough] and ‘wakes’ up back into a conscious state. This is not the classic/orthodox view, though some ‘Christian’ groups embrace it. The New Testament most certainly teaches that ‘to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord’ [Paul] and ‘he had a desire to depart [die] and be with Christ which is far better’ [Paul again]. So let’s see what happens in the book, I do like his approach and style, as long as Wright doesn’t totally abandon the present, as well as future hope of the church. We have the assurance that no matter how difficult things get, no matter how many ‘nets/snares’ we have to deal with, that the lord will ‘pluck us from the net’ our hope truly is in the Lord, are your eyes ever towards him?
(1214) YOU WILL NOT LEAVE MY SOUL IN HELL, OR ALLOW ME TO DECAY- Psalm 16:10 [my quick version of it!] This verse is quoted in Acts 2 and 13; it speaks of the Fathers promise of resurrection to the Son. Being I am reading Wright’s book on the resurrection at this time, I thought it good to talk a little. Wright lays out a good historical argument for the resurrection of Jesus. He shows how the liberal belief that the disciples ‘felt a real spiritual change after Jesus died’ wouldn’t cut it in a society that had other messianic figures rise and later be killed. The fact that these others stayed dead was a sure sign of their failure. Wright goes and gives a little parable on how the followers of past dead messiahs would have never gotten away with ‘let’s claim victory for our movement, even though our leaders died’. Good point, but the skeptics could point to Muhammad in the 7th century to refute this. But I get the point. Also, when I say ‘liberal theologians’ on this blog, I am speaking of historical liberalism, not the truncated view that certain fundamentalists hold to; you know, those who view liberalism thru the lens of what bible version a person uses, or whether or not you hold to certain end time scenarios. These views are not what I mean when speaking of liberals. Classic historical liberalism is a tag that gets put on those who begin denying the physical resurrection of Jesus and other fundamental truths of Christianity. So both Catholic and Protestant groups are not considered liberal, unless they deny the basic fundamentals [i.e.; you are not liberal, in the classic sense, just because you embrace the sacraments or other disagreements between Protestants and Catholics]. Now some liberals have done some good. The 19th century liberal scholars- Van Harnack and Albert Reitschal [I know these names are spelled wrong, but no spell check can fix stuff like this] challenged the development of historic theology by promoting the view that because the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the New Testament in Greek, that the early councils and systematic theologians lost the feel for story/narrative because they allowed Greek philosophy to influence their creeds and councils. They would point to the fact that much of the language used to ‘dissect’ the three persons of the Trinity was borrowed from the Greek philosophers and stuff like that. They argued that the church should return to her Jewish roots as seen in the Hebrew culture and begin ‘telling the story’ once again, as opposed to getting into the technical aspects of Greek language and thought. Now, were they right? Partially, in my view. But the problem with their view is it did not fully appreciate the fact that the New Testament did come to us thru the medium of the Greek language. So just because the Hebrew language is short on detail and long on story, this does not mean that the church also needs to be ‘short on detail’, because our New Testaments are in Greek. But they did make some good points. So anyway God promised Jesus [and us] that he would not leave us ‘in hell’ or allow us to corrupt/decay. The early church most certainly believed in the physical resurrection of Jesus from the grave, though the liberals have some good things to add to the conversation, some of their ideas are down right lethal.
(1215) BE WISE NOW THEREFORE O YE KINGS, BE INSTRUCTED YE JUDGES OF THE EARTH- Psalms 2:10 This is the psalm that speaks about the rulers of the earth trying to cast off the restraints of God and ‘his anointed’. Scripture says God will have them in derision; he will laugh at their stupidity. This reminds me of the atheistic enlightenment philosophers, men who embraced ‘rational thought’ and supposedly would not believe anything unless it was ‘scientific’, men like Nietzsche and Freud who felt like the problems with man were the restraints that the church put on people. Freud taught that the reason mankind suffered from so many ailments was because the church and religion put these Victorian restraints on man and that these false restraints [like not sleeping around] were the root cause of mans problems. So Freud tried to ‘cast off the restraints of God and his anointed’ he taught that man should fully embrace sexual freedom and do whatever he wanted, the result- total devastation of mans psyche [and body]. God had them in derision. Getting back to N.T. Wrights book that I’m reading [surprised by hope] Wright brings out a great point, he shows how the materialist [those who say they will only believe things that can be proven scientifically] are contradicting themselves when they reject the resurrection and historical claims of Christianity on these grounds. Wright shows that every one of them accepts all types of historical facts that can not be proven ‘by science’. Let’s see, do you believe in Lincoln? Or say the civil war? There are tons of non scientific historical events that people believe all the time, one time events that are nor repeatable and can’t be proven by the scientific method. He makes a good point. The rationalists said ‘we will only believe in reason, not in faith’ this is a false view of faith. Pope John Paul the 2nd said ‘faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth’ [Fides Et Ratio]. To believe in God, and to be reasonable/rational go hand in hand. The atheist claims to only believe in things that can be proven, yet the claims of Christianity [the death and resurrection of Christ] have more historical/rational proofs than any other historic event in history, the historical method used to examine things shows us that these things did happen, for real! Just because an event is a one time supernatural event, this does not automatically make it ‘irrational’ or untrustworthy. If the event passes the smell test of historical inquiry [which it does] then it is as ‘believable’ as any other historic event in history. You see, God said those who try to cast off the restraint of God and church would make fools of themselves, that they would think they were wise when they were fools. I think this is a good example.
(1216) lets try and do a few things; first, I read a few more chapters in Wrights book [N.T. Wright] and as much as I really like his writing, I do have a few problems with some of the ways he states stuff. He kinda tries to walk the middle road in the area of the second coming and the physical nature of it. He does say he believes in the real second coming and that it did not happen yet. He does teach that Jesus is ‘in heaven’ [Gods realm] physically- good. But he also says stuff like ‘when Jesus ascended you don’t believe he lifted off vertically from the planet’ [actually I do!] or when Jesus comes back it wont be like some spaceman descending out of space [well I know he’s not a ‘spaceman’ but I do believe he will come from ‘out there’]. It was statements like this that caused me a little concern in the past. He also states that he is not a full Preterist, and distances himself from those who tried to claim him as one. But you can hardly blame them, he really does at times sound like he is one [Preterists believe the second coming happened in a.d. 70- it’s a long story] Wright empathically says he does not believe that. Yet he says all the statements from Jesus on ‘his coming’ do not refer to an actual second coming in the future. But he believes Paul and other New Testament passages do teach a real, literal second coming, but that Jesus never spoke of it. To be frank, I think brother Wright opens up the door to all the accusations and confusion that some people have about his position. I still like Wright, he is an excellent N.T. scholar and 1st century historian, but I think there are some problems with his views on the second coming. He definitely states he believes in a real, physical second coming. But instead of it being ‘Jesus coming down from somewhere’ it will be more like ‘Gods realm [heaven] joining our realm’ and at that time he will physically be with us. Well I do believe that at the second coming ‘both realms unite’ that at that moment we will have a ‘new heavens and earth’ I just don’t see the point in Wright’s language when he seems to make light of the physical aspects of Christ’s return. I also agree with him 100% about the New Testament not teaching a ‘rapture’ he rightfully shows us that the ‘rapture chapter’ [1st Thessalonians 4] is the same as 1st Corinthians 15. There simply is no ‘secret coming’ taught in the New Testament [some will be caught by surprise, but it will be no secret!] All in all I like Wright, will continue to read him, just thought I needed to mention these points. Okay, let’s turn to politics. The climate in the country continues to be really bad at this time [9-09] I watched MSNBC show over and over again a picture of a man toting a sub machine gun on his back at some Obama town hall. Of course this is dangerous and nuts! The problem is Chris Matthews portrayed it along with the mindset of ‘see these white skinhead radicals, these racists who are against change’ his whole rant against the people opposing Obama is done in this vain. Sure enough, another news organization showed you the full picture of the man with the gun on his back; he was a black man. Why mention this? Stuff like this, purposefully not telling the whole story, or taking an incident and being dishonest about it to prove your point, this stuff creates racial tensions all on its own. There is no need to try and fabricate a scenario in order to make it fit your story. There are enough real nuts in the country for the news media to not have to fabricate stuff like this, to make the audience think that the ‘gun man’ was an anti Obama ‘right winger’, he obviously was not. Those who oppose the president should do so on purely political grounds, those who support him should take the same view. To be against or for a person because of their race is wrong, very wrong. But people should not feel intimidated if they want to oppose him for the right reasons. When the country sees this type of race card being played, this breeds a type of racism all on its own. Did the bill being floated on Capitol Hill fund abortions- you bet it did! I know the denials have gone forth vehemently, Obama himself publicly said that his position in national health care would include provisions for women’s reproductive rights; he was point blank asked this question. In no uncertain terms he said it would. But after the heat hit the fan they of course would not say it like this. In essence the proposed bill would have included language for ‘women’s reproductive rights’ but because the term ‘abortion’ was not specifically stated, the politicians said ‘oh no, those who think abortion is in there are misleading you’ they lied to you. So let’s try and pass what both sides agree on; pass laws on making it illegal for an insurance company to drop you if you get sick. Provide funding for those who can’t buy insurance and try and get everyone insured. Do tort reform. Get the stuff done that can get done, don’t create all types of problems by bringing up ‘reproductive rights’ there are too many people [Democrats and Republicans] who are truly opposed to abortion in a fundamental way, leave that language out. And for heavens sake, if the media has a picture of a man with a gun strapped to his back, don’t portray him as some white skinhead, especially if the guys black!
(1217) THE VOICE OF THE LORD IS UPON THE WATERS: THE GOD OF GLORY THUNDERETH: THE LORD IS UPON MANY WATERS Psalms 29:3 Last night I was watching the news, I was doing something at the time [reading?] but for whatever reason I was listening and not looking at the screen. I heard a reporter asking one of the ‘tea party’ protesters about his views. As I listened to him speak against the socializing of the country, his disgust over the free hand outs and all, I thought I recognized the voice. As I looked up, it was Larry! One of the first homeless buddies I met in Corpus. He went West quite a few years ago, haven’t heard from him in a while. Larry was really smart, he had a couple of old boats, an old ice cream truck and an old school bus scattered all over the Bluff [where I live]. One of the boats was a small 10 footer, he had it at some boat dock, the thing was probably worth around 20 dollars. Every day he went and pumped the water out, it was funny. I had this old Datsun 280 zx that I bought during an early mid life crisis; I blew the darn motor in it. I was gonna junk it. Larry saw that I had an extra junk car sitting in my yard, I bought it for the wheels for around 100 bucks. He said lets put the engine from the junker into the good car. Sure enough we did it in a couple of days; pushing the cars under my garage doorway, using a bumper jack and chain as a lift. Pulling engines out and dropping the good one in, I could have never accomplished it by myself, he was a talented brother. He looked a little like Ted Kaczynski [unibomber] scruffy hair and beard. He looked exactly the same on the news show, I think Larry worked about five days the whole time I knew him, yet he was protesting Obama’s socializing of the country and the free handouts, stuff like this is too funny to not write on. Okay I read more from Wrights book [surprised by hope] he brings out the biblical basis of the believer’s hope, which is the resurrection, not heaven. He is correct on this. He traces the roots of Western thinking all the way back to the ancient philosophers [Plato] and shows how the Greek belief in the ‘immortal soul’ did effect the thinking of Western Christianity and eventually made it’s way into the church thru the medieval influence of men like Dante [his inferno] and other beliefs on purgatory and so forth, Wright is an excellent scholar and historian. He does quote the verse I used when first defending against the concept of ‘soul sleep’, the famous verse from Paul ‘to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord’ he rejects soul sleep and teaches the correct doctrine of a believer being in Gods presence at death. Wright, like myself, does not see the future hope of the believer as ‘going to heaven when you die’ but correctly teaches the hope of a resurrected body and a new heavens and earth. He also correctly shows how immortality of ‘the soul’ is really not a biblical doctrine. For as long as I can remember, I have always believed that immortality referred to the resurrected body of believers and not to the soul/spirit. I have heard/read many good men speak of it as pertaining to the soul, Wright correctly shows us the biblical view. When I first read his defense a while ago, I was a little confused when he used an argument from scripture that immortality belongs ‘only to God’ and his argument that the ‘immortal soul’ was a Greek doctrine not founded in scripture. The reason I was a little hesitant when I first heard him make this argument [reading on line a few years back] was because I heard the same exact argument made by the 7th day Adventist church in their defense of soul sleep [the view that the soul is unconscious at death until the resurrection] but Wright has clarified that he does not accept this view. He also rightfully shows us that in scripture the divisions of ‘soul/spirit/body’ are not as clear cut as many modern Protestants teach. Over the years I have often heard the famous verses on the soul ‘receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls’ ‘he that corrects a sinner from the error of his way saves a soul from death’ [James] and in Hebrews ‘the word of God dividing asunder soul and spirit’ there is a very popular teaching that relates the three ‘parts’ of man with the Triune nature of God [Father, Son and Spirit] and tries to say that when the New Testament speaks of ‘soul’ it is speaking of mans emotions/will, and that the spirit and body are two other things. This really is not biblical, the two verses I quoted from James are speaking of the whole man, not his emotions/will only. This is a wrong teaching that many have embraced because of a low level of education in the pulpit [to be frank about it]. Which gets me to my final point, to all my Pastor/leader readers, try and read/listen to university level scholarship as much as possible. Avoid leaving the radio-TV on and hearing hours and hours of teaching that is really not high quality, it will affect you in a bad way. I called a ministry a few weeks back to order a special offer from the scholar/theologian who is the teacher. The cd’s were lectures given in a university classroom from a real theologian [not the guys running around with honorary doctorates!] I did have the chance to do something I have been wanting to do for a while. The offer was whatever gift you want to give to the ministry [money] you can give and get the cd’s. The poor sister asks me ‘and how much will you be donating today for the cd’s’ I of course tell her ‘I will be donating one penny’ she is silent for a few seconds until I tell her I’m just kidding. The point is try and read/listen to scholarly stuff as much as possible ‘the Lords voice is upon many waters, it thunders’ when God speaks to you thru the collective voice of the church triumphant [in heaven- I mean read the works of the saints who have died!] and the church militant [on earth] then you are hearing his voice over the ‘many waters’ the various communions that make up the corporate people of God, Gods wisdom resides in her.
(1218) REMEMBER ALL THY OFFERINGS, AND ACCEPT THY BURNT SACRIFICE Psalms 20:3- A few years ago the Lord began showing me the concept of ‘accumulated prayers/alms’ [good deeds]. The medieval church developed a distorted view of this idea; they began to teach that the good works of the saints who have died are like a bank of good deeds [treasury of merits] and that when Christians die without being fully purged [made holy] that they go to Purgatory. In Purgatory they ‘do time’ in order to be made fully ready for Gods presence. Right before the Reformation the doctrine of indulgences became a hot issue among many Catholic scholars. These Catholic teachers disagreed with the churches position on buying the good works of the dead saints in order to lesson the time of their loved ones in purgatory. The famous priest named Tetzel was selling these indulgences and that was what sparked Luther’s Reformation. Now, is the doctrine of purgatory/indulgences scriptural? No. Is the doctrine of ‘stored up good deeds/prayers’ scriptural? Yes. In Acts 10 the angel tells Cornelius ‘your prayers and alms [good deeds] have come up as a memorial before God’ in Revelation the stored up prayers of the martyrs ascends up to God like incense. Our good deeds and prayers do not earn us salvation, but they most definitely affect things. James says the fervent effectual prayer of a righteous man avails much. John says that when we walk in holiness then we have confidence that God hears and will answer our prayers. Doing good is very important, not ‘religious’ ceremonial goodness, but religion as defined by James ‘visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction and keeping yourself unspotted from the world’. These are what ‘alms-deeds’ mean, works of charity. I find it interesting that 2 conservative Catholic scholars of the 20th century disagreed on the doctrine of purgatory as a waiting place after death. One was named Rahner, the other one was Ratzinger [Pope Benedict]. During the Reformation you had a Catholic group called the Jansenists [the leader was a priest named Jansen]. They held to the doctrine of Predestination [like Luther and Calvin]. They rejected certain forms of Catholic teaching; when the practice of devotion to the ‘Scared Heart’ of Jesus was introduced, they called it ‘cardi-olatry’ [idolatry and cardiology combined]. The point being you have many intelligent Catholic scholars who disagree with the official stand of the church. Even though the doctrine of purgatory is unbiblical, yet the concept of our accumulated prayers and good deeds going up to God as ‘a memorial’ [sort of like when Nehemiah prayed- ‘Lord look upon my sacrifice that I have made for your people and reward me’. Or Hebrews ‘God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love which you have showed toward the saints’] is biblical. We certainly don’t earn salvation or merit grace, but to say to God ‘remember all your offerings and accept thy burnt sacrifices’ is okay.
(1219) SAVE LORD, LET THE KING HEAR US WHEN WE CALL- Psalms 20:9 I woke up too early yesterday, around 1 a.m. This has happened a few times in the last few days. So I just move the 3:30-8:30 prayer/study/teaching time up a few hours. It leaves me an hour or two extra to catch up on one of my books. At around 8:30 I felt the Lord wanted me to go and check up on the homeless guys, it’s been a few weeks since I have gotten with them, but I was tired and thought I would just spend a few hours with them. I brought the paper and headed out to the mission. Andy showed up, he’s one of the brothers who has struggled with alcohol for years, just got out of the ‘teen challenge’ program and is doing well. He has two other brothers, I have written about them before. He told me his older brother [59], John David, was supposed to show up at the mission this day and he wanted to make sure he didn’t hook up with the wrong crowd. Andy is 58 and he has a younger brother named Huey. I have fellowshipped with Andy and helped Huey out over the years, but John David is the oldest and he keeps his distance. He looks a little intimidating [to be honest, this stuff never affects me- but to some people they stay away]. If you see him as one of the homeless on the streets where I live, he is a little scary. Anyway Andy was glad I showed up, and Henry [one of the strongest homeless believers, really a fine Christian] showed up. Henry will actually come check up on me if I don’t come around for a few days. Well John David showed up, he has spent 40 days in a local drug rehab and looks great. He is on fire for God, has had a real experience with the Lord. He really loved fellowshipping this day. John David told me his whole story; when he and his family were living near Houston back in the 60’s- 70’s, he killed his best friend with a shotgun. His buddy was violent and one night was coming after him, John David pulled his friends shogun off the rack in the truck and emptied 5 shells into him, he had pellets in the bottom of his feet all the way to the top of his head. His father, who was also an alcoholic by the name of John, died a few weeks before this incident. Johns mother asked around for the best lawyer, she was told the name of a lawyer in Dallas who was the best [Percy something?]. He recently was Lee Harvey Oswald’s attorney, and after Jack Ruby shot him he defended Ruby. Sure enough she went to Dallas and the secretary told her the attorney would cost too much, that he wasn’t even in the building that day. She waited all day until around 10 p.m. and the attorney came out of the office. He asked her about the case and she told him and gave her title deed to her little trailer as payment. He took the job pro bono and got her son off at trial. John David told me that a year later he- quote ‘went and pissed on the grave of his dead friend’. He was ungrateful and unrepentant. Eventually the family wound up in Corpus and all the brothers are living on the streets. When they first got here they did okay, John David had his own concrete company and was making lots of money. He was doing well, but the alcohol and cocaine were his downfall. He told me he hated the homeless guys, he looked down on them and disrespected them. He eventually went thru five marriages and lost everything and became one of the most despised street guys in the Bluff. John passed his alcoholism off to his sons, one night his son was leaving the school dance, he was walking home drunk. A doctor ran him over and killed him. The doctor was also drunk. The boy was only 15, this was another setback in a long series of regrets. We spent the whole day having a good fellowship, I bought some grape juice [in the little bottles] a few weeks back, I felt like the lord said get some for a communion thing. Sometimes when I get with the brothers when we come back to the house we will do an outside communion/fellowship thing. Sure enough this was the day for the juice. I lent Andy one of my good books, he is a serious student and was sharing with me the stuff he has been studying recently. I know he’s reading right now so I lent him some good stuff. Henry took a few reference books, he keeps his books at my house and I’ll lend him stuff from my library as well. He will be preaching Sunday at ‘Church without walls’ a homeless church that sets up a tent every week and holds street services. Yeah, sometimes I don’t get the books back, but it’s worth the investment. John David was a different man this day, all the years I have seen him, never was he like this. He told me a few months back as he was sitting out by the intercoastal waterway where we live, he was strung out on coke, tired of his whole life. He screamed and cursed God, he said ‘if you are f…ing real, then do something’. It was within a few days that someone paid 5 thousand dollars out of pocket to send him to this rehab, the ‘king heard him when he called’.
(1220) VAN JONES- This week the news media have been dealing with one of Obama’s ‘czars’, he is in charge of ‘green jobs’. What’s the problem? Well he seems like a nice fella, until Glen Beck researches all the history of the man, and it turns out he is as bad as any white racist. Now that’s a problem. Why is Beck doing this? Van Jones also leads a group that started an advertising boycott against Beck, he went and personally tried to put Beck out of business. So Beck found all these past things, stuff like ‘the whites are purposefully poisoning the blacks thru polluting the environment’ or he signed his name on one of the ‘9-11’ truther petitions. These people claim that Bush purposefully allowed the attacks to happen. Quite frankly you’re a nut case if you believe this. Now, are people allowed to be nut cases? Sure. But not if you work for the White House. Any white man who would espouse that blacks are purposefully killing whites through pollution would be run out on a rail [rightfully so!]. The reality now is that this man must go, you got into a fight with a conservative broadcaster and alls fair in love and war. To keep a guy on the team that has espoused racist beliefs and comments won’t fly. I am writing this post on Friday, 9-4-09- 5 a.m., it wouldn’t surprise me if he resigns today. Why do I even get into stuff like this? When the media allows one group get away with stuff like this [liberal!] then the poor older white senior citizens, who have been scared out of their wits by both real and false accusations. When these older folk see stuff like this, they think they have a true radical in the white house. During the last election you had a couple of black panthers manning a polling place. The pictures have been all over the media. Quite frankly, they looked quite intimidating. There is no doubt that some elderly white folks kept on driving when they saw these guys at the polling place. If you never saw the pictures they looked just like radical black panthers, the contrast would be having a bunch of skinheads with bats at a black voting location. The uproar would be tremendous. So when we allow for any group to get away with stuff like this, then it breeds fear and racist thoughts on the other side. I don’t know Van Jones, but when you’re on record espousing the stuff that he espoused, you need to leave now! No if, ands or buts. Get out, get out quick- go join some ministry and leave the public eye. These rules should apply to both sides. Martin Luther King led a movement that would not allow for these types of thoughts or beliefs. He gave his life at the hands of white racists, but he refused to lower himself to the level of those who killed him. Luther is a man worth admiring and honoring.
(1221) Lets finish up some thoughts on the book ‘surprised by hope’ [N.T. Wright] all in all I liked the book and brother Wright, but to be honest I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would. Wright is the very popular Bishop of Durham [Church of England] and has sort of a ‘cult’ following. Let me state a few things that I disagreed with [I have already written some posts on the agreement stuff]. Wright believes third world debt/economic imbalance is the number 1 moral problem of our time. He equates it to slavery and the holocaust, I would not go that far myself. He makes a strange case for a new type of epistemology [way of knowing things- it’s a philosophical thing!]. He calls it an epistemology of love; he challenges the ‘modern’ [as opposed to post modern] epistemology of Objective truth. He believes post modernism has shown us that you can’t separate objectivity and subjectivity, they go hand in hand. Grant it this is somewhat of a difficult discussion for a brief review, but this is an area where emergents would line up with Wright. He uses the example of Thomas and his insistence on Objective truth before he would believe in Jesus [Thomas says I will not believe unless I see it myself]. The next week Jesus appears to Thomas and tells him ‘see, go ahead and touch me. Here's the proof’! Thomas then says ‘my Lord and my God’. Wright uses this example to refute a purely objective epistemology. I think he’s contradicting himself on this one. All in all, he’s okay- but not as good as I thought [hoped?] One more thing, Wright does say that it’s obvious that the gospels have contradictions, I know where he’s coming from [Bart Erhman types jump on this stuff] but I personally don’t use this language. I prefer ‘discrepancies’ or ‘biographical literature standards’ to explain this stuff. Some pastors/believers are not familiar with the varying accounts of certain events in the gospels. There are some; one gospel says there was one angel at the tomb, another says two. One gospel says Peter will deny Jesus 3 times before the rooster crows once- another says before the rooster crows twice. There are a few other things like this that caused some to develop differing views on inspiration. Karl Barth [the great and influential Swiss theologian of the 20th century] developed an idea that said the early church practiced a form of ‘Docetism’ when teaching the infallible inspiration of the scriptures. Docetism is an early Gnostic cult that embraced Greek Dualism. The Greek philosophers taught that matter itself was evil, and that salvation/freedom comes to man when he separates himself from the material world. This view is not the Christian view. But early cults [Manichaeism] formed these systems where salvation comes thru God freeing man from all these levels of materialism. Docetism had a too exalted view of the Divinity of Jesus, in which it taught that Jesus was never really a true man, this view denied both the incarnation and resurrected body of Jesus. So, Barth said those who unduly exalted [in his view] the ‘divinity’ of scripture were making the same mistake. The liberal scholars tried to form views that said the scriptures do have mistakes in them, and this doesn’t mean the faith itself should be doubted. Barth made this defense in a well meaning way; it’s just not the historic orthodox view. So anyway I got the feel that Wright [as many noble and good scholars] might hold to something like this. Good book overall, just thought I should give both sides. NOTE- Most of the discrepancies in the gospel accounts can be resolved. For instance to say ‘there was one angel at Jesus tomb’ and for another gospel to say ‘there were two’ in itself is not a lie/contradiction. If I told you there was ‘only one angel’ then that would be a logical contradiction. So the reason I mentioned this is not to cause believers to doubt the scripture, but for them to be aware of both the problems and solutions to these types of things. Some believers go off to college and depending on how liberal the college is, they get attacked with stuff like this and many of them abandon the faith.
(1222) BY THY FAVOR THOU HAST MADE MY MOUNTAIN TO STAND STRONG- Psalms 30:7 These last few weeks we have been hitting some single Psalms and reviewing some good books. I wanted you guys [and gals] to start committing to memory some of these verses. I also wanted to develop an appetite in you for reading, reading good stuff [you know, avoiding stuff like ‘the mark of the beast is here’ and other silly stuff]. I was just outside praying [early] and in the distance I saw the lightning. This last week we have had rain, thunder and lightning. Texas has been in one of the worst droughts ever, one of the Psalms I added to memory this last week was ‘the voice of the Lord is upon the waters, the God of glory thundereth. The Lord is upon many waters’ I have been praying it and incorporated it into my intercession time- not for literal rain, but in a spiritual sense. Yet it worked for the real stuff too! I want to encourage you guys, be steadfast in prayer. These last few weeks I felt the Lord speaking to me about not growing weary in prayer; we covered the parable of the lady who kept pleading with the judge and finally got an answer. Jesus teaching us on consistent prayer. We hit some verses from James on enduring thru trials and difficulty. The scripture says not to grow weary in doing well, in due season we shall reap if we don’t faint. Getting back to our verse ‘you have made my mountain to stand strong’ your ‘mountain’ if you will is the whole area/region that God has ordained for you to function in. To some of you that’s the local church group you relate to, others it’s the state or country. And for others it’s a world wide ‘mountain’ [place of authority/ministry]. God alone can make you fruitful in the field/area of influence he has given you, but it’s your part to maintain the field, the ‘home base’ the capitol city if you will. Scripture says ‘David [King David] dwelt in the fortress city and called it the city of David [he knew who he was and what area of influence he was to wield] and he built round about from the surrounding terraces and inward’. He knew that for him to have a broader regional influence he had to have stability at the home base, the main city [Jerusalem in his case]. As you trust God to show favor to your mountain, remember to be faithful to the home base as well. Jesus sent the Spirit to the church and gave her a witness in Jerusalem, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. If you don’t start at home, it will never spread to the uttermost!
(1223) 2ND CORINTHIANS; INTRO, CHAPTER 1- Out of all of Paul’s letters, this one is the most autobiographical. This is Paul’s 3rd letter [some think 4th] to the Church at Corinth. There is a missing letter that we don’t have. Some scholars feel parts of the missing letter are in this letter [chapters 6, 10-13] either way, we know the letter is inspired and part of the canon of scripture. In chapter one Paul recounts the difficulties he went thru [and continues to go thru] for the sake of the gospel. Paul sees both his sufferings AND his deliverance as beneficial for the communities [churches] he is relating to. He says ‘God establishes/strengthens us and anoints us together with you’. Paul’s view of the church [his ecclesiology] is that God works with corporate groups of believers. His view on discipline is seen from this angle. In 1st Corinthians he says because we do not live to ourselves, therefore if one is in open, unrepentant sin, then commit him to judgment. Why? Because everything that one member does affects the others. I would not go so far and say that Paul taught ‘no salvation outside of the church’ but he sees salvation and Gods working with humans as a corporate experience. The Catholic Church for the first time in her history accepted other Protestant churches who confess Christ and his deity as ‘separated brethren’. This happened at Vatican 2 [1962-65]. The council explicitly taught the other churches were actually ‘churches’. They specifically used the word ‘subsists’ when describing their view of the church. They said the church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church in it’s fullness. They still believe that the fullest expression of Christ’s church on earth is contained within her, but they rejected the hard line doctrine that the church exclusively resides within her. They realized that God was working with all Christian groups/churches, not just one. I recently saw an ad in my local paper from one of the traditional Latin churches, these are the old ‘tridentine’ churches who observe the mass in Latin. The ad said that salvation is only in the Catholic expression of the church. I hate to correct my Catholic brothers [being I am a Protestant] but this language is not in keeping with the spirit of Vatican 2. Paul understood that God was working with him along with the corporate groups of people that he was relating to as an apostle. He will even teach that this dynamic can take place when they are physically separated, i.e.; he did not have to be in the same room/city for God to be working with them as a community. This is very important to see, it comes against certain expressions of local church. It also opens the door for other expressions of church, like ‘on-line’ communities. There are passages of scripture where Paul does say that whether he is with them in body or not, yet he is present in spirit joying and beholding their growth in Christ. Or he says word got back to him about their growth and he rejoiced in it. While believers should physically meet together as a testimony of their faith, yet the fact that there are occasions where this might not be possible does not mean that they can’t be joined together in spirit and truth. Peter says ‘you who were not a people are now the people of God. You who did not obtain mercy have now obtained it’. God ‘birthed’ churches [communities of believers] thru the apostolic ministry of Paul, these groups were both birthed and received mercy as a corporate event, they understood that they were brothers and sisters in Christ.
(1224) 2nd CORINTHIANS 2- Paul instructs the church to forgive the brother who was excommunicated earlier on [1st Corinthians] he tells them just as they were zealous to carry out the previous judgment, so now they should be willing to forgive. He says it’s possible for people to be overcome with too much sorrow. The other day I wrote a post on Obama’s green jobs czar, I felt [and still feel!] that he needed to resign, he resigned 2 days after I wrote the post. I have also seen some conservatives say good things about the man [Van Jones] that in essence he has also done some good things. But they feared that he will be tagged as this nut case who signed the 911 ‘truthers’ petition [well, he really should not have signed the thing]. The point was it’s possible to over do an attack on an individual like this, to not stop until all the czars fall type of a thing. Paul reminds us that there are times of being hard with people, but the purpose for it is too bring them to their senses. Here Paul warns against being unforgiving. He also says that when he shared Gods word with them he did not do it like others; he said they were ‘peddling/corrupting’ Gods word. This carries with it the idea that certain people/ministers were preaching for profit. Paul is not saying ‘too much profit’ he is simply saying those who were sharing the word and taking money in return. We already know that Paul's mode of operation was to support himself when with the churches [see Acts 20] and at times he even paid the way for his fellow workers. Paul carried out the greatest apostolic ministry known to man [apart from Christ] and he did it free of charge at his own expense. Paul tells them that when he wrote to them he did it thru much affliction and difficulty. He previously spoke about God opening up great opportunities for him, but along with the gift came a great price. Let me share a little personal stuff with you guys. My wife went to the E.R. the other day with some serious problems; she has been admitted into the hospital. We do not have health care insurance. When I retired I couldn’t afford to keep it. I managed to get my kids insurance, but me and my wife are on our own. Out of the 2 of us I have a few more serious health problems than she does. Some have been self inflicted [past mistakes] others just happened. The way I ‘self-treat’ is I go on line and do ‘home cures’- this my friends is not good. Some have helped, others I am not sure of. But this past year I had some things that needed to be checked [like bleeding from places where you shouldn’t be] and frankly, I haven’t done it. But I needed my wife to stay healthy, so this has been pretty awful for me. At the same time we had some serious problems with one of our daughters, and we were/are in a real bind over this. During this whole time I started this new bible study [2nd Corinthians] and whenever I start a study I just do a chapter a day and it doesn’t take long at all to finish. But I wonder how many I’ll be able to do over the course of my life. I would like to do the whole bible, but I realize that it’s thru ‘much affliction and suffering’ that I have written to many of you. Paul said he had the ‘sentence of death within himself’ so he would learn not to trust in himself, but in God who raises the dead. As we read thru these letters, see the real problems and difficulties they were facing; hear Paul when he says ‘I am not peddling Gods word’ he was not taking offerings or collecting money for his own well being. He collected only for the poor saints at Jerusalem. Watch the give and take, the beliefs of the early church. We need an overhaul in our thinking and acting, ‘ministry/preaching/church’ all need to be re looked at, we need to teach/train the upcoming ‘crop’ of pastors in a new way. Don’t see these things as jobs, or opportunities for self advancement, see these things as opportunities to lay your life down for others, to cling to the death experiences and not run from them. Paul said we are the sweet fragrance of Christ to the nations; in both them who are dieing and those who are being saved. God reveals his knowledge thru us to all people groups, we die daily so this fragrance can go forth.
(1225) 2ND CORINTHIANS 3- Paul defends his apostleship, he states he needs no letters of approval for them or from them. They are his ‘letter of proof’ written on their hearts. Paul puts more weight on the work of the Spirit in them as a church, than on written letters. I find this interesting; the historic church has been divided over the issue of how much weight should be placed on tradition versus scripture. There is some confusion on the matter; lets clear it up. First, the Catholic Church does not teach that there are 2 words from God, sort of like tradition is one word and the bible is the other. They believe Gods word comes to us in two forms/ways- both scripture and tradition. The Protestant reformers did not totally reject tradition, they are creedal churches! They simply taught that Gods word was the final arbiter in issues of faith and morals. I do find it interesting that Paul put more weight on the ‘fleshly letters’ [the church] than written ones. He also contrasts the Law of Moses [10 commandments] with the New Covenant in Jesus Blood. He says if the glory of the old law, which was fading away, was so strong that Moses had to put a veil on his face. Then how much more glorious is the New Law in Christ! Some feel that Paul was saying that Moses veil was covering up the glory on his face that was fading away. When Moses went to get the law, on his return from the mountain his face shown, some feel this glory/shining was beginning to fade and Moses put the veil on so the people wouldn’t see it fading. In context I don’t think this is what Paul was saying. The thing that was fading [passing away] was the law itself [see Hebrews]. Moses was not a vain man; I don’t think he was hiding the fact that the glory was leaving his face. All in all Paul says this New Covenant of Gods grace is much greater than the Old Covenant of condemnation. That in this New Covenant we behold Gods face openly, by the ministry of the Spirit. No more veil, we are changed by the Spirit of God and the work of Jesus. Paul says these two covenants are like comparing apples and oranges; they are in a whole different class.
(1226) 2ND CORINTHIANS 4- In chapter 3 Paul said we are beholding/seeing God in an open way as compared to the old covenant. In this chapter he shows us how we ‘see God’. We see him in his Son. God has chosen to reveal himself to us thru his Son. One of the first Christian councils [after the one at Jerusalem in Acts 15!] was held in the 4th century under the Roman emperor Constantine. The reason was to bring unity to the church on the issue of Christ’s divinity. These councils played political roles as well as theological. After Constantine became emperor he established the great city in the eastern empire called Constantinople. This city [named after him] became both the theological and political seat in the eastern half of the empire. So you had both a religious and political competition going on in the empire. Rome, situated in the west, was feeling like she would lose her position if the eastern half started gaining too much influence. So you had differing reasons for these councils. But you also had sincere men who held to various beliefs at the time. The bishop Arius came to teach that Jesus was the Son of God, but not God himself. This created a stir in the empire and Constantine called a council to settle the question. The debates went forth, both views were discussed and classic Orthodoxy came down on the side of Jesus being God. Now, there would be more councils dealing with Gods nature and Christ’s role, but this was a defining moment in Christian history. The church [and the scriptures] teach that God became man [incarnation] and thru Jesus we ‘see God’. Paul also relates the many sufferings and trials he was going thru. He says he tastes death and bears in his body the death of Jesus. He simply does not give a picture of the Christian life that is common in today’s world. Many believers are taught that these types of difficulties and sufferings are a result of their lack of faith, or their inability to rightfully ‘access their covenant rights’. Paul refutes this doctrine strongly. Paul has already mentioned those who ‘peddle Gods word’ or who twist the scriptures for their own benefit. It always amazes me to see well meaning believers/teachers go thru the entire corpus of the New Testament and never see these things. It’s so easy for preachers/teachers to read the scriptures with blinders on. Here Paul taught that the many sufferings [both physical and spiritual] were an honorable thing, they were his way of sharing in the sufferings and death of Christ. They were ‘death in him, but life in you’ he saw his difficulties thru a redemptive lens. He says the present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us. The first verse of this chapter says seeing we have received this great ministry, we don’t faint. I like Eugene Petersons Message version, he says ‘just because times get hard, we don’t throw up our hands and walk off the job’ I like that.
(1227) 2ND CORITNHIANS 5- Paul speaks of the Christian hope- resurrection! This chapter can be confusing if not taken in context. You could think that Paul is saying when we die we have a house/room in heaven ‘waiting for us’ and this seems true enough. But he is really saying something more along the lines of ‘in heaven [Gods realm] we have a promise of a new body. The Spirit in us is the down payment, but full redemption will be complete when we are raised from the dead’ the hope is a new body, not our souls living some type of disembodied existence in a heavenly mansion. Now, Paul teaches us that this new covenant [last chapter] is one of reconciliation, not condemnation. That because of the work of the Cross, all men have been reconciled to God! It is therefore our job to tell them. In the field of Christian thought there have been thinkers [Origen, Carlton Pearson, etc.] who have dabbled with the doctrine of universalism. They believe that ultimately all people will be saved. I do not believe in this doctrine myself [though I wished it were true- I mean wouldn’t you want everyone forgiven and with God?] but those who embrace it find their reasoning in these types of verses. The New Testament teaches a theme of redemption that says ‘all men have been reconciled to God; Jesus has died for all men. God wills for all to be saved’ and it is because of this theme that some have held to universalism. The point I do want to make to all my orthodox friends is the New Testament message is one of total acceptance based on Christ’s death for us. Sometimes Christians ‘make it hard’ for people to ‘get saved’. The bible doesn’t make it hard, it says it’s a free gift that anyone can have [I know my Calvinist friends are upset right now, but heck I cant please all the people all of the time]. We want the world to know that ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself’. These major themes need to be engrained into the mind of the church and the world. I am not talking ‘easy believism’ in the sense that God requires no repentance, but I am talking the reality of the free gift based upon what Jesus has done. There are so many people struggling with so many things, many have prayed and pleaded with God for change. Many have given up; they see God as a demanding judge whom they could never please. The message of the Cross is ‘you can’t please God, make up for your own sins. God placed those sins on Jesus, that’s why you can be accepted’. He was made sin for us, who knew no sin. That we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Once you see this truth, God will set you free. You will change, you will become ‘righteous’ but it’s a result of the Cross, not your own efforts.
(1228) 2ND CORINTHIANS 6- Paul tells them to not receive Gods grace ‘in vain’. He quotes a very popular verse among Evangelicals ‘now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation’. He says the Lord heard their prayer and ‘accepted/saved them’. Paul is referring to salvation in the sense that after his first letter, they repented, asked God for forgiveness and responded in the right way. Now in this letter he’s saying ‘look, God heard your heart. He has received you. Don’t keep repenting over the thing’. Paul also gives another list of his trials. He gave one in chapter 4, will give another one in chapter 11. I like the part where he says ‘we are unknown, yet well known’. In today’s Protestant/Evangelical churches, we are often ‘well known, yet unknown’. Let me explain. In Paul’s day he raised up quite a stir. In the book of Acts we see how when he was at the temple in Jerusalem someone finally recognized him and accused him. He wasn’t’ well recognized/known like we are today. Yet his writings and the communities of believers he was establishing were well known. People knew his message and gospel. Yet today, we have so many Christians who follow a cult of personality. They associate ‘the church they attend’ with the main leader. Often these men are well meaning, in some cases their public persona is known world wide. Yet the average viewing audience has no grasp on what they are teaching. They see our famous images [well known] yet what we are speaking is often irrelevant [unknown]. And last but not least Paul teaches what I like to call ‘an incarnational ecclesiology’- in simple terms, God lives in his people in a real way. The real presence of God in society is manifest thru his actual people. Often times the historic churches will emphasize the Eucharist as the way Gods presence is in the world. Some argue for ‘an incarnational sacramental’ view of Christianity. They teach that because God manifested himself in a material way thru Christ [the incarnation] that this principle continues today thru the sacraments that the churches practice. I respond this way; while this is true that God has/does manifest himself in real ways in the world, the primary method of him dwelling in the world in a real way is thru the people of God. Paul refers to us as Gods temple in the world. While the history of Israel in the Old Testament is somewhat liturgical, I feel to carry sacramental theology too far into the New Covenant misses the point. Jesus did give us the communion meal, and we do ‘show his death’ while celebrating it. But Gods primary means of ‘showing’ himself to the world is thru the charitable deeds of his saints. They will ‘know we are Christians by our love, by our love’. This theme is woven thru out the entire New Testament. Its’ fine for believers to have ‘sacred space’ [church buildings] to celebrate liturgy and traditional forms of Christian worship, but to keep in mind that we are the actual dwelling place of God in the world, we are his temple. During the first millennia of Christian history the church developed an idea that said because Jesus did come in the flesh, therefore it is now permitted to have Icons [special religious paintings that have special meaning in the Greek/Eastern Orthodox churches] and physical ways for Gods presence to manifest. The western church [Catholic] would struggle over this issue. One of the Popes would condemn iconography and some would destroy these religious paintings from the church buildings. Eventually an Orthodox theologian [I think John of Damascus?] would develop the theology that I explained above and the church would accept the practice of God manifesting himself in a special way thru religious objects. I personally enjoy the Catholic/Orthodox and traditional expressions of Christianity, but I think they over did it in this area.
(1229) 2ND CORINTHIANS 7- Paul tells them that at first he regretted being so hard on them in his 1st letter. But now he rejoices that he was so hard, because they fully heard him out and came to their senses. I have found over the years that many people initially ‘hate’ me for some of the stuff I write. But sometimes they really reconsider certain beliefs that they picked up along the way and they make adjustments, this is the purpose. So Paul was glad he did it. Now when he was in Macedonia he was in distress 'without were fighting’s, within were fears’ he struggled daily with difficulty. But in all these troubles he rejoiced when the good report came back to him from Titus, his co worker who was sent to check up on the Corinthians. Titus came back and told Paul how they listened to him and repented. This was Paul’s reason to rejoice. I want you to see the give and take between Paul and these churches/communities. In the next chapter we will deal with money issues, but for now he is giving his life away for the benefit of these churches. He preaches the pure gospel of Jesus, he does not view ‘being a child of the king’ thru the lens of making wealth or having no problems, to the contrary he will teach that these doctrines are not from the Lord [see 1st Timothy 6]. Paul’s intent was to establish these churches on the reality of Christ and what the Cross meant in their lives. He urges them to separate from idolatrous and sinful practices and for them to be holy [set apart] for Gods work. He warns his churches not to come under the influence of false teachers, people who were bringing in ‘damnable heresies’ even denying the faith of Jesus. All in all Paul made plain the reality of Jesus and how we as believers do not pursue the desires of the world, he tells Timothy ‘we came into the world without wealth and material goods, when we die we can’t take it with us. So lets be happy with what we have’ no doctrine of seeking extreme wealth to advance the kingdom, but to live soberly and righteously in the present world. These letters that we are covering [all the studies we have done so far on this blog] are the foundational documents of the church, we need to read and hear what they are saying. Too many churches are built upon proof texts found all over the bible, but when you read the actual story in context, they tell a different story. Paul rebuked this church in a strong way; they were sorry and broken over the things he said. Then after a period of time they humbled themselves and made some changes. That’s all Paul wanted, for his converts to stay on course.
(1230) YOU LIE!- I was going to do chapter 8 of our 2nd Corinthians study, but I just finished a regular Monday morning prayer time and felt I should go another way. On Mondays I do a regular prayer thing that includes praying for the president as well as world leaders. I have prayed for President Obama, by name, every Monday [and sometimes a few more times a week] ever since he’s been in office. I did the same with Bush. This week Obama gave a speech to congress in an effort to salvage his health care reform. During the speech you had a Republican, Joe Wilson, shout out ‘you lie’ at the place where Obama said that those who were saying illegal aliens would be covered under the bill were lying. First, Wilson was wrong to do what he did and he apologized. Second, did the president lie? A little bit, probably not on purpose, but he wasn’t totally accurate. Joe Wilson is one of the key Republicans dealing with a part of the bill that would either exclude or include illegal aliens under the plan. The fact is every time Wilson tried to add language specifically excluding illegals, he was shot down by the Democrats. This has happened a number of times and it is quite obvious that the Democrats were signaling that they did not want to exclude illegal aliens from the plan. One part of the bill said ‘no illegal aliens will benefit from tax benefits proposed under the bill’. This language does not say no illegals will benefit from the plan itself. Now, when it comes to illegals, I am more liberal than many of my friends, who are Mexican. When I was working at the fire dept. I was one of the few [if only] guys that sided with the illegal immigrants when it came to showing them sympathy after they got into the country. Many of my Mexican buddies said ‘hell no, my parents did it right, these illegals should have to do it the legal way’. I didn’t side with doing illegal things; I just sided with their plight and felt we should avoid the strong racial stuff that usually comes up in these scenarios. So anyway why did Wilson say ‘you lie’? As an insider, who knew for a fact that the Democrats were purposefully opposing language in the bill that would exclude illegals, in his view the president did lie. He is sitting there and being accused of misleading the American people, that is Wilson is being told by the president in front of the world that those who are saying illegals might get covered are lying to you. Wilson knew Obama was in fact wrong, in his view Obama very well lied. Now, like I said at the beginning, did Obama know all these inner workings of every group writing stuff in all these comities? Obviously not, but he did not tell the whole truth about this specific issue. I do not hold to the view that our president is a secret socialist trying to undermine our economy for the purpose of a communist overthrow of the country. Do all the media persons who are espousing this view really believe it? I think Beck is a sincere guy, but really not ready for ‘prime time’. He might very well believe his views, and at times does show the other side of the story, but his overall framework is dangerous. I think Rush is too smart to really believe this stuff, but he is an entertainer. Hannity? I think he believes some of his own rhetoric. But I know for a fact that the president has said, on record, that he wanted to initiate a single payer health system that would eventually lead to universal health care for all Americans. He said this in 2007 when he advocated for the govt. to run the entire system. Okay, Barney Frank said the same thing a few months back; they caught him on tape saying it. So for the president, or Democrats in general, to say that the Republicans are lying to the American people when they warn about this, then they are actually not telling the whole story. Today’s point is we need to hear and listen to all side’s of these issues, we need to avoid the mindset that demonizes the president, or those who honestly disagree with him. We need to pray for our leaders and the president on a regular basis. We need to act right in this whole mess.
(1231) 2ND CORINTHIANS 8- Paul talks about giving in these next 2 chapters. It’s important to see the context in which he is speaking. Many fine men [pastors] and believers will use a verse or two out of these chapters and apply them in a wrong, or out of context way. We find verses like ‘he that sows [plants] sparingly will reap sparingly’ or ‘God shall supply all your needs according to his riches and glory’. These verses [as well as a few others] are to be seen in the context of giving in a charitable way, doing it by ‘choice’ and not by force, and giving freely to help the poor saints that were living at Jerusalem. But too often these verses are used to tell believers if they do not tithe 10 percent of their income into a Sunday morning offering, they will be cursed. Or appeals are made by the TV preachers that say ‘sow into this ministry and reap a harvest’ in many of these scenarios there is tremendous force and manipulation used to get the saints to give money for all types of projects, or to fund the rich lifestyles of charismatic figures. These things ‘ought not to be done’. In this chapter Paul says he that gathered little had ‘no lack’ how often have we taught believers to ‘get a full harvest’ and said it in a way that says unless you ‘gather much’ you will be in lack? Here Paul says those who gathered ‘just enough’ those who were satisfied with the basics ‘had no lack’. Or ‘give according to what you have, not according to what you don’t have’ how many appeals are made all the time telling believers ‘if you don’t have it, make a vow anyway’? We tell people to give according to what they don’t have all the time. And the churches of Macedonia did give ‘out of their poverty and great affliction’ you do not measure the success or spirituality of believers by the amount of financial wealth they have, these giving churches had ‘poverty’. All in all we need to rethink much of what the contemporary church/ministry does when it comes to money. In these chapters Paul teaches voluntary giving along the lines of helping the poor, we often use all these verses and simply apply them to our ‘churches’ ministries or personal callings. We err. In the next chapter Paul will quote Psalms ‘he hath dispersed abroad, HE HATH GIVEN TO THE POOR, his righteousness remains forever’ again, the whole context is giving to the poor. I know we mean well as believers, but we need to get back to really reading what the text is saying and applying it in that way. To give to churches, or ministries is fine. To give 10 % of your income is fine. To meet the needs of laboring elders/pastors is fine, but we should not use these types of scriptures in a condemning way when exhorting the saints to give, doing that is ‘not fine’.
(1232) 2ND CORINTHIANS 9- Paul encourages the church to be generous ‘give much, and you will be blessed much’. The principle is clear. The other day I wrote on the verse ‘he hath distributed and given to the poor, his good works will endure’ [my paraphrase] let me give you what the message bible says- ‘he throws caution to the wind, giving to the needy with reckless abandon’. Yesterday my friend John David came by. He’s the friend I wrote about a few weeks ago, one of the local homeless guys. John is doing well; he made it thru the local drug rehab and is attending the aa/na meetings. John is really excited about the lord, even though he is an older brother [57] he really wants to do things for God. I gave him a few old copies of some of my original books I wrote years ago, and I gave him all the cash I had [around 15 dollars from my wallet]. He didn’t ask for it, I just felt ‘what the heck, if I don’t give it I’ll just spend it’. Later my wife asked me if I could take my daughter to get her I.D. at the driver’s license place. You need cash, it’s around 16 dollars. I thought ‘geez, maybe I’m too reckless in giving to my buddies’ and then I read this verse this morning. Paul exhorts these believers to give themselves and their goods away for the gospel. He challenges us to live with ‘reckless abandon’ knowing that our lives are like a vapor that appear for a little while and then vanish away [James]. If you give yourself away, God will increase ‘your seed’ and multiply the results 100 times, but you must lay down your life first. Jesus said unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abideth alone. But if it dies it will bring forth much fruit. He was speaking of his impending death, how he saw it as a necessary event for the purposes of God. Paul also says in his letter ‘if Jesus died for everyone, then we are all dead. He then that lives should now live for God.’ We are not here to please ourselves, to derive some type of fulfillment through our Christian experience. That is to ‘seek to save our lives’ we are here to lay them down for a greater cause, Jesus showed us how this must be done.
(1233) 2ND CORINTHIANS 10- Paul defends himself once again, he says ‘the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but mighty thru God to the pulling down of strongholds. Casting down imaginations [arguments] and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God’. Contrary to popular opinion, Paul is not speaking about ‘spiritual warfare’ in the sense of casting demons out of the sky, but he is talking about refuting false opinions and ideas that the false teachers were popularizing. In essence true spiritual warfare is presenting the truth of Christ in its purist form and undoing false/popular ideas that don’t line up with scripture. Paul also defends his right to speak into their lives/location. He says he has been given a sphere/place of authority by God, and this area did indeed cover Corinth. He also claims authority for other regions. In scripture Apostles do have more of a regional authority/influence than other types of callings. Paul did not exercise his authority in a way that said ‘you guys must only listen to me’ in the sense that ‘submitting’ to authority meant actually listening to him preach every Sunday. The New Testament churches had tremendous freedom and sharing in their corporate get togethers. It actually was the false teachers who tried to cause these early believers to come under their control. In Galatians Paul says ‘who hath bewitched you’ or cast a spell on you. Paul would only come in and use his authority in a strong way when the churches strayed from the simplicity that was in Christ. In this chapter he says the authority that he had was for the purpose of building them up, not tearing them down. The main way Paul ‘did battle’ was thru the refuting of the false teachers thru the scripture [Old Testament] and presenting the fullness of Gods grace in Christ. Paul often used examples from urban life to help him get his point across- things like sports, arenas, military, etc. Jesus used more of an agrarian type setting in his parables- fishing, seed planting, etc... Of course they both used other symbols as well, but the point was they spoke and argued their ideas in ways that their hearers would be familiar with. When Paul refuted the philosophers at the Areopagus [Mars Hill, Acts 17] he made use of the public forum to get his points across. Paul operated in an intellectual world, as opposed to Peters fishing background. But they all presented Christ in his fullness, whether the message came from a fisherman or a theologian. Paul simply had a little better equipment when it came to refuting the false philosophies of his day. He didn’t buy the argument that ‘they were not in his sphere’ sort of like religion belongs ‘in the church building’ but leave the science and philosophy to us. He had authority from God to function in those spheres.
(1234) 2ND CORINTHIANS 11- Paul fears that the church will be drawn away from the simplicity that is in Christ. He warns of false teachers/apostles and defends his own calling. He says he espoused them to Christ in marriage, yet the false teachers were bringing in a different gospel, spirit and Jesus. He uses this same language in his letter to the Galatians. Who were these false teachers? Probably the Judaisers, the main instigators of Paul. Over the years many well meaning believers who are members of various churches have used verses like this to describe the ‘church down the block’. Whether it was over the gifts of the Spirit, water baptism, or a host of other doctrines. Often times these verses on ‘false teachers’ would be used to strike fear into the hearts of their members. In context these types of verses are speaking of those who reject historic Christianity, the reality of grace and other Christian teaching. Those who were trying to supplant the true gospel and bring the churches under legalism. Now, in this chapter we see Paul make a defense by saying he did not take financial support from the Corinthians, but ‘robbed other churches’ instead. Meaning he did receive financial aid from other believers. He says the churches of Macedonia helped out. We also read in the letter to the Philippians that they too helped Paul with money. I used to think that the only church that Paul did not receive aid from was the Church at Corinth. He does seem to say that he used this style of ‘taking no offerings’ only when at Corinth. Many believers are under the same impression. A careful reading of the New Testament shows us that this was not the case; in Acts chapter 20 [read my commentary on Acts 20] he teaches us that when he was staying with the church at Ephesus he also worked and provided for himself and those who were with him. He says he did this to give the leaders an example, so the Ephesian elders/pastors would not see ministry thru the lens of a hired profession. Peter says the same when speaking as ‘an elder to fellow elders’ taking the oversight of the believers, willingly, not for ‘filthy lucre’. And Paul says the same to the church at Thessalonica. Now some argue that leaders/elders should never accept financial help. I think that is going too far myself [though I never take a dime!]. The point is it was okay for Christian brothers to help other brothers out when in need. The things that Paul tried to avoid was elders/leaders seeing ministry thru the lens of ‘it’s my job’ type of a thing. But Paul clearly says stuff like ‘they that preach the gospel should live of the gospel’ here he is saying those who are actively giving themselves to teaching the word should be taken care of. I suggest you read the sections ‘what in the world is the church’ and ‘prosperity gospel’ I have many posts in there that deal with this issue. Overall Paul did not forbid fellow believers from helping him, but he certainly did not teach a doctrine of ‘sow into my ministry for a harvest’ type of a thing, in a way where he justified extreme wealth coming from the offerings of the churches. We need to keep the entire story/picture in mind when appealing to these verses in the current day. The New Testament is not a materialistic book, it warns against those who ‘peddle the word’ [taught for money]. It plainly tells leaders ‘don’t do it with financial reward in mind’. In today’s media environment these warnings are mocked and described as ‘that old tradition’ many err because they know not the scriptures.
(1235) 2ND CORINTHIANS 12- Before I get into a long history discussion with you guys, let’s hit a few verses. Paul says ‘when I was with you, did I gain a profit from you, take advantage of you?’ or ‘when I sent Titus, did he gain a profit from you?’ He then goes on and says the fathers lay up money for the kids, not the other way around. He says he has spent out of his own pocket for them, and he will continue to do so. He says he does all this so people won’t have the excuse ‘he’s just in it for the money’. Notice, Paul himself did not have the common mindset we see in ministry today. Often times financial appeals are made from Paul’s writings in Corinthians, these appeals often say ‘we are not asking for ourselves, but for you’ it is put in a way that says it would be wrong to not take money from people. That in some way not taking an offering would violate scripture. Paul flatly said he did not take money from them for personal use, nor would he. When the modern church uses Paul’s other sayings in this letter to appeal to giving, we need to share ‘the whole counsel of God’ not just a few verses that fit in with what we practice. Now, Paul speaks about being caught up into ‘heaven’ [Gods realm-Paradise] and hearing truths from God that were not lawful for men to speak. He states that God gave him truth that came from Divine revelation. If you skip a few pages over in your bible, you will hit Galatians. In the first chapter he says how after he was converted he did not confer with the other leaders at Jerusalem, but received teaching straight from God. Let’s discuss what revelation is, how we come to know things. The last few centuries of the first millennium of Christian history you had the ‘Holy Roman Empire’ which was a political/religious union of church and state. Under the emperor Charlemagne the territories of the empire were vast. Those who came after him did not have the same control over the regions that were vast. Eventually you had a form of rule arise that was called Feudalism; the sections of the empire that were too far to benefit directly from Rome would simply come under the authority of the local strongman [much like the present dilemma in Afghanistan, I think it’s time to get our boys out of that mess]. People would come under the authority of a ruler and he would lease out land to the citizens and they would benefit from his protection. The citizens were called Vassals and the land was called a Fief. At one point king John of England would do public penance in a disagreement he had with the Pope and all of England would become a Fief under the rule of the Pope. Now, this would eventually lead up to the development of the strong nation states, an independent identifying with your state/region as opposed to being under Rome and the papacy. This type of independence would allow for the 16th century reformation to happen under Luther. If it were not for Frederick the Wise, the regional authority in Germany where Luther lived, he would have never had the protection or freedom to launch his reformation. Luther also had the influence of being a scholar at Wittenberg. Around the 12th-13th centuries you had the first university pop up at the great cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. The word university simply meant a co-operative effort from two or more people. It applied to many things besides learning. It was also during this time that the church began to develop a system of harmonizing Christian doctrine; she began to do systematic theology. The writings of the Greek philosophers [Aristotle] were rediscovered after centuries of them being hidden, and the great intellectual Saint Thomas Aquinas would wed Aristotle’s ideas with Christian truth. This became known as Scholasticism. Aquinas believed that men could arrive at a true knowledge of God from pure reason and logic. But man could not know all the truths about God and his nature without ‘special revelation’ [the bible and church tradition]. All Christians did not agree with Aquinas new approach to Christian truth, the very influential bishop Bernard would initially condemn Aquinas over this. Bernard said ‘the faith that believes unto righteousness, believes! It does not doubt’. The Scholastic school taught that the way you arrive at knowledge was thru the continuous questioning and doubting of things until you come to some basic conclusions. These issues would be debated for centuries, and even in the present hour many argue over the issue of Divine revelation versus natural logical reasoning. Tertullian, an early North Afrcian church father, said ‘I believe because it is preposterous, illogical’ he became famous for his saying ‘what does Jerusalem have to do with Athens’ meaning he did not believe that Greek philosophy should have any part with Christian truth. Origen, his contemporary, believed the other way. So the debate rages on. Why talk about this here? Some believers ‘believe’ in a type of knowledge called ‘revelation knowledge’ they mean something different than the historic use of the term. Historically ‘revelation’ meant that which God revealed to us THRU THE BIBLE, not something outside of the bible. For instance, the first canon of scripture put together was by a man called Marcion. His ‘bible’ contained the letters of Paul and parts of :Luke. He believed the revelation God gave Paul was for us today, not the Old Testament or the historical gospels. He was condemned by the church as a heretic. The point being some took Paul’s writings about receiving knowledge from God as an indicator that what God showed Paul was different than what the church got thru the other apostles. In point of fact the things that God revealed to Paul, or to you or me; all truth is consistent, it will not contradict any other part of Gods truth. Paul’s letters are consistent with the gospels, not in contradiction. When believers cling to an idea that their teachers are sharing ‘special revelation’ or a Rhema word that is somehow above the scrutiny of scripture, then they are in dangerous territory. Paul did appeal to his experience with God as a defense of his gospel, but he backed up everything he said with Old Testament scripture. God wasn’t ‘revealing’ things to Paul that were outside of the realm of true knowable ‘truth’. You could examine and test the things Paul was saying, he wasn’t saying ‘because God showed it to me, that’s why I’m correct’. So in today’s church world, we want all the things we learn and believe to be consistent with what the church has believed thru out the centuries. Sure there are always things that are going to be questioned and true reform entails this, but beware of teachers who come to you with ‘revelation knowledge’ or a ‘Rhema word’ that goes against the already revealed word of truth.
(1236) 2ND CORINTHIANS 13- Okay, it took 13 days to do this brief study. Paul finished up his letter by telling them that God gave him authority to build them up, not tear them down. The message bible says ‘to not tear them apart’. Why say this? Because after 13 chapters [yes, I know the chapters are not in the original!] it sure felt like he wrung them thru a wringer. In Jeremiah 1:10 God gives him power to root out, tear down, uproot and also build up. If you read the exact wording Jeremiah does 4 ‘deconstructing acts’ and 2 constructing ones. It is part of leadership to spend more time dealing with the problems than doing the good stuff. Dealing with the problems is actually part of ‘the good stuff’. We spent a few weeks simply trying to look at the context of Paul and his relating to the Corinthians. How many good men and churches spend whole lifetimes quoting a verse or two from this letter, maybe during an offering time. Then applying it in a way that has people focused on money and wealth building [a verse like ‘he became poor so we might be rich’] and yet the verse is totally taken out of context. You might hear it a million times thru out your whole church going experience, and yet never really come to a sober understanding of the text. These types of problems [proof texting] are a major problem in the Protestant/Evangelical churches, good men simply losing their way. Paul was tough on the believers, but when he was thru with them they were much better off for it. The level of correction and reproof in the modern church is very low, we simply do not receive or listen to reproof. Those who wish to excel in their callings and purposes in God are those who listen and make the proper adjustments. Proverbs says reproofs and correction are the path to life. As I finish up another one of our many blog studies, I am not sure what we will do next, but as you read these brief New Testament studies, see them in context. Look at them as whole letters that have meaning, don’t just see individual verses. When you read these letters as a ‘whole’ you will stay on course and avoid the snares and weeds that may prominent preachers and teachers have fallen into, you will avoid the pitfalls of creating a story from a few chopped up sections of a letter. Seeing these wonderful New Testament letters in context will ground you in grace and keep you on course, in the end you will be built up on a good foundation. Like Paul said in his first letter to them ‘if any man build wood, hay, stubble- or precious stones’; the day of judgment will show what you valued the most. Those who take these letters and turn them into moneymaking schemes, or techniques for worldly success, they have built things that will burn up. Those who take these epistles and build their lives on Gods grace and the reality of the Cross, their lives will show good fruit that will not be burned up on the Day of Judgment.
(1237) WHAT DOES ‘SOLA SCRIPTURA’ MEAN? During the 16th century Protestant Reformation you had the Reformers [Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc.] come down on the side of ‘sola scriptura’ which meant ‘the bible alone’. That is they felt the scriptures should have the final say in deciding the doctrinal matters of the church. Many modern Protestant groups have taken a wrong view of sola scriptura; they seem to think it means ‘solo scriptura’- me and my bible. What’s the difference? The historic Protestants felt the bible had the final say, but they also taught that the scriptures should be understood and read thru the historic framework of the church. That is the ‘sense’ that most believers have had when reading Gods word. Calvin would appeal to the past writings of Augustine and other church fathers when making his case. During the time of the Reformation you also had what came to be called ‘the Radical Reformation’ or the Ana-Baptists [which meant re-baptizers]. They rejected infant baptism and wanted to make a clean break from all traditional Christianity. The Magisterial Reformers thought they went too far, I stood at the spot in Zurich where Zwingli ‘baptized’ them in the river [he drowned them]. So as you can see there are various degrees of ‘sola/solo scriptura’. Is it possible to come to a right conclusion from reading the bible alone? Sure, most of my ideas have come this way. The problem seems to be when preachers/believers read things out of context. When reading any book, if you took a verse/sentence from one chapter and added it to another chapter. And then memorized all these sentences and put together your own meaning, then no matter how ‘well meaning’ the person is, he is going to get the story wrong. The Reformers believed it was important to read and understand the bible in the context of the wider church. Pope Benedict agrees, he said it was important to know how the whole church has viewed a particular truth thru out all time. These insights are important for our day. Is it possible for ‘all the church’ to have missed it on a certain subject? You bet, the point is when ‘the whole church’ begins to rise up and say ‘yeah, we missed it’ then you have true reform. Too often you find separated groups of believers who have grasped onto some truth, maybe it’s a real insight that others don’t see yet, but then they become isolated and their truth becomes a stumbling block. They often use their truth as the criteria to judge all other Christians. They will discount everything the other Christian groups have to say, because they ‘know for sure’ that they are wrong on that one particular doctrine. I think it’s time for the Protestant/Evangelical church to get back to ‘sola scriptura’; that is to read and believe in the bible as the final authority on doctrinal decisions, but to also have a working knowledge on how all other Christian groups see, or have seen these same truths.
