Divine Sugar Sticks for February 2001

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Thursday, February 1, 2001

Daily Readings as Music for the Soul

“Do All in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ,” Col 3:17.

“Do this in remembrance of Me,” as Paul expresses it, “discerning the Lord’s body,” 1 Cor 11:29.

Not only because you are in danger of forgetting, but to do this “because you remember.” Do this not only in order that your reminisces may be strengthened, but do it because they are strong. Seeing the Lord’s body, discerning His presence, loving that which you discern, do this!

And in like manner, “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” To do, that is to say, for the sake of the character, as revealed to you, of Him whom you love.

Do it all, giving thanks unto the God and Father by Him, and then in a parallel passage “Whatsoever you do, do it heartily,” Col 3:23 and that is one principle and the next:

As the foundation of all real heartiness, do it “as unto the Lord.” That is the foundation and the limitation as well for it is only when we “do it heartily as to the Lord” that earnestness is kept from degenerating into absorption, and that a man, while working with all his might and “diligent in business,” Prov 22:29, shall be “fervent in spirit.”

The motive is the same in the Communion. It is the remembrance of the Lord. That earnestness is kept for select occasions and for what we call special acts of worship.

It is to be feared that the majority of Christians do with the Divine reason for work “the love of Christ constraineth us,” 2 Cor 5:14, as the old Franks used to do with their long-haired kings. They kept them in a palace at all ordinary times and gave them no power over the government of the kingdom and only now and then brought them out to grace a procession. And then they would take them back again into their reverential powerlessness.

That is like what Christians do, with that which ought to be the rule of their lives and the motive of all their work. We sit down to the Communion and “do it in the Name of the Lord.” We commemorate Him there when we pray and when we speak to Him.

But there is no action of life which is too great to bow to the influence of “this do in remembrance of Me” and there is no action in life which is too small to be magnified, glorified, or turned into a solemn sacrament by the operation of the same motive.

”Do this in remembrance of Me” in everything. Make it all a Communion.

“Ye Must Be Saved!” Why Do We Need to be Saved?

1. What high privilege was vouchsafed to man in the beginning?
   ”So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He Him, male and female created he them,” Gen 1:27.
   
2. How was man’s loyalty to God put to the test?
   ”And the Lord commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” Gen 2:16, 17.
   
3. How did Satan subvert our first parents from allegiance to God?
   ”The serpent beguiled Eve through his subtley,” 2 Cor 11:3, Gen 3:1-6.
   
4. What tragic change came in the relationship between man and God as a result of the fall?
   A. They became sinners in His sight.
   ”Therefore as one man sin entered into the world and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men for they all have sinned,” Rom 5:12.
   
   B. They lost the privilege of open communion with God.
   ”Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden,” Gen 3:23.
   
   C. They were doomed to die.
   ”Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” Gen 3:19.
   
5. What heritage did the fall thus confer upon the whole human family?
   ”Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me,” Psa 51:5.
   
   If there be any Truth in the Bible it is this. That sin is not a stage in upward evolution, a mere survival of animal tendencies which is gradually being outgrown, nor a mere result of untoward circumstances, or a lack of education or experience. But a lawlessness of human will, a perpetually-renewed rebellion against God, which disorders human nature by depriving if of the fellowship of God.
   More to follow
   

   

   Why Christ Said, “Ye Must be Saved” – Part Two

6. How sadly has man been marred by sin?
   A. His understanding is darkened.
   ”Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them,” Eph 4:18.
   
   B. His heart is full of evil.
   ”The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?” Jer 17:9.
   
   C. His conscience is defiled.
   ”Unto the unbelieving is nothing pure but even their mind and conscience is defiled,” Titus 1:5.
   
   D. He is spiritually dead.
   ”You, being dead in your sins,” Col 2:13.
   
7. How completely is he alienated from God?
   ”The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be,” Rom 8:7.
   
8. Are any excluded from condemnation?
   ”But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident the Scripture hath concluded all under sin,” Gal 3:11-22.
   ”The whole world lieth in wickedness,” 1 John 5:19.
   
9. How important is the sinner to work righteousness?
   ”Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil,” Jer 13:23.
   Sin has so affected his nature that he cannot do anything that is good without the Grace of God.
   
10. How hopeless is his condition apart from God?
    ”At that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise having no hope without God in the world,” Eph 2:12.
    

    

    Why Christ Said “Ye Must Be Saved” – Part Three

11. To what end therefore must unaided man inevitably come?
    ”To be carnally minded is death,” Rom 8:6.
    ”How can ye escape the damnation of hell?” Matt 23:33.
    There is nothing at the present time needs more to be insisted on than the reality of guilt. It is not an illusion, which we should be taught to disregard in view of God’s infinite love. It is as real as life or death, a gigantic problem alike for God and man. His condemnation of sin, His wrath repelling sin, resting over sin, are not figments of our ignorance and fear. They are absolutely real things, to which our conscience bears a true though awfully inadequate testimony.
    
12. What cry of despair may well come from his lips?
    ”O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Rom 7:24.
    
13. Because of man’s impotence to save himself, what is his only hope?
    ”Now set your soul and your heart to seek the Lord your God,” 1 Chr 22:19, Jer 29:12-14.
    
14. How has God demonstrated His desire to restore man to fellowship with Himself?
    ”Yet doth He devise means that His banished be not expelled from Him,” 2 Sam 14:14.
    
15. Through Whom has the possibility of restoration come?
    John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
    
16. How universal is God’s offer of Grace?
    ”For God hath included them all in unbelief that He might have mercy upon all,” Rom 11:32.
    

    

    Why Christ Said “Ye Must Be Saved” – Part Four

17. In what striking way is the comprehensiveness of redemption emphasized?
    ”Wherefore He is also able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him,” Heb 7:25.
    
18. Is there any other way of escape than God’s?
    ”Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other Name given under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved,” Acts 3:12.
    
19. What should be the sinner’s response?
    ”Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin,” Psa 51:2.
    ”Create in me a clean heart, O God,” Psa 51:10.
    
20. How is redemption compared with God’s creative work?
    ”If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation,” 2 Cor 5:17.
    
21. In what Scripture does Christ claim to be both Creator and Redeemer?
    ”But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and He that formed thee, O Israel, fear not, “For I have redeemed thee,” Isa 43:1.
    
22. What satisfaction does a knowledge of salvation bring?
    ”Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man in whom the Lord will not impute sin,” Rom 4:7-8.

”Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”

Friday, February 2, 2001

Take a Walk With Me – In the Word

“Stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on towards the goal,” Phil 3:13-14.

Childhood is the prophecy of maturity. The child is the father of the man, the bud foretells the flower.

In the same way, the very imperfections of the Christian life, as it is seen here, argues the existence of another state where all that is here in germ shall be fully matured. All that is here incomplete shall obtain the perfection which alone will correspond to the power that works in us. Think of the ordinary Christian character. The germ is there and more than the germ.

As one looks at the crudity, the inconsistencies, the failings, the feebleness of the Christian life of others, or one’s self, and then thinks that such a poor, imperfect exhibition is all that so Divine a principle has been able to achieve in this world, one feels that there must be a region and a time where we shall be all which the transforming power of the Holy Spirit can make us.

True, the very inconsistencies of Christians are as strong a reason for believing in the perfect life of Heaven as their purities and virtues. We have a right to say mighty principles are at work after Christian souls.

The power of the Cross, the power of love essaying to obedience, the power of the indwelling Spirit, and is this all that these great forces are going to affect on human character?

Surely, a seed so precious and Divine, is somewhere and some time to bring forth something better than these few poor half-developed flowers, something with more lustrous petals, and richer fragrance. The plant is clearly an exotic here. Does not its obviously struggling growth here tell of warmer suns and richer soil where it will be at home?

There is a great deal in every man and most of all in Christian men and women which does not fit this present. All other creatures correspond in their capacities to the place where they are set down. The world in which the plant or the animal lives, the world of their surroundings, stimulates to activity all their powers. But that is not so with man. “Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests,” Matt 8:20. They fit exactly and correspond to their environment.

But a man! There is an enormous amount of waste faculty about him if he is only going to live in this world.

There is a great deal in every nature, and most of all in a Christian nature. If I am a son of God, I have got much in me that is not wanted on this voyage, and the more I grow into His likeness, the more I am thrown out of harmony with the things around me in proportion as I am brought into harmony with the things beyond.

The Creator is Our Saviour! The Saviour is Our Creator!

Isa 43:1, “But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and He that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art Mine,” Isa 43:1. The Creator is also the Redeemer. Therefore, it cannot be any created being like Mary, Budda, Mohamed, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Judge Rutherford, Mary Eddy Glover Patterson Baker.

We have a personal Creator!

1. With what affirmation does the Bible open?
   ”In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth,” Gen 1:1.
   
   How tremendous are the implications of this simple statement! It denies atheism by declaring that there is a God. It denies agnosticism by implying that God may be known. It denies pantheism by distinguishing between the Creator and the creation. It denies polytheism by revealing that God is one. There is no false “ism” which is not condemned by this statement.
   
2. In what other ways does the Bible teach that God is a personal being?
   A. He is described as “living.”
   ”He is a living God,” Jer 10:10
   
   B. Personal actions and faculties are attributed to Him.
   ”The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open.”
   Unto their prayers but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil,” 1 Pet 3:12.
   
   C. Jesus Christ is declared to be the Son of God and Jesus Christ claims God as His Father.”
   ”God sent forth His Son to redeem them that were under the law,” Gal 4:4-5.
   ”And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit,” Luke 23:46.
   
   D. He is called “the Father” of man and the righteous are called “His sons.” “But to us there is but one God, the Father of whom are all things,” 1 Cor 8:6.
   ”Ye are the children of the Lord your God,” Deut 14:1.
   
   More to come on the Creator-Saviour.
   

   

   Personal Creator Saviour – Part Two

3. What testimony does nature bear to the existence and personality of God?
   ”The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead,” Rom 1:20.
   
4. How do the Scriptures therefore regard those who deny His existence?
   ’The fool hath said in his heart there is no God,” Psa 53:1, 42:1.
   Posterity will one day laugh at the foolishness of the modern materialistic philosopher. The more you study nature, you more you stand amazed at the works of the Creator.
   
5. How do the Scriptures emphasize the unity of the Godhead?
   ”God is one,” Gal 3:20.
   
6. What does the Bible say of God in contrast with other alleged gods?
   ”Though there be that are called gods whether in Heaven or in Earth as there be gods many, and lords many, but to us there is but one God, the Father of whom are all things and we in Him,” 1 Cor 8:5-6.
   
7. What title does the Lord take to distinguish Himself from all other claimants?
   ”The Lord is the true God,” Jer 10:10.
   
8. What difference is there between the personality of God and man?
   A. He is invisible to mortal eyes.
   ”Lo, He goeth by me, and I see Him not; He passeth on also, but I perceive Him not,” Job 9:11.
   
   B. He is not subject to the limitations of human personality.
   ”God is a spirit,” John 4:24.
   
   C. His attributes are inherent in Him whereas man’s are derived from God.
   ”The Father hath life in Himself,” John 5:26.
   
   D. In all things He infinitely transcends His creatures.
   ”His understanding is infinite,” Psa 147:5.
   ”With God all things are possible,” Matt 19:26.
   
   ”There is none holy as the Lord, for there is none beside Thee,” 1 Sam 2:2.
   
   More to follow – Creator-Saviour.
   

   

   Creator-Saviour – Part Three

9. How enduring is the being of God?
   ”Even from everlasting to everlasting ... Thou art God,” Psa 90:2.
   
10. What Bible statements indicate that God has a definite dwelling place?
    ”The Lord’s throne is in Heaven,” Psa 11:4.
    ”Hear Thou, in Heaven, Thy dwelling place,” 1 Kings 8:39, Psa 103:19.
    
11. Though dwelling in Heaven, is He limited thereto?
    ”I am a God at hand saith the Lord, and not a God afar off, do not I fill Heaven and Earth?” Jer 23, 24.
    
12. How does He seek to come to His creatures?
    ”I dwell in the high and holy place with Him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit,” Isa 57:15.
    
13. What should the majesty and love of God evoke from us?
    ”O come let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker,: Psa 95:6.
    
14. What are the essential factors in acceptable worship?
    ”God is a Spirit and they that worship Him, must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth,” John 4:24.
    ”Without faith it is impossible to please Him,” Heb 11:6.
    ”Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness,” Psa 29:2.
    
15. For what are the ungodly condemned?
    ”The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all Thy ways, hast Thou not glorified,” Dan 5:23.
    
16. In what tragic way has their worship been diverted through sin?
    ”Who changed the Truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the
    creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever,” Rom 1:25.
    
    More to follow ...
    

    

    The Creator-Saviour – Part Four

17. What appeal, therefore, does Paul make to the wicked?
    ”We preach unto you that you should turn from these vanities unto the living God which made Heaven and Earth and the sea, and all things that are therein,” Acts 14:15.
    
18. What, in fact, will be the theme of the last Gospel appeal to the world?
    ”Fear God, and give glory to Him ... and worship Him that made Heaven and Earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters,” Rev 14:7.

Who is the Creator? The Saviour!

Col 1:16, “For by Him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers. All things were created by Him, and for Him.”

John 1:3, “All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.”

It may well be that our announcement of God, Jesus Christ, as the Creator, is the very thing that our own generation needs most to consider. The more thoughtful thinkers warn us that the only escape from the paths of error is for mankind to return to the first words of the Bible, that God is the Creator!

Can I Know God?

1. In what tragic state of ignorance did Paul find the people of Athens?
   ”As I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription,
   ’to the unknown god’.” Acts 17:23.
   
2. By contrast, what striking affirmation did Paul make?
   ”I know whom I have believed,” 2 Tim 1:12.
   The heart of Cchristianity is not an opinion about God – such as philosophy might reach as the conclusion of an argument. It is a personal relationship with God.
   
3. How does He express His desire for others?
   ”I cease not to give thanks for you making mention of you in my prayers., that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,” Eph 1:15-17.
   
   The only knowledge which is of any avail in the light of eternity is a personal, intimate knowledge of God. Christianity is not merely a belief in certain facts about a Person, it is rather a knowledge of that Person. Only this can transform lives and solve the problems of humanity. Christianity is not a philosophy, but a life. Not a knowledge of abstract principles, but a personal knowledge of faith and love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
   
4. Can unaided human reason attain to a knowledge of God?
   ”Touching the Almighty, we cannot find Him out,” Job 37:23.
   
   Skilled as man may be in the elucidation of the mysteries of the universe, he cannot find out God. Elihu spoke truly when he said “Behold God is great, and we know Him not, neither can the number of His years be searched out,” Job 36:26.
   
   More to follow – “Immanuel”
   

   

   Can I Know God? – Part Two

5. Why cannot we search out God in the same way that we study natural phenomena?
   A. Because He cannot be apprehended by the physical faculties.
   ”You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His shape,” John 5:37.
   
   B. Because the finite mind cannot comprehend the infinite.
   ”That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out,” Ecc 7:24.
   
   C. Because sinful man cannot approach unto God.
   ”Thou canst not see My face, for there shall no man see Me and live,” Exodus 33:20.
   
6. Though man cannot find out God, what does God offer to do for that man?
   ”I will make known My Words unto you,” Prov 1:23.
   ”He openeth the ears of man, and sealeth their instruction,” Job 33:16.
   
7. Through what channels does God make Himself known to man?
   A. Through His works.
   ”The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead,” Rom 1:20, Psa 19:1.
   
   B. Through inspired men.
   ”God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,” Heb 1:1.
   
   C. Through the Lord Jesus Christ.
   ”We know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true,” 1 John 5:20, John 1:18.
   
   D. Through the Holy Spirit in personal experience.
   ”Ye have an unction from the Holy One and ye know all things ye need not that any man teach you,” 1 John 2:20, 27.
   
8. Why do so many fail to apprehend God?
   ”The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto Him, neither can He know them because they are spiritually discerned,” 1 Cor 2:14, “but you have the mind of Christ.”

More to come … Immanuel




Can I Know God? – Part Three

9. On what spiritual condition is this spiritual conception given?
   A. Spiritual desire
   ”Yea, if thou criest out after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if thou searches her as silver, and searchest for her as a hid treasure, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God,” Prov 2:3-5.
   
   B. Faith
   ”He that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him,” Heb 11:6.
   
   C. Readiness to obey
   ”His secret is with the righteous,” Prov 3:32.
   
10. What are some of the blessings which the knowledge of God brings to the believer?
    A. Peace
    ”Acquaint thyself with Him and be at peace, thereby good shall come unto thee,” Job 22:21.
    God has made us for Himself and we are restless until we find our rest in Him.
    
    B. Joy
    ”Thou wilt show me the path of life, in Thy presence is fulness of joy. At Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore,” Psa 16:11.
    The world is full of pleasure, but how little joy. The appearance of happiness is but a cloak to conceal an aching heart, a feeble attempt to escape from the sorrow which is sapping the life of mankind.
    How different is the joy of knowing Him. It is not superficial and transient, but deep and enduring.
    
    C. Understanding
    ”Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord,” Hosea 6:3.
    ”For the Lord giveth wisdom,” Prov 2:6, James 1:5.
    
    D. Comfort
    ”Who comforteth us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God,” 2 Cor 1:4.
    
    E. Confidence and hope
    ”I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against the day,” 2 Tim 1:12.
    
    More to come – Immanuel
    

    

    Can I Know God? – Part Four

11. What supreme blessing does the knowledge of God bring to the believer?
    ”This is life eternal that they may know Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent,” John 17:3.
    
12. What urgent call, therefore, comes to us?
    ”Seek ye the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is yet near,” Isa 55:6.
    God is infinitely willing and desirous of bestowing His companionship upon us. Tenderly He pleads for us to come to Him. He will not force an entrance into the sanctum of the soul if we do not wish to know Him. But He knocks at our soul’s door and if we will open to Him, He will come in and abide with us.
    
13. How shall we respond to the call of God?
    ”When Thou saidest, Seek My face, my heart said unto Thee, Thy face Lord will I seek,” Psa 27:8.
    
    To know Him, to talk with Him, to tell Him all our joys and sorrows and to hear His words of comfort, to walk with Him in the daily tasks of life, and to feel the support of His powerful arms. What a glorious privilege. Shall we refuse such an invitation?
    
    ”Whosoever shall call upon the Lord shall be saved.”
    
14. What benediction does Peter pronounce upon believers?
    ”Grow in Grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” 2 Pet 3:18,
    ”Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus Christ our Lord,” 2 Pet 1:2.

Immanuel

Saturday, February 3, 2001

Let’s Take a Walk, in the Word, Fragrance of Music for the Soul

Heb 3:15, “Today, if you will hear His voice burden not your hearts.”

Every moment makes it harder for a man to turn to Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour. The dreadful power of habit weaves chains about him. Thin at first, as a spider’s web, solid at last as an iron fetter. Associations that entangle, connections that impede, grow with terrible rapidity. And if it is hard for you to turn to the Lord now, it will never be easier, and will certainly be harder.

”Today!” How long is it going to last?

All the deeper reasons for being a Christian remain unaffected if you are going to live in this world forever. And the Gospel of Jesus Christ is as good to live by as it is to die by.

Common sense says that if our time here is so uncertain as we know it is, there is no time to put off. You and I have to die whether we find a convenient season for it or not. And perhaps we have to die before we find Felix’s “convenient season,” Acts 24:25, to send for Paul or Paul’s Lord.

So, in the narrowest sense of the word, “Today harden not your hearts.”

Some of our young people may be kept from accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour and serving Him, by a vague disinclination and dread to make so great a change, if a change is right, then the sooner it is made the better. The shrinking all passes when it is made.

You hear Christ speaking to you through His Word, in His servants, even in the depths of your souls, and He speaks to you as a dying Saviour, and of His infinite love, of His perfect sacrifice. Of a complete salvation, a cleansed soul, a blessed life, a calm death, an
open Heaven for each, if only we will take Him.

”See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh,” Heb 12:25.

Why Did Jesus Christ Have to Die?

1. When was Jesus Christ chosen to be the world’s Redeemer?
   ”Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,” 1 Pet 1:20.
   
2. To what lengths did God know His Son would need to go in order to save man?
   ”The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” Rev 13:8.
   
3. How certain was Jesus Christ of the predesigned course of His life?
   ”This that is written must yet be accomplished in Me and He was reckoned among the transgressors, for the things concerning Me have an end.” Luke 22:37.
   
   Christ’s death was not just a fitting conclusion to a life of self-sacrifice, and obedience to the uttermost, but He was born to die. His death affected something vital for our salvation, which His earthly incarnation, had it ended in some other way, could not have
   secured for us.
   
4. In what Words did Jesus Christ testify to His willingness to suffer for men?
   ”Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No man taketh it from Me” but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up again,” John 10:17-18.
   
5. What did the death of Christ thus reveal?
   ”God commended His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” Rom 5:8.
   
   There was a “Cross in the heart of God” before there was one planted on the green hill outside of Jerusalem. And now that the Cross of wood has been taken down, the one in the heart of God abides. And it will remain as long as there is one sinful soul for whom to suffer.
   

   

   Why Did Jesus Christ Have to Die? – Part Two

6. Beside manifesting the extent of the love of God and of Christ for man, what further purpose did the Cross serve?
   It indicated the immutability of the law of God.
   ”Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God,” Rom 3:25.
   
   Man’s soul had to be adequately dealt with. It demanded expiation. And expiation means a change of mind. In this stern and inexorable law lies the necessity of an atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world.
   
7. What penalty had man incurred through sin?
   ”The wages of sin is death,” Rom 6:23.
   ”Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned,” Rom 5:12.
   
8. Could God abolish the penalty of the law?
   ”It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass then one tittle of the Law to fail,” Luke 16:17.
   
9. What, therefore, was necessary for the salvation of man?
   A sinless Man, not involved in the penalty, and possessed of life, inherent, and underived, must vicariously accept it on behalf of the race.
   
10. Who only could fulfill the requirements of such a vicarious sacrifice?
    ”God sent forth His Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law,” Gal 4:4, 5. ”Who did no sin,” 1 Pet 2:22.
    
    Though God is the Author of the atonement, and without Him fallen humanity would have been unable to offer it, yet it was made by Man acting in the true conditions of man’s nature.
    

    

    Why Did Jesus Christ Have to Die? – Part Three

11. How does Paul state the Doctrine of vicarious atonement?
    ”For He made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him,” 2 Cor 5:21.
    
12. What Divine dilemma did Jesus Christ thus resolve?
    ”To declare, I say, as this time His righteousness, that He might be just, and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus Christ,” Rom 3:26.
    
13. As a result of Christ’s paying the penalty of transgression, what privileges are offered to man?
    A. Deliverance from Satan.
    ”Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness,” Col 1:13.
    
    B. Revocation of our sentence of death.
    ”Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of One, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life,” Rom 5:18.
    
    C. Forgiveness of sin.
    ”Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sin,” Acts 13:38.
    
    D. Reconciliation to God.
    ”All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself,” 2 Cor 5:18-19.
    
    E. New status of sonship.
    ”The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ,” Rom 8:16-17.
    
    F. Sanctification.
    ”By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all,” Heb 10:10.
    
    G. Eternal life.
    ”Whosoever believeth in Him shall never perish, but have eternal life,” John 3:16.
    ”He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on Him,” John 3:36.
    

    

    Why Did Jesus Christ Have to Die? – Part Four

14. How complete is the restoration made possible through the sacrifice of Christ?
    ”He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them,” Heb 7:25.
    
15. In what way do the wicked regard the preaching of the Cross?
    ”For the preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness,” 1 Cor 1:18.
    
16. On the other hand, what does the Cross mean to the believer?
    ”But unto us which are saved, it is the power of God,” 1 Cor 1:8.
    
17. How will our salvation be consummated?
    ”So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation,” Heb 9:28.
    
18. What reward will Jesus Christ receive in that day for all His sacrifice on our behalf?
    A. Satisfaction.
    ”He shall see the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied,” Isa 53:11.
    
    B. Universal adoration.
    ”Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a Name which is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus, every knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth, and things under the Earth,” Phil 2:9-10.

”Immanuel”

What is it That Man Needs? Grace to Meet the Need of Man!

1. What question relating to salvation did a certain young man ask of Jesus Christ?
   ”Good Master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life,” Matt 19:16.
   
2. How did Jesus Christ reply?
   ”If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments,” Matt 19:17.
   
3. How perfect an observance of the commandments is necessary however, to gain salvation by works?
   ”Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all,” James 2:10.
   
4. Can any claim that He has earned eternal life and salvation according to this standard?
   ”But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God it is evident,” Gal 3:11.
   
5. To what, therefore, are all condemned through sin?
   ”For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord,” Rom 6:23.
   
6. What attributes of God come to the aid of the condemned sinner?
   ”But Thou, O Lord, are a God full of compassion and Gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth,” Psa 86:15.
   
7. What loving provision has He made available to man in Christ?
   ”I thank my God always on your behalf for the Grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ,” 1 Cor 1:4.
   
   ”Immanuel”
   

   

   Grace to Meet Man’s Needs – Part Two

8. What is the Grace of God in Christ able to affect on our behalf?
   ”That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might Grace reign through righteousness, unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord,” Rom 5:21.
   The help man needs must come from without and from above. God alone can undue that which by his fall man has inflicted on creation and on himself.
   The great message of the Gospel is that God is not only able so to do, but willing also, and that He has, in fact, done it in the Person of His Son incarnate.
   
9. To how many is this saving Grace available?
   ”For the Grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,” Titus 2:11.
   
10. How may the sinner appropriate it?
    Eph 2:8-9, “For by Grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
    
11. What is the basis of our acceptance with God?
    ”To the praise of the glory of His Grace wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved,” Eph 1:6.
    
12. How did Paul acknowledge the operation of the Grace of God in his own life?
    ”By the Grace of God I am what I am, and His Grace, which was bestowed upon me was not in vain,” 1 Cor 15:10.

”Immanuel.”

Dear Abba!

Q. I recently saw on TV, a minister performing a wedding ceremony for lesbians and homosexuals. What does the Bible say about this?

A. Marriage is for believers and unbelievers, too. It is a designed institution as a factor for the stability of a nation. There are some guidelines in Scripture for marriage. There are three passages of Scripture which are sentinels for marriage and other important decisions in life, like the following:

Deut 4:2, “Ye shall not add unto the Word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from It, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.”

Prov 30:6, “Add thou not unto His Words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”

Rev 22:18, “For I testify unto every man that heareth the Words of the prophecy of this Book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this Book.”

So, the guidelines for marriages are found in the Bible and nothing is to be added to it or diminished from it.

I will follow with basically what the Bible says about marriage.

Biblical Marriages – Part Two – A Sacred Ordinance!

1. When God had created man, Adam, and provided him with perfect surroundings, what did He still feel was needed to complete his happiness?
   ”And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone, I will make him a help meet for him,” Gen 2:18, verses 21-23.
   God celebrated the first marriage. Thus, the institution has for its Originator the Creator of the universe, which was Jesus Christ. It was one of the first gifts of God to man, and it is one of the two institutions that, after the fall, Adam brought with him beyond the gates of paradise.
   When the Divine principles are recognized and obeyed in this relation, marriage is a blessing. It guards the purity and the happiness of the race, it provides for man’s social needs, it elevates the physical, the intellect, and the moral nature.
   
2. For what purpose beside companionship was this first union ordained?
   ”And God blessed them and God said unto them be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth,” Gen 1:28, Jer 29:6.
   
3. Of what was it to be a pattern?
   Of all future homes.
   ”For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife and they two shall be one flesh,” Eph 5:31.
   The family tie is the closest, the most tender and sacred, of any on Earth. It was designed to be a blessing to mankind. And it is a blessing whenever the marriage covenant is entered into intelligently, in the fear of the Lord, and with due consideration for its responsibilities.
   
4. What wedding did Jesus Christ Grace with His presence?
   ”And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there, and both Jesus was called, and his disciples to the marriage,” John 2:1-2.
   
5. In what honor therefore should the marriage estate be held?
   ”Let marriage be had in honour among all,” Heb 13:4.
   
   More to follow …
   

   

   Biblical Marriages – Part Three

6. In a sinful world, how is the happiness of the family relationship often marred?
   ”Nevertheless, such, as marry, shall have trouble in the flesh,” 1 Cor 7:28.
   
7. Why are many marriages unhappy?
   ”Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness, and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?” 2 Cor 6:14-15.
   
8. For this reason what marriages did God prohibit among the Israelites?
   ”Neither shalt thou make marriage with them, the heathen around, thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following Me, that they may serve other gods,” Deut 7:3-4. Ask Solomon!
   
9. What very proper care did Abraham show in seeking a wife for his son?
   ”And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of Heaven, and the God of the Earth that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell. But shall go into my country and to my kindred and take a wife to my son, Isaac,” Gen 24:3-4.
   
10. What advice did Paul offer to Christians contemplating marriage with unbelievers?
    ”Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you,” 2 Cor 6:17.
    
    We need not be surprised at these strong and repeated prohibitions, a mixed marriage is a prolific source of misery. Believers in such unions do not level their unbelieving partners up to Christ, but are themselves dragged down to infinite misery and self-reproach.
    
    More to come ...
    

    

    Biblical Marriages – Part Four

11. Under what conditions did He say marriage should be entered into?
    ”She is at liberty to be married to whom she will only in the Lord,” 1 Cor 7:39.
    
12. How will the Lord recompense those who are denied the blessings of marriage by their loyalty to Christ?
    ”And will be a Father unto you and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty,” 2 Cor 6:18.
    
13. What high standards to the Scriptures set for the relationship between man and woman?
    ”Teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands,” Titus 2:4.
    ”Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it,” Eph 5:25.
    
14. How exclusively devoted should man and woman be to each other?
    ”Drink waters out of thine own cistern and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountain be dispersed abroad, and rivers of water in the streets. Let them be only thine own and not strangers. Let thy fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth” Prov 5:15-18.
    
15. What commandments were designated particularly to safe guard family ties?
    ”Thou shalt not commit adultery,” Exodus 20:14.
    ”Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife,” Exodus 20:17.
    
    More to come ...
    

    

    Biblical Marriages – Part Five

16. What incentive beside family loyalty is there to purity of life?
    ”Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid,” 1 Cor 6:15. Also verses 19, 20.
    
17. How indissoluble did God intend marriage to be?
    ”Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder,” Matt 19:6.
    
    ”In the beginning He created them male and female. The Hebrew for “man” is RAKAN.” The Hebrew for female is NEGABAH because of the sex form.
    
18. What special responsibility rests upon believers in divided homes?
    ”For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by her husband. Else were your children unclean. But now they are holy, for what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? Or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?” 1 Cor 7:14-16.

Husband and wife, man and woman. Marriages ...

”Immanuel”

Sunday, February 4, 2001

Let’s Go For a Walk in the Word – Music for the Soul!

The Heavy Cost of the World

Mark 8:36, “What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”

You get nothing for nothing in this world’s market. It is a big price you have to pay before these mercenaries will come to fight on your side.

Here is a man “that succeeds in life.” Well, what does it cost him? It has cost him the suppression, the atrophy by disuse of many capacities of his soul which were far higher and nobler than those that have been exercised in his success. It has cost him all his days. It has possibly caused him the dying out of generous compassions and the stimulation of unwholesome selfishness.

He has bought his prosperity very dear. If people would estimate what they pay for gold in treasure that cannot be weighed and stamped, they would find it to be about the dearest in God’s universe. And that there are few men who make worst bargains than the men who give “themselves” for worldly success. Even when they receive what they give themselves for.

Some have learned how much enjoyment has cost them. Some have bought pleasure at the price of innocence, of moral dignity, of stained memories, of polluted imaginations, of an incapacity to rise above the flesh, and some have bought it at the price of health.

The world has a way of getting more than it gives.

”Demas has forsaken me having loved this present world.”
“Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.”

Only he that is a man in Christ has come to the measure of a perfect man,” Eph 4:13.

”Immanuel”

The Greatest Display of Grace in “The Great Tribulation”

Heaven’s Last Appeal!

1. What was Paul’s message to his day and generation?
   ”And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come, Felix trembled and answered, Go thy way for this time, when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee,” Acts 24:25.
   
2. By what message will the warning “of judgment to come” be superceded just before the Lord returns?
   ”And I saw another angel fly in the midst of Heaven having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the Earth, and to every nation, kindred, and tongue and people saying with a loud voice, Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment is come,” Rev 14:6-7.
   ”Grace always precedes judgment.”
   
3. To what judgment does this refer?
   ”I beheld to the thrones were cast down and the Ancient of Days did sit, the judgment was set and the books were opened,” Dan 7:9-10.
   This judgment is not the executive judgment upon the Earth at the end of time, but an investigative judgment in Heaven by which the former must obviously be preceded.
   
4. What prophecy provides definite information as to the time when this message was to go forth?
   ”Unto two thousand and three hundred days then shall the sanctuary be cleansed,” Dan 8:14.
   
5. In what other vision was John shown the commissioning of God’s last day witnesses to carry the judgment hour message to the world?
   ”And I saw another mighty angel come down from Heaven and he had in his hand a little book open, and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the Earth. And cried with a loud voice as when a lion roareth,” Rev 10:1-3.
   
   More to come ...
   

   

   Grace in Tribulation – Part Two

6. What book was to be opened and understood in the last days of Earth’s history?
   ”But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end, many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased,” Dan 12:4.
   
7. For what response did the judgment hour message call?
   ”Saying with a loud voice, Fear God and give glory to Him for the hour of His judgment is come, and worship Him that made Heaven and Earth, and the sea, and the fountains of the waters,” Rev14:7. That is Christ.
   
8. What are the special characteristics of the remnant called out by the judgment hour message?
   ”Here is the patience of the saints here are they that kept the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,” Rev 1:12.
   
9. In which commandment is the Creator supremely recognized?
   ”Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, for in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth, and the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it,” Exodus 20:8-11.

”Immanuel”
Grace always precedes judgment.

It is All God’s Fault! Why Did He Let This Happen to Me?

That was Adam’s problem. Gen 3:1, “It was the woman Thou gavest me.”

Is God responsible?

1. What law of cause and effect operates throughout all creation?
   ”Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap,” Gal 6:7.
   
2. How does this principle work out in connection with man’s moral nature?
   ”For he that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting,” Gal 6:8.
   
3. What, therefore, is the explanation of many of the judgments of God?
   ”Why criest thou for thine afflictions? Thy sorrow is incurable for the multitude of thine iniquities. Because thy sins were increased, I have done these things unto thee,” Jer 30:15.
   
4. Have sinners any ground for complaint when God allows judgments to come upon them?
   ”Wherefore doth a living man complain? A man for the punishment of his sins? Let us search and find our ways and turn again to the Lord,” Lam 3:39-40.
   
5. What confession does the psalmist make as to the righteousness of God’s judgments?
   ”I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are right and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me,” Psa 119:75.
   
   Faithfulness afflicts.
   
   More to come …
   

   

   It is All God’s Fault – Part Two

6. Is God’s judgment of sin, however, vindictive or arbitrary?
   ”For He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men,” Lam 3:13.
   
7. What evidence is there of this in the relation between God’s judgments and man’s deserts?
   A. They are far less than we deserve.
   ”And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that Thou, our God, has punished us less than our iniquities deserve,” Ezra 9:13.
   
   B. They are often mercifully withheld.
   ”But He being full of compassion forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not, yea, many a time turned He His anger away and did not stir up all His wrath,” Psa 78:38.
   
   C. His anger endures but a moment.
   ”For His anger endureth but a moment, in His favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,” Psa 30:5.
   
8. To what does God compare His judgments?
   ”Thou shalt also consider in thine heart that, as a man chasteneth his son so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee,” Deut 8:5.
   
9. From what does the Lord desire through affliction to save us?
   ”But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world,” 1 Cor 11:32.
   
10. What does He intend His judgments to accomplish?
    ”And testifieth against them that Thou mightest bring them again unto Thy law,” Neh 9:27.
    
    ”For they verily for a few days chasten us after their own pleasure, but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness,” Heb 12:10.
    
    More to come …
    

    

    It is All God’s Fault – Part Three

11. How carefully are God’s judgments tempered to achieve His purpose?
    ”I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure, yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished,” Jer 46:28.
    
    Thus always, the rod, the stripes, the chastisements, but amid all, the love of God carrying out His redemptive purpose, never hasting, never resting, never forgetting, but making all things work together till the evil is eliminated and the soul purged.
    
12. What salutary effect had affliction upon the psalmist?
    ”Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I have kept Thy Word,” Psa 119:67.
    
13. What other examples do the Scriptures provide of affliction bringing men to a change of mind?
    A. Jonah
    ”Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God, out of the fish’s belly, and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord and He heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and Thou heardest my voice,” Jonah 2:1-2.
    
    B. Manasseh
    ”And when he was in affliction he sought the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto Him and He was intreated of him. And heard his supplication and brought him again to Jerusalem unto his kingdom, then Manasseh knew that the Lord, He was God.” 2 Chr 33:12-13.
    
    C. Nebuchadnezzar
    ”And at the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto Heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me. And I blessed the Most High and I praised and honoured Him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation,” Dan 4:34.
    
    I don’t think it is God’s fault!
    
    More to come …
    

    

    It is All God’s Fault – Part Four

14. How did many in Israel respond to the judgments meted out to the nation?
    ”When He slew them, then they sought Him and they returned and inquired early after God, and they remembered that God was their Rock and the High God, their Redeemer,” Psa 78:34-35. Not Peter.
    
15. How obdurate however, was the nation as a whole to the remedial judgments of God?
    ”For the people turned not unto Him that smiteth them. Neither do they seek the Lord of hosts,” Isa 9:13.
    
16. What did the prophets declare God would do to Israel because they responded not to His chastening?
    ”My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto Him,” Hosea 9:17.
    
    Those who hate to be refined by the fire of Divine Grace will undoubtedly be ruined by the fire of Divine wrath.
    
17. What lesson are we intended to learn from Israel’s obduracy and fate?
    ”And all men shall fear and shall declare the work of God for they shall wisely consider of His doing,” Psa 64:9.
    
18. How should we regard the chastening of the Lord?
    ”My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be ye weary of His correction,” Prov 3:11.
    
19. What response should His remedial judgments produce in our lives?
    ”As many as I love, I rebuke, and chasten, be zealous therefore and change your mind,” Rev 3:19.
    
20. With the psalmist what confession should affliction evoke from us?
    ”It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn Thy statutes,” Psa 119:71.
    
    ”Before I was afflicted I went astray, now it is good for me to be afflicted.”

“I don’t think it is God’s fault based on these principles.

”Immanuel”

Monday, February 5, 2001

Let Us Take a Walk in the Word – Music For the Soul

“To us there is but one God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and we in Him,” 1 Cor 8:6.

Every act of our life sets forth some aspect of our Lord and our relation to Him from the moment we open our eyes in the morning. Having slept the sleep of sin, awake to righteousness, all through the busy day, when our work may speak to us of “Him who worketh continually.” Our rest may prophesy for us the rest that remaineth for the people of God,” Exodus 16:23.

Our journeyings may tell of the journey of “the soul of God.” Our home may testify of the Home which is above the skies.