(1238) PSLAMS 37- I have been meditating on this Psalm for the past few days, it speaks to our day ‘fret not thyself because of evildoers, for those who seem to prosper in what they are doing’. Recently we have had the political storm over ACORN, the community group who has it’s hands in all types of things. They actually have done some good in helping the poor, but the conservatives finally got them! What do you expect when your people offer help to a fake pimp and prostitute when they are looking for ‘housing’? Oh my, how have we fretted over the wicked. Or ‘a little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many wicked’ last night I was reading the bio’s of John Wycliffe and John Hus, the two great ‘pre-reformers’. Wycliffe preached/taught out of Oxford England and would contrast the riches and wealth of the Pope with the poverty of Jesus and his men. He taught the ‘true church’ were those who knew God and were part of the spiritual community of believers, not limited to any earthly institution. He would send his poor preachers out 2 by 2 and they would infiltrate England [they were called Lollards]. Hus would read the writings of Wycliffe and lead Bohemia down the same road. Hus preached at the influential Bethlehem church in Prague and also had influence at the university. These men believed that ‘the poverty of the righteous would go further than the riches of many wicked’. They truly turned their world upside down while rejecting the idea that we all need to become rich in order to have real influence. This Psalm says the meek will inherit the earth and delight themselves in the abundance of peace. The wicked might seem like he’s spreading out like a huge tree, but his efforts are temporary. Jesus said the kingdom of God was like planting a small seed and it becoming a huge tree, are you looking to plant ‘a huge tree’? We often view the kingdom thru God using us to gather great wealth and resources, organizing some corporation, and then this ‘huge tree’ will get the job done. Jesus approach was to gather these outcasts of society, invest his life into them, and his life, death, resurrection and example would become the ‘seed bed’ that would start a worldwide revolution. Don’t fret over what it seems like the ‘wicked’ are getting away with, just simply follow Jesus, your little bit can accomplish much more than the riches of many wicked [geez, ACORN was getting millions, but the church of Jesus has been helping the poor for 2 thousand years. I don’t know why we fret over this stuff!]
(1239) CATHEDRAL OF THE MIND- I came across this phrase the other day while reading some church history, I liked the idea that it expressed. These last few years I have ‘weaned’ myself off of the standard preaching shows. But I have watched/listened/read from theologians, both Catholic and Protestant [primarily from the Reformed tradition]. I include Eastern Orthodoxy under the subtitle of Catholic [though they would see it the other way around]. Now, the Christian church has had a voice of justice to the nations for many centuries. The Catholic Church gets credit for having a system in place that can speak cohesively and with authority to the nations. The Protestant church has yet to achieve this type of unity. But there are many noble scholars and teachers from the Protestant tradition that the average Protestant is unfamiliar with. Most of the preacher friends I know and have fellowshipped with over the years have spent lots of time listening and learning from the popular media channels, the books read and programs watched are for the most part modern success teachings. Much of it is void of the gospel as seen in the New Testament. During the Reformation you had a transition from the ‘church meeting’ that went from sacrament/Eucharist as being the central theme of the meeting, to preaching/pulpit as becoming the center. While this was a noble attempt to get the average church goer back to Gods word, it also produced a passivity in the life of the average believer. He became accustomed to thinking worship primarily consisted of going to a building and hearing a lecture. So even though the ancient Mass had some problems, the New Protestant church service had some of their own. Now, the ‘cathedral of the mind’- the manifold wisdom that exists in the intellectual mind of the church is tremendous. But you really can’t access it unless you read and learn from the classics. There is a verse that says ‘son, cease to listen to the teaching that leads you astray’ the Christian needs to make a conscious effort to ‘cease to listen’ to some stuff. Now I am not advocating the boycotting of any contemporary preachers, but to truly become educated we need to choose wisely. Many of the Catholic voices have tremendous wisdom, but to listen to them you need to acquire a different type of ear. Father Groeschel says listening to the Protestant sermon is often like trying to get a drink from a fire hydrant. He doesn’t mean to offend, but I understand where he is coming from. To listen to certain scholars you need to develop a new intellectual capacity that contrasts the average way Protestants learn [the preaching of the word]. I do believe there are important doctrinal differences between Catholics and Protestants, that’s why I am still a Protestant. But many times Protestants are misinformed on some of these things. Bishop Fulton Sheen used to say ‘there are 10 thousand people who hate what they think is the Catholic Church, only a few actually hate the church’ while he might be overstating his case, I get his point. For the believer to truly understand why he associates with either the Catholic [Orthodox] or Protestant wing of Christianity, he first needs to develop an appetite for true learning, there are many areas of knowledge and wisdom that the average believer needs to become familiar with. God does not require all believers to become intellectuals, but he does want us to love him with all of our hearts, souls, minds and might. Do you love God with your mind?
(1240) 2nd KINGS 1- The king of Israel is on his roof in Samaria and falls thru. He sends his men to inquire from a pagan god whether or not he will get healed. On the way Elijah meets them and tells them because he sought information from a forbidden source, he will die. They go back and the king realizes it was Elijah. So he sends 50 men to tell Elijah to come and see the king; Elijah calls down fire from heaven and they get ‘sacrificed’. This happens with the second group of 50 as well. The third group comes and says ‘please, we don’t want to die like the rest, just come and see the king for heavens sake’. Elijah goes. He tells the king that he will die because he sought foreign gods and rejected the true God. In Luke 9 the disciples ask Jesus ‘do you want us to call down fire from heaven and burn them up, like Elijah did’? They treated the story as literal. Why did the disciples ask this? Jesus was going to Jerusalem and he sent two men to Samaria, the same city where the king of Israel was associating himself with. The people did not welcome him because he had his mind already set on Jerusalem. The whole history of Israel and Judah [northern and southern tribes] involved a debate over where true worship occurred. Samaria was considered a low class place; the people had little respect in the eyes of the pure Jew. Jesus disciples saw nothing wrong with the death of these Samaritans. Jesus told them that his kingdom was not about getting rid of the ‘heretics’ but redeeming them. It seems strange that the disciples would even contemplate the death of these ‘illegals’, after all Jesus is going around healing and helping people who are considered low class. He is trying to instill this mindset into his men, but yet somehow on the road to the Kingdom they see no contradiction in thinking that part of the process would include the destruction of a whole society of people. Many sincere Christians/preachers seem to make this same mistake in their treatment of Muslims/Arabs. No matter how theologically wrong a certain class of people are, yet their destruction is not part of the plan. Let me also mention the error that many well meaning Catholics have fallen into in my part of the world. Over the years I have had the privilege of working with lots of brothers who have come from strong Mexican/Catholic backgrounds. Often times they would see nothing wrong with going to a ‘Catholic fortune teller’ or hiring someone to place a curse on an enemy. The Catholic Church expressly teaches against this. There are many differences between Catholics and Protestants; one of them is the teaching of asking the saints who have died to intercede for us. The Catholic Church does not teach ‘praying to the saints’ in the sense of praying to God for prayer to be answered. Many Catholics and Protestants are confused about this, many do think that praying to the saints is like asking God to answer a prayer. The official Catholic doctrine is you can ‘pray’ in the sense that you are asking a believer who has died to ‘pray for you’. In essence the doctrine teaches you can ask a believer who has died to pray for you, because in reality they are still alive. Okay, I personally don’t go for this, but I get the difference. Here close to Mexico there is a superstitious mixing of saints with actual occult practices [Santeria]. Many Catholics have a misguided understanding of seeking these practices and thinking they are Catholic in nature. They are not. So in this chapter we see that seeking wisdom from a pagan/occult source brought death upon the king. I want to warn all of our readers [both Catholic and Protestant] that the official teaching of both churches condemns doing this, don’t do it!
(1241) 2nd KINGS 2- Elijah is going to be taken up into heaven and Elisha follows him, Elijah tells him to leave but Elisha requests a double portion of the Spirit that anointed Elijah. He tells Elisha that if he witnesses his translation into heaven he will get it. As Elisha follows Elijah to the various towns [Bethel, Jericho, etc.] he runs into the ‘sons of the prophets’ who independently tell Elisha that Elijah will be taken this day. These sons of the prophets are the same group from the ‘school of the prophets’ under Samuel. They lived a communal lifestyle, were provided for by offerings from the community and were recognized as a legitimate group sent from God. Over the years I have had both ‘prophetic’ type experiences as well as learning and growing in Christian truth. Often time’s believers will live their whole lives only experiencing and learning Christianity from their particular group. While many of these various denominations are fine groups, they are only a limited picture of the church. The problem comes in when one group sees itself as ‘the group’ to the exclusion of the other groups. There are ‘prophetic groups’ who operate in these gifts, these gifts do exist and function in the church today. Many of these groups have cut themselves off from the ‘intellectual’ branch of the church. Some seem to regulate their entire Christian experience around the gift. Often times it is next to impossible to correct them doctrinally, because they believe that the fact that they do experience real prophetic gifts justifies all their beliefs. Often times they are wrong. Many times the young believers who follow these gifted men/movements become infatuated with the gift and never truly grow in the things of God. Having said all this, we also need to be open to the miraculous gifts of the Spirit that the bible speaks about. The majority view of Christianity [Catholic, Orthodox and most Protestants] do believe in the charismatic gifts of the Spirit. There are those who try and make a case for their cessation [cessationists!] but for the most part these gifts do and have functioned since the early days of Christianity. I can personally give you many examples from my own story; let me share a recent one. A few weeks ago I had some of my homeless friends over for a fellowship time. We had communion and shared the word in my yard. This spot is the same spot where I pray over the communities of people that we relate to. I have a habit of ‘anointing’ myself with oil while praying for the brothers. I will actually put anointing oil on my head and pray ‘just like this oil is on me, Lord anoint all those we are reaching out to’. One of the homeless guys is very gifted and he does function in the gift of Prophecy, he will often make off the cuff comments and he does not realize that he is actually prophesying. So any way as we were all sitting in my yard he keeps telling me ‘you know brother, I keep thinking of the verse in the bible where the oil was on Aarons head and it ran down to the rest of his body’. This is a verse in Psalms that coincides with the exact type of prayer thing that I regularly do over the guys in this exact spot. So it’s stuff like this that shows me that prophetic people and gifts are not all fakes. Now Elijah does a few prophetic things before the chariots from heaven come and take him; he strikes the Jordan with his mantle [coat] and it dries up for him to cross. After Elisha witnesses Elijah’s ascension he does receive the ‘double portion’ and on his way back into town he does the same thing. The sons of the prophets recognize that the mantle [gift] passed from Elijah to Elisha. A few things; in this chapter we see that those who witness the ascension of ‘the prophet’ receive a greater anointing. Of course this reminds us of the early church, they were the group that saw Jesus ascend and did receive the Spirit. Some say that Elisha does twice the miracles as Elijah [the double portion]. I underlined all the miracles once and think they might be off one or two miracles, but they do come close [Elijah 7, Elisha 13 or 14]. Jesus said we would do greater miracles than he did [in number we would do greater works as the family of God]. And of course the miracles surrounding the Jordan and Elisha pouring salt in the fountain of water to ‘heal the waters’, all these images speak of the ministry of Jesus and John and the significance of baptism and how Jesus would ‘heal the waters’ i.e.; he would unite with us in the waters of the Jordan and we would meet with him thru the ordinance of baptism, in essence Jesus ‘healed the waters’ by his pure life, his ‘saltiness’ [preservation power]. Jesus said we were the salt of the earth. So there are some good prophetic pictures from a prophetic chapter. All in all we as believers are to be grounded in the word, have a grasp on all the various groups/movements that constitute Christianity, and be open to the miraculous. God has given us his Spirit and we do have the ability as Gods people to function in these gifts. But at the end of the day our assurance is in the Lord, not in our gifts.
(1242) Read a few chapters from Brian McLaren’s ‘everything must change’ thought I’d comment. I like Brian’s writing style, I agree with him on believers needing to be challenged to see things differently, but I disagree on some of his ‘everything’s’. He challenges the idea of objective thinking as defined as foundationalism. He explains well the questioning of modern intellectuals after the world wars and Holocaust of the 20th century. He shows how certain thinkers began looking for answers to the problem of society’s failure as seen in these events. He also shows how some blamed the events on ‘foundationalism’ which is a way of ‘seeing things’ [epistemology] as defined by Rene Descartes. These thinkers diagnosed the problem as society’s acceptance of absolutes, they felt that this led to an ‘overconfidence’ in right and wrong and this in turn allowed for these atrocities to happen. Many modern thinkers would disagree with this conclusion. I find it interesting that Brian makes some statements about Evolution that seem to say he accepts the theory, but yet he fails to see the role that Social Darwinism played as a precursor to the Holocaust. You could make the opposite argument that it was the rejection of absolutes, and the rise of liberal theology from the universities in Germany that led to these events. Many scholars began questioning Gods truth and laid a foundation that said ‘we really can’t trust Gods truth’ [or even know it]. To be honest these debates are a little philosophical and I didn’t think Brian would go down this road, but he does so I will deal with it. Many ‘post moderns’ believe that one of the things that must change is the ‘old’ [what is termed modern] way of thinking. These new thinkers assert that truth itself, as an absolute thing that people can know for sure, is out of mans reach. They question the modern way of thinking that teaches there are certain absolutes [preconceived ways of thinking that everyone accepts]. These new thinkers say this ‘foundationalism’ is the problem. Did the enlightenment invent this mode of objectivism? No. Thinkers from Aristotle to Aquinas to Descartes all approached thinking this way. It was defined more clearly during the enlightenment period. But this is a philosophical debate that goes on in these various camps. You have had very smart people disagree on these things. The great theologian Karl Barth would say you are not truly educated until you can ‘affirm both sides of an argument, accept contradictory definitions of the same thing’ many believe this would lead to lunacy! The two greatest theoretical physicists of the last century also disagreed on this. Neils Bohr would say that you can have two contradictory truths about a subject, and they could both be true, Einstein disagreed. So these things have been around for a while, many of the eastern religions teach the same [Zen]. So I would disagree with Brian on this, but do agree with him on the need for believers to expand their concerns from simple ‘going to heaven when I die’ concerns, to social justice concerns in the nations. He does give some good examples along these lines.
(1243) 2ND KINGS 3- Jehoram, king of Israel, goes after the king of Moab because he stopped paying him the taxes/extortion fees after his father died. Ahab, Jehoram’s father was feared [because of his wife Jezebel] and the king of Moab figured ‘heck, we were scared of the other president, but this new young buck doesn’t instill the same fear’ [sound familiar?]. Never the less the ‘young buck’ forms an alliance with two other kings [France, Germany? Or Britain, you pick] and he goes after Moab. They go on this 7 day journey to attack Moab, and lo and behold they realize that they don’t have the resources to finish the job [Afghanistan?]. They never took into account the actual problems they would run into with the terrain; they found no water sources for their troops or the animals. Now, Moab probably knew about the land situation, he knew it would turn to their benefit [Taliban]. So the 3 kings- Jehoram king of Israel, Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and the king of Edom are facing a dilemma. They have all their troops already in the field [their committed] and yet they don’t have the proper resources to finish [oh let’s say they need 40 thousand more]. So the King of Judah asks Jehoram if there is a prophet in the land who can help. Enter Elisha. They go to the prophet and he rebukes them, but for the sake of the king of Judah he seeks God and gives them a word from the Lord. He tells them to dig holes thru out the area and God will supernaturally fill them. I don’t know how God did it, but the chapter says he brought the water over the land, possibly some regional flood? The point is that what they saw as a major obstacle, lack of resources, turned out to be a key element of their victory. The fact that the king of Moab knew there was no water in the land, this led him to believe that what he saw in the morning was blood from the slain army. He looked out over the land and the reflection of the water looked like blood to him. So he mounts an attack and gets defeated. God often times allows our perceived weaknesses to become the key to our victory. Paul said he gloried in his faults and weaknesses, because it was thru these things that God’s power rested upon him. At the end of the battle the king of Moab realizes that he is in over his head and makes one valiant attempt to at least take the king of Edom down with him. He must be thinking ‘geez, I’m fixin to get wiped out, might as well make one last ditch effort to take out this punk’ he takes 700 men and makes a charge, he can’t break thru. So he offers his son on the wall as a sacrifice to his god. Moab would have been better off if they simply kept paying the taxes. Okay, I really don’t want to draw too much of a comparison with president Obama and the present situation, but there are some common themes. He does seem to have less ‘fear/respect’ in the area of military might than his predecessor. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it could turn out to be bad. Our situation in Afghanistan is not good; we do not presently have the troops in there to do whatever the heck we are trying to do. It looks like we are going to change strategy and downsize. And last but not least, we need to be more careful when making decisions that adversely affect our allies. The decision to drop plans to place a ground based missile defense system on the border of Poland and Russia was probably a good strategic move. But politically it did hurt some allies. The day Obama made the decision not to go ahead with the Bush agenda was the anniversary of a previous invasion of Poland by Russia, not a smart decision to say the least. All in all the king of Israel made some decisions, he got in over his head but thanks to some allies and a word from the Lord, things turned out for the better. I think we can all learn some lessons from this chapter.
(1244) 2ND KINGS 4:1-7 A wife of the prophets whose husband died asks Elisha for help. She is in debt and the creditors have come to take her sons as payment. Elisha asks her what she has in her house; she says a pot of oil. He tells her to go borrow empty pots from her neighbors and go in her house and shut the door and fill the empty pots. She fills them all by a miracle and he tells her to sell the oil and pay off the debt, and use the rest to live off of. This chapter has a few more miraculous things that remind us of the ministry of Jesus, we will do it tomorrow. But this miracle shows us the ability of God to ‘take little’ and make it go far. Jesus does this with the loaves and fish. Some see these miracles as Gods way of telling us he will increase our material wealth, after all he gave this woman a goose that lays golden eggs! I see these stories thru a different light; Jesus was showing us that ‘our little bit’ can go very far. In the stories of Jesus multiplying the bread and fish, the disciples actually tell Jesus ‘how can we feed the multitudes, we don’t have enough money’? He shows them that they don’t ‘need enough money’ all they need is him! When people read the bible with their ‘pair of glasses on’ they naturally see these stories in ways that justify their preconceived ideas, we need to let God change these ideas.
Now to the book ‘Everything must change’ by McLaren. I read a few more chapters and thought I’d talk. Brian compares the conventional view of the gospel with the Emergent view. He seems to be too critical of some of the basic elements of the gospel. He kinda speaks condescendingly about original sin and Jesus death saving us from God’s wrath and how these things apply to God’s chosen. He actually states the gospel fairly well, but he does it in a critical way. He then states the Emergent view and shows how Emergent’s see a global justice picture for all people. I don’t see the need to reject the first view in order to embrace the second. He uses an example from the gospels and Mary's Magnificat to prove his point. He shows us the expectation of natural Israel when they saw the appearing of the Messiah thru a nationalistic lens; true enough. He then uses this example to show us that the conventional view of Jesus and personal conversion is missing the point, that the true ‘framing story’ is about social justice in the nations. I think you can take the story the other way around; that Jesus actually corrects the immediate expectation of Israel and their nationalistic view and tells them ‘the kingdom of God must first begin in you’. In essence Jesus interjects the ‘conventional view’ and the need to deal with ‘original sin’ before they can expect any outward changes in society. I am not sure why Brian seems to be so against the doctrine of original sin, the only thing I can imagine is he has read a lot of social gospel material and 19th, 20th century liberal theology. These teachings were very much against original sin because they felt it instilled in man a sort of hopelessness to effect society as a whole. The liberal theologians rejected classic expressions of original sin because they felt these doctrines gave to man an excuse to not work for change and social justice in society. Good men like Charles Finney embraced these beliefs. The only problem with this is the bible most definitely teaches the doctrine of original sin! ‘In Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive’ ‘As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; so thru the righteousness of one man [Jesus] shall many become holy’ [Romans, Corinthians]. The doctrine of original sin is biblical, and being saved from Gods just wrath thru the atonement of Jesus is the heart of the gospel. I accept McLaren’s call for believers to be more concerned and active on the social justice seen, and he does make some good points about the kingdom of God and how it’s much greater than the reductionist ‘me and Jesus’ view. But I disagree on his approach that the conventional expression of the gospel needs to change. Jesus kingdom does begin with the fundamental doctrines and beliefs of redemption and God restoring man back to God thru the atonement, to discard these truths and to replace them with ‘another framing view’ in my mind is a big mistake.
(1245) 2ND KINGS 4:8-37 Elisha travels thru a town called Shunem and a woman decides to prepare a little ‘prophets room’ for him on the city wall. She goes out of her way to assist in Elisha’s ministry. So he wants to return the kind deed and he asks what he could do for her. He finds out that she has had no kids and prophesies that she will have a child. She disbelieves the word but sure enough she has the child. One day when the boy is in the field with his dad he gets sick and dies. The woman lays his body in Elisha’s room and heads out to meet him. He comes back with her and raises the child from the dead. Elisha has already multiplied the oil supernaturally [well God did it] and here he raises the dead. He truly is doing the miraculous signs of a prophet among them. I am still reading Brian McLaren’s book ‘everything must change’ and I like the way Brian shows us how the ministry of Jesus was a challenge to unjust power and human government. He actually uses the example from Pontius Pilate, when Jesus was asked ‘are you the king of the Jews’ and Jesus says yes, he came to testify of the truth. Pilate says ‘what is truth’ and McLaren uses this to illustrate that unjust power structures see truth as this ‘wishy washy’ type thing. I find it funny that Brian accuses Pilate of being a ‘postmodern, relativist’ McLaren himself espouses postmodernism! In the prophetic ministry of Jesus the father gave him the tools he needed to accomplish the mission, in the gospel of John we read ‘many other miracles did Jesus do that are not written in this book, but these are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that by believing you would have life thru his name’. Jesus shook up the systems of his day; he knew the prophecies concerning him that were found in the Old Testament. One of them said ‘Gentiles shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising’ when Pilate asked Jesus ‘are you this king or not’ Jesus replied ‘did someone tell you this about me, or did you come up with this idea on your own’. Jesus knew that the Father had promised him that he would impact nations, that kings and rulers would hear his ‘narrative’ and be changed. He fulfilled the 3 years of earthly ministry; he raised the dead, opened blind eyes, fed the masses. Now his time has come to take the cup and drink it. Much is on his mind, at the moment of truth Pilate asks him if he is really who he said he was. Jesus says ‘I can’t lie, for this reason was I born. I am taking this thing to the end, I am going to finish the course that God has set before me’. Pilate was simply a ‘first fruit’ of Roman rulers that would hear about the story of Jesus. After his death and resurrection many kings and aristocrats would come to the Christian religion. Within a few short centuries the whole empire would succumb to a form of Christianity under the Emperor Constantine. Truly Gentiles have come to his light and kings to the brightness of his ‘rising’, before you can rise, you must die. Jesus drank the cup and finished the course, the Father kept his promise.
(1246) 2ND KINGS 4:38-44 Elisha has a ministry to the younger prophets; they see him as a father figure in a way. He prepares a ‘great pot’ of food for them, but one of the inexperienced prophets accidently picked a poisonous plant and put it in the pot. Once they start eating they realize that they have all been feeding off of something that is damaging, they panic! Elisha quickly puts another ingredient in the stew to undo the bad effects. Okay, I see a parable here. Often time’s good young men are feeding from sources that have much good in them. These sources believe Gods word, confess it regularly, they have much good in ‘the pot’. But because of inexperience some bad things get into the pot. These bad things have a way of infecting the entire meal. When you first start eating from the pot, you don’t realize it’s bad. When someone tries to tell you there is some bad stuff in the pot, the normal reaction is ‘how dare you tell me that I have been duped! Who do you think you are, there is much good in this pot’? But eventually after the dust settles down, they recognize the experience of the older prophet and allow him to ‘add his meal’ to the pot. I want to encourage all of the ‘younger prophets/leaders’ don’t be too willing to eat everything in the pot, there are many sources of teaching and preaching that are very abundant in today’s church world, I mean it’s a big pot, but it’s takes discernment to know that sometimes bad weeds get into the pot. Let mature leadership add their part, it often neutralizes the bad stuff. And the last miracle in the chapter has Elisha multiplying the loaves and grain for the prophets. He does a multiplication miracle like Jesus did in the New Testament. The church went thru a stage where she rejected the miraculous stories in the bible, this period took place in the late 19th, early 20th century. It was called liberalism/higher criticism and it arose primarily out of the universities in Germany [Marburg being a main one]. Men like Rudolph Bultman reacted to enlightenment thinking and tried to create a view of scripture that still had value, but was not to be taken literally when it came to the miracles. This was called ‘de-mythologizing’ they used the word ‘myth’ to mean stories that had good moral value, but weren’t meant to be taken literally; sort of like a parable. So these brothers would say that Jesus really didn’t multiply the loaves and fish, but that he appealed to mans better instincts and the people all shared their food with everyone else. Or that the parting of the Red Sea was really the ‘Reed Sea’ and stuff like that. Some still hold to these types of things, but for the most part this way of seeing scripture is no longer a popular view. Elisha had some supernatural stuff going on, there was no reason to reject or disbelieve the things that happened, but this does not mean that there is never a time for correction and reproof. Many who operate in these gifts are very limited in their understanding and grasp of scripture. I don’t want to sound condescending, but the history on this stuff is out there; many have gone off the deep end doctrinally while operating in supernatural gifts. Elisha was prophetic, but he also knew when it was time to add ‘some meal’ to the pot, to put some stuff in that would neutralize the poison. I think we need some meal.
(1247) 2ND KINGS 5- A Syrian army commander has leprosy, he hears about Elisha the prophet and goes to get healed. He is carrying a letter from the king of Syria that requests that the king of Israel heal him. The king of Israel is distraught ‘who does he think I am? Am I God?’ Elisha hears about the matter and says ‘send him to me, after I get thru with him he will know that there is a prophet in the land’. As Naaman arrives at the door of Elisha, Elisha sends out a servant to give him a message ‘go, dip yourself 7 times in the Jordan and you will get healed’. Naaman is upset, he says ‘I thought he would at least come out and make a big show and do some great healing! Are not the waters of Syria better than this stinking Jordan!’ He storms off. His men tell him ‘look, if he told you to do some great act, wouldn’t you have done it? So why not give it a shot and go get wet’. He dips in the Jordan and gets healed. He is elated! He goes back to the prophet and wants to give him an offering, Elisha refuses to take it. On his way back home Elisha’s servant stops him and says ‘my master changed his mind, 2 prophets just stopped by and he now will accept the money/gift’. He lied. As the servant arrives back at Elisha’s house, Elisha confronts him ‘hey Gehazi, where did you go’ he tells him nowhere. Elisha tells him ‘did not my heart go with you when the chariot turned’ he knew he was caught. Elisha rebukes him strongly over wanting to make material gain at this time ‘is this a time to build wealth! To gain land and servants and stuff’ he curses him and puts the leprosy of Naaman on him. Okay, let’s do a little stuff; first, the king of Israel felt like the expectations of the other ‘middle eastern’ Arab countries were too high. The king of Syria flat out treated him like he was God! Oh I don’t know, have there been any leaders recently that have been given the title ‘messiah’ [they gave it mockingly, but the expectations were very high]. And we must not overlook the strong rebuke of Gehazi, and Elisha’s unwillingness to take an offering. We often read all of these stories and only see the parts where God provided for someone, or reduced their debt [the woman with the oil]. We read and preach on the ‘wealth verses’ to the degree where we don’t even see the ‘rebuking of wealth’ verses. Then after many years we develop a wealth mentality in the people of God to the point where they never see the warnings. Without going too far down this road, remember Jesus told his men ‘freely you have received, freely give’. In context he was speaking of the divine gifts of the Spirit that they were given. He was sending them out to heal and cast out demons, he was telling them don’t turn this thing into a money making enterprise! And let’s end with some practical stuff- as I continue to read thru Brian McLaren’s ‘everything must change’ I appreciate his emphasis on helping the poor and reaching out to the outcasts of the world. I also understand his view of changing the way we see things, the language used is ‘framing story- narrative’. But I see a problem with overdoing the concept of ‘framing stories’. For instance some Emergent’s believe that the classic expressions of the gospel are no longer valid. That Jesus really didn’t come to call people to repent and believe in the way we think [Brian quotes N.T. Wright and supposes that the term ‘repent and believe’ was more of a popular saying that military commanders used to simply tell people to surrender over to the new empire. He uses an example from Josephus. I get the point, but believe that this association is rather week. Jesus very much did call people to repent and believe in the classic way we understand it]. Anyway to ‘re-frame’ the gospel in a way that says the real message/purpose of Jesus was to simply change the pictures we use in ‘our story’ is too simple. The best example I can think of would be Jesus conversation with Nicodemus in John’s gospel. Jesus is speaking from the ‘narrative’ of Gods kingdom, Nicodemus is hearing from his own religious frame work. No matter how hard Jesus uses the new framework, or how hard Nicodemus tries to see this new story, he can’t. Jesus tells him it’s impossible to change his ‘framing story’ without changing him! ‘Unless a man is born again, HE CAN NOT SEE THIS KINGDOM’ so I think we can go too far in restating the classic gospel. Yes, believers should be challenged to see things from new/fresh perspectives. But these new perspectives can only be truly seen when we experience personal conversion. Jesus very much wants us to see the story from his perspective, but realistically he knows unless we are born again, we will never truly see it.
(1248) AX HEADS THAT FLOAT!- 2ND KINGS 6:1-7 The prophets tell Elisha that their current ‘dwelling place’ is too small, they request permission to go to the Jordan and build a new dwelling. Jordan in scripture represents more than just a river that John baptized people in. In the history of Israel Jordan has been a type of crossing over from a previous identity and becoming mature and responsible as Gods people. It was a cutting off from the old land and economy and things they trusted, and coming into a new kingdom, one ruled by God. This also played a role in Johns baptism, Israel knew what Jordan meant; John was telling them to leave their old world mindsets and step into a new kingdom. So the prophets go and build a new place by the Jordan. One of the brothers dropped an ax head into the water and panics ‘Oh no, I lost the ax head, it was borrowed’. Elisha brakes off a stick and throws it into the water and the head floats, King James say ‘it swam’. So the brother got the ax head back. How do we relate stories like this and make them applicable to our day? I know, let’s say you were working at a building site and dropped the power saw in the water, and… Well not really. The bible has lots of ‘unorthodox’ stuff in it. I mean Paul sent handkerchiefs to sick people and they were healed. Jesus turns water into wine. Ax heads float. Our Christian experience very much entails supernatural stuff. The other side of the coin is ‘the fake stuff’. Recently the author Dan Brown released another book on supernatural stuff, he wrote the previous best seller ‘The DaVinci code’. These books appeal to mans natural desire for supernatural stuff. The problem with Dan brown is he mixes all types of fairy tale stories in with some valid points. The average reader can’t really tell the difference. I have a book here in my study titled ‘the lost books of the bible’. I bought it years ago for a few dollars at half price books. It really is a treasure; I mean it does have great books from antiquity in it, to get it for a few dollars was a great deal. Now, some of the books were legitimate contenders to have possibly made it into the bible. The epistle of Barnabus, the Didache, possibly the Shepherd of Hermes. There were a few books that the early church debated about including in the canon. But you also had a plethora of obviously fake stuff. The Gnostic writings were well known as cheap imitations of the real thing. These writings are from the late 2nd, 3rd centuries. No legitimate argument was ever made about these writings; all Christians rejected them as being authoritative. But the Dan Brown stories have people thinking that these writings were at one time up for possible inclusion into the canon, that’s just not so. How do we tell the difference between stuff that’s historically reliable and stuff that isn’t? In the field of historiography [looking at ancient writings and weighing their legitimacy] you have scholars who have spent years doing this sort of thing. You look at the actual recording of the events, were they written down fairly closely to the event? Did the authors know the people they were writing about, were they eyewitnesses? How many manuscripts are left? Were they widely accepted? There are real ways to determine stuff like this, the bible stands head and shoulders above all other ancient writings. The Greek New Testament has over 5 thousand original manuscripts. The only other work that comes close is Homer’s Iliad, it has a little over 6oo. Most others have around 10-20. If you include the Latin versions [and other languages besides Greek] you have around 25 thousand copies. The evidence is overwhelming. Now this does not speak to the inspiration of scripture, but it shows us that the bible itself is a highly reliable document when measured by historical standards. What about the Gnostic wrings? They do not stand the test of time in this way. The point being Dan Brown might have piqued the interest of many novice readers of history, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just Christians should be able to give a defense of their faith and appeal to a broad range of actual proofs that defend their position. Hey, if you want interesting stories, come ‘back to the bible’ it has ax heads that can swim for heaven’s sake!
(1249) 2ND KINGS 6:8-23 The king of Syria wars against Israel, but every time he tries to set up an ambush someone keeps informing the king of Israel about it. So the Syrian king calls in his men and accuses them of leaking the info. They inform the king that this is the prophetic work of Elisha. So they go get him. As the Syrian army encamps around Elisha’s place, his servant wakes and up sees the troops and panics, Elisha prays and asks God to ‘open his eyes’ and he gets a sneak peek into the supernatural realm and sees all these chariots of angelic hosts around him ‘there are more with us than with them’ a famous verse indeed. So Elisha prays to the Lord to ‘blind’ the Syrians from his true identity [sort of like when Jesus was with the disciples on the Emmaus road] and he goes to the troops and tells them ‘the man you’re looking for is not here, follow me, I’ll show you where he is’. So he leads them into the midst of Samaria and right into the hands of the king of Israel. Then he prays ‘Lord open their eyes’ and they are in ‘shock and awe’ [to quote Rummie]. The king of Israel asks Elisha ‘should I slay them’? Elisha says no, but feed them and treat them well. He asks the king ‘would you slay those whom you captured thru military means’? Obviously the answer is no, so likewise they should be treated like captives and not harmed. Okay, how should we read the biblical narratives on war? One of the most known atheists in the country today is Sam Harris; he is a sincere writer and speaks against what he sees as the flaws of war based religion. He echoes the words of Thomas Paine in his book ‘the age of reason’ [18th century]. Harris sees the danger of world religions embracing a war mentality and believing that terror and warfare are on their side. He cites realities like the Muslim radicals who shout ‘God is great’ as they blow themselves and innocents up. He points out the stories in the bible where God commands his people to wipe out other ethnic groups [genocide] and he berates the Christians for their militaristic end time views and how their beliefs in a violent return of Jesus hinder world peace. Many thinkers have raised these questions and the church shouldn’t simply shrug these men off as pagans. In the story we just read it should be noted that God himself, thru his prophet, commanded the fair treatment of captives. That Jesus and the New Testament revelation are a radical revolution of peaceful demonstration ‘if your enemy hits you, don’t retaliate and return evil for evil. Instead bless them’. In general believers need to reorient their world view around the gospels and the actual message and life of Christ. When using the Old Testament we are to look for the hidden nuggets of wisdom that can apply to our lives today, but we need to avoid a direct application of wiping out our enemies with today’s military conflicts. The church in our day really needs an overhaul in our thinking in these areas, just the other day the U.S. military accidently killed an Afghan family of 6, kids and parents. A few months back we bombed an area and accidently killed around 140 civilians. The military at first said it was possible that the Taliban killed these people. After a few months review we came out and admitted that we did not properly screen these homes for civilians. We messed up and killed a bunch of people. I know all the reasons behind the things we are doing [I think!] but if your wife and kids were just bombed right now, by accident, would it make you feel better to know they really didn’t intend on killing them? Our country was/is up in arms over the sprinkling of water on the face of a few terrorists, one of the reasons is said to be that when we ‘torture’ terrorists we give fuel to the Muslim world by not playing by the rules. Or when we detain enemy combatants at Gitmo that this becomes a selling point to Muslim radicals that they can use to recruit people to their cause. I can see no greater ‘recruiting tool’ than the accidental killing of innocent Muslim women and children, yes I do realize that we do not mean to ‘kill them’ but this still does not change the reality on the ground.
(1250) 2ND KINGS 6:24-33 The king of Syria comes up against Israel and shuts her in. No one comes in or goes out [embargo]. Israel as a nation experiences a recession and the price of their goods rise exponentially [inflation]. Once again we see the conflict with Arab nations costing too much! As the king walks thru town a woman cries for help, he says ‘who am I, God? If the Lord does not intervene what can I do? Can I go to the storehouse and fix all these problems’? Many Americans are truly unaware of the economic danger that our country is in. Private business thinks that the govt. can bail out anybody, we can’t. The insurance money that the govt. provides for banks that fail is running out, the stimulus money will not have the desired effect because it simply filled the hole that was created by the recession and tremendous job losses. The king can’t do miracles by continually going to the barn floor! So the woman tells the king ‘I made a deal with another lady that we would cook and eat my son today, and the next day we would cook her son. Now she won’t live up to the deal’ the king can’t believe his ears. In the midst of all their economic and military turmoil, they are killing their children in a vain attempt to extend their own lives. This last year more official attempts have been made to increase spending and have the federal govt. provide funding for the development and killing of unborn children than ever before. Many appeal to the cause of helping others who suffer from incurable diseases ‘look how much good it can do for those who are sick’. The nation of Israel was so lost that she couldn’t see the connection between her economic and military problems, and how that related to the destruction of their own children. Gee, I wonder if the bible is relevant anymore?
(1251) 2ND KINGS 7- Elisha is before the elders and the city is in trouble, the king of Israel is blaming the recession on the Christian conservatives and Elisha is being targeted. Now comes the true test of a prophet; Elisha says ‘by this time tomorrow the price of goods will be next to nothing, inflation will be gone and the recession over’. How can this happen? One of the men says ‘even if God opened the windows of heaven things cannot turn around this fast’. Wrong response, Elisha tells him ‘because you doubt, you will see it with your eyes but not experience it’. Okay, that night there are these 4 outcasts of society living at the city gate, they are lepers. You know, the type of people that nobody wants to be around. O sure the religious institutions have started all types of leper helping ministries, and the local religious folk give to these ministries, but nobody really wants to personally get involved. So these outcasts are at the city gate and they say ‘look at our plight, we are sitting here at the gate and will surely die, if we go into town the famine will kill us. If we go to the Syrians, sure they might kill us too, but maybe they will feed us and spare us, heck if we die we die!’ I like their outlook, even in the midst of great personal turmoil and sickness; they make one last ditch effort to turn things around. We need more brothers like this. So they go to the enemy camp and lo and behold [yes it’s corny] they find all the wealth and goods of the Syrian army, but no one’s there! God supernaturally caused the sound of the heavenly chariots to be heard by the army and they fled out of fear, casting away all their goods on the way out. So these lepers cant believe their eyes, they hit the jackpot. So they start going from tent to tent and take the stuff and go and hide it. After a few hours of hording and building wealth, they realize they are not doing right. They decide to go back to the city and tell their people what happened. They go to town and tell the king, he can’t believe it, he thinks ‘sure, this is a trap set up by my enemies’. Notice how both sides were battling paranoia, the Syrians fled thinking the armies were at the door, and the king of Israel thinks it’s a trap too. So they send some men to check it out and sure enough it’s true, the famine is over and the commodities are selling at a ridiculously cheap price. The brother who said ‘God could not do this even if he opened up heavenly windows’, he gets trampled at the gate by the gold rush and sees it with his eyes but never benefits from it, he dies. Okay, God is able to turn things around on a dime, though the economy was in shambles, the king/president thinks all is lost, no chance of a second term. Yet at the moment of great desperation God comes thru, the prophet [believers] was willing to use his gift to turn things around, and that’s exactly what happened. We as a people need to check our hearts and see if we really want the success ‘of the king’. Are we willing to do what Elisha did and pool our gifts for the success of the nation? Or have we become so cynical that we secretly desire the failure of the nation so we can feel vindicated? The lepers were tempted to horde the wealth and use it for their own benefit; after all they were God fearing capitalists! Why should they have to share their stuff with everybody else? Yet they chose to not ‘store up for themselves treasures on earth’ [Jesus] and did the right thing. Geez, I just wish we could find some contemporary comparisons for this stuff.
(1252) ARDI THE MONKEY BOY! Okay, I was gonna do 2nd kings 8 but I just couldn’t resist. The other day I read an article from the N.Y. times that spoke about the most recent discovery of a missing link. The problem is this ‘missing link’ was discovered in 1992, 17 years ago. The article showed you the drawing of a wonderful looking ‘half man/ half human’ being. It went on to tell us the story of Ardi, he/she was found in an area of Africa not too far from the famous Lucy fossil. Ardi is a little over 4 million years old, Lucy is over 2 million. So Ardi fits in well with a transitional species that could tell the story of human evolution. O how the story went on, it explained how Ardi lived and often would come down from the trees and walk on 2 feet [bi-pedal, to find a link that walks on 2 feet is essential for the theory of evolution to be true]. The article really described well everything that the evolutionist would need to tell his story. The problem? Ardi is a collection of monkey bones that were scattered all over the place; these bones are so brittle that the process of cleaning them for examination actually destroyed the bones. All indications are that these highly questionable bones are simply brittle monkey bones, this is why it took 17 years before ‘the find’ hit the headlines. So why did Ardi make it into the papers now? Because fellow evolutionists put the pressure on the original archeologists to ‘come out with the truth’! So they made up a wonderful tale, with pictures and all, and Walla- Ardi the monkey boy lives! How can I be so sure that Ardi was not a bi-pedal half man/monkey? Because science tells us this, not religion. If Lucy comes along 2 million years after Ardi, then surely Lucy must have really mastered the art of walking on 2 feet. Evolutionists have actually spent many years trying to ‘make Lucy walk’. The more they found out, the less proof she walked. First, the original find did not have hands and feet with it, so they gave her human like hands and feet. But after they found many other species of the same kind, they found many hands and feet also, they were not human like at all, the feet were truly monkey feet and not the structure you would find from a ‘walking monkey’. Next, they examined the bone structure of Lucy over many years and there were some major problems with the hip area that needed to be different if Lucy was to walk. Finally they made a documentary on Lucy and explained away the problem with the hip, they said that it was possible that a dear stepped on the hip and crushed it. So they had a brother on the show explain that he had to ‘re-make’ the hip back into the original hip. They actually showed him grinding down the model, with chips flying in the air, to get the walking hip. I mean it was hilarious! Years ago we also found a bunch of human footprints close to where Lucy lived in Africa, these prints were touted by the evolutionists as proof of Lucy being a bi-pedal monkey/human. The prints were so human like, many wondered if they were human. The only difference between these prints and a normal human print was the arch of the foot, it was a little flatter than ours. But after careful examination these prints did fit the exact prints of tribes that lived their whole lives bare foot. In essence these were human prints! The prints also had the foot prints of little feet inside the adult feet. How did this happen? More than likely the kids were having fun and stepping in the prints of their parents. So after many years of trying to make Lucy walk on 2 feet, the evidence shows otherwise. So if Lucy didn’t walk on 2 feet, there isn’t a chance in Hades that Ardi did! A few years back I was watching a Seinfeld episode and George wanted a cool nickname, so during lunch he orders a T Bone steak, he figures the nick name will stick. But sure enough the next guy orders a T Bone as well, and they give him the nick name. George is furious! So he confronts his co worker in the hall and you can see George jumping up and down and arguing for the right to the name ‘T Bone’. His co worker gives in and says sure, the only problem is the boss and the other guys saw George thru the window when he was throwing his fit, and they said ‘look, George looks just like a monkey’ and before George could tell everyone that he obtained the rights to T Bone, they stuck the nick name ‘Coco the Monkey boy’ on him. I appreciate the N.Y. times, the picture of Ardi looked great! But I think they tried to stick us with a tale, they tried to gives us Ardi the Monkey boy, when in reality he was just a bunch of brittle monkey bones.
(1253) NOTE ON THE CURRENT HEALTH CARE DEBATE- 10-09 let me do a quick update on abortion, as of today, 10-6-09, all the bills under consideration for health care reform most definitely include funding for abortion. These bills have been gone over by lawyers and every word was read and looked at. Technically speaking they allow for abortion. Now, as much as I pray for our president, he has misled the public on this issue. In his speech before the congress he did deny this, and he has stated on other forums that those who say that these bills would cover abortion are misleading you. I don’t know if he truly believes this or not, and I take very seriously my responsibility about not misleading people about the president, but he is wrong on this and he has accused those who are telling the truth as misleading people. We need to pray and be informed; we need to let our voices be heard on this important issue. We don’t need to go down the radical path of the right wingers who are accusing the president of trying to undermine our country and create a socialist state [Beck, Limbaugh, etc.] but we very much need to speak the truth when the president himself is either unaware or purposefully misinforming people. The Catholic bishops have gone over these bills with a fine tooth comb, their legal experts have concluded that abortion will be covered in some way thru these bills; these men are not listening to the radical right. We as the people of God need to tell the truth on these issues, pray for our president, but vocally disagree when you need to.
(1254) 2ND KINGS 8:1-6 Elisha tells the woman whose son he raised from the dead ‘go, leave the land because a 7 year famine is about to come’. So she leaves, after 7 years she comes back and requests of the king for her land and goods back; understand the king might have been perturbed about this citizen who fled during the time of trouble, after all the other citizens carried the burden. But just as she was about to make her request, it ‘just so happened’ that the king asked Elisha’s servant about the great miracles he did. And Gehazi tells the king the story of this woman and how Elisha raised the boy from the dead, and at that moment the woman approaches the king to make her request. The servant says ‘look, this is her and her son’! Talk about Divine confirmation. Okay, let’s do a few things. When we read earlier in this study about the boy being raised from the dead I hesitated to share a story from my own life where something like this happened, but now I thought I would do it. If you want to read about it I posted it under the ‘prayer requests’ section, you can find it under ‘answered prayer’. God will give people signs at times that will be a precursor to future callings. The New Testament says the disciples went all over, the Lord confirming the word with signs following. We live in a day where the church in general does not have the maturity to truly walk in these gifts. Sure, there are some of these things operating in a limited way in the world today; but the American church is too geared up for display and personal promotion. Jesus gave us an example of someone who refused the honor that came from men; you read in the gospels that he would tell people ‘don’t go blabbing all over the place about what just happened’. He would say this after he performed some miracle, and sure enough the person would blab it anyway! Today’s ministry environment would have these miracles promoted in a shameless way, we think this is part of the mission. So in Elisha’s case God allowed him to do some supernatural stuff, not for self promotion but for Gods glory. In the gospel of John when Jesus opened the eyes of the blind man, he was a walking testimony to the ministry of Jesus. This same thing happened with the disciples in the book of Acts. We often think ‘how can I impact the world unless I have great resources’ [money] believe me, if you do one resurrection it will go farther than all the money in the world.
(1255) 2ND KINGS 8:7-29 Elisha goes to Damascus and the king of Syria hears about it, he sends his servant to inquire ‘of the prophet’ whether or not he will get well from some sickness. The servant goes and finds Elisha and Elisha says ‘yes, he would recover. But instead he will die’. What ? Elisha sees that the sickness would not be fatal, but that the king will be assassinated! The servant in front of him will be the killer. So Hazael goes back to the king and says ‘he said you would get well’ true enough, but he left out the part where he was going to kill him! So the next day he does the deed and becomes the king. A few things, I find it interesting that the Syrian king had no problem receiving Gods prophet. They believed in prophets! Now, they did not have a ‘Christian/Judeo’ culture, but they had a religious background that accepted ‘messengers from God’. In today’s world the church needs to take advantage of the willingness of other world religions to listen to prophets. We need to appeal as much as possible to the Muslim world and use any agreement on religious things as a tool to share the gospel. Right after the 16th century reformation the world would embark on a couple hundred year age of exploration and colonization. The Protestants were good at exploring the seas and impacting Europe, but they failed at reaching the Far East. Instead the Catholic Church had great success thru the Jesuits at impacting the Far East. They would make inroads into Japan and China and eventually take the gospel to the influential city of Peking. The problem arose when the Dominicans and Franciscans [Catholic orders] came in after them. They felt that the Jesuits were too accommodating in mixing in the religious beliefs of the east along with Christianity. Many Chinese believers were still practicing a form of worshipping dead ancestors and stuff like that. The Jesuits justified this by seeing these things as cultural beliefs and felt like allowing them to ‘keep their culture’ along with the faith was okay, the Dominicans and Franciscans disagreed and took the argument to Rome. Eventually this disagreement would leave a bad taste with the leaders in China and all Catholic expressions of the faith would be banned. This is called Syncretism, the mixing of religious beliefs. Now, why get into this? Christians should appeal to the willingness of Muslims and other world religions to hear religious voices. Both Jews and Muslims believe in Jesus, now they don’t believe the way Christians believe, but we should take advantage of this basic belief when appealing to them. Muslims reject the doctrine of the Trinity, but a careful study of history shows us that the actual Trinity they are rejecting is not the Christian understanding. Muhammad was actually rejecting a skewed view of the Trinity that saw Jesus and God and Mary as the Trinity. Obviously a pretty big mistake. So we as believers should be willing to correct and give a word to the ‘Muslim messengers’ when they come looking for answers. We should give them credit where credit is due, like their development of apologetical arguments in the Middle Ages [the Kalaam cosmological argument] but at the same time present the uncompromising gospel of Jesus Christ to them. I side with the Franciscans and Dominicans on this one.
(1256) 2ND KINGS 9:1-6 Elisha tasks a young prophet to go to Ramoth Gilead and anoint Jehu as the new king. He is told to set him apart and give him a special charge. When he arrives at Jehu’s spot, he takes him to a separate room and pours the oil on him. Jehu will clean house. First, this prophet had a special calling to leadership; Jehu had to be open to receiving direction from this source. This did not mean that Jehu was going to have an ongoing personal prophet to direct his life, it simply meant he had to recognize that in order for him to fulfill Gods mission, he had to be willing to receive the instructions from the prophet. Second, Jehu would be held to a higher standard in the sense that the other captains were not singled out in this way. Jehu had to be willing to go the extra mile and not follow the crowd. Often times God will challenge leaders to go a certain direction, sometimes the course is not popular, but often necessary for the completion of the work. Jesus called his disciples from their jobs and businesses; they had to sacrifice the normal pursuit of wealth and success in order to follow Jesus. Sure, there would be many ‘regular believers’ who would still believe in Jesus and not go this extra mile, but those who wanted to excel in discipleship would have to make some tuff choices. If you look long enough you will find just about any teaching to fit in with the personal pursuit of happiness, the American dream type mindset. But the calling of Jesus as seen in the bible always challenges us to sacrifice personal pleasure and success at the altar of a higher purpose. This does not mean you can’t experience a degree of success and stability in your life, but these things are secondary to the call of Christ. Jehu ‘got up from the room’ and separated himself long enough to hear the message from the prophet. There were other captains in the room, they would still pursue their military goals and live their lives as responsibly as possible; but Jehu would make permanent changes in the nation that would turn the course of history. In order for him to fulfill his mission he had to receive the word from the prophet that would set him apart from the rest of the crowd, he had to be willing to go the extra mile.
(1257) 2ND KINGS 9:7-37 Jehu receives the charge from Elisha and heads to Jezreel, the city where Jezebel resides. Her son Joram is the present king of Israel and Ahazia is king of Judah. By Divine appointment all three of them [Jezebel, and the 2 kings] are at the same location. As Jehu approaches the city, Joram sends a messenger to see what’s up ‘are you for peace’? What peace! Get behind me. A second messenger goes and gets the same response. Joram says ‘okay, let’s get the chariot ready and see what in the heck is going on’. He goes out to meet Jehu and it just so happens that they meet in the area where Jezebel illegally stole the land from Naboth and had him killed. Joram says ‘Jehu, is this a peaceful visit’ ‘peace, how can there be peace when your mother the witch is still throwing her weight around, and your fathers wicked deeds are still not avenged’. Jehu was on a prophetic rampage and would not stop until the house was purged. Joram sees the writing on the wall and turns to run; Jehu pulls the bow full length and drives an arrow thru his chest. Ahazia, king of Judah flees; he gets wounded and will die. Jehu is off to meet the queen, he approaches the city wall and Jezebel ‘painted her face’ and fixed her hair to meet Jehu. Why? Well we really don’t know, but Jezebel was a master manipulator, she did what she needed to do to survive. She was the power behind her husband Ahab’s wicked rule and she was doing the same thru her son. She very well might have been trying to look her best for the new king! Who knows, maybe she thought he would take her. She looks out a window on the wall and warns Jehu ‘remember Zimri, he rebelled against his king and God judged him’ she is trying to bide some time. Jehu is of noble blood, his father was a former king. He is also a trained fighter, a President Dwight Eisenhower type figure; someone who would rule as president but had a former military background. Basically Jehu doesn’t play games, he yells out ‘who in the city is on my side’? A few eunuchs look out over the wall; he says ‘throw her down to me’. He quickly accomplished his mission with virtually no civilian causalities. Jehu took out two kings and the ‘queen mother’ in one day. Jezebel’s body is quickly eaten by the dogs, a fulfillment of the prophecy of Elijah, and all this took place in the area that was well known as a place where injustice took place [the field of Naboth]. Okay, yesterday the country woke up to some surprising news, our president received the Noble Peace Prize, it was a surprise to everybody, even him! He actually made a tactful acceptance speech and acknowledged that he really didn’t deserve it, but would accept it in the spirit of good will and as a symbol of his role in the future, he did the best he could do. The reason? Because the conservatives tore him up over it, the London Times even said he did not deserve it. So he really was put on the spot, some even said ‘are you for peace’- translated, he is a bloody man who is bombing people every day in Afghanistan/Iraq, how come he gets it! First, as believers we should support the president as much as possible, it’s okay to be happy about the world honoring our president [or at least Norway!] Second, the criticisms against him not really deserving it, well he basically said the same thing. It’s really not the man’s fault that he got the prize. I do think that our president is ‘a man of peace’ and he has some real challenges down the road. Jehu was used of God to correct some long standing grievances that were in the nation, Jezebel operated for too long, the people knew her history. Jehu was charged by God to ‘wipe out the house of Ahab’ or to put an end to family lines that were destructive to the people of God. I’m talking spiritually now, not real war. There are times in the history of the church where things creep in and get a foothold; many times these teachings become accepted fair. We become comfortable with them, even though most of the nation/church realizes that it’s a manipulative thing, they learn to live with it. Prophetic voices are often raised up to say ‘enough, the whole house of Ahab will be wiped out’ in essence there are times when Gods people say ‘we understand that these doctrines have been around for a while; we also know the people who introduced these things on a large scale. We now reject the basic foundation upon which these things were built’ there comes a time when the ‘ministry’ of Jehu cleans house. We just need a few eunuchs [those who are separated for the purpose of serving the king. Because they were eunuchs, they could be trusted with the kings Bride, they would/could not take advantage of her for personal procreation/image building] who are willing to rise up and ‘throw her off the wall’.
(1258) WHAT LASTS? - These past few weeks while praying early in the mornings, I have been meditating on verses like ‘the steps/paths of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he delights in his way’. David said he desired to always dwell in Gods ‘tabernacle’, while thinking on these verses I felt like the Lord was speaking to me about the effects we have, the planting of his word in regions. I even began thinking about the fact that we will die, and the people we minister to will pass away, but in some sense the words we taught will remain. In essence the thing that will last is the gospel and truth that is sown, not the institutions, or even the people, but the word. Now John says because we have the word in us we will abide forever, that is the word of God will raise the dead up some day and they will endure forever; but it’s the word of truth that is lasting. So anyway I felt like the Lord was directing me to read Isaiah, I read the first 10 verses of chapter 40 and the theme goes like this ‘all flesh is like grass, it will pass away; but the word of God endures forever’ basically exactly what God was speaking to me. This section also speaks of John the Baptist ‘prepare the way of the Lord, make a straight highway/path for him in the desert’ this was along the lines of ‘creating a path/ place for God’s word to flow’. Isaiah also has the famous verse ‘you will be called the restorer of paths to dwell in’. I felt like God was telling us to lay down some paths, have consistent areas where you faithfully teach and speak truth and these areas will ‘abide forever’ that is your impact will affect many generations to come. Right after the 16th century Reformation you had what is referred to as the Enlightenment, or the ‘age of reason’. Many thinkers began to challenge the institutional church [and institutions in general] and believed that reason and rationality would lead the way. In France [1700’s] Paris became a center of thinking for these Deists. These men were smart enough to realize that the total denial of God was too ridiculous to accept, they instead embraced Deism. Deism is a type of belief that said God started the ball rolling, but he left the rest on auto pilot; the same belief that the Greek philosophers embraced. Now, one of the famous ‘Philosphes’ [sic] was a man by the name of Voltaire, he is well-known as an infamous atheist today, but he did not totally reject God. These men did have tremendous influence and they produced the French Encyclopedias which backed up their cause. Eventually they would overthrow the Catholic Church and kill the king in their mad rush towards ‘reason’. They were wrong on their basic understanding of reason and rationality as they applied it to the church. They believed that rational thought meant ‘naturalistic thought’ that is in order for things to be rational, they could not be supernatural. They were wrong, in fact those who would later take the next step into full atheism would deny the laws of reason and logic all together. I saw Richard Dawkins do an interview the other day, he is one of the popular atheists of our day. These men who reject God accept a view of creation that violates the laws of logic; they teach/believe that all things came from ‘no-thing’ a scientific impossibility. This idea violates the law of ‘reason’ known as the law of ‘non contradiction’. This law states that a thing cannot be and ‘not be’ at the same time and in the same relationship. For all things to have come from nothing [self creation] would mean that all things created itself. It would have to 'have been’ before it was. This common system of belief is absolutely irrational, even though the atheist believes it to be rational. To believe that God is a self existent being who created all things does not violate the laws of logic, you might think it does, but it doesn’t. For someone to have existed forever does not violate the classic laws of logic. So these thinkers who thought that their rejection of God was ‘rational’ were in fact wrong. Their ideas led to effects that were horrendous, they in effect ‘planted seed’ [bad doctrines] that would outlast them and their generation, their bad ideas had bad consequences. But the truth of God and his kingdom have also been ‘planted’ in the world, these seeds will last forever. If you want to effect society for good, then plant the seeds that will have an eternal impact, for ‘he that does the will of God will abide forever’ [1st John].
(1259) 2nd KINGS 10:1-10 Jehu just wiped out 2 kings and a wicked queen, he sends a letter to Samaria and says ‘okay, here’s the deal, I just took out your kings; you have 70 sons of the king [Ahab] who are still alive. Go ahead and set one of them up as your new king and I’ll be there soon to fight’. Now Jehu has no intent on fighting, but as a strategic leader he is ‘working smarter, not harder’ [not more troops, but strategic thinking]. So the leaders who have raised up Ahab’s kids say ‘geez, the guy took out 2 kings like they were nothing, what chance do we have?’ and they send a message saying ‘we will be your servants’. Okay, so far so good. Jehu says ‘one more thing, if you mean this then take the 70 sons of your master and cut their heads off and send them to me at Jezreel’. The dirty deed is done and Jehu is told ‘the heads have arrived’. Jehu says ‘now, go and make 2 piles of heads at the city gate and let everyone in Israel see what happened’. They do it and Jehu tells the town ‘I know you guys are righteous, you decide what to do- yes I killed my master and it might have been unjust in your eyes; but your elders have taken the heads off of 70 sons of their king, so who do you think is worse’. Remember Jezebel said to Jehu ‘remember Zimri, he rose up against his master and was punished’ so this whole scenario needed to play out so Jehu would have the support of the local population [Afghanistan?]. He knew that just having the military might was not enough; he needed the support of the people. Jehu was a wise man, he could have easily taken the 70 sons out himself, without warning. But instead he let the city elders think he was giving them an option, he knew all along what needed to be done. Right now our country is on the verge of deciding about more troops going into Afghanistan, whatever your belief on this is; know for sure that if the people begin to view us in a bad way, then no matter how many troops are sent the mission will be a failure. My personal belief is I would not want my kids to die on the wasteland that is called Afghanistan, we have been there for 8 years and to try and establish some type of central govt. like we did in Iraq is much harder. The former ruling govt. was not a central ruling authority like Iraq had, the place has had a history of low rule and scattered tribal type living. In order for us to do what we did in Iraq, we basically have to create a nation out of nothing- in my view this is too much to ask at the price of our young men and women. Either way we need the wisdom of a Jehu, a real military commander who used wisdom and strategy to accomplish the mission, sure more firepower could have taken out the enemy, but to have the people themselves do it created an environment where he would be accepted after the action ceased. He was a smart brother indeed.
(1260) 2ND KINGS 10:11-36 Jehu heads to Samaria to clean house, he already wiped out the sons of Ahab and will now deal with the false prophets that Jezebel installed. He tells the people in Samaria ‘Let’s worship Baal’ and he sends his men out to gather all the priests and prophets of Baal, he says ‘make sure you get all the Baal worshipers, this is going to be a really big sacrifice to Baal’ ouch! So they get all those who were worshiping at the altar of a false god and they pack Baal’s temple out. Jehu tells his men ‘make sure we got them all- go in and give all the Baal worshipers these special robes- and make sure no one who worships the true God is in there’. So the men carry out the task and Jehu and his men ‘sacrifice’ the whole denomination in one shot. This chapter tells us that Jehu had ‘zeal for God’ and he purged Israel from false Baal worship, but it also says that Jehu did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam who made Israel sin. Jeroboam was the first king of the northern tribes when Israel broke up under the reign of Solomon’s son Rehoboam. At the time Jeroboam made these 2 golden calves and placed one in the city of Dan and the other at Bethel. The purpose was strategic, Jeroboam feared that if the northern tribes went to Jerusalem every year to keep the religious feasts that eventually they would ‘long for the good old days’ and return to the leadership of the kings of Judah. Now Jehu is a noble warrior, he understood the idolatrous nature of Baal worship, why did he not deal with these 2 calves? Jehu was also a practical ‘patriot’ he wanted to maintain Israel’s identity as a separated people, he thought Jeroboams idea actually worked, so at the ‘altar of national unity’ he permitted a degree of idolatry to exist. Now we get into the tuff stuff; Jesus kingdom message calls people to a higher patriotism; he tells his followers that they are to be ‘patriots’ in a new way. Though their national alliances [the countries we live in] are to be respected and honored, yet when the rubber meets the road we owe our allegiance to ‘the Cross’. Jehu was willing to sacrifice total dedication to God for the sake of national cohesion, ouch again! Karl Marx [the 19th century socialist] once said ‘the economists are like the theologians, they believe every one else’s religion is a man made distortion, but that their own is an emanation from God’ it is obvious that religious divisions effected the way he thought, he saw the futility of manmade religion but made the mistake of rejecting God. He saw religion as a threat to true national pride and cohesion and tried to eject God from the national psyche, he failed. When believers of any nation hold the ideals of the nation higher than the ideals of Christ’s kingdom, then they have in a sense ‘left the calves of Jeroboam in place’.
(1261) THE ALABASTER MAN- The other day my daughter was telling us a funny story, how she was looking for her pizza pan and asked her fiancé if he knew what happened to it, he admitted that he used it to cover a hole in the yard to keep the dogs from getting out. She was recounting the story to my wife and saying ‘just like dad used to do’. Boy did they get a laugh, I felt like rebuking them for not honoring their elder, but as I contemplated my best defense I realized that right now there sits one of my wife’s baking pans on top of the chimney on the roof, tied with bailing wire to keep the rain out; I figured I would just let it slide. I have been reading Isaiah along with the Kings study we are doing, Isaiah 40 thru the end has been one of the most prophetic portions of scripture for me in my own personal life. ‘I will make you like a new threshing instrument having teeth, you will thresh [cut apart] the mountains and beat them small; the wind shall carry them away’ ‘who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to his foot and gave the nations before him; he will rule over kings’ ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight in the desert a highway for our God’ I like all these verses, they have given me direction over the years. Here at my house I have a few things that I kept from my childhood, one of the mementos is a 1 inch figurine of an oriental wise man that is made out of Alabaster, I simply call it ‘the Alabaster man’. My dad bought it for me when I was around 10 years old; he used to take me over to the city [New York] and when we went to China Town one year he bought it for me. I have it in the yard next to a prayer area where I pray. I also have written various verses all over my yard, on the wooden fence and on my gazebo, it does look a little trashy but my wife learned to live with it. The verses ‘his fan is in his hand’ ‘before it happened I showed it to you’ are from Isaiah, one of the verses is right next to this man, as I was looking at the verse ‘before it happened I showed it to you’ I realized that this statue of the sage [wise man] has a fan in one hand and a staff in the other, these images have been significant to me, I have been praying with a staff in my hand for many years. I just never really noticed the little fan in the hand; I felt like the Lord was simply confirming these many various promises, I bought this statue in New York City when I was a boy, the wise man represents authority and these past few years we have been reaching into the New York City area in a greater way than ever before. In essence the Lord gave me a wise man from New York with a staff and fan in his hand, years before I would ever even contemplate anything along these lines. Isaiah said ‘before it happened I showed it to you, so when it would come to pass you would know that it was my work, not yours’.