Up to the hour when night falls and sleep, and the image of death speaks to us of the last solemn moment when we shall close the eyes of our body on Earth, to open those of our soul on the realities of eternity, when we no more shall “see through a glass, darkly” but “face to face.”

All things and all acts, and this whole universe, proclaims to us God our Father, Christ our Love, Christ our Hope, our Portion, our Joy.

If we could only know the meaning of the world higher than itself. If we could pierce beneath the surface and know the sanctities that are all around us.

Remember that when we took bread and wine for a memorial of Him, that all is sacred and the world is the temple of God and everywhere there are symbols and memorials of the living God.

Everything that the loving eye can look upon, everything which the believing soul can apprehend. All is sacred.

The Divine Refiner!

1. To what strange experience of the righteous does the psalmist draw attention?
   ”Many are the afflictions of the righteous,” Psa 34:19.
   
2. For what valuable purpose are trials permitted?
   ”Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction,” Isa 48:10.
   
3. By what other illustration does Jesus Christ reveal the purpose of trials?
   ”Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit, He taketh away and every branch that beareth fruit He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit,” John 15:2.
   
4. For what reason was Paul given “a thorn in the flesh?”
   ”And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me,” 2 Cor 12:7.
   
5. Until he understood this, how earnestly did he plead for release from his affliction?
   ”For this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me,” 2 Cor 12:8.
   
6. What reply did Paul receive from the Lord?
   ”And He said unto me, My Grace is sufficient for thee, for My strength is made perfect in weakness,” 2 Cor 12:9.
   
   God often lets His people reach shore as on the planks of a shipwrecked vessel. He deprives us of the cisterns in order to make us drink out of the fountains of water.
   
   He frequently takes away our supports, not that we may fall to the ground, but that He Himself may become our Rod and our Staff. The embarrassment of His people are only the festive scaffoldings on which His might, His faithfulness, and His Grace celebrates their triumphs.
   
   More to come …
   

   

   The Divine Refiner – Part Two

7. When he saw that it was for his good, how resigned was Paul to his affliction?
   ”Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ might rest upon me,” 2 Cor 12:9.
   
8. What other salutary effect do trials have upon the soul?
   ”Knowing this, that the trying of your faith, worketh patience,” James 1:3.
   
9. In whose experience is this strikingly illustrated?
   ”Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy,” James 5:11.
   
10. How resigned was Job to his affliction?
    ”Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,” Job 13:15.
    
11. What confidence had He as to their outcome?
    ”But He knoweth the way that I take: when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold,” Job 23:10.
    
12. What did Jesus Christ learn through suffering?
    ”Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered,” Heb 5:8.
    
13. What will trials also produce in the believer’s experience?
    ”Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby,” Heb 12:11.
    
    More to come …
    Divine Refiner – Part Three
14. To what exalted experience was Jesus Christ raised through suffering?
    ”For it became Him for Whom are all things, and by Whom are all things, in bringing many sons into glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings,” Heb 2:10.
    
15. What will be the effect in us of trials patiently borne?
    ”But the God of all Grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you,” 1 Pet 5:10.
    
16. How then shall we relate ourselves to the testing of our faith?
    A. Not question.
    ”The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the Name of the Lord,” Job 1:21.
    
    B. Endure in patience.
    ”Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer,” Rom 12:12.
    
17. Of whose compassion may we be assured in trial?
    ”Blessed be the God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God,” 2 Cor 1:3-4.
    He leads us through no darker rooms that He has not gone before.
    
18. What does Jesus Christ also extend to the afflicted?
    A. Understanding compassion.
    ”For we have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we, yet without sin,” Heb 4:15.
    
    B. Loving aid.
    ”And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith, fail not,” Luke 22:31-32.
    
19. What control does God exercise over the trials which He permits us to pass through?
    ”When thou passeth through the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee, when thou wakest through the fire thou shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee,” Isa 43:2.
    
20. Of what, therefore, may we be confident?
    ”And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purpose,” Rom 8:28.
    
21. What will be their glorious outcome?
    ”That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ,” 1 Pet 1:7
    
22. By what were Christ’s sufferings crowned?
    ”Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory,” Luke 24:26.
    
23. How will the patient endurance of the saints be rewarded when Jesus Christ comes?
    ”Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promise to them that love Him,” James 1:12.

The Divine Refiner ... “Immanuel”

A Biblical Concern for the Modern Morals in High Places!

1. What sacred emotion has God placed in the human soul?
   ”Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh,” Gen 2:24.
   
2. By what is the Divinely-instituted family life safeguarded?
   ”Thou shalt not commit adultery,” Exodus 20:14.
   The command is a simple, unqualified, irrevocable negative. “Thou shalt not!” No argument is used, no reason given, because none is required. The sin is of so destructive and damning a nature that it is in itself sufficient cause for the stern forbidding. A seven-fold vice is this sin of unchaste conduct, being a sin against the individual, the family, society, the nation, the race, the universe, and “God.”
   
3. What are some of the contributory causes of immorality?
   ”Behold this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness, was in her and in her daughters,” Ezek 16:49.
   If then you yearn for the inestimable blessedness of purity of life, you must flee from idleness, for idleness lays you open to every assault of the devil. You must flee youthful lusts, and avoiding all over-indulgence in softness, must keep your body under control, sober, and chaste.
   
4. What law inexorably operates in the life of man?
   ”Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption,” Gal 6:7-8.
   
5. What are some of the consequences of adultery?
   A. Moral corruption.
   ”But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul,” Prov 6:32.
   
   B. Shame and reproach.
   ”A wound and dishonor shall he get, and his reproach shall not be wiped away,” Prov 6:33.
   
   C. Penury.
   ”For my means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life,” Prov 6:26.
   
   More to follow …
   

   

   Biblical Concern for Modern Morals in Our Country – Part Two

6. How perverted does the adulterer finally become?
   ”Wherein they think it strange that run not with them to the same excess or riot, speaking evil of you,” 1 Pet 4:4.
   
7. What attitude does Jesus Christ have towards the seventh commandment?
   ”But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his mind,” Matt 5:28.
   
8. Why are sins against the body particularly heinous in the child of God?
   ”Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid,” 1 Cor 6:15.
   
   ”How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” Gen 39:9.
   
9. What obligation do we owe the Lord who bought us?
   ”For ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s,” 1 Cor 6:20.
   
10. What life is becoming of saints?
    ”For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness,” 1 Thes 4:7.
    
11. What occasion do sexual sins on the part of the believer give to the unbelieving world?
    ”By this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme,” 2 Sam 12:14.
    
12. From what, therefore, did Peter urge believers to abstain?
    ”Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul,” 1 Pet 2:11.
    
    More to come …
    

    

    Modern Morals in Our Country in Regard to Biblical Morality – Part Three

13. What steps are they to take to curb sensual desires in their lives?
    ”Mortify therefore your members which are upon the Earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry,” Col 3:5.
    
14. How complete a control over the thoughts is possible through Jesus Christ?
    ”Bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ,” 2 Cor 10:5.
    
15. What sins does Paul list among the most conspicuous in the last days?
    ”This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall be without natural affection, incontinent,” 2 Tim 3:1-3.
    
16. When will adulterers be finally judged?
    ”But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers and whoremongers, and sorcerers and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death,” Rev 21:8.
    
17. From what will they be excluded?
    ”For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God,” Eph 5:5.
    
18. Who only will be permitted to see God?
    ”Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” Matt 5:8.

Modern morals and biblical morality.

”Immanuel”

Will Prophecy Be Fulfilled Tomorrow?

An election will take place tomorrow in Israel. One of the candidates is called “Barak.”

Judges 4:6, “And Deborah sent and called for Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedeshnaphtali and said unto him, Hath not the Lord God of Israel commanded saying, Go and draw toward mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali, and of the children of Zebulun?”

The name “Barak” in Hebrew means “a flashing sword.” If I am not mistaken, I think he was one of the most decorated soldiers.

”Immanuel” – You won’t find this on the Drudge Report!

Tuesday, February 6, 2001

Let’s Take a Walk in the Word – Music for the Soul

“Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body,” 2 Cor 4:10.

The showing forth of Christ’s death is the truest explanation and definition that we can give of the process by which a Christian soul grows up into the likeness of its Lord. The death of the Lord Jesus, as death for us, and the ground of our hope, is to show forth in our daily walk, as a death working in us, and the ground of our conduct.

There is not only the atoning and sacrificial aspect in Christ’s death on the Cross, but there is this likewise. That it stands as an example of the way by which we are, in our measure and place, to mortify our members which are upon the Earth,” Col 3:5. Because we “are dead with Him and our lives are hid with Christ in God,” Col 3:3.

Here then we say, this death was for us. And I trust it. In our common life we are to say that death is working in me and I am becoming conformable unto the image of His death, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and so to attain to the resurrection of the dead,” Phil 3:10-11.

As sacred as is one form of memorial, so sacred is the other, and closer than the outward sign which expresses the outward fact upon which we hope, is the inward reality by which alone the outward fact becomes the basis of our hope and the reason for our confidence.

Paul said “I die daily.” That is the death of Christ working in Paul.

”Immanuel”

Psa 68:11, “The Lord Gave the Word, Great Was the Company of Those Who Published It.”

All who were convinced of the power of Scriptures tried to impress believers in their generation of the importance of the Word of God.

Moses stressed the necessity of spiritual nourishment. Deut 8:3.

Job considered the Word of God more vital to his soul than food for his body. Job 23:12.

Jeremiah found happiness through the intake of the Word, Jer 15:16, when by human standards he should have been miserable.

Throughout the Bible there are passages of Scripture which stress the importance of the Word of God in the believer’s life.

Matt 4:4, “Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
”Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I may not sin against Thee.”
”Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way, but taking heed to Thy Word therein.”

A Lesson in Grace!

1. What sinful feelings possessed the minds of the disciples as they sat at the Last Supper?
   ”And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest,” Luke 22:24.
   
2. Reading their thoughts, what silent lesson did Jesus Christ begin to teach them?
   ”He riseth from supper, and laid aside His garments and took a towel and girded Himself. After that He poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded,” John 13:4-5.
   
3. By whom was such service usually performed?
   ”And she, Abigail, arose, and bowed herself on her face to the Earth and said, ‘Behold let Thine handmaiden be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord’,” 1 Sam 25:41.
   
   So, Christ expressed His love for His disciples. Their selfish spirit filled Him with sorrow, but He entered into no controversy with them regarding their difficulty. Instead He gave them an example they would never forget. One of the last acts of His life on Earth was to gird Himself as a Servant and perform a servant’s part.
   
   He came to minister, not to be ministered unto.
   
4. While some of the disciples accepted Christ’s service in shamed silence, what protest did Peter venture against Jesus Christ humiliating himself?
   ”Then cometh He to Simon Peter; and Peter said unto Him, ‘Lord dost Thou wash my feet’?” John 13:6.
   
5. How did Christ answer Peter’s protest?
   ”Jesus answered and said unto him ‘What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter’,” John 13:7.

Peter protested. Was Peter a Protestant Pope?

Jealousy Can Destroy Your Marriage

1. Jealousy is the strongest of the mental attitude sins, Prov 27:3-4.
   
2. Jealousy is the most cruel of all sins. It turns a person into a monster.
   
3. Jealousy removes all happiness from the believer. It is a mental attitude sin by which you make your own misery.
   
4. Some people can’t stand the success of others. Consequently, jealousy destroys the relaxed mental attitude which is a basis of friendship.
   
5. So great was the sin of jealousy that a whole offering of the Levitical code was prescribed for it. Num 5:11-31. “It is the only offering that is designed for one sin only.” You won’t find this in that Man is from Mars.
   
6. Jealousy is the basis for the destruction of Category Two Love, marriage. S.O.S. 8:6, “Jealousy is as cruel as the grave.”
   
7. The same jealousy which destroys Category Two Love, can also destroy the normal function of the soul. Job 5:2, Prov 14:30. This is the explanation of some cases of psychoses and neuroses.
   
8. Category Two Love precedes jealousy, S.O.S. 8:6.
   
9. Jealousy motivates to revenge, Prov 6:34.
   
10. Jealousy of Jospeh motivated his brothers to sell him into slavery, Acts 7:9.
    
11. Therefore, jealousy takes real or apparent wrongs out of the Lord’s hand and intrudes on the Divine prerogative of judgment. Deut 32:35, Rom 12:19.
    
12. Jealousy split the nation of Israel. Isa 11:3. Ephraim’s jealousy of Judah.
    
13. Jealousy was the motivator of the religious leaders who crucified the Lord Jesus Christ. Matt 27:18, Mark 15:10.
    
14. Continuous negative volition manifests itself in jealousy. Rom 1:28-29.
    
15. Jealousy rejects the teaching of the Word of God. Acts 13:45, 17:5.
    
16. False Doctrine of apostasy produces jealousy. 1 Tim 6:4.

In these passages “envy” and “jealousy” are synonymous terms.

Lessons From Daniel Chapter Three!

1. Daniel chapter three reveals the pernicious activities of religion.
   
2. God cannot be reduced to material substance. Therefore, nothing made by man is worthy of worship.
   
3. Neither human egotism, pride, nor the abuse of power can change the course of human history.
   
4. Governmental interference with human volition in spiritual matters is anti-biblical and does not constitute a legitimate function of government.
   
5. Responses to ecumenical religion are not ordered under the Divine Institution which God has ordained.
   
6. God never honors compromise.
   
7. A believer should never be foolish enough to retaliate against jealous people. Remember, “The battle is the Lord’s.”
   
8. In time of pressure and suffering, the presence of the Word of God in the soul is imperative for stability and correct decisions.
   
9. Happiness comes from the Word of God in the human spirit, not from the materialistic possessions or power.
   
10. God protected the faithful believers of Daniel’s day when they faced persecution and death.
    
11. By application, God protects His people in the Church Age today and will provide for believers in the Age of Israel, upon its resumption at the beginning of the Tribulation.
    

    

Psalm 37 is an Illustration That “The Word of God is Sharper Than Any Two-Edged Sword,” Heb 4:12

Sometimes we take a promise or two from Psalm 37 and apply it to our lives, which is what promises are designed for. But, if you take an over-all look at Psalm 37, you will see that it also brings out the absolutes in God’s plan.

Psa 37 not only promises rewards to the believer who loves the Lord, but, also, in contrast, shows us how thoroughly God handles the discipline of those who are evil in His sight.

I will let the Word do its work!

”The Word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword.”

”Immanuel”

Wednesday, February 7, 2001

Let’s Take a Walk!

1 Cor 13:2, “Though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, but have not love, I am nothing.”

This is a passage, by the way, that Theodore Roosevelt corrected his pastor, and he told him that the word “charity” in the Greek was the word “love,” AGAPE.

Man may know all about Christ and His love without one spark of love in his soul. There are thousands of people who know as much of Jesus Christ and His love as any of us do, and could talk about it, and argue about it, and draw inferences from it, and have the whole system of evangelical Christianity at their finger tips. It is at their finger tips and it never gets any nearer to them than that!

There is a knowledge with which love has nothing to do with – a knowledge with many people is all-sufficient. But “knowledge puffeth up” says the apostle in 1 Cor 8:1, into an unwholesome babble of self-complacency that will one day will disappear. Nothing but love “buildeth up” a steadfast, slowly rising fabric.

There are two kinds of knowledge, the mere rattle of notions, in a man’s dry brain, like the seeds of a withered poppy head, very many, very dry, very hard. That will make a noise when you shake it.

There is another kind of knowledge which goes deep down into the soul and is the only knowledge worth calling by that name. That knowledge is the child of love. Love, says Paul, is the parent of all knowledge.

”The greatest of these is love.”

”Immanuel”

What is Man?

1. What does God claim with reference to man’s origin?
   ”I have created him, I have formed him, yea, I have made him,” Isa 43:7.
   
2. What physical nature has he in common with other living creatures?
   ”And the Lord formed man of the dust of the ground,” Gen 2:7.
   ”He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things,” Acts 17:25.
   ”They have all one breath,” Ecc 3:19.
   
3. How does man differ from the lower order of creation?
   A. God communicated to man, a nature akin to His own.
   ”In the image of God made He man,” Gen 9:6.
   
   B. He intended man for communication with Himself.
   ”Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” Matt 4:4.
   
4. With what faculties are we able to apprehend God and His will?
   ”With my soul have I desired Thee ... with my spirit within me will I seek Thee early,” Isa 26:9.
   
5. Of what three parts is the believer thus composed?
   1 Thes 5:23, “I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
   
   More to follow ...
   

   

   What is Man? Part Two

6. Having given man the capacity for communion, what invitation does the Creator extend to them?
   ”Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night,” Amos 5:8.
   
7. How are we encouraged to avail ourselves of the privilege of communion?
   ”He is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him,” Heb 11:6.
   
8. How does God desire us to regard Him?
   ”Have we not all one Father, hath not one God created us?” Mal 2:10.
   God is a universal, sovereign Father, and all men by nature are His children. The age long tragedy of mankind springs from the fact that though the Fatherhood abides, the sonship is broken. Mankind does not live in the spirit of sonship or in the fellowship of sons. The Christian message is that men may enter into the consciousness and experience of sonship through Jesus Christ.
   ”We are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”
   
9. What harmonious relation should likewise obtain between man and man?
   ”Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” Mark 12:31.
   ”A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love one another,” John 13:34.
   
10. What authority did God give man on Earth?
    ”Thou makest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands, Thou hast put all things under his feet,” Psa 8:6.
    
    More to come …
    

    

    What is Man? Part Three

11. What is required of a steward?
    ”It is required in stewards that a man be found, faithful,” 1 Cor 4:2.
    
12. Though God has made man His steward, how does He declare His ownership?
    ”Whatsoever is under the whole Heaven is Mine,” Job 4:11.
    
13. Will God call man to account for his stewardship?
    ”Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour,” 1 Cor 3:8.
    
14. What is required of a faithful steward?
    ”Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God’s,” 1 Cor 6:20.
    
15. What will the unfaithful steward forfeit?
    ”If thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity,” Ezek 33:9.
    
16. How just will be God’s appointment of reward and punishment?
    ”The soul that sinneth it shall die, the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him,” Ezek 18:20.
    
    More to come …
    

    

    What is Man? Part Four

17. Will God take pleasure in withdrawing life for ever from the sinner?
    ”I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die,” Ezek 33:11.
    
18. What gracious offer therefore, is made to those who seek to fulfil the Divine intention?
    ”Repent and turn yourselves from all your transgressions. So iniquity will not be your ruin,” Ezek 18:30.
    The word “repent” both in the Hebrew and Greek language means to “change your mind,” i.e., to change your mind about Christ. “For with the mind man believeth unto salvation.”
    
    Christ never said to feel sorry for your sins to be saved, because sin is not the issue. Sins were paid for on the Cross. Now the issue is not sin but the Saviour ... What think ye about Christ?

”What is man that Thou are mindful of him?”

“Immanuel”

Where Did Evil Come From?

1. Had evil any part in God’s original creation?
   ”And God saw everything that He made and behold, it was very good,” Gen 1:31.
   
2. With whom then did sin originate?
   ”He that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning,” 1 John 3:8
   
3. Who is the devil?
   ”The old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world,” Rev 12:9.
   If ever an idea was Biblical, it is the existence of a personal devil.
   
4. What was his original name and from what high estate has he fallen?
   ”How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning,” Isa 14:12.
   
5. What was Lucifer’s original character?
   ”Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created,” Ezek 28:15.
   
6. What sinful thought arose in Lucifer’s mind?
   ”Thine mind was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness,” Ezek 28:17.
   
7. Who associated themselves with Satan in his opposition to God?
   ”The angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation,” Jude 6.
   
   More to follow …
   

   

   Where Did Evil Come From? Part Two

8. What was the result of Lucifer’s rebellion?
   ”And there was war in Heaven, Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon fought and his angels and prevailed not. Neither was their place found any more in Heaven,” Rev 12:7-8.
   
9. Where was Satan exiled?
   ”I beheld Satan fall from Heaven,” Luke 10:18.
   ”Woe to the inhabiters of the Earth and of the sea, for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath,” Rev 12:12.
   
10. By what means did he deceive our first parents?
    ”The serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety,” 2 Cor 11:3, Gen 3:1-6.
    
11. How has Satan since been occupied in the Earth?
    ”The devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour,” 1 Pet 5:8.
    
12. Who volunteered to defeat Satan’s designs?
    ”For this purpose was the Son of God manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil,” 1 John 3:8, Heb 2:14.
    
13. On what occasion was the overthrow of Satan first foretold?
    ”I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel,” Gen 3:15.
    
    Genesis chapter three is the only chapter which if we could conceive of it as being withdrawn, would leave all the rest of Scripture unintelligible. Take this away, this record of the fall, and of the provision which God so graciously made to repair these consequences, to build up the breach which Adam had made, take this away and you take away the key of knowledge to all the rest of the Bible.
    
    Nor is it the Bible alone which thus would become unintelligible, but the whole condition of the world around us, of man and of nature, of our own selves above all, would present itself to us an inexplicable riddle. What a riddle indeed, does it ever more continue to be to all those who refuse to accept the solution of it here offered.
    
    There are indeed in this chapter almost as many mysteries as there are words.
    
    More to come …
    

    

    Where Did Evil Come From? Part Three

14. How was Christ’s power over Satan and his evil angels manifested during His earthly ministry?
    ”When the even was come, they brought unto Him many that were possessed with demons. And He cast out the spirits with His Word,” Matt 8:16.
    
15. In the hour of death, what reference did Jesus Christ make to the transience of Satan’s power?
    ”This is your hour and the power of darkness,” Luke 22:53.
    
16. How had He previously foretold the end of Satan’s dominion?
    ”Now shall the prince of this world be cast out,” John 12:31.
    
17. After His ascension, whom did Jesus Christ commission to continue His controversy with Satan?
    ”I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness ... to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God,” Acts 26:16, 18.
    
18. What struggle is the lot of the children of God in all ages?
    ”For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places,” Eph 6:12.
    
    More to come …
    

    

    Where Did Evil Come From? Part Four

19. How may we obtain full protection from Satan?
    ”Put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil,” Eph 6:11.
    
20. What assurance of triumph is given to every child of God?
    ”He that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not,” 1 John 5:18.
    
21. What seeming triumph will Satan achieve in the last days and why?
    ”Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of demons,” 1 Tim 4:1.
    
22. Yet in spite of Satan’s apparent victories, how fearfully do the evil angels contemplate the coming of judgment?
    ”The demons also believe and tremble,” James 2:19.
    
23. To what end will Satan ultimately come?
    ”And the devil that deceived them was cast into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone,” Rev 20:10.
    
24. What end did Paul also predict for the evil angels?
    ”Whose end shall be according to their works,” 2 Cor 11:15.
    
25. What assurance are we given that the tragic story of rebellion will never again be repeated?
    ”Affliction shall not rise up the second time,” Nahum 1:9.

”Immanuel”

Thursday, February 8, 2001

Let’s Take a Walk in the Word – Music For the Soul

“That ye may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge,” Eph 3:17-19.

”The sanctity of love”

Before we can love an unseen Person and believe in His love, we must know about Him by the ordinary means by which we learn about all persons outside of the circle our sight. So, before the love which is thus the parent of deep, true knowledge, there must be the knowledge by study and credence of the record concerning Christ, which supplies the fact on which alone love can be cherished.

The understanding has its part to play in leading the soul to love, and then the soul becomes the true teacher.

”He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love,” 1 John 4:8.

He that, because Christ dwells in the heart, is rooted and grounded in love, will be strengthened to know the love in which he is rooted. The Christ within us will know the love of Christ.

We must first “taste” and then we shall “see” that the Lord is good, as the psalmist puts it with deep Truth. Psa 34:8.

The Blessings of Forgiveness!

1. Who only has the right to remit punishment and forgive sin?
   ”I even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions,” Isa 43:25.
   
2. How ready is God to exercise His mercy toward the sinner?
   ”And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious … Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,” Exodus 34:6-7.
   
3. What necessity did God’s holiness impose upon His mercy?
   ”Without the shedding of blood there is no remission,” Heb 9:22.
   
4. By Whom have the conditions of forgiveness been met?
   ”Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sin,” Acts 13:38.
   
5. How did Jesus Christ make forgiveness possible?
   ”In Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His Grace,” Eph 1:7.
   ”The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin,” 1 Jn 1:7.
   
6. By virtue of the sacrifice of Christ, what is God willing to do for those who are convicted of sin?
   ”He looketh upon men and if any say, I have sinned, He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light,” Job 33:27-28.
   
7. How completely is God prepared to remove the guilt of sin?
   ”Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool,” Isa 1:18.
   
   The pardon of a believer’s sin is an entire pardon. It is the full pardon of all his sins. It would be no pardon to him if it were not an entire pardon. If it were but a partial blotting out of the thick cloud, if it were a forgiveness of some sins only, then the Gospel is no “glad tidings to the soul.”
   
   More to come …
   

   

   Forgiveness of Sin – Part Two

8. How far will He remove our transgressions from us?
   ”As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us,” Psa 103:12.
   
9. What further does He say concerning the remembrance of sin?
   ”I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more,” Heb 8:12.
   
   So fathomless are the depths of the sea of the atonement, which Christ has poured out, that in it are cast, never to be found again, all the sins of the believer.
   
10. How supremely blessed, therefore, is the forgiven sinner?
    ”Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered, blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin,” Rom 4:7-8, Psa 32:1-2.
    
11. Believing the promises of God, for what did the psalmist pray?
    ”Remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions. According to Thy mercy remember Thou me for Thy goodness sake, O Lord,” Psa 25:7, 18.
    
12. How did he testify to the forgiveness of his sins?
    ”I acknowledge my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord and Thou forgivest the iniquity of my sin,” Psa 32:5
    
    More to come …
    

    

    Forgiveness – Part Three

13. For what does Jesus Christ encourage believers confidently to pray?
    ”And forgive us our sins,” Luke 11:4.
    
14. Is there any sin which God will not forgive?
    ”Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven unto men,” Matt 12:31.
    
15. What makes the sin unpardonable?
    ”And when He, the Spirit of God, is come, He convicted the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment,” John 16:8.
    
    ”Of sin, because he believeth not on Him.”
    
    If the sinner refuses to be convicted of sin by rejecting the Spirit’s pleading, obviously there can be no pardon. For there is no other Messenger of mercy to follow.
    
16. If we claim forgiveness from God, how shall we relate ourselves to those who wrong us?
    ”Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you,” Eph 4:32, Col 3:12-13.
    
17. Should there be any limit to our forgiveness of others?
    ”Then came Peter to Him and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven,” Matt 18:21-22.
    

Friday, February 9, 2001

Let’s Take a Walk in the Word – Music for the Soul

Who is Your King?

”Choose you this day whom ye will serve,” Joshua 24:15.

You should deliberately decide whether or not Jesus Christ is to be your Saviour and King. Deliberately decide! God has given us that gift of choice. And thereby has laid upon us a tremendous weight of responsibility which separates us from all the less endowed and sometimes because less endowed, more happy creatures around us.

What do men do with it on the most part? I wonder how many of us have drifted into our “opinions” as we are pleased to call them, by quite another process – than that of an intelligent weighing of the force of evidence. I wonder how many of us with unconscious self-condemnation, fallen into ways and habits of action which we never consciously resolve should be our masters.

Most of the life of the bulk of men is lived without any adequate exercise of their own deliberate volition and determination. We do not decide, or if we do, we let deliberate choice be coerced by inclination and let wishes put their claws into the scale and drag it down. Or, we allow our environment to settle a large part of our beliefs and our practices. It must settle a great deal of both for all of us, and none of us can get rid of the pressure of the surrounding atmosphere.

But we are meant to be hammers and not anvils – to mold circumstances, not to be battered and molded by them; to exercise a deliberate choice, and not to be like dead fish in the river who are carried by the stream; or derelicts in the Atlantic that go floating about for years and never reach any port at all, but are caught by the currents and are slaves of every wind that blows.

Choose you this day whom ye will serve!

”Immanuel”

Is Our Bible Complete?

1. Do all Bibles contain exactly the same books as our Authorized and Revised versions?
   No. The Douay Bible of the Roman Catholic Church contains what is known as the Apocrypha. It is comprised of seven extra books in the Old Testament, namely, Tobit, Baruch, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and 1 and 2 Maccabees; together with seven additional chapters to the book of Esther, and 66 extra verses in the third chapter of Daniel called, “the story of the three children.”
   
2. What does the Roman Catholic Church say in reference to the contents of her Bible?
   ”If anyone does not receive the entire books with all their parts as they are accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church, and in the old Latin Vulgate edition, as sacred and canonical, “let them be anathema.”
   – Decree of the Council of Trent, 1564.
   
3. Have any Roman Catholics ever question the inclusion of the Apocrypha in their Bibles?
   Yes, the great Roman Catholic scholar Jerome, when instructed by Pope Damasus about A.D. 400 to prepare the standard Latin Vulgate version, wanted to exclude the Apocrypha as having no place in Scripture. He was prevented from doing so however, and under pressure allowed them to remain to be “read for purposes of edification,” thus the Roman Catholic cannot ever claim the support of their chief translator for the Apocrypha.
   
4. What other Catholic authorities have pronounced against the authority of the Apocryphal writings?
   Augustine followed Jerome in recognizing a difference between the Canonical and the Apocryphal books. The Spanish and Trans-Alpine churches rejected the Apocrypha. The British Catholic scholars Bede, John of Salisbury in 1180, and William Ockham in 1347, all separated the Apocryphal books. Cardinal Ximenes in his magnificent Polygot Bible separated the Apocrypha from the rest of Scripture in the sixteenth century.
   
   Even after the council of Florence in 1442 and the Council of Trent in 1546 had pronounced the Apocryphal books equally as inspired as the other Books, Sixtus of Siena in 1566 insisted on separating the Apocrypha from the rest of the Canon and Bernard Lamy declared “nevertheless they are not of the same authority.”
   
5. Why then does Rome insist on retaining the Apocrypha?
   Because the Apocryphal books can be quoted in support of some of the false doctrine of the Church.
   A. Prayers for the dead are advocated.
   ”If he had not hoped that they were slain should have risen again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead,” 2 Macc 12:44.
   
   B. The dead are represented as praying for themselves.
   ”O Lord Almighty, Thou God of Israel hear now the prayers of the dead Israelites, and of their children, which have sinned before Thee,” Baruch 3:4.
   
   C. The meritorious value of almsgiving is emphasized.
   ”For alms doth deliver from death, and shall purge always all sin. Those that exercise alms and righteousness shall be filled with life,” Tobit 12:9.
   
   D. The doctrine of Purgatory is suggested.
   ”The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them,” Wisdom 3:1.
   

The Power of the Resurrection!

1. How short did Jesus Christ declare that His sojourn in the tomb would be?
   ”The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men and they shall kill him and the third day He shall be raised again,” Matt 17:22-23.
   
2. By whom was the resurrection of Christ foretold in the Old Testament?
   By David – “My flesh shall also rest in hope, for Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption,” Psa 16:9-10.
   
3. What happened when the predicted time limit expired?
   ”There was a great earthquake for the angel of the Lord descended from Heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it,” Matt 28:2.
   
   He was dead! His enemies thought they were done with Him and they were glad. His friends thought He was done for and they were sad. But Heaven watching was preparing the music which would ring around the world declaring the defeat of evil, the mastery of sin, and the ransom of the race.
   
4. To whom was the resurrection of Christ first announced?
   ”And the angel answered and said unto the women, “He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay,” Matt 28:5-6.
   
5. To whom did Jesus Christ show Himself after His resurrection?
   ”He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve, after that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep,” 1 Cor 15:5-6.
   
   More to come …
   

   

   The Power of the Resurrection – Part Two

6. For how long was Jesus Christ seen by His disciples?
   ”To whom also He showed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs being seen of them forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God,” Acts 1:3.
   
7. What power was manifested in the resurrection of Christ?
   ”Though He was crucified through weakness, yet He lived by the power of God,” 2 Cor 13:4.
   ”Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father,” Rom 6:4.
   The resurrection takes God out of the realm of speculation and theory, and brings Him down into the realm of history and of fact. He is no impersonal or semi-personal principle or abstract force. He is a doer. The resurrection of Christ is His deed.
   
8. What did the resurrection confirm?
   ”Jesus was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead,” Rom 1:4, Acts 13:33.
   
9. What did it also convincingly demonstrate?
   ”Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead,” 1 Cor 15:12.
   
10. As a result of His resurrection, what did Christ claim?
    ”I am He that liveth, and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, Amen. And have the keys of hell and death,” Rev 1:18
    
    More to come …
    

    

    The Power of the Resurrection – Part Three

11. What proof of this was given immediately after He had risen?
    ”And the graves were opened and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared unto many,” Matt 27:52-53.
    
12. Of what then may believers be assured?
    ”This is the will of Him that sent Me that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day,” John 6:40, 1 Cor 15:23, 52.
    
13. What triumphant acclamation will be upon the lips of the redeemed in that day?
    ”O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” 1 Cor 15:55.
    
14. How vital is the resurrection in the plan of salvation?
    ”If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished,” 1 Cor 15:14, 17, 18.
    
15. What prominence, therefore, did Paul give to the resurrection in his teaching?
    ”And Paul, as his manner was, reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, Opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom said he, I preach unto you, is Christ,” Acts 17:2, 3, Acts 26:22-23.
    
16. What attitude to this great Truth should we share with him?
    ”I count all things but loss that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead,” Phil 3:8-11.

”Immanuel”

Saturday, February 10, 2001

Let’s Take a Walk in the Word – Music for the Soul

Individual Responsibility!

“Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin,” James 4:17.

The recognition of the universality of the knowledge of God in all Christians has a great work to do among the body of Christ. I don’t think that there are any of them who sufficiently recognize this principle. Not only in a church where there is a priesthood and an infallible head of the church on Earth, nor in Churches only that are bound by the human creeds imposed upon them by men. But also in churches like ours where there is no formal recognition of either of these two errors, the practical contradiction of this universality is apt to creep in.

It is a great deal more the fault of the people than the priest. A great deal more the fault of the congregation than the pastor. When they are lazily contented to take their Christianity at second-hand from him and to shuffle all the responsibility off their own shoulders on to his.

If this Truth obliges me, and all men who stand in my position, to say with the apostle “Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy,” 2 Cor 1:24.

It obliges you to take nothing from me or any man, on our bare words, nor to exalt any of us into a position which would contradict this great principle, but yourself at first-hand, to go to the Lord, and get straight from Him the teaching which He only can give.

Dominion and subjection, authority and submission to men, in any office in the church, are shut out by such words as these.

”Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin.”

”Immanuel”

February 10, 2001 – A Walk With the Lord!

“All Shall Know Me!”

”They shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for all shall know Me from the least to the greatest,” Heb 8:11.

What a promise! Just think about it for a while and pause here!

”They all, from the least to the greatest, shall know.”

There is to be no distinction of rank, or age, or endowment, which will result in some of the people of God having a position from which any of the others are altogether shut out.

The writer, of course, is contrasting in his mind, though he does not express the contrast, the condition of things of old when the spiritual aristocracy of the nation received communications which they imparted to their fellows.

The world is now flooded with the light of Christ and every Christian by virtue of their Christian character does possess the anointing from the Holy One in which lie the potency and the promise of the knowledge of all things that are needful to be known for life and godliness.

This is the true democracy of the Gospel, the universal possession of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do we know anything about the inward knowledge of God which comes from friendship with Him and speaks irrefutable certainties in the soul which receives it?

”If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His,” Rom 8:9. If you owe all your knowledge of and your faith in, the great verities of the Gospel, and the loving personality of God, to the mere report of others, if you cannot verify these by your own experience, if you can not say, many things I know not, you can easily puzzle me with critical and philosophical subtleties... But this one thing I do know. That “John 9:41. If you cannot say that, then it is time for you to examine yourself whether your Christianity is not mainly a form and how far it has any life in it at all.

”All shall know Me.”

”Immanuel”

Who is in Control? Is God in Control?

1. Had God a definite purpose in creating the Earth?
   ”He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited,” Isa 45:18.
   
2. How completely are the plans of God laid for the outworking of His purpose?
   ”Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world,” Acts 15:18.
   
3. How perfect are the Counsels of the Lord?
   ”With Him is wisdom; He hath counsel and understanding,” Job 12:13.
   “His understanding is infinite,” Psa 147:5.
   
4. In Whom does the Divine purpose center?
   ”Who hath saved us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and Grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,” 2 Tim 1:9.
   
5. How has God emphasized the immutability of His counsels?
   ”God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His Counsel, confirmed it by an oath,” Heb 6:17.
   
6. Though men may plan wisely, what all too often frustrates their desires?
   ”To will is present with me but how to perform that which is good, I find not,” Rom 7:18.
   
   More to come …
   

   

   Is God in Control? – Part Two

7. By what attribute, however, is God’s wisdom reinforced?
   ”God hath spoken once, twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God,” Psa 62:11.
   ”He is strong that executeth His Word,” Joel 2:11.
   
8. Is there any doubt that as to God’s ability to bring His counsels to fruition?
   ”Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will,” Eph 1:11.
   ”My counsel shall stand and I will do all My pleasure,” Isa 46:10.
   
   God is omnipotent. He can do anything and all things. There is absolutely nothing too hard for Him. There are countless blessed and glorious applications of, and inferences from, this great Truth. It will take you your entire lifetime to discover them all, and you will rejoice in them throughout all eternity.
   
9. By what name does God declare His omnipotence?
   ”I am the Almighty God,” Gen 17:1.
   
10. How was God’s omnipotence demonstrated in creation?
    ”He spake and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast,” Psa 33:9.
    ”Thou hast made the Heavens and the Earth by Thy great power and stretched out Arm, and there is nothing too hard for Thee,” Jer 32:17.
    
11. How is His power continually manifest in nature?
    ”While the Earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease,” Gen 8:22.
    ”Upholding all things by the Word of His power,” Heb 1:3.
    
    More to come …
    

    

    Is God in Control? – Part Three

12. To what does God draw attention in order to inspire confidence in His activity among men?
    ”If ye can break My covenant of the day and My covenant of the night, then may also My covenant be broken with David, My servant,” Jer 33:20.
    
13. What authority does He exercise in the kingdoms of men?
    ”The Most High divided to the nations their inheritance,” Deut 32:8.
    ”He changeth, the times and the seasons, He removeth kings, and setteth up kings,” Dan 2:21.
    ”The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever He will,” Dan 4:17.
    
    World events which shape the lives and destines of millions do not too obviously bear this mark of Divine plans. Yet when we have realized the fact of man’s free will, do we not see in all history, past and contemporary His Story?
    
14. How does God make even the acts of wicked men work out His will?
    ”As for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it for good to deliver many souls alive,” Gen 50:20.
    ”Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee, the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain,” Psa 76:10.
    ”Through the greatness of Thy power shall Thine enemies submit themselves unto Thee,” Psa 66:3.
    
    All that is memorable in the annals of history, all the rising and falls of empires, all the turns in human life, take place according to His plan. In vain, men contrive and combine to accomplish their own counsels. Unless they are parts of His counsel, likewise the efforts of their utmost strength and wisdom are crossed and reversed by the feeblest and most unthought of circumstances.
    