(1262) 2ND KINGS 11- After Jehu killed the 2 kings he would become the king of the northern tribes [Israel] but who would take over the southern tribe of Judah? It would have normally gone to the oldest son of the king who died, but in this case the mother of the king that Jehu killed, Athaliah, would kill all her grandchildren so she could become queen. But they managed to hide one child from her, his name was Joash. He stays in hiding for 7 years and the priest Jehoiada brings him forth at the age of 7 to rule from the throne. They kill the wicked grandma and the throne is restored back to the king’s true lineage. Okay, what practical stuff can we get from this? The wicked grandma saw her own children as a threat, the natural flow of these sons rising up and taking their place was seen as competition. Over the years of ‘church and ministry’ as the church became more identified with the corporate 501 c3 model, this lent to the competitive spirit in a greater way than we see in the New Testament. Grant it you did have problems like this in the New Testament churches, but when we view church thru the lens of ‘I Pastor this church’ or ‘I attend this local church’ when we see it more along the lines off the corporation type model, then this leads to power struggles. One year I was reading the story of some church members who took their Pastor to court over ‘the church’. They tried to wrest it out of the hands of ‘the Pastor’ the Pastor fought back and gained control once again over ‘the church’. While stuff like this is the extreme example, the fact is many well meaning Pastors and church members view church thru this model, that it is actually the business enterprise as opposed to the community of people. This leads to these types of power struggles. You never see the Apostle Paul [or any other ‘church planter’] fighting over control of ‘the churches’ in this way. You do see Paul engage in some heavy theological debates with those who were trying to sidetrack the gospel of grace, but never the type of struggle that I just outlined above. Athaliah saw the kingdom thru the lens of ‘what can I get out of this, here is my chance to have authority’ she viewed the possibility of other gifted leaders as a threat to her goals. Healthy leadership today needs to release control of the people more so than we usually see; we often teach young Pastors how to spot threats to ‘the church’ how to fight back challenges to their authority, to be honest many of these skirmishes are fought outside of the biblical parameters of church. These are simply results of losing the biblical identity of ‘church’ and replacing it with a western corporate model. Nevertheless God had a Joash in the wings [a type of true headship- as seen in Christ as well as a return to the biblical model of leadership] and in Gods time Joash will come forth.
(1263) THEY MADE HIM WALK ON NON WALKING FEET! A few weeks ago I wrote an entry on Evolution [Ardi the monkey boy] at the time I had read a few articles on this so called missing link, but it wasn’t until last night that I caught the show on TV, it was a 2 hour special done by one of the science channels. Boy was it eye opening. First, when I wrote the entry a few weeks ago I saw enough from the few articles that I read that they tried their ‘darndest’ to make these silly bones walk! That is one of the most sought after fossils in the evolutionary community is a bi-pedal monkey/man. A link that began walking on 2 feet. The show was unbelievably biased, they showed you the development of the find over the past 15 years, many efforts at making computer graphic images and artists rendering and all types of advanced technology and many man hours to make these scattered bones do what the evidence shows they could not do; walk on 2 feet! I was surprised to see them admit that the actual fossils of the feet [a toe bone] were the feet of a mammal that were exactly like the feet of other mammals THAT DO NOT WALK ON 2 FEET. They explained how the bone structure from Ardi’s feet were the bones of animals that did not walk on 2 feet. That all living species today that have these types of feet do not walk upright. They also admitted that all fossils ever found with feet like this came from animals that did not walk on 2 feet. Then in an unbelievable turn of events, they said ‘therefore Ardi is such a special find, he/she is the first fossil ever found where the creature walked on feet that were not designed for walking!’ This stuff is too funny to be legitimate. Why is this absolutely snake oil science? These men realized that the biggest problem of presenting this find as some type of link between men and monkeys was the fact that the feet were non walking feet. They waited 15 or so years before coming up with this absolute fantasy; and they made a conscious decision to tell the unsuspecting public that this animal walked on 2 feet with feet that were designed to climb, not walk. It would be like me trying to prove monkeys can fly, and I spent a whole lifetime looking for a flying monkey. But these creationists insist monkeys didn’t fly. In my mad rush to prove my point, I find a monkey fossil that I think might make the headlines, I present it as ‘the flying monkey’ and I realize that my creationist critics are going to be watching very carefully for the proof I have that monkeys actually did fly. And during my argument I show all these computer images of flying monkeys, I hire an ‘artist’ to draw me a flying money. But when I show you the actual bones from the monkey, Walla- they show no wings. So I state ‘this fossil is so special, we never anticipated such a find, this fossil is the first creature that used its feet to fly’. This my friends is not true science, which is allowing the evidence to speak for itself; this is false/faulty science with an agenda, after all their hours of work and effort and personal prestige on the line, they actually took the evidence of a non walking animal and made him ‘walk on feet that can’t walk’ this is what Paul described in the book of Romans ‘they did not want to retain God in their knowledge, so God gave them over to a reprobate mind’ these fellas have minds that do not function properly.
[This is the original article I wrote on Ardi] (1252) ARDI THE MONKEY BOY! Okay, I was gonna do 2nd kings 8 but I just couldn’t resist. The other day I read an article from the N.Y. times that spoke about the most recent discovery of a missing link. The problem is this ‘missing link’ was discovered in 1992, 17 years ago. The article showed you the drawing of a wonderful looking ‘half man/ half human’ being. It went on to tell us the story of Ardi, he/she was found in an area of Africa not too far from the famous Lucy fossil. Ardi is a little over 4 million years old, Lucy is over 2 million. So Ardi fits in well with a transitional species that could tell the story of human evolution. O how the story went on, it explained how Ardi lived and often would come down from the trees and walk on 2 feet [bi-pedal, to find a link that walks on 2 feet is essential for the theory of evolution to be true]. The article really described well everything that the evolutionist would need to tell his story. The problem? Ardi is a collection of monkey bones that were scattered all over the place; these bones are so brittle that the process of cleaning them for examination actually destroyed the bones. All indications are that these highly questionable bones are simply brittle monkey bones, this is why it took 17 years before ‘the find’ hit the headlines. So why did Ardi make it into the papers now? Because fellow evolutionists put the pressure on the original archeologists to ‘come out with the truth’! So they made up a wonderful tale, with pictures and all, and Walla- Ardi the monkey boy lives! How can I be so sure that Ardi was not a bi-pedal half man/monkey? Because science tells us this, not religion. If Lucy comes along 2 million years after Ardi, then surely Lucy must have really mastered the art of walking on 2 feet. Evolutionists have actually spent many years trying to ‘make Lucy walk’. The more they found out, the less proof she walked. First, the original find did not have hands and feet with it, so they gave her human like hands and feet. But after they found many other species of the same kind, they found many hands and feet also, they were not human like at all, the feet were truly monkey feet and not the structure you would find from a ‘walking monkey’. Next, they examined the bone structure of Lucy over many years and there were some major problems with the hip area that needed to be different if Lucy was to walk. Finally they made a documentary on Lucy and explained away the problem with the hip, they said that it was possible that a dear stepped on the hip and crushed it. So they had a brother on the show explain that he had to ‘re-make’ the hip back into the original hip. They actually showed him grinding down the model, with chips flying in the air, to get the walking hip. I mean it was hilarious! Years ago we also found a bunch of human footprints close to where Lucy lived in Africa, these prints were touted by the evolutionists as proof of Lucy being a bi-pedal monkey/human. The prints were so human like, many wondered if they were human. The only difference between these prints and a normal human print was the arch of the foot, it was a little flatter than ours. But after careful examination these prints did fit the exact prints of tribes that lived their whole lives bare foot. In essence these were human prints! The prints also had the foot prints of little feet inside the adult feet. How did this happen? More than likely the kids were having fun and stepping in the prints of their parents. So after many years of trying to make Lucy walk on 2 feet, the evidence shows otherwise. So if Lucy didn’t walk on 2 feet, there isn’t a chance in Hades that Ardi did! A few years back I was watching a Seinfeld episode and George wanted a cool nickname, so during lunch he orders a T Bone steak, he figures the nick name will stick. But sure enough the next guy orders a T Bone as well, and they give him the nick name. George is furious! So he confronts his co worker in the hall and you can see George jumping up and down and arguing for the right to the name ‘T Bone’. His co worker gives in and says sure, the only problem is the boss and the other guys saw George thru the window when he was throwing his fit, and they said ‘look, George looks just like a monkey’ and before George could tell everyone that he obtained the rights to T Bone, they stuck the nick name ‘Coco the Monkey boy’ on him. I appreciate the N.Y. times, the picture of Ardi looked great! But I think they tried to stick us with a tale, they tried to gives us Ardi the Monkey boy, when in reality he was just a bunch of brittle monkey bones.
(1264) 2nd KINGS 12- Joash institutes a process of restoring the temple that was broken down. Under the spiritual direction of Jehoiada the priest, he sets up a system [a box with a hole in the lid] where the people’s offerings would be ‘protected’ from the priests. The problem we see in this chapter is the priests were abusing the offerings that were set aside for 'the house’. Now, they were being maintained by the Levitical offerings, they were getting a steady salary/support that was modest and commensurate with their service, but they went overboard in raiding the ‘household’ cash for personal profit. After they collected enough money for the repair of the house of God they gave it to the carpenters and workman to finish the job. These men contrasted the priestly ministry in that they used the money for actual building materials, they did not see it as simple compensation for being ministers. At the end of the chapter Joash is attacked by a foreign king and he takes all the riches that were in Gods house and gives it as a ransom to bribe the king to go away. This act is seen as disgraceful in the eyes of the ‘traditional generation’ and 2 of his servants kill him. Okay, there is a tension between the younger brothers [Emergent’s, contemporary expressions of ‘church’] and the older guys [Sproul, Macarthur, Colson, etc.] the younger guys are sincere, but at times seem too willing to ‘ransom out the goods in the temple’. That is along with the new style of church/ministry we need to be careful that we are not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Also this chapter shows us that it was perfectly legitimate to meet the basic needs of the priests, but they sort of fell into a habit where all the resources were being used for personal benefit. Now we need to be careful here, in the New Testament ‘the house of God’ is the actual corporate community of people, not the buildings we meet in. So a better way to see this is that we need to be careful that the money and resources that are being given by Gods people are primarily used ‘for the building’- that is the actual people. In the New Testament over 90 % of the scriptures on giving do show us this. The majority of the actual money contributed went to meeting the actual needs of people. In today’s church world we do not follow this guideline at all. Many millions are spent on many things, but in comparison to the ‘actual house spending’ [on the real needs of poor people] we spend very little on real needs. So God used Joash to do some good, but when he came out from under the influence of true spiritual elders [Jehoiada] he desecrated the ‘holy things’ and lost the respect of the people. As we in the 21st century strive to be relevant as Gods people, we need also be sensitive to the ‘treasures in the house’ the ‘old time’ classic doctrines that have been preserved and passed down to us from spiritual elders; things like the Atonement, the Substitutionary death of Christ, the Resurrection. Some of the new contemporary brothers seem to be raiding the temple a little too freely and thinking that this will bring us a little respite from foreign enemies, I fear that in the long run it will only lead to trouble.
(1265) Almost finished Brian McLaren’s ‘everything must change’ as is my habit let me close my comments before I read the last chapter or 2. First, I really agree with Brian’s stance on challenging western capitalism; he does it in a way that simply holds true to the biblical ethos of ‘beware of covetousness, for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses’ [Jesus]. Yesterday I went thru around 5 news papers that built up at my doorstep this past week, if I don’t read them the day they come I try and go thru them on Saturday in one lump sum. I read some articles on the world’s poor, that every 6 seconds a child starves to death somewhere in the world; how there are a little over 1 billion people on the planet today who are malnourished. How many of the countries who can’t feed their people are paying back interest payments to the rich countries who lent them money. These kids starve because the country must pay the interest! In Isaiah God tells us often that one of the main functions of the church is to do justice; to speak out and also act in society as a plumb line. Too many times the American church has been aligned with a political ideology and has defended that view at the expense of doing what is just. As I close my comments on McLaren, I agree 100 % with him on these issues and appreciate his willingness to be branded as some ‘loony liberal’ for speaking out. I also would disagree on Brian’s seemingly ‘low church view’ when it comes to the classic doctrines of Christianity [Atonement, Original sin, etc.] There is a tendency among believers to either reject everything a person says, or accept everything he says; In Brian's case I think we should take what is good and leave the bad alone.
(1266) 2ND KINGS 13- Israel is under oppression from Syria, they cry out to God and he delivers them. But they have a diminished army when all is said and done. In the New Testament Jesus said wise kings take inventory of their forces; when one army comes up against another, wise kings look at the match up and if they think they can’t win they make arrangements for some type of peace. Strength isn’t always about how much force you have or can display, sometimes it’s realizing your limits and having the wisdom of not letting a bunch of your soldiers die for a lost cause. In this chapter we also see the death of Elisha, it’s been over 40 years since his last true public appearance, here at the end of his life the king comes and feels overwhelmed. Elisha was a true stabilizing force for the nation; the king knew he had an experienced prophet who could lend support when the time called for it. But now he realizes he will have to go it on his own, sure he had other prophets around; but they were young guys, still dealing with inexperience and stuff. It’s not that they were of no value, but you could tell that they were going to go thru some learning curves in the years ahead and Elisha had already been thru all that. So Elisha encourages the king and says ‘take your bow and shoot thru the east window’ so he does this prophetic act and Elisha tells him he will overcome the enemy from the east [Syria]. Then he tells him to stomp the ground with the arrows, so he does it 3 times. Elisha says he should have done it 5 or 6 times! But because you were a little lackluster you will only have a partial victory over your enemy. And last but not least Elisha dies and is buried and some brothers bury one of their dead in the same grave and as soon as the body touches Elisha the guy comes back to life. Elisha was raising brothers from the dead after he died! What do we make from this? Various Christian churches put different emphasis on what the dead can do; relics, praying to those who have passed on. I want only to stress the biblical importance of the body. In scripture the body is a holy thing, God himself dwells inside the bodies of believers. The New Testament doctrine of the resurrection speaks to the importance of the body. In Greek thought the body was seen as evil, a temporary ‘prison’ that the soul/mind was captive in until death. Some of these beliefs [Greek Dualism] did affect the thinking of the church over the centuries. Many good theologians have corrected these mistakes over the years [Augustine, Reformers, Etc.] They showed us that the body itself is not evil, but that when the bible speaks about ‘the flesh having no good thing in it’ it is speaking about ‘the fleshly/carnal nature’ not the physical body. But some who embraced Greek Dualism interpreted these verses as saying the actual body is evil. In Romans Paul says to give our bodies up to God as living sacrifices, HOLY AND ACCEPTABLE to God, which is our reasonable service [worship]. So the body is actually referred to as holy in this passage. Elisha obviously had some ‘residual’ anointing going on, as soon as death touched his body there was enough of Gods Spirit present to raise a guy from the dead, how much more so for those of us who are still alive.
(1267) 2ND KINGS 14:1-20 Amaziah becomes king over Judah and avenges the assassination of his father. Yet he does not kill the sons of those who murdered his father, why? Because the law of God said the children should not be put to death for the sins of their fathers, Amaziah did justice, but also melded it with mercy. He then sends a message to the king of Israel to come and meet in a challenge. The king of Israel gives him a little parable that basically says ‘look, you had a victory over Edom, don’t let that go to your head, just because you won in one nation doesn’t mean you can repeat the strategy everywhere [ouch! That is ouch to our present situation in the world]. But Amaziah won’t listen and they come out to battle, sure enough Judah suffers a loss and Israel breaks down the wall of Jerusalem and takes the precious riches from the temple. Okay, sometimes wisdom says slow down and don’t start too many wars at once; in this case Amaziah did a few good things but then allowed inexperience to rule the day. He also acted justly in the execution of those who killed his father by not taking it out on the kids. We seem to have 2 extremes in the modern church; 1- we really don’t like to deal with past mistakes and errors that have caused damage to Gods people, we feel like dealing with issues in a just way is wrong. 2- When we do decide to deal with them, we usually ‘kill the kids’, that is we go too far and mount a personal campaign against those who were really not responsible for the ‘parent’s sins’. We as believers need to be careful when embracing ideologies that say ‘let's kill those damn terrorists, along with the families and kids and every one of their offspring’ these ways of thinking are not in keeping with even the Old Testament ethics of war, never mind the actual pacifist teachings of Jesus! I was watching a conservative news program the other day [you can guess the network- it’s the same name that Jesus called Herod] and the commentator said he wanted our military to go out and kill as many of these radical Muslims as we could find. Will that strategy ever really work? You will have no end to the killing because the mindset has not changed. Now I do realize that as a country we do have the right to intercept and go after those who are planning and strategizing against us, but the point is to simply think if we try and kill all ‘the offspring’ of those who harmed us will work, we are fooling ourselves. Amaziah dealt with the parents and stopped short when it came to the next generation. He also overstepped his resources by assuming a victory over one nation [Edom-Iraq] could easily be repeated in another [Israel-Afghanistan] as believers we need to have more of a plan than just ‘lets kill them all’ we need both progressive [liberal] and conservative voices to be heard, don’t just swallow the party line [on either side!].
(1268) 2nd KINGS 14:21-28 Jeroboam [the 2nd] had a fairly long reign, he captured lost territories and extended Israel’s borders. Jonah the prophet lived and prophesied during his realm [Jonah the son of Amittai] and yet the scriptures say he was an evil king. Sometimes God allows people to come to rule during prophetic seasons, prophetic in the sense that the times themselves are significant. The church might be called to speak in a special way to society, you might have the rise of prophetic men [Martin Luther King jr.] and because of the significance of the time, even an ‘evil ruler’ [pro abortion, pro gay agenda, well you get the picture] can be used for good. Jeroboam accomplished much, not by his own laurels, but because he had ‘come to the kingdom for such a time as this’. The prophetic word of Jonah was going forth at this season and God was going to restore Israel’s borders whether or not the king was righteous. I was reading an article the other day, it showed how many of the Christian leaders in Africa had very high hopes for president Obama, they were seeing great significance out of the historic election of one who descended from a race who were formerly enslaved by White men. These leaders took a very different stand than the American believers, many of whom view the president as a threat to civilization! When I pray for the president, I also pray for the leaders of the world, my prayer goes like this; I pray first for those who are believers, I ask the Lord to guide them in right paths and to give them the courage to rule justly. I pray for those who are unbelievers, that the Lord would reveal the truth of the gospel to them and that they would rule justly thru ‘common grace’ that they would be like the ‘unjust judge’ in scripture who did what was right out of political expediency. And then I pray for the 3rd group, all those who are actively fighting against the people of God and are openly wicked; I pray that these would be removed from office and replaced with righteous authority, but then I add ‘until they are removed, may God be glorified even thru their rebellion as happened with Pharaoh king in Egypt’. I basically acknowledge that the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord and he can turn it any way he wants. So in Jeroboams case it would have been counterproductive to have fought against the man all thru his reign, he was chosen by God [and the people] to be there, he ruled during a prophetic season in the church [prophetic in the sense of justice] and God did use him to restore much land that was lost under ‘previous administrations’ all in all God used a king that ‘did evil’ but ruled during a crucial time in national history.
(1269) 2ND KINGS 15- This chapter has lots of various kings, instead of covering them all let me just hit a few verses. One of the kings is being challenged by Assyria, so he ‘exacts money from the wealthy’ to pay the guy off. Another verse speaks of a king with a long 52 year rule who also had leprosy. Let’s start with the ‘taxing the wealthy’ brother. Right now [10-09] the congress is about to vote on health care reform [actually today is 10-22, they vote today] and to be sure there are challenges on both sides. I was talking to a north eastern ultra liberal the other day; this person defended the president and accused all those who were against him as being racists. I explained to the person that there were many White independent voters who sincerely voted for the president, many of whom do oppose him on actual policy disagreements; these voters who have been publicly accused of being racists will never vote Democrat again. The statements of President Carter, though taken out of context somewhat, were the worst thing that could happen to a political party. A few months ago Chris Matthews [MSNBC] interviewed a woman columnist who wrote a piece for the Times that was called ‘the southern strategy’ she explained how the real reason for McCain putting Palin on the ticket was to contrast the ‘sexual aggression of the Black man against the southern white woman’. Now, it was obvious to me that McCain chose Palin as a counterbalance to the historic nature of the Obama candidacy, they waited until Obama picked his running mate and when they saw he didn’t pick Clinton, McCain figured let’s put a conservative woman on our ticket who could help with the base [which McCain had trouble with] and also could appeal to a historic candidacy [the first woman V.P.]. So any way it was obvious that this was more than likely the reason. But for a national show to accuse the entire McCain candidacy as being racist in this way simply alienates many sincere White voters who will simply reject the entire Democratic ticket the next time around. Okay, if we pass health care and mandate every American to purchase it, it is wrong not to have the so called ‘public option’ [Medicare for everybody]. Why? Because you are thrusting the populace into buying from private industry, without any checks and balances on that industry. I know states do this with car liability, but nevertheless to do this on a federal level without offering some type of govt. plan would be a mistake. How to pay for it? Some say ‘exact money from the millionaires’ others want to tax the high end insurance policies that are out there [the Cadillac plans]. However this is done we need to avoid strapping the middle income worker with too high a price. Some estimates, from Democrats, say that an average 4 family household who brings in 60 k a year would have to pony up an extra 700 a month under the plan. That if this family presently cannot pay for the coverage, they would be fined. This takes into consideration the govt. offset. The average insurance plan costs around 13 thousand a year, the govt. would pay for around 7 thousand in the above example and this family would be mandated to pay the rest. So some of these plans are not good. My view is, let’s do the thing and have the public option with it. If you can’t have the public option than this would simply be a regressive tax on middle income families. When the president was asked this question by George Stephanopoulos he denied this being a tax, but George told him if you mandate a fine on these people and then require them to pay by law, then it is a tax. The whole point today is we need to realize that simply ‘taxing the rich’ does not solve the problem. We should make sure that companies and rich folk pay their fair share, but they are not some type of secret answer to all the problems. This week a boy asked the president ‘why do people hate you’? and Conan Obrien said the boy then looked at Biden and said ‘I know why people hate you’. Ouch! There is plenty of room in this debate to hear both sides, not demonize the opposing side, and try and work out a compromise that everyone can live with. We certainly don’t need to hate either side.
(1270) CONC. 2ND KINGS 15- Azariah the king had a long reign and also was a leper. We read earlier how Naaman the leper was a great military leader. A few weeks ago as I was channel surfing I caught a biography on Father Damien, a Belgian Priest who went to Hawaii in the 1800’s to serve Gods people. Hawaii had a problem with Leprosy at the time and they eventually quarantined the lepers to an island named Molokai [sp?]. Father Damien used to visit the island and eventually requested permission to stay on the island and serve the people. He eventually caught leprosy himself and wrote how he so identified with the people that it was only fitting that he should die from the common disease of the people he loved. The next week I read an article or 2 on Father Damien, it just so happened that he was up for being canonized as a Saint by the Pope. So a few stories covered some of the controversy that surrounded him; some accused him of sleeping with some of the women on the island and they said that’s how he got sick. Other critics said he wasn’t really as dedicated as the stories portrayed; that he actually traveled to a part of the island where normal people lived and then he would later go back to the side where the lepers were. So the critics had their reasons, some of the critics were sincere in their beliefs and did not intend for their critiques to be made public. So to be honest reading these stories did cause me to doubt some of the heroic things I saw in the biography. All in all Father Damien was made a ‘Saint’ and in order for this to have happened under Catholic teaching the stories about father Damien’s infidelities had to be considered untrue. I actually found it fitting in a way that a man could still be recognized and honored even if he had these failings. Officially the church said these stories were false, but they might very well have been true and yet the good work Father Damien did was still honored. Now I in no way want to leave the impression that this would be some sort of accuse for sin, I just thought it fitting that the man was still honored even with the question out there about his faults. King Azariah ruled a long time [52 years] and yet he had a disease that was considered like having aids. There was a stigma to it. The people on Molokai were quarantined there because they were actually following the rules given in the Old Testament on how to deal with leprosy. In Jesus day you saw the same thing apply, people had to be separated from the population and there were cleansing rules for the houses they lived in and stuff like that. So in a primitive way the Hawaiians did their best to deal with the problem. Yet God shows us that some of his great leaders, men he used to do good things, also suffered from physical ailments that were considered tragic. In Isaiah 53 the bible says ‘it pleased the Lord to bruise him, thru his suffering my righteous servant shall justify many’. Jesus of course suffered by the will of God and God saw the things he was going thru, these things were the very acts that bought our redemption! Father Damien saw his affliction and eventual death as some type of redemptive price that he would pay for his efforts to redeem the people of Molokai, in essence ‘it pleased the Lord to bruise him, and thru his suffering he justified many’.
(1271) 2ND KINGS 16- Ahaz the king of Judah is attacked by Israel and Syria; he takes the treasures from the temple and buys the help of the Assyrian king. The king in return attacks Syria’s capitol city of Damascus and Ahaz is off the hook. Now Ahaz goes to check out Damascus and the job that he paid to have done; as he is there he sees the pagan altar of the Syrians and likes it so much that he sends the design back to his ‘arch bishop’ [priest] and tells him to make one for them. He also takes the brass/bronze altar from Gods tabernacle and mixes it in with this pagan contraption. Okay, first we see that once you open the financial door it’s hard to shut it. What made the king think about buying the services of Assyria with the temple goods? Well they did this before and once it became a viable option it was easy to just go back to the same source. That’s why we need to be careful as a country as we establish ‘new sources’ of income for various projects; these sources tend to get raided when needed [S.S. trust fund!]. Also Ahaz desecrated the holy things by his willingness to mix pagan worship along with God’s true worship. He basically liked the artistic value of the pagan altar at Damascus and wanted one. Last night I watched the documentary of the Monte Python guys. Back in the 70’s they were popular where I grew up in Jersey and they hit the TV about the same time as SNL. I never really saw how ‘anti Christian’ these guys were. I know they spoofed the Holy Grail stuff and all, but as they were talking on the documentary you could tell that they were truly ‘enlightenment’ babies. British mockers of the faith. Now, right after the documentary they showed their film ‘Life of Brian’ which I never really saw before [just parts] and it was a total mockery of the faith. The actor who spoofed Christ died not long after, he got cancer and died young, in his 40’s [I’m not saying God killed him!]. They showed his funeral during the documentary and it was sad, in keeping with their style the comics cursed at the Eulogy, dropped the ‘f’ bomb and said ‘we now know that Graham is gone, he no longer exists, all we have is memories’. They did the best they could, but as you saw the kids in the audience and the faces of friends and family, this end of dissolving into nothingness seemed so hopeless. The kids were taught you live, do what you want in life without purpose or meaning, and then evaporate into the cosmos! No real hope at all. I appreciate art, I don’t really get too offended when Christians are spoofed and all, I think our skin is too thin at times. But the constant mocking of Christ and the faith at the ‘altar of art’ seems to parallel Ahaz and his willingness to allow the beauty of the pagan altar to become part of his worship. Much of the so called ‘religious art’ is simply a mockery of the faith. Crosses in urine, the Virgin Mary depicted with porno- stuff that simply is not art. I read an article a few years back, the picture showed a 70 year old Black janitor standing next to a bunch of trash; it was dog poop, an old coke can and a bunch of trash just sitting in some building, it was actually one of the art displays. The poor janitor saw it while he was cleaning the museum at night and like any good worker, he threw the ‘dung’ out. Oh was he excoriated for this senseless act of disrespect and his inability to appreciate true art! In the article he said ‘it just looked like trash to me’ amen brother.
(1272) THE O’RIELLY FACTOR- The other day as I drove past the auto store O’Reilly’s I had the sense that I would be going there soon. In the old days I used to do all my own work on the junker cars I purchased. I remember many days in Kingsville going to every auto store in town, I used to frequent a little rinky dink place called ‘GAF auto’. They had a real nice older Mexican brother named Red; he always helped find me just the right part in their disorganized store. So any way my daughter’s radiator on the Mustang had a few problems and I managed to take off the overflow reservoir and patch the leak. But then the electric fan motor [I hate them!] would not turn on. I actually replaced the fan motor a few years back and was not sure what the problem was. I told my wife ‘Look, I am not going to start replacing stuff [like the old days] until I hit the jackpot, this time you guys need to take it to the shop’. I am trying to get away from doing stuff like this nowadays. So she looks on line and says ‘it might be the resistor’ [type of fuse]. As I pull out these fuses you really can’t tell if their bad or not so I think one sounds bad as I shake it. I am also trying to check the connections themselves to see if I loosened one when fixing the reservoir. So any way I really can’t tell what’s wrong, I’m running the engine to see if the fan will turn on and messing with everything. I go into the garage to look if I have the repair book for this car [1998 mustang]. I have bought books over the years for the various vehicles we have owned but couldn’t find one for this car [I have one for my 66 mustang but not for a 98]. As I pull the books off of a top shelf a resistor falls down. It says ‘ford’ on it and it looks like the part I’m looking for. As I think back I must have replaced them when I originally changed the fan motor a few years ago and I guess I kept a good one. So I stick it in and sure enough it’s fixed. What are the odds that this loose part just happened to fall down off a shelf? Red would have been proud of me. I bought these original parts at O’Reilly’s auto a few years ago; I guess the lord was telling me I would be fixing a car with an O’Reilly part soon. In Isaiah God says ‘ask me about the future of my sons, concerning the work of my hands command me’ ‘these people I have formed for myself, they will show forth my praise’ ‘before stuff happens I show it to you, before it springs forth I reveal it’. God is telling us ‘look, I am the one who has brought you to the place where you are at today; I have guided your steps. I have the power to manipulate the environment to give you a favorable outcome- you have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that it will last’ God is on our side, even little things like allowing a part to fall off of a shelf in the nick of time, God does stuff like this. I want to encourage all of our leaders who read this blog, be sensitive to the little ‘impressions’ God gives you on the journey, they might not seem significant at the time, but God does speak to us in simple ways. Look for the confirmation on stuff, I was really ready to give up on the car but I knew the lord had impressed ‘auto shop’ on my mind just a few days earlier, I had no idea how the details would work out but knew that God had spoken in this seemingly minor way. God is the one who brought us here, he will help with the little [and big] stuff along the way.
(1273) 2ND KINGS 17 in some ways this is a transitional chapter; up until now foreign countries attacked and suppressed Israel, but in this chapter we see the first real captivity of the people as a whole. Hoshea the king over the northern tribes [Israel] rebels against the king of Assyria who had them under tribute. So the king of Assyria puts Hoshea in jail and besieges Israel for 3 years, they take the city [Samaria] and they remove the majority of the people out of the land. He also places foreigners in the land to repopulate it. These foreign nations eventually mix in with the remnant that remained and these descendants are what we read about in John’s gospel, they were considered ‘half breed’ Samaritans. Now after the new inhabitants settle in the ‘Lord sent lions among them’. The people see this as judgment from God and request the Assyrian king to send them a priest so they could learn the ways of the God of the land and not die. This priest arrives and to some degree teaches these pagans the true worship of God, they of course kept their pagan beliefs as well, but it is interesting to see how the Lord even used a judgment scenario to redeem people. Okay, last night I was reading some of the history of the 18th-19th centuries and how after the French Revolution and the era of Napoleon many Europeans began to fear the idea of total and free Democracy, there was a sort of romantic musing upon the good old days of the Monarch. Many Frenchmen longed for the stability of the old Catholic church, these were called ‘Ultramontanists’ which meant ‘beyond the mountains- Alps’ and stood for their desire to re attach with the old Roman church in a way that allowed the church to reassert a global oversight over France as it used to have before the Revolution and Reformation. Part of the fear had to do with the nation states being their own sovereign, that whatever the nations wanted to now do they could do without any outside oversight; in essence part of the role of the Roman church was to provide a type of ‘united nations’ oversight over the individual states. Ultimately Democracy would eventually prevail and the new world of the Americas would be the first nation to adopt Democratic principles right from the start. When reading the history of the world, often time’s revisionists put their own spin on stuff. For instance we often read the history of Darwin in the latter half of the 19th century and see him as some enlightened figure who stood up against the bigotry of the church. But a generation or 2 before Darwin you had many ‘enlightened’ Evangelicals who fought for human rights and the dignity of man. William Wilberforce and the ‘Clapham community’ were men who used their political and social status as a means of freeing the Black man from the horrendous slave trade in Britain. Clapham was a small town around 3 miles outside of London; the town was sort of an elite place for the higher ups of society. Sort of like the Hamptons. Yet it was from this area in the late 18th century that many of the modern programs of the Evangelical movement were launched. The wealth and influence of these men launched the first bible societies, they started mission organizations for the poor; and even tried to instill a schema of social justice in their business dealings [the head of the East India trading company was part of the group]. These men wrought good social change and fought for the rights of the Black man, for him to be treated as a human and not some type of lower class chattel property. Darwin’s ideas would put into print the racist ideas of those who opposed the outlawing of slavery as a legitimate trade. Those who resisted freeing the slaves [both in Britain and the colonies] believed that the Black man was an inferior race to the White man. Darwin taught these beliefs openly in his books; he believed the Black race was proof of Evolutionary theory, that the Blacks proved to us that there were intellectually inferior races of men that did not advance along the more educated road of White men. The point being that a full 70 years before Darwin you had very influential Christian men who fought for the rights and freedom of Black men, and yet history normally portrays Darwin as the person who fought the bigotry of the church in his noble journey for truth. Okay, God allowed his people to be taken captive, they rebelled against him and they lost their freedom as a people, yet they still had a history of great and noble deeds, they accepted proselytes into their nation and treated the poor in their land with respect. It would be wrong to view the entire history of Gods people [both now and then] from the lens of the sins and wrongs that occurred, yes the church has made her mistakes and it sounds noble to say ‘lets cast off all the restraints of religion’ but in the end you might wind up looking past the Alps for some help.
(1274) VISION FOR THE CITY? As I’m doing the Kings study I have also been reading Isaiah, they kinda fit because in Isaiah God uses the prophet to rebuke and correct his people; in Kings we see Gods actual correction. In Isaiah 48 God tells his people ‘I showed you the future before it happened, I am doing new things with you; these are things that never existed until right now. I am revealing things to you for the first time ever; no one has seen these things before’. God really gives them some great promises, he also tells them ‘don’t you think I foresaw all the sins and mistakes you were going to make? I knew that you were going to be stubborn and not listen, I chose you anyway- not as some favor to you, but because this whole thing was my purpose from the start’ [my paraphrasing]. Over the years my thinking has changed/grown in certain areas, I remember a time when it was popular to focus on the ‘destiny of your city’. Many books written on the subject, studying the history of your city and looking for clues to Gods purpose. Now I want to be careful here, I do believe in the concept of God wanting to use his people to have a real impact on society, God does want our cities and nations to experience him. But now as I look back I feel some of the over emphasis on our cities was a little off balance. It was common to read/hear ‘what is happening now in our city [any name can fit] has happened before in other places on the earth, we are now living in a time of unbelievable destiny’ and yet as you looked at the actual scene, things pretty much were chugging along at the same pace as years gone by. In the New Testament you never see this type of emphasis on your particular city, there is a transitional mindset that went from ‘natural Jerusalem’ [your actual city where you live] to the New Jerusalem that comes down from God out of heaven [the church/people of God]. So instead of Paul writing letters to the churches and saying ‘you have no idea how great a destiny God has for Corinth/Ephesus/Philippi’ you read what a great purpose God has for those who name the name of Christ who live in these areas. So you see some excitement over what God is doing in these cities, but the actual emphasis is on the spiritual development of the communities of God dwelling in them. Got it? I say all this not to ‘pop anyone’s bubble’ so to speak, I just think we need to rethink some of the excitement that comes along with wanting God to work in our cities. God told his people he was going to do some awesome things thru them, he was going to show them things that no one has seen before- he would establish purposes and ministries that he had planned long before we were ever born. Just don’t confuse natural Jerusalem with spiritual Jerusalem. Earthly kingdoms and nations [and yes cities] will all pass away, but we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be removed, we are being built into a habitation for God, we look for a city that hath foundations whose builder and maker is God [Hebrews].
(1275) IS THE PRESIDENT KNOWINGLY LYING TO US? As of today- 10-28-09, the current health care plan still does not have language in it that would forbid your tax money from paying for abortions. There are various views on this issue, some liberal politicians feel you don’t need to have special language put into the bill, they feel the current law on the books banning federal funding for abortions would cover this [the Hyde amendment]. Others insist that the Hyde amendment would not cover the new law that would fund changes in health care, these pro life politicians [led by Bart Stupak, a Democrat] are calling for specific language in the bill that would prevent tax money paying for abortions. Now, I just read a very disturbing article where this Democratic house member- Bart Stupak, was told by the President himself that when he said ‘under my plan no federal money will pay for abortions’ that he was not referring to the actual plan that congress is voting on, that the words ‘under my plan’ referred to a theoretical plan that Obama had ‘in his own mind’. Stupak was grilled on this by the news reporter who interviewed him; Stupak said he actually called the President to make sure he was not misunderstanding him. Stupak told the president that he himself [the president] did not have a plan, that the only real plan was what congress was working on. In essence Stupak said to the president that he was misleading the public by saying ‘my plan will not cover abortions’. Obama knew good and well that ‘his plan’ was not the plan that the congress was working on, or that they would ever work on. The president was referring to ‘a plan in his mind’ that he could use to defend his language. If this story is accurate, I have no other option than to believe that the president has purposefully lied and misled the public on an issue that is crucial to many Americans. If this type of semantic talk is being used by the president, while calling those who were disagreeing with him as ‘misleading you’ he simply can’t be trusted. He seems to be allowing the pressure of the job to get to him to such a degree that he feels doing these types of things are justifiable, after all it’s for ‘our own good’. Lets continue to pray for the president, if he lied to us [which it sure looks like he did] it wouldn’t be the first lie a president told, but the manner in which it was done- telling the nation ‘under my plan abortions won’t be covered- and those who are telling you different are misleading you’ and then to tell Stupak that he was referring to a ‘plan in his own mind’ this is really bad, it accuses those who were actually telling the truth as being liars, many Democrats who have been honest and open about the issue have been tagged liars by the president himself. This is not good.
(1276) 2ND KINGS 18- Hezekiah rules in Judah and is the first king to tear down the high places of idolatry that Jeroboam instituted and he destroyed the calf’s and rid the nation of other idols [the bronze snake image that Moses had made was being used as an idol]. When I first read this chapter I of course wanted to credit this king as being one of the best, after all the chapter tells us this. But don’t underestimate the importance of surrounding events that aided in Hezekiah’s purging the nation of its idols. The northern tribes are in captivity, this gave the king of Judah room to function. It’s probable that most of the kings of Judah would have preferred ridding the nation of these calves, because their existence was for the purpose of preventing the children of Israel from reuniting with Judah, but Hezekiah had the opportunity to finally do it. Also the king of Assyria will come up against Hezekiah and threaten him ‘what makes you think that your God can do any better than all the other gods of the nations that our king has defeated’. These messengers are treading on dangerous ground, they are having a public discourse right outside the wall of Jerusalem, they are speaking the language that all the people know [probably Aramaic] and the leaders of Jerusalem say ‘don’t talk to us in the common language, after all we don’t want all the citizens to know our problems’ and the Assyrian messengers say ‘no, we want the people to hear- so they can know that they will be [quote] drinking their own piss and eating their own dung’. These brothers must have been the political ancestors of Alan Grayson! [the Democratic congressman from Fla. who calls women whores and stuff like that]. So anyway the Assyrians leave the threat and Hezekiah and his men do some soul searching. We’ll read the results tomorrow. Okay, there was a conscious effort on the part of leadership to ‘hide the discussion from the public’ Hezekiah did not want to post these things on the internet for 72 hours- or put it on C-span like the president initially said he would do. Also, don’t underestimate the role that our moral decisions have to do with whether or not things turn out good. Hezekiah will get some help from God because he really did seek to do the right moral thing in ridding the nation of idols. Right now [like today] there are many efforts going on in the congress to include abortion in the current health care funding. This would be a major national change in policy for our country. In the past the president is on record as saying he wants abortion covered in national health care [he said this in 2007]. So there is a debate going on in the Democratic party over this, there are around 40 Democrat congressmen who are opposing this bill over this issue. I applaud these men. I still believe that our nation can overcome some major problems that are facing us, but we can’t overcome them if we disregard Gods word. I am not advocating a theocracy, but to extend the coverage of abortion to a degree that has never happened before would be a big mistake. I realize the president has misled us on this, the facts are out there. I think he did it out of fear of not getting something passed, which would be a major political defeat for his agenda. But to purposefully mislead people, no matter how well intentioned you feel the end result is, this is still unjust. The king of Judah has a dilemma, he will find some help in seeking God, I think this strategy can work for all of us.
(1277) These past few weeks I have been adding a bunch of new verses to memory from Isaiah. Every so often I will read chapters 40 thru the end of the book and I always see new stuff. This morning I was reading the first few verses in chapter 49; the Lord is confirming the special calling on Israel as well as speaking about the Messiah- ‘It is a small thing to me to use you to restore the nation of Israel, I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles’ Paul uses this quote in Acts [I think it’s Paul]. One of the responses of Israel to seeing the truth of Messiah is ‘I have labored in vain; all the years of my efforts were worthless’ [these are all my own paraphrasing]. I find this interesting, Paul says the same thing in the letter to the Philippians, after his conversion and revelation of the grace of God he actually viewed all of his previous efforts to advance what he thought was Gods cause, he now saw his own energies under the law as vain. He called them ‘dung’ his efforts at trying to produce a self righteousness were working against the actual grace of God. Often times in ministry we believe that the key to success is much effort ‘try harder’ ‘if we just had more money Gods work would get done’. One of the great dichotomies of the kingdom is that our efforts often work against Gods purpose, this is not to say we shouldn’t work and function for Gods kingdom, it’s just not a matter of self effort. This passage in Isaiah also talks about Jesus being despised and hated with a passion, yet he will touch kings and nations. A previous chapter says ‘men of stature shall come over to thee- you will influence kings and princes’ God will give us great influence to touch nations and kings, but we need to also embrace the words of Jesus in Johns’ gospel ‘how can you please God, you who are trying to please men- spending energy on the glory that comes from being recognized by man’. Let all our efforts be based upon the grace of God, this thing is not about us or are gifts being put under the spotlight, it’s about entering into the true purposes of God and ceasing from our own labors ‘trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto thine own understanding’ we often lean too heavily on our own understanding.
(1278) 2ND KINGS 19- The king [Hezekiah] sends a messenger to Isaiah the prophet and goes into the house of God to seek the Lord. Isaiah informs Hezekiah that God will defend Judah. Isaiah also gives a rebuke to the king of Assyria. God used this pagan king to judge many nations, in essence he was fulfilling a type of ‘manifest destiny’ [American exceptionalism] and yet he grew proud over his victories. To be honest about it I see some of this going on in our nation at this time. While I do not subscribe to the ultra conservative critics of the president, these past few weeks have convinced me that he has lied to the American public on a huge scale over his willful misrepresentation of the abortion issue [read my recent posts under the abortion section]. I feel there was a disdain towards the Christian community and that the Chicago style politics simply ruled the day ‘hey, if we lie about this, what’s the big deal? We are fighting fire with fire- they lie about us [Fox news, the presidents critics, etc.] so this is simply part of the game’. I feel the president bought into this and at the same time underestimated the role that lying about abortion so it could be federally funded will play in any economic recovery. In essence our country will not recover if we disregard the heritage of Christian morality in this way. So God rebukes the Assyrian king for thinking he could do whatever he wanted and the Lord sends an angel and kills 185 thousand Assyrian troops. The Assyrian king goes home and dies while worshipping at his pagan gods altar. Okay, his arrogance led to a massive troop defeat as well as his own personal demise. One of the other major problems that out country is facing is the military situation in Afghanistan, those of you who have read my site for any length of time know that I do not support this war, I want our troops out. I find it unbelievable that this week the media exposed the fact that our CIA was paying off the brother of Hamid Karzia [the president] who is a drug lord. Some of our troops have died fighting the drug lords, yet our own govt. has them on the payroll. How did the media cover this? If we found this out under Bush/Cheney what would the outrage be? One of CNN’s most able commentators on the Afghanistan war [Michael Ware] said he would be shocked to find out that we weren’t doing this, sort of like it was the right thing to do. Unbelievable. The now famous tour of America by Alexis De Tocqueville in the 19th century has been cited by many historians. He praised our country for many things, but he also warned of ‘the tyranny of the majority’ that is he said that any society that measured right or wrong solely on what the majority wants is doomed to fail. Hezekiah sought the Lord and this made the difference, the nations that ‘forgot God’ and at the same time prided themselves in their military arrogance were judged [I honor our men and women who serve, but for our govt. to be paying those who have killed our men is a travesty!] I think the Old Testament is still relevant today.
(1279) THE ROSE OF SHARON- Last Sunday I tried to catch one of the services on TV that I watch every so often, but when I checked the channel guide it wasn’t on. So instead of reading I thought I would see if there was anything else on that would be profitable. They were showing the classic movie ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ and I always try and watch it annually. Back in New Jersey we read Steinbeck’s classic in high school and I have the novel sitting here in my office. I asked the Lord to show me something that would have some spiritual meaning, I focused on a few things- Tom Joad [Henry Fonda] says about ‘preacher Casey’ [John Carradine] ‘He was a lantern/light, he made us see things differently’ and the name of Toms younger sister is ‘Rose a Sharon’. This term comes from the bible [Song of Solomon chapter 2] and most preachers use the language to describe Christ and his bride [the church]. So anyway I like the image of wild flowers and stuff, so it was good. The last day or so one of the Christian TV stations has been broadcasting some prophetic type meeting out of Kansas. I have written on these brothers before and over the years there have been some interesting prophetic type signs that I received from these guys. As I’m watching the meeting they are recalling their ‘prophetic history’ and they share how one of the key images that was given them thru a prophet was the image ‘Rose of Sharon’, I thought that was cool. In Isaiah God says ‘I have engraven you on the palms of my hands, your walls are continually before me’ ‘you will spring up like wildflowers/lilies along the water ways’. God uses lots of ‘flower’ imagery when speaking of his people. Paul uses the language of us being Gods garden. Jesus said he was the vine and we are the branches. The verse in Song of Solomon says that the Rose of Sharon is like the lily of the valley. God’s community of people are a natural outgrowth of the message and life of the kingdom going forth into all nations. We do a disservice at times when we [theologians/teachers] emphasize that the church technically started on the day of Pentecost; I really don’t disagree with this idea, I understand it was the day the Spirit birthed the church in a sense, but the problem is we tend to neglect the actual style that Jesus used when making disciples. That is Jesus is going around preaching the kingdom, healing people, doing all these great kingdom works and he is instilling in the disciples this free flowing mindset of simply sowing the seed and allowing God to ‘make them grow’. Jesus even says in his parables that when farmers plant seed, they sleep and rise day and night and the seed produces on its own. The disciples ask him once ‘these other guys are using your name and we forbid them because they are not part of our group’ and Jesus rebukes them and tells them to leave them be. He was challenging the ‘ownership mentality’ the idea of ‘local church’ and ministry as being things that we own/oversee as some sort of business enterprise. You never see Jesus trying to recruit people’s loyalty in a way that modern church scenarios do in our day. He was sending his men out to preach the kingdom, those who would believe and become followers would be part of his kingdom- no need to create all sorts of ways to tell people ‘if you are committed to this work/this vision- the vision of the man of God who oversees this house’ all well intended language that is often used to try and instill loyalty, but this type of mindset is really not seen in this free flowing ‘wild flower’ ministry of Jesus. He knows his followers will ‘spring up like wild flowers along the waterways’ they will be like ‘lilies in the valleys’ beautiful things that seem to spring up outside of the constraining barriers of man. Sure the potted plants at Wal Mart have some value, but then when you leave the store and see all the natural lilies springing up along these roads and high ways, you think ‘wow, these things look great and they need no maintenance and seem to be unstoppable’. The plants in the garden centers are high maintenance, the ‘Rose’s of Sharon and lilies in the valleys’ seem to have a life of their own.
(1280) 2ND KINGS 20 Hezekiah gets sick and the prophet Isaiah tells him that he will die. Hezekiah seeks God and before Isaiah leaves the courtyard God tells him ‘turn back, he will get another 15 years’ God extends his life. But he asks for a sign from the Lord to know that he will live, God gives him the sign of ‘the sundial’ it will go back 10 degrees and not forward. Hezekiah allows the Babylonians to see all his treasures and God rebukes him for 'casting his pearls before swine’ and pronounces judgment that will take place when his son comes to the throne. This chapter also mentions the project that Hezekiah built, an underground water source [tunnel] that ran from the spring Gihon and brought water secretly into Jerusalem. This was a smart engineering move on the part of the king, in bible times when one king attacked another he would cut off the water source from the city; this secret underground tunnel was undetectable. For many thousands of years this story has been in the bible, some mocked it ‘where is the source’? In 1880 archaeologists found the tunnel with inscriptions on it. Let’s do a few things; the story of the sun dial going back is like the story of Joshua and God keeping the sun from setting a whole day until Joshua routed the enemy. One of the major challenges to believing the bible literally [face value] was the entire discovery of how our solar system worked [Copernicus, Galileo] and fitting that in with the biblical accounts [sun setting and rising language]. So many of the biblical critics came to reject these stories based on the fact that in order to ‘make the sun go back/stop the sun from setting’ you would have to stop the earth from rotating, or turn the rotation backwards! And science tells us that this would have catastrophic effects on the earth and seas, the gravitational effects would be enormous. In essence natural science tells us this can’t happen. Are all miracles like this? The event of the worldwide flood had natural events that caused the earth to flood. In today’s world a few well placed meteors hitting the oceans could easily repeat the event, so some supernatural acts of God coincide with natural explanations. But some don’t. The God of Christian theology is both Transcendent and Immanent, that means he is ‘above us’ [higher class than humans] and yet omnipresent, he has his hands in everything! Transcendence does not mean he is simply geographically far away, but that he operates in another dimension, he is not limited to the time/space continuum like we are. Einstein blew away many preconceived ideas about time and space with his ingenious theories, he showed us that things don’t always work the way we think. A being who can operate outside of these dimensions can do things that would defy all natural explanations, this is what I believe happened with these types of miracles, we don’t always have to find a natural explanation to a supernatural event. God spared Hezekiah and he was a great king, he made some mistakes and suffered for it. Yesterday I lost my vehicle keys, I looked all day and interrogated my wife and kids [they have taken them before] and after many hours of seeking I came to the logical conclusion that they were gone for good. My wife told me ‘lets wait and see, who knows maybe they will show up’ Oh yea sure, I guess they will just fall out of the sky! I am a man of action and decision; the keys were to my truck and my 1966 classic mustang in the garage. So I did what any reasonable man would do- I removed the ignition from the mustang [yes this is bad] and cut the wires out so I could splice the new ignition in its place. The official way to replace it calls for the removal of the dashboard and that’s quite a job. I could have called the lock guy and they could make a key, but I was already having a few problems with the ignition so I figured just do the whole thing. I also got the number to the dodge dealer so I could call them and get another key made from the VIN number on the truck. At around 11:00 pm the keys were found in the spot where I accidently put them, in a few hours I will be heading to Pep Boys for the ignition, the car sits in the garage with the wires hanging out from under the dashboard. Hezekiah was a good man, he did good things; but he also acted presumptuously at times, he let the Babylonians see the stuff that was supposed to be secret. Sometimes we can have all the good intentions in the world; this still will not immunize us from stupid decisions.
(1281) THE LORD HAS GIVEN ME THE TONGUE OF THE WISE THAT I WOULD KNOW HOW TO SPEAK A WORD IN SEASON TO HIM THAT IS WEARY…HE OPENS MY EAR IN THE MORNING- Isaiah 50. I was reading John 17 earlier and Jesus speaks about giving the words that the Father gave him, Jesus then communicates these words of value to his men. Jesus says ‘these are yours and yours are mine… you gave me these men out of the world and I have shared with them your truth’. There is a Divine sense of value on the words that God speaks. I read an article a while back written by a person who sold documentaries to TV stations, the person shared how they presented a valuable series of programs to one of the leading Christian stations. She was surprised that the station said they were not interested and would never pay a person/producer for a program. She explained to the station that these shows were high quality and that she would normally get paid for these shows, but the network said the only criteria they ever use is simply whether or not the church/ministry pays the required amount for airtime, the station never decides what to air based on quality. The person said they finally worked out a deal where the station accepted the programs but would not pay for them; the producer ran them for free. When we in the ‘Christian world’ operate along the lines of simply speaking/teaching words based on whether or not people can pay for the broadcast, then we are not even living up to the standards that the secular world uses. The same goes for Christian ‘movies’ many are done on a scale that’s quite frankly embarrassing. I rented a DVD a few months ago that was promoted by a Christian network, I got it for the girls and had them watch it. I asked them how it was, they said ‘it was okay dad, but you can tell it was cheesy’. Now there are excellently done movies with Christian themes, movies like ‘the mission’ with Robert Deniro, or ‘Les Miserable’s’ with Liam Neesan, these are high quality works of art. But much of what we call Christian broadcasting is simply the broadcasting of church meetings, very limited stuff. I simply want to encourage you today; God has given you a ‘set of words’ and a group of people that you are to communicate these words to over your life. Jesus understood that he was doing more than just 'giving sermons’ he was getting the specific message across to the men that the father gave him out of the world, his ear was open to hear what the father was saying and he spoke those words. Let’s reevaluate what we as leaders/believers say and do, let’s strive for quality and be sensitive to what we are communicating, if the level of Christian programming that we are releasing is either low quality or low value [some high tech shows still teach silly stuff!] then lets reevaluate the stuff and if necessary pull some words back. It does no good to the minister/church or to the people when we speak words that are not coming from the Father.
(1282) 2ND KINGS 21:1-17 Manasseh rules and rebels against the reforms that his father Hezekiah instituted; he rebuilds the pagan altars and even brings pagan altars into the temple and court. He sheds innocent blood by sacrificing his children to Moloch and ‘making them pass thru the fire’. Moloch was an idol statue that the pagans heated up until the arms were bright red; they then laid the babies in the arms. God pronounces judgment on Judah and they will eventually go into Babylonian captivity. Manasseh was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Manasseh’s father was a great king, yet the turn around from one ruler to another was astounding, many years of reforms and respect for human life were undone under this wicked king. Often time’s society embraces ideas that seem open and liberal, yet when they disrespect human life these ideas lead to captivity. I know our country faces many real problems right now in our history. The average citizen who watches the news hears about them to a degree, but the behind the scenes dangers are much greater than we see. Other countries are seriously looking at our economic problems and making moves to shield themselves from a future collapse of our economy. Many banks are still failing and the economic numbers that seemed good in the last quarter are really inflated math; in essence the cash for clunkers program and the free money given to first time home buyers [that was just extended today- as well as another extension for unemployment] these well meaning programs give a false sense of economic improvement. If I told you I was going to help your son get on his feet, and after 6 months of ‘my help’ you visited him and he seemed to be doing well, he had a car and place to live, food and a check. Wow, I kept my word. Then you found out that I gave him the car and house and was simply giving him free money every month, then in essence I falsely stimulated ‘his economy’, to a great degree this is what we are doing. Whenever you pump billions of dollars into the system, sure it will have some effect, but unless you give little Johnny the real tools for success, a pro small business environment, means to get real funding to become successful, unless you do the real stuff that makes a difference you are not truly going to change things. Manasseh was a progressive type person, he was open to all sorts of religious beliefs, tried implementing them in with the worship of the true God, he disrespected that old silly belief that you shouldn’t sacrifice babies on an altar of convenience, and he made some real changes from the previous king. His actions had some very serious consequences, the nation suffered for it.
(1283) TRAGEDY AT FORT HOOD- A few days ago as I was praying the regular routine of praying over areas of Texas I sensed a really strong leading from God to extend my prayer region to include highway 35 from San Antonio up thru the Dallas Fort Worth area. For years I have prayed over the area of 35 that extends from San Antonio to Austin, but I always stop at Austin. But the leading of the Lord to ‘pray further north’ was so strong, that I added some changes to my prayer maps in my office and even ‘staked out’ a new spot in my yard while praying in the early mornings. Yesterday we had the worst mass killing in US history that took place on a military base, it was FORT HOOD. Fort Hood is located directly off of highway 35 between San Antonio and Dallas, just a little past Austin. The tragedy is the reality that both Muslim Americans and military people will be hurt thru this event. That there are certain elements in radical Islam [not all Muslims!] that see the present situation thru ethnic/religious eyes. It’s also tragic that there are Fundamentalist Christians that see it the same way. I do not see this Army Major as an evil man who set out in life to hurt Americans, he is an American himself. Born and raised in the U.S. But the various ideologies of the wars and the disagreements between Islam and Christianity play a role in the way people’s ideas are formed, then these ideas can lead to violence on either side. The other day I received another email from some Pastors in Pakistan, they read the site and appreciate our teachings. If you look under the sections ‘Trinity, Christian, Muslim stuff’ and ‘Gentile, Jewish, Christian’ you will read many entries that stand against the popular American preachers ideas about Muslims and Christians. In a way I defend Muslims/Arabs to a degree. I also totally reject all acts of violence on either side, I do not support our current war in Afghanistan and want our troops out. I guess it’s because of this progressive/liberal stance that I have both Arab Christians and Muslims who read our site, great! I simply want to exhort all Muslims, Christians and other faiths; no matter how sincere we are in our beliefs, no matter how much we think certain views are right and others are wrong, we need to outright reject violence as a means of winning our points. We need to have the freedom of our beliefs and there expressions, the freedom to say ‘I believe Jesus is the way’ while at the same time respecting other cultures and religious beliefs. This entire incident is so tragic, it will drive a wedge between Muslim Americans and right wing radicals. It will play into the stereotypes that the radical Muslim fundamentalists want for recruiting purposes. It will justify the un Christian mentality of ‘let’s just blow them away’ that has been expressed by the religious right. A tragedy indeed. To all my Muslim readers, please reject these extreme views, they do no good for honest and peace loving Muslims. To all my Christian readers, do not view these events thru a ‘Christian lens’ that sees these events as justification for the killing of Muslims in other countries. We all need to pray for our country at this time and we need leaders from all religions to take public stands against this type of violence. May God help us all.
(1284) FOR A LAW SHALL PROCEED FROM ME AND I WILL MAKE MY JUDGMENT TO REST FOR A LIGHT OF THE PEOPLE Isaiah 51:5 I found out last week that one of my friends converted to Islam, he spent some time in New Jersey jails and rehabs and the Muslim influence is strong in Jersey. He explained to a friend how ‘God doesn’t share his glory’ and that he was taught that the Christian view of Jesus violates this truth. First, it would take too much time to overview the entire history of various beliefs and questions on different expressions of the Trinity, suffice it to say that there have been Christian groups from the first century up until today who have had difficulties with the Orthodox expression of the Trinity. I am Trinitarian, but understand how these various groups have had difficulty. Just to name a few; the Ethiopian Orthodox churches reject Trinitarian language. The Oriental Christian churches in general reject the language. The invading barbarians who attacked the Roman Empire were eventually converted to a form of Christianity that would reject Trinitarian language. The great Blasé Pascal thought it to have been a false teaching. I could go on and on with many groups who believed in God and Jesus but did not accept strong Trinitarian language. The point being, if someone thinks that all Christians hold the same views on the language, they are mistaken. I wrote a letter to my friend who converted to Islam, I simply shared the main difference between Christianity and Islam [and all religions], that Christianity teaches forgiveness and acceptance with God as a gift that comes thru the Atonement of Christ. Jesus died for men’s sins and rose again as a sacrificial atonement for man, Islam has some well meaning teachings in it but at the end of the day it is a religion that is legalistic. People attempt to gain Gods favor thru their own efforts; this is opposed to the Christian view of grace. I basically think it to be a red herring to use the language of the Trinity as a reason to reject Christianity and become Muslim, as I already stated there are many Christian groups who would agree with some of the issues that Muslims raise; this does not deal with the fact that man cannot atone for his own sins, man is unable thru any religious works to make himself right with God. The ‘law that proceeds from God’ to the nations is a law based on grace, not works. Paul calls it ‘the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus’ [Romans] he contrasts it with the law of works. Now the whole history of Justification by faith and how different Christian groups see it is another intramural war that rages within the church, N.T. Wright recently put out a book on it, John Piper wrote one in defense of the historic Reformation view- Wright’s view has some excellent points, but would be considered New Perspective. So there are differences in the way Justification by Faith is seen, but all groups agree that man is accepted by God based on the free gift of Grace that comes thru the Cross. Yes, Catholics and Protestants agree with this language, though there are other differences. The point today is I believe we as believers need to make clear the differences between law based religions and Christianity, Jesus offers free forgiveness based on his death burial and resurrection. Law based religions might seem noble at the start, but at the end of the day they lead to condemnation and frustration, they are a vain attempt by man to make himself pleasing to God- an impossible task.
[2-2011 POSTS] CHURCH HISTORY/PHILOSOPHY-
[1585] ANOTHER SHAKESPEARE? As I continue to read thru some of the arguments against Christianity- the pros and cons- one of the common threads that run thru the critics minds is the entire field of what is called ‘the historical method- higher criticism’. I have written extensively on it in the past- and will just hit a few points for today. This method of study developed in the German universities during the late 19th- early 20th centuries. Men like Rudolph Bultmann would popularize it- and before him thinkers like Hegel would play their role in setting the field for a new way of thinking about the bible and Christian truth. During this time many professors/scholars began studying the bible in the original languages [Old testament- Hebrew. New Testament- Greek] and they noticed something interesting- the first 5 books of the bible- commonly attributed to Moses [meaning he wrote them] were found to have used different Hebrew words for God. You also noticed different ways things were phrased in different sections- this lead some thinkers to espouse an idea called ‘the documentary hypothesis’ when I recently critiqued the atheist- Christopher Hitchens- he used this argument in his book- but you could tell he simply read the theory from someone else [a teacher- Bart Erhman] and that he was really not familiar with the entire field. This theory is usually attributed to a thinker named Wellhausen, and it gained popularity among the school of teachers often referred to as liberal theologians [liberal- not politically- but in theology]. Eventually the idea arose that Moses could not have been the writer of the Torah [first 5 books of the bible] but the Torah must have been written after the captivity of Israel [around the 6th century B.C.E.] and the returning Jews to their homeland basically made up the whole thing in order to give a sense of community and purpose to the down trodden Jews. The same idea was developed about the New Testament and the gospels- these same critics said the gospels were really written by later authors- who made up most of the stories in order to give a sense of continuity to the developing nascent church- though these critics thought the New Testament still had ‘religious value’ yet the historical truth is absent [thus the name historical critical method]. Now- what about this John? First- over the years both of these theories- as interesting as they are- were in fact proven to have been not true. How? Well- the story s a little too long for this post- but basically as the field of archaeology and historical studies developed- the critics had less ground to stand on- not more. When I recently read the Popes book- he deals with this subject a lot- and he skillfully and accurately refutes it- I mentioned how at times the Pope was even funny. The Pope outlines the theory [about the gospels being a fabrication- written by some unknown men at a later date] and the Pope asks Bultmann ‘and just how do you explain the idea that these unknown authors wrote the most valuable writings of the day- books that have influenced the entire world- written at a real time with other real historical people living at the time- and yet they were able to carry out this elaborate hoax- while never being detected by anyone who also lived during that time’ in essence [I’m paraphrasing Benedict] the theory actually has no proof- if your going to challenge the historicity of the gospels- writings that do claim historical accuracy- written by men who we know did indeed live in the 1st century- whose historical accuracy has never been seriously challenged for centuries- if you come up with a theory 1900 years after the fact- then you can’t attribute your theory to a bunch of anonymous men- who supposedly lived at the same time- and brilliantly carried out the most elaborate hoax in the history of the world- and no one knows who these geniuses are! Benedict is correct in his critique of the critics. Basically these theories- while adding something to the whole debate- as a whole do not stand the same test of historical examination that they want to apply to the bible. And if the gospels are accurate [which they have been proven to be] Jesus himself speaks about the Torah [the first 5 books] quite a lot- he speaks saying ‘Moses said this’ and attributes the books to Mosaic authorship- talks of ‘Noah’s day’ speaks of God creating man in the beginning [Genesis]- Jesus himself testifies to the historical accuracy of the Old Testament- so if we have proof that the gospels are historically accurate- then according to Jesus- the history of the Old Testament is also historically true- See? When I read Hitchens- he has no depth at all in this debate- he seems to have simply read one side- and dished it out to his readers- giving them old arguments against the faith that have been disproven for years. It’s like the guy who said ‘hey- did you hear the news? We have found out that Shakespeare really didn’t write the tremendous works that are attributed to him’ O really- then who wrote them ‘another guy named Shakespeare’.