    

    Is God in Control” – Part Four

15. Can anything prevent the fulfillment of God’s will in the lives of those who yield themselves to Him?
    “I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
    ”I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, not any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” Rom 8:38-39, John 10:28-29.
    
16. Though, in His all-seeing purpose, He may permit evil for a time to hold sway, how compete will be His final triumph?
    ”He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness,” Rom 9:28.
    
17. What song of triumph will be raised in that day?
    ”The Lord God omnipotent reigneth,” Rev 19:6.
    
18. For what, then, should we earnestly pray?
    ”Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, in Earth as it is in Heaven,” Matt 6:10.

”Immanuel”

Sunday, February 11, 2001

A Walk With the Lord in the Word – Music for the Soul

“And David said to Nathan, as the Lord liveth. the man that hath done this things shall surely die, because he did this thing, and because he be bad to pity, and Nathan said to David, Thou art the man,” 2 Sam 12:5-7.

”Blind to our own faults”

If man’s own sin is held up before him a little disguised, he says how ugly it is. And if only for a moment he can be persuaded that it is not his own conduct but somebody else’s that he is judging, the instinctive condemnation comes.

We have two sets of names for vices, one which excuses them, and the other which puts them in their real hideousness. We keep the palatable set for home consumption and liberally distribute the plainspoken, ugly set among the vices and faults of our friends.

The same thing which I call in myself prudence, I call in you meanness. The same thing which you call in yourself, generous giving, you call in your friends, filthy sensualism. That which to the doer of it is righteous indignation, to the onlooker is passionate anger. And so we go all around the circle and we condemn our own vices when we see them in others.

So, the king who never thought when he stole away Uriah’s one ewe lamb, and put him to death by his traitorous commands, setting him in the front of the battle, that he was lacking in compassion, but blazes up at once and righteously sentence the “other man” to death, because “he had no pity.” He had never thought of himself or of his crime as cruel, as mean, as selfish, as heartless. But when he sees a disguised picture of it, he knows it for the devil’s child which it is.

For Godliness we need to cultivate the habit of discrimination between good and evil, right and wrong, because this world is full of illusions. And we are very blind.

”The fruit of the Spirit is self-control.”

”Immanuel”

The Blessed Hope!

1. For what purpose did Jesus Christ come to dwell among men?
   ”For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which is lost,” Luke 19:10.
   
2. As He hung on the Cross, what triumphant claim was He able to make concerning His earthly mission?
   ”When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished and He bowed His head and gave up the Spirit,” John 19:30.
   
3. Since His return to Heaven what further phase of His work has occupied Jesus Christ?
   ”We have such a High Priest who is set on the Right Hand of the throne of the Majesty in the Heavens,” Heb 8:1.
   ”He ever liveth to make intercession,” Heb 7:25.
   
4. By what act will the great plan of salvation be consummated?
   ”So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for Him will He appear the second time without sin unto salvation,” Heb 9:28.
   
5. What solemn promise to this effect did Jesus Christ give His disciples before He left them?
   ”I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there ye may be also,” John 14:3.
   
6. What assurance were the disappointed disciples given immediately after the ascension?
   ”This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into Heaven,” Acts 1:11.
   
   More to come …
   

   

   Blessed Hope – Part Two

7. What became the keynote of their evangel?
   ”For yet a little while and He that shall come will come and will not tarry,” Heb 10:37.
   
8. What has been “The Blessed Hope” to the Church through the ages?
   ”Looking for that Blessed Hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ,” Titus 2:13.
   
9. Into what experience should a realization of the imminent return of Jesus Christ lead us?
   ”Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world; Looking for that Blessed Hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ,” Titus 2:12-13.

”Immanuel”

Monday, February 12, 2001

Let’s Take a Walk in the Word – Music for the Soul

“The permanent life of the Christian”

”He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever, 1 John 2:17.

These words imply not so much indwelling but persistence or continuity during our earthly career as rather the absolute and unlimited permanence of the obedient life.

It will endure when all things else, “the world and the lust thereof,” 1 John 2:17. Christians, temples of Christ, are subject to the same laws of mutation and decay as all created things are. It is true.

Or, on the other hand, men whose lives are cribbed and cabined and confined within the limits of the material and the visible have these lives as permanent in very solemn and awesome sense, inasmuch as their fruit continues, though it is fruitless fruit, and as much as they have to bear forever the responsibility of the past.

The lives that run parallel with God’s will last, and when everything that has been against that will or negligent to it, is summed up and comes to naught, and is abolished, their lives continue.

The life that is in conformity with the will of God lasts in another sense, inasmuch as it persists through all changes. Even the supreme change that is wrought by death, in the same direction, and is substantially the same.

For the man who was doing God’s will here, down among the cotton bales, and ledgers, and retorts, and dictionaries, will do God’s will hereafter amid the glories. It will be the same life, with the same guiding principles, with the same root for its activities.

So it will last forever.

”Immanuel”

Secret Service Christians!

“Can any hide himself in secret places, that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill Heaven and Earth? saith the Lord? Jer 23:24.

In a society like ours, in which the influence of Christian morality affects a great many people who have no connection with Christ, it is not always that the life should preach, because over a large field of ordinary life, the underground influence, so to speak, of Christian ethics has infiltrated and penetrated. So that many a tree bears a greener leaf because of the water that has found its way to it from the river, though it be planted far from its banks.

Even those who are not Christians live outward lives largely regulated by Christian principle. The whole level of morality has been heaved up, as the coastline has sometimes been by the hidden fires below working, by the imperceptible gradual influence of the Gospel.

So, it is sometimes necessary that we should say “I am a Christian” as well as that we should live like one. Ask yourself whether you have buttoned your great coats over your uniforms, that nobody may know Whose soldier you are. Ask yourself whether you have sometimes held your tongue because you knew that if you spoke, people would find out where you came from and what country you belong to. Ask yourself if you have ever accompanied the witness of your lives with the commentary of your confession?

Did you ever, anywhere but in a Church, stand up and say “I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour, God’s only Son and my Lord?” Then ask yourself another question, have you ever dared to be singular? “So do not I because of the fear of the Lord.” We sometimes have to dare to be in a minority of one, if we will not be untrue to our Lord and Saviour and to ourselves in Him.

”Immanuel”

The Privilege of Prayer!

1. What invitation to communion does God extend to man?
   ”Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you,” James 4:8.
   ”Ask, and it shall be given unto thee; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto thee: For everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened,” Matt 7:7-8.
   All true prayer is a rising up and a drawing nearer to God in mind and in soul and in spirit.
   
2. What may we be assured as we approach Him in prayer?
   ”O Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come,” Psa 65:2.
   
3. What attitude do the wicked take to the privilege of prayer?
   ”Who is the Almighty that we should serve Him? And what profit shall we have if we pray unto Him?” Job 21:15.
   
4. To whom do many in ignorance make their petitions?
   ”They have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven images and pray unto a god that cannot save,” Isa 45:20.
   
5. In contrast with the wicked, how did the psalmist respond to God’s invitation of communion?
   ”When Thou saidst seek ye My face, my heart said unto Thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek,” Psa 27:8.
   
   More to come …
   

   

   Privilege of Prayer – Part Two

6. How appreciative was he of the privilege of prayer?
   ”But it is good for me to draw near to God, I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all Thy works,” Psa 73:28.
   
7. What will the Lord be to all that seek Him?
   ”For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over is rich unto all that call upon Him,” Rom 10:12-13.
   
8. How does God’s willingness to hear and answer compare with the readiness of earthly parents?
   ”If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask Him,” Matt 7:11.
   
9. Is God ever grudging in His answers to our prayers?
   ”If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that give to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given unto him,” James 1:5.
   
10. How fully will He satisfy the desire of our souls?
    ”And this is the confidence that we have in Him. That if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us, and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask we know that we have the petitions that we are desired of Him,” 1 John 5:14-15.
    
11. Is it possible for us to overtax His capacity to give?
    ”Now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us,” Eph 3:20.
    
12. What personal testimony does the psalmist bear concerning God’s answers to his own prayers?
    ”I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.” “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles,” Psa 34:4, 6.
    
    Prayer is a fact of experience. Through all the ages, the testimony of those who prayed has been that God hears and answers the prayers of His children.
    
    More to come …
    

    

    The Privilege of Prayer – Part Three

13. On occasion, how immediate is the Lord’s response to the prayers of His children?
    ”And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear,” Isa 65:24.
    
14. What complaint however, did the psalmist at one time make to God?
    ”O my God, I cry in the daytime but Thou hearest not, and in the night season and am not silent,” Psa 22:2.
    
15. What confession, however, was he led to make?
    ”For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Thine eyes, nevertheless Thou hearest the voice of my supplication when I cried unto Thee,” Psa 31:22.
    
16. What had he learned to do?
    ”I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry,” Psa 40:1.
    
17. Of what may we be fully assured concerning the Lord’s help?
    “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy and find Grace to help in time of need,” Heb 4:16.
    
18. What should God’s answers to prayer evoke from us?
    A. Love
    ”I love the Lord because He hath heard my voice and my supplications,” Psa 116:1
    
    B. Praise
    ”I will praise Thee, for Thou hast heard me, and art become my Salvation,” Psa 118:21.

”Immanuel”

The Ministry of Song!

1. What is one of the most acceptable ways in which we can worship God?
   ”O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with Psalms,” Psa 95:1-2.
   
   The purpose of singing in Church is to release emotions, emotions of faith, contrition, confession, gratitude, love, and devotion. Practically every great spiritual awakening in every country has been prefaced or accomplished by singing of hymns and spiritual songs.
   
   Hymn singing is the greatest ally to godliness, next to the Scriptures.
   
2. When do we first hear of God being praised in sacred song?
   ”Where was thou when I laid the foundations of the Earth? When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” Job 38:4, 7.
   
3. What other notable event evoked songs of praise from the angels of God?
   ”And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth, peace to men whom God is well pleased,” Luke 2:13-14.
   
4. What joy did the psalmist find in singing the praises of God?
   ”It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto Thy Name, O Most High,” Psa 92:1.
   
   The Psalm began with David. Its lyric beauty and tender grace, its rhythmic measure, its exuberant hallelujahs and plaintive lamentations, its inimitable expression of changeful play of light and shade over the soul. Its blending of nature and godliness. Its references to the life of men and the world as regarded from the standpoint of God, these elements in the Psalms which have endeared it to holy souls in every age, owe their origin to the poetic, Heaven-touched soul of the sweet singer of Israel.
   
5. How long did he declare that he would continue to sing unto the Lord?
   ”I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live, I will sing praise to my God while I have my being,” Psa 104:33.
   
   More to come …
   

   

   The Ministry of Song – Part Two

6. How extensively did David make use of singing in the temple worship?
   ”So the number of them with their brethren that were instructed in the songs of the Lord, even all that were cunning, was two hundred fourscore and eight,” 1 Chron 25:7.
   
7. By what were the temple singers accompanied?
   ”And David spoke to the chief of the Levities to appoint their brethren to be the singers with instruments of music, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy,” 1 Chr 15:16, verses 17-21.
   
8. What did captivity destroy in the hearts of the Israelites?
   ”They that carried us away required us a song, and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” Psa 137:3-4, verses 1-2.
   
9. What came back to Israel, however, with the return from the captivity?
   ”When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing,” Psa 126:1-2.
   
10. What duty do believers have today to make use of the gift of music?
    ”Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs,” Col 3:16.
    
11. What also may we do in our hearts all the day?
    ”Speaking to yourselves in Psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs. Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,” Eph 5:19.
    
    More to come. …
    

    

    The Ministry of Song – Part Three

12. What should new experience of God’s love and mercy evoke from us?
    ”O sing unto the Lord a new song, for He hath done marvelous things,” Psa 98:1.
    
    When the poet Carpani asked his friend Haydn why his music was so cheerful, the great composer answered, “I cannot make it otherwise. I write according to the thoughts I feel. When I think upon God, my heart is full of joy that the notes dance and leap, as it were, from my pen. And since God has given me a cheerful heart, it will be pardoned me that I serve Him with a cheerful spirit.”
    
13. How will the redeemed express their praise to God when the long reign of sin ends?
    ”And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away,” Isa 35:10, Isa 51:3.

”Immanuel”

Tuesday, February 13, 2001

A Biblical Look at “the Powers That Be” – Important For Our Day!

1. Who is the Supreme Ruler of Heaven and Earth?
   ”Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine mind, that the Lord, He is God in Heaven above, and upon the Earth beneath, there is none else,” Deut 4:39.
   
   If God is King, history has a meaning. If not, it is just a succession of events without a purpose and without a goal. A cycle of endless revolving escalators, raising one culture to the surface as it sweeps another down into the depths.
   
   The fundamental Christian assertion is that God reigns eternal in majesty, that the nations before Him are as drops in a bucket, that He has revealed His purpose in Jesus Christ, and that in that will is our peace.
   
2. What authority did the Eternal and Omnipotent God delegate in the beginning to man?
   ”And God blessed them and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the Earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth,” Gen 1:28.
   
3. As the population of the Earth increased, in whom did this power become centered?
   ”By Me kings reign and princes decree justice. By Me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the Earth,” Prov 8:15-16.
   
4. By what right, therefore, do earthly authorities rule?
   ”There is no power but of God, the powers that be are ordained of God,” Rom 13:1, Dan 2:37-38, Isa 45:1.
   
5. Of what authority did Pilate boast?
   ”Then saith Pilate unto Him, Speakest Thou not unto me? Knowest Thou not that I have power to crucify Thee? And have power to release Thee?” John 19:10.
   
   More to come …
   

   

   The Powers That Be – Part Two – Passages Needed Today!

6. How did Jesus Christ correct Pilate’s wrong understanding of his power?
   ”Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against Me, except it were given thee from above,” John 19:11.
   
7. Beside appointing earthly rulers, what else does God ordain?
   ”And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the Earth and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation,” Acts 17:26.
   
8. How completely are earthly rulers in the hands of the Lord?
   ”The king’s mind is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water, He turneth it withersoever He will,” Prov 21:1.
   
   If the state is absolute in its own right, acknowledging no law but its own self-interest, then words like truth and justice are meaningless and all talk of freedom is delusory. If God is king, then there is a law higher than any national sovereign state and to it the nations must conform or perish.
   
9. What epoch-making decree did God pronounce against Zedekiah, the last king of Judah?
   ”And thou profane wicked king of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end. Thus saith the Lord God, Remove the diadem and take off the crown, this shall not be the same, exalt him that is low. And abase him that is high, I will overturn, overturn, overturn it and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is, and I will give it to him,” Ezek 21:25-27.
   
10. On what occasion did one of the pharaohs of Egypt question the sovereignty of God?
    ”Ad afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let My people go that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness. And pharaoh said “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go,” Exodus 5:1-2.
    
    More to come …
    

    

    The Powers That Be – Part Three

11. What lesson had he and the Egyptians to learn?
    ”And I will harden pharaoh’s heart and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch forth My hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them,” Exodus 7:3, 5.
    
12. In what contempt did Rabshakeh of Assyria hold the God of Israel?
    “Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you saying the Lord will deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?” Isa 36:18.
    
13. How was the power of God made known to the Assyrians?
    ”Then the Angel of the Lord went forth and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand. And when they arose early in the morning, they (the Assyrians) were all dead corpses,” Isa 37:36.
    
14. How decisive is the Lord’s intervention in the affairs of the nations?
    ”The Lord of hosts hath sworn saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand. This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole Earth. And this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the Lord of hosts hath purposed and who shall disannul it? And His hand is stretched out and who shall turn it back?” Isa 14:24, 25, 27.
    
    It is perhaps not more insane than much of our own action when we set ourselves against what we know to be God’s will and consciously seek to thwart it. A child trying to stop a train by pushing against the locomotive has as much chance of success.
    
15. As earthly rulers derive their power from God and owe their continuance to Him, what ought they to render to Him?
    ”Kings of the Earth, and all people, princes, and judges of the Earth. Let them praise the Name of the Lord for His Name alone is excellent, His glory is above the Earth and Heaven,” Psa 148:11, 13.
    
    More to come …
    

    

    The Powers That Be – Part Four

16. How did Nebuchadnezzar divert the Divine prerogative of worship to himself?
    ”Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits. He set it up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace,” Dan 3:1-6.
    
17. With what words did the three young Hebrews rebuke Nebuchadnezzar?
    ”Be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up,” Dan 3:18.
    
18. Persisting in his wrong action, what order did Nebuchadnezzar give?
    ”Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury and he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace,” Dan 3:19-20.
    
19. How did God honor the young Hebrews who by their loyalty to Him, reproved Nebuchadnezzar’s sin?
    ”Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came forth of the midst of the fire and the princes, governors, and captains and the king’s counselors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was a hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them,” Dan 3:26, 27.
    
20. What attitude must Christians today take to all attempts of earthly powers to claim Divine honors?
    ”Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” Matt 22:21.

”Immanuel”

1. The Resources of Heaven’s Bank in Ephesians
   The riches of His Grace – Eph 1:7
   Te riches of His glory – Eph 3:16
   The riches of Christ – Eph 3:8
   
2. The reserves of Heaven’s Bank in Ephesians
   The fullness of God – Eph 3:19
   Te fullness of Christ – Eph 4:13
   The fullness of the Spirit – Eph 5:18

This beats having a Mastercard or VISA.

The Security of Heaven’s Bank – in Ephesians

Is this not a sufficient guarantee to everyone who is a member of His body of the security of His riches?

So we see the wealth of the Christian is royal, munificent, unlosable, altogether sufficient to meet the requirements of his moral and spiritual delinquency and bankruptcy and wholly adequate for even the greatest trial, financial, physical, mental, or spiritual.

“In Christ” – “In Heavenly Places”

Paul was in prison in Rome. Yet just as truly and even more so, he was “in the heavenlies in Christ.” The tremendous reality to him of this other-worldly abode explains the paradoxes of such language as he used, as:

Wedneday, February 14, 2001

Dead or Alive!

A believer in Christ!

Eph 2:1 – dead. Eph 1:20 – Christ dead.

“You dead” – How can a dead man be made alive?
”Christ dead” – What an answer!

Christ – the Source of all life, even life itself, “dead.”

This is almost an unthinkable thing that Grace has done. It has put Christ, the Sinless One, in the sinner’s place.
”The wages of sin is death.” “The soul that sinneth, it shall surely die.”
The penalty must be paid, and there was no other way to do it. He bore the sinner’s sin by taking the sinner’s place.

Eph 2:5, “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.”

Believing upon Christ as his Saviour, the sinner becomes the possessor of eternal life and is made one with Christ. Shall a live man remain in a grave?

Eph 1:20, “Christ raised from the dead.”
Eph 2:6, “And hath raised us up together with Him.”

The grave could not hold Him who was alive! Neither can he hold the quickened sinner.

“Sit Down”

Eph 1:20, “He set Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.”
Eph 2:6, “He made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ.”

”He set Him.” “He made us to sit.”

Do we dare to believe the glorious Truth that He who went down to the very depths of sin for us now carries us up to the very heights of glory with Him?

Dare we not to believe it? God has written both of these Truths in His Word, and if we do not believe it, we really do not believe the Word of God.

God has said it and to disbelieve it is to make God a liar.

“Sit Together!”

Eph 2:7, “Made us to sit together.”

“Seated” – how restful and relaxed it sounds. And yet how many of us are most of the time anything but relaxed? But rather buzzing about in a fretful, feverish fashion, which is far more earthly than heavenly in the impression it makes upon the world about us.

Eph 2:6, “In the heavenlies in Christ.”

Yes, at home in the heavenlies, where our citizenship really is. Phil 3:20. Not visiting this glorious place from time to time as trial, sorrow, and conflict drive us to a higher place. But settling down in the heavenlies in possessive and permanent occupancy as our abiding place.