[1582] HITCHENS-PIRATES AND M THEORY- Let’s talk a little more about Christopher Hitchens book- God is not great. As I’m reading thru the book- and also doing some studying on Modernity- it’s obvious for me to see the errors in the arguments Hitchens is making in trying to refute the existence of God. Instead of attempting to refute each argument he makes [and to be honest- he does make many classic mistakes- things that are not really hard to show as false]. Let me give you just a few points- Hitchens comes at you from all angles- history, science, historical criticism [a view of the bible that tries to undermine the historical accuracy of the faith] politics- he basically covers all the angles that I too like to engage in. He is smart- no doubt about it- and he mocks Christians, Jews, Muslims- and he does it in a way that says ‘you are all idiots’. So that’s why when attempting to refute him- when I see him doing something stupid- I try and bring that out. Okay- one of the major mistakes Hitchens makes [a common mistake in the field of apologists versus atheists] is he appeals to the basic idea ‘we- as intellectual people do not accept things based on faith- we only believe things that can be scientifically proven to be true’ now- how many times have you heard this? This argument is only made by those who are ‘novices’ in this debate. Why? Because at face value it is very easy to refute. Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris- and all the other famous atheists believe in all types of historical events- things that happened in the past- without a single shred of ‘scientific proof’. Let’s see- Do you believe Lincoln was shot? Have you personally done DNA tests on the remains? Have you even seen the remains? Let’s see- what about Aristotle and Socrates and Plato- surely as refined as these men are- they most certainly believe that these great Greek philosophers lived 4 centuries before Christ. Again- what scientific proof can you show me- you know- the standard that you’re using to judge whether or not Jesus ever lived? Basically the argument that says 'faith and Jesus and God are not real truth- not like science’ is a totally illogical argument- unless these men would have us believe that they reject all of the above historical figures I just mentioned. So how does the bible- Jesus- God- hold up to the historical test [not the scientific test!]? Point of fact- there is no other historical person- in the history of the world- with more historical proofs of his existence. There are no other ancient documents- dating back to the time of Christ- that have the historical accuracy that we find in the New Testament- Luke- the writer of both the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts- from a purely historical point of view- is considered the best- most accurate- first century historian to have ever lived [I explained it all before under the Evolution/Cosmology section- I think it’s in the 8-2010 posts]. Basically the argument Hitchens is making is dishonest at its core. Then- he gets into M Theory [geez- didn’t really want to go there] Okay- I love studying science, history, Physics. And to be honest- Physics is really not my ‘field’ that is I prefer to show you the mistakes Hitchens is making when he pretends to be a bible student [he makes statements that he is a regular reader of the bible- who goes thru it often- I seriously doubt that claim- he seems to be familiar with certain critical scholars of scripture- theories that have long been rejected- documentary theory by Wellhausen- and you can kinda tell he simply reads the critics and incorporates their ideas into his own- heck- if there is no God- then what’s wrong with plagiarism?] Okay- Hitchens seems to be enamored with Stephen Hawking- I wrote about Hawking a month or so ago- in his recent book- Grand Design- he made some ‘Grand mistakes’ and I refuted these errors. Now Hitchens seems fascinated by certain theories of Hawking- and his worship of the man’s theories goes to the extreme. Hitchens speaks of the famous idea in theoretical physics called M Theory- modern physics [standard theory] says our universe is made up of Pixels- fine points of matter that are unseen by the naked eye- but exist as the basic fabric of the universe. Now- we all accept this- Atoms- Neutrons- etc. all little ‘dots’ if you will, that make up our universe. So M theory [a theory that expands upon String theory] says ‘no- maybe the universe is made up of these strings- these vibrating strings that form into circles- and under these hoops- there are buckets that make up the matter of the universe’ Okay- just think in your head of a piece of string- make a loop- under the loop stick a basketball net. Walla- that’s the theory. Now- does this sound stupid to you? Well you’re in good company- it also sounds stupid to a growing number of very able physicists! Yes- many brilliant- non religious scientists- will tell you that doing science like this- just making stuff up- is loony. So to be honest- as interesting as theoretical physics is- there are many things that simply do not meet the standard of ‘solid science’. So- why mention this. Hitchens uses this theory as proof against the existence of God [in a weird- tortured way] and at the same time says ‘I don’t accept things that can’t be scientifically proven’ yet the whole M theory field is very doubtful- some think the whole thing is simply not true. So it’s stuff like this- obvious mistakes- that are sprinkled all thru out his book. I mean he even makes mistakes that novices make- he mistakenly refers to the establishing of the state of Israel as having occurred in the 19th century- I mean I can’t believe he doesn’t know the actual date- 1948- I have to think that he simply made the common mistake of thinking the years 1900-1999 are the ‘19th century- a common mistake made by people who are just beginning the journey of learning [obviously the 1900’s are the 20th century]. But at the same time he lambasts Christians as idiots and does stuff like this. It reminds me of the time I was watching MSNBC- now this cable channel is filled with nonstop mocking of the political right- one morning the host [Scarborough] was doing his show- and he reads the upcoming story to come on after the commercial- but you can see he’s confused- he asks someone off screen ‘does that say Pirates’? And they tell him yes- he then says ‘folks- your not gonna believe this- but when we get back- yes- we will cover the developing story of Pirates- yes I know it sounds unbelievable- Pirates attacked a ship off the coast of Somalia’. Now- no one ever said anything- he came back and simply reported the story. What’s wrong? He obviously thought Pirates meant ‘Pirates’ you know- Johnny Depp and the Caribbean. I’m sure someone informed him during the commercial ‘Piracy is the official term for robbery on the high seas- you dummy’! Can you imagine the mocking they would have done if Sarah Palin had done this? So I see in Hitchens a mocking of religion and at the same time a conceited view of his own intellect- and the intellect of other atheists- he engages in a sort of debate that says ‘look- you religionists are idiots- we are not’ and he makes such obvious mistakes- things that ‘uneducated’ people do all the time- not bad people- just common mistakes like the ‘19th century’ thing. And if people make mistakes like this [Pirates- etc.] fine- we don’t want to beat people up- but if the entire premise of your book [or cable channel] is ‘look at all the Christian idiots’ and then you make the same mistakes your criticizing the Christians for- well then yes- you look as silly as Joe Scarborough thinking Johnny Depp and his crew were out robbing ships!
[1579] Okay- I wasn’t going to post today- but figured I’ll go ahead and finish these brief thoughts on the doctrine of Justification by Faith [by the way- Justification is a legal term that means the judge declares you righteous- just- there are lots of technical terms that apply to what Christians mean when they say ‘saved’ and to be honest- many Christians fight over these various differences- but for this short overview I can’t get into the whole debate]. Those of you who have read the studies I’ve posted at the end of these posts- I do get into some of the debate- and I want to be honest about the ‘official’ differences between Catholic and Protestant [Reformed] views. But first- the bible clearly teaches the doctrine [teaching] that those who believe in Jesus are saved- so you might have some Christians who say ‘I don’t care what the official teaching of my church is- I believe it because the bible says it’ that’s fine- I have no problem with that- accept- to be honest- the Protestant world is plagued with preachers, televangelists, radio preachers [yes I’m in this camp] and book writers who mean well- but they for the most part are teaching snippets of truth [sometimes outright falsehoods] and most of them use the ‘I believe it because the bible says it’ line- so even though it’s good for all of us to read and believe the bible- it’s also important to not be ‘seeing stuff’ that no one else has ‘seen’ for 2 thousand years of church history! [by the way- comments like this don’t get me in good standing with most other Protestants] The main point I want you guys to see is as I have shared with you this teaching- I’ve also shown you that yes- this teaching is not something that you find in a single obscure verse taken out of context- but it is a major theme of the apostle Paul- who just happens to be the most prolific writer of the New Testament [his letters make up the majority of the New Testament]. Now- during the official schism between Catholics and Protestants in the 1500’s, the Protestant position became the classic doctrine of Justification by Faith- that is the Protestant church [mainly what today is called Reformed theology- ever since the 16th century schism there are so many divisions of Protestants it is impossible to say what ‘Protestants believe’ in the broad sense] said the mechanism- actual way- people become justified by God is when they believe- have faith in Christ. The Catholic position said a person becomes legally justified in Gods sight at Baptism- Baptism is seen as the actual act a person does in order to become justified. Now- wars have been fought over this- Protestants call other Protestants heretics over this- there are many groups of Protestants who also teach that a person ‘becomes saved’ at baptism- and the strong ‘anti baptism’ crowd often refers to the ‘we get saved at baptism’ crowd as cults! This is pretty sad in my view- I can go thru all the verses that each side uses to ‘justify’ their belief- and suffice it to say that there are enough ‘you get saved at baptism’ verses to not see that belief as heresy. So I personally have no problem with Catholic Christians- or Church of Christ believers- or the multitude of other Pentecostals, Baptists [certain sects] who see their ‘I got saved’ day as the day they were baptized. I don’t want to get into the whole debate on infant baptism- I’ve written about it under my Statement of faith section- and once again the churches that practice it have their reasons- it’s not as ‘crazy’ as many Protestants portray it- there are many fine Christians who were baptized as babies. But what I want to end this brief study with is this- the basic teaching of the New Testament is that we are accepted with God because of what his Son did for us- Jesus- the Son of God- God in the flesh- died for all mankind’s sins, he was buried and rose again according to the scriptures [1st Corinthians 15]. The mindset that thinks ‘if I go to church- do my best to keep the 10 commandments- and try and avoid killing somebody thru out my life- heck who knows- maybe I’ll make it thru the pearly gates?’ Well that’s the mindset I want to challenge- lots of good, well meaning Christians walk thru life thinking this way- and it’s to those brothers/sisters that I have been talking too- even though the Catholics and Protestants have differences- yet we all teach that we are saved by Grace- not by keeping the 10 commandments or ‘going to church’ yes- this is clearly taught in the bible- and the Christian churches all teach it- even if this truth never ‘trickled down’ to the people in the pews. So as I post the last study in this short series of posts [Romans] if you can- read the whole study- I did it a while ago- by the way- all these studies and books on the blog are written by me- so what you read in the studies is a longer version of these short posts- but if you can, read the whole study- if not then try and read chapters 2-5- these chapters cover the heart of what we have been talking about- and to all my readers- Jews, Hindu’s, Atheists, Muslims- whoever- these promises are given to all of us- if we would only believe. John
[1577] Okay- how bout this- before I get into politics I promise to do a teaching thing. The other day I wrote a short, simple [basic] post on the teaching in the New Testament about believing in Jesus, and on the promises in the bible that say ‘if you believe in Jesus, you have eternal life’. Now- for all you preachers/Christians who read the site, yes this is basic stuff- but for many Christians who are nominal church attendee’s, maybe they have grown up in a good Christian church- but never really got into reading the bible, or seriously studying the faith- for these Christians I want to cover some more of the basics. Okay- why is the doctrine of ‘believing in Jesus and being saved’ such an important thing? I mean don’t all Christians know this John? In a way yes- and in a way- no. That is the teaching is not just a simple ‘believe in God’ thing- it is one of the foundational teachings in the bible- and the apostle Paul was the New Testament apostle who shook up the first century religious community by brilliantly writing his ‘thesis’ on the subject. The apostle was a former teacher of the Jewish religion [Pharisee of the Pharisees- top scholar] and after he got knocked off his high horse [literally! Acts 9 ?] he came to this revelation of seeing how God all along had ‘a plan’ to redeem men [save them] by faith- and not by trying their ‘darndest’ [I get too many rebukes for cursing!] to keep the law and do good. This doctrine [justification by faith] is the major theme of Paul in his letter’s to the Romans [often considered the best scholarly work of the apostle] and the Galatians. Paul does a brilliant job at explaining the Old Testament stories of Abraham and the patriarchs- the well beloved Jewish king- David- and the promise of God to send the Messiah to the Jewish nation [and ultimately all nations] for their deliverance. Paul explains why God chose to save people by faith as opposed to trying to obey the law- he explains why God gave us the 10 commandments [to reveal to man that he is sinful] and he shows us that the reason faith is the mechanism for salvation- is because salvation is a free gift that was earned for us by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave. Faith- in itself does not save- it’s simply the mechanism that is the simplest way to get the gift of eternal life to people thru Jesus [Jesus is the actual person doing the saving!]. Thru the ages the church always had this doctrine contained within her bible- but like everything else- the bureaucracy eventually got in the way- and Christians lost the simple reality of the free gift. Now [okay- this is getting long- probably won’t do politics too- I know your sad about that J] during the 16th century [1500’s] we had what is commonly referred to as the Protestant Reformation- as a student of history I probably have studied this period more than any other- there were many church leaders leading up to the 16th century that voiced concerns over what they saw as abuses within the institutional church- many influential teachers and intellectuals who were gaining new influence thru the development of the university system that occurred alongside the rise of the nation states- these universities and their top scholars now had the ability to challenge the institutional church [in Rome] to a much greater degree than previous reformers. So without getting into all the technical reasons why the 16th century reformation took place [The initial challenge was the abuse of the priest, Tetzel, selling indulgences to raise money for the refurbishing of the church at Rome- yes a building fund project was the actual cause of the greatest church split in the history of the world!] what became the rallying cry of the reformation was the restoration of the classic doctrine of Justification by Faith [and the reformers would add the words ‘alone’]. The 3 Sola’s [alones] of the Reformation were -faith, scripture, and grace. But it is interesting to see that the main emphasis that eventually came from the Protestant Reformation was the restoration of the lost doctrine of justification by faith- or to put it simply- being saved by believing in Jesus- and not by trying to do your best to keep the 10 commandments. I believe it was possible for the church to have not split over the doctrine- there were obviously tempers flaring on both sides [Rome and her Papal representatives and Luther and those on his side] they freely referred to one another as ‘the anti Christ’ you know- not the best expression of Christian brotherly love- but I do believe it was possible for the historic Catholic church to have assimilated much of what Luther was saying back into official church doctrine- and as a student of the period, and having read the actual letters and writings that were written by both sides- I do believe the Catholic church had some good scriptural concerns that some might miss read what Luther was saying- and think that Christians could go out and kill- rape- and do whatever they felt like doing- because they were now saved ‘by faith’ and not by keeping the law. The apostle Paul actually dealt with this very accusation in the letters I mentioned above- and he too saw the danger in people misreading what he was saying. Okay- enough for now- I guess I’ll go ahead and post the study I did on the doctrine of Justification by Faith here at the end- for those of you on the various sites that don’t see it- it’s because some sites that I post on daily- they don’t have enough space for the whole post- so you will have to go to the blog and read it [corpuschristioutreachministries]. John
[1573] Let me just give you guys a heads up today. These past few months or so I have been doing a lot of posts on Philosophy. Sometimes I do a bunch of history- or science- or another subject. For those of you who come to the site strictly for bible teaching- yes- there are times where I do an entire book of the bible- or cover a series on a biblical truth [Justification by faith- etc.]. On the blog [corpuschristioutreachministries]- if you go to the February 2010 posts- you can find all these studies. But for today let me just do a brief overview of where we are at- by the way I also wanted to mention the referendum in Sudan [Africa] today- today southern Sudan will vote on whether or not they want to be independent from the North [I’m almost positive they will vote for independence]. Sudan has been in a civil war for over 20 years, around 2 million people have been killed [massacred] in the process. The ruling north is predominantly Muslim- the South Christian [another long story having to do with independence from Britain in the early days]. So why should we pray for Sudan today and in the next few weeks? Because if the South does break away- many Christians who live in the North will be in danger of severe persecution as retaliation for the South’s vote- so let’s pray today [1-9-2011] and in the next few weeks for Sudan. Okay- the brief overview I want to do is to simply remind all our readers that the main truth- or thing we all need to re-focus on is the reality that the Christian message is one of reconciliation- that God, thru Christ- has ‘brought back’ the world to himself as a Divine gift. In essence the Christian message is not ‘turn your life around- be good- and then go to church and you will be saved’. Now- being good- going to church- all of these things are good to do- but many times people get the cart before the horse and the world never really understands the message of the Cross. When the bible says ‘repent and believe the gospel’ it is not saying ‘stop sinning and believe the gospel’ in the sense that your telling a drug addict ‘once you quit the habit then God will accept you’ the word repent in the new Testament does of course carry with it the idea of ‘turn away from sin’ but it mainly means ‘change the way you think’ or basically it means ‘are you finally tired of what you’ve been doing? Then let’s try the God thing’ [of course that’s my spin on it]. In essence the message of Jesus and the church is ‘God forgives and accepts people, not based on how good they are- but on the fact that his Son died for you and rose again’. In the book of Romans the apostle Paul says ‘If God gave his son for us- how much more will he freely give us everything else’. People [Christian’s/ preachers] often make the message confusing- sort of like if you don’t get all the details just right- you aren’t ‘saved’. The fact is if God gave his son for us- paid such a high price to save man- then why would he also go thru all the trouble to make ‘getting saved’ so difficult- that most of mankind will miss out on it! The basic way we are saved is thru faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ- this is what the gospel [meaning good news] is according to the New testament [1st Corinthians 15]. If you read the gospel of John, the letter to the Romans- or the letter to the Galatians [all New Testament books found in the bible] you will read the story of how God chose to save men when they would simply believe in Jesus- yes- the gift of God is eternal life thru Jesus Christ. Now- as a student of theology and history- I certainly am familiar with all the many controversies surrounding the various churches and how they implement the sacraments- or baptism- or ‘the sinner’s prayer’ when encouraging people to accept Christ. The main point I want to make today is the reality that many times in the New Testament the bible speaks about those who believe in Jesus, that these are ‘the sons/daughters of God’ [John chapter 1]. If you just pick up the bible this next week or so and read thru the gospel of John- you will be surprised to see how many times Jesus himself connects simple belief in him with eternal life ‘for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life’ 3:16- ‘he that hears my words and believes on him that sent me has everlasting life’ 5:24- ‘he that believes on me has everlasting life’ chapter 6- the last chapter of John says ‘many other things did Jesus do that are not written in this book [John’s gospel] but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Son of God- and thru believing you might have life thru his name’. I want you to think differently today about ‘Christianity’ or ‘going to church’ or ‘God’. Over these last few months I have engaged in lots of arguments for the truth claims of Christianity- refuting the contemporary atheists- showing the historical proofs for Christianity. For many people they hear things thru out their lives- little bits of info that cause them to doubt certain aspects of the faith- and then they use these arguments- often easily disproved- as excuses to say ‘that whole Christian stuff is a bunch of bull’. So the apologetic arguments for the reality of God are intended to ‘un-do’ many of these excuses- but at the end of the day the message of eternal life is simple- it’s a free gift given to all who will simply believe. I was going to post one of the bible studies here at the end- but just go read one or 2 of the ones I just mentioned from the blog- or pick up a bible and read a chapter or 2 a day- I mean the book of Galatians is only 6 chapters, you could read it in a single sitting. Okay- that’s it for today- remember try and pray for the church in Sudan- that all will go well and there won’t be any violence because of the vote- and do a little bible reading the next day or so. God bless, John.
[1572] HEGEL [modernity study cont.] Hegel is considered to be one of the most influential thinkers of the modern era [along with Kant]. Hegel’s view of God and religion laid the groundwork [with Kant and a few others] for liberal theology. Hegel taught an idea about God that said in the beginning God was this ‘undifferentiated spirit’ [impersonal] who ‘separated’ himself from himself- in this Divine separating part of him became cosmos, world, man- in the history and development of man, man comes to self consciousness about himself- about God- and in this process- God himself discovers who he is too! Yikes! Obviously Hegel’s view did not sit well with historic Christianity.
Hegel was an idealist [like Plato]. If you remember earlier in this study I taught how idealism is the belief that ultimate reality exists in ideas or forms- the reality of horse or chair is first an idea/invisible form- then what we see is sort of a second creation. Many of the early Greek philosophers held to this view [Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, etc.]. Hegel believed that because ‘God’ comes to this self realization of who he is thru the development of human society thru time- therefore he saw the Divine in human community [government]- primarily expressed thru Protestant forms of Christianity- he divinized the state in a way.
When we study the various thinkers of the modern period [1700’s-2000] it is hard to separate their strong views of religion and God from their thought- but many modern teachers of philosophy have a tendency to skip over the religious ideas of these men- often in the university setting these thinkers are just looked at as philosophers- and their obvious religious thought is kind of glanced over as ‘a symptom of the times they lived in’. This is a big mistake in my view- while I obviously do not embrace Hegel's ideas about God [he basically taught a form of Pantheism- a religious belief that says God is the creation- not just the creator] yet it is important to see the role Hegel will play in the influence of the higher critics that arose out of the German universities of the 19th century. Many of the modern religious thinkers were influenced heavily by Hegel [Rudolph Bultman] and his ideas- in various forms- will continue to inform religious thought right up until the 20-21st centuries.
I guess a good example to sum up Hegel would be the program I was watching last night on Link T.V. It was a discussion amongst various religious groups about God and how we should strive to know and understand and respect the different beliefs people have [I agree]. Yet as the various people shared their views- it was easy to see the eastern beliefs and how much they differed from traditional Christianity. At one point they gave a quote from a Catholic priest [Those of you who know me realize I consider fellow Catholics Christians and am a student of Catholic as well as Protestant Christianity]. He said there were 3 basic realities; 1- the other [God] 2- we are the other [we are one with the divine] 3- there is no other [double yikes!!]. Obviously this well meaning priest is not in good standing with the teachings of his own church!
I don’t share this to be mean- I think in today’s world it is vital for Christians to engage in interfaith discussions- to respect other peoples beliefs and to work with other religions [Islam, Judaism, Hindu- etc.] but we don’t want to confuse people about what the historic Christian faith teaches about God. In Christian teaching [Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox] God is an eternal personal being- not just some ‘undifferentiated spirit’. God is not ‘us’. He made us, and the creation- he reveals himself to man thru creation- his Spirit does indwell those who believe in him and the redemption of Jesus Christ and his Cross- and God knew who he was- long before we knew who we were!
So some of the deep thinkers have espoused ideas that do not sit well with Christian tradition- never the less it’s good to study and be familiar with the various thinkers of the modern era and to be able to refute [in a nice way!] their errors and share with them the truth of the gospel. As I study these various thinkers-I’m reminded of a term I learned when first moving to Texas from N.J. As a Yankee living in the south- I was often told that here in the south we don’t ‘fix it if it aint broken’. And over the years I have learned that there is much truth to this statement- thru trial and error.
One time I bought this 1976 datsun 280 ZX. It was a used car- paid around a thousand for it. I liked the car- ran fast and all. So one day I get this bright idea [yes-I am going to fix something that ‘aint broke’] and decide to install a backup oil pressure gauge- you know just in case the original one goes out. So I put the new gauge in [cluster gauge- shows 3 different readings] and every now and then I noticed the gauge would show no pressure! The first time this happened I panicked and pulled over and realized that the pressure was okay- it was the design of the gauge- the tube kept falling off the oil sending unit [the thing the gauge hooks up to]. So one day while driving home- sure enough the gauge reads zero pressure- O well I will fix it when I get home. I never ‘got home’. The tube did fall off- but to my surprise all the oil managed to shoot out of the small tube during the ride- yes- I blew my engine! So as I read Hegel and some of the other thinkers in this study- and some of the theories they came up with- I appreciate their efforts to inform modern thinkers- to give themselves over to the field of philosophy- but in the end I get the sense that they are trying to fix something that ‘aint broke’.
[1568] ALEXANDRIA- EGYPT. Last night I was watching the news coverage of the demonstators in the streets of Egypt- they were protesting the government’s response [or lack] to the bombing of the church in Alexandria, the second largest city in Egypt [around 4 million people live in the city]. As I watched the sad story- in my mind I recalled all the times I have run across Alexandria in my studies of history. The city was founded by Alexander the great in the 4th century b.c.e. It had the largest library of the ancient world and was Egypt's capitol for around 900 years. When the Muslims took over in the 7th century Cairo became the new capitol [under another name at the time]. Alexandria was one of the great centers of Christian learning during the first few centuries of the 1st millennium of Christianity. I remember reading about the great church father Origen- he lived in the 3rd century and eventually would head up the school out of Alexandria- one of the first Christian schools of the day. The famous philosopher Plotinus also had a lot of influence in the city. It was sad to see the destruction on the news- so many years later. This morning I read Revelation chapter 13. The apostle John writes about the persecution of ‘the beast’ against the Christians- the apostle says he makes war against Gods people and overcomes them. We often neglect to see this aspect of scripture- I mean how many songs have you heard that say ‘the beast overcame us and killed us’. We like to sing stuff like ‘we overcome by the Blood of the Lamb’ [another verse from Revelation]. Yet the apostle foresees a time of persecution of the church that will include the deaths of many believers. Those who think the book of Revelation was written early [before a.d. 70] see Nero as the one who bares the mark of the beast- yes the popular 666 is in this chapter. Others who date the book later [around a.d. 90] see the emperor Domitian as the beast- either way John was speaking about a future ruler who would severely persecute the saints [and of course the most popular view today among evangelicals is the anti Christ is yet to come]. In verse 10 of the chapter John says those who kill with the sword, must die the same way- this is the patience of the saints. John is communicating to the 7 churches that he is writing to that they should not retaliate against their oppressors- they should patiently endure- knowing that the persecutors will eventually ‘hang themselves’ with their own rope. Of course the great empire of Rome would finally fall- and for those who see Nero as the 666 guy [my view] he eventually dies a shameful death as well [he killed himself].
As I watch the various responses from Muslims and Christians [and Jews] to these types of events- we all have a tendency to view things most favorably to our own particular viewpoint. While some Muslims are of course outraged over the church bombing- yet the Christian community is more enraged. When the recent peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians broke down- many Christians in the west couldn’t care less- many of them view the entire conflict thru the lens of end time dispensationalism [an end time view that sees Gods plan being played out by the displacement of Palestinians from the land]. I grew up in New Jersey [yes- the state of the great governor Christie!J]. As a good old Italian boy- I had lots of ethnic friends- Germans, Dutch, Spanish- etc. Many of these families were immigrants to the U.S. whose families had a history of living in the country for a hundred years or more [some less]. Now- if I were to come to your neighborhood, and tell you ‘look, the governments of the world made a deal [league of nations- later called the U.N.] and you have to leave this area and another group is going to move in’ how what this make you feel? Put aside your view of the bible and how you see ‘Gods plan’ being carried out- I mean just as a human being- how would you feel? You would feel terrible- you would think ‘geez- my father and his father settled here a hundred years ago- I’m not an alien!’ Yet the Palestinians were living in their land for 2 thousand years! Okay- just see the other point of view. Some of the Palestinians are Christians [small %- 2-5]. How do you think they feel when they have been praying for justice- many lost their homes and family estates during the displacement- and then they see the parade of American Christians trod thru the land like their on some Holy Land adventure- taking the kids to Disney world type thing- and yet in the real world lives are being lost on both sides of the conflict.
Most American Christians who hold to these end time scenarios that play into the geopolitical situation on the ground- they don’t realize that many Jews- and even many in the Israeli govt. do not completely embrace their enthusiasm for Israel. The Israeli leaders also know that most of these scenarios see a bloody conflict that will take place in the Holy Land [does Armageddon ring a bell?] and that many Jews will be slain- only a small remnant will escape [does the number 144,000 ring another one?]. The Israeli security forces in the city of Jerusalem actually have a specific profile for a group/persons that they see as dangerous to the city. Do you know who these ‘dangerous persons’ are? They are the tourists that enter the city every so often- and they have this wild look in their eyes- they are there to await the return of Jesus and they believe that they will be a part of the end time army that will spill much blood and defeat the forces of the enemy- yes- these types are deemed dangerous to the Israeli’s.
Lets pray for the peace of all people- let’s do our best to reject all forms of violence as being totally unacceptable- whether it be the bombing of a church in Egypt- the destruction of the Buddha statues by the Taliban in Afghanistan [they destroyed these ancient pieces of art when they rose to power in the early years]. Even the bombing of abortion clinics- or the shooting of doctors- we need to see what the apostle John saw- those who take up the sword must in this manner be killed. I think too many of us have signed our own death warrant.
[1564] DRUNK WITH THE BLOOD OF THE SAINTS- Wasn’t sure which way to go today? It’s strange that I have been thinking about covering the sad story of the Christians in Iraq; since the war they have been persecuted severely- a few months back one of their main churches was attacked, many have fled to the northern region of the country [Kurdish area] and many are seeking asylum in our country. Saddam Hussein protected the Christian church in Iraq- he was not considered to be a radical Muslim leader- like the Mullahs in Iran. So it’s sad to see the Christian church possibly being eliminated from this ancient country. The church in Iraq dates back to the 1st century- they still speak Aramaic [some of them] which was the actual language Jesus spoke. Anyway- the thing that seems strange is I felt like I should read Revelation chapter 17 this morning- and in the chapter the apostle John has this vision of Babylon [which is Iraq- geographically. In the chapter it’s a symbol of the Roman Empire] and as he sees Babylon he says ‘she is drunk with the blood of the saints’- yes indeed, much Christian blood has been spilt in Iraq.
Okay- the other day I was watching some show about a group of people picked from all over the world who were chosen to participate in a sort of round table discussion where each person would spend so many months just sharing in conversation with these other people. Some were from the U.S., others from Muslim/Arab countries- some were from Israel. The conversation they had was really revealing- they were not scholars, but they showed you the point of view from other perspectives. One of the questions they asked was what should happen to Iran? Should the U.S. intervene in their desire to obtain nuclear weapons? One of the Americans said we should- because they might be a danger to world peace [a common ideology among many Americans] then one of the students from a Muslim country said ‘then why do you not feel it is also wrong for the U.S. to have nuclear weapons’ and the American gave some type of simple answer. Why does the Muslim world have a problem with the U.S. seeming to play the role of arbiter- who can have- or not have a nuclear arsenal?
Are there any Muslim/Arab countries that have them today? What about other countries who are also unstable? Let’s see- Pakistan [the most unstable of the bunch right now] India [Pakistan’s rival, also a major reason why Pakistan will not eliminate the Taliban from the mountainous region of her nation- they see the Taliban as playing a major role in the future govt. of Afghanistan and they need some ties to the Taliban in order to balance out any power play between India and Afghanistan] Egypt, Israel, North Korea, Saudi Arabia- well as you can see there are a bunch of nations who already posses nuclear weapons- or are on the road to getting them. So when the average Muslim sees our attempt to intervene in who gets nukes, they see it as a hypocritical game.
What is the world history on nuclear attacks? How many countries have actually used nukes to attack/respond to other attacks? One. Who dropped the first Atomic bomb in the history of the world on another country? We did. Okay- let’s give this another shot. Who dropped the second Atomic bomb? Okay- us again. One more time- who dropped number 3? No one. So let’s see this from the perspective of the Muslim student who questioned the reasoning of why the U.S. has nukes- but doesn’t want other nations to have them. The student was told that if other nations [Iran] has them- they might use them. Yet they see us as the only country that has ever actually used them. Look- I know why we used them- and many have questioned the morality of what we did in WW2. Were we just in dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? We killed around 200 thousand people- civilians- not military [not counting the many who died in the following years from radiation sickness]. One of the definitions of terrorism is the purposeful targeting of civilians for a political/military goal. To the Muslim world- we targeted these civilian cites [they were not collateral damage- the civilians were the target] for a political/military goal- to end the war. The point is we [Americans] have a tendency to view things from one perspective- we rarely see the end result of our actions. Who would have thought that our war in ancient Babylon [Iraq] would have contributed to one of the fulfillments of John’s prophecy ‘Babylon- you are drunk with the blood of the saints’.
[1562] POPE’S BOOK- FINAL COMMENTS- Let me try and make my last comments on the Pope’s book [almost done with it- a few pages left] which I have been reading on and off for about a month [I’m in the middle of a study on the Western intellectual tradition- making radio programs- and have been too scattered to do a complete book review]. Let me hit a few high points of the last few chapters that I felt were really insightful. Benedict gives an overview of a Rabbi’s perspective on Jesus [a book the Pope read from the Rabbi]. The Rabbi does not accept Jesus as the Messiah- but is respectful in his approach and the Pope shares the common reason why the Jewish nation rejected Jesus as their Messiah in the 1st century. Being faithful to a theme that runs throughout the book- Benedict shows how Jesus presented himself as the fulfillment of the prophecy about Moses/Jesus ‘that God would raise up a prophet like Moses’- Benedict shows that Jesus presented himself as the ‘New Moses’ and took the position of God himself in the statements he was making concerning his authority. In the Rabbi’s book- that the Pope is explaining- the rabbi covers the sayings of Jesus and comes to the conclusion that faithful Jews could not/ did not receive Jesus as their Messiah because his call to them was for Israel to accept his authority over and above what they knew to be true- their attachment to the Torah [the first 5 books of the bible- the law] and for Israel- as a nation- to accept Jesus- they would be saying ‘we accept a new Moses- and place his authority and words over and above the very foundation of our existence’. Now- these insights are deep- they are coming from a Jewish rabbi who has come to the conclusion that Jesus was presenting himself ‘as God’ to the nation of Israel- and Benedict says he learned a lot from reading this perspective from the Rabbi. I just felt that this section of the book was real valuable. The Pope goes on to explain that Jesus was not repudiating the law- but fulfilling it- and in his explanation he also does a very good job [secretly!] at putting out a hand to the Protestant churches and attempting to reconcile the teachings of Paul on justification by faith [and Paul’s neglect of the law] and the biblical view of Jesus fulfilling the law. Benedict even shares very good insights into the apostolic calling of Peter- and the separate calling of the apostle Paul- his insights are excellent and you can see that he is really making an attempt to bridge the theological gap between Protestants and Catholics. Overall this book [Jesus of Nazareth] is the most Cross/Christ centered book I have read in the past 5 years! [We call this Christology- for those of you who want to learn the terms]. Over these last few years I have made an attempt to read some of the top Protestant writers of the day [Men like N.T. Wright- former Bishop of the church of Durham- England. Not talking about the top best sellers that are basically filled with pop psychology and void of any real learning] and I must confess that no other book has come close to the insights that the Pope has on the Cross and the necessity of believers to identify with Jesus in his death and resurrection- the Pope has done an excellent job at presenting Jesus and the Cross in their proper light. For all you theologians/preachers- the Pope also comes down on the conservative side of historical criticism. That is he certainly is familiar with the whole debate over Liberal/Conservative approaches to scripture [not talking politics here!] and he does another excellent job at dissecting the critics [Bultmann] and challenging many of the false assumptions that the higher critics made while rejecting the historical content of the gospels. The church went thru a century or so debating how reliably accurate the gospels were- many challenged their accuracy in a way that was not fair- that is they began holding the bible up to critical methods of historicity that no other documents were ever held to. These critics came up with methods- called historical criticism- that were quite frankly ‘loony’. And then they used this new criterion to say that the Historical Jesus was a different person than the Jesus from the bible. The Pope does a thoroughly scholarly ‘dissection’ of these faulty approaches- and quite frankly takes them apart in a ‘nice’ way. Yet Benedict also respects the historical studies of the church and handles very well the ‘contradictions’ that some find in the gospels. Many critics have shown how the various gospel writers [especially John’s gospel compared to the 3 others] do show differing accounts on certain aspects of Jesus and his life. To be honest- some of these differences can be problematic- many preachers/believers are generally not aware of some of these differences. The Pope knows them well- and deals with them well. So he does not simply reject the ‘higher critics’ by saying they are wrong, but he shows his familiarity with the subject, and makes a scholarly attempt at representing the ‘conservative’ side of the argument; which basically says ‘the gospels contained in the new testament do very much present to us the historical Jesus’. Needless to say- I agree. So anyway as you can see the book is chock full of excellent insights that would benefit all Christians- I recommend everyone pick up a copy and read it.
[1561] PIETISM/ROMANTICISM- As we already covered, the Enlightenment thinkers struggled with the idea that religion and reason/rationalism can go together. The pure Empiricists [David Hume] would reject the idea that religion could be rational- Descartes claimed it could- and Kant drew a middle line; he taught that we cannot know God thru the sense realm, but it was rational to ‘Postulate’ the idea of God [John Locke said reason can accept Revelation- Divine truths that have no Empirical evidence to back them up- Kant simply taught that it was rational for the mind to accept the idea that a first cause must exist, even if we can’t ‘prove’ him thru sense evidence]. Okay- as you can see much of Enlightenment thinking was infused with religion, reason, rationality- etc. Did all thinkers ‘think’ that these ways of approaching religion and reason were profitable? No- many thinkers/philosophers saw too much ‘head knowledge’ in the whole endeavor to make faith reasonable. Many religious leaders rejected the over emphasis on rational religion. Romanticism was a cultural/religious movement that primarily affected the Arts and Literature- but also had strains of religious thinking within it. The Romantics said we do and should experience life and God thru a real-felt type of living. There is much more to life than the rational proofs of things- in fact they felt the very essence of life was about experiencing the beauty of things thru the Arts and the creativity of man- some felt that God himself was revealing who he was thru the artistic creativity of man- the great Christian pieces of music [Bach- etc.] were not these beautiful works of music that transcended the ‘rationality’ of man and caused him to experience the beauty of God/religion thru this form of Art? The same for great literature. Pietism had her roots in the early modern period- and in the 19th century also pushed back against the sterile rationality of the Enlightenment thinkers. Pietism- much like Romanticism- said there was much more to religion than simply knowledge- Pietism challenged the ‘dead faith’ of Orthodoxy and focused on the religious experience of Regeneration- they spent much time answering the question ‘how do we know we are saved’. Romanticism had strains of religious thinkers within her- Pietism was mainly focused on the religious question. Pietism had a major impact on 19-20th century Protestant Christianity- and most Evangelicals today can trace their roots to Pietism’s influence on religious thought. In the 18th century revivals that took place in the American colonies- men like Jonathan Edwards would play a major role in shaping the religious thought of early Protestantism in America. John Wesley- the great Methodist preacher- would also challenge the ‘dead religion’ of the Church of England and eventually launch the Methodist church [though Wesley originally never meant to separate from the Anglican Communion]. So the 19th century saw a strong reaction against the reason/rationalism of Enlightenment thinking- they felt like much true religious experience was indeed meant to be ‘an experience’ that is something much more than simple knowledge. In Romanticism this challenge was primarily based in the cultural landscape of the day- in Pietism it was religious in nature. You had both Romantic atheists and Pietistic preachers agree on one thing- there is much more to life than the sterile rationality of the Enlightenment period.
[1560] BUT THOU BETHLEHEM, THOUGH THOU BE LITTLE AMONG THE THOUSANDS OF JUDAH- YET OUT OF THEE SHALL HE COME FORTH UNTO ME THAT IS TO BE RULER IN ISRAEL. Micah 5:2. In the gospel of Luke we read the story of Jesus being born in a real place- at a real time. Chapter 2 says that Caesar put out a decree that ‘all the world should be taxed’ that is they did a kind of census where you had to go to your native town and register. It just so happned that Mary, Jesus mother, was living in Nazareth [Galilee] at the time and Joseph- Jesus’ step dad- was from the lineage of Judah [King David’s tribe]. So at this very inconvenient time- at the hour of child birth- they make the trek to Bethlehem of Judea- just in time for the census- and for the baby! Hundreds of years before this event there was this obscure Jewish prophet named Micah- he blurted out one day ‘out of you Bethlehem- the least of all places- shall one come forth- a great ruler of all men’ [my paraphrase]. The Jewish nation was waiting for centuries for this ‘sent one’ this messiah who would come to them in the midst of their oppression- and he would fulfill the promise that God made to father Abraham millennia before ‘we will serve him without fear and in holiness all the days of our lives’. As a matter of fact- jump back to Luke chapter 1 and you can read this promise being uttered from the lips of John the Baptist’s father when he praises God over the pregnancy of his wife Elisabeth- you see John the Baptist was also spoken about centuries before his birth- he would come on the scene as a forerunner- a precursor to the messiah. Yes, John’s father had reason to rejoice. And when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary- he told how that she was chosen for this great task- possibly the greatest task that any human was ever given- she would give birth to this promised messiah. She asks the angel ‘how can this be- I know not a man’ he tells her the Holy Spirit will come upon her and she will conceive a child from God- none before could claim the title ‘the only begotten of God’. Read Mary’s prayer in chapter 1- it too is a cry for social justice ‘the high and mighty will be brought low- the poor will be lifted up’ we call her prayer ‘The Magnificat’. Both Zacharias and Mary spoke/prophesied of social justice- that thru these seemingly strange miracles- God put in place a plan that would bring justice to all those who were being oppressed. So the day came for Mary to bear the child- but he was prophesied to be born in Bethlehem- so God preordained that the great Caesar Augustus would make a decree that ‘all the world would be taxed’. Caesar came from the beginning line of Rome’s great Caesars. Octavian- Rome’s first- would be a devastating military leader who would strike fear into the hearts of Rome’s enemies- the kingdom [Roman Empire] would take her initial form under his rule. Of course most of us our familiar with Julius Caesar- he’s made it into the Hollywood hall of fame- and Augustus- he would be the third in a line of 12 Caesars who would rule Rome. He ruled at a time when Rome was the center of the world- all roads truly did lead to Rome- the great eternal city. Rome had her religious adherents- Rome practiced a type of pluralism- when they conquered an enemy- they would allow the people to continue to have some form of self rule- believe in whatever religion suits you- but you were still under Roman rule. The Pantheon [a sort of pedestal for the various god’s of the day] represented this religious openness of Rome. Yet the Jews had a different type of belief- they held to what we describe as Monotheism- a belief that there was only one true God. Her prophets spoke the words ‘hear O Israel the Lord our God is one’ and they held to their peculiar belief while Rome overlooked it. In the midst of all these developments, Caesar makes the decree ‘everyone go back to your towns for the census’ and Mary and Joseph hit the road. Sure enough the time came for her to deliver the child- he was born in a stable- laid in a manger and the world would receive her king. 2 Thousand years have passed- where are the great Caesars? Have you ever even heard of the name Octavian before today? Yet all over the world- in every nation- on the radio- over the internet- being shouted from the speakers at the mall- yes, all over the world we sing that Jesus Christ is king- the one born in Bethlehem of Judea- the one for whom the whole world was a stage- even the mighty Caesars of the day bowed the knee unto this eternal purpose of God- they would be puppets in the hand of God- used of God to make decrees that would fulfill the obscure prophecy of some Jewish prophet named Micah- yes- the Virgin had it right ‘God brought down the mighty- used them for his purposes- and exalted those who were struggling’. Rejoice- for in this day- 2 thousand years ago- was born a great ruler- a ruler of all men- his hometown is now famous because of this birth.
[1559] RATIONALISTS- EMPIRICISTS [Western intellectual tradition] - Okay- for those of you who are following my sporadic teaching on modernity [philosophical period between the 17th 20th centuries] let me overview a little of what we have covered so far. We discussed the Christian thinker- Rene Descartes’- and how in the 17th century he challenged the faculty at the university of Paris [the leading university of the day] to argue for the reasonableness of Christianity thru rational means- he said we can prove the existence of God without having to appeal to church tradition or the bible. The Empiricists [those who challenged the ‘rationalists’] argued that all knowledge comes to us from the senses- so we can never prove God’s existence from reasonable/natural means. In fact they argued that religion in itself is irrational and any attempts to make it rational/reasonable were futile. David Hume and Denis Diderot [one of the first openly professed atheists of the time] would argue from this position. Then in the late 18th century the very influential German thinker- Immanuel Kant- would respond to Hume’s pure skeptical Empiricism and ‘awake out of his dogmatic slumber’ [a term he himself used to describe his reaction to reading Hume] and challenge the skeptics. Kant did accept the Empiricist’s idea that we can’t ‘prove God’ by rational means- thru knowledge obtained thru the 5 senses- yet he taught that it was perfectly ‘reasonable’ to come to the conclusion that God exists. Just because you can’t prove God like Descartes’ said [according to Kant- I personally believe Descartes’ was right] it is still rational to ‘purport’ the necessity of God- in essence we ‘need God’ and natural religion for man to function in society- and it is logical to conclude that there must be an initial cause to all creation-even though we can’t discover him thru natural means. Okay- just a brief overview of what we already covered. I guess at this point I better go ahead and start a separate study under the title ‘The Western Intellectual Tradition’ [on the blog]. Why should Christians [especially preachers/pastors] even be concerned with stuff like this? While I agree it is not necessary for all Christians to study all subjects about all things- yet these historical/cultural movements play a major role in the debate going on today between believers and those who reject God. Just like in the scientific field- if Christians simply give up the fight- that is if we come to the table of ideas- trying to engage society in a coherent way- then we need to have some ability to argue intelligently for our position. To have even a ‘surface’ understanding of some of these cultural movements that have shaped the way we think and know is important when we get into debates with unbelievers who have appealed to the skeptics [Hume] to argue against the existence of God.
[1556] REALISTS-NOMINALISTS- Let me do a little more on the development of philosophy and how Christians played a major role in new ways of thinking and ‘knowing’ [epistemology]. I mentioned Rene Descartes the other day- Descartes challenged the Christina thinkers of his day to approach apologetics [arguments for God’s existence] from rational grounds; instead of saying ‘God exists because the bible/tradition teach it’ he showed we can argue from the ground of reason. Descartes was a ‘realist’ that is a thinker who believed in Universal principles- the ancient philosophers [Aristotle, Plato- etc.] taught that there were universal ideas that existed- the example was if you think of a Horse- or a Chair- that in the mind of people we all have this concept of what these things are- but the reality of the universal idea of horse/chair exist outside of us- they are not only thoughts in our minds. The Nominalists rejected this idea- they taught that we interact with our 5 senses with things in the world- and thru this interaction our minds passively receive this knowledge and we come up with ideas- not because these ideas are universal ideas that already exist- but because our minds have ‘discovered’ them thru the senses. These thinkers were also called Empiricists. Men like David Hume would take this approach. Then in the 18th century you had the German philosopher Immanuel Kant challenge the skepticism of the Empiricists and he would become one of the most influential thinkers for our time. You would be hard pressed to find another philosopher who has had more influence on western thought than Kant. Kant too believed that man could not prove God absolutely thru natural means- but he did teach that it was rational/reasonable for man to believe in the existence of God- though he said you can’t totally prove him thru natural means. This was a different approach from the pure Empiricists- they taught that God/religion were irrational. Kant put a twist on Empiricism- he said that man does interact with the world thru his 5 senses, but instead of ideas/knowledge being a product of the mind of man passively receiving this knowledge- mans mind categorizes these interactions and it is thru this function of mans mind that we have knowledge. He carried the idea a little further than Hume. In the end of the day Immanuel Kant believed that not only is it rational to believe in God- but it is necessary. For society to ever function properly man needed to believe that his soul was immortal, that an eternal being existed that would some day judge man [or reward him] for his actions in this life. Though Kant did not accept the Realists view that we could prove God by rational means- yet he did believe in the necessity of man to believe in God. It has been said that Kant kicked God out the front door- but snuck him in thru the back. Okay- know some of this gets dry at times, but I think it is important for Christians to have some idea of the development of thought and philosophy thru the ages- many atheistic philosophers have argued against the existence of God- but many Christian thinkers have made just as strong [if not stronger] arguments on the other side- we need to know both sides.
[1555] I really want to cover a little more Philosophy/history- but let me mention a few recent news/political developments. This past week Richard Holbrook died. He was our special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan. I actually wrote a post about him a week or so ago. The Wikileaks revealed him to be less than truthful in his dealings with the public. The reason I want to mention him is because after he died the media [both left and right] praised him as a wonderful man- a great humanitarian- on and on. Holbrook was said to have been the highest diplomat in his area of foreign policy who never became secretary of state. If you remember during the presidential campaign many thought he would be picked to take the position if a Democrat won. He was also said to have had a ‘big’ image of himself- he saw himself as a very important figure. I saw an interview he did with Rachel Maddow one day- he simply gave the same justifications for the war in Afghanistan as Bush and Cheney gave- no difference. Holbrook was involved with our actions in East Timor in the late 70’s [Carter administration] and also played a role in our ‘war’ in Yugoslavia. During the 90’s under the Clinton administration we ‘sided’ with the Muslim’s who were fighting the ‘Christians’. Slobodan Milosevic was the president and we backed the Muslims because we claimed the Serbs were practicing Genocide. So the Muslims did the same against the Serbs when it was their turn. Holbrook had a hand in those killings as well. So whatever a persons political leanings are- we should also be truthful about the history of people. If someone has leaned more heavily towards the justification for U.S. action- and has pushed for the more aggressive role- than let the record show that. When Cheney or Rumsfeld die- I’m sure you will have some who will praise them- and others who won’t. In Holbrook’s case there seemed to be no one telling the other side.
Okay- let me quickly cover a few more things. I’m doing a study right now on the Western Intellectual tradition- covering the period between 1600-2000. Some if it gets a little dry- but it’s important for believers to have a basic grasp on this period. Many thinkers went thru a transformation during this time- in the pre-modern era philosophy and theology went hand in hand. But during the enlightenment and scientific revolution many new ideas arose. In the midst of the 17th century [1641] the famous Christian thinker- Rene Descartes’- sent a letter [called the Meditations- it would be released in book form later] to the university of Paris [the leading university of the day- theology and philosophy were the main fields of study] and he challenged the thinkers of the day to ground their arguments for God in Reason as opposed to Revelation [meaning tradition and what God has ‘revealed’ to us thru the bible]. Descartes’ believed that the Christian thinker could argue his case in a more powerful way if he based his argument on reason. Now to be sure this idea was not new- you had men like Thomas Aquinas advocate this in the 13th century- and as far back as 400 years before Christ the philosopher Aristotle used this line when speaking of the ‘prime mover’ [God]. But Descartes is credited with challenging the church of his day to do philosophy on this new ground. John Lock, Immanuel Kant and others would take certain aspects of Descartes ideas and develop them more fully. Some were more skeptical than others- and some rejected the idea that any reason/rationality could ever be combined with religious belief. Later on in the 19th century you had many openly advocate a type of reasoning that would totally exclude God from the picture. But for the most part the earlier thinkers did not go down that road- they thought it foolish to deny the existence of God- all things coming into existence from nothing seemed be a non starter for them- yet many of today’s most famous atheists seem to have no problem espousing a view that is absolutely proven to be false [you can never- ever- ever get something from nothing- which is the most popular view of the big bang theory among many atheists today]. So I think Christians today should be more aware of making the argument for the existence of God through rational/reasonable means- the other day I heard a radio preacher trying to debunk the theory of Evolution- he argued that it can’t be true because the bible says God made everything. Well this argument doesn’t cut it with people who don’t believe the bible! Likewise we need to be able to give a defense for the faith- without always appealing to the articles of the faith while doing it.
(1554) MODERNISM- okay- need to take a break from politics [current!] and news! Let’s do some history/philosophy. Modernism [modernity] refers to the time period between the mid 17th century to the mid 20th century [loosely]. During the scientific revolution, coming off the heels of the Reformation- there were many challenges to past ways of thinking about religion, knowledge, politics and existence in general. Many new thinkers felt the old forms of thought were outdated- and as man advances he needs to ground his existence in rationality as opposed to religion [Descartes’]. Not all thinkers rejected religion- John Locke and Immanuel Kant tried to show that religion could be rational- not all religion had to be ‘blind faith’. Others rejected that idea [David Hume] and said if you wanted society to be rational- you had to reject religion as a foundation for thought. Modern atheists- like Sam Harris- would say the same thing. In Harris’ 2004 book- The End of Faith- he teaches that all true religion is radical in nature- that those who believe you can be moderate in religion are wrong- that the religious texts themselves [Koran- Bible] call for radicalism and violence and therefore the only hope for peace in the world is to eliminate religion. Basically I think Harris should stick to atheism and not delve too deep into Christian philosophy. The Christian ‘religion/ethic’, while possessing scriptures [Old testament] that certainty do advocate violence- yet the central historical event in Christianity is the event of the Cross and the person of Christ- whose message said ‘Moses said- but I say’. Christianity contains within her texts the mandate to reject the old forms of violence and to embrace a new way of love- so Harris missed the boat on this one. But you have had thinkers [past and present] who have said ‘we need to eradicate the world of all traces of religion in order for man to reach his highest good’. The thinker Nietzsche would pronounce ‘God is dead’ in his 1882 book called The Gay Science [I’ll leave it alone]. Both Marx and Freud would join him in their rejection of God in the last half of the 19th century. So many felt the rise of modernism- along with the descent of religion was mans ultimate goal- as man advances he would mature from this ‘psychological’ weakness and accept a world without God. Than in the 20th century you had some major events that questioned whether or not modern man could survive without true religious morality. We had the world wars and the most violent century in our history as ‘moderns’. The election of Jimmy Carter- the first self professed ‘Born Again’ Christian to become president- and the Iranian revolution in 1979- the rise of an Islamic state based on radical interpretations of Islam. These events challenged the ‘hope ‘of those who felt like religion was waning and mans rationality was winning the day. So that’s why you had the rise of the new atheists who began a campaign to revive the ‘death of God’ movement and to advocate for what they felt was necessary for man to advance along the modern path. Today we are actually living in what’s called ‘the Postmodern Era’ but for the purpose of this short note we don’t want to go down that road at this time. Has man advanced- ‘modernized’ to the point where he does not need ‘God’ anymore? Can man simply build a Utopian society without God? All those who advocated for a society without God- ultimately failed in coming up with a rational basis for law and order- for who has the right to ‘make the rules’ in this new society- in essence those who tried the Freudian way could never come up with a system of govt. and law without having to borrow from the Christian world view- man cannot simply govern himself based on some atheistic principle of ‘reason’ apart from God [who decides whose reason is right?]. The atheist’s charge that all religion at its core is radical and dangerous- without reason- has been proven false. True religion can very much be reasonable- that is being rational and religious can go hand in hand- all religious adherents do not have to be ‘Fundamentalists’ as Harris claims- and the Modern experiment has not shown us that mans ultimate destiny is to rise above religious belief and attain some type of society without God and faith- that experiment has been tried- and found wanting.
[1543] HAPPY THANSGIVING! ‘In Jesus Christ, God has revealed himself in descending- we ascend to God by accompanying him on this descending path- as we witness the abuse of economic power, as we witness the cruelties of capitalism that degrades man to the level of merchandise, we have also realized the perils of wealth- the man destroying divinity- Mammon- which grips large parts of the world in a cruel stranglehold.’ Pope Benedict.
‘What has been the greatest sin on earth so far? Surely the words of the man who said ‘Woe to those who laugh now’” Friedrich Nietzsche.
In Matthews gospel we read that Jesus came from ‘Galilee, of the Gentiles’- strange. Matthew was writing for a Jewish audience, Luke’s gospel was targeting the Gentiles. Yet Matthew describes Jesus home turf in terms that would offend his target audience- the Jews of Jesus day honored Jerusalem, Judea- but Galilee? Right from the start Jesus entered the scene in a way and style that offended the religious mind of his day. The prophet Isaiah says Jesus was this Rod- this branch that would grow from the ‘root’ of Jesse. Jesus came from the lineage of Jesse, King David’s forefather- royal blood indeed. Yet the prophet says he will be set up as a sign- an ‘ensign’ that the people will look to- they will see things they never saw before. In the gospels we see Jesus as a highly unusual preacher/teacher- he simply does not fit the mold. Isaiah also says he will judge the poor of the earth with equity- he will defend them in anger! The prophets tell us ‘The zeal of thine house has eaten me up’. This prophecy was fulfilled when Jesus entered the temple courts and saw the merchandisers selling their stuff- he had it- in a rage he grabbed the tables and turned them upside down ‘My father’s house was supposed to be a place of prayer- look what you have done to it! You’ve made it a Den of Thieves’. Yes, anger was a part of his persona- at times it would eat him up- in a sense. Yet as he flustered the religious aristocracy- he was a breath of fresh air to the out casts, to those who society drew the ‘black line’ on. Dylan’s son would sing ‘the same black line that was drawn on you was drawn on me’ surely Jesus would ‘allow’ the black line to be drawn on him too. The common people heard him gladly. Again- Isaiah says ‘blessed are the women who are barren, who have not been able to have kids- for more are the children of the desolate than of the married wife’. In the Old Testament [and Jesus day] not being able to have kids was seen as a mark ‘the black line’ if you will. The poor wife would be stigmatized, looked at as someone who didn’t have what it took to fulfill her ‘womanhood’. Again, in a sense an outcast. Yet Jesus said ‘blessed are those who mourn now, who cry- who are empty’ for theirs is the kingdom. In the above quote, that’s what Nietzsche was decrying- he saw the words of the Master as contrary to mans inner greatness- his humanistic abilities to achieve- to fulfill all of his desires- to live for the full! Much like the gospel of our day. Yet Jesus emptied himself, he was ‘a man of sorrow- constant grief’ [Isaiah]. The apostle Paul tells us that Jesus emptied himself, he did not see his divinity as something to be used for self gain- some type of quest to reach this stage of religious Nirvana- no he emptied himself- he too became ‘barren’. Yes Jesus was quite a character, he simply was not what the people expected- he seemed to break the rules. Yet at the end of the day- this unorthodox preacher- this man from Galilee- yes he would change the world.
[1540] Jesus of Nazareth [pope’s book] chapters 3-4. Okay- I’m having a hard time ‘dummying down’ the Pope’s book- trying to explain it in simple terms- so those of you who don’t get into it- just skip these posts and read another part of my blog. Okay, Benedict covers three different ways of looking at the central message of Jesus –The Kingdom of God. He borrows heavily from the church father Origen [form the Alexandrian school- Origen is very influential on early Christian thought- he also was a Universalist- in the end everyone gets saved- even Satan!]. The Pope shows how Origen viewed the kingdom as the person of Jesus himself- that is when you see Christ- you’re seeing the kingdom. Origen also spoke of the ‘interior kingdom’ a spiritual reality of the kingdom ruling over people’s hearts. Then the Pope speaks about the 19th- 20th century emphasis as the Church as the Kingdom- he shows how the church began seeing the kingdom as present in the world thru her- that is the church herself is a divine presence of God in the earth- and the kingdom is here right now thru the church. I agree with all 3 of the above views of the kingdom- I would only disagree a little with the Popes perspective that the 3rd view is primarily a late development [probably just reads that way because the book is an English translation form the German- I can’t imagine a Pope as learned as Benedict [one of the most intellectual ones in many years!] would miss this]. Right from the early days of Saint Augustine [City of God- 4th century] the idea of the kingdom being present thru the church has been around. The Pope also gets into those who saw the kingdom message of Jesus- and teach that Jesus true Kingdom message was never grasped- and instead we messed up and started ‘the church’. Liberal thinkers like Albert Schweitzer and Adolph Von Harnack all played a role in this type of thinking, and early 20th century ideas about re-thinking the kingdom in general- as well as the philosopher Heidegger. In chapter 4 Benedict does an excellent job at portraying Jesus as the ‘new Moses’ who delivers the New Law thru the sermon on the mount- contrasting Moses receiving of the law at Mount Sinai. Jesus goes up on a mountain and ‘sits’ [showing the plenary authority of the teacher- being seated]. In the New Testament [Hebrews and the gospels] the religious leaders are said to ‘sit in Moses seat’- or Hebrews says ‘Jesus sat down at Gods right hand’. In Catholic theology the ‘seat’ [chair- cathedra] denotes the place of authority. I live in a ‘cathedral city’- Corpus Christi. New York’s Saint Patrick’s church is the cathedral for that area. That means the authority over the regional diocese is ‘seated’ at the cathedral- where the regional Bishop resides. So Benedict does a good job showing us Jesus as the ‘new Moses’ who sits on the new mount and takes the plenary authority- he also says that Jesus authority did not rest in the religious institutions of the day- like the priests and Pharisees- that Jesus authority was real. The religious leaders was too- but they were not sincere. Once again I find these types of observations consistent with my own thought [and Protestants thought in general] and I find it very surprising to see the Pope thinking along the same lines.
[1539] Was just reading a debate on the doctrine of Transubstantiation [the actual Body and Blood of Christ present in the Eucharist- I have studied the development of the doctrine thru the centuries, eventually Thomas Aquinas would come up with the final wording- very technical indeed- he tried to harmonize ‘Aristotelian thought’ and sort of did his best- it gets a little too deep for the present post!] What I was thinking about, was Jesus sitting at the last meal with his friends- he knows he will be leaving them soon- yet they don’t fully comprehend the mission he needs to accomplish- there lost in a way. He sits down with them and takes the bread and wine and tells them ‘SEE-LOOK- this is ME! I HAVE TO BREAK. This is the plan- all along my Father planned it like this’ and he says ‘look- I’m going to break for you- I will soon be broken on the Cross- and the result will be life for you and many others- all who will eventually hear the story’. So he breaks the bread, he pours the wine- and he knows what’s coming next. The prophet Isaiah said ‘God will see the TRAVAIL of his soul, and be satisfied’. He struggles with the reality of the whole thing- he sweats blood in the garden- he says ‘God, if there’s another way to make this thing happen- let’s do it’! He resigns himself to the reality that he always knew awaited him. I just thought it strange to have read the debate over the Eucharist- while we don’t really see the broken man. This was all done for us- he had to ‘break’.
[1538] MORE ON THE POPE’S BOOK- Let me cover a little more Catholic history, being I’m still reading the Pope's book [Jesus of Nazareth]. The last 2 chapters I read dealt with the temptations of Jesus by the devil- and the concept of the ‘Kingdom of God’. I like Benedict’s interpretation of the temptations- how he applies them to today. He sees the temptation of turning stones into bread as saying ‘God- if you’re really there- then why are there so many starving people in the world- why don’t you provide! Just ‘turn the stones into bread’’ if you will. The Pope develops this thought as a general cause of doubt that occurs in the world; how many people seem to question the existence of God because of the many injustices we see in the world [in theology we call this Theodicy- the Pope I’m sure knows the term- but he’s trying to write for the common reader so he doesn’t use the term]. All in all I liked the argument. He also [surprisingly!] equates the temptation of the devil to Jesus- when the devil says ‘fall down and worship me and I will give you the kingdoms of the world’. Interestingly the Pope applies this to the ongoing temptation that the church has always had to deal with- the temptation of the church ‘bowing down’ in order to exert control over the kingdoms of the world. He compares the church’s ‘marriage’ to Roman govt. [4ht century Constantine] as a weakness of the church- that she in essence opted for outward political control and in a way rejected the kingdom of Jesus- the meek kingdom that would inherit the earth. Now, this observation has been made many times before- but mostly from Protestants! It’s surprising to see a Pope make the same observation! Also liberal Catholic theologian Hans Kung has made this argument- he’s not a theologian in good standing with his own church- a few years ago he openly made the argument that the church should reject Papal infallibility [the doctrine] and got an official censure from the Vatican. So any way I found the observations of Benedict enlightening and surprising- over the next few weeks I’ll probably hit a few more notes from the book [probably should have done a complete book review now that I think about it- but I’m in the middle of making some new radio programs and didn’t want to focus too much on a book review]. Anyway- if you get a chance pick up the book [published in 2006- but any Catholic bookshop will have it] it’s a worthwhile read.
[1535] I AM THE TRADITION!- Just started reading the Pope's book ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ it came out in 2006, but never had a chance to read it. I recommend all our Pastor/Preacher friends to read it- especially those of you who are familiar with the Historical Critical method of scholarship, and those involved in the Prophetic movement. Benedict critiques the historical method very well; he’s even funny at times! [In a scholarly way]. Just the preface and intro give enough meat that if you’re not a ‘full book’ reader, these would be enough! The critique for the modern prophetic movement is that Benedict shows the real purpose of Prophets, as pictured thru Moses- he does a superb job at explaining how Jesus fulfilled the ‘prophet like Moses’ prophecy spoken by Peter in the book of Acts- excellent insights! Okay- let me cover a little more Catholic history- at the risk of losing my Protestant readers- but hoping to gain some Catholic ones. Being I’m talking about Popes and all, let me cover some 19th century history. In France you had the French Revolution [right at the end of the 18th century] and the feeling at the time was to throw off all outside control- many of the nation states rejected the Roman church for that simple reason, it was Roman! That is the states were flexing their new felt independence and the spirit of enlightenment and reformation that was running thru the land. In France you had 2 groups who were at opposite sides; The Gaulincansist’s versus the Ultramontanists. The first group represented the feeling of ‘lets break from the Roman church and be free’ the latter group wanted to maintain ties with Rome- the term meant ‘beyond the mountains/alps’. Meaning from Frances geographic perspective, they wanted to keep looking towards Rome. It was in this environment that the Catholic Church would convene the first Vatican Council [called Vatican 1]. Pope Pius the 9th started his pontificate as a liberal type Pope- open to new ideas and all, but as time progressed he took a more conservative stance. The council- starting in 1870- would take a very hard line stance against all the new ‘ism’s’ that arose over the last few centuries. Communism, Democratic spirit, Protestantism- the church took a hard line and seemed to come off as arrogant and unwilling to change with the times. The council would affirm for the first time the doctrine of Papal infallibility and the Immaculate conception of Mary- 2 doctrines that would make it much more difficult to bridge the Protestant/Catholic gap. It’s important to note that the church had a tradition of Papal infallibility for years- but it did not become official Catholic doctrine until Vatican 1. All Catholics at the council did not agree to the doctrine- a famous Priest by the name of Guidi would dissent and challenge the Pope, he asked ‘what about the tradition’? Meaning what about the authority of tradition that has come from a spirit of collegiality and cooperation among the Bishops- if you push a strong doctrine of Papal infallibility- the tradition will lose its power. Pius famously responded ‘I AM THE TRADITION’. The council would never officially close- Victor Emmanuel would sack Rome- The Vatican would lose most of the Papal states and there would arise a sympathetic attitude towards the Roman church! Many felt bad that she lost her standing in the world, this caused many Catholic states to rise up in Support of the Vatican, and she actually gained more good will than before! I would also note that when the council broke up, the leading Catholic scholar of the day- Durlinger- did not accept the doctrine of Papal infallibility. Others broke away with him and these Catholics survive till this day-primarily in Western Europe [Holland, Switzerland, etc.] they are called The Old Catholic Church and are Catholic in every way except for the doctrine of the Papacy. Some view Pope Pius as a stubborn man who was not willing to change with the times, but if you look at the overall political reality of the day- you can see why he took such a tough stance, the church was feeling threatened from the outside by many new movements and she felt that Christianity was under attack- Pius felt it necessary to exert Papal authority, so he did. Vatican 2 [1962-65] would ‘un-do’ the harsh spirit of Vatican 1 and be seen at a much more open and ‘liberal’ council- Pope John the 23rd [Pope during the council] would shape the mood of the council with the saying ‘let the windows be open’ implying a new freshness and openness for the church. Vatican 2 would refer to the Protestants as ‘separated brothers’ Vatican 1- heretics. Okay lets end for now, I encourage all of our readers to try and know the various Christian positions- don’t just allow rumor or gossip to form your opinions of others- strive for an honest conversation with other Christian groups- give others the benefit of the doubt- and if you still have sincere differences of belief, at least they’ll be informed differences- not simply hearsay.
[1534] CATHOLIC/PROTESTANT POSITIONS ON THE BIBLE. Let’s do a little teaching today. To all my Catholic/Protestant readers- when I teach on our respective faiths- understand that for the most part I’m giving you the official position of our churches. Now ‘official’ is a lot harder to say among Protestants- but the ‘best’ statements on Protestant doctrine probably come from the Reformed positions as stated by the creeds and statements of faith that came out of the 16th century Reformation- and yes, there other good statements as well [Baptist confessions, etc.]. When I talk ‘Catholic position’ I’m giving you the official position as stated thru the Catechism of the church- as well as the Encyclicals and decisions that have come from the councils. The Catholic Church does actually have official positions on stuff! [They call this the Magisterium- the church’s official teaching office]. It should be noted that both Catholic and Protestant churches have ‘dissenters’ within their ranks- Priests, Preachers, Scholars- who break ranks with the actual teaching of their own churches [Hans Kung- Catholic. Rudolph Bultman- Protestant. Just to name a few]. In some situations where the clergy are ‘less educated’ [I’ll be nice] sometimes they don’t know what the position of their church really is. So that makes stuff a little harder. Okay- what do Catholics and Protestants believe about the bible? Both groups believe the bible is the inspired word of God, infallible- with no errors. Both groups also have notable teachers within their ranks who dispute this- but remember- for the most part this is the official position. The Catholic church’s most ‘meaty’ statement on faith and doctrine still dates back to the 16th century Council that took place in Trent. Though there have been other important councils [Vatican 1 and 2] yet the council of Trent is the most definitive. That council was for the most part a clear restating of the historic position of the church, especially reaffirming the 7 sacraments. The council also produced a document on the church’s position on the bible- the church used stronger wording than most Protestants, they said the bible came to us by the ‘Holy Spirit DICATING’ the words! In fairness, the Catholic Church does not hold to a mechanical type dictation- that God actually said the words to the writers, but never the less, that’s the statement. The Protestants are known for the famous 3 ‘Sola’s’ of the Reformation [Sola= alone] Faith alone, Grace alone, Bible alone- basically ‘alone’ meant the bible was the final authority on the matter- though creeds and councils were helpful, yet they can ‘err’. The able Catholic scholar, John Eck [maybe Cajetan?] forced Luther to admit that the Pope and Councils could make mistakes, and this was a fatal blow to any agreement between the warring sides. Now, many Protestants also seem to be confused on the statement ‘the bible alone’. The Reformers did not mean that we were to cast off all the good things that came down to us from the church fathers- Calvin quotes Saint Augustine a lot in his writings- the Reformers just meant that when deciding on final matters, the bible has the last say. The Catholics held that both Tradition [oral tradition passed down thru the church] as well as scripture had a say. The main point today is both Catholics and Protestants agree that the bible is ‘the word of God’. Catholics have a few more books in their bibles, but we all agree that it is God’s word. [Just a side note- The Catholics say the bible is ‘an infallible collection of infallible books’. The Protestants would not accept this statement- they said ‘we have a fallible collection of infallible books’. Most Protestants are not aware of this. The main reason the Protestant side would not agree to ‘infallible collection’ is because that would side with the position that the church did indeed possess infallible authority, given by God, to make certain decisions that were binding- obviously the Reformers would not go that far.]
-[1531] LENNY BRUCE- Last night I caught the movie ‘Lenny’, it’s the true story of the shock comic Lenny Bruce. Rose to fame in the 50’s for his vulgar comedy and social commentary. His story is much more than some George Carlin rebel comic- in a real sense he tapped into his Jewish Messianic roots and was fulfilling a prophetic type role; he spoke on issues that were hot [war] and he had an audience who were ready to hear. He would go thru lots of legal and personal problems- he would get hooked on heroin and die. The other day I mentioned Obama’s strain of Christianity- Liberal [reverend Wrights church is what you would call a social justice congregation]. In the late 19th, early 20th century liberation theology was in her hey-day. Men like Walter Rauschenbauch [spelling?] introduced a form of Christianity that was less focused on personal conversion- but tried to expand the churches thinking on social issues. The fundamentalist movement of the 20th century pushed back and labeled the liberals as heretics. Now, theologically speaking many were- some rejected the resurrection of Christ and the vital doctrine of reconciliation thru the Cross of Christ. But they were mostly right on the need for the church to engage in social justice issues, to deal with things like world hunger/poverty. To speak out against oppressive regimes [which the Catholic Church was doing all along]. The church should play a role in these areas- things that Bruce was talking about at the time. The last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, prophesies of John the Baptist future coming- it says ‘God will raise up one like Elijah’ John would come 400 years later and challenge the corruption that he saw. He was this radical loner who seemed to be unhinged at times- I mean who tells the king ‘your sleeping with your brother’s wife- your in sin’. He told it the way he saw it, and it would eventually lead to his death. There is a verse that speaks of John, it says ‘the law and the prophets were until John, but now the kingdom of God is preached and everyone is pushing their way to hear what he has to say’. John changed the atmosphere of his day, he was a kind of Lenny Bruce- he began speaking openly about issues that no one else would touch, sure- the regular ‘church folk’ had their preachers [rabbis, synagogue] but John was different- he wasn’t out to make a name for himself [though that would happen] nor was he trying to make a living [or get rich!] from ‘my ministry’. No he was a different breed, he could spot hypocrisy a mile away- but when he saw Jesus, he knew he was seeing the real thing ‘I am not worthy to tie your shoes’ he would say. Jesus himself would have his run in's with the religious crowd- showed up at the temple and told them ‘what are you doing, merchandizing in Gods house!’ he made a whip and beat them, he turned over their tables and thru them out. Yes, Jesus made John proud. I think we as God’s people need to be willing to speak out about the social justice issues of our day- not enough voices are speaking out against things that need to be dealt with. A heroin addicted shock comic would be used to speak out against things that he saw were wrong, sure- he was definitely an imperfect vessel, but people never heard it like that before.
[1526] BARNABUS- This last week I have been doing some reading in the non canonical book of the epistle of Barnabus; the early church debated over a few books, whether some should be in the bible and others out. The few that some thought should be in were the epistle Barnabus, Shepherd of Hermes [vision, dream type thing] and the Didache. Those that made it and were debated were letters like 2nd Peter, Jude, Hebrews and Revelation. As a believer I do accept what the church finally settled on, but it’s good to be aware of the other writings that never made it. Now, the Dan Brown books go way overboard in the idea that the Gnostic writings were also included in this debate- that’s not true. The early church unanimously rejected those works. But for today let me share a few things that I felt the Lord speak to me thru the letter of Barnabus. The letter quotes freely from the old testament- in chapter 12 I read ‘there are 2 nations in thy womb, and 2 people shall come from thee- the greater shall serve the lesser’ and ‘the Lord hath not deprived me of seeing thy face; bring me thy sons that I may bless them’. This last month or so has unexpectedly brought in a lot of old friends from New Jersey; they are now ‘sitting at the table’ so to speak. These friends are from an original group that I have prayed for, for 30 years! Though I have spent many years working with another ‘nation’ [Texas] yet these friends were there from the beginning, people I always wanted to be able to speak to, share with them things about the kingdom and stuff like that. I also had a few dream experiences where some of the ‘Texas crowd’ [lesser nation- in the sense that all of the guys I have worked with over the years are not in the same ‘upper class’ as many of my old friends] appeared to me, friends who have died- and I felt like I needed to post their stories on the blog/facebook site. What I did not realize was happening was in a sense God was using the ‘lesser nation’ as a witness to the greater one. God finally allowed me to re-connect with many old friends and thru the testimonies of my Texas friends the ‘greater has served the lesser’.
[1524] WEEK [OR 2] IN REVIEW- Okay, I haven’t been commenting as much these past few weeks, basically doing a lot of posting of old stuff. But these last few weeks have been important so let’s do a little. First; the Pope made an historic visit to the U.K. - he went first to Scotland, than England. It was the first official visit- where the titular head [Queen Elisabeth] officially greeted the Pope, the first time since the official split in the 16th century! I kinda covered the history of it in the past and don’t want to do it all over again here- suffice it to say that Henry the 8th wanted his divorce, the Pope said no and England split off- the church of England [Anglican church] became the official church of England. The Episcopal Church in the U.S. is part of this communion. Now, the visit was historic for these reasons, the Pope surprised some church historians by making a speech where he invited the Anglican Church back into the Catholic fold-many thought he would not do this. Actually, it just seemed to be the right thing to do, being it’s the first official visit since the historic split [never mind all the theological issues involved]. So I was glad to see the very good reception he got. Europe in general has suffered from a severe case of rationalism/skepticism that has left many of the great church buildings either empty or they have been converted into Mosques! The Pope challenged them to have both faith and reason, a theme that Pope John Paul emphasized a lot during his pontificate. Overall I think the visit went very well, and all Christians should be happy about it. We also had Newt Gingrich write an article [or comment?] on Obama being an ‘anti colonialist Kenyan’ [Yikes!]. Basically Newt read an article from Dinesh Desouza, a fine Catholic writer/intellectual, who espoused the idea that President Obama is the first U.S. president who has a socialist mindset- that when most European nations went the way of socialism in the last few decades, that the only real holdout was the U.S. But in the economic world all the smart money fled the socialist type economies and would find its way into the U.S., leaving the socialist economies to suffer. So when Obama became president, as a believer in big govt. [a form of socialism] he would eventually bring the U.S. into alignment with the ‘enlightened’ world and that would balance out the scales. In Desouza’s mind [and Gingrich] this is why Obama is so loved in the rest of the world, while his ratings are not so great at home. Okay, it’s an interesting idea, but a little too ‘Beckish’ for me. But it shows you where the country is at right now, that some serious thinkers are making this case. I like Desouza, he is a fine Catholic Christian, he wrote ‘God is great’ in response to Christopher Hitchens [the atheist] ‘God is not great’ but I have read a few articles from Desouza and I thought he was a little ‘lacking’ in the field of theology [like he really didn’t know his stuff as well as he should have].The liberal columnist Eugene Robinson has basically said the same thing. So any way these last few weeks have had some notable events happen and we should be grateful that no bad incidents took place when the Pope was in England. I was happy to see the good response he got, though I’m not Catholic- as a fellow Christian I respect the effort that the Pope made to defend the Christian faith and to challenge a secular society to return to her Christian roots.
[1497] ‘Guilt is the loss of the integrity of the soul, and the soul’s recognition of that loss’ Thomas Aquinas. I heard this a while ago and liked it. It has been said that man is the only creature with the ability to self evaluate; we can look back on our lives and make course corrections by Gods grace. I have been reading in the gospel of John a little- Jesus is talking to the disciples [John 14] and he’s getting ready to ‘go away’ he has spent time with them and tells them ‘the words that I have spoken unto you are not my own, but the Father that dwells in me- he does the works’. Notice, his revealing of God to his men was not so much an intellectual pursuit, but a thing he lived out among them. ‘The father is doing these works’ they ask him to show them the father and he tells them ‘I have BEEN with you for a while now, why do you ask me to show you the father’? His incarnation was the only way that God could reveal himself to man, there was nothing more that Jesus could say or teach that would trump the revelation of God to them by Jesus simply being with them for 3 years. He tells them that after he leaves he will send the Spirit and the Spirit will more fully reveal to them what’s going on, he will bring to their remembrance the things Jesus taught them- in essence they will have many ‘aha’ moments- times where they will say ‘now we see what he was talking about’. Saint Thomas taught that there will be times in life when we experience real guilt, not condemnation, but honest to goodness guilt. That thing the world thinks is bad, the therapists try to ‘soothe’ by saying ‘it’s not your fault’ but sometimes things are our fault! We have the ability to look back and say ‘now I see some of the mistakes I have made, things that I didn’t fully understand until now’ and this process is a good thing, something that we should expect to happen. Many believers practice a daily examination of their souls. At the end of the day they look back on their day and ask the Lord to show them any faults and they pray for forgiveness ‘I confess to almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters- that I have sinned thru my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words- in what I have done and in what I have failed to do’ trust the Lord today to lead you in right paths, and at the end of the day allow him to reveal to you the things that you don’t fully see right now, and if at the end of the day you realize you have gone off course, then yes- you have experienced guilt- the soul recognized some loss of integrity. That’s a good thing, not bad.
[1493] ‘children, honor your parents…fathers, raise your children in the fear of the Lord- don’t provoke them…slaves, obey your masters, and masters- treat your slaves [servants] well, knowing that you too have a master in heaven’ Ephesians 6:1-9. Let’s deal with the issue of reading the bible in its cultural context. When the church was birthed in the 1st century, she was born into a Roman society that dominated the known world- yet Rome was not stupid, they had a policy of conquering people and allowing these groups to self govern as much as possible. The Jewish nation actually lived in her own cultural world while at the same time being ruled over by ‘the oppressors’. Rome allowed for a degree of religious freedom. They had their Pantheon of various gods and also did not interfere with the ‘other gods’ of their conquered foes. The problem with the Christians arose because the believers would only acknowledge one God [like the Jews] they would not say ‘Caesar is Lord’ but only Jesus. This drew a strange accusation from Rome; the Christians would be seen as atheists! Yes, atheists in the sense that they would not accept the Roman gods. Now, into this mix the church had to deal with the problem of not being seen as insurgents who were trying to overthrow the ‘God ordained’ govt. of Rome [book of Romans]. They did their best to not be seen as a rebellious movement. This, in my opinion, is why we do not read statements in the New Testament that encourage the overthrowing of slavery. Instead you find admonitions like the one in the above passage that exhort both slaves and masters to live together as much as possible in peace and harmony. I do not see the New Testament [taken in this cultural context!] condoning slavery for all time; but what I see is an early effort by the fledging church to live in peace and order at a time when the ruling authority watched closely over her people. It is true that during the struggle to free the Black salves, many southern preachers read these verses in a way that said ‘the bible tells us not to overthrow slavery, but to treat each other as fellow believers while allowing the institution to survive’. Yet you had men like Charles Finney, well known for his role in the 2nd great awakening that took place in the 19th century, Finney was an outspoken opponent of slavery and did all he could to stop it. So the church has had people on both sides of the issue. As we read the new Testament, one of the main themes is that Christ has come to set men free from bondage [slavery] the apostle himself will teach that in Jesus ‘there is neither slave nor free- we are all one in Christ’ the overall teaching from scripture is that Christ died to set men free, so as the church would grow over time we would get to a place where God would raise up voices [in due season] that would speak out against the oppression of the slave trade. To appeal to the immediate concern of Paul in the first century as expressed thru these passages [the concern of believers not being viewed as rebels who overthrow order in society] and to read these same passages centuries later in order to justify slavery is reading the bible out of its cultural context. We should also be aware that there are other issues that the church in our day struggles with, many appeal to this line of reasoning while dealing with homosexual relationships, ordaining gay people to the pulpit and other stuff like that. It’s not my purpose to deal with everything right now, suffice it to say that I do not personally see these 2 issues as civil rights issues that fall into the same category- undoing slavery and accepting homosexual marriage are not the same thing in my book- but to be aware of the way believers have approached these issues is important for our day. There were many well meaning believers/preachers who read these passages and took them literally to mean that it was wrong for slaves to rise up against ‘their masters’ and rebel, these preachers appealed to the direct words of scripture while making their point- it’s just they were not reading the scripture in its true cultural context.
[1492] ‘submitting to each other in the fear of God, wives submit unto your husband’s as unto the Lord…husbands love your wives even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it…this is a great mystery, Christ and the church’ Ephesians 5. The apostle tells us that in marriage the 2 become one, just like our ‘marriage’ to Christ. In 1st Corinthians Paul rebukes them for a specific sin; incest, fornication. He tells them that when they sleep with a person outside of marriage that the 2 become one- he then says ‘shall I take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot’. The point he makes is as Christ’s body we are actually parts of him. The various debates that the church has had over the communion table have centered around whether or not the elements become the actual physical body and blood of Jesus. One of the sad things that has happened is while we have had this debate [centuries old] we have missed the agreed reality that yes, our bodies are actually considered parts of Christ. These verses have also come under fire over the years because they speak of the wife submitting to the husband- the reality is this submission is not some type of bigoted thing, it’s a willing submission done in love as the husband expresses Christ like love to the wife. Paul said the great ordinance of marriage points to the great reality of us being joined to Christ in a very real way- if you will, it can be said without contradiction that the Real Presence of Christ is in the world today thru the church, the people of God.
[1491] ‘Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children: and walk in love as Christ also has loved us, and hath given himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour’. Ephesians 5:1-2. The early church had a tag stuck on them- they were called ‘followers of the way’. Paul exhorts the believers to be followers of God; he goes thru the first half of the chapter and speaks about ‘not sinning’ yes- those who commit adultery, lie, cheat, use bad language, these do not inherit Gods kingdom. Strong stuff indeed. The early church saw Christianity more along the lines of being a follower of a person [Jesus] than embracing a set of doctrines. Now, there was a core set of beliefs that the early church did hold to, the New Testament defines it as ‘the faith once delivered to the saints’. Many believe that the statement of Paul in 1st Corinthians 15 ‘Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures…’ many believe that this portion of scripture was first an oral tradition among the early believers; that is they might have used this as an early creed. And the church did have what was called a ‘krygma’ a compact set of beliefs that was considered to be the core beliefs of the Christian faith. The point being we had a concise set of beliefs, but we also had a strict moral code, one that was to be lived by the power of the Spirit, but yet strict as compared with today’s standards. Paul tells the church ‘be followers of God’ we are told to imitate Christ, to be like him. As Christianity progressed down thru the ages many came to define authentic faith as embracing the more orthodox set of beliefs that were being hammered out thru the creeds and councils of the church- some came to see Christianity strictly along these lines. I think it would do us all some good if we began seeing ourselves once again as followers of ‘the way’ that is people who call Jesus Lord and ‘follow God’. Yes, we appreciate and hold to the historic Christian faith, that’s important- but we also ‘follow God’.
[1486] ARIUS- a priest from Egypt who would challenge the deity of Jesus in the 4th century. Arius taught that Jesus was the Son of God, but not eternally the Son. He said Jesus was a created being whom the father ‘bestowed’ son ship upon. He taught that Jesus was ‘like God’ but not God. The emperor Constantine would call the famous council of Nicaea in 325 a.d. and the council would agree with Athanasius and say that the Son and the Father were of ‘the same substance’ [homoousios] and Arius’s belief would be rejected. The debate would still rage on thru out the century as Constantine would die and the new emperor from the east would hold to ‘Arian’ views. Eventually Orthodoxy would win out and Arianism would be rejected by the majority of believers. I should note that many of the oriental churches would go the way of Arianism till this day; some of these churches are not like the modern cults that we would automatically reject, but they do hold to beliefs that Orthodox Christianity has rejected. As I have written about before, it’s easy to see how various believers have struggled with these issues over the years, some of the ways people express things can be deemed heresy a little too quickly in my view. There are believers who express the deity of Jesus in ways that some Arians express it, and they are not full Arians! The point being, yes- Arian went too far in his belief that Jesus was a created being, Johns gospel refutes this belief strongly [as well as many other portions of scripture] but too say that Jesus was/is the full expression of the father, because he ‘came out from God’ is also in keeping with scripture. Today we should be familiar with the issues and also use much grace when labeling different groups of believers; and we should strive for a unity in the Spirit as much as possible. As believers we accept the full deity of Christ, one who is of the ‘same substance’ of the father- true God from true God. He who has seen the Son has seen the father- Jesus said to Phillip ‘I have been with you a long time, if you see and know me, you have seen and known my father’ Jesus is God come down in the flesh to dwell among men, the true Immanuel, God with us.
[Just a comment I left on a C.T. book review of Phillip Jenkins book ‘the Jesus wars’] I read the book review a week or so ago [in the hard copy of C.T.] great review. One thing; You seemed to indicate that Jenkins might have missed it by thinking the statement 'God died on the Cross' was out of line with historic orthodoxy- Actually I think he probably was right on this. I believe historic orthodoxy would not accept the 'God died on the Cross' theme. I know these debates get confusing at times [the dual nature of Christ, etc.] but just thought I should mention it. God bless
[1477] ‘How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He’s the father of our master Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down the earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, and settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family by Jesus Christ. He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift giving by the hand of his beloved son.’ Ephesians 1, Message bible. Over the next few weeks I think I will hit some key verses from this letter to the church at Ephesus. This letter [as well as Colossians] strike a different tone from Paul’s other letters. Many see the letter to the Romans as Paul’s greatest theological work [and it very well might be] and as you read Galatians [and Hebrews- to those who think Paul wrote it] you find lots of good stuff on the law versus grace. Though this letter also deals with that [the middle wall of partition broken down in Christ] yet you see more of an emphasis on the eternal purpose of God for the church. In the above passage Paul teaches us that God pre planned our conversion before the world began! He is showing us that he chose us, not the other way around. He not only destined us to ‘be saved’ but to be made ‘whole and holy’ in him in love. This divine work is both an individual and corporate experience. The church fathers would teach us that he ‘who has God as his father, also has the church for his mother’, this meaning that as you enter into the Christian life, you are entering a community of people in whom God has great designs. The scriptures refer to us as The Bride, a Temple, the Body of Christ- all these references point to the corporate identity that we have in Christ. God wants us to ‘enter into this lavish gift giving by the hand of his beloved Son’. God is in the process of bringing all things together in Christ, Jesus is the all in all, and as his people we are the vehicle thru which he will accomplish this great purpose- all things in heaven and on earth will glorify his son, and God makes manifest this knowledge of Christ thru the church; the bible says even the angels are looking at this mysterious work of Christ and his bride and are seeing things that they never saw before. Rejoice in the fact that you and I are part of the greatest building program of all time; God is building us into a holy temple, a bride that will be spotless, totally accepted in Jesus- all this thru grace. Yes, we have great reason to rejoice.
[1476] WHOSOEVER BELIEVES THAT JESUS IS THE CHRIST IS BORN OF GOD- 1st John. I am almost finished reading the Jesus Manifesto, by Viola/Sweet. About a month or so ago I read an article by Scot McKnight on Historical Jesus studies; these are the men who approach the study of Jesus while trying to not be ‘biased’ by the gospels and the church’s traditional teachings about Christ. McKnight spoke as an insider who spent many years engaging in the study. He basically concluded that the system itself was flawed; they tried to use certain ‘historical’ criteria and ended up in this hopeless process of never being able to agree on who Jesus really was! The great Christian writer C.S. Lewis spent many years rejecting the faith, but as somewhat of an intellectual he said he could not escape the deep roots of Christianity that he would find while reading the classics, studying the history of society; no matter where he went the testimony of the church was this unified declaration of who Jesus was and what his life and death and resurrection meant to humankind. The apostle John told us that those who believe that Jesus is the Christ, these are of God. Our bibles, as well as Christian orthodoxy declare to us who Jesus is; we do not need the testimony of those who are trying to examine him while being removed from the person, historically, by two thousand years. This is not to say that all historical study is wrong, but the flawed attempt at trying to restructure the Jesus of the gospels by embracing some historical method, a method that actually goes against all reliable historical studies, we surely don’t need this. There are 2 groups that reject the tradition of the church; those from the ultra liberal historical approach [Jesus seminar types] and the rigid fundamentalist camp. Now, in some ways I too am a fundamentalist, but I am speaking of the more extreme groups that reject the historic church and approach Christianity and the bible from a virgin perspective; that is these believers ‘believe’ that each new generation of Christians should read the bible without any historical context, both of these approaches can become hotbeds of heresy. I thank God that both the bible and the church have declared to us who Jesus is, the apostle John says ‘we have declared to you that which we have seen, and that which we have handled’ John and his companions spent time with the Lord, these original apostles are called ‘the foundation stones of the church’ [being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets] we today are part of a corporate temple that spans 2 thousand years; our forefathers have left us a great legacy, let’s not squander it by trying to reconstruct that which has been faithfully passed down to us- whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.
[1472] JESUS MANIFESTO, 2nd post. Okay I read some more from Frank Viola/Leonard Sweet’s book. I really like the emphasis that they place on the importance of Jesus and on self sacrifice as major themes of the Christian life; a good quote would be ‘Jesus is in the self transcending business, not self fulfilling one’. This book is a change of pace from the normal fare of self help books that rank high on the Christian book lists of our day. A few problems; at one point you can hear the sound of the post modern emergent voice, they admit that the bible contains ‘logical contradictions’ [ouch!] and they also challenge the ‘modern’ [as opposed to post modern] view of absolute truth. Descartes name is thrown out and they use a strange reference to the 13th century theologian/thinker John Duns Scotus. They rightly trace the famous nick name ‘Dunce cap’ to Scotus, but then they say that the famous teacher earned the name by resisting ‘mystery’ as a legitimate means of knowledge , while embracing pure logic. My understanding of how Scotus got the nickname is actually the opposite of this. Scotus was a contemporary of Aquinas, during their day there was a rediscovery of the writings of the famous philosopher Aristotle; Aquinas became popular among the Dominicans for his embracing of Aristotle and his scholastic approach to learning [pure logic]. Scotus resisted Aristotle’s view that all learning comes to man thru the ‘5 senses’ and he taught there was a sort of 6th sense that man needs while approaching God. The point being it seems to me that Scotus got the nick name ‘Dunce’ not because he rejected mystery, but because he favored it! Anyway that’s just a technical historical point, as Will Farrell says in the movie ‘Anchorman’ let’s just agree to disagree. In the argument against the modern view of absolute truth, a few pages over they defend it! They explain that the reason the schools shy away from teaching character is because they won’t allow for ‘universals’ or ‘morals’. To be honest its trendy now a days to challenge the system, and most emergent’s will say stuff like this; I don’t think this to be a major problem with the book, just thought I should mention it. All in all the authors do a good job at re directing us back to Christ as being the center of the Christian experience; lots of excellent quotes from many historical figures, even one or two from the Pope! [Frank doing some penance over Pagan Christianity?] I am not sure if I’ll do another post on the book, I have a few pages left and I will certainly finish the book; but overall I do recommend the book, it is a must read for the ‘modern’ believer, we do need to be challenged in our day and this book does a good job of it. You will not find this book on the self help shelf of modern Christianity, and I think that’s a good thing.
[1469] AQUINAS, THOMAS- Thomas is considered to be one of the greatest Christian thinkers of all time. Born in Naples around 1225, he studied in Cologne under the Dominican order. During Thomas lifetime there was a rediscovery of the ancient writings of the philosopher Aristotle. Thomas would write commentaries on the philosophy of Aristotle and he would attempt to introduce reason into the arguments to prove the existence of God. He was a follower of that form of Christian teaching called ‘scholasticism’ this method used reason and logical debate to arrive at truth. Other scholars would reject this method [Bonaventure] they felt that using these rationale methods was a contradiction to faith. Thomas would become famous for his ‘five ways’ also referred to as Natural Theology. Thomas taught that there were 5 basic ways man could examine the natural created order and come to a rational belief in the existence of God; Thomas taught that the first cause of all things had to be God, you logically needed a first ‘causer’ to start the ball rolling [prime mover]. John Duns Scotus was a contemporary of Aquinas and he disagreed with the scholastic method. Scotus would become famous among the Franciscans; Aquinas would be famous among the Dominicans. Today many Catholic scholars pride themselves in being ‘Thomistic’ in their thought. Thomas also spoke much about ‘just war’ theory, originally introduced by Augustine. He taught that the means of war had to be just in order for the war itself to be ‘justified’; in today’s wars [Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan] I believe the use of unmanned drone attacks that kill civilians can be considered an unjust method. Thomas’ great works are Summa Contra Gentiles and Summa Theologiae, Thomas is called the ‘angelic doctor’ of the Catholic faith.
[1467] JESUS MANIFESTO, Frank Viola and Leonard Sweet. The other day I received an interesting email, Thomas Nelson book publishers offered me a free advanced copy of the above book, they are giving away 200 advanced copies and they offered one to me. They simply said they would appreciate it if I mentioned the book on my blog. So here I am; I’ve read a few chapters and ‘Frank-Len’ make a good case for restoring the church back to a strong Christology [I think I would have said ‘Christ centric model’ instead]. The point they argue is that the people of God and Christianity itself has lost the matchless vision of a magnificent Lord and has replaced it with all types of other stuff. They give a list of some of the stuff; it includes end time things, prosperity, leadership…theology, evolution versus creation- well you get the hint. While it’s difficult to argue against the authors main point [who can argue against returning the church to Christ?] the danger is in thinking that ‘theology’ or any other attempt at clarifying the orthodox Jesus is a substitute for Jesus himself, that is we as believers do need to be aware of the many rabbit trails we often get sidetracked on but at the same time we need to understand the need for good Christian doctrine [theology]. I noticed that the authors did not include ‘organic church’ on the list. I do like the many quotes from historic church figures; Tertullian, Aquinas, Barth, etc. and I like the ‘folksy-popular’ style the book is written in, sounds like reading Eugene Peterson’s Message version. All in all the first few chapters are well worth reading, they do center you back on Jesus Christ, and the devotional style restores the soul. To be fair the authors do answer the charge that the bible itself teaches lots of subjects, so why be against all the other things on their list? They explain well that although we as believers will learn and teach various subjects, yet according to the apostolic pattern, these things are like ‘spokes on a wheel’ they are needed at times, but Jesus is the center of the wheel. All in all it’s hard to disagree with the main point of the book. I have found the argument ‘we focus on Jesus only’ to be at times an excuse for ‘unlearned preaching’ sometimes preachers have used this as an excuse to not delve into good Christian ‘theology’ but I don’t sense this with this book. Over the next few days I will finish the book [it’s not big, I’m just busy!] and hopefully will comment a few more times. I’m not sure how I got on the list to receive an advanced copy, but I’m grateful for the copy- as a book collector its cool to have a copy that says ‘advanced copy- uncorrected proof- not for resale’. I guess Frank must have recommended me for the book; I have blogged on a mutual site in the past. I have heard of Leonard Sweet before, but am not familiar with him at all. I should note that I have taught many of the same themes found in this book, and I think it would benefit all of us to re focus on the early church’s emphasis on knowing the Lord, not just doctrinally, but in a real way- this is the main point of the book.
[1463] BE OF GOOD CHEER, MASTER RIDLEY, PLAY THE MAN; WE SHALL THIS DAY LIGHT SUCH A CANDLE, BY GOD’S GRACE, IN ENGLAND, AS I TRUST SHALL NEVER BE PUT OUT’ Hugh Latimer, 16th century Bishop of the church of England. Many years ago when I first read this quote, it struck me. I recently came across it again, and it struck me again! Over the years of reading the lives of the saints there are certain words that were spoken at the point of martyrdom that for some reason have a lasting effect. One of the church fathers attributed this to the fact that the words that are spoken at this point are actually the words of God, not of men. Latimer was around 80 when he was burnt at the stake, under ‘bloody Mary’s’ reign. These words were to a fellow martyr, Ridley, who was also an influential Christian during the time of back and forth between Protestant and Catholic debates. During the reign of Henry the 8th he had various key influential figures that advocated for the Protestant position; many argued the Protestant position for the political expediency of not having to answer to the Papacy, or to continue to ‘pay tithes’ to Rome. Henry the 8th is usually known for his penchant for executing his wives, but a careful study of history shows us that at a younger time in his reign he was a great king. He informed himself about the debates surrounding the reformation; he knew both sides and at one point wrote a rebuke to Luther and defended the 7 sacraments of the church. For this noble effort he would be given the title ‘defender of the faith’ by the Pope. But as time went on Henry would break from Rome and launch the English church. In many respects the Church of England was simply a Catholic church without a Pope; or to put it another way, the king became the new Pope. The reformation happened at a time in history that was politically ripe for it. The rise of the nation states and the yearning for national identity played a major role as the individual nation states sought to break away from Rome. Luther would receive special protection by the political leaders in Germany because they liked the idea of independence. The same would happen in England, many around the King [and queens] were jockeying for position and trying to influence the leader in ways that they thought were the most advantageous for their own cause. But you also had some committed believers from both sides of the aisle that gave their lives for their strong convictions of their faith. Thomas More would die for his unwillingness to reject the Pope and accept the king as the new head of the church. And Latimer and others would die for their rejection of Catholic teachings. Though the king had many wives, he would only have 3 children to ascend to the throne. Edward, Mary and Elizabeth. Edward would die young [15 years of age] and Mary and Elizabeth would take turns at the helm. Mary was known for her ‘bloody reign’ and Elisabeth would turn out to be an exceptionally great leader, the greatest one sided naval victory in history took place under her realm while Spain suffered a great defeat. They too would be influenced by those insiders who had personal axes to grind. At first Mary wasn’t 'bloody', but she would eventually be convinced to execute those who were deemed a threat to the realm. The poor folks of England were at times dumfounded by those who were being killed; under Henry you could die if you rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation [the bread and wine being the literal body of Christ] but you could also be put to death if you believed the Mass to be a sacrifice of Christ. So you weren’t always sure what would get you killed! But those who died for their faith and refused to recant gave at rue testimony of their convictions; at the age of 80 Bishop Latimer encouraged a fellow martyr to ‘play the man’ he knew if they died well their testimony would light a candle that would burn on; he was right.
[1462] ANSELM- Over the next few months I will do some brief overviews on important historical figures from church history. They will be under a separate section after the same name. Anselm was born in Italy in the year 1033, he eventually became a very influential church teacher and is famous for a few things; he came up with an argument for the existence of God called ‘the Ontological argument’ ontology is a word that means the nature of being. His idea went like this ‘Because there is no other greater conceivable being than God, that means God must exist’ in so many words he said because humans have this conscious belief in God as the greatest being, that therefore he must be that being. I’ll admit when I first read this argument I had some difficulties with it, I think you can find problems with it. But he nevertheless introduced it and it has become one of the classical apologetic arguments for God’s existence. The second major teaching that Anselm gave us was the teaching on the Atonement; Anselm taught that Jesus died to ransom man back to God, the penalty of death was a penalty paid to God. You say ‘what’s so new about that’? Many other church teachers taught that Jesus died to pay a ransom to the devil, that at the fall of man satan gained dominion over man and that Jesus death purchased us back from satan. Though there is some truth to man being under the dominion of satan after the fall, yet Anselm was ‘more right’ in the way he approached it. As a matter of fact His teaching eventually became the norm for the church. Anselm introduced Reason into the argument for the existence of God. Many teachers used scripture and appealed to the church fathers to prove the reality of God, Anselm was one of the first to lean heavily on logic when arguing for Gods existence. He is considered one of the greats of church history and we still benefit from the influence of Anselm to this day.
[1458] CONTACT! The other night I caught the movie Contact; I have seen it before but figured I’d re-watch it. The movie pits science against religion; the religious figure [Mathew Mconaughy] is talking to the scientific atheist [Jodie Foster] as she makes her case against God she asks the religious figure ‘are you familiar with Ockham’s Razor’ [wow, isn’t she smart!] and the ex-priest says ‘no, is it some sort of porno movie?’ and of course the atheist goes on to quote the famous saying. Ockham’s razor is the principle developed by William of Ockham that says when you have multiple solutions to a problem that the simplest answer is usually the correct one. Sounds good, what’s the problem? The problem is William of Ockham was indeed a Christian philosopher; he was a contemporary of Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus. They all lived in the high middle ages [13th-14th centuries]. So for Jodie Foster to have appealed to him while trying to make the point that religion and science don’t mix, well it would be like me debating someone on Halloween. I say it never existed as a pagan holiday; you insist it did! As we debate, I say ‘have you ever heard of the term trick or treat’ and you say ‘no, what’s that’. I then changed the channel to the news and they were doing a story on some scientist who supposedly invented synthetic DNA, they then gave the various statements from religious groups who were against it and thought it violated ethics. It was a replay of the same themes of the movie, pitting science against religion. Science and religion are not enemies, the scientific method was invented by the church, most of the greatest minds in science have been Christian [or religious] and even till this very day many of the great men of science are believers. At the end of the movie they gave a short dedication to Carl [Sagan]. Sagan was the famous atheist who said the universe is all there ever was and all there ever would be. The apostle Paul said ‘men chose to worship and serve the creation rather than the creator, therefore God gave them up to reprobate minds’. The other night I watched the special called ‘Hawking's universe’ I don’t know why they called it Hawking’s, it was a simple rehash of the idea of cosmological evolution, nothing new at all. Let’s make something clear, those who espouse the idea that because we have discovered that most all of the base elements of creation and man are also found in the stars, this in no way proves that men and creation all evolved from stars! This is one of the most ridiculous ideas I have ever heard, and yet many learned men are making this case. Some are saying that when stars explode [novas] that these base elements then form planets and people and monkeys and elephants and- well you get the idea. What mechanism are they giving us that shows us that something like this is even possible? Absolutely none. They are simply making the claim that because we share most of the same matter, that therefore the stars themselves created everything. This is not only not true science, but it doesn’t pass the smell test of elementary school! It would be like me stumbling across some computer disk, and then finding a computer to pop it into. Lo and behold I have found the complete works of Shakespeare on the disk. How did they get there? Sure enough some analyst figures out a way to examine the matter that makes up the disk [not the intelligence on it!] and lo and behold he identifies the makeup of the disk. He then proclaims ‘aha, I have figured out where the works of Shakespeare came from’ and he then goes on to give us the elements that make up the disk. What’s the problem? He simply identified the matter of the disk, he did not identify where the actual intelligence on the disk came from. So when people espouse the idea that the stars ‘made everything’ they are talking absolute nonsense. The only true explanation for the contents on the disk [or the intelligence found in the universe] is the reality that an intelligent agent put the contents there. There is no other rational explanation. Jodie Foster was right- when you have multiple solutions to a problem, the simplest is usually correct. Either the stars made everything [impossible], or God. I’ll go with God.
[1456] THEY HAVE SAID COME AND LET US CUT THEM OFF FROM BEING A NATION- Psalms 83:4. During the time of the reformation in the 16th century you had various groups of Christians who felt the church lost her original purpose and purity, these believers sparked reform, that is they did not abandon all the previous creeds and councils of the church; they simply tried to bring God’s people back into shape. Because of this, most of the Christian denominations today have the same basic creeds and statements of faith that have come down to us from the early days. That is we have been able to maintain some sense of ‘national’ unity/cohesiveness even though we have many divisions. The enemies of Israel were not so much trying to wipe them all out; they were upset that Israel had achieved a national identity. When Gods people existed in Egypt, sure they were a thorn in the side of society at times, but they were still citizens of another people. In the New Testament Peter says we are a holy nation, a special people; that is the people of God right now belong to a kingdom made up of priests and kings [Revelation]. It is the enemy’s tactic to cause us to view ourselves as independent churches all doing good things for God, but still seeing each congregation as existing separately from the whole. In a sense the enemy has caused us to ‘stop seeing ourselves as a nation’ sure we still exist, and to be honest there are lots of us! But Like Israel in Egypt we too often are looked upon as a bunch of illegal aliens that the nation doesn’t know what in the heck to do with! Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating a theocracy [a govt. run by God] that is not a worldly/earthly one; but I am advocating that as believers, we should strive for a ‘national’ identity, that is we should appreciate all the great things that have happened and come down to us from the fathers of the past. We have sort of been given the baton and we need to run with it. But too often we don’t recognize that the baton is something that gets passed off to us, we are a living tapestry of people who together form this beautiful Joseph’s garment, the enemy would be happy if we simply lost this unifying identity. He doesn’t seem to care too much when we live in our own identities, when we lose the identity of a holy nation.
[1454] ON INFANT BAPTISM- I have been listening to an interesting debate on infant baptism; it’s being held between two good scholars. I have said before that I do not believe in infant baptism, but I also understand the case made for it. Basically those who practice it believe that baptism is a sign of the new covenant, and like circumcision in the old covenant, it’s alright to baptize new borns under the new. The minister presenting the adult baptism only side did a good job, as did the one who advocated for infant baptism. The only problem with the argument from the ‘adult baptism’ advocate was at the end of his message he appealed to the great 16th century reformers [Luther, Calvin, etc.] and made the case that those who practice infant baptism are not in keeping with the reformers character in rejecting the ‘old papal heresies’. In fact the reformers accepted infant baptism and fought against those who rejected it. The most famous example being that of the Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli; he famously drowned the ‘Anabaptists’ [re-baptizers] for their unwillingness to baptize their new borns. The Anabaptists are sometimes called ‘the radical reformers’ they were a strain of believers who felt the reformers were still too bound by tradition, and they wanted a total return to the early practices of the church. And the centuries following would give rise to a whole host of various groups staking their claim on being the most accurate New Testament church. The point being that even though the minister who defended adult baptism only was standing on good biblical grounds, yet he used an example that was not totally accurate. It benefits all believers to be familiar with these arguments, if they are done in a spirit of friendship [which the above debate was done in] then they can help us progress along the lines of Christian unity. That is we still may hold to our peculiar position, and at the same time see the other point of view. Too often we are only familiar with our own position.
(1452) IMPUTATION- Okay, I am going to get a little technical today. Being we just came off of both a study of Galatians and a series on justification by faith, I want to hit a little on the doctrine of imputation. During the time of the reformation one of the areas of disagreement between Protestants and Catholics was the doctrine of justification by faith. Those of you who have read my studies realize that in this area I am Protestant, but my explanation on James chapter 2 [read the Justification by Faith study] leaves room for more agreement between Catholics and Protestants than we have had in the past. One of the other points of contention is the reformed position on God imputing the righteousness of Christ to the believer. Some Protestants teach it in a way that is not fully defined in scripture. Some teach that the righteous life of Christ, as a separate transaction from the sin bearing work of the Cross, is ‘imputed’ to the believer and this righteous account from Jesus is now counted towards us. I am not totally in disagreement with this doctrine, but some seem to teach it in a way that misreads some of the passages used to defend it. In my Romans study [chapter 5] I explained it somewhat. In Romans, Corinthians and Philippians we read verses that say ‘we are now saved by his life’ ‘we are made the righteousness of God thru Christ’ ‘thru the obedience of one man [Jesus] many are made righteous’- these verses teach us that the obedient life of Jesus qualified him to be the sin bearer of the sins of the world; he took our sins because he was sinless. He also lives at the right hand of God and is continually ‘saving’ us by his life. His obedience ‘unto death’ is also referred to in some of these passages- that is he obeyed the Father and went to the Cross for us- ‘thru one man’s obedience many are made righteous’ ‘he was obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross’ [Philippians]. Some seem to have confused some of these verses by teaching that they are saying ‘the obedient life of Jesus is now credited to us’. In actuality these few examples are really not saying it in this way. To be fair we do have the verses that say we are made the righteousness of God in Jesus- that Jesus is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification, and of course my last study showed all the verses that speak of us being justified by faith. But technically it is not a clearly taught doctrine that the positive account of Christ’s righteousness is taken and put on our account. At least it isn’t as taught as clearly as the actual doctrine of justification by faith, and as I just showed you some of the verses that are used to teach it are being read in a particular way that might not be in keeping with the text. Why wade into this discussion, isn’t it true that we are made just in God’s eyes because Jesus lived a holy life and died for us? Yes. It’s just some areas that are not clearly defined in scripture should be left open for further discussion and thought. As of the time of this writing this area is one of contention between some reformed theologians and other Orthodox/Catholic/Anglican believers [Anglican scholar Tom Wright being one]. I do not totally reject the doctrine; I believe the righteous life of Christ was a requirement for him going to the Cross for us. And I do believe God makes us righteous as a free gift of God, as Luther said ‘an alien righteousness’ it’s just not taught as clearly as some reformed teachers have developed the doctrine, and we want to be honest when dealing with these issues. I know for some of you guys these types of posts are a little ivory tower, but for others these things are important as we strive for greater unity among the Christian faiths.
(1451) CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM BELIEFS- As I did the study on Justification by faith I hit a few verses that I felt were vital for our day; things that said Gods kingdom is not based on ethnic/racial lines, but it is based on faith in Jesus Christ. One of the major divisions between Christians and Muslims is Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet from God, but they reject his deity. They claim that the Christian church fell into apostasy and over the centuries heresy was introduced thru the councils and creeds of the church. They believe that in the 7th century God restored true monotheism [belief in one God] thru the prophet Muhammad and that Jesus [Isa] agreed with this. In the 19th century you had the rise of religious liberalism and many theologians espoused a belief that ran along these same lines; many taught that the early message of Jesus became distorted thru the over intellectualizing of the faith, and that Greek philosophy and Latin legal minds [Tertullian] ‘extended’ the faith to parameters that went far beyond the teachings of Christ. The Muslim scholars saw this as proof that they were right all along, after all these Christian scholars were basically saying the same thing! And then within the past 30 years or so you had the rise of historical Jesus studies, and men like John Dominic Crossan [Jesus seminar] would basically deny much of the gospels. They used a skewed method of determining what was real or fake, and when all was said and done you basically had a few verses from Johns gospel that were deemed true as well as a host of other ‘questionable’ sayings of Jesus from the other gospels. Why was this an important development for the rejecters of Christ’s deity? John’s gospel is the strongest teaching in the New Testament on the deity of Christ. We call this ‘Logos Christology’ John’s gospel teaches us that in the beginning was the word [Logos in Greek] and the word was with God and the word was God. So you have a distinction between the word [Jesus] and God, and at the same time the word is described as God. So to be fair about it, the deity of Jesus was not a latter development that was spawned out of the Greek/Latin mind, but was a part of Christianity right from the start. Grant it that the later creeds and councils [4th century Nicene, 5th century Chalcedon] did use some technical language to distinguish between the nature of God and Jesus, but the teaching of Christ’s deity is found within the body of the New Testament. Islam teaches that Jesus was born from a virgin, and that he was a prophet sent from God- isn’t that enough? No, they also teach that at the Cross another person died in Jesus place and that Jesus never died and rose again, this my friends can never be accepted by true Christianity. I believe we as believers should respect Muslim people, we should not denigrate them or their religion- but to have an honest conversation we need to tell the truth. Jesus was given for the sins of the whole world, he was God in the flesh dwelling among man- he died, was buried and rose from the grave. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
(1448) ‘Now we know that what things so ever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no person become just in God’s sight: for by the law comes the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is manifested, even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all that believe’ Romans 3:19-22. Once again Paul makes clear that people become right in God’s eyes when they believe in his son, the attempt at becoming right with God by obeying the law is futile. Why? Because that was never the intended purpose of the law. God gave the law to reveal to man his sin; when men would try to live up to the standard, they would fall short and realize their need for a savior and then would turn to Christ. Paul says before the law came [before he personally became aware of it] he was without guilt, but once he realized the statutes of God and saw Gods holy standard; he said that sin in him revived and he died. Or the law caused a reaction in him that made his sinful nature appear to be much worse than he originally thought. Paul said in Galatians that the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, but after faith has come we are no longer under a schoolmaster. He said ‘wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions till the seed should come [Jesus=seed, offspring] to whom the promise was made’. Paul taught that the purpose of the law was to reveal to man his own sin, that there never was a law given that a man could obey in order to become saved. The other day I googled the ministry name and was glad to see that some Catholic friends have been posting our site on Catholic sites. Great! My goal is not to convince fellow Christians to change churches, or become Protestant; my goal is to accurately teach the truth to all who want to hear. To some of our Catholic friends these verses seem unbelievable, that is they might seem too good to be true. I want to assure you that the Catholic church believes the things that I just taught! But like all Christian churches, sometimes we don’t effectively communicate these truths to the people. Many people do not realize that the current Pope, Benedict, is one of the most able theologians that the church has had in this office. John Paul the 2nd was a great man, don’t get me wrong. But he was more of a philosopher/humanist charismatic figure; Benedict is more of a teacher. Why mention this? Because you will notice that the last year or so the Pope has made an extra effort to teach Paul’s epistles and to focus more on a strong Christology than in past years. This Pope has made efforts to bridge the gap between Protestants and Catholics; he also has come closer to the Protestant view of certain passages that speak of justification by faith. A few years ago a joint statement was made that many Protestants saw as a major breakthrough in this very area. I want to assure my Catholic readers, yes- it sounds too good to be true, but it is! Even your church believes it! That is we all believe that we are freely saved by Gods grace that comes to us thru the Cross of Christ. I would be dishonest to say there are no more difficult doctrinal issues between the great Christian confessions, but I can say for a surety ‘we are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ’. Note- I am not saying the Catholic church does not believe in the importance of keeping the 10 commandments, they believe that all Christians should keep the commandments.
(1447) THE BARNES AND NOBLE JESUS? WAS B.P. A GOD CAUSED DISASTER? Yesterday I saw my recent issue of Christianity Today had arrived, I planned on reading some news papers and catching up on the weeks past events; but instead I spent about an hour going thru the mag. Found it interesting to see many of the ruffled feathers among the elites of the day. Brian McLaren finally responded to Scot McKnight’s criticism of his most recent work; Brian defended himself as not being anti evangelical. Tom Wright had a book review done by Michael Horton [that could be trouble!] but Horton was pretty fair, and pointed out how Wright pictures the Reformers as neglecting virtue and morality on the altar of faith. Horton exposes this weakness in Wright, surely many of the reformers [particularly the Puritan strain] emphasized virtue and morality. Found it interesting that some of these authors responded to recent critiques in a way that seemed to indicate that the critics served a good purpose; it caused the authors to have to defend themselves and make statements saying they were closer to the evangelical faith than their critics indicated. As I read the back and forth between these fine men, I couldn’t help but wonder what practical effect all this is having on the church at large. Are they simply hashing things out amongst the book store crowd [of which I am one] and in the end the church at large is preaching/believing in a Jesus who would probably be uncomfortable hanging out at the Barnes and Noble? Okay, this week my governor said the B.P. oil spill in the gulf was an act of God; the critics got on him and he had to defend himself. It does seem strange that a failed oil rig can be blamed on the Most High. The broader question being, how do we explain the real natural disasters of the world? In the 18th century [1755 to be exact] believers from all over the world were in church celebrating All Saints Day, just off the coast of Portugal a major earthquake struck, thousands of believers who were attending services in the capital city of Lisbon were crushed under the collapsing buildings. Many fled to the coast and were swept up in the tsunami; it was a major disaster for the time. One of Christianities critics, Voltaire, used this event to refute the popular notion that God was sovereign over all things and good as well. Voltaire, who is often accused of being an atheist [in actuality he was a theist- believed in a God but rejected Christianity] found evil in the world as proof of God being absent from the daily affairs of men, a common accusation from atheists/agnostics. How do believers explain these types of events? Did God purposely cause the earthquake to happen on that day, knowing that all the worshippers would be in church that morning? God of course knows all things, and nothing happens outside of his sovereignty. But we also live in a world that is a result of mans choice to sin and plunge the creation into a cursed situation [Genesis, Romans] so things happen in the world that are a result of the curse that came upon creation when man sinned. Things like the B.P. spill are obviously not God caused disasters, but we also can’t blame every natural disaster upon God. True, sometimes they can be a divine act of judgment [Noah’s flood] and there certainly are scriptures that speak about God revealing himself and his wrath thru these types of events, but we also should not discount the reality that some events happen as a result of mans failure to properly take care of the creation that God put under his dominion. The fact that God is not directly involved in all these types of events does not mean that he is removed from the scene, but we also need to be careful when we blame God for things that are clearly not his fault.
(1445) WAS NOT ABRAHAM OUR FATHER JUSTIFED BY WORKS WHEN HE OFFERED ISAAC HIS SON UPON THE ALTAR- YE SEE THEN HOW THAT BY WORKS A MAN IS JUSTIFED AND NOT BY FAITH ONLY- WAS NOT RAHAB THE HARLOT JUSTFIED BY WORKS? James 2:22-26. Okay, in Genesis chapter 22 we read the story of God telling Abraham to offer up his son Isaac upon the altar. Abraham obeys God and at the last minute the Lord stops him; but the angel of the Lord says because he did this, that now God knows he can be trusted and God will fulfill his promise to him. James uses this story to define what he means when he speaks of ‘being justified’ in Gods sight. I believe there have been many noble attempts at trying to reconcile this passage with the passages in Romans and Galatians where Paul specifically says ‘a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith’. Paul clearly teaches us that men cannot be justified by the works of the law; James says ‘see how men are justified by works’. The explanations I have heard go like this ‘James was simply saying the faith that saves is an active living faith’ ‘James is simply saying men are justified in the sight of other men by their works’ ‘James is simply saying true faith has works along with it’ while all of these things are true, they seem to not adequately deal with the 3 passages I quoted at the top. James says that when Abraham offered up his son on the altar that the scripture was fulfilled that said ‘he believed in God and he counted it to him for righteousness’. James is fully aware of the Genesis 15 promise to Abraham, the key verse Paul uses to define justification by faith; it’s just James is speaking about the process thru out life where men actually become righteous in practice, which is a result of being legally made righteous by faith. In essence when James says ‘see how men are justified by works’ he is describing the act of God being pleased with us, God having the right to say ‘yes, you obeyed me son, and I call you righteous in my eyes because you did obey me’. This process can be defined as being ‘justified by works’ while not contradicting Paul use of the term ‘justification by faith’. To me it is quite clear that James is saying more than just ‘real faith has works’ no, he is saying that the legal/forensic act of justification by faith [Gen. 15] leads to a life of actually doing just things [obeying God- Gen. 22] and when the legally justified believer obeys God, in a sense he is justified in Gods sight [not men’s!] by these works. Now, this does not mean men are ‘saved’ by doing good works, in the sense that Paul uses ‘saved’ but James is saying that when believers do good works, these works cause a response from God that can be defined as ‘being justified in Gods sight by our good works’ a totally different theme than Paul. This passage has been a difficult one for many years, Luther battled with it and at one point called James epistle a ‘straw epistle’ he doubted its canonicity. The Catholic Church used this very passage in their council at Trent to refute what they saw as Luther’s neglect of good works. I have had Mormons and other various Christian groups use this passage in defending certain aspects of their churches; this passage is well worn in the annals of Christian apologetics, I think the explanation that I just gave is the best one; the other efforts that have been made to explain this passage have some truth to them, but at the end of the day they don’t fully explain the clear text of the above passages. I think this explanation explains them.
(1443) NOW THE LORD HAD SAID UNTO ABRAM, GET THEE OUT OF THY COUNTRY AND FROM THY KINDRED AND FROM THY FATHERS HOUSE, UNTO A LAND THAT I WILL SHOW THEE. AND I WILL MAKE OF THEE A GREAT NATION AND I WILL BLESS THEE AND MAKE THY NAME GREAT AND YOU WILL BE A BLESSING- Gen 12:1-2. I think for the next few days I will try and cover some key verses in both the old and new testaments that deal with the doctrine of justification by faith. I covered this subject in my Romans, Galatians, Hebrews [chapter 11] studies; and of course the doctrine of believing in Jesus and ‘being saved’ is found in the gospel of John study and the Acts study. But for the most part the main verses on the subject are these few in Genesis and the key chapters from Romans [3-4] and Galatians [2-4]. The doctrine simply means that God has chosen to justify [declare legally righteous] all those who have faith in Christ. There are many varied ways that Christian communions deal with the whole process of salvation, some churches are what you would call Sacramental [they believe in the process of God using the sacraments to administer grace to the soul of the believer, and that thru these sacraments, mixed with faith, believers become justified] and others hold more closely to the Pauline idea of faith being the actual mechanism that God uses to justify [which is my personal view]. Many modern Protestants who strongly disagree with the sacramental churches [Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican] fail to see that most of the reformers embraced some form of sacramentalism along with their belief in justification by faith. Luther being the strongest example; his embracing of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist [body, blood, soul and divinity] caused him to split from the great Swiss reformer, Ulrich Zwingli, and Luther believed Zwingli to be damned because he rejected the body of Christ! So for today’s ‘neo-reformed’ [the resurgence among Calvinism in our day] to be so quick to condemn many other types of Christians [Like those who follow Tom Wright] these are not ‘being fair’ to the broad system of belief that many of the great reformers held to. Okay, the above verse begins the journey between God and Abraham, thru a series of events thru out Abraham’s life God will reveal himself to Abraham, and at those times Abraham has a choice to either believe the promises of God to him- or reject them. These promises center around God telling Abraham that he will have a future dynasty of children that will bless the whole earth. In this dynasty there will be a special son that comes out of the tribe of Judah [Jesus] and he will be the promised seed to whom the promises were made [Galatians 3,4]. Paul the apostle will use the great father of the faith, Abraham, to convince the Jewish people that God justifies people by faith, and not by the works of the law. Paul goes to these past historic events [Gen 12, 15] and shows his fellow Jews that God did indeed justify Abraham [count him righteous] when he believed in the promise made to him by God [Gen 15]. Paul says ‘see, God justified Abraham before he was circumcised, therefore justification [being legally made right with God] is by faith and not by the keeping of the law’. This argument from Paul is simple, yet masterful. His Jewish audience knew these stories well, they just never ‘saw’ what Paul was seeing; once he broke thru ‘the veil’ [Corinthians] that blinded their hearts from the truth, then they could not escape the reality of what he taught them- these cultural stories of father Abraham would never be the same again. As I progress over the next few days I want to note that when we get to the book of James, we will be looking at a different type of justification than what Paul focused on. James will use the great event from Abraham’s life, the offering up of his son Isaac on the altar [Gen 22] as the event to define justification from his view. Many reformed do not fully see what James is saying, in my view. This type of ‘bible study’ [the type where we try and make everything fit our view] is common among many good men, but it fails to see that the scriptures come to us more in the sense of a portable library of books that cover the various perspectives of the time. Now, I am not advocating the view that the scriptures err, or that the bible has ‘competing theologies’ what I am saying is James use of the word ‘justification’ is actually a different use than what Paul means when he uses the Genesis 15 example to explain justification. Instead of trying to reconcile James with Paul by saying ‘all James means is the faith that saves has works’, which is limited indeed, we should leave room for seeing how James is coming to the table from a different point of view. James being one of the lead apostles at the Jerusalem council from Acts 15, and his defense of the importance of works from the strong Jewish background. I think Hebrews 11 actually deals with this subject [go read my commentary on the chapter to see where I’m coming from]. Okay, let’s leave off for now- go read the studies I just mentioned, familiarize yourself with the key chapters and will do some more tomorrow.
(1429) ‘There shall be a handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth’ Psalms 72:16. Most of the time there is a portion of good truth available to believers from various sources; as believers we need to be picky at times, because if we simply consume everything from the buffet, we will get sick. The bible says honey is good, but too much will make you vomit! Years ago there was a preacher that I liked to listen to, he was from another city and I had heard him speak before and ordered some of his teaching materials. I noticed over time that though he associated with many famous prosperity preachers, yet he would make statements that showed he was not in total agreement with their doctrine. I then read a news story on a problem the church was having; the minister came under fire for putting pressure on people to give for the new building fund and yet was kind of frivolous in the ministries spending of money. One of the leaders in the church sought to expose the minister as a false prophet, they went to the courts and eventually the courts sided with the church. One of the complaints that was made was the preacher had bought a 4 thousand dollar suit for one of the church board members as a gift of appreciation. The disgruntled member thought this was wrong to do at a time when the church was putting pressure on people to give. The minister defended this act by saying Jesus wore an expensive coat, and that a woman also poured expensive perfume on Jesus [I’m not sure if he used one or both of these examples]. I have heard this defense made many times in the past by prosperity preachers, it is a lame excuse to be honest; I have explained this before and don’t want to do it again here. Let’s just say that these examples do not excuse ministries from financial indiscretions. The main point is even though this well meaning preacher, who I liked to listen to, tried to separate himself from the more extreme teaching of the prosperity movement; yet when all was said and done he resorted to the same miss use of scripture in defending himself; he could not avoid the traps of those who surrounded him. He spent time inviting these ministers to ‘the church’ went to do conferences in their churches and was doing lots of ministry things with them. In the above verse we read that there is a handful of corn in the earth, a quality supply of good meat [teaching] that God has made available to us, if we associate too much with teachers that are not really giving us the good corn, then no matter how hard we try, we will become like them. I want to encourage you today, what are the streams you feed from? Do you read the latest pop culture Christian best sellers? Things on how to get what you want out of life, or how you can succeed in some venture; or are you reading scholarly stuff, the Christian classics, the church fathers. If you spend most of your time surrounded by unbalanced teaching, it will affect you in the end, even if you think it won’t.
(1427) THE LORD GAVE THE WORD; GREAT WAS THE COMPANY OF THOSE THAT PUBLISHED IT- Psalms 68:11 In the 14th century you had the Oxford scholar, John Wycliffe, challenge the church and publish an English bible that would be understood by the common man. His view of the true church was that all those who believed in Christ comprised the mystical Body of Christ thru out the ages; he held to the same view that many believers would later embrace. His works would eventually influence John Huss, the great Bohemian priest, and Huss too would preach a doctrine of the universal church which transcended institutional boundaries. In the 16th century William Tyndale would take up the charge to get the bible into the hands of the common man; he longed for the day that the simple plowman would know the scriptures as well as the trained clergy; Tyndale would die for the faith [as Huss] but would pray/prophesy that God would touch the heart of the king of England and make his word known. Henry the 8th would eventually place an English bible into every church building thru out his realm. The history of God getting his word into the hands of the common man is great, many divine interventions [or inventions!] came along just at the right time to aid in the efforts. Guttenberg would invent the printing press in the 15th century and Luther’s reformation would take off as his books and tracts would get published by the boat loads [as well as many other great teachers’ stuff- like Erasmus Greek New Testament bible]. The institutional church would resist the free flow of these writings, they feared that the people might teach wrong doctrine, or that the masses might interpret the bible in a wrong way. Were these fears groundless? Not really. Many did mess up in their reading of the bible, and others would start their own sects based on faulty interpretations. But for the most part God was in the business of getting his word out to as many people as possible. I have found over the years that believers have a sort of blind spot when it comes to the ‘sacred’ modes of transmitting the bible. For instance many well meaning men believe that the process of meeting in a building on Sunday, and the bible being preached to as many as you can get to come to the meeting; many feel that this expression [being only one of many] is the actual God ordained way of getting the bible taught to the people. Many who hold to this singular idea, to the point where they feel the doing of this is actually called ‘the local church’ will look down upon other means of getting the word out. The explosion of the internet has truly been the printing press of modern times. Many average believers now have the ability to reach the world from their computers; are their dangers with this process? Sure. Will some teach wrong stuff? As Sarah Palin would say ‘you betcha’. But all in all people should embrace the reality that we live in a day where once again the average saint has the ability to get the word out to the masses with little, or no cost. I don’t want people to get me wrong, going to ‘church’ to hear the sermon is fine [most of the times!] but the bible does not teach the concept that the meeting of believers in buildings on Sunday is actually called ‘the local church’. For sure this is an expression of ‘local church’ it is a way that many believers have come to practice their faith; but it would be wrong to exalt this view of church to the point where we hinder others who are getting the word out in many different ways. In the New Testament, the ‘local churches’ referred to communities of believers who lived in your city/region- the term does not refer exclusively to meeting in a lecture hall environment to hear a lecture! Psalms says God gave the word and great was the company of those that published it; lets rejoice in the fact that we live in a time where a great company of people can ‘publish it’.