Paul was in Rome in prison when he wrote this epistle, but you would never know it.
”There is no smell of prison in Ephesians.”
”There is no clank of prison chains to be heard.”

Paul is not bound in the spirit.
”He is there as a prisoner of Rome, but he will not admit it.”
”But he claims to be a prisoner of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Let Us Consider Our Spiritual Condition Without Christ!

1. Eph 2:12, “Ye were without Christ.”
   The Messianic idea of a coming Deliverer for Israel welded the Jews together as citizens in a commonwealth, as a nation that looked for the Promised One who would be Prophet, Priest, and King.
   
   The nation as a whole might depart from God and serve others, yet there was always a remnant of the true Israel that kept its faith fixed on the “Coming One” while the Gentiles were just a race of individual pagans having no essential oneness except sin. They had no part in the promised Messiah and no claim upon Him.
   
2. Eph 2:12, “Having no hope.”
   They were strangers to the Covenant of Promise. So they had no Anchor, they were as sailors in a captainless boat on an uncharted sea. They had no Divine revelation and so no Divine plan for their course of life. Their future was like a night without a star. They had only the horizon of the Earth with nothing to satisfy them here or hereafter.
   
3. Eph 2:12, “Ye were without God.”
   The Jews had one God in whom their national life centered. The Gentiles had innumerable gods, so their racial life disintegrated into many nations with no common meeting point. The Old Testament reveals the nations as utterly opposed to God and under the dominion of Satan. Such was the condition of the Gentiles, outcasts from both human and Divine fellowship.

At that time ... “without”, “Christ, hope, and God.” “But now!!!”

Racial Equality! Jew and Gentile!

There existed two great gulfs between the Jew and the Gentile that divided them into two camps that bore toward each other mutual hatred and contempt. The privileged Jews looked down upon the unprivileged Gentiles as outcasts, even from the love of God.

A way had to be opened for the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile. In Eph 2:14-18 we are shown what it is “a two-fold cord of peace” that binds them in indissoluble union in Christ.

1. Christ Himself is peace.
   Eph 2:14, “For He is our peace.”
   Christ is not merely a Peace Maker. He Himself “is our Peace.” So to receive Him is to have peace and is the preliminary for making peace. How different is the way of man, who both tries to make and to preach peace with Christ let altogether out of the transaction.
   
2. Christ made peace.
   Eph 2:14, “He hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.”
   Eph 2:15, “Having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in the Ordinances.”
   Eph 2:15, “For to make in Himself of twain one new man.”
   Eph 2:16, “That He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the Cross.”

”There is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free, male nor female, we are one in Christ,” Gal 3:26-28.

Racial Equality – Part Two!

Eph 2:15, “For to make in Himself of twain one new man.”
Eph 2:16, “That He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the Cross.”

1. One new man.
   Super-racial and super-national.
   God welded Jew and Gentile into a new race of men in which all the old distinctions and differences, bonds and barriers. are obliterated. No longer does Jew or Gentile count his citizenship as of the Earth, for he has become a citizen of Heaven. Phil 3:20.
   
   True, he is still a pilgrim on Earth. But he is here as a stranger passing through to his heavenly home. But “the new man” is more than just redeemed Jew and Gentile.
   
2. One body.
   He is redeemed Jew and Gentile united on Earth as the body of Christ, which the risen, ascended Lord in Heaven is Head of the body. Over this new society Christ is to be the Lord, and in it He is to be the life.
   
   The Jew forgets that he is a Jew, and the Gentile forgets that he is a Gentile. “Each now thinks only of what he is in Christ.” Christ is to be all and in all to both. In such a “glorious oneness” every racial, religious, social, and class distinction is utterly wiped out.
   
   Col 3:11, “Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, but Christ is all and in all.”
   
   Here is a oneness that is inward and vital. A new start has been made from a new center. Here is no camouflage of a patched-up, man-made peace, but a Divine reality in a positive brotherhood of goodwill and love. Born out of a true family relationship, established by life in the Lord Jesus Christ.
   

   

The Past and the Present Condition of Believers!

In Eph 2:13 we are told that all unbelievers walk according to the flesh and the world and the devil. In Eph 4:17-19 we see some of these unbelievers so walking and the sight is terrifying and heartbreaking.

It is a picture of:

1. Spiritual death – “Being alienated from the life of God.”
   
2. Mental darkness – “Having the understanding darkened.”
   
3. Moral degeneracy – “Who being past feeling, have given themselves over.”
   
4. Physical depravity – “Unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness.”

Let us turn from this depressingly dark picture and see the marvelous contrast wrought by the Grace of God. Eph 4:20-21, “But ye have not so learned Christ. If so be you have heard Him, and have been taught by Him, as the Truth is in Jesus.”

”Ye were” but “Ye are.”

Hear Him, taught by Him, the Truth which is in Christ.

Sometimes we forget the condition we were in before salvation. We were willfully ignorant of it. But now we have been translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love.

One of the Many Descriptions of the Christian Way of Life is …

“Walk in love,” Eph 4:31-5:2.

The true secret of hate and love! A distortion on hate crimes!

In 1 John hate and love are traced to their source in the spheres of darkness and death, and light, and life. Where it is clearly shown that the one who walks in hate belongs to the old sphere, while the one who walks in love lives in the new sphere.

1 John 2:9, 11, “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that hateth his brother is in darkness and walketh in darkness.”

1 John 2:10, “He that loveth his brother abideth in the light"

1 John 3:14, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.”

Love for the brethren is one proof that we have passed out of the old sphere, into the new where love is the native atmosphere. If we are in the new sphere we inhale and exhale love.

Satan presides over the old sphere and is the fountainhead of hate. He hates Christ, and all who are Christ’s. And instills this same hate into those who follow him. Cain filled with satanic hatred, murdered his own brother, Abel. The first hate crime in history.

Christ presides over the new sphere and is the Fountainhead of love. He loves all His Father’s children, His brethren, and imparts His love to them.

Thursday, February 15, 2001

A Promise in View of Our Adversary!

1 Pet 5:7, “Casting all your cares upon Him, for He careth for you.”
1 Pet 5:8, “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeing whom he may devour.”

The names given him indicate personality:
Satan, deceiver, liar, murderer, accuser, tempter, prince, Appolyon (destroyer), the evil one, Beelzebub.

Every name is repulsive and repellent, and discloses his nature. God speaks of “the workings of Satan” and every one of his works which are defined as:

”Wiles” (Eph 6:11), “Devices” (2 Cor 2:11), “Snares” (1 Tim 2:24), all reveal personality. He beguiles, he seduces, he opposes, he resists, he deceives, he sows tares, he hinders, he buffets, he tempts, he persecutes, he blasphemes. Every work of Satan is diabolical and destructive.

Our Lord spoke of Satan many times and every time in a way and by a name that confirms his personality. Our adversary then is personal, aggressive, intelligent, cunning, and destructive, who is to be reckoned with seriously, vigilantly, and intelligently.

This is a vivid Biblical description of our adversary – much different than the way he is depicted on a can of deviled ham.

The Position of Our Adversary!

He occupies a very superior position, which is two-fold. In governmental authority he is a “prince” in two localities – in the Earth and in the air – and rules over both evil men and evil spirits.

Christ never acknowledged Satan as king. But three times He calls him, “the prince of the world,” thereby acknowledging his governmental authority.

Ephesians teaches that he is the ruling spirit over “the children of disobedience,” which includes all unregenerate mankind. Eph 2:3, “The spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.”

Satan has control over the nations and is the master mind behind the whole system of world government dominated by the lust for power, greed, ambition, intrigue, hatred, lies, aggression, rivalry, and brutality.

Satan offered Christ all the kingdoms of the world with that power and glory if He would but worship him. Christ did not dispute his claim to their control.

Moreover, Christ plainly says there is a kingdom of Satan, Matt 12:26. Ephesians teaches the devil heads the rulers of the darkness of this world. Eph 6:12, “Our wrestling is against the world rulers of this darkness.”

This may explain some of what has been going on in Washington.

2 Tim 3:1-4, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.”

In the World

Division – Wars, nation against nation.

Disloyalty – Betrayal, traitors, false accusers.

Distress – Persecuted, hatred, prisons, put to death.

Degeneration – Without natural affection, unholy, incontinent.

Debauchery – Lovers of self, lovers of money, lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of God.

Dishonesty – Trucebreakers.

Depression – Perplexity, fainting for fear.

Discord – Unthankful, disobedient to parents.

This is a terrible and terrifying picture, yet we must honestly admit it is all too true of the world in which we are now living. We witness today a worldwide revolution to destroy governments through anarchy, society through debauchery, and Christianity through apostasy.

We live in a world where civilization is on the brink of utter collapse, literally rotting to pieces through its own corruption. Moral restraint has been cast to the winds Growing indecency permeates every phase of life, manifesting itself in speech, in clothing, in amusements, and in relationships.

Our very atmosphere is charged with unwholesome and unclean suggestions which pollute both eye and ear. The evil’s of Noah’s day with all their demonized, degrading influences, seem to have come alive in our day, adding to that the day of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Sadder yet, there seems to be no sense of loss in the passing of those things which in other days were the charm of many homes.

A Strong Promise For the Perilous Times in Which We Are Living

Eph 6:10, “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.”

”Be strong”

Never fear, nor falter, nor faint. But also be prepared through an enduement with fresh strength which enables you to be victorious from the start to the finish.

The devil says, “Be fearful. Look around at the difficulties and dangers. Be cowardly and give up, for you can never win out against such hindrances and opposition. Be discouraged. Look in at your own weakness.”

But God says “Be strong.”

Victory is ours when we realize that strength lies first of all in our inward attitude. To assume power, we must be assured of power. But that assurance will never come if we look in at ourselves or at our enemy. If we try to match our power against his, we will succumb in ignominious defeat.

We may raise up all kinds of sandbag defenses of our own making, but the master strategist will make a surprise attack on our blind side, or drop a fiery dart from the air, and we are overcome.

”Be strong in the Lord.”

“Be Strong in the Lord” – Part Two

Our strength lies in a Person. And oh, what a Person! Note His Name:
”The Lord.” Ponder that name until it stands out before you in all its singular glory and solitary grandeur.

Not “Jesus,” His personal, human name that indicates His Saviourhood, sweet and precious as that name is.
Not “Christ,” His official, mediatorial name, the Anointed One, indispensable as that is to us, Messiah.

But “Lord,” His sovereign, kingly name, that stands for His rulership over the universe and all in it. ”The Lord,” the Mighty God, the Blessed and Only Potentate, the King of kings and the Lord of lords.”

”Be strong in the Lord.”

“Be Strong in the Lord” – Part Three

“IN.” Yes, capitalize and underline this two letter word, “IN.”

But why give it such emphasis and importance? Because herein lies the hidden, the secret place of victory over the devil. Where we are determined our victory, because it determines our strength and power of resistance.

”In the Lord.” We are both strong and secure. Our Victor envelops us for “We are hid with Christ in God.”

So, as someone has said, “Before the devil can touch you, he must get through God and Christ.”

“Be Strong in the Lord and in the Power of His Might”

“In the power of His might”

Our strength not only lies in what He is, but in what He has. Our power is in a Person whose power is extraordinary. For “it is the power of His might.”

This is exactly the same word used in Eph 1:19 when describing the quality of the power used in raising Christ from the dead. In the strength of the mighty power of the Lord we are equipped to fearlessly meet Satan and all his boasts, confident that “we will be able to stand.”

”Able to withstand.” “Able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.”

Our part then, is calm, confident assurance of power over all the power of the enemy. We enter the warfare victors through faith in the victorious Lord, upon Whom we keep our eyes fixed.

Do we as Christians know in our daily experience the conquering power of His might?

The Exalted Son!

When we are in the book of Ephesians we are ushered immediately into the throne room where we met the Triumphant Conqueror, the Victor-Son, the Supreme Lord of all the universe, the Head over the new race of redeemed men.

During our whole stay in Ephesians, whether we walk before men on Earth or engage in warfare with powers of Satan, we never leave the throne room. Nor are we out of sight of the victorious Lord.

The Lord Jesus Christ now occupies the very highest position possible in God’s universe.

1. As it relates to governmental authority.
   God has exalted Him to be the Lord of the universe, a position of supreme authority and power.
   
2. In position He is far above all angelic and celestial beings, both good and evil. Eph 1:21, Eph 6:12.
   
3. He has been given sovereign control over all things which were put under His feet. Eph 1:21.
   
4. As it relates to worship, Christ has been made the Head over the host of the redeemed out of every race and nation. Over them also He has been given supreme control and direction.
   
5. As Head of the Church, He has His body temple. Eph 2:21.
   
6. His Gospel, Eph 1:13, which is the Gospel of a full and free salvation from sin and perfect deliverance from the bondage of Satan.
   
7. His ministers are called “apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors,” Eph 4:11.
   
8. His Doctrines are all summed up and included in the “one faith,” Eph 4:5, and “the faith,” Eph 4:13.
   
9. His sacrifice, Calvary’s Cross, Eph 1:7.
   
10. His table and His cup around which His Church gathers to have communion with Him in adoring worship.
    
11. So our blessed Lord presides as High Priest over His true Church.

Truly this is the Exalted Son.

Friday, February 16, 2001

Lack of Harmony Between Parents and Children

The harmony in many a home is broken by the maladjustment between parents and children. And, it is due very largely to a two-fold failure:

”D” & “D” — Disobedience and lack of Discipline

We have seen much today of the revolt of our youth. The acts and the attitude of many children in our country show a reckless disregard for parental counsel, a spirit of lawlessness that will allow no correction or rebuke or brook, no interference with their plans.

We have seen many accounts of suicide and murder by boys or girls simply because their will has been crossed on some matter and they could not have their way. There is very little respect for authority or advice from the experience of elders. Schools and colleges are encouraging this revolt of the youth.

The importance of children obeying their parents is brought out very vividly in two passages and you will find “disobedience to parents” on a list that would shock you.

Rom 1:29-31, “Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful.”

The next passage –

2 Tim 3:1-5, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers,
incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. From such turn away.”

You would not expect to find “disobedient to parents” among this list. But it just shows you the importance of “Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right,” Eph 6:1.

Disobedience and lack of discipline is causing crime, murder, and suicide among our young people.

The Bond of Christian Unity!

Three times in Ephesians chapter four love is shown to be the bond.

Paul recognizes the divisions due to a far more needless reason, the breaking of the bond of unity through “lack of love.”

”Love” is the filling of the Spirit. Gal 5:22, “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” Rom 5:5, “The love of God which is shed abroad in our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit.”

There is a Marvelous Interdependence Between the Two Prayers in Ephesians

In chapter one there is a prayer for revelation – “That ye may know.”
In chapter one there is a prayer for realization – “That ye might be.”

Three “Whats” and Four “Thats” – Paul’s Two Prayers in Ephesians

First prayer is “revelation” and the second prayer is “realization.”

The first prayer begins with three “whats.”

Eph 1:8-19, “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened.”Z

”That ye may know what is the hope of His calling.”
“And what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.”
”And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe.”

What What What

Now those in the second prayer begin with “that,” a purpose clause.

Eph 3:16, “That He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man.”
Eph 3:17, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.”
Eph 3:19. “That ye may be able to comprehend and to know the love of Christ.”
Eph 3:19, “That ye may be filled unto all the fullness of God.”

What What What ... That That That That – Purpose clause

How to apply the Word of God to your experience. What the knowledge of the Word of God is, so that you can apply it.

Six Simple Questions!

Who? What? Whom? How? When? Why?

Who? – “He, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
What? – “Hath chosen.”
Whom? – “We.”
How? – “In Him.”
When? – “Before the foundation of the world.”
Why? – “That we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.”

Eph 1:4, “According as He hath chosen us in Him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.”

Saturday, February 17, 2001

Let’s Take a Walk in the Word – Music for the Soul!

“Accepted” – You may not be accepted in some circles or in any circles and you may be considered by some an outcast. But you are “accepted in the Beloved,” Eph 1:6. What a gracious word! What a wealth of significance in it.

Those who were by nature “children of disobedience and wrath” (Eph 2:2-3), so “far off” from God that they were called “strangers” (Eph 2:19), so deep down in the abyss of death and depravity that they were “without hope” (Eph 2:12). Yet here are said to be “accepted in the Beloved,” Eph 1:6.

How could such a change ever be wrought in the unbeliever? If so utterly disobedient, he would not want acceptance. If so utterly depraved, he could not make himself acceptable, even if he desired to.

The unbeliever of Eph 2:1-3 is rendered both hopeless and helpless by sin. Then by Whom, and on what ground, was the change wrought by which he was taken into the very heart and home of God?

”Made acceptable”

God has left the sinner not an inch of ground for boasting. Not an atom of anything either in his character or in his conduct that can avail to bring him into God’s favor. If he is ever accepted by God, God Himself must act on his behalf.

”Made accepted in the Beloved” – The Beloved, the Son of His love.

Let’s Go For a Walk in the Word – Music For the Soul

“In” “Him,” Eph 1:6, “Made accepted in Him.”

”In” – can we ever grasp fully the meaning of this little word to us?

”In Him” – Whom the Father loves supremely, “we are.”

”In the Beloved” – Whose righteousness and holiness satisfies every demand of the Father’s justice and holiness, “we stand.”

”The Beloved Son is our rainbow” – God’s pledge to us who are made accepted in Him, that we will never again be cast out from His presence.

”In the Son of His love” – The Father receives us as He receives Him and loves us as He loves Him.

It would be impossible to believe such an apparently incredible statement did not Christ Himself declare it. Then we must believe it and rejoice in it. ”That the world may know that Thou hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me,” John 17:23.

”Behold, this is My Beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him.”

We are included, accepted in that, in union with Christ.

Let’s Go For a Walk in the Word – Music For the Soul!

“But God”

“But God, who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins,” Eph 2:4-5.

”But God”

If you have not encircled and underlined these words in your Bible, do it now. Here is a floodlight on the sinner’s path, a sign-post which marks a movement of God toward the sinner. Seeking ...

Though our sin is inconceivably repulsive to His holiness, “yet our soul is inconceivably precious to Him,” so He will open a way of reconciliation for every sinner that He may be delivered from that awful pit.

“Who is rich”

God did not lack in resources for such a task, nor did He have to go outside of Himself to perform the miracle of regeneration. Out of His own inherent riches, He met our subject poverty and transformed us from spiritual bankrupts into spiritual multimillionaires. God draws upon the riches of His mercy. He looks in compassion upon the sinner utterly undone, and His great heart of love is moved to take the initiative in providing a way of salvation.

But we have learned that all sinners are children of wrath. They have incurred the displeasure of the infinitely Righteous and Holy One and are deserving of the full penalty for their sin. Then how will God’s mercy and love operate to satisfy the righteous demand of His holiness and at the same time meet the need of the rebellious sinners?

”By Grace ye are saved,” Eph 2:5

The first movement in salvation is not from men to God, but from God to men. This wondrous redemption was planned and executed in the mind of God in the eternity of the past, before even the world was. There and then a way to save to the uttermost was wrought out in the counsel of the Triune God.

Eph 2:8-9, “For by Grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Have you accepted Him as your Personal Saviour? Why not now?!

Let’s Take a Walk in the Word – Music For Our Souls

Eph 3:16, “That God may grant you according to the riches of His glory.”

”According to” is a Greek preposition, KATA, meaning Divine norm and standard.

God is not promising something that He is unable to perform. He estimates His own resources before He promises to bequeath such wealth to His children. ”God’s budget has always been balanced.” And need be no fear of His prodigal program of spending for the salvation and sanctification of believers in His Son.

Nothing is unstable in the plan of redemption, “For God is not experimenting with men’s souls” nor has He left anything to chance. He counted the whole cost of building this wondrous habitation of God long ages before He laid a single “living stone” upon the foundation, and knew that He was fully able to carry it to completion.