[Comment on Ben Witherington’s site on his recent historical Jesus book] I like it Ben. Went to the first post and read the intro; good and balanced. I have been critical of 'historical criticism' and recently made some comments on Scot McKnight’s article on rethinking Jesus studies. Overall I think its okay to do historical research and harmonies like this; as long as we add the warning that these studies are not meant to challenge the canonical accounts [which warning you gave in the intro!] God bless Ben thanks for sharing excellent scholarship like this in a free format. John
(1424) AVOIDING THE ECHO CHAMBER- A week or so ago the president was asked his opinion about the cable news shows and the talk radio community; he wisely answered that he felt there was a sort of dynamic like an echo chamber with these shows, that people need to be careful that they are not simply spending all their time and effort bouncing their own ideas off of the walls of others who only think in the same framework. In Christianity this is a problem that we all regularly deal with. I remember listening to a tape by an ‘organic church’ brother one time, he was trying to explain where the idea of elders arose in the writings of the apostle Paul. Now he was speaking from/to a community of people that at the time were writing and teaching against the New Testament idea of leadership, many felt like leaders in the New Testament were forbidden based on verses like ‘the gentiles exercise lordship over each other, it will not be like this with you’ and other verses that speak of servant leadership. The well meaning brother went on to espouse his theory that when the Jewish Diaspora took place in the first century, many were sent to the Christian churches and they told the leaders of the churches ‘here are our people, who are your elders that they need to report to’ and that in response Paul and the others said ‘Oh yeah, here they are’ sort of like they were ad libbing just to appease the Jewish converts. Now, this idea is interesting, but there is no foundation for it to rest on. The New Testament had elders, leaders, etc. for this brother to have thought this deeply about the matter was simply a symptom of living in the echo chamber of others who also rejected elders/leaders as a normative role of the New Testament churches. But many of these brothers have brought out the fact that none of the churches in the New Testament had the singular office of ‘the pastor’ that functioned as the weekly speaking office that the believers would gather around and hear, week after week, month after month, year after year. The development of this office [often referred to as the pastor] took place over time; some ascribe its development to 4th century pagan sources, others see it as arising out of the synagogue to church model [it should be noted that in the synagogues you had a person overseeing the meeting, but anyone could take the scrolls and read as the lord led- that’s why Jesus could read from the scrolls, even thought the Pharisees did not think he was ‘ordained’ by God]. The point being we all have blind spots that we need to be aware of. Most bible schools, universities teach courses on ‘pastoral counseling, finances, budgets, speaking, etc.’ and to be honest they too usually are approaching things from the echo chamber of ‘church’ as the corporate model, the actual meeting place of believers, as opposed to a community of people. Many of these courses never really question the validity of this singular role that we define as pastor, they just teach around it as a given office that existed in this way. The other night I was watching the Huckabee show on Fox news, they had on the actor Jon Voight. I liked Voight in the movie The Deliverance and of course George from Seinfeld was elated when he thought he bought Jon’s used car [though Jerry doubted it was authentic, being the name was spelled differently] as Voight was being interviewed he read a prepared letter that he had brought with him. Voight expressed many of the key talking points of Beck, Rush and Hannity; he mentioned the Olinsky method, hit a few more ideas on Obama being a socialist, you know the whole deal. When he was thru Huckabee graciously defended Obama in saying that he disagreed with his policies, but felt like the president means well. Voight is a victim of the echo chamber, seeing and hearing things on a regular basis, without a regular inflow of contrary data. As believers we need to be willing to hear both sides of the issues, maybe the critics are right about one thing, and wrong about another. That’s fine, just be willing to hear. Living in the echo chamber can be deafening at times.
[just a comment on an article critiquing Scot McKnight’s recent CT article] Good response- Just a note or 2; Scot doesn’t seem to be saying that all historical studies of Jesus are wrong, but that the actual process called 'historical criticism' is actually flawed. Also the example in this article 'how can we know the meaning behind the act of Jesus and the money changers without 2nd temple context' most believers have a good grasp of the prophetic challenge of Jesus to the religious leaders of the day by simply reading this gospel account in context 'my father’s house was to be a house of prayer. You have made it a den of thieves'. Simply reading this account from the gospels gives us enough context to glean the truth of the passage. Good response anyway. God bless, John
(1422) THE APOSTLE, THE PROPHETESS AND FIRST DEGREE MURDER- Last night I watched a dateline special on a church that made the headlines because of a series of actions that led to the murder of the youth pastor’s wife, by the youth pastor. The church started out as a nice independent church in a good community, the original pastor moved on and a new pastor came in. He felt his calling was that of an apostle and he instituted the casting out of demons and new concepts on spiritual warfare. They also had the charismatic gifts of the Spirit operating. One of the ladies was a ‘prophetess’, if I remember right I used to see some of her stuff on a fairly popular prophetic web site. Either way she functioned in what she felt was a prophetic gift and she eventually gave a prophecy to the youth pastor that his wife was going to die and she would marry him after the death. The youth pastor wound up giving his wife an overdose of Benadryl and started an ‘accidental’ house fire and she died. The youth pastor had a few affairs with some of the other church members and eventually the sister who functioned in the prophetic gift confessed. Okay, how does stuff like this happen? It is easy to come away from this story with a negative view of all charismatic expressions of the church; that would be unfair. Purely as a doctrinal issue you do find the gifts of the Spirit as a legitimate part of Christianity. The church’s emphasis on spiritual warfare techniques and the normative act of identifying demon spirits in its members, well I do have a problem with that. Christians go thru fads/phases as the years roll by, one of the popular ideas was the whole spiritual warfare thing that involved strategic level prayers and identifying territorial spirits and stuff like that. Most fads have some type of doctrinal truth; for instance you do read in the prophetic book of Daniel how his prayers were being resisted by a ‘prince’ which more than likely was referring to a demon spirit, and how God used an angel to break thru the heavens and bring the answer to Daniel. So we see glimpses behind the scenes at times. But the normative teaching on prayer does not carry with it a regular process of identifying and engaging with these demons. So you have some truth, but usually associated with error. Many who appeal to the Daniel example fail to see that Daniels prayer eventually was answered, not because Daniel did some strategic prayer thing, but because he simply prayed to God in faith. At no time did Daniel cast the prince down thru his own techniques. So basically this independent church got into the whole thing. Many years ago when I was pastoring my own independent church, I had a lady [she was a good friend and Christian] who too felt like she functioned at times as a prophetess. She was ordained by Joel Osteen’s church out of Houston and I worked with family members who were involved [married to] some of the drug addict guys I was helping at the time. She did become a member of our church and she was an able person. But at times I had to warn her off of beliefs that she felt were from God. Her previous church [a word of faith church] had a good pastor whose wife was not helping the minister; she felt like the Lord told her that some day she would be married to the pastor, that either the wife would die or the pastor would get a divorce, but that she felt God had told her this. She gave me examples from the bible that seemed to justify in her mind how God can tell people things that seem out of the ordinary [like God telling one of his prophets to marry a prostitute] but I always tried to steer her into the direction that the gift of prophecy never contradicts the known revealed will of God as found in the bible. The point today is as believers we need to be careful that our expression of Christianity does not become isolated from the broader Body of Christ, we should be reading the Christian classics, should have a basic view of the people of God as a worldwide community that we can all glean guidance from. Many independent type churches get a hold of some doctrine [even if it’s true] and make the error of exalting the teaching to a point where they get out of balance with the historic church, then they focus all their teaching and reading around a small group of authors and preachers who also hold to the same limited ideas. This reinforces in the minds of the adherents that they surely must be in a balanced group, after all look at all the other good people who follow the same path! I would advise all believers [pastors especially] build up a good library of the Christian classics, pick up Augustine’s confessions, collect some writings from the early church fathers; develop a library that spans the ages- you can read and study the current movements and all, don’t reject all movements and fads, some movements do have historic implications to them, but only time will tell. And avoid the idea that God is telling people stuff like ‘your husband/wife will die and I will marry you’ these ideas are way off the mark and should be rejected outright without any second thoughts.
(1420) THE DOCTRINE ON WHICH THE CHURCH STANDS OR FALLS- In keeping with the last post lets overview some stuff. One of the main themes in the New Testament is the theme of justification by faith; the great reformer Martin Luther called this the doctrine on which the church stands or falls. If you go thru this blog and read the Galatians, Romans and Acts studies you will see what a major subject this is in the bible. Read Acts chapter 15 and you will see 3 specific statements made about what exactly the Jewish teachers out of Jerusalem were trying to put on the believers at Antioch; the chapter says they were trying to make them become circumcised, then it says to become circumcised and KEEP THE LAW OF MOSES, and then James will say the same in the final decree that was sent out to the gentile believers at Antioch. The point being the question very much was whether or not the gentile churches were to submit themselves under the ‘law of Moses’. In Galatians Paul says ‘if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain’ ‘I am crucified with Christ… and the life which I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God’ this theme runs thru out the corpus of Paul’s writings and there is absolutely no doubt that the apostle is saying the believer becomes right with God, by faith apart from the law. And that ‘the law’ in context means the whole law [ceremonial, sacrificial and the moral code- 10 commandments]. Paul himself told the Galatians ‘if you become circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing, for he that is circumcised has become a debtor to the whole law’ all of these statements in context would be meaningless if they simply meant the gentiles were not under the ceremonial law, but still bound by the moral law. When the decree made it back to the church at Antioch they rejoiced in the fact they they were not bound under the law, not so they could go on sinning, but because the New Covenant of grace frees us from the legalistic approach to Gods kingdom. Remember, Paul associated the ceremonial law [circumcision] with the moral law- if he were just speaking of believers not being under one aspect, but another, then this distinction would be meaningless. James said the church at Antioch were troubled by those who went to them and told them they needed to become circumcised AND keep the law of Moses, it is clear from these passages that the message of the New testament is believers are under grace and are not under the old law; once again we are told ‘does this mean we keep on sinning’? Paul’s response is always no, not based on the fact that we are still bound to the law, but based on the fact that we have been risen with Christ, we are ‘new creatures in Christ, the old has passed away’- I do not frustrate the grace of Christ, if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ died in vain!
(1418) IS COLSON A MODERN DAY ERASMUS? I have been re-reading volume 6 of the Story of Civilization by Will Durant; this volume covers the Reformation period. It resounds with the warnings of the Catholic humanist Erasmus to his fellow critic of the church, Martin Luther. Many good men challenged what they saw as the corruption of the church, they wrote and spoke out against her abuses, Erasmus was one of her strongest critics. He was a true renaissance man who traveled a lot during his career. At one point he settled down in Basel, Switzerland and would thoroughly enjoy the metropolitan character of the region. He loved being in a community where the classics were widely read, as well as the modern ideas on theology. Calvin himself would eventually wind up in Basel for part of his education and he too would be influenced by Erasmus’s works. One of the fears that Erasmus and others had was they felt like Luther’s protest was going too far, they feared the toppling of order in society if the nation states would throw off all ecclesiastical control. They were afraid of anarchy [the same fears that the Ultramontanists in France would feel a couple of centuries later]. In my recent Christianity Today magazine I read an interesting column by Chuck Colson [the famous brother of water gate fame- he went to prison and converted to Christ] Colson seemed to strike a tone much like Erasmus, he was speaking about the current Tea Party movement. Colson warned that a popular uprising in and of itself can be dangerous, that Christians have every right to be upset and protest against what they feel is unjust, but believers need to heed the teachings of the new testament in being good citizens who submit to earthly authorities [a theme found thru out the New testament, especially in Paul’s letter to the Romans]. Colson warned that believers need to counter what they see as bad government with positive ideas and other options; we should not simply be a party of rebels! I sensed a sort of fear in Colson, sort of like he sees a danger in the country which can lead to bad things. Luther would eventually reject the warnings of his less rebellious contemporaries and follow thru with his rebellion; Germany would divide as a nation state between catholic and protestant churches, other nations would soon follow. The actual term Protestant speaks of a technical protest over a proposed rule that would allow the catholic churches/regions to remain catholic without any interference from the protestants; this was protested by the ‘protestants’ and thus the name stuck. The point being the reformation moved forward with a viable alternative to what they saw as a corrupt system, Luther himself rejected others who did advocate for what he saw as leading to anarchy. The famous Munster prophets believed they were to cast off all control of human government and establish their own New Jerusalem as an earthly city that would be governed directly by God. Luther eventually would sound like Erasmus in warning against a total rejection of human government and would appeal to Paul’s writings as well, showing us that good Christians submit to human authorities as much as possible, this warning fell on deaf ears- they read some of the caustic language that Luther himself used against the church and they saw him as a hypocrite. All in all we as believers should voice our protests and displeasure with human government when we see its failings, but we also need to understand that the changes that we want to be made will be done thru prayer and the ballot box, not thru any actions that can lead to the things that former ‘reformers’ warned against. Let our voices be heard, but let our non violent action be a witness to the kingdom from which we derive our beliefs.
(1415) BENNY HINN VERSUS JOHN PIPER- Yesterday I was reading some Christian news on line, I was surprised to see that the famed author/pastor, John Piper, was stepping down from his pastorate to take an 8 month sabbatical. As I read the story there was no scandal, he just simply examined his soul and felt like he saw pride creeping in and thought it good to re focus. I also read the latest from Benny Hinn, the famous healing evangelist, his wife recently filed for divorce and his web statement said ‘I will keep going, and not slow down one bit’. I would note that Benny and his wife also have no sexual scandal to deal with, it must have been the pressure and all, it caught the family by surprise when Susanne filed for the divorce. Now, many view Benny as a false prophet and an outright huckster- I don’t. I have major problems with the entire character of ‘ministry’ that platforms the Holy Spirits gifts in such a public way that draws great attention to the gifted person, the New Testament warns against various gifted people becoming the center of attention in the community of believers. Paul rebuked the Corinthians for centering their spiritual lives around the persona of any man [this would even include prominent well meaning pastors, who often don’t see this dynamic in our day-many feel it’s scriptural to have the life of the community centered around the weekly speaking gift of an individual, there really is no mandate in scripture for this. It’s okay for gifted leaders to teach, prophesy, function in some spiritual gift, but the New Testament does not show us a pattern of local churches centered around the office of any individuals gifts. One of the common mistakes church historians make is we read some of the 1st, 2nd century writings of the church fathers [Clement of Rome, Iraneus, etc.] and we see how the able bishop rebuked the Corinthians for not submitting to the ecclesiastical office of Bishop, the letter portrays the Corinthian church as a bunch of rebels who are rising up against the authority of the Bishop and other leaders. It’s usually assumed that the Corinthian church was at it again, ‘there goes those darn troublemakers’ type of a thing. But it’s very possible that the Corinthian community was heeding the admonition from their founding apostle [Paul] and were actually resisting the idea of allowing any singular authority to take a position that was contrary to what Paul wrote to them in his epistles!]. The main point is you can have legitimate gifts being expressed thru a person [prophecy, healing, or even the pastor/teacher gift of speaking] but if these gifts are being used in a way that draws undo attention to the individual; then it is a violation of the character of New Testament ministry, although the gift itself might be legitimate. I was watching an ‘apostle’ out of Newark one day on Christian TV; they are a Pentecostal group that are heavy into spiritual warfare. The main leader was dressed in military type garb [corporal, cornel stripes and all] and they were doing the best they could. An interesting thing was they were doing a teaching on Paul’s words ‘the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty thru God to the pulling down of strongholds’ [Corinthians] and they actually taught it right! The apostle shared how many people mistake the meaning of the verse and apply it to strategic spiritual warfare prayer directed at territorial spirits and stuff like that. But the apostle explained how it was really speaking about apologetic type arguments that Christians make against the false ideas and strongholds of false doctrine. But then they went on to say that they arrived at this true understanding thru the apostolic gift of ‘revelation knowledge’ sort of like if it weren’t for the gift of the ‘apostle’ they would never have known this truth. I would venture to say that the majority of scholarly works that deal with this verse probably have it right; in the world of ‘intellectual Christianity’ [which is usually disdained by these independent type churches] most teachers knew this all along; we did not need the ‘gift of apostolic revelation knowledge’ to know this. Okay, the point being we have good people, who operate at times in true gifts, but also have a long way to go in growth and maturity. In the above example of Piper versus Hinn, I believe both of these men are good men, Piper comes from the baptist [reformed] tradition, Hinn from the charismatic wing. Maybe the Lord directed Benny to ‘keep on going, don’t slow down a bit’ and maybe Piper felt the Lord saying ‘slow down, take time off’ I just felt it striking that Piper was doing this because of what he sensed was the hidden sin of pride, no big scandal, just time to examine his soul. While Benny felt like ‘slowing down’ was not an option. These 2 examples give us a glimpse into the present day expression of church/ministry, and how we have all been affected by the times we live in.
(1412) IN DEFENSE OF JEREMIAH WRIGHT- Last night an interesting thing happened; as I was channel surfing the news shows I saw that Larry King had on a few ‘ex’ conservatives who are now under fire for their left wing leanings. These are traditional white guys basking in their new found social justice beliefs. I could only watch for a minute or so, it just came off as inauthentic. Then as I scrolled thru Fox, MSNBC, and a few of the CSPAN channels I came across a Tavis Smiley forum that was being held in Chicago. I was fixated for 2 hours [or more!] The panel included many of the famous Black progressives- Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, Michael Eric Dyson, just to name a few [Rev. Wright was not there by the way] and in the center of the roundtable discussion there was a simple sign that said ‘love’. The amazing thing was though these men were espousing many of the same ideas as the white liberals on the Larry King show, yet I was not offended in the least. I listened intently to Farrakhan freely quoting scripture along with the Quran, he actually only quoted from the Quran one time, and he quoted the bible more than all the others. But the bible was also quoted freely thru out the discussion; many of the questioners from the audience also were pastors and Christians. Now, I have written on the Nation of Islam before [under the cults section] and I do not accept that religion as even a legitimate expression of Islam, so don’t take me wrong on this. It was the simple reality that these Black leaders would freely see their cause for racial justice tied in with scripture. Some did express the belief that the older Black church did hinder the Black people because of their ‘wait on the Lord’ attitude; but all in all they were up front and willing to speak what they felt was the truth in an open way. Tavis Smiley also brought out the fact that many Black leaders felt like doing a public forum discussing the short comings of the president would be wrong; many on the panel challenged the presidents ‘bi-racial’ stance in political matters. Many in the Black community feel like the president has let them down because he does not hold to the more radical ideas of Black justice. Overall it was an excellent discussion that I was glued to, and to repeat, there was absolutely no feeling of offense or animosity with any of the speakers. I found it odd that I couldn’t stomach a few minutes of the white guys on Larry King, but was enthralled for 2 hours with this forum. When Reverend Wright came under fire during the Obama campaign, he obviously was demonized by the media and the repeated showing of his statements that were wrong and offensive to many people [including Blacks]. Yet Wright comes from a Black liberation theological background, it’s in his DNA to challenge the current system of government and to see strains of the gospel in communistic type systems; he isn’t the first to embrace these beliefs. Many Catholic theologians in Latin American countries hold to the same ideas; the Catholic Church officially rejects this idea. One of the tragedies of the Black people is the fact that so many young Black kids make bad choices that land them in prison, many of these young men become effected with the Black Muslim leanings in the prison system; they are sold a bill of goods that simply is not true; if we really believe as Christians that Jesus is the only way, then how can we sit idly by and not be concerned over the Black exodus into Islam? Though I disagree with many of Rev. Wright’s ideas and beliefs, yet if I had the choice between sending my Black brother to the Nation of Islam or to Rev Wright’s church, I would choose Wright 7 days out of the week.
(1410) ‘But the Jews were so exasperated by HIS TEACHING, by which their rulers and chiefs were convicted by the truth…that at last they brought him before Pontius Pilate, at the time Roman governor of Syria, and, by the violence of their outcries against him, exhorting a sentence giving him up to them to be crucified’ Tertullian, [160-220 a.d.] church father from Carthage- North Africa. Proverbs tells us that wisdom was dwelling with God before the earth and hills were brought forth, that this wisdom from God rejoices with the father in the ‘habitable parts of the earth’. Jesus told the disciples that they were clean [set apart] by the words he had spoken unto them, that he chose them before the world was made to use them to bring forth fruit. In a sense God has pre-ordained a skill set of wisdom and understanding that he foresaw us communicating in time. He pre-planned this wisdom before the actual land/earth even existed! In each generation God has ‘set people’ whose job is to deposit these words/truths from God into a set area [city, nation, world]. It is thru the depositing of these words that others will be ‘set apart’-be made clean thru the words that we have spoken unto them. Be clean- how? The word also means being sanctified, that is God setting you apart in a specific way in order to carry out his purpose. When Nehemiah started out he had a burden for the city of his father’s that was broken down and destroyed, he then embarked on a special mission to a set pace to build, yes he had lots of resistance and opposition, but God called him to finish the task for a set season at a set time. Leaders, have you learned and heard things these past few years that have caused you to make course corrections? Were there things that you never saw until now that have affected the way you see God’s kingdom? These things are for the purpose of God to be fulfilled, he wants you to impact large ‘open spaces’ he has pre-planned areas for you to speak into, but he had to first set you apart, make you clean thru these words that he has spoken unto you.
(1406) ‘Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him man. For he was a doer of wonderful works…this man was the Christ, and when Pilate had condemned him to the Cross, upon his impeachment by the principle man among us, those who had loved him from the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive on the third day, the divine prophets haven spoken these and thousands of other wonderful things about him. And even now, the race of Christians, so named from him, has not died out’- Josephus, Antiquities, 18.3.3 [1st century historian] A few months ago while surfing the internet, I stumbled across an interesting apologetic ministry, I forget the brothers name but he had a well developed radio and on line ministry. They had lots of great tools for people who wanted to learn good teaching, historic stuff and all. But I also noticed that they were very anti charismatic, to the point where I felt they weren’t being honest with both scripture and church history in their view of non charismatic stuff, it was also the time of the Todd Bentley situation in Lakeland Fla. I mean they left him no room at all, he was branded an unbelieving heretic thru and thru [I personally had lots of problems with the Lakeland thing, but still pray for Todd and his situation]. Within a week or so of finding the site, the ministry folded and the main teacher got divorced, I thought it odd that they were up and running for many years, and I just happened to stumble across them at the end of their career. One of the things that I have found troubling over the years is the inability of certain believers to ‘judge righteous judgment’ the bible says of Jesus that he will not judge by outward appearances, but he sees the true motives. Often times the charismatic expression of Christianity will write off all reproof as ‘those unbelieving intellectuals’ they see that their critics willfully reject the portions of scripture that speak of supernatural stuff, and they simply think that all the critics are blind; they don’t ‘see’ the truth. Then at the same time when trying to deal with other real problems [like the unbalanced prosperity gospel] they too think the critics just don’t ‘see’ the truth about prosperity, so they write the critics off. In general this type of thing happens all the time in the Body of Christ. Josephus gave us an historical account of the reality of Jesus and his movement; he based his account on factual evidence, not fairy tales! Josephus was a true historian who had little gain from making up a story that could be proven false; it would damage his reputation among the Roman elites if he did that. But he, like many others, looked at the evidence and was open minded, he came to the conclusion that the historical resurrection did actually take place in time, though it was a supernatural event, yet it passed the smell test of historical inquiry. The above apologist seemed to be a good man, he left no room open for the possibility of certain charismatic gifts as being legitimate for our day, he rejected the supernatural aspect of the gifts of the Spirit. And many who hold to the reality of the gifts, these often have little education in the other areas that they are not focused on, they too leave the door wide open to much unbalanced stuff. As the historical people of God, a true worldwide movement that the historians look at, they will know we are Christians by our love; as we correct and reprove each other, we need to make sure that we are doing it in love.
(1405) THE APOSTLES CREED
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. AMEN.
HE SHALL SEE OF THE TRAVAIL OF HIS SOUL AND SHALL BE SATISFIED; BY HIS KNOWLEDGE SHALL MY RIGHTEOUS SERVANT JUSTIFY MANY- Isaiah. This past year I have been doing some reading on the Emergent movement as well as always reading some book on the ancient church; there are many moderns who long for the old days, sometimes referred to as ‘the smells and bells’ liturgy. Then you have some who are drawn to 19th/20th century liberalism- the social gospel stuff. One thing that all these groups need to keep in mind is the classic message of the Cross, that God was ‘pleased to bruise his Son’ on the Cross [Isaiah 53]. Some in their efforts to make Christianity more acceptable to modern man began to reject this doctrine, the Atonement. Many are surprised to find out that one of the great evangelists of the first great awakening, Charles Finney, embraced some of these views in his writings. Today these views are deemed heretical [the denial of the Atonement] but at the time progressive thinking believers were affected by the charge of ‘how can a holy, loving God punish an innocent person on the behalf of other criminals’? So after hearing the charge for so long, some adjusted their belief to fit the times. There are some things that the church has said ‘I believe’ about; these things are the non negotiables; it’s not that we can’t discuss them, or should be afraid of others who do question them, but to say ‘yeah brother, I hear what you’re saying about these classic doctrines and I believe you are placing yourself outside of the borders of classic Christianity, I love you and like dialoging with you, but this is where I stand, along with the ancient church’. Many Protestants disdain the creeds of the church; they feel that they are simply tradition and that all we need is the bible. This attitude neglects the importance of listening to the council of our fathers and those who have gone on before us, a rule that scripture itself testifies about [Proverbs]. As the Evangelical movement struggles in our day for a unifying voice, I think the creeds are a good place to start.
(1404) UNLESS I AM CONVICTED BY THE TESTIMONY OF SACRED SCRIPTURE OR BY EVIDENT REASON [I DONOT ACCEPT THE AUTHORITY OF POPES AND COUNCILS, FOR THEY HAVE CONTRADICTED EACH OTHER], MY CONSCIENCE IS CAPTIVE TO THE WORD OF GOD. I CANNOT AND I WILL NOT RECANT ANYTHING, FOR TO GO AGAINST MY CONSCIENCE IS NEITHER RIGHT NOR SAFE. GOD HELP ME. AMEN- Martin Luther. This was the statement from Luther after previously questioning himself over his revolt in the church. The day before he was brought before the council and given the chance to recant his books. He acknowledged the books were his and said he needed time to think about recanting; Luther seriously questioned whether or not his revolt was going too far. The humanist Erasmus would write scathing criticisms against the Catholic Church, but would not join Luther in what he thought was a rebellious schism. It’s interesting to note that the pope of Luther’s day was actually quite a good pope [Leo] in Luther’s correspondence with him Luther regrets that the reform is happening under such a good pope. Luther will eventually call him the anti Christ! The interesting thing to note is in the midst of all the action and debate, Luther himself had questions. There were times when he thought other reformers were going too far. At one point Luther left the safety of a secluded castle hideout to return to the university at Wittenberg and reign in the radical teachings from the self proclaimed prophets who were teaching a total rebellion against the entire government of Germany; Luther said if the reformers do this, they will be siding with those who oppose law and government, things ordained by God. When the famous Peasant’s Revolt took place, Luther sided with the state and used harsh language in putting down the revolt. Many rebels saw Luther as the leader of their cause; they were shocked and disappointed when Luther would not join in their revolt. In all Christian controversies and debates there is always the danger of certain groups going too far in their view of things. While teaching on the true nature of the church [community of people] I have noticed that some mistake this teaching and embrace a radical anti clericalism and ‘anti church building’ mindset to the point where they are going to extremes at certain times. I admire Luther for his stance, after giving serious thought to whether or not he should recant and go the route of Erasmus, he chose to stay true to his conscience and lead the German reform movement till the end. In the current day, both Protestants and Catholics need to look at the past reasons for the protests, and allow room for unity where room exists. But to also acknowledge that there still exist official doctrines/statements from both sides that are quite difficult to reconcile; it is possible for Christian communions to work things out and truly achieve a greater degree of unity than what we have had in the past, but it’s also important for all sides to have a working knowledge of the differences. At the end of the day Luther sided with his conscience and what he felt to be true, the other side felt the same way- when working towards unity as believers we need to keep this in mind.
(1400) IF I HADN’T DONE WHAT I HAVE DONE AMONG THEM, WORKS NO ONE HAS EVER DONE, THEY WOULDN’T BE TO BLAME. BUT THEY SAW THE GOD SIGNS AND HATED ANYWAY… THEY HATED ME FOR NO GOOD REASON- John 15, message bible.
This is the chapter where Jesus tells us he is the vine and we are the branches; the father is the main gardener. If we remain-abide in him we will bring forth fruit, if we do not ‘remain in him’ we are cut off and burned. In Johns other writings [1st John] he speaks about those who did not remain in the doctrine of Christ, they went out ‘from us, but were really not with us’. John was speaking of the Gnostic/Docetist groups that would reject the incarnation of Jesus; these did not ‘remain in him’. Also what about the immediate circle of disciples that Jesus was speaking to, did any of them ‘not remain’? Judas would also reject Christ, and Jesus said he too was not really a part of them from the start. In the above quote Jesus challenges the religious leaders of the day by doing the works that he did. The religion of the day viewed God’s will as religious performance, public praying on the street corners, fasting ‘to be seen’, their mindset was one of public performance. Jesus put priority on doing acts of justice, reaching out to the poor, spending time with the down and out, and also rejecting the ‘crowd pleasing’ mentality of the day. In John’s gospel his brothers tell him ‘go up to the public feast and show thyself, no man who does these things secretly will not eventually go public’ they thought there was something strange about his unwillingness to ‘go public’. I have often found it strange that we as believers put such a high priority on ‘public meetings-ministry’ to the point where we really believe that this is the main part of Christianity. A few years back I visited/stayed with some brothers in Europe, they ran a Christian community where they all lived and helped each other out [addicts and stuff]. I spent about a week with them and it was great, I immediately saw the work as a legitimate expression of ‘local church’ [Ecclesia] I even defended them to others who were saying ‘they are not church’. During the week I spent with them, the main leader of the group was just beginning to rent another building so they could ‘do church’. I went to a few of the meetings and it was okay. The point being they kind of felt like the public meetings were ‘really church’ and the actual community was 'Para church’ a very limited view indeed. The same thing has happened with many well meaning churches/ministries thru out the years. Jesus put a priority on things that the religious crowd deemed ‘non legitimate’ they would ask him ‘where are you getting your authority from, who gave you this authority’? In today’s jargon it might be said ‘who’s covering are you under, what ‘local church’ has legitimized you’. We often err, not knowing the scriptures or the power of God. Jesus put such a high priority on social justice, reaching out to the poor and needy, speaking out for the widow and oppressed. This same theme runs thru out the entire teaching of the New Testament. Very little time is spent on the idea of public meetings/ministry. Yet we have exalted the idea of church and ministry to the point where we see public performance as the main thing, that’s what we usually regulate our lives around. Jesus told the religious crowd that he came and did all the things that Gods kingdom was really about [helped the poor, raised the dead, etc.] Yet they found fault with him, they fulfilled the scriptures that said ‘they hated me for no good reason’ do the things we do have good reasons, or are we just following the crowd?
(1394) THE TEXAS SCHOOL BOOK DEPOSITORY? In John 12 the Greeks come to Jesus disciples and want a meeting with Jesus, the Greeks are those who prided themselves in their wisdom. Jesus basically brushes them off and refuses to cow tow to the elites. He responds ‘unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone’ in essence- you guys ‘abide alone’ [no meeting with me] until you take up the Cross and follow me. This week [yesterday] the news has been reporting the Texas school book story. Basically every few years Texas school board members go thru the process of what the books for the state should include; basic guidelines and stuff. Texas is the nation’s number one purchaser of textbooks, so the theory is if Texas ‘conservatives’ get their way, then the rest of the nation gets stuck having to buy books that are tainted with backwoods idiots who imposed their views on the rest of the ‘Greek’ [intellectual world]. Do our schoolbooks in general steer away from the religious history and statements of many of the founding fathers? Yes. Do our schoolbooks in general avoid/edit out religious statements from their coverage of the founding documents. Yes. Why? There is a basic mistake made by many of the publishers of schoolbooks that say ‘if we show religious content, then we are violating the separation of church and state idea’. The problem with this approach is they have left out a large portion of history while trying to produce a product that will be accepted in both ‘liberal’ and conservative states. If you read the founding documents in their entirety [Mayflower Compact, etc.] they read like a ‘church covenant’ that any Christian community could adopt. Yet when the history books show quotes and portions of the documents, they never quote these sections, why? Because of what I just showed you. This has happened time and time again over many years until we have gotten to the point where many public school children are really not learning an accurate history of the country. The well meaning [but grossly misinformed] opponents simply do not know this. They see the struggle as one between ‘those darn Christian ignoramuses’ versus the enlightened crowd, they are really the ones who have no idea what they are talking about. Now, are we- quote ‘a Christian nation’? Not really. At least not in the way that some Protestant preachers claim. During the founding of our country you had the mindset of the European enlightenment affecting much of western society. Lines were being drawn that pitted a humanist form of belief in God [Deism] against the classical Christian view. Some of our founding fathers did adhere to a Deistic view. Deism said ‘we do not need tradition or religion to inform us of human value and dignity, we can hold to these principles by virtue of our human nobility and intelligence’ that is they believed these truths to be self evident, sort of like the current theme from some of the more popular atheists ‘do good for goodness sake’ [which by the way, fails in the long run- too much to explain right now]. Now, with this background, when our founding documents say ‘we hold these truths to be SELF EVIDENT’ this term smacks of the fact that some of our fathers did indeed reject the classical Christian view. So what does this show us? That some of the founders purposefully included language that would veer away from the Christian view. But you will never understand or learn this simple thing that I just showed you, if we continue to expunge from the record all the religious statements and views of the fathers! So the point is, when these so called enlightened ones try and approach teaching from a biased view, a view that they often don’t realize is biased, they do more harm than good to their cause. The Greeks said ‘we are willing to hear Jesus, let’s set up an appointment’ they went further than most of the liberals on the Texas school board.
(1387) FOR THE FATHER HAS LIFE IN HIMSELF, AND HAS GIVEN TO THE SON TO HAVE LIFE IN HIMSELF; AND HAS GIVEN HIM AUTHORITIY TO EXECUTE JUDGMENT ALSO- In John chapter 5 one of the statements that irks the religious leaders is Jesus calling God his father- thus making himself equal with God. Those who doubt the deity of Christ should look at the way the religious leaders viewed him, they knew that he claimed equality with God. In some of the recent musings on the liberal ideas of ‘the evolution of God’ [those who see the church evolving in her view of God as time goes by] I want to say a few things. First, the incarnation is Gods way of saying ‘yes, your view of me was limited, the very fact that the incarnation is the full revealing of myself to man, shows that man never had the complete [full] view of me yet’. So in a sense, yes, our view of God ‘evolved’ [so to speak] from the wrathful God of the Old Testament to the merciful God of the New Testament. Now, are these contrary views of God? No. Are they views like some in the early days of the church taught- that the God of the Old Testament was a different God than the God of the New [Marcion and other Gnostic cults]? No. But our view of God from the Old Testament is a view of Gods holiness and judgment apart from the grace of the New Covenant. He is the same God, seen absent the Cross [for the most part, yet we do see Gods attribute of mercy even in the Old Testament]. Now, without getting off track too much, in the New Testament we are told that Jesus is the complete picture of God to us; Colossians says that ALL the fullness of the God head dwelt in Jesus bodily. We never had this fleshly reality of God before- the apostle John will say ‘we handled the word of life’ [1st Jn]. A few weeks back while watching an apologetic show I mentioned how some of the staunch apologists were labeling the UPC [united Pentecostal churches] as a cult because of their unique view of the oneness of God. The apologists at one point quoted the verse ‘all things were made by him’ referring to Jesus, and said ‘therefore Jesus is God’ true. But they were trying to combat the UPC brothers by using this verse, the apologists were using it in a way that said ‘see, Jesus created everything too, just like it says about God’ sort of in a disconnected way. In John 1 we read that in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. In Genesis we read that God ‘spoke’ all things into existence. Jesus in the New Testament is called ‘the word of God’ to try and simplify it, when Colossians says ‘all things were made by him’ it does not mean that Jesus created things separately from God, it means God spoke and that ‘the vehicle’ of creation was the Son. The act of God’s word [also called Jesus] going forth created all things. God did not create separately from the Son, or the Son from the father. I really loathe teaching this stuff because church history is filled with names that get tagged on all the various views of explaining the oneness of God while at the same time upholding the reality of the Trinity. The main point today is mans view of God did ‘evolve’ in a sense, it became fully revealed in Jesus. Now the liberal view of the evolution of God is something different than this, but I wanted to make clear that if the only view of God is seen thru the Old Testament, than yes we are not ‘fully’ seeing God, the full view comes thru Jesus. We reject the Marcion idea of 2 different Gods, the Gnostic belief that the God of the Old Testament was the God of matter and thus an evil God, while the God of the new testament is the spirit God- this is true heresy, but as Christians we accept the incarnation as the complete picture and revelation of God to man. This in no way negates the wrath of God [eternal judgment] but it tempers it with mercy.
(1383) WHEN PEOPLE REALIZE IT IS THE LIVING GOD YOU ARE PRESENTING AND NOT SOME IDOL THAT MAKES THEM FEEL GOOD, THEY ARE GOING TO TURN ON YOU- Jesus, message bible. In keeping with the above comment [those reading from the ‘most recent- teaching section’] let’s talk a little. Some authors have reintroduced some of the more liberal versions of Christianity and it’s good for people to be aware of the pros and cons. Recently I received a teaching catalog from an excellent company called ‘the teaching company’ as I perused the courses they had some really good stuff; I ordered and have already started on a course on Einstein and Quantum theory [Physics] I love the course and these teachings [audio and book] are really at the university level. But I have noticed an area where the able professor is mistaken; he says ‘the universe is ruled-governed BY CHANCE’. Now, I know what he means, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is violating the laws of logic and reasoning by making this assumption [by the way this professor is also a philosopher, he should know better!]. Basically you can say ‘there are causes, things happening in the material realm that we are unaware of, as of now we have no definite identified cause’ but to say that ‘chance’ itself is the ruling agency is nonsense. The point being we should all have some background before accepting anyone’s teaching 100%. So in some of the recent Christian teaching some have resurrected the older liberal theories that arose in the 19th century out of the universities in Germany. Some teachers taught that the first 5 books of the bible couldn’t have been written by Moses because at the time of Moses writing was unpopular, and that the concept of ‘codified law’ was foreign, and that the commandment against idols was ‘too advanced’ for Moses to have written down around 14-1500 BC. So these liberal theories espoused a sort of view of God and religion that was ‘evolving’ over time. Von Harnack, Wellhausen, the philosopher Hegel all advanced this view [sometimes referred to as the documentary theory]. Well as time rolled on and we became more proficient in archaeology, low and behold we found out that 3-500 years before Moses societies were advanced enough to write down laws. The famous code of Hammurabi was discovered, it was a law code with 282 specific laws written down; something that supposedly was never done at the time. So how did the liberal theologians respond? ‘You are right, Moses very well could have written down the 10 commandments around 1500 BC, as a matter of fact we now think he copied it from Hammurabi’! Yikes! You see when people exalt their view-theory above the actual evidence, then you have problems. It’s not to say that we should blackball their ideas, it’s just we need to know that some of these ideas have been around for a while and they have been fairly well debunked by other able theologians. Just because a ‘new’ theory sounds interesting, doesn’t mean it’s correct. In the teaching course catalog that the teaching company sent me, they also have stuff on the bible and early Christianity and theology. I did not order those courses because I am familiar with the theology of the professor [Bart Erhman] and though I’m sure he is a good man, I know he espouses views that are really not in keeping with mainstream thought. Now, if I had the teachings already, sure I would work the course, but I won’t spend a few hundred dollars on stuff that I already am aware of and have rejected. The point today is historic orthodox Christianity has answered many of the critics questions over the years, it’s not ‘wicked’ for a teacher/writer to reintroduce some of these ideas all over again, but people need to be aware that these things have been floating around for a while and the historic orthodox view is really the better [more historically reliable] view. Yes, momma and daddy’s church, old fashioned as it may be, probably had it right all along!
(1382) IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD; AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD, AND THE WORD WAS GOD- John 1:1 Jesus is called ‘The Word’, the Greek word for ‘word’ is Logos. In the first century this word was common among the philosophers, it stood for a sort of overriding principle that would explain and bring together all the fields of science and learning, the same obsession of Einstein in his search for a unified theory. The philosophers believed that there had to be some type of base principle of truth that would bring together all the other fields of wisdom and learning. In essence John was saying ‘This is it, we have found the Logos- the answer to everything- his name is Jesus!’ It’s always difficult to teach these types of verses, they are fraught with only seeing one aspect of what God is saying, and then dividing lines are drawn between the Christian camps. I was having a conversation yesterday with a person who was asking questions about a Muslim friend who used to be a Christian. The Muslim said that he wanted a religion that he could understand, that God is the only God and Jesus is not God. I explained the best I could and shared this verse and a few others, but I also explained that various ‘Christian’ groups have argued over the way to express the deity of Jesus for centuries. There are groups that say ‘Yes, Jesus is the redeemer, he is Gods Son, but only God is God’. From the catholic bishop Arius in the 4th century all the way up to the Unitarians in Boston in the 20th century, people have debated the language we use. I explained to my friend that the bible clearly does teach us that Jesus is God, but I do see how people have problems with the language. But I told my friend that for a person to use the difficulty over the Trinity to embrace Islam is going way too far in my view. I mean the fact that someone has a problem with the wording of the Trinity should not mean you abandon all the realities of redemption and Christianity and embrace a movement that was started by a ‘prophet’ who killed and murdered and had ‘many women’, I mean no other prophets ever had a track record like that! As we read the rest of John chapter 1 we see how John the Baptist says he came to bear witness, to give a record of Jesus, the ‘Lamb of God’. The religious leaders come to John and ask him ‘who are you, we need an answer to bring back to the authorities, the movers and shakers of our day’ John says ‘I am the voice of one man crying in the wilderness, get ready, the lord is on his way’. John quoted Isaiah 40, he is also said to be the prophetic voice that Malachi spoke about- the Elijah that was to come. Johns only significance was in the fact that he was chosen by God to trumpet the reality of the Messiah, his purpose was not about him or his prophetic gifts, his purpose was to proclaim the last true prophet [in the sense of Hebrew messengers who came down the line- see Hebrews chapter 1] and John the Baptist said ‘this is the one, the one whom the Spirit descended on- he’s going to baptize you guys with the Spirit’ [and fire!]. John testified that Jesus was the end of the line for promised Messiahs, he was the ONE. Why look we for another?
(1379) HOW SHOULD WE RESPOND TO UNJUST GOVERNMENTS? One of the most famous dissidents of the soviet era was Alexander Solzhenitsyn; Alexander was a simple school teacher who would serve in the military when Stalin was in power. He had written some critical things about Stalin in a letter to a friend and was put in the communist prison camps. While doing time he met believers and returned to his early faith as a Christian. In the year I was born [1962] he wrote the famous ‘A day in the life of Ivan Denisovich’ it was a fictional account of a man in the prison camps and how he dealt with his captors. The main character would meet a Baptist believer while doing time and sort of represented Alexander’s own plight. Alexander came to fame when Khrushchev would permit him to publish his book, Khrushchev was advancing his own program of Destalinization and he underestimated Alexander’s criticism of all communist type systems, not just Stalin. He would also expose the evils of the prison camps in his other work titled ‘The Gulag Archipelago’. Eventually he was exiled to the U.S. [Vermont was his home] and received much notoriety as a prophetic voice who spoke out for justice. He gave a controversial speech at Harvard [1978?] and the western media came to dislike him; he was critical of loose morality and the evils of western society as well, he was not the sort of liberal crusader that they mistook him to be. Eventually he would return home to Russia and live to see the fall of the system he despised. History is filled with people who stood for what was right against all odds and impacted society for the better, Alexander was a school teacher whose life took a turn of events that he simply followed; he was not ashamed of the gospel and did not tailor his message to please the audience. I like that style; it reminds me of another revolutionary who gave his life to save the world.
(1377) Last night I caught a good program on Christian apologetics. Apologetics is the term used to describe the ministry of those who contend for ‘the faith’. In the early church you had men like Justin Martyr who defended the nascent church from those who would accuse her of wicked things [like cannibalism! A misreading of the Lords supper]. The show last night had a bunch of apologists that dealt with cults; they included the main ones as well as some Christian branches of Pentecostalism. They critiqued the UPC [untied Pentecostal churches] as a cult because of her unique view of the ‘oneness’ of God as seen thru Jesus. Now, I have written on this before [under the Trinity section] and don’t want to explain it again, but I do want to examine the way believers view other churches. During the program the able apologists used lots of wording from the early creeds and councils; Subordinationism, Monarchianism, Modalism, etc. These are all words I am familiar with and have used on this site, as a believer who loves to study church history I understand where these men are coming from. But at one point it seemed as if they were critiquing certain aspects of other churches, sincere believers who have certain views that they have developed thru their reading of the bible, and that these apologists were really not giving a fair shake to these other groups. You also had both the cults and some of the more extreme restorationist groups [restorationism refers to those Christian groups who reject the Protestant Reformation as being ‘the offspring’ of the Catholic church and view their faith thru the idea that we should return to the original sources, primarily the book of Acts, and start from scratch] share the view that the historic Orthodox churches [Catholic, Orthodox, Reformed] were basically pagan expressions of Christianity and their creeds and councils usurped the word of God. I believe there are real expressions of Christianity found in all of the above [excluding the actual cults] and that the Christian church should know the historic creeds and councils, but also be willing to see how these other Christian groups have come to form their opinions thru actual scripture. I mean at one point there were so many categories being quoted by the apologists to refute the Pentecostal view, that they weren't really allowing the scriptures to be the final authority on the matter [I agreed more with the apologists, being I am one myself, but at the same time sensed too mush rigidness]. I also believe it’s dangerous for any Christian group to leave the impression that most other historic expressions of Christianity are out right pagan. Overall we all need grace when dealing with others that we disagree with, yes there are times when we need to take a strong stand on stuff and let the chips fall where they may, but at the end of the day we should be striving for unity as much as possible.
(1374) let’s talk a little about the current church scene in certain evangelical circles. I read a news article about a church in Texas, Fellowship church- pastored by Ed Young [the son of the able senior Ed Young] the article showed how brother Young came under criticism for possibly leasing a private jet and mixing the selling of his teachings too much with the non profit ‘church ministry’. Overall it seems like brother Young is a well intentioned pastor, not in the category of ‘the prosperity gospel’ [which some seem to think] and he is a good man, who has been affected by mixing in 21st century corporate models with the biblical idea of Ecclesia [church]. All things I have written about before. Also Pastor Rick Warren [the good pastor from the west coast- Saddleback church] made the statement that the church at Jerusalem was a Mega Church, because some historians tell us that the ‘church’ grew to around 100 thousand believers. Now, I consider both of these men good men, I do not put them in the category of some who truly have lost a biblical message and traded it in for a wealth gospel. But these recent examples show us how we need to re-evaluate the way we think and function. For instance if I were to say ‘the church at Corpus Christi numbers 50 thousand’ you would take that statement to mean there are around 50 thousand believers who reside in the city. To then justify an environment [building] being built to house 50 thousand people, because after all the Jerusalem church had 100 thousand ‘members’- this would be silly. The church at Jerusalem met at Solomon’s Porch, an open space outside the temple. You did not have 100 thousand people ‘showing up for church on Sunday’ [ouch!] but some historians estimate that the ‘church at Jerusalem’ [the believers residing in the city] eventually numbered a high number. Also how should we approach the sale of teaching materials that Christians produce? First we should look at the overall view of scripture, both the basic teachings from Jesus and how the early church operated. Jesus did teach his men ‘freely you have received, freely give’ in context he was talking spiritual gifts [casting out demons, healing, etc.] Both Paul and Peter would give instructions/warnings to younger leaders [elder’s- pastors] to be very careful about mixing in money with ministry. And even though it was possible to make a good living through the profession of preaching in the 1st century [Rhetoric] yet we know that none of the early apostles/pastors did this. One time Larry King was interviewing a prosperity preacher, King asked him ‘how can you believe that Jesus was a very wealthy man, doesn’t the bible show us that he was a humble man’ and the preacher, who obviously knows much more about the bible than King, responded by quoting a few proof texts [Jesus wore an expensive coat] and dismissed Kings criticism. Now, who was right? The image that King [and most people] have of Jesus and his humble life [carpenter] is actually the correct image. The image that the well meaning prosperity preacher had was actually wrong. Now it would take way too much time for me to explain the whole thing [go read my prosperity section] but this example shows us how we can sincerely believe the views we hold are in keeping with scripture, while the whole time they are violating scripture. The purpose of this post is not to condemn Rick Warren or Ed Young, I believe these are good men who I can recommend, I would not tell people ‘don’t give to their ministries’ but I do think we need to function in the 21st century, with all the benefits of modern technology and contemporary conveniences, while also keeping our motives in line with scripture.
(1368) FOR HE LOOKED FOR A CITY WHICH HATH FOUNDATIONS, WHOSE BUILDER AND MAKER IS GOD- Hebrews. In keeping with the last post, let’s talk some more on the debate between Evolution and Design. When the able Stephen Barr shot the round that was heard around the world [at least the world of IDer’s] he made some good points, even though I disagree strongly with the way he represented the other able scientists in the field. One day I had a talk with a geologist, it was a happenstance meeting [friend of my daughter] and during a normal friendly conversation I brought up many of the opposing views to ‘uniformitarianism’ and the challenges to a ‘deep time’ geology. While not a young earther myself, I found it amazing that this scientist was totally unaware of any opposing viewpoints to the standard theories. In the halls of academia the majority opinion is without a doubt that of Darwinian Evolution, it is also true that many people [even scientists!] are really not familiar with all the data [lots of data!] that challenge the standard view; many have come to challenge the basic Darwinian timeline [thus punctuated equilibrium] and have admitted that the tremendous ‘gap’ in the fossil record, along with the discovery of high complexity in the most simple cell, that these scientific discoveries have made it difficult to accept the Darwinian idea. Now the adherents of Evolutionary theory accuse the IDer's of resorting to a ‘God of the gaps’ excuse. That is they claim that all the IDer’s are doing is finding places in the record that have no explanations [information, complex machines, etc.] and are inserting ‘God’ into these gaps. The Evolutionists say ‘given enough time, maybe we will find naturalistic explanations to fit the gaps’. And they claim that any ‘gap theory’ actually hinders scientific discovery, because it has a tendency to say ‘well, might as well stop looking for a naturalistic cause, God just filled the gap’. First, the IDer's are not saying that because we have run across unanswered difficulties, lets stick God in there. What they are saying [for the most part] is that observable data [science] show us, in every case, that when you have complex systems that are ‘irreducible’ and stored data/info at the most simple level; that these facts point to an intelligent mind having been the cause of these things. Now, Stephen Barr and Francis Beckwith [two of the main scientists/philosophers in the debate] do not reject the idea that yes, an intelligent mind is behind the design/info, what they are saying is it’s still possible that science will discover a ‘naturalistic’ explanation/mechanism to it. That is God might have created some other unknown mechanism that is simple [or complex] that can be credited with bringing into existence the design/info. They are simply arguing that it’s possible, and not in contradiction with historic Christianity, to embrace this view. Barr also seems to be saying ‘yes, it is very possible that we will never find a reasonable, naturalistic explanation for this, and at that point the IDer’s might be right, but then you jump out of the field of science [observable data] and carry the argument into another classroom’. I believe the ‘God of the gaps’ accusation is erroneous, I also believe that far too many adherents to Evolutionary theory are not giving the proper weight to the gaps, some are not even aware of them! Thomas Aquinas is sometimes misunderstood and is said to have advocated a secular/religious division in apologetics; that is some say he taught that the natural sciences and religious truth were 2 totally different fields, sort of like the thought of Emanuel Kant [Physical/Metaphysical division] but Thomas taught that science could show us many truths about God, just because you have naturalistic explanations to things, this does not discount the Divine hand- but he also taught that science could only go so far down that road- for instance it would take many years to arrive at a naturalistic proof of Gods being, while revelation [thru tradition and scripture] could get you there quicker. Also science can prove that God exists [prime mover] but for truths on the nature of God [Trinity] you need revelation. So Aquinas leaves room for science to go so far, and if it ‘hits a gap’ then yes, you have every right to carry the argument into ‘another classroom’ so to speak. It is not wrong to say ‘yes, we are searching for a city, one that has been built by God’ but to also recognize that the city has foundations [whether discovered thru naturalistic or religious truth]; both seekers can be on the right track, arriving at different times/ways.
(1365) THIS IS MY BLOOD OF THE NEW TESTAMENT- I was reading Mark’s account of the last supper. The disciples realize the importance of keeping the ancient feast day and they ask Jesus ‘where do you want us to prepare the meal’? Just a chapter earlier they were glorying in all the ‘holy buildings’ of the temple and Jesus told them ‘see all these wonderful places- there shall not be one stone left upon another when all is said and done’- ouch! But now he seems to need a building, or at least a place to sit down and eat. He tells his men ‘go into town and you will meet some guy carrying a water container, follow him into the house and ask the master where the room is, he will show you a large upper room, all furnished- that’s the spot’. Jesus didn’t need to spend any money on building his own temple; he knew the voluntary community would provide places to meet. They sit down and he tells them ‘understand, this is the New Testament, the new ‘oath’ the scroll of redemption that John will write about in Revelation, it is being purchased with my Blood’ they seemed to not comprehend what he was saying. He often made statements that went right over their heads- then he quotes another one of those obscure prophetic scriptures that nobody seemed to focus on ‘the chief one will be smitten and the sheep will be scattered’ [Zechariah] he tells them ‘see, the prophets said you guys are going to be scattered, be offended and deny me’. Peter says ‘what! No way Jesus, maybe these other guys but not me’. Poor old peter, Jesus says ‘buddy, you will be one of the worst’. Man things don’t seem to be going good at this point, I mean when the leader of a community is about to face his toughest test yet, the last thing he needs is a bunch of offended staff! Nevertheless he takes with him Peter, James and John and they head off to the garden, you know the place where they crush olives to get the precious oil, very prophetic indeed. Jesus tells the guys ‘stay here while I go and pray’. He walks a little further and falls down and is in agony ‘Father, all things are possible with thee, I know I have come for this purpose in my life, but please, if there is another way to accomplish this, then let’s go the other route’. Who knows, maybe the father will do something that no one expects? He goes back to his men, hey maybe they will say ‘wow Jesus, as you were praying Moses and Elijah appeared to us, like before- and they told us ‘the father said there’s another way’. But instead Jesus finds them sleeping! What, you guys couldn’t even pray with me for an hour? I’m here pouring out my life for you, giving it all I got, and I was hoping that the 3 years I invested in training you might have had better results, you guys are letting me down. This happens 2 more times and Jesus says ‘enough, go ahead and sleep, I’m going to have to die and seal this scroll in my Blood- after 3 days I will be back and go before you into Galilee, but these will be the longest 3 days in the history of man’. Of course we know the rest of the story. As the church worldwide enters into Lent, let’s remember the price that Jesus paid for the New Testament signed in his Blood, as Protestants and Catholics let’s celebrate the historic churches 40 day season of fasting and prayer, you don’t have to do a ‘full fast’ maybe just a Vegan type fast, which was what the early church practiced, but let’s try and be a little more appreciative of the price that was paid so the ‘table’ could be set. Jesus said ‘this is my Blood, the whole thing rides on me’ he met the challenge and redeemed the world, may the world be grateful for it.
(1364) MANY SHALL COME IN MY NAME SAYING ‘I AM CHRIST’ AND SHALL DECIEVE MANY- Jesus, Marks gospel. Many years ago while reading thru this portion of scripture I saw this verse from a different angle; instead of seeing it like a false prophet claiming himself to be Christ [Sun Yung Moon] I saw it applying to many well meaning preachers who come in Jesus name and confess him as Christ, but yet are prone to propagating errors in an unconscious way. They say ‘Yes, we believe Jesus is Christ’ and yet mess up in other areas. I remember hearing a ‘revelation word’ [EKK!] on God’s creation of Woman. It went like this- Wo-Man means ‘wombed man’ and that after God made man, he then made woman [another man] and put a womb on him, thus the term ‘wombed man’. You might be laughing right now, but this silly way of interpreting the bible has been repeated over and over again on national TV networks where the network leaders agreed with the teacher and saw it as some deep truth, then the poor audience of millions is encouraged to give more millions so the word can be sent out into all the world. Basically well meaning people teaching fake stuff to the world, over and over again. Now, does ‘woman’ mean ‘wombed man’? No. Our bibles were primarily written in Hebrew and Greek, when these words are translated into English, the way the English word sounds has nothing at all to do with the actual meaning of the word. I mean this is very basic hermeneutics [way of interpreting scripture] so how can it be that a very ‘uneducated’ way of teaching would be broadcast to the whole world when even the most basic bible student knows it’s wrong? One of the great benefits of the 16th century Reformation was the return of interpreting the bible in a ‘literal sense’- now, many Protestants are confused by this term. Literal sense means the bible should be read as actual literature, like if you were reading history or poetry or any other book. So when you are reading portions of the bible that are historical narrative, you take it as history. When reading portions of poetry, you read it like you would read any poetry- in a literal sense, not taking the actual poetry as history! Like when the Psalms speaks of the hills skipping or the trees clapping their hands, you don’t take it literally in the sense that the trees have actual hands. This hermeneutic was not new, but it was a minority way of viewing scripture during the middle ages. Many teachers at the time were influenced strongly by the early Greek idea of scripture having 4 different ways it could be understood. Each passage having a moral, symbolic, literal meaning. In the third century you had the famous school in Alexandria, Egypt. This was the first 'Christian school’ where you could learn theology and philosophy. One of the famous teachers was Origen, he was heavily influenced by a man by the name of Plotinus- a philosopher credited with the founding of a philosophy called ‘Neo Platonism’. This Greek philosophical way of seeing things impacted not only Origen [and many other Greek fathers] but also the highly influential Saint Augustine. So for many centuries you had very respected church teachers hold to this highly symbolic way of reading the bible. It’s important to note that when reading Augustine, if you are reading his earlier works they are more heavily influenced by Greek philosophy than his later works. Near the end of his life Augustine re-evaluated all of his former works and wrote a paper called ‘retractions’ in which he cleared up some of his earlier stuff. Anyway the Protestant Reformation returned the church to a more solid way of reading scripture. But ‘literal sense’ does not mean you take the portions of scripture that are poetic or symbolic and turn them into history! During the rise of ‘liberalism’ in the 19th century you had many holding to a view of scripture that rejected all the supernatural portions of the bible as ‘myth’. The story of Jonah being swallowed by the whale was considered a ‘well meaning’ story, but just a story. Was it only the ‘liberal’ theologians that rejected the historical truth of Jonah? No, you also have well grounded teachers that too take Jonah in a non historical way. Why? The book of Jonah starts out as historical narrative, but then you have portions [Jonahs prayer in the belly of the whale] that are a very high from of poetry. Does this mean the story didn’t really happen? No, but some good theologians would doubt the history of Jonah based on this [I don’t]. The whole point being when we read the bible, we should have some basic historical framework when reading it, that is how did other believers thru the centuries view these things. Be aware of the various different approaches to the bible, and for heaven’s sake, if a word sounds like it means something in English [woman= wombed man] do a little background study before proclaiming it to the whole world, for many ‘shall come in my name, believing that I am Christ, and shall deceive many’.
(1362) SPANDEX! The other night my daughter called my wife and invited her to go workout at the gym, I told her ‘tell her dad wants to go too, he’s changing into his spandex right now’ she replied she can only take one guest per day. Now, were her words accurate? Yes. Was that the primary reason I wasn’t going? Highly doubtful. In the Christian world there are times when the things we say might be ‘orthodox’ but the motives might be questionable. The other night I caught Hank Hanegraaff’s [bible answer man] show. I at one time was accused of being like him [heresy hunter] but it’s only been the last few months that I’ve ever really heard him. We don’t get his radio show in Corpus and his TV show just started airing on the religious networks. But I did read his groundbreaking book ‘Christianity in Crisis’ and some thought my stand against the prosperity gospel came from that, they were wrong. I did not agree with all the arguments and style of the book. But this month’s magazine from Hank [which I also don’t subscribe to] deals with the ‘Local Church’ movement started by the great apostle/missionary Watchmen Nee. I have written on Nee before [under the cults section- not because I think their one!] and have read on the movement before. Nee started an indigenous Chinese church that has been persecuted for years by the communist govt., he died for the faith in prison and his house church movement is considered one of the most influential in the world today. Back in the 70’s during the Jesus movement on the west coast they had some influence in the area, this was at the same time the ‘counter cult’ movement sprung up. Many of the statements from Nee and his successor ‘Witness Lee’ were scrutinized and labeled as cultic, a war raged between the apologists and has even gone to the courts. The Local Church sued Harvest house [Christian book publisher] and claimed they were defamed by the cult books that included their church in them, and the Texas Supreme court eventually sided with harvest house, the Local Church is appealing. Enter Hank H., the original research done against the movement was by Hank Hanegraaff and CRI, others followed. The reason they were labeled as a cult was primarily because of their statements on the Trinity and the ‘deification’ of the believer. Some of their official statements said ‘Jesus is the Holy Spirit’ and ‘Jesus is also the Father’. These statements were deemed ‘Modalistic’ [an ancient heresy condemned by the early church that described God as having different modes as opposed to being One in 3] and thus the title cult was stuck on them. But after many years of research and fellowship with the group, Hank changed his mind and came to their defense. This made him a target for the other apologetic groups and they strongly disagreed with his change of mind. Hank said that even though many of the statements sounded questionable, that as you read further into their materials and personally interview members of the group that they for the most part accept the Trinity and do not fall into the cult category. Some of the on line stuff against them states ‘they believe that Jesus is the Spirit, this is heresy’ yet the movement quotes Paul in Corinthians ‘The Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty’. This verse actually says ‘the Lord is that same Holy Spirit’ does this mean that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are ‘the same person’? No, but it does use language that is in keeping with what the Local Church movement has said. The other verse in Isaiah speaks of Jesus as ‘the mighty God, everlasting Father’ so this also is language that the movement has used ‘Jesus is the Father’. Though these statements from the movement cause some concern, overall Hank believed that they did not finally fall into the cult category. When reading some of their statements on line last night I still had some problems with the way they said stuff [that after Jesus rose from the dead he became the Spirit] but I also see how difficult it is to explain both the Triune nature of God and also declare his Unity. When Jesus was asked what the great commandment was, in Marks gospel he begins the famous answer with ‘hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one’ he is quoting Deuteronomy. So those who focus on the Oneness of God can see these verses as saying ‘yes God is Father, Son and Spirit- yet they are also one’. So as you can see we need to be careful when parsing words like this. All in all I always accepted the Local Church movement [which is not a name they have given to their movement, but it is how they are labeled when reading about them] as fellow believers in Christ, while at the same time having problems with some of the official statements that the church has made [and still holds to] but wanted to give Hanegraaff credit for his change of mind, while I have not read the article in their magazine [Christian Research Journal] I have been familiar with this debate for a few years. I appreciate Hanks willingness to say ‘we were wrong’.
(1361) EUTOPIA OR BUST- Thomas More, the Catholic churchman who was martyred for his faith by Henry the 8th because he would not assent to the newly formed doctrine of the king of England being the head of the church, wrote the Latin book ‘Utopia’ in the year 1516. Utopia was this fictional island, ruled by ‘king Utopas’ and was the ideal society where wealth and power were not the characteristics of success. They lived a communal life where each person would take yearly turns of working on the farms where the people’s needs were met. No private ownership of property- just everybody living in this ideal world. Marxists would later lay claim to this idea and prove the futility of man in attempting to create this world. Scholars disagree over what More was trying to say; but for sure he was challenging materialistic worldviews and longing for some type of communal society as seen in the book of Acts [everyone sharing in the common purse type of thing]. Yesterday I watched Judd Greg rip thru Peter Orzag. Greg is the top Republican for finances and Orzag was defending the president’s new budget. The budget includes 30 billion for ‘jobs stimulus’ basically another tarp thing for business. The reason Greg was furious is because the tarp law said that any money eventually paid back, by law would have to go to reducing the debt. Instead the president wants to use this money as an open account that could be spent on a regular basis. Why? There are various ways any president can try and boost jobs/economy, you can implement serious fiscal discipline and make it easier for small business to operate [part of the 30 billion for small business] or you could say ‘lets spend tons of federal money on all types of things- 1st time home buyers, cash for clunkers, new billions every year for the next few years until my term runs out’ you can engage in simply digging the country deeper into debt for the next few years and this would initially make things look better. Walla, Utopia is here! When the administration makes the defense ‘we inherited these problems from Bush’ it is usually presented in a way that says the failed economic policies of the past president caused us to be dealt a hand that was bad. Okay, got it. But every president has been dealt some type of hand. Bush did inherit a recession from Clinton, grant it, it wasn’t near as bad as what Obama got, but it was real. Then 911 happened and this tragic event froze the global economy in just as dangerous a way as the banking crisis. And of course we had 2 wars. The point is all these things [except the wars] were also things out of the control of the former president; he inherited things that Obama too would ‘inherit’. But the administration does not include this when they make their case; they simply say it was the failed Bush presidency that led to where we are today. That’s why the blame game doesn’t work too well. We all want Utopia [in a sense] but we live in the real world and we can’t resort to tricks and schemes to make things look better, just for now. These policies often cause the disease to linger on longer than if we let it run its course. Many real estate experts are fearing another big drop [10 %] in home prices for this year. Why? They believe that the delaying of foreclosures and giving low % money and an extra 8 thousand dollar tax credit to buyers, that all these things prevented the market from reaching a real floor in prices, and so the market will still have to balance out and finally reach its low. It would have been better to have swallowed the medicine the first time around. For any president to have a ‘slush fund’ of billions of dollars that the govt. can dole out on a rotating basis is really not playing by the rules. Politically it can make it look like ‘see, we have improved things’ but not only is this fund limited by law from being used in this way, it often delays the real pain for another year- say in a non election one.