This is what the King of glory has done for us. He has given according to the sublime measurement of His own immeasurable riches.

All that He is and has is ours. He is our fullness.

Sunday, February 18, 2001

“Unto Him”

Eph 3:20, “Unto Him that is able to do all that we ask or think, above all that we ask or think, abundantly above all we ask or think, exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.”

Whoever looks within himself for the power, or around at others, however spiritual they may be, may rightly say that it is impossible. But there is another way to look – up to Him who has promised that His own mighty power will work in us for the realization of our riches in Christ.

“Unto Him
That is able to do
All that we ask or think
Above all that we ask or think
Abundantly above all that we ask or think
Exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think
According to the power that worketh in us.”

”Unto Him” – the Purposer is the Promiser who is also the Performer, Who is rich, resourceful, and reliable.

“That is Able to Do,” Eph 3:20

Our petition, however great, can never exceed the Lord’s ability to grant. Through God’s power, every believer has been lifted from the deepest depths in sin to the highest heights in Christ. We have been incorporated into Christ as a member of His body and made the habitation of God.

Surely the God who has power to save and set us apart can now strengthen us with power that His purposes for us may be fully realized. What God has commenced, He will surely consummate.

”All that we ask or think.”

What petitions have we asked? What desires have flooded our souls that we dared not voice? It is possible that He is able “to do all” for us? Yes! “Above all” – still God’s power has scarcely been tapped.

”Abundantly above all” – surely the limit of even God’s power has been reached. No, not yet.

”Exceedingly abundantly above all” – and yet God’s power is not exhausted, for He continues to give even after we have stopped asking and only harbor the unuttered thought.

Yet there still remains a vast residue of power unused after unbelief has stopped our asking and stilled our thinking.

”Above all that we ask or think.”

The Pattern and the Source of Unity

In Philippians, Paul shows us that the source and secret of unity is first in “having the mind of Christ” and then to have a right mind regarding ourselves in relationship to others.

Paul never forgot what his past life in sin had been. “I am what I am by the Grace of God.”

In Christ, by Grace, he was chief of sinners. And his holy humbleness came remembering always the depths to which he had gone and the heights to which he had come, and that it was all due to the Grace of God.

So, there was no room for high-mindedness or boastfulness, even in the apostle Paul. Much less will there be in any of us.

Tuesday, February 20, 2001

Thought for Today!

When Jesus Christ becomes impotent, then Christians will be weak!

How to Make Your Wealth Permanent!

The type of wealth that the stock market can’t affect

Wealth is a detail of life in the sight of the Lord. You don’t put details first, you put Doctrine and the Lord first. The details of life make good servants but harsh masters. They are designed for you not to serve them, but for them to serve you.

Prov 11:28, “He that trusteth in his riches shall fail, but the righteous shall flourish as a branch.”

Prov 23:5, “Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings, they fly away as an eagle toward Heaven.” Money talks – “Yes, it says goodbye!”

1 Tim 6:10, “For the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

The correct approach to money and the details of life.

Matt 6:33, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things will be added unto you.”

The best example of gaining wealth is Solomon. Don’t ask for wealth, but ask for wisdom.

1 Kings 3:5, “In Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said “Ask what I shall give thee.”

1 Kings 3:9, “Give, therefore, Thy servant an understanding mind to judge Thy people that I may discern between good and bad, for who is able to judge this, Thy so great a people?”

1 Kings 3:11-13, “And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast thou asked riches for thyself, nor hast thou asked the life of thine enemies, but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment; Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding mind, so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee. And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches, and honour: so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days.”

James 1:5, “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.”

Peace! – Ephesians 2:14-16

“For He hath made in Himself of twain one new man,” verse 15.

”In Himself” – He is our peace.

1. Christ is the Mediator between Jew and Gentile.
   
2. Christ is the Eradicator of all barriers between Jew and Gentile.
   
3. Christ is the Reconciler of Jew and Gentile with God.
   
4. Christ is the Conciliator of Jew and Gentile with each other.
   
5. Christ is the Center of the new man composed of Jew and Gentile.

”Of twain” – Jew and Gentile. “Both one” – Out of every kindred, tongue and people and nation, Rev 5:9.

Christ Preached Peace!

Eph 2:17, “And came and preached peace to you which were afar off and to them that were nigh.”

Having become peace and having made it, Christ now preaches peace. It was His personal message after His resurrection, Luke 24:36, John 20:19, 21, 26. He preached it later through His apostles and continues to preach peace through His Word faithfully given by His ministers.

It is God’s clearly declared purpose to heal the schism made by sin in humanity. Otherwise His plan of salvation would be incomplete.

In this present age, He would do it through Grace. Peace has not been established on Earth because men will not follow God’s way. But in the age to come, it will be through government. The Lord Jesus Christ shall rule over the Earth as King of kings and Lord of lords. Then righteousness shall prevail and peace shall be its fruit.

Peace must always follow righteousness. Peace is the handmaiden of righteousness.

Every bona fide statesman would desire righteousness before peace.

The Impact That the Believers in the Church Age Are the “Holy of Holies” of the Lord

Eph 2:21, “In Whom all the building fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.”

Paganism had its temple there in Ephesus. So, you see the impact. The magnificent temple of the Asian goddess. Its fame was worldwide and worshippers came there from far distant places. Judaism had its temple in Jerusalem, which was the stronghold of the Jewish faith.

So, Christianity has its temple, “a building not made with hands but builded by God and Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief Cornerstone.”

Upon this Divine foundation lays “one living stone” upon another – the saints born into the family of God since the day of Pentecost. Each is put in his own place by God, and in such a way that they exactly fit together. The building is not yet completed, but grows day by day as a soul here or in a far corner of the Earth is won to the Lord and made a living stone.

God’s Dwelling Place!

“In Whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit,” Eph 2:22.

God must have a dwelling place on Earth as well as in Heaven. Where His family is, there He must be!! Also, where needy, sinful men are, there He must have some way of revealing Himself to them and of reaching them with the Gospel message.

So, during this age of Grace, God takes up His residence in the believers in the Church Age, we Christians. We are the habitation of God – the visible part of God on Earth!!

What a challenging Truth!!

Is God seen in you, in me ...?

”Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord.”

“Remember” – Lest We Forget!!

Ephesians 2:11-12, “Wherefore remember.”

“That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.” ”Wherefore remember.”

Did not God put that word “remember” in Eph 2:11 for such a day as this?

Remember Me!

Wednesday, February 21, 2001

“Wherefore Remember,” Ephesians 2:11

“Remember …”
that God has no favorites in His family. And that both Jew and Gentile have the same access unto the Father through the Son.

”Remember …”
that once either Jew or Gentile is incorporated into Christ through faith in Christ, he is a fellow-member of the body of Christ and a “fellow-citizen” with all saints.

”Remember …”
that we “twain” are made “one new man” in Christ, and that henceforth we belong to a heavenly race that is super-racial and super-national sharing alike both the privileges and the responsibilities of the body of Christ.

”Remember …”
that your two most precious possessions, your Saviour and your Bible, came to you through the Jew, that the door to the Church was opened to you by Peter, the Jew.
And that the revelation given of your equal possession of all its blessed privileges came to you through Paul, the Jew.

And to any Gentile Church who gives over all the curses to the Jew pronounced upon him in God’s Word, while he glories in all the blessings as promised to himself, even those plainly and exclusively to the Jewish nation.

”Remember …”

The Word of God spoken centuries ago to the father of the Jews, “I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee and in thee shall all families of the Earth be blessed,” Gen 12:3.

“According to” – A Greek Preposition KATA – A Divine Norm or Standard

“That He would grant you according to the riches of His glory,” Eph 3:16.

”According to”

It does not say, “out of His riches.” But, “according to His riches.”

Here is a millionaire to whom you go on behalf of some worthy cause and he listens to you and says, “I think I will do a little for you!” And he takes out his wallet and gives you a ten dollar bill. Perhaps you had hoped to receive a thousand dollars from him. He has given you, out of his riches, but not according to his riches.

If he gave you a book of signed blank checks and said, “Take this, fill in what you need,” that would be according to his riches in glory.

That is precisely what the King of glory has done for us. The riches of His Grace are provided for us in Christ crucified, risen, ascended, and exalted.

The riches of His glory are in Christ, the glorified Lord, all that He is and has is ours. He is our fullness and we are complete in Him.

“According to the Power That Worketh in Us,” Ephesians 3:20

We are quite convinced by now that through our position in Christ we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Jesus Christ.

Objectively we apprehend this fact and doctrinally we believe it. But our great problem is how to live like heirs. We “know” that we are. Our difficulty is to do what we know.

How may we subjectively appropriate this wealth, so that experientially it is manifested in a consistent walk and a conquering warfare?

God has assured us that He has made provision for this experimental realizing through the “in-working” of a resident Power. It is the power of a Person, who is none other than God’s own Spirit.

All that Christ did and was as the incarnate Son was through the power of the Holy Spirit. He promised to send the Holy Spirit to be to the disciples all that He had been to Him. From the day of Pentecost, this same Spirit has been in every member of the body of Christ as a mighty Power working to make these riches of glory his personal possession.

“The Fullness of the Godhead”

“For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” Col 2:9.

This is the Doctrinal meaning of the fullness of God. But what does it mean tangibly and practically in relationship to the Church and to the Christian?

It is not just all that vast wealth stored in Christ out of which God draws for:

Is it not also those unsearchable riches in Christ which the believer appropriates for the satisfaction of every Spirit-inspired desire, for the supply of every need of the spirit, soul, and body? For the sustenance of life on that highest plane in Christ in the heavenlies, far above all, and for the strength to stand and to withstand in the warfare with Satan?

How can we ever hope to be the recipients of the fullness of God? The very thought is overwhelming. Let the Scripture answer, Col 2:10, “Ye are made full in Him.”

John 1:16, “Of His fullness have we all received Grace heaped upon Grace.”

“The Unity of the Spirit”

“Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” Eph 4:3.

”Endeavoring to keep”

God is not asking us to make unity, but to keep a unity that already exists. And just what unity we are to keep is also told ...
”The unity of the Spirit.”

Created and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the Church, the body of Christ, is a spiritual organism in which there is oneness of mind and will, a spiritual fellowship of those who share the same life, purpose, and power.

The Spirit-made unity every Christian should set himself to keep with a purposeful, determined, watchful endeavor. He should do his utmost to keep a zealous, jealous custody over this Spirit-fashioned oneness with which the Church began on the day of Pentecost.

Such unity is not an intangible, uncertain thing, but, on the contrary, is dependent upon definitely stated principles. The basis is in Truth and the bond is in love. Unity is rooted in God’s Truth. It fructifies through God’s love.

”The love of God which is shed abroad in our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit.”

The True Church – An Organism

Acts 2:42, “And they continued steadfast in the apostles’ Doctrine, and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.”
Acts 4:32, “And the multitude of them that believed were of one mind and of one soul.”

Signifying their union with Christ, the Head of the body, they were designated by the name “believers” and indicating their union with each other as fellow-members of the body, they were called “brethren,” not capital “B.”

When some carnal Christians of the Corinthian Church started rival sects and became Paulites, Apollosites, Cephasites, or even to misuse the blessed name of Christ, for such selfish ends, they were severely rebuked by Paul.

”It hath been declared unto me that there are contentions among you. Now this I say that everyone of you saith, I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, and I am of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul?”

The results of such unity in the Spirit were very marvelous.

As we look at the true Church today, the body of Christ, what do we see? The Church is split – Paul, Apollos, Christ.

The Seven-Fold Unity That is to be Kept!

“There is one body, and one Spirit, one Hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, Who is above all and through all and in you all,” Eph 4:4-6.

”One Lord” is the Center of this seven-fold unity. It must be so. Everything centers in and around the Lord Jesus Christ. The eternal purposes of the Father and the mighty power of the Spirit are directed toward making the Lord a living reality with the body of Christ and the Christian.

Note also that the center Figure of Ephesians is not “the Jesus of history,” but the Lord Jesus Christ. In the opening verses of the epistle we are shown how we are redeemed through His blood, but having crossed the threshold of salvation, we are quickly led right into the throne room where the whole stage of the epistle is set. We are brought into the presence of the risen, ascended, exalted Lord, upon Whom throughout Ephesians our eyes are fixed and held.

It is “one Lord” and a “solitary One” who is in a class and on a plain all by Himself, as far above all other men and even angels as the Heavens are above the Earth. He is “Lord of lords,” the “Lord God Almighty.”

To no man has the Lord ever delegated the headship over the Church. His headship, on the contrary, is mediated directly by the Holy Spirit whom the ascended Lord appointed.

Thursday, February 22, 2001

“Man is Born to Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upward, and Yet He Will Come to His Grave in a Full Age.”

As you get older, you have the tendency conveniently to forget your birthday. But I will never forget my birthday. I think I will always remember it. My wife left me for another man on my birthday!

In a way I can’t blame her. He is handsome and strong and rich. And he loves her more than I do. He cares and provides for her more than I ever could. If I mention His Name, I think you will recognize Him, as there has been much written about Him in several languages, and even some things He wrote Himself.

If you haven’t read about Him, probably someone has told you something about Him. If you don’t know Him, you should get to know Him.

He is Jewish and His Name is “Immanuel.”

”Absent from the body and face to face with the Lord.”

The Importance of the Original Languages of Scripture Cannot be too Frequently Pointed Out to the Superficial Reader of the Bible

The Holy Spirit chose the Hebrew language for the Old Testament and the Koine Greek language for the New Testament because of their accuracy.

Case in point:
1 Sam 12:23, “Moreover as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you, but I will teach you the good and the right way.”

The words “God forbid” do not appear in the original Hebrew language of the Old Testament. The word for God in the Hebrew would be “ELOHIM,” or “EL,” or a form therefore.

The words we have here in this verse translated “God forbid” is one Hebrew word “CHALIYAH,” which means, “far be it.” “Forbid.”

Now the New Testament:
Rom 6:2, “God forbid how shall we who are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”

The word for God in the Koine Greek language of the New Testament is the word “THEOS” which doesn’t appear here. The Greek word for “God forbid” is one word “ME,” pronounced “may,” which means, “absolute denial.”

It is important to translate the Scriptures from the original languages of Scripture, but today it seems to be too much trouble for too many people.

Brief Outline of the Book of Ephesians!

1. The scope of Ephesians
   The Church, the body of Christ, its:
   A. Heavenly calling.
   B. Earthly conduct.
   C. Satanic conflict.
   
2. The keystone of Ephesians
   A. Christ, the fullness of the Church.
   B. Church, the fullness of Christ.
   
3. The key thought of Ephesians
   A. In Christ.
   
4. The content of Ephesians
   A. Wealth – The Christian in Christ.
   B. The walk – Christ in the Christian.
   C. Warfare – Christ and the Christian vs. Satan and the satanic hosts.
   

Prayer Warriors!

“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto will all perseverance and supplication for all saints,” Eph 6:18.

In the wars on Earth, many battles have been lost by the sagging in the spirit of a section of the army which, giving up in defeat, has allowed the enemy to break through and win.

How, then, is the spirit of an overcomer to be habitually maintained in the individual, and how is the spiritual morale of the whole army of Christ to be kept in effectual fighting trim?

Then, if the victory of the wrestler is dependent upon the power and the position, and provided in Christ, how is his connection with the Lord to be maintained unbroken?

Still further, if the Lord has given the Christian wrestler power over all power of the enemy to bind him and to spoil him goods, how is that power to be released and made operative?

The answer is!

The potent wrestler is a prayer warrior.

“Praying Always,” Ephesians 6:18

Is to have the Spirit in such unbroken communion with the Lord that all things, at all times, in all places, may be carried to Him in the upward look and inward attitude even if no words are spoken. It implies also the outstretched hand of complete dependence both on ordinary days and in sudden crises.

But preparedness against Satan’s wiles requires the wisdom and the strength that only comes through definitely stated times apart for prayer. Satan fears nothing as he fears a saint who knows how to prevail with God in prayer and release the omnipotent power of God against him.

He will use every devise in keeping us from praying. He will cause physical fatigue and lethargy, unfit us mentally for prayer through the cares and burdens of the home and business. And destroy our power in prayer through doubt, discouragement, and depression. So, when we least feel like praying is the time we most need to pray for Satan has already gained a foothold on us.

”Praying always in the Spirit.” Being in fellowship is praying ground.

Friday, February 23, 2001

Ephesians 6:18, “Praying Always With All Prayer”

“All prayer”

Praying in all conditions. In a prayer group, in prayer meetings, in public worship, even when believers are gathered socially, prayer is befitting. Praying in all places, in one’s own closet, with the door shut, at the family altar every morning, in Bible class, or devotional meetings.

Prayer at all times. In prosperity as well as in adversity. In sickness and in health. Morning, noon, and night, as the psalmist and Daniel prayed. Praying for all things, in our personal life, home, business, work, that no loophole may be left for Satan to enter and to work.

Everything needs to be covered by prayer. How often we could say for the enemy has attacked in such a surprising way and we were unprepared to meet the onslaught.

”And supplication” – going beyond our own needs and withstanding Satan’s attacks on others by specific petition. Prayer should be focused on some special need or danger of one of God’s saints, as the prayer of the Church for Peter when he was in prison.

Don’t wait for a one day world prayer. Pray without ceasing.

Ephesians 6:18, “Praying in the Spirit”

As carnal weapons do not prevail in spiritual warfare, neither will prayer that is in the flesh have any power. There may be a form of prayer without reality, even of all the accepted terms of prayer warfare, but without point or power.

Prayer to be effectual in warfare needs to start with God who sees the whole battlefield. Who knows the devil’s plan of campaign? Who decides the place and part of every wrestler? And who directs the movement of the entire army of the Lord with the definite objective of carrying out His eternal purpose? God Himself must give us the prayer to pray.

It must come straight from His heart to ours with a deep sense of conviction, urgency, and assurance. This is the work of God the Holy Spirit. We do not see Satan’s hidden ambush, his ingeniously concealed snare. But the all-wise, ever-watchful Spirit uses every danger and pitfall and will so inspire prayer within us that we are forewarned and forearmed.

How can we ever remember all the things we know we should pray? We cannot, but the Holy Spirit will bring them to our remembrance, and we should never disregard any impulse of the Spirit to pray. The Holy Spirit praying in us will determine both the character and the content of the prayer.

Prayer in the Spirit must be Spirit-inspired, Spirit-inwrought, Spirit-taught, Spirit-directed, and Spirit-energized, i.e., Spirit filled.

”If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”

Ephesians 6:18, “For All Saints”

We are members of one another, bound together in Christ, in a union so real that if one member suffers, all the members suffer. Therefore, the members should have the same care one for another. 1 Cor 12:25-28.

The whole body of Christ suffers defeat in the degree that the individual members are defeated, and the victory of the Church over the satanic foe is dependent upon the victory of every Christian.

Herein lies the responsibility of each saint for all saints. Not all Christians are appropriating their wealth in Christ, or walking worthy of their high calling, or standing victoriously against Satan. Many are grieving the Spirit by still walking according to the world and the flesh, thereby giving place to the devil.

So few are enlightened by the Spirit, Eph 1:17.
Praying in the Spirit, Eph 6:18.
Strengthened by the Spirit, Eph 3:16.
And filled with the Spirit, Eph 5:18.

Wherein does the blame lie for the weakness of the Church? Does not each saint share the blame in so far as he has failed to pray for all saints?

"And For Me”

Eph 6:19-20, “And for me that utterance may given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mysteries of the Gospel ... For which I am an ambassador in prison, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.”

”And for me.”

Paul was Christ’s chief of staff of the human forces of the early Church. Therefore, he was the mark for Satan’s most vicious attacks. Satan had succeeded in putting him in prison and thought he had put him out of the conflict. But the dauntless old warrior binds the enemy with a prayer, who had bound him only with chains, and in that very prison wins new spoils for the Lord.

Though undaunted, he was not self-confident. He needed strength and courage to preach the Gospel boldly and to faithfully fullfil his duties as an ambassador for Christ. To this end he craves the help through prayer of other saints.

What need there is today for this very petition for ambassadors of Christ, both on the mission field and at home. It is becoming increasingly hard for loyal messengers of Christ to proclaim boldly the Gospel of a perfect salvation through our Saviour. Many are persecuted and imprisoned for the Gospel’s sake even as Paul was, and they are saying to us, “Pray for me.”

Ephesians 6:19-20, “Pray For Me”

There is no retiring list in God’s army. He may shift the position of some of His old wrestlers and because of their rich experience gained in years of service on the front firing lines, place them with His prayer reserves.

He needs prayer warriors today almost more than anything else, so if He has given you the honor to be one, let it give you unbounded joy. A tremendous responsibility rests upon the prayer warrior, Christ-ward, Church-ward, and Satan-ward. And the subject deserves most careful and prayerful study.

Christ-ward it involves fullest co-operation with the Lord in the carrying out of the Father’s eternal purpose in and through Him. This requires a knowledge of the Father’s will in regard to the Church and the world as revealed in His Word. That we may know what within the work of the Church today is under the direction of the Lord Himself through the Spirit’s guidance and what is the worldly wisdom and policy of human leadership largely misguided through false prophets and teachers.

Only can we so intelligently work, pray, and give for the Lord’s work. By co-operation with our Lord in prayer, we fight in all parts of the battlefield and penetrate to the furthest reaches of the enemies’ territory.

The Responsibility Church-Ward

Our responsibility Church-ward is great and manifold. From God’s Word we need to know the teaching regarding the Church as the body of Christ, to recognize not merely doctrinally but practically our oneness with all saints and to so live, work, and play that the whole body of Christ is lifted to life on that highest plain “far above all” and maintained in that position in victory over Satan.

The responsibility Satan-ward

Satan-ward our responsibility is tremendously great, very far beyond what the vast majority of Christians have ever known or been willing to accept. Let Christ tell us what it is.

”Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house and spoil his goods except he first bind the strong man and then he will spoil his house,” Matt 12:29.

”Behold, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy,” Luke 10:19.

Have most of us tried to spoil Satan of his goods before binding him? Have we not been ignorant of the authority given us, and when we did know of it, shrunk from fear to exercise it?

Consequently Satan has bound us, Luke 13:16, instead of our binding him and hindering us instead of our hindering him. The Lord would have His warrior known and experience this binding power of prayer in His Name and use it in the defeat of Satan.

God needs prayer warriors today who have learned the secret of exercising their God-given authority in prayer and who will direct it against the most strategic efforts of the evil one, so that he has no power to close doors to the Gospel and to worship at his shrine.

Saturday, February 24, 2001

Unbelievers Baptized for Salvation?

Did you know that unbelievers will be baptized???

The English word “baptize” is a transliteration, and not a translation of the Greek word for baptism, which is BAPTIZO. The usage of a word determines its meaning. The way in which BAPTIZO was used has the meaning of “identification” and the context will tell you what the “identification” really is.

Baptism is for believers only. Just like the communion table.

Don’t Give Satan Any Elbow Room!

Eph 4:27, “Neither give place to the devil.”

The word “place” is TOPOS, meaning a spot.

1 Cor 7:5, “Defraud ye not one the other, if it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to prayer, and come together again that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.”

”Defraud” is the word “apostasy,” to defraud by holding back sexual relations in marriage. The word “fasting” does not appear in the original language.

Giving place to the devil gives Satan headquarters in Christ’s camp. It provides him a base from which to conduct his campaign. Giving place to the devil makes a part of Christ’s army an ally of His arch-enemy, for the devil will not wrestle against himself.

Giving place to the devil lessens the manpower of the Lord’s host and surrenders to Satan spiritual resources that belong only to the Captain of our salvation. It compels Christ to go out to war handicapped. It weakens the warring power of omnipotence. It diminishes the working force of the supernatural.

Giving place to the devil divides allegiance and puts traitors and deserters into the army of the Lord.

”Neither give place to the devil.”

“Neither Give Place to the Devil,” Ephesians 4:27

The devil is ceaselessly busy seeking to gain some place in the life of every Christian warrior. He will start with a very small place, anything as long as he gains a foothold.

He knows our weak spot, “The sin that so easily besets us.”

He comes up on our blind side. He breaks through where the crust is the thinnest. He bides his time until he can take us unawares. He tempts at our most susceptible points. He works wilily, arch-deceiver that he is, to beguile us into making a league with him. To the true spiritual warrior, he comes most often as a veritable angel of light, even ensnaring some by claiming to be an envoy of God.

He uses any method, however clever or cruel, to gain access, and does his best to disguise his approach. What he seeks to gain is a “place” to begin his activities, that he may undermine the Christian warrior’s morale and render him incapable of fighting, that he ultimately may gain control and use him as his own accomplice.

”Neither give place to the devil” – a spot.

Ephesians 4:27, “Neither Give Place to the Devil”

Eph 4:30, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit.”
Eph 5:18, “Be filled with the Spirit.”

Two negatives and one positive.

”Grieve not the Holy Spirit.”

One who might shrink with horror and fear from giving place to the devil may nevertheless be making his victory in the heavenlies possible by grieving the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit dwells within us to reproduce within us the victorious life of the glorified Christ, that we may be enabled “to stand” and to release through us His supernatural power that we may be empowered “to withstand” whatever restrains or restricts the Holy Spirit from carrying out His work to His utmost capacity plays into Satan’s hands to defeat Christ.

Then what is it in us that grieves the Holy Spirit? Naturally anything unholy. Whatever is in us that is contrary to what He is, grieves Him.

He is the Spirit of Truth, Spirit of Faith, the Spirit of Grace, the Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of Peace, the Spirit of Discipline, the Spirit of Holiness.

So, anything that is untruthful, unbelieving, unwise, unfruitful, unloving, uncontrolled, unholy, grieves the Spirit of God. Therefore, sin of any nature or degree, whether open or secret, whether gross or refined, grieves the Holy Spirit.

Human good grieves the Holy Spirit, too.

Ephesians 4:27, “Neither Give Place to the Devil”

Eph 4:30, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.”
Eph 5:18, “Be filled with the Spirit.”

This is the slogan of the victorious warrior. It is a Spirit-filled warrior and only he who overcomes and overthrows the satanic hosts, filled with the Spirit’s wisdom, Eph 1:17.

He discerns the wiles of the devil, Eph 6:11,

”Filled with the Spirit’s power,” Eph 3:16. He stands against them.

”Filled with all the Spirit’s fullness. Eph 3:19. He is supernaturally equipped to engage in this warfare between the supernatural forces of good and evil and is supernaturally strengthened to come off victor.

Eph 6:13, “Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand your ground in the day of battle and have fought to the end remain victors on the field.”

The Christian way of life is a supernatural way of life, consequently it needs a supernatural means of execution – the Spirit-filled life.

Sunday, February 25, 2001

Philippians 1:7, “And in the DEFENSE and Confirmation of the Gospel”

The word, “defense” is a Greek judicial term referring to an attorney talking his client off from a charge, thus presenting a verbal defense.

Paul was defending the faith before the tribunal of the world, Nero’s throne. A successful defense would result in the Gospel being confirmed, that is, made stable in the sense that it claims would be shown to be true. In this joint-participation of the Philippians, not only in the missionary enterprise, but in the defense and the establishment of the Gospel, Paul says that they were partakers of his Grace.

The word “my” is to be connected with “partakers” and not with “Grace.” The Philippians were Paul’s co-sharers in the Grace of God. Their love and kindness to him in his dark moments constituted proof of the fact that they were joint-participants with Paul in the Grace that resulted in their joint-efforts at propagating the Gospel.

Philippians 1:9, “And This I Pray, That Your Love May Abound Yet More and More in Knowledge and in All Judgment.”

The word “pray” is the translation of a Greek word which speaks of prayer “directed consciously toward God” and with a definite aim.

As Paul prayed, he had a definite consciousness of the presence of God and that he was speaking not into mere space, but to a person. And, that person was listening and giving attention to what he was saying. The word “that” should be rendered, “this is the purport and substance of my prayer.”

The love spoken of here is:

The word “abound” is from a Greek word which means “to exceed a fixed number or measure, to exist in superfluity.” This Divine love is as an exotic flower from Heaven, planted in the foreign soil of the believer’s soul. 1 John 3:1, “What manner of love” namely, “What foreign kind of love” was existing in superabundance in the souls of these Greeks who had been saved out of gross paganism and was overflowing into the souls of others, and Paul prays that it might increase.

Philippians 1:9, “That Your Love May Yet More and More Abound in Knowledge and in Judgment”

Like a river in flood time, its volume needed to be brought within guiding limitations lest it work harm rather than bring blessing, there was an eager and enthusiastic spirit among these new converts, but a lack of deep understanding of the Truth. And also a lack of a
sensitive moral perception and tact. So, Paul prays that this love may overflow more and more, but that its outflow and application might be brought within the guiding limitations of knowledge and judgment.

”Knowledge” is from a Greek word speaking of knowledge gained by experience, as contrasted to intuitive knowledge, which is from another word.

A prefixed preposition intensifies the word, and we have “full knowledge.” The full knowledge which these Philippians needed to gain by experience was a better understanding of God’s Word as translated into their experience and a clearer vision of the Lord Jesus Christ in all the beauty and fragrance of His Person.

A Christian can have an understanding knowledge of the Word, that is, he is able to explain its meaning to others, without having an experiential knowledge of the same. But when the Christian has put the Word of God into practice in his life, then he has what Paul is talking about here.

I have known some who can explain the Word to others but never apply it to themselves.

Monday, February 26, 2001

1 Peter 1:10, “That Ye May Approve Things Which Are Excellent”

“Approve” is from a Greek word which refers to the act of testing something for the purpose of approval. Of approving it, thus, “to approve after testing.” It was used of the standing of the candidates for the degree of doctor of medicine who had passed their examinations. They were certified physicians.

Here the word refers to the ability of the saints to sift or test a certain thing and thus to recognize its worth and put their stamp of approval upon it.

In tThe expression, “the things that are excellent,” the definite article is used in the Greek pointing to particular things. It comes from a word that means “to carry two ways.” Thus to carry different ways, thus to differ.

It refers here to those moral and spiritual concepts and actions which involve delicate and keen discernment to recognize. The finer points of Christian conduct are in the apostle’s mind.

Philippians 1:14, “And Many of the Brethren in the Lord Waxing Confident by My Bonds are Much More Bold to Speak the Word Without Fear.”

Paul here speaks of the Gospel not only making a pioneer advance throughout the Praetorian Guard, but the increase of preaching in the city of Rome itself.

The word “many” is literally “the most.” Most of the Christians were preaching now, the implication that a few held back. Persecutions in Rome had somewhat silenced Gospel preaching there.

The words “waxing confident” come from a word which means “to persuade.” These Christians had been persuaded by the brave and fearless example of Paul in prison, and had come to a state of settled confidence in the Lord.

”In the Lord” is to be construed with “waxing confident,” not brethren. They became more abundantly bold to speak the Word.

The boldness required to profess Christ in Rome is illustrated by a wall scribble. A caricature of Christ on the Cross with an ass head is portrayed, while on the left appears a Christian youth in an attitude of adoration. And underneath are the words, “Alexamenos worships God.”

A Biblical Dissertation on the Word “Evil”

1. Hebrew words for “evil.”
   A. AWEN – nothingness, vanity, evil
   B. RA – bad, evil, worthless
   C. RA-AH – feminine objective for evil
   D. ROA – badness of quality, evil as a quality
   E. RA-A – to be evil
   
2. Greek words for “evil.”
   A. KAKOS – adjective, evil, bad worthless
   B. KAKOS – adverb wickedly
   C. KAKIA – depravity, wickedness
   D. PONEROS – adjective, evil, worthless, degenerate
   E. PONEROS – noun, evil intent, evil doer, evil one, Satan
   F. PONERIA – sinfulness, malicious
   G. PHAULOS – evil, worthless, wicked
   
3. Evil as related to Satan.
   A. Satan’s angels are called evil spirits or demons. Luke 7:21, 8:2, Acts 19:12-16.
   B. Satan’s domain is called an evil world. Gal 1:4.
   C. Satan’s policy is called evil. 1 Thes 5:22, 2 Thes 3:3.
   D. Those under the influences of satanic policy are called evil men. Job 35:12, Matt 12:35.
   E. Satan’s administrators are called inventors of evil things. Rom 1:30.
   

Tuesday, February 27, 2001

The Groaning of a Mixed Marriage!

“For in this we groan earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven.”

When we speak of a “mixed marriage” we think of a couple who may be from two different cultures or religions or backgrounds. When I went to college I had a friend who was a policeman. He was Irish and his wife was Jewish. Whenever they had an argument, well she called him Irish names and he called her Jewish names, none of which were edifying, or complimentary.

But there is a greater groaning of a mixed marriage and that is the one where the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, with an eternal soul is living in a temporary tent. If you have ever been in the army, you know how temporary a tent is and how it often springs leaks.

The body gets older and becomes weak and it is obvious because there are all kinds of ailments. So it clings on to the eternal soul for dear life, whereas the soul which has grown in Grace, is anxious to receive its eternal body and leave this temporary body. It wants out of this mixed marriage.

So what people call “death” is merely a separation – a separation of the soul from the body.

The soul groans and it is anxious to receive a house made from Heaven and to be absent from the body and face to face with the Lord. For as long as the soul is in this temporary body, it is absent from the Lord. But when it leaves this mixed marriage, it is face-to-face with the Lord.

Who is afraid to go home?

“For Me to Live is Christ,” Philippians 1:21

Paul is determined that Christ shall be radiated through his life and so he says ”For me to live is Christ.” His words in Col 3:4, ”Christ our life,” help us to understand this statement.

Christ is Paul’s life in that He that is Eternal Life which Paul received in salvation, a life which is ethical in its content, and which operates in Paul as a motivation, energizing, pulsating principle of existence that transforms Paul’s life. A Divine Person living his life in and through the apostle. All of Paul’s activities, all of his interests, the entire round of his existence is ensphered within that Circumference which is Christ.

”To die is gain.”

The words ”to die” are more accurately, “to have died.” The tense denotes not the act of dying, but the consequences of dying, the state after death.

Death itself would not be a gain to Paul, but to be in the presence of his Lord in glory, that would be gain.

Philippians 1:27, “Only Let Your Conversation be as it Becometh the Gospel of Christ”

The word “conversation” deserves special attention. Today the word refers to the interchange of connected discourse between two or more persons. At the time the Authorized Version was translated, it means “manner of life” or “behavior,” while the Greek word from which it is translated means that. Yet it means more than that. It is the word POLITEUO. From it we get such words as “politic” and “political.” It referred to the public duties devolving upon a man as a member of a body. Paul uses it in Acts 23:1 where he answers the charge of having violated the laws and customs of the Jewish people and so subverting the theocratic constitution.

He says, “I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.” The words “have lived” are the translation of this word. Paul said in effect by the use of this word, I have fulfilled all the duties devolving upon me as a member of the nation Israel in its relation to God.

The word means “manner of life,” or “behavior,” not conversation.

Philippians 1:27, “Let Your Conversation be as it Becometh the Gospel of Christ”

The Greek word translated “becometh” is most interesting. When it is used with the genitive case, it means “having the weight of or weighing as much as, another thing.” It means, “of like value, worth as much.” Other meanings are, “befitting,” “congruous,” “corresponding.”

The saints are to see to it that their manner of life weighs as much as the Gospel they profess to believe, or their words will not have any weight. That which gives weight to a Christian’s words is the fact that his manner of life “befits,” “is congruous to,” and “corresponds” with the Gospel he preaches.

His legs and his lips must match.

Wednesday, February 28, 2001

Philippians 2:8, “And Being Found in Fashion as a Man”

The word “fashion” is a translation of a Greek word that refers to an outward expression that is assumed from the outside and does not come from the inside, from within.

The Greek word for “form” refers to an outward expression that came from one’s inner nature. Our Lord’s expression of Deity was not from the outside, but came from His inmost nature. Likewise, His outward expression as a bondslave came from His inmost nature. But His expression of His humanity came not from His inmost nature as God, but was assumed in the incarnation.

The contrast here is between what He was in Himself, God, and what He appeared in the eyes of men. The word “fashion” therefore, referred to that which is purely outward and appeals to the senses.

Our Lord’s humanity was real. He was really a man, but He was not a real man in the sense that He was like others of the human race, only a man. He was always in His incarnation more than a man. There was always that single Personality with a dual nature.

His Deity did not make Him more nor less than a man and His humanity did not make Him less than absolute Deity.

He is the God-man, equal with God and equal with man. The one Mediator between God and man.

Philippians 2:8, “He Humbled Himself”

The word “humble” means to make or bring low. The word was used in a secular document when describing the Nile River at its low stage in the sentence, “It, the Nile, runs low.”

What a description of the Son of God! But this self-humbling does not refer to the self-emptying of Himself in verse seven. That was a self-humbling in His character as God the Son.

Here the self-humbling is the act of our Lord as the Son of man. It was the humiliation of the death of the Cross. If it was humiliating to our Lord in His humanity, how much more was it so in His Deity.

”He became obedient unto death.”

But this does not mean He became obedient “to death.” He was always the Master of death. He died as no other individual ever died or ever will die. He died of His own volition. He dismissed His human spirit.

Our Lord was obedient to the Father up to the point of death.

He said, “Lo I come to do Thy will, O God,” Heb 10:9.

Philippians 1:6, “Who Being in the Form of God Thought it Not Robbery to be Equal With God”

We have to consider this word “robbery.” The Greek word has two distinct meanings:

1. Things unlawfully seized.
   
2. A treasure to be clutched and retained at all hazards.

When a Greek word has more than one meaning, the rule of interpretation is to take the one that agrees with the context in which it is found.

This passage that we are studying is the illustration of the virtues mentioned in chapter 2:2-4 namely, humiliation and self-abnegation for the benefit of others. If our Lord did not think it was a thing to be unlawfully seized to be equal with God in the expression of Divine essence, then He would be asserting His rights to the expression.

He would be declaring His rightful ownership of the prerogative. But to assert one’s right to the thing does not partake of the attitude of humility and self-abnegation.

Therefore, this meaning of the word will not due here.

If our Lord did not consider the expression of His Divine essence such a treasure that He should be retained at all hazards, that would mean that He was willing to waive His rights to that expression if the necessity arose. This is the essence of humility and self-abnegation.

The Angel of JEHOVAH!

1. The Angel of JEHOVAH is identified as JEHOVAH.
   Gen 16:7, 13:22, 31:11-13, 48:15; Exodus 3:2, 13:21, 14:19; Judges 6:1, 23; Acts 7:30-35
   
2. The Angel of JEHOVAH is distinguished from JEHOVAH.
   Gen 24:7, Ex 23:20, 32:34, Num 20:16, 1 Chron 21:15-18, Isa 63:9, Zech 1:12-13.
   
3. The Angel of JEHOVAH is the Second Person of the Trinity.
   A. The second Person of the Trinity is the visible God of the New Testament.
   John 1:18, 6:46, 1 Tim 6:16, 1 John 4:12
   B. The Angel of JEHOVAH never appears after the incarnation.
   C. Both the Angel of JEHOVAH and Jesus Christ are sent by the Father.
   D. Since neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit can be seen by man, and since Jesus Christ has been seen, it is concluded that Christ is the Angel of JEHOVAH, or the visible member of the Godhead in the Old Testament.
   

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