(1360) Lets do a little Catholic/Protestant stuff. First, those of you who have read this site for any period of time know that as a Protestant I am ‘pro Catholic’ that is I read and study Catholic scholars, believe in the ECT statement [Evangelicals and Catholics together] and for the most part am pro Catholic in that sense. I have offended more Protestants because of this stance than Catholics. But sometimes I need to state the differences and be honest about them, true ecumenical unity should never be achieved on the altar of doctrine, we should not sacrifice sincerely held beliefs while seeking unity for Christ’s church. Last night I caught the journey home show with Marcus Grodi as well as Catholic scholar Scott Hahn [EWTN- the Catholic network]. Scott was doing a teaching on the sacraments of the church and shared a common belief in the ‘incarnational’ aspect of matter. Some theologians believe [both Catholic and Protestant] that since God became man in Jesus, that this united/sanctified matter in a way that never occurred before. They will carry this thought into sacramental theology and teach a kind of ‘connection’ with God thru material things; both Baptism and the Eucharist would be major examples. I believe the historic church was well intended when they developed this idea, they were combating the popular Greek/Gnostic belief that matter is inherently evil, not a biblical doctrine. As Scott Hahn made the argument I simply felt that he gave too much weight to the idea that because of the incarnation [God becoming man] that now there is a special ‘sanctity’ to material things when connected with the sacraments. Does the bible teach that there are actual physical things in this world that carry out the truth of the incarnation in a material way? Actually it does, the bible teaches that the bodies of believers have this special aspect because Gods Spirit lives in us. In essence the idea of ‘special matter’ that is often taught by well meaning scholars can be applied to the physical church in the earth, all who believe. I do not totally dismiss sacramental theology, many Protestants who dismiss it out of hand are not aware of the strong beliefs that the reformers held too in these areas. Luther is often misunderstood when it comes to his disagreement with Calvin, many teach and think that he split with Calvin over the doctrine of Predestination, he did not- Luther’s written views on the doctrine were just as strong [if not stronger] on the subject. Calvin never wrote a book dedicated solely to the doctrine, Luther did [bondage of the will]. But they did split on the sacrament of the Eucharist, Luther’s view [consubstantiation] was much closer to the Catholic view than Calvin, and Zwingli [the Swiss reformer] was further away than both Calvin and Luther. Lutheranism would eventually be developed by a protégé of Luther, Philip Melanchthon, and the Lutheran church would bear the image of Melanchthon more than Luther. The point being many good men have held to very strong views on these matters. I believe the biblical doctrine leans more heavily on the ‘material body’ of the believer as being the major material change since the incarnation, I do not hold to the idea that ‘God becoming man’ fundamentally changed the nature of matter when dealing with the sacraments. Matter is not [nor ever was] intrinsically evil, Greek dualism got it wrong from the start- we do not need a strong sacramental theology to refute this, scripture itself will do.
-(1359) ‘Now go, write it before them on a tablet [in a table] and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come, forever and ever’ Isaiah 30:8 ‘Take a large scroll and write on it with the pen of a man’ ‘Write the vision and make it plain upon tables [tablets] that he may run that reads it’ ‘all these sayings were noised abroad, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts’ [Jesus in the gospels]. Last night I caught an interesting movie ‘the book of Eli’ with Denzel Washington. If you haven’t seen it yet then don’t read the rest of this post. Eli lives in this future apocalyptic world [Mad Max] and is on this mission to travel west, he encounters all types of obstacles on the way [lots of blood and guts] and finally arrives at his destination, it’s a publishing house stuck on Alcatraz where these survivors spend all their time copying any books they can get their hands on for the future world; Eli announces ‘I have a King James Bible’ and he gets in. The book of Eli was the bible. In the above verses God shows us how important it is in the history of Salvation for people to write and record his words. In the middle ages you had the Monastic movement [Monks, monasteries] and these Catholic brothers separated themselves from the corruption of the world and became spiritual hermits. They were experts at 2 things; farming and the copying of important manuscripts. In the middle ages secular society learned farming thru the monks. The art of copying ancient books not only preserved theological works, but also secular ones. It was their dedication to saving these works that led to the Renaissance and rediscovery of the ancient works of philosophy and Greek thought. They were like the scribes of Jesus day. Do you value the ability to have and access great treasures? Even the bible, as history, is incredibly valuable. I mean how many other First century [and earlier] documents are lying all over the place and are being read and quoted by 1st graders as well as professors? With the great library system of our day [which I used extensively over a 15 year period] as well as the internet we have the ability to truly learn stuff that past generations would have given anything to have learned. Proverbs says wisdom is lying in the streets, at the crossroads of every city- yet fools have no appetite for it. I want to challenge you guys today, especially all our Pastors and leaders, take time to acquaint yourself with the great classics of western literature, read the great Christian [and non Christian] works of the centuries, don’t spend all your time reading/learning from one group or movement [especially if it’s one of these isolated Christian denominations] God [and men] have gone to too much trouble to get these valuable words copied and distributed to the world, take some time to read them.
(1357) I WILL UNCOVER THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN HIDDEN SINCE THE WORLDS FIRST DAY- [Jesus]. Yesterday I read an article in the paper that talked about an amazing dinosaur find in China; they found around 15 thousand fossils in a cave area. The amazing thing was the fact that so many dinosaurs would have been in one place right when they died. I immediately saw this as proof that would back up the creationist cataclysmic view of a worldwide flood destroying all life on the planet. As I read thru the article they explained how much of ‘fossil science’ has been done thru finds in the U.S., but over the last few years China [and the eastern world in general] have undergone their own industrial revolution and this has led to the unearthing of new ground for the purpose of construction and these new projects are unearthing these fossils. Much like what took place in the 19th century when many archaeologists were discovering ‘hidden things’ that seemed to be buried ‘since the foundation of the world’. In the 19th century it was popular for the intellectuals in theology to embrace the ‘historical/critical’ method of bible learning. Many began to reject the early dating of the New Testament [early- a.d. 50-70] and began accepting a theory that said much of the New Testament was written in the 2nd century. These ideas were promoted by men like Rudolph Bultman and were made popular at the German university which he taught at [in Marburg]. So it became ‘intellectually fashionable’ to accept this new way of critiquing scripture. One problem- as the industrial revolution took off in the west archeology rose as a new science and we now had the ability to historically search for clues. A famous historian by the name of Sir Ramsey went on this exhibition to see whether or not the bible was accurate when it spoke about ‘so called’ first century things. Our bibles do have lots of names of political characters and certain historical events that can be measured for accuracy. Ramsey found to his dismay that all the evidence leaned towards the ‘less enlightened’ view of an early dating of the New Testament. This was a tough pill to swallow by the intellectuals who had already formed their opinions on the subject, but in due time most trustworthy scholars would come to accept [for the most part] the earlier dating. So now back to the dinosaurs, as the article went on they admitted that it’s possible that a Tsunami might have caused the dinosaurs to gather in one place before their deaths- A FLOOD! It’s funny because some in the modern scientific community have argued, very convincingly, that the Geologic table and the extinction of the dinosaurs can be attributed to a world wide flood. Others have vehemently opposed this idea [most evolutionists]. And now the new evidence seems to be backing up a flood theory, they simply don’t want to admit it. Like the intellectuals of Sir Ramsey’s day, the smart thing to do is to go where the evidence leads. The facts don’t lie; these are ‘facts’ that are being now uncovered, things hidden ‘since the world’s first day’.
(1356) LET THE NATIONS BE GATHERED TOGETHER AND THE PEOPLE BE ASSEMBLED- In the gospels Jesus uses the imagery of a table to describe the kingdom ‘They shall come from the north and south and east and west and sit at my table in my kingdom’. Psalms says ‘thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies’ God has a way of ‘setting the table’ if you will. Now the church has been divided over the use of the gospels versus the epistles [letters of Paul]. Historically Protestants have focused more on the epistles, specifically Galatians, Romans- and the Catholic/Orthodox include much of the gospels in their services. When we leave out either we get into trouble. A strong focus on the gospels without the epistles can lead to a legalistic righteousness- trying to simply live up to the moral law type of a thing, without a good understanding of the Spirit empowered life. But too much of a focus on the epistles without a high regard for the gospels can lead to a view of Christianity that sees ‘right doctrine’ as being more important than ‘right acting’ [orthopraxy]. So for sure we need both. One of the other interesting things we see in the gospels is the ‘kingdom’ in action versus an ecclesiology focused on ‘church meetings’. For instance we read of Jesus sending out the disciples and telling them ‘go, preach, heal, do good- and whatever city/place rejects you then wipe off the dust of that place when you leave’ Ouch! Yet at the same time you find the crowds drawn to Jesus everywhere he goes. Sort of like a message/lifestyle that goes out into society to impact it, but not a whole lotta ‘come to my church’ type stuff. In American Christianity we see too much focus on ‘come to/support this ministry’ type of a thing, and not enough ‘shaking the dust off our ‘- that is doing the will of God and then being able to walk away. In John’s gospel John the Baptist [not the author] says ‘he must increase and I MUST decrease’ there really isn’t much of a choice. I want to challenge you today, are you [especially Pastors/ministers] spending too much time trying to raise support for ‘the church’? Do you primarily see your responsibility as filling up a meeting room? Reorient your life around the action seen in the gospels, impact people and give them leadership, but then be able to decrease, to let them see you ‘less and less’ as time goes by- and be willing to walk away from some things, not walk away from responsible leadership, but from things that center too much on our individual personas. Just because people want to hear us speak in person, or just because the crowds get bigger, this is not automatically a signal for building a bigger building! We need to re-look at lots of things, let the people be gathered together and the nations be assembled [i.e. be available to impact groups] but don’t be obsessed with forcing people to gather [come to church type of a focus].
(1354) O FOOLS AND SLOW OF HEART TO BELIEVE ALL THAT THE PROPHETS HAVE SPOKEN; WAS IT NOT NECESSARY THAT THE SON OF MAN SHOULD SUFFER THESE THINGS AND ENTER INTO HIS GLORY? Jesus said this to his men after he rose from the dead, they were doubting and wondering about his crucifixion and he told them that all these things were written in ‘the prophets’. Jesus also said ‘Moses said this, but I say this’. Moses said- was a reference to the first 5 books of the bible [Torah, Pentateuch] and the ‘prophets’ is referring to the rest of the old testament, apart from the wisdom books [Psalms, Proverbs, etc.] The rebuke was the fact that they had the truth all the time, they were ‘slow to believe’ all of it. As I was finishing up the Galatians study a few days ago I showed how Paul was always making his case from the Old Testament, he used the stories in scripture to prove his points. When teaching on this site, I try and share a broad range of church history, from many various perspectives. In essence I try and include ‘the whole thing, all that has been taught by the church fathers’ it’s important to read and learn from a broad perspective, it keeps you out of trouble. Today’s word is simply ‘are you listening to all that the prophets have spoken’ are you hearing all the sides of the issues your church/denomination teaches? This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have convictions about your own beliefs [I do] but it does mean that we are all part of a broad community of believers, many various ‘camps’ and perspectives. In order for us to fulfill our mandate to be ‘one in Christ’ it is our responsibility to be challenged in our views and to also have the love and concern for other believers to challenge them too. This should always be done in love and for the benefit of the whole body, take some time to hear what ‘all the prophets have spoken’ it will do you [and me] some good.
(1352) ARE YOU A POLITICAL ‘DONATIST’ [what?] – In an effort to mix in a little ‘religion’ with politics, let’s do some church history. In the 4th century you had a debate raging in the church that was called ‘the Donatist controversy’ some taught that the efficacy of the sacraments were dependent on the ‘holiness’ of the Bishops/Priests, that is if your church leaders were really not regenerated then you also suffered spiritually as a result of their lack of integrity. The very influential bishop of Hippo, a city in north Africa, would refute this doctrine and argue that the sacraments and rites of the church did not depend on the spirituality of the leaders, that if you were baptized and believed in the Lord that the sacrament counted even if the Priest was an unbeliever. The famous bishop who argued against the heresy was Saint Augustine. In today’s world we often practice a form of political Donatism, we label our leaders as either liberal or conservative [or any other number of things] and we believe that depending on the tag, that they can either do no wrong or nothing good. I believe good [and bad] can come from all groups whether or not they hold to my political slant. Now, ideas do have consequences and if you are unwilling to change course and run against your own biases, then yes you will get into trouble. But like the argument Augustine made, everything does not depend on the holiness [political bent] of the leader, he might be wrong/hold different views than you and still be able to ‘carry out an effective baptism’ if you will. We need to have enough ‘faith’ in the institution of Democracy and free govt. that we can still believe it to work, even if a less than perfect bishop is running the show.
(1350) THE ANTICHRIST IS HERE! Okay, probably not a good heading for following the last few political posts. But I’ve been reading in the gospels and wanted to share a few thoughts. The apostle John, who wrote the book of Revelation [a popular book in today’s prophecy teaching] also wrote the epistles of John, in 1st John chapter 2 he says ‘it is the last [end] time, as you heard that antichrist will come, even now are there many antichrists and this is how we know it is the last time’. Most prophecy teachers are aware of this verse and it’s usually chalked up to the fact that ‘yes John is speaking of ‘the spirit of antichrist’ and the Gnostic cults who rejected Christ’s humanity’ while this is true, it’s also important to see that there is language in the New Testament that places antichrist/antichrists as a possible 1st century figure. I have hit on this before and just wanted to cover this concept a little. Many believers saw Nero as the antichrist, others see various Roman Emperors as fitting the title, and of course the most popular teaching in America is he is a future person [usually said to ‘be living somewhere in the world today’-even if today ranges over hundreds of years!] So we have had our speculation on the fella. I certainly believe that the apostle Paul was writing about a real man who would be a rejecter of Christ and persecute the church fiercely, and Jesus did speak about the ‘desolation of Daniel’ so I don’t want to spiritualize the man, I just wanted us to be challenged when we read John saying stuff like ‘even now there are many, this is how we know we are living in the end times’. I mean he is saying this a few years before writing the book of Revelation, it should cause us to re-think some of the ‘end times’ scenarios that we espouse today. John was exiled to the island of Patmos by the emperor Nero. Nero died a couple years before AD 70, it is possible that Johns Revelation was written before Nero died [being Nero was the one who put him on the island] and this would leave room for an early dating of Revelation and possibly a still living Nero to have been Johns target. Regardless of all the dating questions, it is striking to read the language of the 1st century apostles and see how they believed the key transition time of an ‘old age’ passing away and a new era coming, they saw it as the time of Christ and his death, burial and resurrection; they used ‘end time’ language as a description of their own day, not a bunch of geopolitical speculation of world events that would take place thousands of years in the future. Surely we are also considered to be ‘in the end times’ and I do believe in a literal future return of Jesus to the earth, I just wanted us to be open to the actual language that the bible uses when speaking about ‘the end times’ and allow our thinking to be shaped more by the scripture and not so much by the popular end times teaching of our day.
(1343) One of the other themes that spoke to me from Galatians was the idea that Israel and the world were under a ‘schoolmaster phase’ until the fullness of times arrived. This phase was the whole economy of Old Testament law and rule. I felt like the Lord was saying that many of us have been led, and actually have arrived, at places and purposes the hard way; i.e. - the ‘tutor’ phase. That is God allowed the process of trial and error and discipline to work in us until we arrived at the purpose and goal. Isaiah says that ‘I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction’ yes, this way of ‘arriving’ is much more painful, but it still gets you there. Now the entire discipline phase for the world was the time period before the Cross. The law and the Old Covenant were the only way to ‘get there’ so to speak. If people wanted to have a relationship with God, they were either born Jews, or converted to Judaism. Today of course we have access thru the Cross. One of the earliest ‘cults’ of Christianity was a sect call ‘Gnosticism’ these early adherents mixed Greek dualism [material world bad, spirit world good type of a thing] in with Christianity, they taught that the God of the Old Testament was the evil God who created the material world, and that thru Jesus we can come to know the true God of the New Testament, the God who gives us salvation by delivering us from the material world. Though it seems like there are verses in the New Testament that teach that the ‘world’ is evil and that God wants to ‘deliver us from this present evil world’ [Galatians] yet in these contexts ‘the world’ is simply speaking of the lost system of man and the ‘way of the world’. In Christian theology matter is not inherently evil. The Apostle John would deal with the Gnostics in his first epistle by saying ‘whoever denies that Jesus has come in the flesh is not of God- they are anti-Christ’. Because the Gnostics believed all matter to be evil they would reject the humanity of Jesus, John was targeting them in his letter. As I mentioned before the controversy over the Trinity was settled at the council of Nicaea [a.d.325] but the church still battled with the nature of Jesus. Nicaea said ‘God is one essence/substance and 3 persons’. But this did not fully deal with the nature of Jesus, various ideas rose up [Monarchianism, Dynamic Monarchianism] that challenged the nature of Christ. In 451 a.d. the church settled on the language that ‘Jesus is one person with 2 substances/essences [natures]’, though to some this looks like a contradiction to the earlier language of Nicaea, this council in 451 [Chalcedon] was simply saying Jesus was ‘fully God and fully man’ so anyway we were all under the discipline phase until the ‘fullness of times’. I am believing God to get us to the destination with less ‘tutoring’ if you will, less trial and error. Sure, we will never fully get to the point of not making a few mistakes and stumbling along the way, but as we get older hopefully we will ‘stumble less’.
(1342) WHEN THE SEED SHOULD COME TO WHOM THE PROMISE WAS MADE- As I was teaching thru Galatians this verse ‘spoke to me’ in a personal way [will explain it in a second]. I felt like the Lord was saying that there are long term promises/destinies that he has planted within us, both as individuals and communities, and that often times he is waiting for the ‘seed to come to whom the promise was made’. In the parables of Jesus the seed speaks of a few things. Most of us are familiar with 'the seed as the word’ imagery- ‘the sower sows the word’. But Jesus also speaks of ‘the seed’ as the children of the kingdom that his father has planted in the world. And of course in Galatians Paul is specifically referring to the singular seed, who is Christ. Every few years I go thru our radio messages and will adjust the programs I air. I often find that the messages that I marked as ‘o.k.’ are not o.k. anymore, it’s not that they are bad, it’s just I notice a tone/level of ‘seed’ [spoken word] that is not mature enough, it seems like as the years roll by the later messages just sound better. God has all of us in a maturing process; things that we thought were ‘deep revelation’ at one time, now sound quite silly. As I was marking off the programs that sounded too immature, I felt like the Lord was saying ‘the seed has come to whom the promise was made’ sort of like the lord was saying ‘son, I was waiting for your level of maturity to catch up to the promise’. Also in Romans it says ‘the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now’ I also felt like the Lord was saying the seed, as it pertains to all the people groups we relate to, were also in a ‘birthing process’ that too had to mature to a point where the promises could be inherited- ‘when the fullness of times was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law’ [Galatians] God has ‘fullness seasons’ times [Kairos] when he says ‘okay, the promises I made to you at the beginning of the journey are now ready to be experienced’ in essence the seed has come to whom the promise was made. Now, this sort of spiritual/symbolic way of hearing God, is it a good way to develop doctrine? No! Never, ever! Pope Benedict critiqued the ‘historical, critical’ method of liberal theology in his book ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ the method developed out of the liberal universities in Germany in the 19th- 20th centuries. Men like Rudolph Bultman would popularize it. It was a way of reading scripture thru an historical/archeological lens. Some of the ideas are good and profitable, but some are not. Many would reject the supernatural aspects of scripture and come to deny the resurrection. Not good. The Pope also warned against this way of ‘dissecting’ Jesus and Christianity to a point where you really don’t see the true Jesus anymore. The real Jesus of Christianity and history, the Jesus that we all have a relationship with by faith. The point being we want to go to scripture with an open heart and expectancy to ‘hear God’. While doing this, we also want to recognize that the scripture had the SAME MEANING to the first century church as to us today, the meaning never changes, the applications do. That’s the main point I want to make, so today the Lord might be speaking to you about certain ‘seeds’ coming to maturity in your own life, things that you have been waiting for and maybe the lord was saying he needed a maturing process to take place, both in you and the people you relate to. The ‘whole creation’ if you will.
(1340) GALATIANS AFTER-THOUGHTS: As I said the other day I will try and go back over a few verses and share a few more things on Galatians. One of the things I wanted to mention was the fact that I purposefully chose to teach the letter in the classic Protestant way [mostly] I avoided getting into the ‘New Perspective’ ideas on Paul and ‘what he really meant’. So let’s talk a little on it; as of the date of this writing there is a theological debate going on [mostly in the ivory towers, but seeping somewhat into mainstream thought] that re-looks at Paul and what the context of his day was. For instance when the Reformers of the 16th century spoke about being Justified by Faith and not by works, many of them were speaking about the works of tradition and the things they felt were wrong in the Catholic faith. Were they wrong in applying Paul this way? No. In context was Paul talking about the works of ‘Catholic tradition’ when saying men are not justified by works? No. So it’s good to point stuff like this out. The problem I see with some of the New Perspective theologians is they can explain stuff and when you’re done listening [reading] it’s possible to miss the heart of the New Testament doctrine on Justification by faith, we don’t want to lose people in the weeds when trying to peel the layers of the onion. So I purposefully chose to teach this letter in the plain way that most Protestants would understand it, but I do think that N.T. Wright [Bishop of Durham, Church of England] has good things to add to the debate [as well as John Piper- the Reformed Baptist preacher who has taken the New Perspective group and rebuked them]. It’s good and profitable to engage in these types of theological discussions, but we need to once again ‘keep the main thing the main thing’. I also avoided getting into the debate on exactly what ‘works of the law’ meant. Some think Paul was only referring to the rite of circumcision. In some verses [both here and in Romans] this is true. But some [N.T. Wright] apply this in a way that says the act itself was simply an ‘identifying badge’ that brought you into the community of God, while this is true, they get a little off track by not fully seeing that in Paul’s writings these things go hand in hand. Paul mixes in the ‘work of circumcision’ with the idea of keeping the moral law/10 commandments. When saying ‘we are not under the law’ Paul includes all of it, not just the ceremonial law. How do we know this? Because whenever Paul makes this argument he always adds ‘does this mean we go out and sin’? And his answer is always no, but instead of saying ‘no, don’t sin because we are still constrained by the 10 commandments’ he says ‘no, how can we who died to sin still live in it’. To be frank about it, many of the Reformed guys have problems with this as well, they teach a kind of theology that says the N.T. believer is under the law, I disagree. So as you can see this debate can go on for a while, that’s why I chose to avoid it in this study. I want all of our readers to be grounded in the basic truths of the letter before launching into a deeper level. Okay enough for now, tune in the next week or so and I’ll try and do some practical stuff from Galatians.
(1339) In Johns’ gospel, chapter 3, John the Baptist’s disciples tell him ‘look- Jesus is baptizing more converts than you and you are losing the crowd’. John tells them that he is fine with losing the limelight, he says his joy is in the fact that the bride [believers] is heading towards the bridegroom [Jesus] and he is glad that he can at least hear the interaction. I find it interesting that John did not find his identity in how many people he was personally ministering to, he did not need a large audience [or any!] in order to feel fulfilled. But he did need to hear the voice of Jesus; he had to at least have that. Over the years of ‘doing ministry’ I have always found it troubling that so many men in ministry seem to be in a race to get people to show up at some meeting environment, if you can ‘pack the parking lot’ you feel fulfilled. Now, God is concerned about numbers, don’t get me wrong, if you ‘pack the parking lot’ fine. The point is we should be able to ‘feel fulfilled’ by simply hearing the voice of the bridegroom. When the church gives in to the pressure of class and status, she loses her prophetic voice to society. In 14th century England you had a general distaste for the church, the people resented the wealth and class that the church achieved, many voices [John Wycliffe] spoke out against these abuses, even the great English poet Geoffrey Chaucer would write about it in his famous ‘Canterbury tales’ [how many of you still remember English Lit?] The church achieved numbers and wealth and fame, but lost her prophetic voice and influence to the world. To all you Pastors/leaders, are you more focused on big numbers and how many need to attend in order to bring in enough tithes to accomplish certain goals? If so then re-focus, don’t let your emotions go up and down based on stuff like this, one things is needful, John said that’s what made him happy, his ‘joy was fulfilled’ in hearing the voice of Jesus, how about you?
(1338) GALATIANS 6- Paul closes this short theological treatise with some practical stuff; help each other out with their burdens, if you see a brother struggling, restore him in the spirit of meekness. Those who are teaching you Gods word, ‘communicate’ to them in all good things [share with them financially and materially]. Good advice that Paul gives to all of the churches he writes to. As we close our study of this letter, I want to emphasize that the majority of what Paul is teaching [over 90%] is great theological truth, it would be silly for preachers/teachers to grasp hold of any single verse and to exalt that above the main body of truths that we have discussed. It isn't hard for any preacher/teacher to go thru this letter on a few Sundays and teach the main truths of the letter. We desperately need to get back to doing it this way in many Pentecostal/Protestant/Evangelical churches- and yes, the ‘organic church’ guys too! We all have a tendency to pick out pet doctrines out of the New Testament and then to make the side issues the main thing. I think the main thing [justification by faith, the blessing of Abraham in context, etc.] is good enough without us having to try and find some type of ‘Rhema word’ that is not the main word of God. Recently a good man died, Oral Roberts. A few weeks have passed and I think it is okay to mention a few things. The media reported how many preachers showed up to the funeral in Cadillac’s and expensive cars, there have been various articles written about the legacy he will leave behind. Some wrongly said he was the father of the ‘Word of Faith/prosperity movement’ [E.W. Kenyon was the real father, and Kenneth Hagin and others lay claim to the title]. The point I want to make is Brother Roberts was a good man who did good things, but his way of doing doctrine is not my cup of tea. He was famous for popularizing the ‘seed-faith’ teaching. It comes from Paul’s letters when he does tell believers that if they give in faith God will bless them, true enough. But when we read the New Testament there are many warnings against greed and materialism, and when we take a simple practical truth from Paul, even though it’s true, and when this truth becomes our main message, then we err. In this last chapter of Galatians Paul gives practical advice about giving financially to those who are teaching you, good. But this is one verse in a letter filled with other main teachings, the important stuff if you will. For believers in our day to have built ministries/churches and to have as the foundation of these ministries the few practical side verses, is wrong. We need to focus on the main thing, and keep the main thing the main thing! [Redemption thru Christ's Blood, eternal life to those who believe, etc.] I don’t want to speak bad about brother Roberts, he was a good man who went home to be with the Lord, it’s just the discussion that has happened after his passing shows us how easy it is for good men to get sidetracked with a verse or 2 and then to exalt it out of context. As I conclude this brief study on Galatians, I think I will go back over a few main verses in the next week or so and give you some ‘practical’ things that I have gleaned these last few weeks. In a sense I will show you how God can speak to us in a personal way thru these letters, yet at the same time not losing the original meaning of the letters. One of the distinctions of the early church fathers was this Christ centered approach to the scripture, they looked for Jesus on every page. I’ll end with an example form Saint Augustine; he shared a thought on the story of Jesus walking on the water to the land, and that the disciples needed a wooden boat to ‘cross over’ he then applied the wood of the boat to the wood of the Cross and said how the Cross allows us to cross over to God, just like the boat let them cross over to the land. Now this is a simple example of applying scripture in a sort of symbolic way that is not in context, but nevertheless it’s okay to do. So I will do a few things like this in the next few posts. But while doing this, we want to not forget the main meaning of the letter, a good ‘side example’ should never negate the main body of truth.
(1335) GALATIANS 5- Paul’s main theme is if we possess the Spirit as believers [being indwelt by God’s Spirit] then let us also walk in/by the Spirit, as opposed to trying to please God by the law and being circumcised. Paul will use the somewhat controversial term ‘ye are fallen from grace’ which simply means that these Gentile believers started by faith and went back to the old Jewish system, much like the themes in the book of Hebrews. Paul says when you go back to the law you have left grace. Christ has ‘become of no effect to you, you who are justified by the law’. This is a good example of how words and certain phrases can develop over the centuries of church history and develop a different meaning over time. In essence the bible does teach that a person can ‘fall from grace’ but this does not describe what the modern reader might think. The first church father who attempted to formulate the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was a man named Tertullian, he lived in the second century and was what theologians refer to as one of the Latin fathers [as opposed to the Greek ones- Origen, etc.] Tertullian was famous for the sayings ‘what does Jerusalem have to do with Athens’ and ‘I believe because it is absurd’ he was resisting the influence of Greek philosophy on the church, he felt that Greek wisdom was influencing the church too much. He was trained in law before becoming a theologian [like Luther and Calvin of 16th century Reformation fame] and he used the words ‘God is one substance/essence and also three persons’ later church councils would agree with this language. But the word ‘person’ at Tertullian’s time was the Latin word ‘personi’ which was taken from the theater and meant a person/actor who would put on different masks during the play; the word had a little different meaning then what we think of today as ‘person’. Later centuries would come to condemn certain Christian groups who seem to have formulated language on the Trinity that expresses the same thing as what the original developer of the doctrine meant to say, but because words and their meanings change over time we get ourselves into disputes that might be getting us off track. Paul also tells the Galatians that if they become circumcised that they are obligating themselves to keep all the law. Of course the medical procedure that many have done in our day is not what he is speaking about, but in Paul’s day getting circumcised was the religious rite that placed you into the religion of Judaism, and this is what Paul is refuting among the Galatians, he tells them not to go down that road. This chapter has lots of good ‘memory verses’, the famous lists of the works of the flesh versus the fruit of the Spirit are found here, and it seems pretty clear to me that Paul identified circumcision with the moral law of the 10 commandments, that is he saw being circumcised as an act that obligated you to ‘keep all the law’ some theologians are discussing whether or not Paul meant the law of Moses when speaking about going ‘back under the law’ some think Paul was speaking only of the ceremonial law and the system of animal sacrifices when he was telling the gentiles that they should not go under the law, I believe if you read Paul in context both in this letter and the book of Romans, that he is speaking of the moral law too, not just the ceremonial law. All in all Paul exhorts these believers to fight for their right to be free from the past restraints of religion and bondage, he tells them to not desire to go back under a system of bondage, that Christ has made us free from that legalistic way of life and he has liberated us by giving us the Holy Spirit- if we ‘walk in the Spirit we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, for the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, and these two are contrary one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would’ amen to that.
(1334) One of the most important finds of the 20th century was a little book called ‘the Didache’, it is either a first or 2nd century document that encapsulates a short instruction for new comers who wanted to be a part of the church. It is important because it gives us a glimpse of how the early Christians viewed the faith. For instance it puts much importance on caring for the poor and doing works of charity, it goes so far to speak about fasting for the purpose of saving up some extra money to feed the poor. It warns strenuously against greed, it calls people false prophets if they stick around town too long and ask for money. I mean it’s strong. It also shows us how disconnected we have become from what the early believers valued. Yesterday I had a good day with my homeless buddies; I ‘heard’ that Buck had died. Buck was a good friend who struggled with alcoholism, many of the guys drink, but Buck was what you would call a ‘falling down in the street’ drunk. But when he was sober he was a good guy. I guess he was around 60 or so. I remember one time he showed up at the homeless hangout and he was all beat up, black eyes and stuff. The story was he went thru an ‘initiation’ at the camp, 2 of the other guys ‘initiated’ him by beating the hell out of him and taking his wallet, Buck said it was a voluntary thing that he agreed to go thru for ‘protection’. I said that’s funny, we used to call that ceremony ‘getting mugged’. All in all Buck was an all right friend, with many struggles. He did attend the local street ‘church meetings’ and made attempts to go to some of the retreats they hold for the guys. I spent some time with Henry; he is a very knowledgeable brother who always asks great questions. I mean he knows the bible by heart, studies the original Greek and Hebrew meanings of the words, he is a real pro. He has been living in an old run down RV for a few months. The people let him stay in it and he does some work around the property. They have a beautiful horse and a bunch of fruit trees; I filled up a bag with lemons and had a good time fellowshipping with Henry. My friend John David has been clean for 6 months now and is living up in Austin, that was great to hear. John was addicted to Cocaine, I told you his story around 6 months ago [in the homeless section]. His other brother Andy went to Mexico, he’s the brother I lent one of my good study books to, O well. All in all the guys are doing as well as can be expected, it’s pretty cold right now, that’s why some of them come south for the winter. My good friend Dirk is back, I have known Dirk for 20 years, he lives in an old beat up van and survives on a disability check, he’s legally deaf. He is a good friend, he comes for the winters and heads back to Michigan in the summer, he really is homeless but tries to pass himself off [to the cops] as a retired tourist, it is funny. And old Roger has been in jail since last Christmas, he walked into HEB [grocery store] and saw Tommy Nichols [a cop who the locals hate] Roger has been arrested many times by Nichols and Roger was drunk and told him ‘I’ll kill all you cops’ they arrested him and charged him with making a terroristic threat, he’s still got some time to do. I want to encourage you guys; do you spend any time reaching out to the hurting? Maybe fast a day or 2 and send the money to the feed the children groups? I just renewed my own effort in sending money to the kids, I was reading Christianity today on line and the screen kept asking if I would send some money, I kept clicking it off and then realized I need to send some. So I started sending $22 a month, not much, but it helps. I just want to challenge all of us to become involved in some way, maybe you won’t make as many homeless friends as I have, that’s fine- but try and make at least one! Make an effort and see what the Lord will do, it will be well worth trying.
-(1332) Been doing some reading on church history/philosophy, it’s interesting to see the role that theology/Christianity played in the universities. Theology is referred to as ‘the queen of the sciences’ and philosophy was her ‘handmaid’. They saw the root of all learning as originating with the study ‘of God’. Many modern universities have dropped the term ‘theology’ and call it ‘the study of religion’. The study of religion is really the study of how man relates to God, his view of God; this would fit under anthropology/sociology, not under theology. Modern learning has lost the importance of the study of God and the role it plays in all the other sciences. The classic work of Homer [8th century BC] called the Iliad, has Achilles debating whether or not he should ‘stay and fight along the city of the Trojans’ and attain the legacy of a warrior; or to go ‘back to my homeland and live a long life’. He chooses to fight and lay his life on the line. The themes of the classics [courage, heroism, etc.] are biblical themes, even if God is not directly mentioned. The point being to try and exclude God from learning is silly, you can’t do it. Around the 17-18th century you had the philosophy of Existentialism rise up, as an ‘ism’ it really is a misnomer; ‘ism’ is a suffix that you add to the end of a word that makes it a system- ‘humanism’ ‘secularism’ etc. but existentialism is a word that means ‘anti-system’. Nevertheless the person who popularized this belief was a Christian, Soren Kierkegaard. The system he was rebelling against was the dead institutionalism of the Danish church, he felt that Christianity devolved into dead orthodoxy and lost all of its passion for true living and experiencing God. Nietzsche would pick up on this philosophy and apply it to atheism, and in the 20th century men like Albert Camou and John Paul Sartre would also embrace it from an atheistic worldview. They would say things like ‘man is a useless passion’ or write books titled ‘Nausea’ summing up the human condition. Though the 19th century atheistic humanists tried to give value and exalt the state of man, in their rejection of God and Christianity they were taking away the foundation for mans value. If you tell society that they arrived on the scene by some cosmic accident of evolution, and when you die you dissipate into nothingness, then how do you at the same time glory in his natural abilities to reach some point of Utopia? As the late Frances Schaeffer said ‘they were philosophers who had both feet planted firmly in mid air’. The point being when you neglect the reality and role that God and Christianity play in every sphere of life, you are then removing the foundation that these spheres were built on, true science and learning derive their basis from God. The greatest scientific minds of the past were either Christians or Deists, they were too smart to try and reject the reality of an eternal being.
(1327) GALATIANS; INTRO- Okay, finally made it, been wanting to teach this letter for a while. Let me overview some church history that I feel would be helpful in understanding the book. During the 16th century Reformation you had an explosion take place within Christianity, though the official ‘schism’ dates back to the year 1054 between the western [Catholic] and eastern [Orthodox] expressions of the church, yet in reality it was the 16th century upheaval that really split the church. A few centuries before [14-15th century] you had rumblings within the church that had well taught Catholic men challenging many of the institutional concepts of the church; men like John Huss, Wycliffe and others. These men were extremely influential and had an effect on the church. Then in the 16th century you had Catholic writers who remained within the Catholic Church, but they too challenged the status quoi. Men like Erasmus of Rotterdam, these intellectuals would call for the idea of going back to the original sources of study [Greek New Testament and also other renaissance ideas] and this too would lead to the historic Reformation. But without a doubt Martin Luther [the Catholic monk out of Wittenberg, Germany] would be the firebrand of the movement. Martin was a well trained Augustinian monk who struggled with the guilt of sin for many years. Not normal guilt, but extreme. A fellow Catholic leader would encourage Luther to trust in the grace of God for his forgiveness. While reading the book of Romans [whose themes relate strongly to Galatians] he would come along the famous passage ‘the just shall live by faith’ and in Luther’s mind this was a total release from the bondage of trying to appease God thru all the religious works that he was going thru. In essence Luther discovered the historic gospel of grace thru the reading of Romans and was set free. Now Luther had no intention of leaving the Catholic Church, but as a very influential teacher/scholar out of the university city in Germany, he had lots of influence. The Catholic church at the time was worldwide and you had differing views of the church in various states. Many saw the state of the church in Rome as having given in to materialism and become too worldly. Rome was at the time trying to raise money for the restoring of the religious buildings at Rome and one of the priests going around selling indulgences was named Tetzel. The abuse of selling these ‘get out of purgatory early’ things was offensive to many Catholics, and Luther had ‘no small stir’ when Tetzel reached his area. These things would lead to the famous nailing of the 95 questions on the door of Catholic academia and would be the beginnings of the historic split. While it would take way too much time to go into all the theological differences between the Protestants and the Catholics, one of the main issues deals with how we as Christians view ‘being saved’. The historic Protestant position is called ‘justification by faith alone’ [Sola Fide] the Catholics counter with ‘the only time ‘faith alone’ is mentioned is in the book of James, where it says a man is not saved/justified by ‘faith alone’. Ouch! The main point I want to make is this letter deals with the early church’s belief that man is accepted with God based on the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. Paul will challenge the ‘Judaisers’ [those who believed you needed to keep the law in order to be saved] and will argue that the law itself [Old Testament books] teaches that men are justified/accepted with God based on believing in the free gift of God thru Christ. Make no mistake about it, the New Testament clearly teaches this doctrine. Catholic and Protestant theologians BOTH agree that man is freely saved by the grace of God in Christ. But at the time of Luther’s day these glorious truths were lost in the morass of religious tradition and works. As we read thru this letter in the next few days, I want all of our readers to see the argument Paul is making from this basic theological view point. Is man saved by works [keeping Gods law] or grace? The bible teaches grace. Now I don’t have the time to also introduce the modern controversy between the ‘new view of Paul between Protestants [called new perspective]. There is an ongoing debate over whether or not the historic Reformation view of Paul is correct [men like N.T. Wright and John Piper are hashing it out] and I do think there are some merits to this discussion, but before we can delve into that aspect, we first need to see the historic question of works versus faith, and this letter is one of the best to deal with the issue.
(1326) FOR AS THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH, WHICH I WILL MAKE, SHALL REMAIN, SO SHALL YOUR SEED AND NAME REMAIN- Isaiah 66:22 Well the senate finally passed health care reform; they still have some hurdles ahead, but they got the 60 votes needed to move forward. I do find it utterly corrupt that any single party would actually pass something that took away benefits from Republican states and not take them away from Democratic ones. And then have the audacity to make the ‘losing states’ underwrite the ‘winning states’. I can’t imagine the uproar in the country if Bush did this. Nebraska [Ben Nelson] cut a deal where they will never pay for the extended costs of Medicaid, ever. The ‘Federal govt.’ will forever cover their new costs. They are the only state that gets this deal. The Federal govt. pays stuff by taxing other states; in essence the rest of the country will be underwriting Nebraska, simply because they needed the Democratic vote. Florida, under Bill Nelson, another Democrat, will be the only state that will not lose Medicare Advance. This is a very popular program with senior citizens and every other state will lose this program. Why not Florida? Florida has lots of retired seniors, they need to keep the senate seat Democratic, so to get the seniors votes they did this deal. These deals are fundamentally corrupt, we are doing this at a time in the nation where we will be forcing families to pay a yearly 750 dollar fine if they don’t get insurance [or a 2% fine of their income, whichever is higher!] and many average income earners are really going to be in a bind. Much of the money will pay the profits and salaries of multi millionaires; this is wrong. In the 1960’s Harvey Cox [professor at Harvard] penned the book ‘the secular city’ it was a play on words from saint Augustine’s ‘city of God’. Augustine, as a true Amillennialist, wrote about the influence of the church/kingdom of God on the nations of the world, and how you could not separate virtue from public/political life. Cox would challenge this idea and teach that you could have a separation; you could run a nation apart from the morality of the church. Harvard would also produce the philosophy of ‘Pragmatism’ you govern by what is expedient, do what it takes to get the job done- don’t worry about what’s right or wrong type of a thing. God says his word/standards don’t go away, the things he states/creates are there for good. The Democratic Party ran rough shod over some very basic principles of right and wrong, when Harry Reid was asked about these insider deals, he said that’s the way they do business. In essence he said if your state didn’t get to do some under the table deal, then that’s your senator’s fault. The senate leader was being very pragmatic, doing what he needed to do to get the votes. I think they might have traded for a few votes today, at the expense of a bunch of them tomorrow.
-(1318) PROTESTANT/CATHOLIC RELATIONS? Those of you who have read this blog for any length of time know that as a Protestant believer [though I prefer simply Christian] I write often on the Catholic tradition and I also see them as fellow believers in the Lord. I do realize that I have lost readers over the years because of this. Recently there has been another effort among Catholics and Evangelicals to join together in common cause; the name of this effort is ‘the Manhattan Declaration’ it’s a simple statement amongst Catholics and Protestants stating our common belief in areas of life and morality. It’s a good statement that I signed. Since the 16th century Reformation [the beginning of Protestantism] you have had varying approaches to these things. Some see the Catholic Church as a ‘non church’ they see her as a false religion who might have some Christians within her but for the most part it would be like saying Mormonism might have some believes in it despite the false beliefs. Others see the Catholic Church as a good church that has certain beliefs that Protestants don’t accept, but never the less she is part of the Body of Christ [this is my view]. So for the sake of unity amongst the various groups of Christians in the world today, I write on both traditions. Okay, during the Reformation the Catholic church had what some refer to as a ‘counter reformation’ the 16th century council was held at Trent and the church for the most part came down strong on retaining most of the Catholic tradition that existed for centuries; they reaffirmed the 7 sacraments, stuck with papal authority [though the doctrine of Papal infallibility would not become official doctrine until Vatican 1 in the 1800’s] and history tells us that the Catholics came down on the side of very little change in the area of doctrine. They even retained the doctrine of indulgences that is very questionable indeed. But they also dealt with corruption in their ranks to some degree and this was noble. They also had some good points to make in refuting what they felt was not enough emphasis on ‘good works’ amongst the reformers [Luther]. So the church in no uncertain terms rejected any idea that the Reformation was a move of God, they saw it as a rebellious split. Now in the 19th century you had Vatican 1 [the name of the council] and once again the church affirmed her stand on coming down strong for the traditional Catholic position; this council officially recognized the infallibility of the Pope [only when speaking ‘Ex Cathedra’ which means ‘from the chair’]. The church does not teach the infallibility of the Pope unless he is making a doctrinal statement in his official capacity as Pope. This teaching has a special importance for today’s Catholics. Pope Benedict was a prolific writer/theologian before becoming Pope and he has written extensively on doctrinal issues and it would not be difficult to find some of his teachings coming down more in favor of a strong Christology than previous Popes- a good thing in my view. So anyway it wasn’t until the last few centuries that some very difficult doctrines would become official; Immaculate Conception, the assumption of Mary and the infallibility of the Pope. These are all fairly recent developments that would make it more difficult for outward unity. But in the 20th century you had somewhat of a change in attitude from the Vatican [at least from Pope John the 23rd]. From 1962-65 Vatican 2 was convened and you had somewhat of a division between the conservative Catholic Bishops and the more progressive types. There were a couple hundred Bishops from the U.S. alone that would attend; it was really a worldwide council. The more liberal minded wanted less of a hard line position in some areas while the more conservative stuck with the old hard line position. When all was said and done there was a more open spirit towards change and acceptance of other Christian churches at the end. Many of the changes were seen to be too much from the conservative Catholic view; things like saying the mass in the common language, moving the altar forward in the ‘church building’ and the Priest facing the people during the mass [the old mass had the Priest facing the altar along with the people] so anyway lots of Catholics did not like the change and there was a dispute among many conservative Catholics. Then in 1968 Pope Paul issued an encyclical [official paper] called’ Humanae Vitae’, which rejected the use of contraceptives and it was a step back towards the old hard line church. Some Protestants go a little too far in praising Vatican 2, they might refer to it as a revolution in the Catholic Church, this might be going a little too far. I recognize and appreciate the new attitude of Vatican 2, and I believe some of the more hard line Protestants [Reformed] should show a little more tolerance because of it [some of the older reformers still hold to ALL the beliefs of the Westminster confession, which officially teaches the Pope is the Antichrist! Ouch] But as a realist myself I still see some real doctrinal differences that I still have major problems with. But in some areas I am in more agreement with the Catholics than with Protestants- especially on some of the end time teachings that American Fundamentalists hold to. So all in all I appreciate some of the changes, I think some Protestants need to be more willing to come to the table, and I personally would not go so far as to actually become Catholic [which many good men have done, and I do not reject their convictions at all, they did have personal reasons for doing so]. All in all I agree with the Catechism of the Catholic Church that states ‘Christ is the unique word of God in scripture’ this is something we should all be able to agree with.
(1312) THE INCARNATION- The most influential philosopher on Western thought is probably the philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant wrote the influential work ‘In critique of pure reason’ at the close of the 18th century in response to the pure rationalists [David Hume] of the Enlightenment. Kant read Hume’s works and was said to have been ‘aroused out of his dogmatic slumber’ and dispatched his response. Kant espoused that you had the physical and metaphysical worlds, and the 2 are completely separate. He refuted the argument for God made by the apologists and said it was impossible for man to ‘know God’ thru rational/physical means. Kant did not totally reject ‘the idea’ of God; he simply said the efforts of the Christian philosophers to prove God were futile. Was Kant right? Yes and no. In the 13th century you had another great Christian thinker by the name of Thomas Aquinas, Thomas is considered one of the greatest [if not greatest] thinkers of the Catholic tradition, Thomas wrote extensively and re-introduced the Greek philosophers back into Christian theology. Sometimes referred to as ‘Aristotelianism’ [Aristotle]. Thomas taught that it was possible to obtain true knowledge of the existence of God from the natural world, but that to have particular revelation from God you needed the church and tradition [revelation]. Some feel that Thomas was teaching a ‘secular/sacred’ division that hurt the work of the church. But if you read Aquinas in the context of his time he really was not doing this. Thomas ‘rescued’ apologetics [proof for God] from the philosophers of Islam who were teaching that you could have 2 types of truth- religious and scientific. They taught that religious truth could ‘be true’ by faith, but that it could be false by science, and vice versa. Thomas was refuting this idea and was showing us that real truth, whether from the natural sciences or from ‘revelation’ never contradict, it’s just science can only go so far in arguing for the existence of God. But the influence of Immanuel Kant on western thinking has many believing that God and ‘religion’ are okay things for people to believe, but that ‘real truth’ is found in the natural sciences and God is excluded from this ‘secular’ realm. This is a false view. God can be ‘proved’ by studying the natural sciences, like Aquinas said. Now this doesn’t get you all the way to the God of Christian theology, but it can take you up to the point where God’s existence is proven to be reality. The main point is it is wrong to think Christianity is relegated to the realm of faith while ‘real truth’ is in the realm of science. The Incarnation was God’s divine act of breaking into the physical world thru the birth of his Son. God became man and dwelt among us, you can study all the history of the time and find many historical proofs of the reality of Jesus and the fact that he died and rose again, these ‘truths’ are not only religious in nature, they are factual in history. So while I appreciate the work that Kant put into his book, I will stick with the other ‘Emanuel’ the God who is with us.
(1307) CHRISTMAS- being I mentioned Christmas the other day, let’s talk a little. First, does the bible give us [in the New Testament] any special memorials to celebrate? Yes, the New Testament teaches us that when believers celebrate the Lords supper that we ‘show the Lords death’ until he comes back. This is the only explicit memorial given to New Testament believers. Does this mean it’s wrong to celebrate other days? Not really. The early church, contrary to popular opinion, did celebrate ‘Christmas’ before the days of Constantine in the 4th century. They celebrated Christ’s ‘birthday’ on January 6th. But they also celebrated ‘Easter’ as well, and Easter played a more significant role in the church. But in the 4th century the church was grappling with different issues, one of the main ones was the nature of Christ [Christology] some questioned his true humanity. So as a result the celebration of the Incarnation [Jesus being born and taking on real human flesh] took on special importance, the church wanted to stress the ‘birthday’ of Jesus as a theological event. Now the story of Constantine and his conversion to Christianity is famous and many different groups see it in different ways. Many see him as the enemy of true Christianity and as a Roman Emperor who paganized the church. Many associate Catholic Christianity as the false religion set up by Constantine in the 4th century- I do not hold to this view myself. But the fact is that Constantine did legalize Christianity and he did ‘change’ the celebration of Christmas day from January 6 to December 25. Everyone knew that 12-25 was the official pagan holiday of a pagan god. Rome had Sun worship going on and December 25th was a pagan celebration day. So why did the church allow for the change? In reality Constantine was trying to bring a degree of stability to his empire and the fact was that many of his citizens [and soldiers] did practice the pagan holiday of 12-25. So as a compromise move, with the churches new found emphasis on the humanity of Christ [new found in that they willingly wanted to emphasize Christ’s birth in a greater way because of the theological controversies going on] they changed 12-25 into the celebration of Christ’s birth. It really was not some type of secret pagan takeover of Christianity. It was more along the lines of how in our day many believers celebrate ‘Halloween’ by calling it ‘fall festival’ and simply are redeeming the season for God. If in a thousand years Christians are all celebrating ‘fall festival’ instead of Halloween, I think that would be a good thing. But if you went back and found out that it started as a pagan thing, then would you consider all the ‘fall festival’ folks as pagan? So that’s the dilemma. Many serious minded believers do not celebrate Christmas and that’s fine, the scriptures don’t mandate it. But many serious believers do, I think it’s wrong to simply make the connection of the pagan roots of the day and to see this as a reason to reject it. Like I just showed you, you can look at it in a way that sees it as the church ‘taking over’ the pagan day and redeeming it back unto God.
(1298) THEY ARE GREEDY DOGS WHICH CAN NEVER HAVE ENOUGH AND THEY ARE SHEPHERDS THAT CANNOT UNDERSTAND: THEY ALL LOOK TO THEIR OWN WAY, EVERY ONE FOR HIS GAIN… THEY SAY TOMORROW SHALL BE MUCH MORE ABUNDANT- Isaiah 56:11-12 In the mid 18th century we had what is commonly called ‘the industrial revolution’. In Europe there arose a new class of people that never existed before, these were the capitalists that were making lots of wealth and the laborer was drawn from an agrarian type lifestyle [country/hamlet living] into the strong industrial cities like London. These poor workers were thrust into a system of profit that consumed their days and surrounded them with a new atmosphere of industry/factory. The invention of the steam engine by James Watt was one of the catalysts of this new era. Men like William Booth [founder of the Salvation Army] would see the hopelessness of these Londoners and start a ministry to help them. Even in our day the effects of the industrial revolution still impact us, as a boy growing up I listened to Black Sabbath, Ozzy came from an area like this. Contrast his songs with Kiss and you can see the difference! There was an observer of this scene who would write a document and launch a revolution as a result of what he saw as the encroachment of capitalism on the common person- His name was Karl Marx, his document was called ‘the communist manifesto’. Many people resent the western mindset because of its seeming inability to never be satisfied with finally having enough, we are a consumerist nation. I caught a quick few minutes of religious channel surfing the other day and of course I heard the normal preaching on ‘this year is the year of more abundance than any other year’. Have we ever asked ourselves when we will have enough? Seriously Isaiah is pronouncing a judgment on ‘greedy dogs- those who are never satisfied’ one of the condemnations in Revelation is to believers who say ‘I am rich and increased with goods’ yet they were spiritually poor. Jesus challenged his followers on many occasions to forsake all to follow him. Now I am not advocating irresponsibility, but I am challenging our western mindset and our inability to say ‘that’s enough’. We preach a message that never seems to leave this option open; we create an insatiable desire within the church to live each day with an obsession to gain more. The bible condemns this attitude over and over again, yet we as westerners never seem to get it, if we ever want to truly have peaceful relationships with the rest of the world, then we will have to change our mindset in these areas. Many Muslim countries see our materialist arrogance and use this as an excuse to reject ‘the Jesus of the west’ [though he was technically from the east!] We as the people of God need to return to our own ‘manifesto’ [the gospels] and live them out in reality, if not there will always be a Marx waiting in the wings with his own.
(1295) FOR AS THE HEAVENS ARE HIGHER THAN THE EARTH, SO ARE MY THOUGHTS HIGHER THAN YOUR THOUGHTS; AND MY WAYS HIGHER THAN YOURS Isaiah 55:9 the other night I caught an interview of Frances Schaffer on the Rachel Maddow show. Frances is the son of the famous Frances Schaffer senior, the prolific author/speaker of the 20th century who dealt with Christian worldviews. He wrote Christian Manifesto and How shall we then live, among other titles. Frankie and his dad were key leaders in the rise of the religious right and the moral agenda type groups. Frankie eventually converted to Eastern Orthodoxy and is now a vehement opponent of the religious right. First I want to commend him on his conviction of not being willing to abandon Christianity all together; some children of famous Christian leaders have taken that route, but Frankie [he calls himself Frances now, but for this entry I’m using the old title] has chosen a great Christian tradition to place himself in and for this he should be commended. But he is so vehement against the religious right that he equates it with the Muslim extremists. Now I believe that there are dangerous ideas that the religious right holds to, and that there are extreme elements that shoot abortion doctors and stuff like that. But to lump all the religious right with the radical Muslims is going too far in my view. Just like it would be wrong to lump all Muslims with the few who commit acts of terror. There have been Muslim Americans who have died on the battlefield defending the American side, we should not forget this. But Frankie just tore into all the religious right in a way that does more harm than good in my view. One of the reasons his father was so popular was because he dealt with Christian worldview issues, he was filling a void in the Evangelical world. After the Fundamentalist movement of the 20th century many Protestant believers were lacking a stable diet of ‘higher learning’ [to be nice about it]. There was this religious angst against many types of higher learning. The history of Protestantism in America shows a period where many of the great Protestant theologians [Edwards, etc.] accepted the idea that the mind and faith went hand in hand, but Protestantism for the most part would walk away from this heritage and begin seeing higher forms of learning as bad. The one bright light in the migration from Europe to the Americas was the teaching of the Dutch Reformed theologian Abraham Kyper; he wrote extensively on the Christian worldview and gave Protestants a good foundation to build upon. Well anyway Frances Schaffer also labored in this field. Isaiah said Gods ways are on a higher plane than ours, we often think and function for years at a certain level, and then God comes in and causes us to rethink the whole platform. It’s not so much more information at the current level, but it’s an overall paradigm shift from a previous way of seeing things to a whole new view of things. The philosopher William James describes it like this- He has a study much like my own, with maps and globes and books all over the place. He says when his dog comes into his study the dog sees everything that James sees, but the dog has no ability to understand what these things mean. Even though he ‘sees’ the stuff, he really doesn’t ‘see it’. Sometimes God opens our eyes to the things we have been staring at for years, when this happens we then see more fully what it means when Isaiah says ‘Gods ways/thoughts are higher than hours’ it’s like seeing stuff again for the first time.
(658)OVERVIEW OF AMERICAN CHURCH HISTORY- Let’s do a little overview of my story. When first coming to Texas I had a catholic upbringing but was pretty well ‘lost’. After truly coming to know the Lord I had the privilege of meeting believers from various backgrounds. I knew good Baptists, Assembly of God, Church of Christ and other good Christians. It didn’t take long to see how the more legalistic believers from all the above groups [some more than others] would view the ‘church down the block’ as either a cult or heretical. They would develop these views from sincere differences they saw from scripture over water Baptism, Gifts of the Spirit, Eternal Security and other important doctrines[I had a friend who would point to the statue of Mary in front of a catholic church. It showed other statues of kids kneeling and praying around Mary. He would say ‘Look, Idols worshipping Idols’!] The infighting from some of these brothers was really detrimental to unity in the Church. Many, like myself, would eventually move on in the Christian experience and continue to hold to the historic doctrines of Christianity while rejecting the strong sectarian mindset that can exist in many of these groups. I still see all of the above groups as Christian. I still actually hold to some of the basic tenets of the Baptist church, as well as the assemblies of God. You would even find me agreeing with my Church of Christ brothers on stuff. But for the most part I see many of these differences as divisive. Some ideas are important to discuss, some basic historic truths are worth dieing for! But not necessarily the ones these brothers have argued over. Other believers who have left the more independent churches will eventually become ‘anti Christian faith’ some will view all Christianity from a negative standpoint because of being burned by one of the above expressions of Christianity. As you study Church history along with the Bible you will begin to see the great revolution of the people of God and the reality of Christianity as the major hinge factor in world events for the past 2 thousand years. You can not trivialize the impact that Christianity has had on world affairs. Some recent books written by Atheists have tried to blame Christianity for all the ills of society, while at the same time others atheists will try to say that Jesus and his movement are a farce and have had little impact historically. Hey, you really cant espouse both of these views at once. The simple fact is Christianity has had a major impact on the world. To refute Christopher Hitchens recent book ‘God is not Great’ he tries to prove that Christianity and religion have done no good whatsoever and the world would be a better place without it. He is not honest about the facts. The truth [historically] is that Christianity has been the major force behind the most noble institutions in our country. The hospital system in the United States as well as the University system was founded by the Church. The major scientific thinkers of history have been Christian [or deist]. The majority of the founding fathers of our country were without a doubt Christian. It is common today for our Public schools to focus on Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson or George Washington when teaching on the founding Fathers. And because you will find certain non Christian statements from Franklin, yet he himself still embraced religion. But more from a Deist standpoint [belief in God while not being a Christian]. This small focus on a few of the fathers [there were at least 50 historic figures who would fall under the category of founding Fathers. Some actually started bible societies. Wrote their own version of the Bible and stuff like that] seems to leave the impression that the founding of our country was by men who were ‘fleeing Christianity’. To start a new world free from religious expression. This is in no way true. Most of the early settlers of our country were called ‘Puritans/Pilgrims’. ‘Pure’ from what? From religious expression? They got the name from being ‘Non Conformists’ under Queen Elisabeth’s rule in England. During the reign of Elisabeth England was dealing with the problem of the ‘Non Conformists’. These were the Christians in her realm who were Protestant, and they didn’t feel the ‘Protestantism of England’ went far enough in her reform. The Church of England was ‘too catholic’ for these brothers. So Elisabeth actually persecuted Protestant brothers under her reign, though she herself was considered to be the ‘Protestant Queen’ after her sister Mary, the infamous ‘bloody Mary’ martyred Protestants. You would think the Protestants under Elisabeth were happy, but they weren’t. Eventually Elisabeth would pass a law that told all the Protestant Pastors to keep wearing the catholic Collar on their vestments during ‘church services’. Eventually these ‘non conformists’ would get their name for not wanting to conform to these regulations. So these eventually would flee England. Some to Holland and other areas. Eventually to the Americas. This is the basic moral underpinning of the religious Puritans [pure form of Christianity as they saw it] who founded our country. In this background you will find the idea of ‘Separation of Church and state’ seen. Though our founding documents reference Christ and God many times, yet this phrase comes from a letter during this time. The phrase itself has been used in the hands of strict separatists as meaning something different from the original ideas of the fathers. Our constitution does have what is called ‘the establishment clause’ ‘Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise’ but if you read this in the context of all I just showed you, it is quite easy to see that they didn’t mean society should be free from all religious/Christian expression. But they used this language to protect the church from the intrusion of government interference. These fathers were fleeing England and a Queen who kept telling them to ‘conform to the states standards’. They wanted to make sure no state, not even the new one being founded, would ever tell the church how to run her affairs again. I know the other side [the strict separatists] have a different belief about the founding of the country. But this is simple history, you don’t have the option of changing the facts! This is also why Congress still opens in Prayer. Why the Ten Commandments are still found on the walls of government buildings. Why they still ‘have the gall to have our Senators sworn in on the Bible’! It is quite obvious that the majority of the founding Fathers were not atheists who were founding some new world that would be free from religion! Now, this new religious freedom allowed for the ‘starting of many churches/religions’. You would have the rise of many types of religious movements. The breakaway groups from both the catholic church as well as the protestant church would find new freedom in America. Many of these expressions are the churches that I mentioned at the beginning of this entry! But you would also see the rise of ‘cults’. The first major wave of ‘anti cultism’ seen in this country was the strong resistance in the early 20th century against the metaphysical cults. These are the groups known as ‘unity’ ‘Christian science’ or ‘theosophy’. These groups were seen as THE major threat to Christianity in the first part of the 20th century. You would have scholars from the universities, that were founded by Christians, writing against these movements. Princeton, the university from my home state, was one of the Universities that had these scholars. You would also have a strong anti catholic spirit among some of the writings of these Reformed scholars. These were good men who held faithful to what they still saw [and see!] as the major errors of Catholicism. This backlash and anti catholic spirit was seen in the real fear that Many had when John Kennedy ran for President. Kennedy would have to make it clear that his religion would not interfere with his allegiance to our country. The Pope would have no control over him in matters pertaining to state and government. Some feel this is what was behind his assassination, a strong anti catholic spirit. Of course we know this not to be true, Oliver stone [movie maker] has shown us the truth behind his assassination! [of course I had to put this in!] So this leaves us with a good country, with much religious freedom. This also has led to the freedom for one type of Christian church to bash another type. Even to view them as heretics! So the Christian church of our country is not forced to ‘love our brother in Christ’ by human law, but I think we could find another law in scripture that supersedes human law! Note- There is a ‘curse’ or judgment that believers bring upon themselves when they view other Christian faiths as in total error or apostasy simply because they are catholic, or traditional. I know and believe there are important differences that still need to be dealt with in love. I believe heresy should be dealt with. But I have seen on too many occasions how Christians ‘use’ their judgment on the traditional church in a way that blinds them to truth. How many times have I tried to show someone that Jesus was not about materialistic living. Though he told his followers he would meet their needs, yet he walked above the pursuits of this life. I would get responses like ‘Oh that’s that old tradition/religious teaching the Catholics teach. Vows of poverty and stuff like that.’ These believers sincerely cant see the major body of truth in scripture dealing with the warnings of money because they grasped an idea that all the Catholics or traditional churches are simply wrong. Proverbs says ‘don’t move the ancient landmarks that your fathers put down’ we need to be careful that our view of ‘those deceived Catholics’ is not a blind spot [or should I say log!] in our own eye! NOTE- If you think about it, the effect of the founding fathers writings, our constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Who would have thought these ‘documents from a revolution’ would have had such a major impact? Even today it is considered ‘heresy’ to question the Constitution. Is it a ‘living document’ that changes and grows with the times? Some conservatives will burn you at the stake for saying this! I believe a reason for the influence of these writings can be attributed to the same ‘idea’ as Paul’s letters. Paul wrote most of the New testament. These letters were not ‘university papers’ that Paul spent hours pouring over in some library. These were ‘documents from a Revolution’. Things written during a time of major world upheaval. The instituting of Gods rule thru this new King called Jesus! Writings produced from a Revolutionary mindset. I think we need to get back to laying everything down for this cause once again. We are living and writing from a ‘safe’ harbor. This explains the tremendous lack of authority in the things we are communicating!
(649) Let me pick up a little on the history/purpose of the church and kingdom. As the fledgling movement of Jesus followers were launched out after Pentecost, they went everywhere ‘preaching the word with signs following’. Gods ‘plan of salvation’ if you will included more than simple evangelism. Now, simple evangelism is very important! Some liberal trends of the social gospel of the early 20th century saw the importance of social action and would neglect the need for redemption on an individual basis. As the early church ‘preached the Word’ people in these areas of hearing would believe and thru baptism become outwardly marked as Christ followers. They were literally called followers of ‘the way’. Early believers were not setting up separate Christian social clubs that they called ‘local church’. They were the actual tabernacle that God would dwell in! As Paul will address the letters to ‘the churches’ he was addressing ‘the actual believers’ in these communities, not some separate ‘group’ that were defined by having a Pastor/Priest who was functioning as the ‘under shepherd’ in a way that each city had ‘the church I belong to’. You ‘belonged to’ the believers and the lord Jesus that were present in the community in which you lived. They were all ‘local church’. The Kingdom would be an outward reality of Jesus manifesting his works thru them as his body. The work of evangelism [making new citizens of this Kingdom] and the sending out of these new citizens [ambassadors] would go hand in hand. The church was present in society to impact and affect it for change. Social justice was a major part of the ‘prophetic voice’ of these ‘new people’ who were inhabiting the planet! They weren’t ‘starting churches’ in the sense of setting up ‘lecture halls’ so people could come and ‘do church on Sunday’. As time progressed [lots of time!] Christians in our country would begin seeing the need to ‘preach the gospel of the Kingdom’ and emphasize the importance of the church having a voice in society. You would find a funny dynamic taking place. Many of the strong independent church movements would get a hold of a ‘Kingdom message’ and without realizing it begin imitating both the ecclesiastical structures and programs of the ancient church! In essence many of these Protestants were rejecting the historic expressions of Christianity as seen in the Catholic Church, and then adopting the name ‘Bishop’ and building cathedrals [Atlanta] and begin impacting society in a way that Catholics have been doing for centuries. In essence they were seeing the need for a kingdom message and then mixing it in with their ‘501 c 3 Christian organization’. This would lead to the appeal for money from all the ‘rebellious Christians who are not tithing’ so the ‘church’ could fulfill her mandate to impact society thru ‘the church’. The better perspective [in my view] is to see the great reality of all of Gods people, under the headship of our high priest Jesus, to go forth and be the actual vessels whom God is using to touch the world. The simple strategy of Jesus to empower and entrust the Kingdom message with all who believe. To a degree the Catholic Church had the most influential ‘Kingdom church’ ever! In the sense of ‘institutional church’. After the fall of the Roman Empire [loss of power and influence] the Catholic Church would at one point in history become the sole arbiter in all things pertaining to religion and human govt. The ‘Kings of the earth’ would appeal to her to speak into the ongoing conflicts in the history of man. So in a strange way the 20th century ‘reconstructionists’ [Protestant ideas on the church being very involved in human govt.] were just babies in the sense that our catholic brothers ‘have been there and done that’.
(644) OVERVIEW OF NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHURCH. Pretty tall order! As I finish our study on John’s gospel, I am debating on how much New Testament study to plunge into. I know we will cover the letters and all, but don’t want to finish the whole New Testament in a year or two. I heard a few ideas these last few weeks that I want to cover. One was that we are called to be the ‘21st century church, not the 1st century one!’ Good point, needs to be clarified. People will say this to counteract the strong ‘organic church movement’ to which I am a part of. The best way to understand the ‘21st century church’ is to understand ‘church’. If you have the biblical view of church, as found in the ‘1st century bible’ you see church as a community of people. As she grows thru the centuries she will form and interact with each generation as a real ‘person’ changes with the times. She shouldn’t lose her fundamental message [reconciliation of God and man thru Christ] nor her fundamental nature! She is and always will be the people of God! So any development or ‘seeing her in the 21st century’ has to keep in mind the basic nature of community. If you lose this idea of her, and begin to define her as ‘mega church’ or huge Christian corporation, then you are not really sticking with the actual ‘person’ [Ecclesia] that she is. So any growth has to stick with this basic idea of the church as the corporate people of God. The expressions of mega church or ‘Sunday church’ are fine, just don’t lose the fundamental 1st century idea. It’ not so much a following of a model in as much as it is sticking to the organic person we see as defined by community, got it? Now as we proceed from the Gospel into the book of acts and the letters we do find the basic nature of church. Some have made it harder than it needs to be. For example, the whole area of giving. By now you guys should know my position on ‘tithing’. I believe its fine to give 10% of your money, it’s just the whole New Testament is filled with direct instruction on giving. It is always seen in the community context. The later ‘idea’ of tithing into ‘the church basket on Sunday’ as being ‘the local church storehouse’ is really a silly development and digressing away from the idea of community. Not so much ‘those wicked Sunday churches’ an idea seen in George Foxe’s preaching. He was the founder of the Quakers, he would call the ‘churches’ ‘steeple houses’ as he was challenging the mindset of ‘church’ as the building. You would also see the ‘Church of Christ’ emphasize ‘the church of Christ meets here’ as opposed to the word ‘church’ on their buildings. All good people seeing real truth. So as you read into Acts and the epistles you will see Gods people adapting to society around them while not losing the fundamental nature of being the corporate people of God. We must keep this ‘1st century revelation of Christ’s body’ just as much as keeping the ‘1st century revelation of Christ’. The ways we present the message can change, we don’t have to avoid modern technology or using corporate innovation as a means to advance the gospel. But we cant begin defining ‘church’ as the actual corporation itself! This seems to be the mistake of some who espouse ‘the 21st century church as opposed to the first century one’. So as we begin our way into the New Testament lets keep this in mind. We are going to learn about the great story of redemption, how God chose us and saved us by his grace. Being called the ‘people of God’ and partaking of all the blessings that were once limited to the commonwealth of Israel. Christ destroying racial barriers and ‘making in himself one new man’ from all races of men. Jesus himself being the preeminent ‘stone’ of this building. The singular ‘test’ of whether or not you are ‘one of the stones’ in this building will be defined by Jesus himself who said to Peter ‘upon this rock [your confession of me as Christ] I will build my church’. Jesus himself will be seen as the criterion of whether you are a believer or not. Yes, the message can be seen as ‘narrow minded’, some will challenge this idea ‘who do you think you are telling us we all need Jesus’? But the fact will remain that we all do! You will see thru out history that some will emphasize the teachings of Jesus more than the letters of Paul [Catholics and more orthodox churches] and the Protestants will become focused on Paul’s revelation as seen in justification by faith. While some see these as opposing views, I see them as 2 strains of truth that are destined to merge as Christ becomes more preeminent at the close of the present age. He will truly ‘bring all things together in him’ in ways that we don’t fully understand yet. So as we move ahead, lets fix our eyes on the ‘Captain of our Salvation’ and let him steer this ship the way he wants.
(635) Yesterday morning I got up early and prayed a weekly prayer that includes the nations. Part of this time goes like this ‘Lord I pray for all religions outside of the covenant of your Son. All Jewish people, that they would see Jesus their messiah. All Muslim people, that you would give them signs and prophetic visions and dreams to show them Jesus is the way’. Then this morning I had a dream that family members were converting to Islam. That they were being ‘attacked’ or influenced by the ‘spirit of Islam’. In the dream I felt helpless against this force. We went to sleep [in the dream!] and I awoke [still dreaming this] with a radical spirit of intercession. I began praying and breaking the power of Islam off of the family members that just a few hours earlier seemed to be fully lost to Islam. I felt this dream spoke to the effectiveness we have been having recently with Muslims. These last few weeks have given opportunity to share with a homeless Muslim Iraq war veteran. Good friend. Then a Muslim friend from England started conversing with me and asking how to become Christian. He is reading this site! It never dawned on me that these were fruits from the prayer time! Like I said before, I can be dense at times. Let me cover some church history. I have had someone argue with me about the history of Islam. Not a Muslim, but a Christian who was saying ‘why do you say Islam started in the 7th century, it started around the 11th’. My answer was ‘Muhammad lived in the 7th century’. Not to hard to see this. So I thought I should cover some history. During the time of the rise of Islam, the Christian church was already dividing from east and west. After Constantine [4th century Roman emperor] consolidated the Roman Empire in the 4th century he set up the capital city of the eastern empire, Constantinople [named after him]. As time progressed the western church would take on the form of Roman Catholicism, the eastern [Constantinople area. Modern day Turkey-Istanbul] would be known as ‘Orthodox’. Though the official split of eastern and western [Catholic-Rome!] churches occurred in 1054 AD, yet the division started years before. The official split is called ‘the great schism’ of the 11th century; it would not be until 500 years later that the church would have her ‘reformation’. The official reason for this split was over a rather silly thing. For centuries the Catholic church had an expression that said ‘the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father’ than they included ‘he proceeds from the father and the Son’. Well the eastern brothers didn’t like Rome telling them what to believe and used this as the official reason to ‘have the schism’. To be honest the divisions were coming for years. After the Roman Empire consolidated under Constantine, he tried to strengthen the eastern territories of his empire and for centuries you had the struggle for which region would be the most influential. At first you had 5 major areas that were divided under 5 main Bishops. As time went on the argument would be ‘which bishop has the most say so’ and it was really a power struggle. Finally Rome said ‘the bishop of Rome is the FIRST AMONG EQUALS [a term that many in the Protestant strain of the discipling movement would later embrace] he holds Peters seat’ and this is really where the divisions started. Eventually Muhammad would rise and Islam would take control of the eastern capital. This later became the reason for the crusades. The Catholic church wanted to regain the territories that she lost in the east. The eastern churches are very much Catholic in many ways. They also hold to a view of Christianity that sees man being ‘joined’ with God and becoming pleasing to God thru Christ’s grace uniting with us and making us like him. A perfectly scriptural view, but a different emphasis from the strong intellectual power that you read about from the western fathers of the church. The Catholic church is noted for her social action in ways that the eastern church is not. So both of these communions have good things to bring to the table. The Orthodox [eastern] churches would not be affected by the major social and political upheavals that took place in the west. The Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment had major impacts on western Christianity, while not affecting the eastern church in the same way. During the 13th—15th centuries you would have ‘pre reformers’ rise up in the western church. John Wycliffe, the great Catholic Priest who was at the center of learning in France would become known for his translating the scriptures into the common language. Then you have John Huss and John Knox [3 Johns, scripture says 3 fold cords are not easily broken!] who would have their own influence in western Christianity. At this time you had whole movements of believers who would be seen as neither ‘western or eastern’ but restorationist [the restoring of the early practices and beliefs of the church] Peter Waldo would be the Father of the Waldensians and in the 12th century you would have the Albigenses in the south of France. These groups would be looked upon as ‘cults’ [though the term was not used yet] by the traditional church. So you can see how the church has been growing and reforming ever since the first century. Even though we see many divisions that exist till this day, there are strides being made for unity. The eastern and western church are very close to‘re uniting’ once again. While I do not personally hold to the doctrine of the Pope being the occupier of Peter’s seat, I also see him as a Christian man who is striving for unity in Christ’s church. Some believe the whole attempt for outward unity is futile. The more ardent Protestants see it as ‘the one world church of the anti christ’ I reject that language out of hand. Well I hope you got something out of this short overview of world history [real short!].
(785)Let’s end this little excursion from our study in Judges and finish our look into the 20th century as one of ‘the Spirit of Pentecost’. During the 60’s you had what was known as the Charismatic Movement. On the west coast there was an Episcopal Priest who announced to his congregation that he experienced the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and began speaking in tongues. The area Bishop forbid the Priest to introduce his experience as one accepted by the denomination. Some of his congregants disagreed with this decision and took it upon themselves to contact the media. Soon word spread like wildfire. You also had an outpouring of the Spirit at Duquesne University. Some see this as the historic beginning point of the Charismatic movement. Basically the movement speaks of the gifts of the Spirit, specifically Tongues, breaking into and across denominational lines. Eventually the Catholic Church would put her stamp of approval on the movement. Which after all would be in keeping with their official doctrine. They have always believed the gifts of the Spirit to be available to believers in all ages. During the late 60’s early 70’s the Jesus Movement would spring up on the west coast and many hippies and flower children would ‘turn on to Jesus’. Chuck Smith and John Wimber [initially Ken Guliksen] would lead 2 of the most successful church movements of the late 20th century. Smith would head up Calvary Chapel and Wimber would take the lead in the Vineyard churches. You had Keith Green [musician] room mating with Randy Stonehill at the time. Keith was searching for answers, Randy would recommend him to attend a Vineyard bible study led by Ken Guliksen. Keith would finally accept the Lord at the study and become this on fire musician for the Lord. Though the music industry saw him as ‘a prize’ Keith would start ‘Last Days Ministries’ and relocate to Lyndale Texas [across the road from Youth with a Mission- YWAM]. He would sadly die in a plane crash with 2 of his children on board. In 1989 you had the mixing of the Vineyard with some of the Prophets known as ‘the Kansas City Prophets’. These were the brothers out of Kansas City who were part of Mike Bickles church. Now Metro fellowship in Kansas City. Mike is no longer the lead Pastor, he heads up ‘I.H.O.P’ International House of Prayer, a great group of young people who take turns praying 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Now Paul Cain would meet Wimber and declare that Wimber was the Apostle that the Lord was going to use for the ‘great end time revival’. Paul Cain was so accurate in his ability to know the details of people’s lives, and to predict earthquakes and supernatural signs, that many were convinced that what Paul said was 100% accurate. The ‘marriage’ between the Vineyard and the modern prophetic movement [which is usually seen to have started out of Kansas City with Mike Bickle and Bob Jones, Paul Cain and a few other Prophetic brothers] was debatable. Some Pastors in the Vineyard churches [Tom Stipe among others] would eventually feel their churches were suffering from a lack of true biblical Christianity. Many new believers were looking too much to dreams, visions and personal prophecies as the normal guides for their lives. These believers were straying from the more sure path of prayer, bible study and simple trust in God. Chuck Smith would early on disassociate from the more flamboyant signs of the movement. He would take charge and let his churches know that they were to stick with the verse by verse exposition of the word at the normal church meetings. The Vineyard would run with the ‘go with the Spirit’ type mentality. Eventually the split between the movement known as the ‘Toronto blessing’ ‘Laughing revival’ would occur when John Arnott, Pastor of Toronto airport Vineyard church [in Toronto Canada] would break away from the Vineyard oversight. John Wimber would sadly pass away and the leadership of the Vineyard would return back to a more scripture oriented church [note- John Wimber himself was going this direction before his death, it seems as if he saw too much into the words that were being spoken to him from Paul Cain. Paul is a very humble man, who has fallen on some very hard times these past few years. It was easy for Wimber to believe all the wonderful words given to him from Paul, Paul was operating at a level of gifting that was unheard of for the time. Paul was the only ‘throwback’ from the mid century latter rain movement. He was a student under William Branham and sometimes would fill in for him at his meetings. By all accounts Paul received much of the anointing that Branham operated in]. The century will close out with the Toronto movement, as well as the Brownsville revival [Florida] having a fairly large impact on the church at large, as well as having many critics of the more extreme manifestations of the revivals [Toronto- people barking like dogs and stuff]. I do find it interesting that the century began with a movement that was for the most part associated with crying and repentance and would end with one of laughter and revival. In the restoration books of the Old Testament you have a seen where the foundation is being laid for the rebuilding of the temple. You have the younger generation happy and excited over the prospects of a new temple, but the older generation is standing there and weeping because to them it doesn’t seem to live up to their memories of ‘the good old days’. You had weeping and laughing as legitimate reactions to a real work of God. I think the ‘new’ moves need to be careful that they don’t read too much into the historic aspects of their movements until history itself writes the final chapter. But the ‘old timers’ also need to be open to the possibility of God ‘rebuilding the temple’ [spiritually speaking here!] and allowing the ‘latter house to receive more glory than the former’.
(784)Let’s stick with a little contemporary church history. In the last century you had what many believe to be one of the missing ‘planks’ of restoration of truth. The renewed emphasis on spiritual gifts, the idea that Apostles and Prophets were still gifts that people walked in. During the middle of the century you had the ‘Latter Rain movement’ and the rise of platform healing evangelists. The popular T.V. movie Elmer Gantry showed how the various church communions reacted to some of these evangelists. Many ‘old time’ churches were shocked at the persona and public display of these men [and women!] Some were shown to be outright hucksters! But others did have quite extraordinary gifts. The ‘most gifted’ brother was William Branham. William was a simple uneducated man who grew up in squalor conditions. The story of his birth and the supernatural signs surrounding his life are pretty interesting [look it up on Google, you will find tons of stuff on him]. Branham was gifted with the supernatural ability to know things about people, he had the singular ability to read the exact details of peoples lives. While many brand him as a false Prophet, he did seem to be a humble man that was doing his best to serve the Lord. This does not mean that I agree with all of Branham's teachings or gifts! Other Christians who worked with Branham at the time would eventually leave his ministry out of a concern that his gifts might have been ‘mixed’ with other spiritual means of obtaining knowledge [like fortune telling and soothsaying]. Things that scripture forbids. I personally don’t know whether or not these accusations have merit to them, but it is important to see that these concerns were not coming from those who simply oppose all supernatural gifts. These concerns were voiced by some of Branham's friends. During this time you had a few famous traveling ministers. A.A. Allen, Jack Coe and a few others became famous on the circuit. Many today testify of how the Lord used them in their lives. There were also many rumors [some true] that these men struggled with Alcohol and other vices. The Assemblies of God denomination would eventually openly rebuke a few of them who had credentials from their denomination. Brother Branham [he did believe in Jesus!] would embrace some weird doctrines. He had questions about the Trinity [well, he actually denied the doctrine] and would be impacted by the ‘Jesus only’ Pentecostal movement. He eventually felt like the death of his wife and child was a result of him not being more willing to minister among the oneness groups. As the century progressed you had the waning influence of the platform preachers. Some would still function from this paradigm, but for the most part the men and their movements passed on. You do still find a sort of cultic following of believers who remain loyal to brother Branham. Some believe he is one of the 2 witnesses spoken about in the book of Revelation. How come Branham had such influence over people’s lives? There is no doubt that this can be attributed to the actual real manifestations that took place under his ministry. Even the critics agree that there was some very unexplainable stuff going on. Some of the teachings of this period still influence believers today. The ‘Manifest Sons of God’ doctrine taught that there was coming a generation of saints who would walk in the fullness of all that God has promised, some believed that this group would even attain immortality in this life. The book of Romans does say that the whole creation is groaning and waiting for the day the Sons of God would fully manifest, but in context this is speaking of the resurrection. So the Lord used some of these brothers in a limited way. For the most part they suffered from a lack of a good education [don’t want to be demeaning] but were avid students of the Word. But as you can see this combination of knowing bible verses outside of the historic context of Church history [how others viewed these verses before them] can lead to dangerous conclusions. I for the most part do not condemn these brothers as outright fakes [some were, but not all] but I see in them a willingness to do their best in serving the Lord, but to a degree became victims of the fame and style of public platform ministry. Jesus taught the danger of our own personalities becoming too central to the people we are ministering to. Some of these brothers fell into this ditch!
(783)Let me interrupt our Judges study a little. Right now [2008] there is another renewal/revival movement taking place in Florida [Lakeland]. The brother who was used as the ‘fire starter’ is Todd Bentley. I have tried to catch the services on T.V. and appreciate the presence of the Lord. Of course you can go on line and read terrible stuff about the revival. Once again some are 100 % against it, others are a little too exaggerated in their language in defense of it. What I mean is it’s easy to see a move of God and believe ‘this is the final move that will out do all other moves in the history of the church’ the ‘latter glory’ if you will. Let’s do a little history on moves of God. The present Pentecostal movement started at the beginning of the last century [for the most part]. You had a brother by the name of Charles Parham in Topeka, Kansas who had this little bible school. One day they experienced an unusual event. Gods Spirit fell on the students and they all ‘began to speak in other languages’. Now, to those who reject the modern gift of tongues as ‘gibberish’, I want you to see something. The ‘tongues’ [languages] of this experience were actually real foreign languages that the speakers never learned. They were very much like the ‘tongues’ at Pentecost! Parham took this as a modern day Pentecost and began sending these students to foreign countries, believing that they would be able to evangelize the world without having to teach the students/missionaries the foreign language of their field. Well this experiment flopped! Even the accurate Pentecostal historians will tell you this. But we are still left with the supernatural account of the kids having spoken in languages that they never learned. Parham was a strange type of fellow. He believed in the ‘seed of the serpent’ doctrine and a few other weird things. He was also very racist! He allowed a black student by the name of William Seymour to sit out in the hall and hear his teaching. He could not ‘intermingle’ with the white students in class. Seymour was a humble uneducated man who had a heart for God. Seymour would eventually find his ‘harvest field’ in Los Angeles. He began preaching at different churches and would experience strange manifestations equal to the things that Parham experienced. The churches did not appreciate this unlearned, one eyed black preacher introducing these strange ‘manifestations’ into their congregations and eventually Seymour rented a building on Azusa street. In 1906 this Azusa street mission would become ground zero for the outpouring of the modern day Pentecostal movement. Seymour was a very humble man by all accounts. He was known for sticking his head inside a box on the pulpit so the people wouldn’t see him instead of the Lord. The L.A. papers would run front page stories on ‘the strange tongues of Babel’ and stuff like that. Though Seymour was young and inexperienced at ‘running a revival’ he tried to the best of his ability to follow the Lord. He would contact Parham and ask him to come and check out the move. Parham came and totally denounced the wild meetings as spiritists run amok! Even though Parham had himself experienced the gift of tongues at his bible school, he saw the unrestrained nature of Azusa and condemned it. Seymour would never invite him back. The little mission building at Azusa would become the place of pilgrimage for 20th century Pentecostalism. Some were adamantly opposed to the outpouring, others 100 % supporters. After 100 years of seeing what the outcome would be, the historical significance is hard to refute. Some still see the worldwide spread of Pentecostalism as error. Others see it as a fulfillment of the scriptures that in the last days God would pour out his Spirit on all flesh. I see Pentecostals as part of the Body of Christ and in no way reject them as heretics. This doesn’t mean I agree with them in every doctrine! [As you can see when you read this site]. I feel we need to keep things in perspective when we feel God is moving in a new way. Is it possible that ‘this move’[any move that you happen to be in at the time] will have worldwide historic results? Sure. But because the Body of Christ is so wide and diverse in our day, it is harder for a single move to have the same type of impact as the original Pentecost. Should we judge the initial outpouring at Parham’s school as demonic? I don’t think so. The fact that they mistakenly took the gift as being missionary in nature does not disqualify the gift. In Act’s chapter 2 the gift of being able to speak in a language never learned did allow the immediate hearers to hear the gospel in their distinct languages. But the actual ‘missionaries’ [the hearers who went back to their towns] spread the message in their own known language. So in all types of moves you can find real fault, as well as real truth [most of the time]. We as the people of God should ‘test the spirits, because every spirit is not of God’ [1st John] while at the same time keeping an open mind like the head leader of religion in the book of Act’s, Gamaliel. He said ‘let’s leave the disciples alone for now, if this work is of God you will not be able to stop it. If it’s not of God it will fall by itself’. I personally believe in most of the renewal and revival movements of our day. I try not to get over excited by some of the language that tends to see these moves as ‘the last and greatest move of all time’. But I also avoid the constant attacks by the apologists who seem to never find a move they can agree with.
(1284) FOR A LAW SHALL PROCEED FROM ME AND I WILL MAKE MY JUDGMENT TO REST FOR A LIGHT OF THE PEOPLE Isaiah 51:5 I found out last week that one of my friends converted to Islam, he spent some time in New Jersey jails and rehabs and the Muslim influence is strong in Jersey. He explained to a friend how ‘God doesn’t share his glory’ and that he was taught that the Christian view of Jesus violates this truth. First, it would take too much time to overview the entire history of various beliefs and questions on different expressions of the Trinity, suffice it to say that there have been Christian groups from the first century up until today who have had difficulties with the Orthodox expression of the Trinity. I am Trinitarian, but understand how these various groups have had difficulty. Just to name a few; the Ethiopian Orthodox churches reject Trinitarian language. The Oriental Christian churches in general reject the language. The invading barbarians who attacked the Roman Empire were eventually converted to a form of Christianity that would reject Trinitarian language. The great Blasé Pascal thought it to have been a false teaching. I could go on and on with many groups who believed in God and Jesus but did not accept strong Trinitarian language. The point being, if someone thinks that all Christians hold the same views on the language, they are mistaken. I wrote a letter to my friend who converted to Islam, I simply shared the main difference between Christianity and Islam [and all religions], that Christianity teaches forgiveness and acceptance with God as a gift that comes thru the Atonement of Christ. Jesus died for men’s sins and rose again as a sacrificial atonement for man, Islam has some well meaning teachings in it but at the end of the day it is a religion that is legalistic. People attempt to gain Gods favor thru their own efforts; this is opposed to the Christian view of grace. I basically think it to be a red herring to use the language of the Trinity as a reason to reject Christianity and become Muslim, as I already stated there are many Christian groups who would agree with some of the issues that Muslims raise; this does not deal with the fact that man cannot atone for his own sins, man is unable thru any religious works to make himself right with God. The ‘law that proceeds from God’ to the nations is a law based on grace, not works. Paul calls it ‘the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus’ [Romans] he contrasts it with the law of works. Now the whole history of Justification by faith and how different Christian groups see it is another intramural war that rages within the church, N.T. Wright recently put out a book on it, John Piper wrote one in defense of the historic Reformation view- Wright’s view has some excellent points, but would be considered New Perspective. So there are differences in the way Justification by Faith is seen, but all groups agree that man is accepted by God based on the free gift of Grace that comes thru the Cross. Yes, Catholics and Protestants agree with this language, though there are other differences. The point today is I believe we as believers need to make clear the differences between law based religions and Christianity, Jesus offers free forgiveness based on his death burial and resurrection. Law based religions might seem noble at the start, but at the end of the day they lead to condemnation and frustration, they are a vain attempt by man to make himself pleasing to God- an impossible task.
(1273) 2ND KINGS 17 in some ways this is a transitional chapter; up until now foreign countries attacked and suppressed Israel, but in this chapter we see the first real captivity of the people as a whole. Hoshea the king over the northern tribes [Israel] rebels against the king of Assyria who had them under tribute. So the king of Assyria puts Hoshea in jail and besieges Israel for 3 years, they take the city [Samaria] and they remove the majority of the people out of the land. He also places foreigners in the land to repopulate it. These foreign nations eventually mix in with the remnant that remained and these descendants are what we read about in John’s gospel, they were considered ‘half breed’ Samaritans. Now after the new inhabitants settle in the ‘Lord sent lions among them’. The people see this as judgment from God and request the Assyrian king to send them a priest so they could learn the ways of the God of the land and not die. This priest arrives and to some degree teaches these pagans the true worship of God, they of course kept their pagan beliefs as well, but it is interesting to see how the Lord even used a judgment scenario to redeem people. Okay, last night I was reading some of the history of the 18th-19th centuries and how after the French Revolution and the era of Napoleon many Europeans began to fear the idea of total and free Democracy, there was a sort of romantic musing upon the good old days of the Monarch. Many Frenchmen longed for the stability of the old Catholic church, these were called ‘Ultramontanists’ which meant ‘beyond the mountains- Alps’ and stood for their desire to re attach with the old Roman church in a way that allowed the church to reassert a global oversight over France as it used to have before the Revolution and Reformation. Part of the fear had to do with the nation states being their own sovereign, that whatever the nations wanted to now do they could do without any outside oversight; in essence part of the role of the Roman church was to provide a type of ‘united nations’ oversight over the individual states. Ultimately Democracy would eventually prevail and the new world of the Americas would be the first nation to adopt Democratic principles right from the start. When reading the history of the world, often time’s revisionists put their own spin on stuff. For instance we often read the history of Darwin in the latter half of the 19th century and see him as some enlightened figure who stood up against the bigotry of the church. But a generation or 2 before Darwin you had many ‘enlightened’ Evangelicals who fought for human rights and the dignity of man. William Wilberforce and the ‘Clapham community’ were men who used their political and social status as a means of freeing the Black man from the horrendous slave trade in Britain. Clapham was a small town around 3 miles outside of London; the town was sort of an elite place for the higher ups of society. Sort of like the Hamptons. Yet it was from this area in the late 18th century that many of the modern programs of the Evangelical movement were launched. The wealth and influence of these men launched the first bible societies, they started mission organizations for the poor; and even tried to instill a schema of social justice in their business dealings [the head of the East India trading company was part of the group]. These men wrought good social change and fought for the rights of the Black man, for him to be treated as a human and not some type of lower class chattel property. Darwin’s ideas would put into print the racist ideas of those who opposed the outlawing of slavery as a legitimate trade. Those who resisted freeing the slaves [both in Britain and the colonies] believed that the Black man was an inferior race to the White man. Darwin taught these beliefs openly in his books; he believed the Black race was proof of Evolutionary theory, that the Blacks proved to us that there were intellectually inferior races of men that did not advance along the more educated road of White men. The point being that a full 70 years before Darwin you had very influential Christian men who fought for the rights and freedom of Black men, and yet history normally portrays Darwin as the person who fought the bigotry of the church in his noble journey for truth. Okay, God allowed his people to be taken captive, they rebelled against him and they lost their freedom as a people, yet they still had a history of great and noble deeds, they accepted proselytes into their nation and treated the poor in their land with respect. It would be wrong to view the entire history of Gods people [both now and then] from the lens of the sins and wrongs that occurred, yes the church has made her mistakes and it sounds noble to say ‘lets cast off all the restraints of religion’ but in the end you might wind up looking past the Alps for some help.
(1270) CONC. 2ND KINGS 15- Azariah the king had a long reign and also was a leper. We read earlier how Naaman the leper was a great military leader. A few weeks ago as I was channel surfing I caught a biography on Father Damien, a Belgian Priest who went to Hawaiian in the 1800’s to serve Gods people. Hawaii had a problem with Leprosy at the time and they eventually quarantined the lepers to an island named Molokai [sp?]. Father Damien used to visit the island and eventually requested permission to stay on the island and serve the people. He eventually caught leprosy himself and wrote how he so identified with the people that it was only fitting that he should die from the common disease of the people he loved. The next week I read an article or 2 on Father Damien, it just so happened that he was up for being canonized as a Saint by the Pope. So a few stories covered some of the controversy that surrounded him; some accused him of sleeping with some of the women on the island and they said that’s how he got sick. Other critics said he wasn’t really as dedicated as the stories portrayed; that he actually traveled to a part of the island where normal people lived and then he would later go back to the side where the lepers were. So the critics had their reasons, some of the critics were sincere in their beliefs and did not intend for their critiques to be made public. So to be honest reading these stories did cause me to doubt some of the heroic things I saw in the biography. All in all Father Damien was made a ‘Saint’ and in order for this to have happened under Catholic teaching the stories about father Damien’s infidelities had to be considered untrue. I actually found it fitting in a way that a man could still be recognized and honored even if he had these failings. Officially the church said these stories were false, but they might very well have been true and yet the good work Father Damien did was still honored. Now I in no way want to leave the impression that this would be some sort of accuse for sin, I just thought it fitting that the man was still honored even with the question out there about his faults. King Azariah ruled a long time [52 years] and yet he had a disease that was considered like having aids. There was a stigma to it. The people on Molokai were quarantined there because they were actually following the rules given in the Old Testament on how to deal with leprosy. In Jesus day you saw the same thing apply, people had to be separated from the population and there were cleansing rules for the houses they lived in and stuff like that. So in a primitive way the Hawaiians did their best to deal with the problem. Yet God shows us that some of his great leaders, men he used to do good things, also suffered from physical ailments that were considered tragic. In Isaiah 53 the bible says ‘it pleased the Lord to bruise him, thru his suffering my righteous servant shall justify many’. Jesus of course suffered by the will of God and God saw the things he was going thru, these things were the very acts that bought our redemption! Father Damien saw his affliction and eventual death as some type of redemptive price that he would pay for his efforts to redeem the people of Molokai, in essence ‘it pleased the Lord to bruise him, and thru his suffering he justified many’.
(1266) 2ND KINGS 13- Israel is under oppression from Syria, they cry out to God and he delivers them. But they have a diminished army when all is said and done. In the New Testament Jesus said wise kings take inventory of their forces; when one army comes up against another, wise kings look at the match up and if they think they can’t win they make arrangements for some type of peace. Strength isn’t always about how much force you have or can display, sometimes it’s realizing your limits and having the wisdom of not letting a bunch of your soldiers die for a lost cause. In this chapter we also see the death of Elisha, it’s been over 40 years since his last true public appearance, here at the end of his life the king comes and feels overwhelmed. Elisha was a true stabilizing force for the nation; the king knew he had an experienced prophet who could lend support when the time called for it. But now he realizes he will have to go it on his own, sure he had other prophets around; but they were young guys, still dealing with inexperience and stuff. It’s not that they were of no value, but you could tell that they were going to go thru some learning curves in the years ahead and Elisha had already been thru all that. So Elisha encourages the king and says ‘take your bow and shoot thru the east window’ so he does this prophetic act and Elisha tells him he will overcome the enemy from the east [Syria]. Then he tells him to stomp the ground with the arrows, so he does it 3 times. Elisha says he should have done it 5 or 6 times! But because you were a little lackluster you will only have a partial victory over your enemy. And last but not least Elisha dies and is buried and some brothers bury one of their dead in the same grave and as soon as the body touches Elisha the guy comes back to life. Elisha was raising brothers from the dead after he died! What do we make from this? Various Christian churches put different emphasis on what the dead can do; relics, praying to those who have passed on. I want only to stress the biblical importance of the body. In scripture the body is a holy thing, God himself dwells inside the bodies of believers. The New Testament doctrine of the resurrection speaks to the importance of the body. In Greek thought the body was seen as evil, a temporary ‘prison’ that the soul/mind was captive in until death. Some of these beliefs [Greek Dualism] did affect the thinking of the church over the centuries. Many good theologians have corrected these mistakes over the years [Augustine, Reformers, Etc.] They showed us that the body itself is not evil, but that when the bible speaks about ‘the flesh having no good thing in it’ it is speaking about ‘the fleshly/carnal nature’ not the physical body. But some who embraced Greek Dualism interpreted these verses as saying the actual body is evil. In Romans Paul says to give our bodies up to God as living sacrifices, HOLY AND ACCEPTABLE to God, which is our reasonable service [worship]. So the body is actually referred to as holy in this passage. Elisha obviously had some ‘residual’ anointing going on, as soon as death touched his body there was enough of Gods Spirit present to raise a guy from the dead, how much more so for those of us who are still alive.
(1258) WHAT LASTS? - These past few weeks while praying early in the mornings, I have been meditating on verses like ‘the steps/paths of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he delights in his way’. David said he desired to always dwell in Gods ‘tabernacle’, while thinking on these verses I felt like the Lord was speaking to me about the effects we have, the planting of his word in regions. I even began thinking about the fact that we will die, and the people we minister to will pass away, but in some sense the words we taught will remain. In essence the thing that will last is the gospel and truth that is sown, not the institutions, or even the people, but the word. Now John says because we have the word in us we will abide forever, that is the word of God will raise the dead up some day and they will endure forever; but it’s the word of truth that is lasting. So anyway I felt like the Lord was directing me to read Isaiah, I read the first 10 verses of chapter 40 and the theme goes like this ‘all flesh is like grass, it will pass away; but the word of God endures forever’ basically exactly what God was speaking to me. This section also speaks of John the Baptist ‘prepare the way of the Lord, make a straight highway/path for him in the desert’ this was along the lines of ‘creating a path/ place for God’s word to flow’. Isaiah also has the famous verse ‘you will be called the restorer of paths to dwell in’. I felt like God was telling us to lay down some paths, have consistent areas where you faithfully teach and speak truth and these areas will ‘abide forever’ that is your impact will affect many generations to come. Right after the 16th century Reformation you had what is referred to as the Enlightenment, or the ‘age of reason’. Many thinkers began to challenge the institutional church [and institutions in general] and believed that reason and rationality would lead the way. In France [1700’s] Paris became a center of thinking for these Deists. These men were smart enough to realize that the total denial of God was too ridiculous to accept, they instead embraced Deism. Deism is a type of belief that said God started the ball rolling, but he left the rest on auto pilot; the same belief that the Greek philosophers embraced. Now, one of the famous ‘Philosphes’ [sic] was a man by the name of Voltaire, he is well-known as an infamous atheist today, but he did not totally reject God. These men did have tremendous influence and they produced the French Encyclopedias which backed up their cause. Eventually they would overthrow the Catholic Church and kill the king in their mad rush towards ‘reason’. They were wrong on their basic understanding of reason and rationality as they applied it to the church. They believed that rational thought meant ‘naturalistic thought’ that is in order for things to be rational, they could not be supernatural. They were wrong, in fact those who would later take the next step into full atheism would deny the laws of reason and logic all together. I saw Richard Dawkins do an interview the other day, he is one of the popular atheists of our day. These men who reject God accept a view of creation that violates the laws of logic; they teach/believe that all things came from ‘no-thing’ a scientific impossibility. This idea violates the law of ‘reason’ known as the law of ‘non contradiction’. This law states that a thing cannot be and ‘not be’ at the same time and in the same relationship. For all things to have come from nothing [self creation] would mean that all things created itself. It would have to 'have been’ before it was. This common system of belief is absolutely irrational, even though the atheist believes it to be rational. To believe that God is a self existent being who created all things does not violate the laws of logic, you might think it does, but it doesn’t. For someone to have existed forever does not violate the classic laws of logic. So these thinkers who thought that their rejection of God was ‘rational’ were in fact wrong. Their ideas led to effects that were horrendous, they in effect ‘planted seed’ [bad doctrines] that would outlast them and their generation, their bad ideas had bad consequences. But the truth of God and his kingdom have also been ‘planted’ in the world, these seeds will last forever. If you want to effect society for good, then plant the seeds that will have an eternal impact, for ‘he that does the will of God will abide forever’ [1st John].
(1255) 2ND KINGS 8:7-29 Elisha goes to Damascus and the king of Syria hears about it, he sends his servant to inquire ‘of the prophet’ whether or not he will get well from some sickness. The servant goes and finds Elisha and Elisha says ‘yes, he would recover. But instead he will die’. What ? Elisha sees that the sickness would not be fatal, but that the king will be assassinated! The servant in front of him will be the killer. So Hazael goes back to the king and says ‘he said you would get well’ true enough, but he left out the part where he was going to kill him! So the next day he does the deed and becomes the king. A few things, I find it interesting that the Syrian king had no problem receiving Gods prophet. They believed in prophets! Now, they did not have a ‘Christian/Judeo’ culture, but they had a religious background that accepted ‘messengers from God’. In today’s world the church needs to take advantage of the willingness of other world religions to listen to prophets. We need to appeal as much as possible to the Muslim world and use any agreement on religious things as a tool to share the gospel. Right after the 16th century reformation the world would embark on a couple hundred year age of exploration and colonization. The Protestants were good at exploring the seas and impacting Europe, but they failed at reaching the Far East. Instead the Catholic Church had great success thru the Jesuits at impacting the Far East. They would make inroads into Japan and China and eventually take the gospel to the influential city of Peking. The problem arose when the Dominicans and Franciscans [Catholic orders] came in after them. They felt that the Jesuits were too accommodating in mixing in the religious beliefs of the east along with Christianity. Many Chinese believers were still practicing a form of worshipping dead ancestors and stuff like that. The Jesuits justified this by seeing these things as cultural beliefs and felt like allowing them to ‘keep their culture’ along with the faith was okay, the Dominicans and Franciscans disagreed and took the argument to Rome. Eventually this disagreement would leave a bad taste with the leaders in China and all Catholic expressions of the faith would be banned. This is called Syncretism, the mixing of religious beliefs. Now, why get into this? Christians should appeal to the willingness of Muslims and other world religions to hear religious voices. Both Jews and Muslims believe in Jesus, now they don’t believe the way Christians believe, but we should take advantage of this basic belief when appealing to them. Muslims reject the doctrine of the Trinity, but a careful study of history shows us that the actual Trinity they are rejecting is not the Christian understanding. Muhammad was actually rejecting a skewed view of the Trinity that saw Jesus and God and Mary as the Trinity. Obviously a pretty big mistake. So we as believers should be willing to correct and give a word to the ‘Muslim messengers’ when they come looking for answers. We should give them credit where credit is due, like their development of apologetical arguments in the Middle Ages [the Kalaam cosmological argument] but at the same time present the uncompromising gospel of Jesus Christ to them. I side with the Franciscans and Dominicans on this one.
(1248) AX HEADS THAT FLOAT!- 2ND KINGS 6:1-7 The prophets tell Elisha that their current ‘dwelling place’ is too small, they request permission to go to the Jordan and build a new dwelling. Jordan in scripture represents more than just a river that John baptized people in. In the history of Israel Jordan has been a type of crossing over from a previous identity and becoming mature and responsible as Gods people. It was a cutting off from the old land and economy and things they trusted, and coming into a new kingdom, one ruled by God. This also played a role in Johns baptism, Israel knew what Jordan meant; John was telling them to leave their old world mindsets and step into a new kingdom. So the prophets go and build a new place by the Jordan. One of the brothers dropped an ax head into the water and panics ‘Oh no, I lost the ax head, it was borrowed’. Elisha brakes off a stick and throws it into the water and the head floats, King James say ‘it swam’. So the brother got the ax head back. How do we relate stories like this and make them applicable to our day? I know, let’s say you were working at a building site and dropped the power saw in the water, and… Well not really. The bible has lots of ‘unorthodox’ stuff in it. I mean Paul sent handkerchiefs to sick people and they were healed. Jesus turns water into wine. Ax heads float. Our Christian experience very much entails supernatural stuff. The other side of the coin is ‘the fake stuff’. Recently the author Dan Brown released another book on supernatural stuff, he wrote the previous best seller ‘The DaVinci code’. These books appeal to mans natural desire for supernatural stuff. The problem with Dan brown is he mixes all types of fairy tale stories in with some valid points. The average reader can’t really tell the difference. I have a book here in my study titled ‘the lost books of the bible’. I bought it years ago for a few dollars at half price books. It really is a treasure; I mean it does have great books from antiquity in it, to get it for a few dollars was a great deal. Now, some of the books were legitimate contenders to have possibly made it into the bible. The epistle of Barnabus, the Didache, possibly the Shepherd of Hermes. There were a few books that the early church debated about including in the canon. But you also had a plethora of obviously fake stuff. The Gnostic writings were well known as cheap imitations of the real thing. These writings are from the late 2nd, 3rd centuries. No legitimate argument was ever made about these writings; all Christians rejected them as being authoritative. But the Dan Brown stories have people thinking that these writings were at one time up for possible inclusion into the canon, that’s just not so. How do we tell the difference between stuff that’s historically reliable and stuff that isn’t? In the field of historiography [looking at ancient writings and weighing their legitimacy] you have scholars who have spent years doing this sort of thing. You look at the actual recording of the events, were they written down fairly closely to the event? Did the authors know the people they were writing about, were they eyewitnesses? How many manuscripts are left? Were they widely accepted? There are real ways to determine stuff like this, the bible stands head and shoulders above all other ancient writings. The Greek New Testament has over 5 thousand original manuscripts. The only other work that comes close is Homer’s Iliad, it has a little over 6oo. Most others have around 10-20. If you include the Latin versions [and other languages besides Greek] you have around 25 thousand copies. The evidence is overwhelming. Now this does not speak to the inspiration of scripture, but it shows us that the bible itself is a highly reliable document when measured by historical standards. What about the Gnostic wrings? They do not stand the test of time in this way. The point being Dan Brown might have piqued the interest of many novice readers of history, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just Christians should be able to give a defense of their faith and appeal to a broad range of actual proofs that defend their position. Hey, if you want interesting stories, come ‘back to the bible’ it has ax heads that can swim for heaven’s sake!
(1246) 2ND KINGS 4:38-44 Elisha has a ministry to the younger prophets; they see him as a father figure in a way. He prepares a ‘great pot’ of food for them, but one of the inexperienced prophets accidently picked a poisonous plant and put it in the pot. Once they start eating they realize that they have all been feeding off of something that is damaging, they panic! Elisha quickly puts another ingredient in the stew to undo the bad effects. Okay, I see a parable here. Often time’s good young men are feeding from sources that have much good in them. These sources believe Gods word, confess it regularly, they have much good in ‘the pot’. But because of inexperience some bad things get into the pot. These bad things have a way of infecting the entire meal. When you first start eating from the pot, you don’t realize it’s bad. When someone tries to tell you there is some bad stuff in the pot, the normal reaction is ‘how dare you tell me that I have been duped! Who do you think you are, there is much good in this pot’? But eventually after the dust settles down, they recognize the experience of the older prophet and allow him to ‘add his meal’ to the pot. I want to encourage all of the ‘younger prophets/leaders’ don’t be too willing to eat everything in the pot, there are many sources of teaching and preaching that are very abundant in today’s church world, I mean it’s a big pot, but it’s takes discernment to know that sometimes bad weeds get into the pot. Let mature leadership add their part, it often neutralizes the bad stuff. And the last miracle in the chapter has Elisha multiplying the loaves and grain for the prophets. He does a multiplication miracle like Jesus did in the New Testament. The church went thru a stage where she rejected the miraculous stories in the bible, this period took place in the late 19th, early 20th century. It was called liberalism/higher criticism and it arose primarily out of the universities in Germany [Marburg being a main one]. Men like Rudolph Bultman reacted to enlightenment thinking and tried to create a view of scripture that still had value, but was not to be taken literally when it came to the miracles. This was called ‘de-mythologizing’ they used the word ‘myth’ to mean stories that had good moral value, but weren’t meant to be taken literally; sort of like a parable. So these brothers would say that Jesus really didn’t multiply the loaves and fish, but that he appealed to mans better instincts and the people all shared their food with everyone else. Or that the parting of the Red Sea was really the ‘Reed Sea’ and stuff like that. Some still hold to these types of things, but for the most part this way of seeing scripture is no longer a popular view. Elisha had some supernatural stuff going on, there was no reason to reject or disbelieve the things that happened, but this does not mean that there is never a time for correction and reproof. Many who operate in these gifts are very limited in their understanding and grasp of scripture. I don’t want to sound condescending, but the history on this stuff is out there; many have gone off the deep end doctrinally while operating in supernatural gifts. Elisha was prophetic, but he also knew when it was time to add ‘some meal’ to the pot, to put some stuff in that would neutralize the poison. I think we need some meal.
(1244) 2ND KINGS 4:1-7 A wife of the prophets whose husband died asks Elisha for help. She is in debt and the creditors have come to take her sons as payment. Elisha asks her what she has in her house; she says a pot of oil. He tells her to go borrow empty pots from her neighbors and go in her house and shut the door and fill the empty pots. She fills them all by a miracle and he tells her to sell the oil and pay off the debt, and use the rest to live off of. This chapter has a few more miraculous things that remind us of the ministry of Jesus, we will do it tomorrow. But this miracle shows us the ability of God to ‘take little’ and make it go far. Jesus does this with the loaves and fish. Some see these miracles as Gods way of telling us he will increase our material wealth, after all he gave this woman a goose that lays golden eggs! I see these stories thru a different light; Jesus was showing us that ‘our little bit’ can go very far. In the stories of Jesus multiplying the bread and fish, the disciples actually tell Jesus ‘how can we feed the multitudes, we don’t have enough money’? He shows them that they don’t ‘need enough money’ all they need is him! When people read the bible with their ‘pair of glasses on’ they naturally see these stories in ways that justify their preconceived ideas, we need to let God change these ideas.
Now to the book ‘Everything must change’ by McLaren. I read a few more chapters and thought I’d talk. Brian compares the conventional view of the gospel with the Emergent view. He seems to be too critical of some of the basic elements of the gospel. He kinda speaks condescendingly about original sin and Jesus death saving us from God’s wrath and how these things apply to God’s chosen. He actually states the gospel fairly well, but he does it in a critical way. He then states the Emergent view and shows how Emergent’s see a global justice picture for all people. I don’t see the need to reject the first view in order to embrace the second. He uses an example from the gospels and Mary's Magnificat to prove his point. He shows us the expectation of natural Israel when they saw the appearing of the Messiah thru a nationalistic lens; true enough. He then uses this example to show us that the conventional view of Jesus and personal conversion is missing the point, that the true ‘framing story’ is about social justice in the nations. I think you can take the story the other way around; that Jesus actually corrects the immediate expectation of Israel and their nationalistic view and tells them ‘the kingdom of God must first begin in you’. In essence Jesus interjects the ‘conventional view’ and the need to deal with ‘original sin’ before they can expect any outward changes in society. I am not sure why Brian seems to be so against the doctrine of original sin, the only thing I can imagine is he has read a lot of social gospel material and 19th, 20th century liberal theology. These teachings were very much against original sin because they felt it instilled in man a sort of hopelessness to effect society as a whole. The liberal theologians rejected classic expressions of original sin because they felt these doctrines gave to man an excuse to not work for change and social justice in society. Good men like Charles Finney embraced these beliefs. The only problem with this is the bible most definitely teaches the doctrine of original sin! ‘In Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive’ ‘As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; so thru the righteousness of one man [Jesus] shall many become holy’ [Romans, Corinthians]. The doctrine of original sin is biblical, and being saved from Gods just wrath thru the atonement of Jesus is the heart of the gospel. I accept McLaren’s call for believers to be more concerned and active on the social justice seen, and he does make some good points about the kingdom of God and how it’s much greater than the reductionist ‘me and Jesus’ view. But I disagree on his approach that the conventional expression of the gospel needs to change. Jesus kingdom does begin with the fundamental doctrines and beliefs of redemption and God restoring man back to God thru the atonement, to discard these truths and to replace them with ‘another framing view’ in my mind is a big mistake.
(1242) Read a few chapters from Brian McLaren’s ‘everything must change’ thought I’d comment. I like Brian’s writing style, I agree with him on believers needing to be challenged to see things differently, but I disagree on some of his ‘everything’s’. He challenges the idea of objective thinking as defined as foundationalism. He explains well the questioning of modern intellectuals after the world wars and Holocaust of the 20th century. He shows how certain thinkers began looking for answers to the problem of society’s failure as seen in these events. He also shows how some blamed the events on ‘foundationalism’ which is a way of ‘seeing things’ [epistemology] as defined by Rene Descartes. These thinkers diagnosed the problem as society’s acceptance of absolutes, they felt that this led to an ‘overconfidence’ in right and wrong and this in turn allowed for these atrocities to happen. Many modern thinkers would disagree with this conclusion. I find it interesting that Brian makes some statements about Evolution that seem to say he accepts the theory, but yet he fails to see the role that Social Darwinism played as a precursor to the Holocaust. You could make the opposite argument that it was the rejection of absolutes, and the rise of liberal theology from the universities in Germany that led to these events. Many scholars began questioning Gods truth and laid a foundation that said ‘we really can’t trust Gods truth’ [or even know it]. To be honest these debates are a little philosophical and I didn’t think Brian would go down this road, but he does so I will deal with it. Many ‘post moderns’ believe that one of the things that must change is the ‘old’ [what is termed modern] way of thinking. These new thinkers assert that truth itself, as an absolute thing that people can know for sure, is out of mans reach. They question the modern way of thinking that teaches there are certain absolutes [preconceived ways of thinking that everyone accepts]. These new thinkers say this ‘foundationalism’ is the problem. Did the enlightenment invent this mode of objectivism? No. Thinkers from Aristotle to Aquinas to Descartes all approached thinking this way. It was defined more clearly during the enlightenment period. But this is a philosophical debate that goes on in these various camps. You have had very smart people disagree on these things. The great theologian Karl Barth would say you are not truly educated until you can ‘affirm both sides of an argument, accept contradictory definitions of the same thing’ many believe this would lead to lunacy! The two greatest theoretical physicists of the last century also disagreed on this. Neils Bohr would say that you can have two contradictory truths about a subject, and they could both be true, Einstein disagreed. So these things have been around for a while, many of the eastern religions teach the same [Zen]. So I would disagree with Brian on this, but do agree with him on the need for believers to expand their concerns from simple ‘going to heaven when I die’ concerns, to social justice concerns in the nations. He does give some good examples along these lines.
(1239) CATHEDRAL OF THE MIND- I came across this phrase the other day while reading some church history, I liked the idea that it expressed. These last few years I have ‘weaned’ myself off of the standard preaching shows. But I have watched/listened/read from theologians, both Catholic and Protestant [primarily from the Reformed tradition]. I include Eastern Orthodoxy under the subtitle of Catholic [though they would see it the other way around]. Now, the Christian church has had a voice of justice to the nations for many centuries. The Catholic Church gets credit for having a system in place that can speak cohesively and with authority to the nations. The Protestant church has yet to achieve this type of unity. But there are many noble scholars and teachers from the Protestant tradition that the average Protestant is unfamiliar with. Most of the preacher friends I know and have fellowshipped with over the years have spent lots of time listening and learning from the popular media channels, the books read and programs watched are for the most part modern success teachings. Much of it is void of the gospel as seen in the New Testament. During the Reformation you had a transition from the ‘church meeting’ that went from sacrament/Eucharist as being the central theme of the meeting, to preaching/pulpit as becoming the center. While this was a noble attempt to get the average church goer back to Gods word, it also produced a passivity in the life of the average believer. He became accustomed to thinking worship primarily consisted of going to a building and hearing a lecture. So even though the ancient Mass had some problems, the New Protestant church service had some of their own. Now, the ‘cathedral of the mind’- the manifold wisdom that exists in the intellectual mind of the church is tremendous. But you really can’t access it unless you read and learn from the classics. There is a verse that says ‘son, cease to listen to the teaching that leads you astray’ the Christian needs to make a conscious effort to ‘cease to listen’ to some stuff. Now I am not advocating the boycotting of any contemporary preachers, but to truly become educated we need to choose wisely. Many of the Catholic voices have tremendous wisdom, but to listen to them you need to acquire a different type of ear. Father Groeschel says listening to the Protestant sermon is often like trying to get a drink from a fire hydrant. He doesn’t mean to offend, but I understand where he is coming from. To listen to certain scholars you need to develop a new intellectual capacity that contrasts the average way Protestants learn [the preaching of the word]. I do believe there are important doctrinal differences between Catholics and Protestants, that’s why I am still a Protestant. But many times Protestants are misinformed on some of these things. Bishop Fulton Sheen used to say ‘there are 10 thousand people who hate what they think is the Catholic Church, only a few actually hate the church’ while he might be overstating his case, I get his point. For the believer to truly understand why he associates with either the Catholic [Orthodox] or Protestant wing of Christianity, he first needs to develop an appetite for true learning, there are many areas of knowledge and wisdom that the average believer needs to become familiar with. God does not require all believers to become intellectuals, but he does want us to love him with all of our hearts, souls, minds and might. Do you love God with your mind?
(1238) PSLAMS 37- I have been meditating on this Psalm for the past few days, it speaks to our day ‘fret not thyself because of evildoers, for those who seem to prosper in what they are doing’. Recently we have had the political storm over ACORN, the community group who has it’s hands in all types of things. They actually have done some good in helping the poor, but the conservatives finally got them! What do you expect when your people offer help to a fake pimp and prostitute when they are looking for ‘housing’? Oh my, how have we fretted over the wicked. Or ‘a little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many wicked’ last night I was reading the bio’s of John Wycliffe and John Hus, the two great ‘pre-reformers’. Wycliffe preached/taught out of Oxford England and would contrast the riches and wealth of the Pope with the poverty of Jesus and his men. He taught the ‘true church’ were those who knew God and were part of the spiritual community of believers, not limited to any earthly institution. He would send his poor preachers out 2 by 2 and they would infiltrate England [they were called Lollards]. Hus would read the writings of Wycliffe and lead Bohemia down the same road. Hus preached at the influential Bethlehem church in Prague and also had influence at the university. These men believed that ‘the poverty of the righteous would go further than the riches of many wicked’. They truly turned their world upside down while rejecting the idea that we all need to become rich in order to have real influence. This Psalm says the meek will inherit the earth and delight themselves in the abundance of peace. The wicked might seem like he’s spreading out like a huge tree, but his efforts are temporary. Jesus said the kingdom of God was like planting a small seed and it becoming a huge tree, are you looking to plant ‘a huge tree’? We often view the kingdom thru God using us to gather great wealth and resources, organizing some corporation, and then this ‘huge tree’ will get the job done. Jesus approach was to gather these outcasts of society, invest his life into them, and his life, death, resurrection and example would become the ‘seed bed’ that would start a worldwide revolution. Don’t fret over what it seems like the ‘wicked’ are getting away with, just simply follow Jesus, your little bit can accomplish much more than the riches of many wicked [geez, ACORN was getting millions, but the church of Jesus has been helping the poor for 2 thousand years. I don’t know why we fret over this stuff!]
(1237) WHAT DOES ‘SOLA SCRIPTURA’ MEAN? During the 16th century Protestant Reformation you had the Reformers [Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc.] come down on the side of ‘sola scriptura’ which meant ‘the bible alone’. That is they felt the scriptures should have the final say in deciding the doctrinal matters of the church. Many modern Protestant groups have taken a wrong view of sola scriptura; they seem to think it means ‘solo scriptura’- me and my bible. What’s the difference? The historic Protestants felt the bible had the final say, but they also taught that the scriptures should be understood and read thru the historic framework of the church. That is the ‘sense’ that most believers have had when reading Gods word. Calvin would appeal to the past writings of Augustine and other church fathers when making his case. During the time of the Reformation you also had what came to be called ‘the Radical Reformation’ or the Ana-Baptists [which meant re-baptizers]. They rejected infant baptism and wanted to make a clean break from all traditional Christianity. The Magisterial Reformers thought they went too far, I stood at the spot in Zurich where Zwingli ‘baptized’ them in the river [he drowned them]. So as you can see there are various degrees of ‘sola/solo scriptura’. Is it possible to come to a right conclusion from reading the bible alone? Sure, most of my ideas have come this way. The problem seems to be when preachers/believers read things out of context. When reading any book, if you took a verse/sentence from one chapter and added it to another chapter. And then memorized all these sentences and put together your own meaning, then no matter how ‘well meaning’ the person is, he is going to get the story wrong. The Reformers believed it was important to read and understand the bible in the context of the wider church. Pope Benedict agrees, he said it was important to know how the whole church has viewed a particular truth thru out all time. These insights are important for our day. Is it possible for ‘all the church’ to have missed it on a certain subject? You bet, the point is when ‘the whole church’ begins to rise up and say ‘yeah, we missed it’ then you have true reform. Too often you find separated groups of believers who have grasped onto some truth, maybe it’s a real insight that others don’t see yet, but then they become isolated and their truth becomes a stumbling block. They often use their truth as the criteria to judge all other Christians. They will discount everything the other Christian groups have to say, because they ‘know for sure’ that they are wrong on that one particular doctrine. I think it’s time for the Protestant/Evangelical church to get back to ‘sola scriptura’; that is to read and believe in the bible as the final authority on doctrinal decisions, but to also have a working knowledge on how all other Christian groups see, or have seen these same truths.
(1235) 2ND CORINTHIANS 12- Before I get into a long history discussion with you guys, let’s hit a few verses. Paul says ‘when I was with you, did I gain a profit from you, take advantage of you?’ or ‘when I sent Titus, did he gain a profit from you?’ He then goes on and says the fathers lay up money for the kids, not the other way around. He says he has spent out of his own pocket for them, and he will continue to do so. He says he does all this so people won’t have the excuse ‘he’s just in it for the money’. Notice, Paul himself did not have the common mindset we see in ministry today. Often times financial appeals are made from Paul’s writings in Corinthians, these appeals often say ‘we are not asking for ourselves, but for you’ it is put in a way that says it would be wrong to not take money from people. That in some way not taking an offering would violate scripture. Paul flatly said he did not take money from them for personal use, nor would he. When the modern church uses Paul’s other sayings in this letter to appeal to giving, we need to share ‘the whole counsel of God’ not just a few verses that fit in with what we practice. Now, Paul speaks about being caught up into ‘heaven’ [Gods realm-Paradise] and hearing truths from God that were not lawful for men to speak. He states that God gave him truth that came from Divine revelation. If you skip a few pages over in your bible, you will hit Galatians. In the first chapter he says how after he was converted he did not confer with the other leaders at Jerusalem, but received teaching straight from God. Let’s discuss what revelation is, how we come to know things. The last few centuries of the first millennium of Christian history you had the ‘Holy Roman Empire’ which was a political/religious union of church and state. Under the emperor Charlemagne the territories of the empire were vast. Those who came after him did not have the same control over the regions that were vast. Eventually you had a form of rule arise that was called Feudalism; the sections of the empire that were too far to benefit directly from Rome would simply come under the authority of the local strongman [much like the present dilemma in Afghanistan, I think it’s time to get our boys out of that mess]. People would come under the authority of a ruler and he would lease out land to the citizens and they would benefit from his protection. The citizens were called Vassals and the land was called a Fief. At one point king John of England would do public penance in a disagreement he had with the Pope and all of England would become a Fief under the rule of the Pope. Now, this would eventually lead up to the development of the strong nation states, an independent identifying with your state/region as opposed to being under Rome and the papacy. This type of independence would allow for the 16th century reformation to happen under Luther. If it were not for Frederick the Wise, the regional authority in Germany where Luther lived, he would have never had the protection or freedom to launch his reformation. Luther also had the influence of being a scholar at Wittenberg. Around the 12th-13th centuries you had the first university pop up at the great cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. The word university simply meant a co-operative effort from two or more people. It applied to many things besides learning. It was also during this time that the church began to develop a system of harmonizing Christian doctrine; she began to do systematic theology. The writings of the Greek philosophers [Aristotle] were rediscovered after centuries of them being hidden, and the great intellectual Saint Thomas Aquinas would wed Aristotle’s ideas with Christian truth. This became known as Scholasticism. Aquinas believed that men could arrive at a true knowledge of God from pure reason and logic. But man could not know all the truths about God and his nature without ‘special revelation’ [the bible and church tradition]. All Christians did not agree with Aquinas new approach to Christian truth, the very influential bishop Bernard would initially condemn Aquinas over this. Bernard said ‘the faith that believes unto righteousness, believes! It does not doubt’. The Scholastic school taught that the way you arrive at knowledge was thru the continuous questioning and doubting of things until you come to some basic conclusions. These issues would be debated for centuries, and even in the present hour many argue over the issue of Divine revelation versus natural logical reasoning. Tertullian, an early North Afrcian church father, said ‘I believe because it is preposterous, illogical’ he became famous for his saying ‘what does Jerusalem have to do with Athens’ meaning he did not believe that Greek philosophy should have any part with Christian truth. Origen, his contemporary, believed the other way. So the debate rages on. Why talk about this here? Some believers ‘believe’ in a type of knowledge called ‘revelation knowledge’ they mean something different than the historic use of the term. Historically ‘revelation’ meant that which God revealed to us THRU THE BIBLE, not something outside of the bible. For instance, the first canon of scripture put together was by a man called Marcion. His ‘bible’ contained the letters of Paul and parts of :Luke. He believed the revelation God gave Paul was for us today, not the Old Testament or the historical gospels. He was condemned by the church as a heretic. The point being some took Paul’s writings about receiving knowledge from God as an indicator that what God showed Paul was different than what the church got thru the other apostles. In point of fact the things that God revealed to Paul, or to you or me; all truth is consistent, it will not contradict any other part of Gods truth. Paul’s letters are consistent with the gospels, not in contradiction. When believers cling to an idea that their teachers are sharing ‘special revelation’ or a Rhema word that is somehow above the scrutiny of scripture, then they are in dangerous territory. Paul did appeal to his experience with God as a defense of his gospel, but he backed up everything he said with Old Testament scripture. God wasn’t ‘revealing’ things to Paul that were outside of the realm of true knowable ‘truth’. You could examine and test the things Paul was saying, he wasn’t saying ‘because God showed it to me, that’s why I’m correct’. So in today’s church world, we want all the things we learn and believe to be consistent with what the church has believed thru out the centuries. Sure there are always things that are going to be questioned and true reform entails this, but beware of teachers who come to you with ‘revelation knowledge’ or a ‘Rhema word’ that goes against the already revealed word of truth.
(1228) 2ND CORINTHIANS 6- Paul tells them to not receive Gods grace ‘in vain’. He quotes a very popular verse among Evangelicals ‘now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation’. He says the Lord heard their prayer and ‘accepted/saved them’. Paul is referring to salvation in the sense that after his first letter, they repented, asked God for forgiveness and responded in the right way. Now in this letter he’s saying ‘look, God heard your heart. He has received you. Don’t keep repenting over the thing’. Paul also gives another list of his trials. He gave one in chapter 4, will give another one in chapter 11. I like the part where he says ‘we are unknown, yet well known’. In today’s Protestant/Evangelical churches, we are often ‘well know, yet unknown’. Let me explain. In Paul’s day he raised up quite a stir. In the book of Acts we see how when he was at the temple in Jerusalem someone finally recognized him and accused him. He wasn’t’ well recognized/known like we are today. Yet his writings and the communities of believers he was establishing were well known. People knew his message and gospel. Yet today, we have so many Christians who follow a cult of personality. They associate ‘the church they attend’ with the main leader. Often these men are well meaning, in some cases their public persona is known world wide. Yet the average viewing audience has no grasp on what they are teaching. They see our famous images [well known] yet what we are speaking is often irrelevant [unknown]. And last but not least Paul teaches what I like to call ‘an incarnational ecclesiology’- in simple terms, God lives in his people in a real way. The real presence of God in society is manifest thru his actual people. Often times the historic churches will emphasize the Eucharist as the way Gods presence is in the world. Some argue for ‘an incarnational sacramental’ view of Christianity. They teach that because God manifested himself in a material way thru Christ [the incarnation] that this principle continues today thru the sacraments that the churches practice. I respond this way; while this is true that God has/does manifest himself in real ways in the world, the primary method of him dwelling in the world in a real way is thru the people of God. Paul refers to us as Gods temple in the world. While the history of Israel in the Old Testament is somewhat liturgical, I feel to carry sacramental theology too far into the New Covenant misses the point. Jesus did give us the communion meal, and we do ‘show his death’ while celebrating it. But Gods primary means of ‘showing’ himself to the world is thru the charitable deeds of his saints. They will ‘know we are Christians by our love, by our love’. This theme is woven thru out the entire New Testament. Its’ fine for believers to have ‘sacred space’ [church buildings] to celebrate liturgy and traditional forms of Christian worship, but to keep in mind that we are the actual dwelling place of God in the world, we are his temple. During the first millennia of Christian history the church developed an idea that said because Jesus did come in the flesh, therefore it is now permitted to have Icons [special religious paintings that have special meaning in the Greek/Eastern Orthodox churches] and physical ways for Gods presence to manifest. The western church [Catholic] would struggle over this issue. One of the Popes would condemn iconography and some would destroy these religious paintings from the church buildings. Eventually an Orthodox theologian [I think John of Damascus?] would develop the theology that I explained above and the church would accept the practice of God manifesting himself in a special way thru religious objects. I personally enjoy the Catholic/Orthodox and traditional expressions of Christianity, but I think they over did it in this area.